Without patrimony, with a moderation in taking fees
without an example in our land, living as became a gentleman of his
position in life and affairs, he yet accumulated a larger fortune than
was probably ever before accumulated by a Virginia farmer or a lawyer
beginning life without patrimony; and when wealth was obtained, living
with that modesty and simplicity so becoming to great genius and great
wealth, ever looking with just contempt on that most piteous of all
spectacles, the spectacle of lofty genius debruised and debased by the
accursed thirst for gold; and presenting in all the private relations of
life an example which may be held up for the imitation of the old and
the young. When you have combined these various characters into one
whole, you may form some general notion of what Mr. Tazewell was.
His head was of the clearest. Horace says of Apollo that he did not
always keep his bow bent; but Tazewell's mind was always on the stretch,
or, in a stricter sense, was never on the stretch at all. The most
intricate combination of figures he saw through at a glance; and in the
arts the most complex machinery was easily understood by him, and
readily made plain to others by his familiar explanations.
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