the errors of mathematical or philosophical works, which | trying crisis. His speech in favor of a renewal of the occasionally met his eye. The arcana of nature, and the charter of the first bank of the United States, was a mysteries of astronomy, constantly exercised his strong and fertile genius. His more discerning friends saw that he would one day be ranked among the distinguished men of his country; yet none were so generous and disinterested as to assist his efforts with their pecuniary resources, or to polish the unsightly diamond with the fostering hand of education. His time was chiefly spent at his trade. Arrived at manhood, he left his father's house, with no other property than his tools, and travelled on foot to Winchester, Virginia, where he worked as a journeyman for some months, in the shop of a respectable mechanic. Having thus raised funds sufficient to supply his present wants, he sat out again in pursuit of employment, halting at the different villages through which he passed, on his route along the valley, in order to raise his expenses by his labor, until he arrived at Abbeville, Wythe county, as poor as ever. He knew no one: bore no letters of introduction; was friendless and destitute: a stranger in a strange land. Here he commenced at his trade once more. The novelty and originality of his character, and the flashes of genius which enlivened his conversation, often compelled his newly acquired friends to look on the eccentric youth with wonder and amazement. He became popular, and was finally received as a student into the office of Alexander Smyth, Esq. an eminent lawyer in that part of the state, and afterwards commander of our northern army in the war of 1812.

Sheffey was now in his long desired situation. Disposing of his tools, he toiled incessantly in his new vocation, and improved rapidly. Here, with his own hand did he lay the basis of his future fame, and resolved to avoid the application to himself of the verse of Gray:

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

masterly combination of sound argument and conclusive facts: for three hours profound silence prevailed; and the most experienced statesmen were astonished at this exhibition of his talents. He was opposed to the declaration of war in 1812. Ever on the side of his country, he felt indignant at the injuries which our commerce had sustained on the high seas: the impressment of our seamen, and the murder of our citizens within our own waters: yet he thought that these difficulties might be adjusted by negotiation, and that the last resort of nations might be avoided. He painted in glowing colors the horrors of war and the blessings of peace, and spoke of the treasure which must be wasted, and the blood which would be shed; the danger to our civil institutions amidst the clangor of arms and the shout of victory, and implored his fellow citizens to pause ere the country was plunged into the dangers which he foreboded. It was in vain. Mr. Sheffey, however, always rejoiced in the success of our arms. Sometimes in the ardor of debate, he was attacked rather uncourteously by some of his political opponents, but they never escaped the severity of his retort, and were often entirely overwhelmed. The celebrated and eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke, was for many years the Ajax Telamon of the House of Representatives, whose bitterness of satire no man could withstand. He once took occasion, in commenting on a speech of Mr. Sheffey, to say that "the shoemaker ought not to go beyond his last." Quick as the lightning's flash, he replied, "if that gentleman had ever been on the bench, he would never have left it." The Virginia orator never renewed the attack.

Having served for several years in the councils of his country, he withdrew to the practice of his profession at Staunton. A numerous family now reminded him, that intense diligence would be requisite, not only to supply their wants, but to sustain his fame. For a long time he toiled incessantly in the courts of Virginia, and occasionally was engaged in the supreme court of the United States. In December, 1830, he had been attending court, in Nelson county, and started for home in perfect health. He travelled about twelve miles, and stopped at a tavern for the night. Hardly had he taken his seat, when an apoplectic fit numbered him with the dead.

guished men of America.

