JOHN MARSHALL, LL. D.

JOHN MARSHALL, the sketch of whose life now claims our attention, was born in Fauquier county, in the state of Virginia, on the 24th of September, 1755. His father was Thomas Marshall of the same state, who served with great distinction in the revolutionary war, as a colonel in the line of the continental army. Colonel Marshall was a planter of a very small fortune, and had received but a narrow education. These deficiencies, however, were amply supplied by the gifts of nature. His talents were of a high order, and he cultivated them with great diligence and perseverance, so that he maintained throughout his whole life, among associates of no mean character, the reputation of being a man of extraordinary ability. No better proof need be adduced to justify this opinion, than the fact that he possessed the unbounded confidence, admiration, and reverence of all his children, at the period of life when they were fully able to appreciate his worth and compare him with other men of known eminence. There are those yet living, who have often listened with delight to the praises bestowed on him by filial affection; and have heard the declaration emphatically repeated from the lips of one of his most gifted sons, that his father was an abler man than any of his children. Such praise from such a source is beyond measure precious. It warms while it elevates. It is a tribute of gratitude to the memory of a parent after death has put the last seal upon his character, and at a distance of time, when sorrow has ceased its utterance, and left behind it the power calmly to contemplate his excellence.

Colonel Marshall had fifteen children, some of whom are now living; and it has long been a matter of public fame, that all the children, females as well as males, possessed superior intellectual endowments. JOHN was the eldest child; and was of course the first to engage the solicitude of his father. In the local position of

the family, at that time almost upon the frontier settlements of the country, (for Fauquier was a frontier county,) it was of course, that the early education of all the children should devolve upon its head. Colonel Marshall superintended the studies of his eldest son, and gave him a decided taste for English literature, and especially for history and poetry. At the age of twelve he had transcribed Pope's Essay on Man, and also some of his moral essays. The love of poetry, thus awakened in his warm and vigorous mind, never ceased to exert a commanding influence over it. He became enamored of the classical writers of the old school, and was instructed by their solid sense, and their beautiful imagery. In the enthusiasm of youth, he often indulged himself in poetical compositions, and freely gave up his hours of leisure to those delicious dreamings of the muse, which (say what we may) constitute some of the purest sources of pleasure in the gay scenes of life, and some of the sweetest consolations in adversity and affliction, throughout every subsequent period of it. It is well known, that he continued to cultivate this his favorite study, and to read with intense interest the gay as well as the loftier productions of the divine art. One of the best recommendations of the taste for poetry in early life is, that it does not die with youth; but affords to maturer years an invigorating energy, and to old age a serene and welcome employment, always within reach, and always coming with a fresh charm. Its gentle influence is then like that so happily treated by Gray. The lover of the muses may truly say,

I feel the gales that round ye blow

A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And redolent of joy and youth

To breathe a second spring.

The contrast, was always somewhat striking between that close reasoning, which almost rejected the aid of ornament, in the juridical labors of the Chief Justice, and that generous taste, which devoted itself with equal delight to the works of fiction and song. Yet the union has been far less uncommon than slight observers are apt to imagine. Lord Hardwicke and Lord Mansfield had an ardent thirst for general literature, and each of them was a cultivator, if not a devotee, of the lighter productions of the imagination.

There being at that time no grammar school in the part of the country where Colonel Marshall resided, his son was sent, at the age of fourteen, about a hundred miles from home, and placed under the

tuition of a Mr. Campbell, a clergyman of great respectability. He remained with him a year, and then returned home, and was put under the care of a Scotch gentleman, who was just introduced into the parish as pastor; and resided in his father's family. He pursued his classical studies under this gentleman's direction, while he remained in the family, which was about a year; and at the termination of it, he had commenced reading Horace and Livy. His subsequent mastery of the classics was the result of his own efforts, without any other aid than his grammar and dictionary. He never had the benefit of an education at any college, and his attainments in learning were cherished by the solitary vigils of his own genius. His father, however, continued to superintend his English education, to cherish his love of knowledge, to give a solid cast to his acquirements, and to store his mind with the most valuable materials. He was not merely a watchful parent, but an instructive and affectionate friend, and soon became the most constant, as he was at the time almost the only intelligent, companion of his son. The time not devoted to his society was passed in hardy athletic exercises, and probably to this circumstance was owing that robust constitution which seemed fresh and firm in old age.

About the time when young MARSHALL entered his eighteenth year, the controversy between Great Britain and her American colonies began to assume a portentous aspect, and engaged, and indeed absorbed, the attention of all the colonists, whether they were young, or old, in private and secluded life, or in political and public bodies. He entered into it with all the zeal and enthusiasm of a youth, full of love for his country and liberty, and deeply sensible of its rights and its wrongs. He devoted much time to acquiring the first rudiments of military exercise in a voluntary independent company, composed of gentlemen of the county; to training a militia company in the neighborhood, and to reading the political essays of the day. For these animating pursuits, the preludes of public resistance, he was quite content to relinquish the classics, and the less inviting, but with reference to his future destiny, the more profitable Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone.

In the summer of 1775, he received an appointment as first lieutenant in a company of minute-men enrolled for actual service, who were assembled in battalion on the first of the ensuing September. In a few days they were ordered to march into the lower country, for the purpose of defending it against a small regular and predatory force commanded by Lord Dunmore. They constituted part of the

troops destined for the relief of Norfolk; and Lieutenant MARSHALL was engaged in the battle of the Great Bridge, where the British troops, under Lord Dunmore, were repulsed with great gallantry The way being thus opened by the retreat of the British, he marched with the provincials to Norfolk, and was present when that city was set on fire by a detachment from the British ships then lying in the river.

In July, 1776, he was appointed first lieutenant in the eleventh Virginia regiment on the continental establishment; and in the course of the succeeding winter, he marched to the north, where, in May, 1777, he was promoted to the rank of captain. He was subsequently engaged in the skirmish at Iron Hill with the light infantry, and fought in the memorable battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth.

That part of the Virginia line, which was not ordered to Charleston (S. C.,) being in effect dissolved by the expiration of the term of enlistment of the soldiers, the officers (among whom was Captain MARSHALL) were, in the winter of 1779-80, directed to return home, in order to take charge of such men as the state legislature should raise for them. It was during this season of inaction that he availed himself of the opportunity of attending a course of law lectures given by Mr. Wythe, afterwards chancellor of the state; and a course of lectures on natural philosophy, given by Mr. Madison, president of William and Mary College in Virginia. He left this college in the summer vacation of 1780, and obtained a license to practice law. In October he returned to the army, and continued in service until the termination of Arnold's invasion. After this period, and before the invasion of Phillips, in February, 1781, there being a redundancy of officers in the Virginia line, he resigned his commission.

During the invasion of Virginia, the courts of law were suspended, and were not reöpened until after the capitulation of Lord Cornwallis Immediately after that event Mr. MARSHALL commenced the practice of law, and soon rose into distinction at the bar.

In the spring of 1782, he was elected a member of the state legislature, and in the autumn of the same year a member of the executive council. In January, 1783, he married Miss Ambler, the daughter of a gentleman who was then treasurer of the state, and to whom he had become attached before he left the army This lady lived for nearly fifty years after her marriage, to partake and to enjoy the distinguished honors of her husband. In 1784, he resigned his seat at the council board, in order to return to the bar: