Mrs. Clay, mother of Henry, was married a second time to Captain Henry Watkins, a man not unworthy of her, who seems to have taken a fatherly in ́terest in the family. He was partial to Henry, and doubtless perceived that he was a boy of uncommon promise. In 1791, when Henry was fourteen years of age, he was taken into Mr. Richard Denny's store, at Richmond, Va., for the usual functions of boys behind the counter. But his step-father was not satisfied with Henry's place in Mr. Denny's store, judging him, very likely, to be worthy of a higher destiny than that of a tradesman.

Henry Clay would no doubt have made a good merchant, and a respectable citizen of Richmond, or any other town. But Captain Watkins had an intimate friend, Colonel Thomas Tinsley, member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, whose brother, Peter Tinsley, Esq., was clerk of the high court of chancery of Virginia, at Richmond. A desk clerkship in the office of this court was considered a very desirable place for a youth. Nothing was more natural, or more easy, than for Captain Watkins to make interest with his friend, Colonel Tinsley, that he might apply to his brother to take Henry into his office. Peter Tinsley replied that there was no opening for the lad. "Never mind, "said the Colonel, “you must take him ;" and so he did.

The account given by Roland Thomas, the senior clerk in this office, of Henry's first entrance among them, is interesting. The first impression of the other clerks was, that they were to have a fine butt for ridicule, and that no little fun was in store for them. The boy's face was not over handsome, whatever might lie under the surface; nor had his manners been transformed into the urbanities of Richmond, though he had been in Mr. Denny's store about a year. His mother had dressed him up in a new suit of "Figginy" (Virginia) cloth, cotton and silk mixed, complexion of pepper and salt, with clean linen well starched, and the tail of his coat standing out from his legs at an angle of forty-five degrees, like that of a dragoon. The clerks looked askance at each other, and were not a little amused at the apparently awkward chap who had been thrust in upon them.

Thus "accoutred and thus observed, the willing, ambitious, and somewhat proud boy, was first put to the task of copying. It was not long, however, before these laughers, at first appearances, came in contact with the mind of this new-comer. He had a tongue and could reply. Luckily for them, they had not proceeded to any rûdeness, nor given occasion of offence, before their first impressions were supplanted by sentiments of respect. Whatever they said to him he was always ready for, and they soon found that he was more than a match for any one of them. Superior intellect easily acquires its position in any society, whether of boys, youths, or men. Though the youngest

clerk, he was not long in gaining the highest place in the regard of his fellows.

Besides Henry's assiduous attention to his duties in the office, Mr. Thomas, then senior clerk in the office, afterwards clerk of Henry county, Kentucky, has been accustomed to speak of his habits out of the office, when in command of his own time, from which it appears, that, while the other clerks habitually went out in pursuit of amusement at night, Henry kept company with his books; that, when they came home, they found him reading, and that they left him reading when they went to bed.

The agency of Captain Watkins, through his friend, Colonel Tinsley, in obtaining a place for Henry in Peter Tinsley's office, trivial as it might at first and in itself alone appear, was not more fortunate for the boy than the habitual calls of the venerable Chancellor "Wythe, whose occasions led him frequently to Mr. Tinsley's rooms, where young Henry attracted his attention, and induced the chancellor to inquire about him. As Henry was in some degree a supernumerary clerk, Mr. Tinsley was easily persuaded to loan a portion of his time to the chancellor, who solicited his services as an amanuensis in recording his decisions, and in other functions of a private secretary. A connexion, thus accidentally formed, continued four years, Henry being nominally in the office of the clerk of the high court of chancery, but chiefly employed in the office of the chancellor.

The advantages which Henry Clay enjoyed under the pedagogue of the "Slashes," were certainly not very great; nor was his year in the store of Mr. Denny very improving. But the moment he entered the office of the clerk of the high court of chancery of Virginia, he began to find his own element; and from the hour when Chancellor Wythe took him by the hand, his fortune was decided, and he was made for life. He required nothing but chance, opportunity, means, books, and the right books; and no man could have been a better guide than he into whose hands he so happily fell. In the choice of an amanuensis, the chancellor found a companion, though a stripling. He beheld in this youth the genius of an aspiring, all-gråsping mind -a mind which he could not lead, himself before, but only guide and prompt, himself behind. He had only to name a book to his pupil, and the next time he saw him he would find him not only possessed of its contents, but profoundly versed in them and extending his thoughts far beyond his instructors.

If any one would know how and where Henry Clay laid the foundation of his greatness and fame, he is answered in the facts that he was for years the pupil and companion of Chancellor Wythe, with all the advantages of his own aptitudes for improvement, and that the chancellor, discovering the high promise of his °protege, was no less ambitious to fit him for his destiny than he himself was to attain it.