Who supplied his wants during his residence with Mr. Smyth, I have not been able to learn. Soon after his admission to the bar of Wythe county, he was called on to enter the lists with his old friend and patron, whom he handled with so much dexterity and adroitness, that it was generally said among the mass of the community, the apprentice will soon surpass the Thus died an extraordinary man, who by the native master. So it happened. Mr. Sheffey was employed vigor of his intellect, and the force of industry, occupied in all the important causes of that court, and soon ex-a conspicuous station among the patriotic and distintended his practice to several adjoining counties. His professional brethren, however eminent, admired his There was nothing dignified in the person of Mr. powers, and treated him on all occasions with respect Sheffey: he was low of stature; his manners by no means and kindness. In the county and superior courts of polished; all was plain, energetic, original. His pronunlaw and chancery, he was uniformly heard with unaf- ciation was not agreeable: his German accent sounded fected pleasure, both by court and jury. His humble heavy on the ear; yet the most refined audience origin, meager education, and the singular incidents of always paid to him the most profound attention. In his life, awakened the feelings and curiosity of his the argument of his causes, he seized on the strong audience, while they were at once delighted and enlight-points of the law and evidence, and maintained his poened by the efforts of his powerful and original intel-sitions with a courage and zeal which no difficulties lect. After some years, he settled in Staunton, where could subdue. Like Patrick Henry, he was the artificer he soon commanded an extensive and lucrative practice. of his own fortunes, and like him, in after life, lamented He often represented the county of Augusta in the that in his early days the lamp of science had shed but House of Delegates, and in 1811 we find him in Con- a feeble ray over the path along which it was his desgress, busily engaged in the important events of that tiny to travel.

His mantle fell on ROGER BROOKE TANET, a favorite son of Maryland, whose fame is identified with the history of America. I design, in the ensuing sketch, to delineate the professional and public character of this amiable and upright citizen, who unites to the various acquirements of a profound jurist all the urbanity of a refined gentleman.

place to the smile of joy, and happiness shed her divine ray over all classes of society.

The result of this new condition was, that after the revolution, Mr. Taney's father was repeatedly elected to represent his native county in the House of Delegates.

His eldest son, Roger, was born in Calvert county, on the 17th March, 1777.

In the spring of 1792, he became a student at Dickinson college, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, then under the superintendence of the Rev. Dr. Nesbitt, a Scotch Presbyterian divine, celebrated for his wit and extensive duated in 1795. I have not been able to ascertain wheacquirements in classical literature. Here he was grather during his collegiate course, the first efforts of his intellect glowed with the light of that genius which was then manifested that ever-growing ambition in the acso strongly developed in after years; or whether he quisition of knowledge, which has placed him among the ablest lawyers of his country.

In the spring of 1796, he commenced the study of Soon after the usurpation of Cromwell, in 1656, the law at Annapolis, in the office of Jeremiah T. Chase, paterna! and maternal ancestors of Mr. Taney were then judge of the general court of Maryland, and driven from their native land, because of their adhe-came to the bar in 1799. Soon after, he began the prac rence to the Catholic church. They sacrificed all the tice in Calvert, and in the fall of this year was electtenderest ties which bound them to their birth place, ed to the House of Delegates. This was an all-impor encountered the dangers of the sea, and the hardships incident to every new settlement in a howling wilderness, to enjoy peace of conscience, and the liberty of worshipping God after the faith of their fathers. Well might these inoffensive people have said to the gloomy tyrant, as their native island gradually disappeared from their view,

"Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn."

tant era in the political history of the United States. Great and violent was the struggle between the contending parties: popular feeling was aroused to an unprecedented height, ere the first office in the gift of the nation passed into the hands of Mr. Jefferson. The legislature of Maryland partook of its portion of this excitement, and amid the stormy debates which sometimes occurred, young Taney displayed an intrepidity of character and an uprightness of motive, which gained for him the admiration of his contemporaries. He declined They however submitted to their fate without a mura re-election, and in March, 1801, settled himself in the mur, and settled themselves on the banks of the Pa- practice of law in Frederick. A new scene now opened tuxet. On the accession of Charles the Second to the to his view. He was a stranger in the county where he throne of his father, the disabilities of the Catholics was about to commence his career. But the wary and were greatly mitigated; and even during the brief but reflecting yeomanry of Frederick, Washington, Alleturbulent reign of his brother James, they enjoyed com-ghany, and Montgomery counties, soon discovered that parative repose, when they looked back to their former his industry had no bounds: that he possessed a mind sufferings under the dark and gloomy usurpation of the of the highest order: that judgment, acuteness, peneProtector. Hope once more dawned on the troubled tration, capacious memory, accurate learning, steady bosoms of the Catholics, but it was soon changed into perseverance in the discharge of duty, a lofty integsorrow and anguish of spirit. For when William and rity, united with a grave and winning elocution, were Mary assumed the reins of government, their former developed. These qualifications were soon rewarded disfranchisements were revived, and they were again with an extensive and lucrative practice. As his powers enduring all the penalties of legislative proscription were unfolded with experience, they saw that in the arThe ancestors of Mr. Taney felt the tyranny of the gument of important causes, he disentangled what was English monarch even in their secluded retreat in Cal-intricate, confirmed what was doubtful, embellished vert county, where they tilled the soil in peace and what was dry, and illustrated what was obscure. charity with all men: they seemed studiously to have In 1806, he is engaged at the court of appeals, enretired from the turmoils of the world, and sought hap-countering some of the most distinguished men of the piness in their own humble dwellings, Such was their state, and the reports of Harris and Johnson show that condition, until the convention of Maryland, in August, he was always well prepared for argument, and was 1776, proclaimed to the world that the bill of rights and deservedly ranked with the most talented of his comthe constitution which then came from their hands, petitors. Martin, Harper, Shaofe, and Philip B. Key, should be the sovereign rule of action to the once en- were the monarchs of the bar. But Mr. Taney feared slaved, but now emancipated colonists. To the Catho- no one: relying on his own resources, he never allowed lics it was the bow of promise, betokening the cessation of either the weakness or the power of an adversary to the storm: tyrants no more trampled down their rights: change his purpose or alter his views. Notwithstandall civil disabilities were abolished: the spirit of tolera-ing the unrivalled fame of his opponents, his reputation tion for the first time shed its heavenly influence equally was now in the ascendant. Virgil tells us that his hero over all religious sects: the heaviness of sorrow gave was borne through the regions of the nether realms by

