George Tucker, and others, is still preserved
in his family. It speaks well for his attention and regularity, that of
all his classmates he alone took a degree at the appointed time. Having
finished his college course, he began the study of the law in Richmond
under the auspices of Mr. Wickham,[3] living in his house as a member of
his family, and of his father, who was then a Judge of the Circuit
Court, but was soon after transferred to the Court of Appeals. That he
entered with great zeal into the study of his profession, his subsequent
familiarity with all the philosophy as well as the practice of the law
fully shows. While engaged in the study, he regularly attended the
courts of Richmond in which Wythe presided as sole chancellor, and
Pendleton as the president of the Court of Appeals. The bar of the
metropolis, which consisted mainly of men who had served during the
Revolution, and subsequently, in camp and in council, was large in
numbers and abounding in talents. Alexander Campbell, whose voice, says
Wirt, "had all the softness and melody of the harp; whose mind was at
once an orchard and a flower garden, loaded with the best fruits, and
smiling in the many-colored bloom of spring; whose delivery, action,
style, and manner, were perfectly Ciceronian," and who, I am grieved to
say, was shortly to fall by his own hand; Munford, known to the
profession by his Reports, and to scholars for the skill and elegance
with which he has invested Homer in an English dress; Warden, the theme
of many a joke, a sturdy lawyer of the old school, his name perpetually
occurring in the early Reports; Call, whose aged form might occasionally
be seen in Richmond in my early days, and familiar by his Reports; Hay,
afterwards a judge of the federal district court, which he held in this
city thirty-five or forty years ago, but better known as the prosecuting
attorney in the trial of Burr; and besides and above these were Edmund
Randolph, who, having filled the most prominent posts in our own and in
the federal government, and with whom it is believed Mr.
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