No.  III.

     CHARACTERS OF MR. TAZEWELL, BY THE HON.  GEORGE LOYALL; BY WILLIAM
     W. SHARP, ESQ., A PUPIL OF MR. TAZEWELL; BY THE LATE WILLIAM WIRT,
     ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES; AND BY THE LATE FRANCIS
     WALKER GILMER, ESQ., PROFESSOR OF LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
     VIRGINIA.

The sketch of Mr. Tazewell by Mr. Loyall appeared under the editorial head of the Norfolk Argus, on the 8th of May.  It was written in haste, but it shows the impression which Mr. Tazewell made on that able and accomplished gentleman.  None had a longer or a fairer view of Mr. Tazewell for forty-five years past than Mr. Loyall, and it was mainly owing to him that Mr. Tazewell was brought forward as a candidate for a seat in the Senate of the United States.

[From the Norfolk Argus of May 8, 1860.  By the Hon. George Loyall.]

DEATH OF EX-GOV.  TAZEWELL.

On Sunday, 11 o’clock A.M., LITTLETON WALLER TAZEWELL breathed his last.  It was in the Providence of God to prolong the life of this venerable and distinguished man beyond the term of four-score years, during which the beams of his genius irradiated the land of his birth.  Among the last, if not the very last, of a noble and vigorous stock, to whom Virginia owes so much of her well-deserved fame, the main features of his character, as was said of an illustrious statesman of the last century, had the hardihood of antiquity.

It was impossible to behold Mr. Tazewell—­his majestic form and massive brow—­without a vivid impression of the superiority of his intellectual powers; and this impression was invariably deepened whenever a suitable occasion called for their exercise.  It may be truly said that he was coeval with the outburst of our Revolutionary struggle, the period of his birth having preceded but a year or two the Declaration of Independence.  After a thorough preparatory discipline, we find his name inscribed on the catalogue of William and Mary College, contemporary with those of John Thompson (Curtius) of Petersburg, John Randolph of Roanoke, Robert B. Taylor of this place, and other kindred spirits.  He entered upon his professional career at a period when the bar of our State was thronged with men of extensive learning and the highest order of abilities.  His success was not long a matter of doubt or speculation.  Unambitious of distinction, in the commonly received sense, and unwilling to leave, even for a time, the comparatively humble field of his habitual labors, yet when summoned away to some new or larger theatre, (in the meridian of his fame it not unfrequently happened,) his efforts were marked by extraordinary brilliancy and power.  It was universally conceded that, when roused upon such occasions to put forth his whole strength, the more strenuous and stern the combat, the more signal his triumph.