On the 24th Sept. 1933, he was appointed secretary of the treasury, which not being confirmed by the senate, this modest and amiable citizen once more returned to the toils of his profession in Baltimore. His arrival was welcomed by thousands, and his society courted by all.

In March, 1836, he was appointed to the exalted situation which he now fills.

the splendor of the golden bough: the genius of Mr. | was restored. His faithful counsel received no other Taney was his guide. It spread itself over the tree of reward than the gratitude of the veteran's heart. knowledge, and gilded with a new light every leaf on From this time until 1823, Mr. Taney was engaged which it shone. He would argue no case in the higher in extensive practice in various courts of the state. courts until he had minutely examined all its relations He removed, in the spring of this year, to Baltimore. and bearings; and for this end he would explore the Pinckney was now no more. His renown as a lawvast and boundless regions of the common and statute yer had been wafted to the distant regions of the law, and bring home their richest treasures, to instruct earth: he fell almost on the field of his greatest fame, and enlighten all who heard him. His manner was after arguing an important cause in the supreme court strikingly impressive. When his slow and solemn form of the United States. Mr. Taney now aimed to occupy was seen rising in court, every ear was open, and all the place occasioned by his death. For this purpose, he eyes were fixed on the speaker-the audience insensi- had left the theatre of his long and laborious life, and bly taken captive, and borne away by the weight of his separated himself from the friendships of twenty-two arguments and the tones of his eloquence. He moved years. He was soon ranked among the foremost at the along like the majestic Mississippi, full, clear and mag- Baltimore bar, and extended his practice to the supreme nificent. Whenever the late Mr. Wirt was opposed to court, where he was always admired by the court and Mr. Taney, he would facetiously say, that he dreaded lawyers of that high tribunal. In 1827, he was apnothing so much as his "apostolic simplicity." So soft pointed attorney general of Maryland, which office and amiable was his deportment, that even amidst the he resigned in 1831, when, as attorney general of the heat and turmoil of nisi prius litigation, he was never United States, he was chosen a member of president known to offend the feelings of any of his brethren: his Jackson's cabinet. No man ever discharged the duties conversation was never roughened by austerity or pe- of this station more faithfully than Mr. Taney. dantry, and when his gallant bearing extorted from all the most unfeigned praise, he would almost hide himself from public admiration, with the unaffected modesty of his native character. Whatever the political principles of his clients might be, you could not discern the slightest difference in the discharge of his duty. A memorable instance occurred in 1811. Gen. Wilkinson, was then commander-in-chief of the United States army, and was brought before a court composed of thirteen general officers, assembled in Frederick, to answer accusations of very high and serious import. During the war of independence, he had acted a conspicuous part at Saratoga, when the ill-fated Burgoyne surrendered his army to Gates, and after the peace, was one of the pioneers of the west, where he acquired new laurels in subduing the Indians, and assisting the frontier inhabi-instinctive reverence and awe: his eye is full of genius, tants to meet and vanquish the obstacles which attend and indicative of the powerful mind that dwells within; the settlement of a new country. But in 1806 he had his features marked with the deepest thought, and his aroused the jealousies of the people, when he suspended manner so dignified, that he sheds around him in whatthe habeas corpus, and imprisoned Bollman and Swart-ever circle he may move, a moral influence of the wout; and when he appeared at Richmond in August, 1807, as a prominent witness on the trial of Col. Burr for high treason, many believed that he was deeply concerned in the plot of that distinguished and talented man. The papers of that day teemed with incessant vituperation, and impugned in the strongest terms the motives of the General. He was naturally haughty, and the number of his personal enemies was constantly increasing. He had especially awakened the indig. nation of a large portion of the community in Frederick, because he had in 1803 successfully prosecuted before a court martial in that town, Col. Butler, a revolutionary veteran, of undaunted bravery, who had served his country in the most distinguished manner, but who was now old and poor. Although Mr. Taney participated in these feelings so common with men of high honor, yet did the accused, with full knowledge of that fact, seleet him and the lamented John Hanson Thomas, (the star of whose glory sat too soon for his country,) as his counsel on this important trial. He placed his destiny in their hands. For several months they labored with unabated zeal in behalf of their client. He was pronounced innocent, and his sword

