last twenty years, a full suit of black cloth, and in summer he was usually attired in white drilling with a light linen coat and fancy vest.  He always wore a white cravat, and his linen was spotless.  But both Parsons and Tazewell were men of large stature, at least to the eye, in a sitting posture; both delighted to drink at the deep fountains of the law, and were skilled in the lore of their profession in which they held an easy supremacy; both liked novels as a relief from grave cares, and were indifferent as to the volume of the novel that first came to hand; both were so strongly enamored of the exact sciences that it is probable they would have cultivated them with extraordinary success.  But Tazewell, though a fair scholar in the old way, never attained to that excellence in classical literature which made the name of Parsons an authority for a disputed reading in the colleges of Germany.  I have always regretted that Tazewell did not bring his mind to bear upon the science of language, and especially of comparative philology.  Had he been able to read Bonn, or had mastered the New Cratylus or the Varronianus of Donaldson, his versatile and sharp intellect might have sent forth a work of “winged words” of equal interest and infinitely more profound than the Diversions of Purley.

Tazewell had evidently modelled his mind before the death of president Pendleton in 1802; and nearly up to that period Marshall and Wickham were the leaders of the Virginia bar.  His reverence for Pendleton was something more than a shadow.  It was, as also in the case of Wythe, a deep-seated, ever-living and glowing principle.  He loved those two illustrious judges with a warmth of veneration blended with affection which he never felt for any human being after they were laid in their graves; and he delighted to speak of them.  He held Pendleton’s judicial talents in the highest respect; and I have heard him say that no man living but Pendleton could have reconciled the clashing laws passed during the first twelve years of the commonwealth, and made such just and satisfactory decisions.  Speaking of the peculiarities of Pendleton and Wythe, he said that Pendleton always professed the most profound respect for British decisions, but rarely followed them; while Wythe, who spoke disrespectfully of them, almost invariably followed them.  But, on the ground of pure love and affection, Wythe was nearer to Tazewell than was Pendleton.  Wythe was the guide and instructor of his youth, the old neighbor of his father in Williamsburg; and he always spoke of him as Mr. Wythe, following his father who knew Wythe long before he was a judge.  His reminiscences of Wythe were deeply interesting, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, and, in reference to the last illness of the old patriot, sad in the extreme; and they were always uttered in that subdued and tender tone which, it grieves me to think, will fall no more on mortal ears.