ation as its respects my internal peace and future welfare. I want aid; and the company and conversation of such a friend as yourself might assist in dispelling, for a time, at least, the gloom that depresses me. I have humbly sought comfort where alone it is effectually to be obtained, but without success. To you and Mr. Meade I can venture to write in this style, without disguising the secret workings of my heart. I wish I could always be in reach of you. The solitude of my own dwelling is appalling to me. Write to me, and

direct to Richmond."

To this Mr. Key replied:

"As we could not confer upon the subjects you mention, we must postpone them till we meet again, or manage them in writing; just as you please. In either way you will have much to excuse in me; but I trust you will find within yourself a counsellor and comforter who will guide you into all peace.' Desperate indeed would be our case, if we had nothing better to lead us than our own wisdom and strength or the experience of our friends. If, notwithstanding all your doubts and misgivings, you are sincerely and earnestly desirous to know the truth, and resolved to obey it, cost what it may, you have the promise of God that it shall be revealed to you. If you are convinced you are a sinner, that Christ alone can save you from the sentence of condemnation incurred by your sins, and from the dominion of them; if you make an entire and unconditional surrender of yourself to his service, renouncing that of the world and of yourself; if you thus humbly and faithfully come to him, he will in no wise cast you out.'

"You can do much for the cause of religion, whatever plan of life you may adopt; you can resolutely and thoroughly bear your testimony in its favor. You can adorn its doctrines, and so preach them most powerfully by a good life. You can be seen resisting and over. coming, in the strength of God, the powerful and uncommon temptations that oppose you; and your light can, and, I trust, will shine far and brightly around you. Do not be disheartened by the difficulties you may feel; they are experienced by all, and grace and strength to overcome them are offered to all. The change from darkness to light, from death to life, is the result of no single effort, but of constant and persevering, and, often, painful striving. How can it be otherwise when we think of what that change is? It finds us 'dead in trespasses and sins,' 'having our conversation in the flesh,' 'fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,' 'children of wrath,' 'without Christ,' 'strangers to the covenant of promise,' 'having no hope, and without God in the world;' and it makes us 'nigh by the blood of Christ; no more foreigners and strangers, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God;' 'justified by faith, and having peace with God, through our Lord Jesus

Christ.' May you experience this change, my dear friend, in all its blessedness."

Randolph thus replied:

"ROANOKE, June 16, 1816.

"Owing to the incorrigible negligence of the postmaster at Richmond, I did not get your letter of the 22d of last month until this morning. I had felt some surprise at not hearing from you, and the delay of your letter served but to enhance its value. I read it this morning in bed, and derived great consolation from the frame of mind to which it disposed me. My time has been a wretched one since I saw you dreary and desponding. I heard Mr. Hogue yesterday; and during a short conversation, riding from church, he told me that he believed that there were times and seasons when all of us were overcome by such feelings in spite of our best efforts against them; efforts which, however, we ought by no means to relax, since they tended both to mitigate the degree and shorten the period of our sufferings. My own case (every body, no doubt, thinks the same) appears to be peculiarly miserable. To me the world is a vast desert, and there is no merit in renouncing it, since there is no difficulty. There never was a time when it was so utterly destitute of allurement for me. The difficulty with me is to find some motive to action-something to break the sluggish tenor of my life. I look back upon the havoc of the past year as upon a bloody field of battle, where my friends have perished. I look out towards the world, and find a wilderness, peopled indeed, but not with flesh and blood-with monsters tearing one another to pieces for money or power, or some other vile lust. Among them will be found, with here and there an exception, the professors of the religion of meekness and love, itself too often made the bone of contention and faction. Is it not strange that a being so situated should find difficulty in renouncing himself, the dominion of his own bad passions? To such an one another and a better world is a necessary refuge, and yet he cannot embrace it.

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My dear friend, it is very unreasonable that I should throw the burthen of my black and dismal thoughts upon you; but they so weigh me down that I cannot escape from them; and when I can speak without restraint, they will have vent."

Mr. Randolph spent the summer at home entirely alone. Dr. Dudley's health required a visit to the Virginia Springs, where he remained during the season. The boys were at school. With the exception of a short visit to Richmond, he did not leave his own plantation. His time was consumed in silence and in solitude. There can be no question that this entire abstinence from human society-the cheerful face of man and woman—the morning saluta

tion and the evening converse with friends loving and beloved-had a pernicious influence on his health, his mind, and his temper.

No man enjoyed with a higher relish the intellectual and polished society of those friends, men and women, whom he had endeared to him by the strongest ties of affection, no man felt more keenly its absence. Yet it seems to have been his lot to live in solitude; so few understood him!

On the 25th of October he thus writes to Mr. Key:

"If your life is so unsatisfactory to you, what must that of others be to them? For my part, if there breathes a creature more empty of enjoyment than myself, I sincerely pity him. My opinions seem daily to become more unsettled, and the awful mystery which shrouds the future alone renders the present tolerable. The darkness of my hours, so far from having passed away, has thickened into the deepest gloom. I try not to think, by moulding my mind upon the thoughts of others; but to little purpose. Have you ever read Zimmerman on Solitude? I do not mean the popular cheap book under that title, but another, in which solitude is considered with respect to its dangerous influence upon the mind and the heart. I have been greatly pleased with it for a few hours. It is a mirror that reflects the deformity of the human mind to whomsoever will look into it. "Dudley is with me. He returned about a month ago from our Springs, and I think he has benefited by the waters. He returns your salutation most cordially. We have been lounging a la Virginianne, at the house of a friend, about a day and a half's ride off. In a few days I shall return to the same neighborhood, not in pussuit of pleasure, but pursued by ennui."