The political life of Mr. Taney, has been marked with honor to his country. In 1816 he was chosen a senator of Maryland, and served for five years in that body. He was married to a daughter of John Ross Key, and is the father of a numerous family. In his person he is full six feet high: spare, but yet so dignified in deportment, that you are at once impressed with an

highest order.

The constitution of the United States, and the welfare of our union are now confided in an eminent degree into the hands of this distinguished jurist. Pursuing the brilliant and useful career of Mansfield and Marshall, he will erect for himself a monument to fame, which time itself can neither impair nor destroy.

NICHOLAS BIDDLE.*

This gentleman has been brought very prominently into public view of late. The embarrassments of commerce and the confusion of currency under which our

country has so keenly suffered, have turned all eyes toward the man who fills a station of great financial importance; and fills it with acknowledged ability and manifest uprightness of purpose. His name has therefore obtained-perhaps unexpectedly to himself-a European as well as an American celebrity; yet his portrait has not been seen, except in clumsy caricatures, at

Copied from the "American Monthly," for May, 1938.

print-shop windows; nor has his biography yet graced | has very felicitously adverted in the beautiful oration the pages of a review or literary magazine. delivered by him two years since, to the students and alumni of Princeton college.

Mr. Biddle is a native of Philadelphia, and now somewhat over fifty years of age. He is one of a family re- After some years passed in the refined society of markable for eminent talent, and also for the better Paris, he quitted that brilliant capital to travel in Italy qualities that render men acceptable in social inter- and the countries of the Levant, then seldom visited by course, and endear them to familiar acquaintance. His Americans. He made some stay at Delphi and at brother, the commodore, is certainly one of the most intel- Athens, to indulge or cultivate his classic taste, and ligent and accomplished officers of our navy, if not the then returned to Paris, whence he soon after passed first in both these particulars. In his boyhood he was over to England, and again entered the diplomatic sera fellow-sufferer with the gallant Bainbridge in the cap-vice as secretary to Mr. Monroe, at that time our ministivity at Tripoli, erdured by the crew of the unfortu- ter at the court of London. nate frigate which fell into the hands of the barbarians. In the war with the British he was gloriously distinguished; first at the capture of the Frolic by the Wasp, in which ship he was serving as a volunteer lieutenant; and then in the capture of the Penguin by the Hornet, which he commanded. In this last action, where, as well as in that of the Frolic, the enemy was of superior force, captain Biddle received a dangerous wound after the Penguin's colors had been struck. Since that period he has been in command in the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere; always with honor to himself and his country; and it is well known to his many acquaintances in various parts of the world, that his qualities as companion and a friend are not less estimable than his character as an officer.

