notice, which appeared in the publick gazettes, soon after his decease.

"In recording the death of this virtuous and excellent man, this esteemed fellow citizen and friend, we are forcibly struck with a sense of the unavailing nature of worldly prosperity and the precarious tenure of all sublunary enjoyments. The pursuits of honourable industry and the unvarying uprightness of a life regulated by religion and virtue, by philanthropy, patriotism, and benevolence, had raised him to a state of wealth and respectability, which left nothing wanting to his external happiness. Mr. Pleasants enjoyed, in the bosom of a numerous and lovely family, that domestick felicity, which is the true crown of prosperity and the best reward of goodness."

RICHMOND, VIRG.

862. Note-The following memoir of the late hon. judge Pendleton was written, at the request of the author of this Collection, by a distinguished citizen of Virginia.

"EDMUND PENDLETON, Son of Henry Pendleton and Mary Taylor, was born in the state of Virginia, in the county of Caroline, in the year, 1721. His grandfather, Philip Pendleton, emigrated from the town of Norwich in England. His parents had five sons, of whom Edmund was the youngest, and two daughters. In 1743, he married Sarah Pollard, who is now living, [1814] and

died at Richmond, on the 23 day of October, 1803, without issue, in the eighty third year of his age.

"His parents being unable to give him a liberal education, he was only sent two years to an English school, and then bound to Benjamin Robinson, the clerk of Caroline county court. This gentleman had been educated in England, was a man of polite accomplishments, and contributed towards awakening in young Edmund his uncultivated genius. He determined to study the law; but the whole source of his information was less, than a dozen volumes, and the proceedings in the county court. The law books were old reporters, and as they abounded in Latin, his ignorance of that language induced him to employ three months in attending a school in the neighbourhood, when the duties of the office he kept would permit. In this short space, he acquired a knowledge of it, which by his own exertions was so improved, that when he became a practitioner of the law, few were able to translate law Latin more correctly. By making himself a complete master of these few books, and by a sedulous attention to the lawyers and proceedings in the county court, young Pendleton was enabled to obtain a licence, after a strict examination, to practice the law immediately on his coming of age.

"This stock of literature was only extended throughout his life by an intercourse with mankind, by reading a few English books, and by making

himself master of a good law library. But a quick apprehension, united with great industry, enabled him very speedily to become eminent in his profession. Without studying rhetorick, he became a rhetorician; and he caught logick, arithmetick, and geometry, as they were exhibited by others for show or use, to the extent of his occasion for them. He soon acquired a profound knowledge of the character of mankind, and of human affairs. And perhaps it was his happiness, throughout his life, to have extracted his opinions from realities, rather, than from the speculations of philosophers.

"The house of burgesses in Virginia under the colonial government, if not the only legitimate branch of the legislature, was that chiefly respected by the people, and alone accustomed to that species of deliberation, which excites emulation and begets eloquence. In this house Pendleton was placed by the suffrages of his county at so early an age, that he survived every individual elected in the game year; and he was continued in it by a suffrage, generally unanimous, until the revolution. That found him its speaker. During the interregnum between the subversion of one government and the establishment of another, he was made the president of a committee appointed to exercise the executive power, and on the latter event he was placed at the head of the judicial power, where he continued until his death.

“The use of biography is not to dazzle, but to instruct; not to slide upon eulogy into fiction, but to

exhibit pictures capable of imitation. If the actions of the man I am commemorating had been recorded, a narrative would have appeared, infinitely more useful, than a panegyrick, rounded up with great qualities and splendid virtues. Such a model, however beautiful, is as much a man, as the statue of Apollo was a god.

"Mr. Pendleton's life approached the nearest to constant employment in useful occupations, and to constant happiness, of any I ever knew. It was divided, the short intervals of relaxation excepted, between his profession, services to individuals, and a succession of publick employments, from manhood to the grave. He seemed to expend every portion of his time, whether it was appropriated to business or relaxation, with pleasure; and to return from the most agreeable society to the most intricate investigations, with the ardour of desire; nor was it possible to discern any difference between the satisfaction he derived, from gra tuitous labours sustained for the benefit of private people or of the publick, and those sustained for his own benefit.

"Neither his great industry, nor his high relish for pleasure, inspired him with avarice or prodigality. One sufficed to satisfy the other, because his estimate of pleasure, being an accurate inference from human nature, and not the delusion of imaginary visions, he soon discovered that the finest pleasures of which men were susceptible, were not costly; and that industry enabled him to supply his present wants, to provide for old age, to confer a multitude

of benefits upon others, to serve the publick, to live happily, and to gratify at his death the expectations he had excited. It is easier to maintain an even tenour of private, than of publick life. Political wisdom is harder to acquire, than moral rectitude. The former is forever contemplating fluctuating circumstances; the latter is a simple extract from a few fixed principles. Mr. Pendleton arrived at the age of 21 in the year, 1742. An adoration of church and state prevailed at that time almost universaliy in Virginia. And he of course drank deeply of the enthusiasm of orthodoxy and loyalty.

"A few years before the revolutionary war, the sect of baptists, having appeared in the state of Virginia, was received and encouraged by a considerable degree of persecution. The affection for the king and the church of England was at this period inspired by that strong kind of opinion, which being imbibed from habit and rivetted by prejudice, is impatient of contradiction and blind to reason. Many upright magistrates thought it their duty to apply to religious liberty the acts of the English parliament against conventicles, under which the preachers of this sect were frequently prosecuted and imprisoned. Mr. Pendleton, then judge of his county court, an office compatible with his legislative station, concurred in these prosecutions; and, by bestowing upon another sect the popularity justly arising from persecution, contributed to the depression of that, to which he was devoted. A flame was kindled, which has nearly