Tazewell
studied for a short time in Philadelphia, was to return to the bar,
where he had the largest practice, according to Wirt, of any lawyer of
his time; Wickham, then holding at or near his meridian as he did at his
setting, the front rank; and John Marshall, a name that spoke for itself
then, speaks for itself now, and will speak forever. These and such men
composed the Richmond bar of that day.
An able bar is the best school of law. If the leaders be strong, they
will be apt to have worthy successors; for of all lessons for a student,
the contests of able men with each other in the practical game of life
are the best. In such a school Tazewell applied himself closely; and in
truth he had rare advantages. In a physical view he is said by one who
knew him at this period of his life, to have been the most elegant and
brilliant young man of his age. His tall stature, which reached six
feet, his light and graceful figure, his blue, wide, intellectual eye,
his features noble and prominent, though not yet developed to the
sterner mould of latter years, those auburn ringlets, which curled about
his head in childhood, which he shook at midnoon in the stress of some
high argument, and which, turned to a silver hue, flowed down his marble
neck in his shroud,--and a winning address, which, though slightly and
insensibly tinged with hauteur on a first acquaintance, grew urgent and
cordial, fascinated every beholder; while his intellectual faculties,
which even thus early his habitual study of the severer sciences had
sharpened, and which impelled him to venture fearlessly even with
experts on vexed questions in law and morals, and his truly generous
nature, made him the delight of the social circle, and endeared him to
all.
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