His residence in the British metropolis was not a long one, as he preferred returning to the home from which he had so long been separated; but the friendship formed with Mr. Monroe continued through the life-time of that statesman, and perhaps materially influenced the after-life of both; for it was the remote cause of bringing Mr. Biddle into his present office, at the head of the most important financial institution of our country; and is believed to have been productive to Mr. Monroe of certain advantages, the details of which belong to private history alone. It was a friendship honorable to both; and if Mr. Biddle could have yielded the independence of his judgment so far as to act with the political party which supported his friend as a candidate for the presidency, it would almost certainly have brought him forward into office in the general government, for which his talents undoubtedly qualified him.

has been so unfriendly, should have been associated in perhaps their earliest forensic appearance. Tempora mutantur, says Horace, et nos mutamur cum illis.

Another brother is major John Biddle, now of the state of Michigan, formerly a meritorious officer of the army; and a third is the honorable Richard Biddle, a member of Congress from the city of Pittsburgh, who But several years elapsed between his return and Mr. has already distinguished himself by his eloquence, and Monroe's election to the chief magistracy, during which whose constituents hold him in high estimation for his interval Mr. Biddle was admitted to the bar, and commenforensic and literary abilities, as well as for the great ced the practice of the profession of law in his native city. amiability of his character in social life. This gentle- There is yet sometimes to be met with in collections man last named, is the youngest of the four brothers; of the less valuable pamphlets of that period, a printed and the eldest is Mr. Charles Biddle, now or lately in report of the trial and execution of two very guilty neGuatemala, where he has been engaged in forming a groes for murder, on which occasion Mr. Biddle and company to cut the long-talked-of canal across the Mr. Rush were the prisoners' counsel; and it seems Isthmus of Panama. The eminent merchant or broker, rather curious that those two gentlemen, whose mutual of the same name, is of another family, which is like-attitudes, or at least that of Mr. Rush towards the other, wise remarkable for personal merit of no common order. The subject of our present sketch, being the son of a gentleman of independent property, had every early advantage of education, and was sent to Princeton college, where he was graduated with the highest honors of his class at the age of only sixteen years. After completing his college course, he was placed in the office of a lawyer; but before he had passed his minority, he was invited by general Armstrong, who had just been appointed envoy to the court of France, to accompany him to that country as his private secretary, or secretary of legation. Mr. Biddle accepted this offer, and went accordingly to Paris, where he remained several years as a member of the American embassy, during a period when its duties were rendered uncommonly arduous by the obligation to remonstrate incessantly against the repeated aggressions upon our neutral rights. The case of the ship New Jersey is recollected as one in which Mr. Biddle's name appeared, as in some manner connected with the controversy. During his residence near the French court, the first consulate was exchanged for the imperial crown, and he was present as one of the diplomatic corps, at the splendid ceremony of Napoleon's coronation; an incident in his life to which he

Soon after his admission to the bar, he married a lady of considerable fortune and most amiable character; and being tired of the "forum contentiosum," or finding it uncongenial to his taste, he withdrew from the legal profession, and devoted his attention to literature and politics, and that very costly amusement called sometimes "gentleman farming," and by those who follow it, dignified with the name of experimental agriculture. Andalusia, a beautiful country-seat on the banks of the Delaware, was the scene of these researches into the qualities of seeds and the power of manures; and though we do not know that any important discoveries crowned the labor, we have seen a discourse delivered to an agricultural society by the farmer Biddle, which seems to be a learned dissertation, (but on subjects of tillage, we confess ourselves unread, beyond the Georgics of Virgil,)—and is certainly marked with the eloquence which has appeared in everything proceeding from his pen.

His zeal in the cause of letters induced him to assume, as a labor of love, the editorship of the Port

Folio, then the only literary journal of any repute in the country. It attained its most palmy state under his management; but soon passed into other hands, and began to decline.

