the time may arrive when my best friends, as well as myself, may pray that a close be put to the same.

My best respects and regards to Mrs. Key, and love to the young folks. I fear I shall live to see you a grandfather. Farewell. J. R. OF ROANOKE.

To the same.

ROANOKE, Sept. 26, 1813.

DEAR FRANK.-You owe the trouble of this letter to another which I threw upon your shoulders some time ago. As the shooting season approaches. I am reminded of my favorite gun, &c., in George'Tis true I have a couple of very capital pieces here, but neither of them as light and handy as that I left at Cranford's, and I fear it may be injured or destroyed by rust-verbum sat.

town.

We have to-day the account of Perry's success on Lake Erie, which will add another year to the life of the war. Have you seen Woodfall's Junius? The private correspondence has rsised the character of this mysterious being very much in my estimation. If you will pardon the apparent vanity of the declaration, it has reminded me frequently of myself. I hope he will never be discovered. I feel persuaded that he was an honest man and a sincere patriot, which heretofore I was inclined to doubt. We have been flooded. This river has not been so high since August, 1795. A vast deal of corn

is destroyed. I fear I have lost 500 barrels, and eighty odd stacks

of oats.

In tenderness to you, I have said nothing of Rokeby. Alas! "good Earl Walter dead and gone!" God bless you!

Best love to Mrs. Key, and Ridgley, when you see him.

John Randolph to Dr. John Brockenbrough

J. R.

ROANOKE, Oct. 4, 1813

MY DEAR FRIEND:-By this time I trust you have returned to Richmond for the winter. It has been a grievous separation from you that I have endured for the last two months. In this period I have experienced some heavy afflictions, of which no doubt common fame has apprised you, and others that she knows not of. Let us not talk, and, if possible, not think of them. I hope that Mrs. B. has derived every possible advantage from her late excursion. Assure her from me, that she has no friend who is more sincerely interested in her temporal and eternal happiness than myself. Absorbed as I may be supposed to be with my own misfortunes, I live only for

my friends. They are few, but they are precious beyond all human estimation. Write to me I beg of you; the very sight of your handwriting gives a new impulse to my jaded spirits. I would write, but I cannot. I sometimes selfishly wish that you could conceive of my feelings. It is not the least painful of my thoughts that I am perpetually destined to be away from the sympathy of my friends, whilst I am deprived of every thing but affection towards them.

Yours truly,

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

Mr. Randolph filed away his letters with great care. He indorsed on them the name of the author, the date, the time it was received and answered; and if the letter contained any subject of special interest, it was in like manner noted. On the following letter was indorsed "Party Spirit ;" the words were underscored, and in addition was the figure of a hand, with the index finger pointing to them.

F. S. Key to John Randolph.

GEORGETOWN, Oct. 5, 1813.

MY DEAR SIR-I was thinking of your gun a few days before I received your letter, and determined to rub off some of your rust, and try if I could kill Mrs. Key a bird or two. She has just given me another son, and of course deserves this piece of courtesy. As to amusement in shooting, I have lost it all, though once as ardent a sportsman as yourself. I am pleased to find that you are anticipating such pleasures, as I therefore hope that the complaint you mentioned in your former letter has left you. Exercise will no doubt tend to relieve you.

I have never read the private correspondence of Junius. I have a late edition, and will see if it contains it. I was always against Junius, having sided with Dr. Johnson and his opponents. There was, I know, great prejudice, and perhaps nothing else in this, but since the prejudice has worn away I have had no time to read so long a book. The article you speak of in the Quarterly Review (on the Poor Laws) I admire, and assent to more cordially than any thing on the subject I ever saw. It excited my interest greatly. What sound and able men are engaged in that work! I know none who are offering so much good to their country and the world, and I will not suffer myself to believe that it is thrown away. As to their rivals, the Edinburgh Reviews, I believe we should differ in opinion. I consider them as masked infidels and Jacobins; and if I had time,

and it was worth while, I think I could prove it upon them. I would refer to the review of the life of Dr. Beatty, and of Colebs, and a few others, to prove that either knowingly, or ignorantly (I have hardly charity enough to believe the latter), they have misrepresented and attacked Christianity. Were you not pleased with the spirited defence against them which the Quarterly reviewers have made for Montgomery? As to Walter Scott, I have always thought he was sinking in every successive work. He is sometimes himself again in "Marmion" and the "Lady of the Lake;" but when I read these. and thought of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," it always seemed to me that "hushed was the harp-the minstrel gone." I believe I am singular in this preference, and it may be that I was so "spellbound" by "the witch notes" of the first, that I could never listen to the others. But does it not appear that to produce one transcendently fine epic poem is as much as has ever fallen to the life of one man? There seems to be a law of the Muses for it. I was always provoked with him for writing more than his first. The top of Parnassus is a point, and there he was, and should have been content. There was no room to saunter about on it; if he moved, he must descend; and so it has turned out, and he is now (as the Edinburgh reviewers say of poor Montgomery) "wandering about on the lower slopes" of it.

