every part of the State, which, by an order of the Convention, was referred to the succeeding Legislature. This Legislature was elected solely with reference to that question. Repeal or no repeal, Yazoo and anti-Yazoo, was the only subject canvassed before the people. On the 30th of January, 1796, an act was passed, with only three dissenting voices, declaring the usurped act of February, 1795, void, and expunging the same from the public records. At a subsequent period, this expunging act was engrafted on the Constitution, and made a fundamental law of the land.

Randolph arrived in Georgia in the midst of this excitement, and shared with his friends their indignation at that flagrant act of corruption on the part of the agents of the people. The famous Yazoo claim, which afterwards made such a noise in Congress, was preferred by the New England Mississippi Land Company, to recover from Congress the value of the lands thus fraudulently obtained. It was in opposition to this application, that Randolph immortalized himself in speeches that will stand the test of time, and of criticism the severest scrutiny. It was among those who had been betrayed, in the midst of the people who were burning with shame at the insult and indignity offered them, that he caught the fire of inspiration that winged his words with such a withering power as to drive from the halls of Congress for more than ten years, so long as he had a seat there, all those who were interested in the nefarious scheme.

John Randolph returned from this visit of friendship, and arrived in Virginia about the first of July. He was destined to experience a shock such as he had never felt before. His brother Richard died the 14th of June, on Tuesday, about 4 o'clock in the morning; such was the minute record made of it himself. This sudden and unexpected calamity crushed him down.

Next to the death of his mother this was the severest blow he had ever received. His mother died when he was a child. Though mournful, yet sweet was the memory of her image, associated with those days of innocence and brightness. But the strong bonds of fraternal affection in grown up men, were now torn asunder; the much prized treasure of a brother's love is suddenly taken from him, leaving no pleasant memories to soothe the pain of so deep a wound. His best friend and counsellor, the first born of his father's house, its pride, and cherished representative, hurried away in his absence

to an untimely grave-he not present to receive his last breath, and to close his lifeless eyes. He never recovered from this stroke. The anguish of his heart was as fresh on the fiftieth anniversary of the birthday of that brother, as when first he experienced the desolation made in the domestic circle at Bizarre by the hand of death. How touching is the following simple note addressed to his brother, Henry St. George Tucker, many, many years after this sad event! "Dear Henry-Our poor brother Richard was born 1770. He would have been fifty-six years old on the 9th of this month. I can no more. J. R. of R." In the deep solitude of his heart, the only green spot was the memory of the days of his youth.

Few events exerted a greater influence over the mind and character of John Randolph than the death, the untimely and sudden death, of his brother. Richard, as we have said, was the most promising man in Virginia. John Thompson, himself a man of brilliant genius, nipped also in the blooming, thus writes: "Grief like yours, my dear friend, is not to be alleviated by letters of condolence. The anguish of hearts like yours cannot be mitigated by the maxims of an unfeeling and unnatural philosophy. Let such consolation be administered to the insensible being, who mourns without sorrow, whose tears fall from a sense of decorum, and whose melancholy ceases the instant fashion permits. Let some obdurate moralist instruct this selfish being, that the death of a friend is not a misfortune, and that sensibility is weakness. Nothing but sympathy ought to be offered to you. Accept that offering from one of your sincerest friends. My heart was long divided between you and your brother. His death has left a void which you will occupy. I will fondly cherish his memory. Painful as the retrospect is, I will often contemplate his virtues and his talents. Never shall I perform that holy exercise without feeling new virtue infused into my soul. To you I will give that friendship, of which he can no longer be sensible. Take it, and return it if you can. I cannot write your brother's eulogium. Although his fame was only in the dawn, although like a meteor he perished as soon as he began to dazzle, I cannot sound his praise. His life would be a pathetic tale of persecuted genius and oppressed innocence. The fictions of romance cannot present so affecting a story. When his country was preparing to do him ample justice, and to recompense his sufferings by her warmest admiration,

Death marked him for his victim. Modern degeneracy had not reached him.

"Nervous eloquence and dauntless courage fitted him to save his sinking country. He has left no memorial of his talents behind. He was born to enlighten posterity, but posterity will not hear of him.

"O Providence, thy dispensations are dark! We cannot comprehend them! His amiable wife, his children-but here my heart begins to bleed-I cannot go on."

CHAPTER XV.

AT HOME.

JOHN RANDOLPH, now became the head of a large household, was suddenly thrown into a position of great responsibility. His own estate was very large; so was his brother's and both were heavily encumbered with a British debt, contracted by the father many years before.