For several successive winters he was a member of the legislature of Pennsylvania, and was in the senate, a very youthful member of the patres conscripti of the state during the exciting period of the war with Great Britain. He was an able and ready debater, attentive to the business of legislation, and on two occasions at least was particularly distinguished. The legislature of one of the eastern states, had adopted resolutions condemning, in very severe terms, the conduct of the general administration and the policy of the war. These resolves being in due course communicated to the several states, it happened that Mr. Biddle was chairman, or the most active member, of the committee of senators to whom they were referred. He considered it no time for showing a divided front to the enemy; and possibly his own war-spirit was quickened by sympathy with two gallant brothers in the army and one in the navy, all of whom had been earning fame and honor by distinguished bravery. The report which he wrote upon that occasion embodied with signal ability the sentiments which all would now agree to have been entirely appropriate to the peculiar circumstances of the juncture. About the same period, very near the close of the war, Congress was about to adopt a very energetic war-measure, which was strongly opposed as unconstitutional. This was, to raise an army of fifty thousand men by means of militia drafts. The details of the plan would be tedious and uninteresting here; it is enough to say that Mr. Biddle advocated with zeal and eloquence the passage of resolutions in the Pennsylvania legislature favorable to the execution of the plan by the federal government; and it was, in fact, we believe, prevented only by the peace.

It was a period of much party exacerbation; and, as always must happen in such times, both parties, or leading men in them, said and did much that cannot on retrospection be entirely approved by men of any party now:

"Simul insanavimus omnes ;"

After the bank of the United States was chartered by Congress, he was named by president Monroe as one of the directors on the part of the government; and attending regularly at the meetings of the Board, he entered upon a new and hitherto untried employment of his abilities. Though not a commercial man, but at that time merely a gentleman of literary taste and leisure, he became so efficient a member of the direction, that, on the resignation of Mr. Cheves, he was designated, at a convention of stockholders, as the most suitable person to fill the arduous office of president. It is known that he was continued in that very important station, by successive re-elections, until the expiration of the charter; and that whatever may have been the extent of hostile feeling generated among politicians by the angrily vexed question of the re-charter, there has been but one sentiment manifested toward him by the stockholders, namely, a grateful and constantly augmented approbation. This has been testified by a repeated vote of thanks; and at the time of the last one, when the new charter was accepted from the state of Pennsylvania, it was accompanied with a magnificent present of a memorial service of plate.

Nothing could be more characteristic of Mr. Biddle than his public appearance on the occasion just alluded to, nor could anything be more honorable to the head and heart of any man than the clear, plain, perspicuous, and satisfactory statement that he made of the advantages to be derived from the new charter, and the reasons for accepting it; and afterwards the acknowledgment which he made on behalf of the officers of the bank, as well as himself, in return for the vote of approval just adopted by the meeting of stockholders. The first address was an unadorned display of financial knowledge and sagacity, betraying, perhaps, some measure of that liberal confidence in his country and his countrymen, the indulgence of which too far is possibly his most ensnaring propensity; while the second was a spontaneous and eloquent effusion of cordial attachment to the friends and associates with whom and for whom he had labored.

It is not for us to pass a judgment upon the financial management of the board of directors of that institution from its commencement, or from Mr. Biddle's accession to the presidency, till its close; nor of the but it is not our desire to revive any of the unpleasant management of the bank under its state charter, of questions of that day. The federalists had elected which he is now at the head. Such an inquiry would Mr. Biddle to the senate, and they were now somewhat involve questions that have become too much mingled divided upon both the subjects just referred to. His with feelings of party strife to admit of any decision conduct therefore gave some dissatisfaction to a portion that can be universally satisfactory, before the case is of his constituents, and he relinquished his seat in the carried within the jurisdiction of that high court of errors legislature. At the next Congressional election he was and appeals that men call POSTERITY; and, however one of the four candidates nominated by the demo- desirable a financial history of the institution may be, cratic party in the district that included Philadelphia; both for entertainment and instruction, it is plain that to but they did not receive a majority of the votes, and write it would require opportunities of information such Mr. Biddle returned to the amusements of his country as we cannot, and few do possess. But we may sugseat during the summer, and his city residence during gest, in the meantime, that perhaps a greater share of winter; and possibly it was more at this period than the responsibility, whether for praise or blame, has been at the earlier one, which we have named above, that imputed to the president of the board of directors than his attention was particularly given to theoretic agri- was equitably his due. That board has always conculture. Writing now, without attempting to correct tained men of first rate abilities and intelligence ;-actour reminiscences by any inquiries or reference to him- ing harmoniously with the president, but never interself or his immediate friends, it is obviously not impos-mitting the free exercise of their judgments in aid of his, sible that, as to some of these less important particulars, while he has been nowise accustomed or desirous to we may transpose the dates. assume more of the government than they were dis