Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis | Page 5

in translating
from the former, and in transferring the thoughts of the latter into his
own language, and he contended that the task had dispelled the popular
error that Gibbon's style is swollen and declamatory; for he alleged that
every effort at condensation had proved a failure, and that at the end of
his labors the page he had attempted to compress had always expanded
to the eye, when relieved of the weighty and stringent fetters in which
the gigantic genius of Gibbon had bound it.
About this time--the only period when doubts beset him--he was
tempted by a very advantageous offer to settle in Mississippi. He
determined to accept; but some kind spirit interposed to prevent the
despatch of the final letter, and he remained in Alexandria. At last his
aunt--second mother as she was--sold some land and dedicated the

proceeds to his legal studies. He arrived at the University of Virginia in
October, 1839.
From that moment he entered actively and unremittingly on his course
of intellectual training. While a boy he had become familiar, under the
guidance of his father, with the classics of Addison, Johnson, Swift,
Cowper, and Pope, and he now plunged into the domain of history. He
had begun at Kenyon to make flanking forays into the fields of historic
investigation which lay so invitingly on each side of the regular march
of his college course. As he acquired more information and confidence,
these forays became more extensive and profitable. It was then the
transition period from the shallow though graceful pages of Gillies,
Rollin, Russel, and Tytler, and the rabbinical agglomerations of
Shuckford and Prideaux to the modern school of free, profound, and
laborious investigation, which has reared immortal monuments to its
memory in the works of Hallam, Macaulay, Grote, Bancroft, Prescott,
Motley, Niebuhr, Bunsen, Schlosser, Thiers, and their fellows. But of
the last-named none except Niebuhr's History of Rome and Hallam's
Middle Ages were accessible to him in the backwoods of Ohio.
Cousin's Course of the History of Modern Philosophy was just
glittering in the horizon, and Gibbon shone alone as the morning star of
the day of historic research, which he had heralded so long. The French
Revolution he had seen only as presented in Burke's brilliant
vituperation and Scott's Tory diatribe. A republican picture of the great
republican revolution, the fountain of all that is now tolerable in Europe,
had not then been presented on any authentic and comprehensive page.
Not only these, but all historical works of value which the English,
French, and German languages can furnish, with an immense amount
of other intellectual pabulum, were eagerly gathered, consumed with
voracious appetite, and thoroughly digested. Supplied at last with the
required means, he braced himself for a systematic curriculum of law,
and pursued it with marked constancy and success. While at the
university he also took up the German and French languages and
mastered them, and he perfected his scholarship in Latin and Greek.
Until his death he read all these languages with great facility and
accuracy, and he always kept his Greek Testament lying on his table for

easy reference.
After a thorough course at the university, Mr. DAVIS entered upon the
practice of the law in Alexandria, Virginia. He began his profession
without much to cheer him; but he was not the man to abandon a
pursuit for lack of courage. His ability and industry attracted attention,
and before long he had acquired a respectable practice, which
thenceforth protected him from all annoyances of a pecuniary nature.
He toiled with unwearied assiduity, never appearing in the trial of a
cause without the most elaborate and exhaustive preparation, and soon
became known to his professional brethren as a valuable ally and a
formidable foe. His natural aptitude for public affairs made itself
manifest in due time, and some articles which he prepared on municipal
and State politics gave him great reputation. He also published a series
of newspaper essays, wherein he dared to question the divinity of
slavery; and these, though at the time thought to be not beyond the
limits of free discussion, were cited against him long after as evidence
that he was a heretic in pro-slavery Virginia and Maryland.
On the 30th of October, 1845, he married Miss Constance T. Gardiner,
daughter of William C. Gardiner, Esq., a most accomplished and
charming young lady, as beautiful and as fragile as a flower. She lived
to gladden his heart for but a few years, and then,
"Like a lily drooping, She bowed her head and died."
In 1850 he came to Baltimore, and immediately a high position,
professional, social, and political, was awarded him. His forensic
efforts at once commanded attention and enforced respect. The young
men of most ability and promise gathered about him, and made him