СНАРТER VIII.

DYING, SIR-DYING.

THE session of Congress which terminated the 4th of March, 1817, presents nothing of much public interest. The most remarkable act of the session is the compensation law, as it was called, by which members voted themselves a fixed salary for their services, instead of the usual per diem allowance.

Mr. Randolph's half brother, Henry St. George Tucker, was a

member of this Congress. On his way to Washington he was upset in the stage--had his shoulder dislocated, and in other respects was much injured. So soon as the news of this accident reached him, Mr. Randolph hastened to the bedside of his brother, and on his return to Washington wrote the following letter:

"I have been very unwell since I left you, but not in consequence of my journey to your bedside. On the contrary I believe I am the better for it in every respect. A wide gulf has divided us, of time and place and circumstance. Our lot has been different, very different indeed. I am the last of the family-of my family at least— and I am content that in my person it should become extinct. In the rapid progress of time and of events, it will quickly disappear from the eye of observation, and whatsoever of applause or disgrace it may have acquired in the eyes of man, will weigh but little in the estimation of Him by whose doom the everlasting misery or happiness of our condition is to be irrevocably fixed. 'We are indeed clay in the potter's hands.'"

Mr. Randolph's health during this winter was wretched in the extreme; more especially towards the close. The reader is already aware of his determination "to wash his hands of politics "—he had announced to his friends that he would not be a candidate again for Congress. On Saturday night, February 8th, he wrote to Dr. Dudley

"Your letter of the 2d was put into my hands this morning, just as I was about to make my last dying speech." The next Tuesday he says I scribbled a few lines to you on Saturday evening last, at which time I was laboring under the effects of fresh cold, taken in going to and coming from the House, where I delivered my valedictory. It was nearer being, than I then imagined, a valedictory to this world. That night, and the next day and night, I hung_suspended between two worlds, and had a much nearer glimpse than I have ever yet taken of the other.

"That I have written this letter with effort will be apparent from the face of it. I am not ashamed to confess that it has cost me some bitter tears but they are not the tears of remorse. They flow from the workings of a heart known only to Him unto whom the prayers and the groans of the miserable ascend. I feel that in this world I am alone that all my efforts (ill-judged and misdirected I am willing to allow they must have been) have proved abortive. What remains of my life must be spent in a cold and heartless intercourse with mankind, compared with which the solitude of Robinson Crusoe was bliss. I have no longer a friend. Do not take this unkindly, for it is not meant so. On this subject, as well as on some others, per

haps, I have been an enthusiast-but I know neither how to conciliate the love nor to command the esteem of mankind; and like the officious ass in the fable, must bear the blows inflicted on my presumption. May God bless you, my brother. You have found the peace of this world. May you find that of the world to come, which passeth all understanding. If it be his good pleasure, we may meet again; if not in this life, in life everlasting, where all misunderstanding and misinterpretation shall be at an end; and the present delusions of self appear in their proper and vile deformity, and the busy cares and sorrows which now agitate and distress us seem more trivial than the tears of infancy-succeeded, not by transient, but everlasting sunshine of the heart. Amen, and so let it be.

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

Jan. 21, 1817. Tuesday. Sunday morning.-I have been reading Lear these two days, and incline to prefer it to all Shakspeare's plays. In that and Timon only, it has been said, the bard was in earnest. Read both-the first especially.

Tuesday, Feb. 18th.-"I had hardly finished my last letter (Sunday the 16th) to you, when I was seized by spasms that threatened soon to terminate all my earthly cares; although the two nights since have been passed almost entirely without sleep, I am much better."

Sunday, February 23d.-" The worst night that I have had since my indisposition commenced. It was, I believe, a case of croup, combined with the affection of the liver and the lungs. Nor was it unlike tetanus, since the muscles of the neck and back were rigid, and the jaw locked. I never expected, when the clock struck two, to hear the bell again; fortunately, as I found myself going, I dispatched a servant (about one) to the apothecary for an ounce of laudanum. Some of this poured down my throat, through my teeth, restored me to something like life. I was quite delirious, but had method in my madness; for they tell me I ordered Juba to load my gun and to shoot the first "doctor" that should enter the room; adding, they are only mustard seed, and will serve just to sting him. Last night I was again very sick; but the anodyne relieved me. I am now per

suaded that I might have saved myself a great deal of suffering by the moderate use of opium. This day week, when racked with cramps and spasms, my "doctors" (I had two) prescribed (or rather, administered) half a glass of Madeira. Half a drop of rain water would have been as efficient. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I attended the House; brought out the first day by the explosion of the motion to repeal the internal taxes; and the following days by some other circumstances that I will not now relate. Knocked up completely by the exertion, instead of recalling my physicians, I took my own case boldly in hand; took one and a half grains of calomel;