I have not seen nor heard of Ridgley since his political campaign commenced. It closed yesterday, and we have not yet heard how he has fared. There is a report in town of the federalists having succeeded in Frederick, which I expected would be the case from P's having had the folly and meanness to go all over the county making speeches. Ridgley's election is more doubtful, as the administration are very strong in his county. If he is elected, you will write to him, but don't discourage him too much. If he can command his temper, and be tolerably prudent, I think he may do some good. If cunning is necessary, he is indeed in a desperate case. I cannot think that the duty of an honest man when he consents to become a politician, is so difficult and hopeless as you seem to consider it. He will often, it is true, be wrong, but this may enable him to correct his errors. He will often have to submit to disappointments, but they may make him better and wiser. If he pursues his course conscientiously, guarding against his own ambition, and exercising patience and forbearance towards others, he will generally succeed better than the most artful intriguer; and the worst that can happen is, that in bad and distempered times he may be released from his obligations. [Meant to be a picture of Randolph himself.-Editor.] Nor even then is there an end of his usefulness; for, besides many things that he may yet do for the common good, the public disorder may pass away, and when the people are

sobered by suffering, they will remember who would have saved them from it; and his consequence and ability to serve them will be incalculably increased, and their confidence in him unbounded. "Egregia virtus paucorum." I have forgotten your quotation from Sallust -you can supply it. It struck me forcibly, and I believe it admirably suited to these times; and that if this "egregia virtus" can be found among even a few of our politicians, who can be pressed and kept in the public service, we may be safe.

The opposition making to the administration may succeed (though I do not think it can); but if it did I should hope but little from it; and that, because it is the opposition of a party. If it is the honestest party, it would be beaten again immediately; for of two contending factions, the worst must be, generally, successful. This is just as plain to me as that of two gamesters; he who cheats most will commonly win the game. We should therefore, I think, burn the cards, or give up the game of party, and then, I believe, the knaves might be made the losers. "Keep up party and party spirit" should be (if they have any sense) the first and great commandment of the administration to its followers. Let P- & Co. keep up a constant volley of the most irritating provocations against every one who does not belong to their party, and the weakest friend of the administration will fall into the ranks against them, and follow wherever they are ordered.

Suppose some ruinous and abominable measure, such as a French alliance, is proposed by the government; will the scolding of the federalists in Congress gain any of the well-meaning but mistaken and prejudiced friends of the administration, and induce them to oppose it? Will not such persons, on the contrary, be driven to consider it a party question, and the clamor and opposition of these persons, as a matter of course? Will men listen to reasonings against it, judge of it impartially, and see its enormity, who are blinded by party spirit? But let such men as Cheves or Lowndes, men who are not party men, or who will leave their party when they think them wrong; let them try if conciliation, and a plain and temperate exposure of the measure will not be effectual; and it is certainly reasonable to expect it would. I am, besides, inclined to think that the worst men of a party will be uppermost in it; and if so, there would, perhaps, be no great gain from a change. If every man would set himself to work to abate, as far as possible, this party spirit; if the people could be once brought to require from every candidate a solemn declaration, that he would act constitutionally according to his own judgment, upon every measure proposed, without considering what party advocated or opposed it (and I cannot think that such a ground would be unpopular), its effects would be, at least, greatly diminished. This course might not, it is possible, succeed in ordi

nary times, and when this spirit is so universally diffused and inflamed; but we are approaching to extraordinary times, when serious national affliction will appease this spirit, and give the people leisure and temper to reflect. Something too might then be done towards promoting a reformation of habits and morals, without which nothing of any lasting advantage can be expected. Could such an administration as this preserve its power, if party spirit was even considerably lessened? And is this too much to expect? If so, there is nothing, I think, to be done but to submit to the punishment that Providence will bring upon us, and to hope that that will cure us. I am, you will think, full of this subject.

Farewell. Yours,

Randolph to Key.

F. S. KEY.

ROANOKE, October 17, 1813.

DEAR FRANK-Never was letter more welcome than that which I just now received from you, and which I must thank you for on the day set apart for letter-writing in the city of O., or defer it for another week. Alas! so far from taking the field against the poor partridges, I can hardly hobble about my own cabin. It pleased God on Tuesday last to deprive me of the use of my limbs. This visitation was attended with acute pain, reminding me most forcibly of my situation at your uncle's nearly six years ago.

eyes of

By the papers, I see that our friend Ridgely has not succeeded in his election. I am gratified, however, to find that he was at the head of the ticket on which his name stood. Lloyd, I perceive, has carried his point in Talbot. I have a great mind to publish your letter. If any thing could do good, that, I am certain, would open the many, as many, at least, as would read it. But I have no faith, and cannot be saved. I look to the sands of Brandenburgh and the mountains of Bohemia with a faint hope of deliverance. You can expect nothing but groans and sighs from a poor devil, racked by rheumatism and tortured by a thousand plagues. I can barely summon heart enough to congratulate you and Mrs. K. (to whom give my best love) on the late happy event in your family. I shall be proud if my gun can furnish a piece of game for her. When I get better you shall hear from me at full. When you see Ridgely present me most affectionately to him and his truly excellent wife. I cannot be glad of his defeat, since it seems that the complexion of your legislature depended upon success there or in some county on the eastern shore; but I am convinced that it is best for him and his; and I am inclined to think no worse for the country. How can a foolish spendthrift young man be prevented from ruining himself? How can you appoint a guardian to a people bent on self-destruction? The state