Turning from the picture of the gifted but dissipated royal Governor, it is a relief to glance at the character given by Jefferson of the equally gifted but pure and virtuous George Wythe. We can not refrain from giving the conclusion of his sketch of Wythe, completing, as it does, the picture of the "_partie quarrée_" which so often met at the Governor's hospitable board:
No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe. His virtue was of the purest tint; his integrity inflexible, and his justice exact; of warm patriotism, and, devoted as he was to liberty, and the natural and equal rights of man, he might truly be called the Cato of his country, without the avarice of the Roman; for a more disinterested man never lived. Temperance and regularity in all his habits gave him general good health, and his unaffected modesty and suavity of manners endeared him to every one. He was of easy elocution; his language chaste, methodical in the arrangement of his matter, learned and logical in the use of it, and of great urbanity in debate; not quick of apprehension, but, with a little time, profound in penetration and sound in conclusion. In his philosophy he was firm; and neither troubling, nor, perhaps, trusting, any one with his religious creed, he left the world to the conclusion that that religion must be good which could produce a life of such exemplary virtue. His stature was of the middle size, well formed and proportioned, and the features of his face were manly, comely, and engaging. Such was George Wythe, the honor of his own and the model of future times.
Intense Application as a Student.--Habits of Study kept up during his Vacations.--First Preparations made for Building at Monticello.--Letters to his College Friend, John Page.-- Anecdote of Benjamin Harrison.--Jefferson's Devotion to his eldest Sister.--He witnesses the Debate on the Stamp Act.--First Meeting with Patrick Henry.--His Opinion of him.--His superior Education.--Always a Student.--Wide Range of Information.-- Anecdote.--Death of his eldest Sister.--His Grief.--Buries himself in his Books.--Finishes his Course of Law Studies.-- Begins to practise.--Collection of Vocabularies of Indian Languages.--House at Shadwell burnt.--Loss of his Library.-- Marriage.--Anecdote of his Courtship.--Wife's Beauty.--Bright Prospects.--Friendship for Dabney Carr.--His Talents.--His Death.--Jefferson buries him at Monticello.--His Epitaph.