Richard liberated his slaves. This was a mark of his great benevolence of feeling and nobleness of character. But it proved in the end to be a mistaken philanthropy. Left in the country where they had been slaves, those negroes soon became idle and profligate vagabonds and thieves; a burthen to themselves, and a pest to the neighborhood. The family at Bizarre consisted of Mrs. Randolph, her two infant children, St. George and Tudor, Mrs. Dudley and her children, Nancy and John Randolph. For nearly fifteen years, till Bizarre was destroyed by fire, he continued at the head of the household. Though twenty-three years of age at the death of his brother, he had the appearance of a youth of sixteen, and was not grown. He grew a full head taller after this period.

His extreme sensibility had been deeply touched the quick irritability of his temper exasperated by the tragic events of his family. A father's face he had never seen, save what his lively imagination would picture to itself from the lines of a miniature likeness which he always wore in his bosom. The fond caresses of a tender

mother, who alone knew him, were torn from him in his childhood. The second brother had died in his youth; and now the oldest, the best, the pride and hope of the family, after years of suffering and persecution, just as he had triumphed over calumny and oppression, was suddenly called away. We may well imagine how deep, how poignant was his grief, when thirty years thereafter, in the solitude of his hermitage at Roanoke, his lively fancy brought back those early scenes with all the freshness of recent events, and caused him to exclaim with the Indian Chief, who had been deprived of all his children by the white man's hand-"Not a drop of Logan's blood— father's blood except St. George, the most bereaved and pitiable of the step-sons of nature !"

His room at Bizarre was immediately under the chamber of Mrs. Dudley. She never waked in the night that she did not hear him moving about, sometimes striding across the floor, and exclaiming, "Macbeth hath murdered sleep! Macbeth hath murdered sleep!" She has known him to have his horse saddled in the dead of night, and ride over the plantation with loaded pistols.

His natural temper became more repulsive; he had no confidential friend, nor would any tie, however sacred, excuse inquiry. Why should it for who can minister to a mind diseased, or pluck from the heart its rooted sorrow? Why then expose, even to friendship's eye, the lacerated wounds that no balm can cure?

He grew more restless than ever, though his home had every external arrangement to make it agreeable. Hear him describe it: "Mrs. Randolph, of Bizarre, my brother's widow, was, beyond all comparison, the nicest and best housewife that I ever saw. Not one drop of water was ever suffered to stand on her sideboard, except what was in the pitcher; the house, from cellar to garret, and in every part, as clean as hands could make it; and every thing as it should be to suit even my fastidious taste. Never did I see or smell any thing to offend my senses, or my imagination." Those who lived there had been taught in the school of affliction. Chastened and subdued by their own sorrows, they had learned to feel for the misfortunes of others. That home, which could not fill the aching void of its youthful master's heart, or soothe the earnest longings of his wounded soul, was made the delightful retreat and

asylum of the distressed and the unfortunate. There could they find sympathy and encouragement.

To escape from the burden and pain of his own thoughts, John Randolph often fled to his friends in distant parts of the country. For the next three years he was frequently found at the residence of his father-in-law, in Williamsburg. He often visited Mr. Wickham, who lived in the same city. That gentleman had taken a great liking to him. He was the agent of the British creditors, who held a mortgage on the Randolph estates. His forbearance and indulgence were highly appreciated by him on whom the whole burthen of payment had now fallen. He returned this act of kindness by an ardent affection for the man, and a high admiration of his character. He has said, "John Wickham was my best of friends without making any professions of friendship for me; and the best and wisest man I ever knew except Mr. Macon."

When interrogated by Mr. Wickham as to what he had been doing, Governor Tazewell, who was his youthful companion on those visits, says his answer was-Nothing, sir, nothing! Yet he showed that he had been reading, and that he had digested well what he had read. The conversation was generally on the politics of the daythe French Revolution, and Burke, which was his political Bible.

That he pursued no systematic course of reading at this time is certain. Mrs. Dudley says his habits of study one could not ascertain, as he was never long enough in one place to study much. She has frequently heard him lament that he was fond of light reading-has known him to seat himself by the candle, where she and Mrs. Randolph were knitting, turn over the leaves of a book carelessly, like a child, without seeming to read, and then lay it down and tell more about it than those who had studied it. He had a fine taste for music, but it was uncultivated. "I inherited from your grandmother," says he, writing to his niece, Mrs. Bryan, "an exquisite ear, which has never received the slightest cultivation. This is owing in a great measure to the low estimate that I saw the fiddling, piping gentry held in when I was young; but partly to the torture that my poor brother used to inflict upon me, when essaying to learn to play upon the violin, now about forty years ago. I have a taste for painting, but never attempted drawing. I had read a great deal upon it and had seen a few good pictures before I went to England: there I as