Famous Americans of Recent Times | Page 4

time, but very tall for his age, very slender, very awkward,
and far from handsome. His good mother had arrayed him in a full suit
of pepper-and-salt "figginy," an old Virginia fabric of silk and cotton.
His shirt and shirt-collar were stiffly starched, and his coat-tail stood
out boldly behind him. The dandy law clerks of metropolitan
Richmond exchanged glances as this gawky figure entered, and took
his place at a desk to begin his work. There was something in his
manner which prevented their indulgence in the jests that usually greet
the arrival of a country youth among city blades; and they afterwards
congratulated one another that they had waited a little before beginning
to tease him, for they soon found that he had brought with him from the
country an exceedingly sharp tongue. Of his first service little is known,
except the immense fact that he was a most diligent reader. It rests on
better authority than "Campaign Lives," that, while his fellow-clerks
went abroad in the evening in search of pleasure, this lad stayed at
home with his books. It is a pleasure also to know that he had not a
taste for the low vices. He came of sound English stock, of a family
who would not have regarded drunkenness and debauchery as "sowing
wild oats," but recoiled from the thought of them with horror. Clay was
far from being a saint; but it is our privilege to believe of him that he

was a clean, temperate, and studious young man.
Richmond, the town of the young Republic that had most in it of the
metropolitan, proved to this aspiring youth as true a University as the
printing-office in old Boston was to Benjamin Franklin; for he found in
it the culture best suited to him and his circumstances. Chancellor
Wythe, then sixty-seven years of age, overflowing with knowledge and
good nature, was the president of that university. Its professors were the
cluster of able men who had gone along with Washington and Jefferson
in the measures which resulted in the independence of the country.
Patrick Henry was there to teach him the arts of oratory. There was a
flourishing and famous debating society, the pride of the young men of
Richmond, in which to try his half-fledged powers. The impulse given
to thought by the American Revolution was quickened and prolonged
by the thrilling news which every vessel brought from France of the
revolution there. There was an atmosphere in Virginia favorable to the
growth of a sympathetic mind. Young Clay's excellent handwriting
brought him gradually into the most affectionate relations with
Chancellor Wythe, whose aged hand trembled to such a degree that he
was glad to borrow a copyist from the clerk's office. For nearly four
years it was the young man's principal duty to copy the decisions of the
venerable Chancellor, which were curiously learned and elaborate; for
it was the bent of the Chancellor's mind to trace the law to its sources in
the ancient world, and fortify his positions by citations from Greek and
Latin authors. The Greek passages were a plague to the copyist, who
knew not the alphabet of that language, but copied it, so to speak, by
rote.
Here we have another proof that, no matter what a man's opportunities
are, he only learns what is congenial with his nature and circumstances.
Living under the influence of this learned judge, Henry Clay might
have become a man of learning. George Wythe was a "scholar" in the
ancient acceptation of the word. The whole education of his youth
consisted in his acquiring the Latin language, which his mother taught
him. Early inheriting a considerable fortune, he squandered it in
dissipation, and sat down at thirty, a reformed man, to the study of the
law. To his youthful Latin he now added Greek, which he studied
assiduously for many years, becoming, probably, the best Greek
scholar in Virginia. His mind would have wholly lived in the ancient

world, and been exclusively nourished from the ancient literatures, but
for the necessities of his profession and the stirring political events of
his later life. The Stamp Act and the Revolution varied and completed
his education. His young copyist was not attracted by him to the study
of Greek and Latin, nor did he catch from him the habit of probing a
subject to the bottom, and ascending from the questions of the moment
to universal principles. Henry Clay probed nothing to the bottom,
except, perhaps, the game of whist; and though his instincts and
tendencies were high and noble, he had no grasp of general truths.
Under Wythe, he became a staunch Republican of the Jeffersonian
school. Under Wythe, who emancipated his slaves before his death, and
set apart a portion of his estate