William JVirt. word of counsel, or of cheer, to those who were struggling up the ascents he had climbed. His interest in the younger mem bers of the profession was always great, and his advice preserved in his letters to his young friends is wise, wholesome, and practical. His power of adaptation was an equally prominent characteristic of the man. His letters to Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe are models of a dignified and re strained style; those to his familiar friends ripple and flow as did his own conversation; those to his infant daughter, though dealing with so abstract a theme as the faculties of human intellect, are couched in language so simple, clear, and poetic, that the child reader of eight, to whom they were ad dressed, could readily comprehend their meaning. Possessing powers of mind which marked him as exceptional wherever he displayed them, he always entertained the most modest estimate of his own ability. His industry was indefatigable, yet he never attributes his success to his own exertions, but always refers to himself, in his private correspond ence, as a " lazy, worthless rascal," who did not deserve the thousandth part of the good fortune he had obtained, and that he had never studied any one thing in his life, but had only labored to conceal his ignorance from the world. " I have been," he says, "an idle, thoughtless dog, as heedless and reckless as any monkey that .ever swung by the tail; quite as much a man of whim, im pulse and pleasure, as if I had been born a prince of endless revenue, and had had nothing to do but to devise the most agree able modes of killing time." Yet under neath this self-disparagement there lay a deep, though modest, realization of his own power. When speaking of Pinkney or Webster, he frequently expressed his eager desire to meet them in a trial of strength, quietly avowing that with full preparation he had no fear of the result. In no instance in his life does he show a timid shrinking
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from responsibility, or weakness, when the time for effort arrived. His strength rose with the greatness of the occasion, and the spirit with which he entered upon his great legal battles against the popular champions of the day was well expressed in one of his favorite quotations : — "The blood more stirs To rouse the lion, than to start the hare." Much as Mr. Wirt depreciated his own efforts to attain eminence, it is easy to dis cover the painstaking and laborious student beneath the brilliant and successful lawyer. In his advice to others, we may see his own methods of study reflected. His reading, covering a vast variety of subjects, legal, scientific, literary and religious, was close, thoughtful and analytic. Above all things he prized strength, cogency and comprehen siveness in argument, never concealing his contempt for all " puerile, out-of-the-way, far-fetched, or pedantic ornaments or illus trations." For the cultivation of that rough, abrupt strength which he so ardently ad mired, he believed that the study of the judi cial opinions of John Marshall, the writings of Locke, the essays of Burke, and the subject of mathematics, most strongly conduced. Mr. Wirt's style of oratory was Asiatic rather than Ciceronian. He often regretted that his fancy had been too exuberant and unrestrained in his youth to allow his style to become perfect in his mature years. But judging from his intense repugnance for feigned emotion and unnatural display, and from his speeches which have been preserved, we may be assured that his great legal argu ments were in no degree weakened by the fervor of his imagination. Throughout his life he studied to improve his style. The classical writers were his constant com panions, and apt quotations from their pages were ever ready upon his tongue. He habituated himself to writing for practice, and usually had some literary task on hand to aid him in self-improvement. These, at