Possibly Henry Clay might have done better under the "systematic instructions" of a university; but that is not certain. There may be reasons for supposing that the school he enjoyed was the best possible for his disposition and character, and for the destination of his future life. It is even possible, that without this training, he would have lived and died unknown to fame.

Who ever discovered Mr. Clay's defects of education? The only man who ever dared to taunt him on that account, was the Hon. John Randolph, on the floor of Congress, to which Mr. Clay replied: "The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say, that in one point. at least, he coincided with me, in a humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquisitions. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate. I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects. But, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say it was more my misfortune than my fault. But, however I regret my want of ability to furnish the gentleman with a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument." REV. CALVIN COLTON.

CXXII.-CORNELIA AND GRACCHUS.

GRACCHUS.

WOLVES breed not lambs, nor can the lioness
Rear fawns among her litter. You but chide
The spirit, mother, which is born from you.

CORNELIA.

Curb it, my son; and watch against ambition!
Half de'mon and half god, she oft misleads
With the bold face of virtue. I know well

The breath of discontent is loud in Rome;

And a hoarse murmuring vengeance smoulders there
Against the tyrannous rule which, iron shod,
Doth trample out man's life. The crisis comes,
But oh! beware my son, how you shall force it!

GRACCHUS.

Nay, let it come, that dreaded day of doom,
When by the audit of his cruel wrongs

Heaped by the rich oppressor of the crowd
Of struggling victims, he must stand condemned
To vomit forth the ill-got gains which gorge
His luxury to repletion. Let it come!

The world can sleep no longer. Reason wakes
To know man's rights, and forward progress points.

CORNELIA.

By reason led, and peaceful wisdom nursed,
All progress is for good. But the deep curse
Of bleeding nations follows in the track
Of mad ambition, which doth cheat itself
To find a glory in its lust of rule;
Which piling private ill on public wrong,
Beneath the garb of patriotism hides

Its large-mawed cravings; and would thoughtless plunge
To every change, however riot waits,

With feud intestine, by mad uproar driven
And red eyed murder, to reproach the deed!
Death in its direst forms doth wait on such.

GRACCHUS.

Man lives to die, and there's no better way
To let the shackled spirit find its freedom
Than in a glorious combat 'gainst oppression.
I would not grudge the breath lost in the struggle.

CORNELIA.

Nor I, when duty calls. I am content,
May but my son prove worthy of the crisis;
Not shrinking from the trial, nor yet leaping
Beyond the marked out line of licensed right;
Curbing his passions to his duty's rule;
Giving his country all,-life, fortune, fame,
And only clutching back, with miser's care,
His all untainted honor. But take heed!
The world doth set itself on stilts, to wear
The countenance of some brighter, better thing.
'Tis well to seek this wisely; but with haste
Grasping too high, like a child beyond its reach,
It trips in the aspiring, and thus falls
To lowlier condition. Rashness drags
Remorse and darkest evil in her train.
Pause, ere the cry of suffering pleads to Heaven
Against this fearful mockery of right;

This license wild, which smothers liberty
While fêigning to embrace it.

GRACCHUS.

Thought fantastic

Doth drapery evil thus with unsketched ills.
No heart-sick maid nor dream-struck boy am I
There's that in man
Ever he,

To scare myself with these.

Doth long to rise by nature.

Couching in 'lethargy, doth wrong himself.

CORNELIA.

Most true and more. I reverence human mind;
And with a mingled love and pride I kneel
To nature's inborn majesty in man.
But as I reverence, therefore would I lend
My feeble aid, this mighty power to lead
To its true aim and end. Most often 'tis
When crowds do wander wide of right, and fall
To foul misuse of highest purposes,

The madness of their leaders drags them on!
I would not check aspiring, justly poised;

But rather bid you "on"-where light is clear

And your track plainly marked. I scorn the slang
Of "greedy populace," and "dirty crowd,"
Nor slander thus the nature which I bear.

Men in the aggregate not therefore cease

Still to be men; and where untaught they fall,
It is a noble duty, to awake

The heart of truth, that slumbers in them still.

It is a glorious sight to rouse the soul,
The reasoning heart that in a nation sleeps!
And Wisdom is a laggard at her task
When but in closet speculations toiling
She doth forget to share her thought abroad,
And make mankind her hêir.

MRS. L. S. "M'CORD.

CXXIII." SHE HAS OUTLIVED HER USEFULNESS."

Nor long since, a good looking man, in middle life, came to our door asking for "the minister." When informed that he was out of town, he seemed disappointed and anxious. On being questioned as