Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell

Discourse of the Life and
Character of the Hon. Littleton
Waller Tazewell

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Title: Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller
Tazewell
Author: Hugh Blair Grigsby
Release Date: October 19, 2005 [EBook #16906]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LITTLETON WALLER TAZEWELL ***

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DISCOURSE
ON THE
Life and Character
OF THE
HON. LITTLETON WALLER TAZEWELL,
DELIVERED IN THE
FREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCH,
BEFORE THE
BAR OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, AND THE CITIZENS
GENERALLY,
ON THE 29th DAY OF JUNE, 1860,
BY
HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, LL.D.,
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, OF
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETIES OF VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA,
ETC., ETC.
NORFOLK:
PUBLISHED BY J.D. GHISELIN, JUN.,
No. 6 WEST MAIN STREET.
1860.

DISCOURSE.
GENTLEMAN OF THE BAR:
When the sad event occurred which has drawn us together this morning,
you met in your accustomed hall, and expressed the feelings which
such an event might well inspire. You then adjourned to assist in
performing the last solemn rites over the bier of your departed friend.
Clad in mourning, you attended his remains from his residence to the
steamer, and, embarking with them, transported them over the waters of
that noble bay which our venerable friend had crossed so often, and of
which he was so justly proud as the Mediterranean of the
Commonwealth; and, in the deepening shadows of the night which had
overtaken you, and which were rendered yet deeper by the glare of the
solitary candles flickering in the wind, more touching by the
ceremonies of religion, by the grief of his slaves, and by the smothered
wailing of his children and grandchildren, and more imposing by the
sorrowing faces and bent forms of some of our aged and most eminent
citizens, you deposited the honored dust in its simple grave; there to
repose--with two seas sounding their ceaseless requiem above it--till
the trump of the Archangel shall smite the ear of the dead, and the tomb
shall unveil its bosom, and the old and the young, the rich and the poor,
the statesman who ruled the destinies of empires, and the peasant
whose thoughts never strayed beyond his daily walk, shall rise together
on the Morn of the Resurrection.
But you rightly deemed that your duty to the memory of your
illustrious brother did not cease at his grave. You knew that, whatever
may be the estimate of the value of the life and services of
LITTLETON WALLER TAZEWELL, it was never denied by his
contemporaries that he was endowed with an extraordinary intellect,
and that in popular assemblies, at the Bar, in the House of Delegates,
and in the Senate of the United States, if he did not--as it was long the
common faith in Virginia to believe that he did--bear away the palm
from every competitor, he had few equals, and hardly in any
department in which he chose to appear, a superior. And you thought
that such a life, so intimately connected with your profession, deserved

a special commemoration; that its leading facts should be recalled to
the public mind; and that you might thus not only refresh your own
recollections by the lessons presented by so remarkable a career, but
hand down, if possible, whatever of instruction and encouragement and
delight those lessons may contain, for the eye of those who are to
succeed you. Your only error--and I speak from the heart--is in the
hands to which you have confided the task.
The time for performing this duty has arrived; and I rejoice to see
associated with you the Mayor and the Recorder of the City, the
gentlemen of the Common and Select Councils, the officers of the army
and navy, the President, Professors, and Students of William and Mary
College, his venerable alma mater, and various public bodies
distinguished by their useful and benevolent purposes. It is meet that it
should be so. At the call of your fathers, gentlemen, he was ever
prompt to render any service in his power; and on two occasions
especially, when important interests affecting Norfolk were in jeopardy,
at great pecuniary sacrifices on his part, he was sent abroad to protect
them. On another occasion, when a foreign fleet was in our waters, he
undertook the errand of your fathers, and performed it with unequalled
success. It was