A SUPPRESSED STATESMAN OF OUR EARLY REPUBLIC.
IN the rooms of the Virginia Historical Society there is a portrait so blurred that the face is repulsive. It is the alleged portrait of a man described by his contemporary, William Wirt, as of "a figure large and portly; his features uncommonly fine; his dark eyes and his whole countenance lighted up with an expression of the most conciliatory sensibility; his attitudes dignified and commanding; his gesture graceful and easy; his voice perfect harmony; and his whole manner that of an accomplished and engaging gentleman." The portrait at Richmond, repudiated when painted, suffered all manner of ill usage; and its fate resembles that of the man for whom its dauber meant it,—Edmund Randolph. Painted by partisanship as he was not, his name has been marred by every prejudice, and his fame left to his country in conventionalized disfigurement. The Centenary of our Constitution has already brought a gallery of fresh historical portraits of its leading framers, but one panel, like that of Falieri at Venice, is vacant; there is no portraiture of the statesman to whom the initiation and ratification of the Constitution were especially due, except a blackened effigy hung up by enemies in a moment of partisan passion. This traditional effigy of Edmund Randolph I have examined by the light of facts and documents to which historians appear to have had no access, with growing conviction that the nation knows little of a very interesting figure of its early history.
The Randolph family, before its appearance in Virginia, had gained distinction through Thomas Randolph the poet (1605-34), the friend of Ben Jonson and his circle.
Such was his genius, like the eye's quick wink,
He could write sooner than another think;
His play was fancy's flame, a lightning wit,
So shot that it could sooner pierce than hit.
A nephew of the brilliant Oxonian thus described by Feltham emigrated from Warwickshire and settled on Turkey Island in the James River, Virginia, with Mary Isham his wife. From these came branches so numerous that they were distinguished by their places of residence, and among their descendants were Chief-Justice Marshall, Jefferson, Lightfoot Lee, John Randolph of Roanoke, and Stith the historian. Sir John Randolph, King's Attorney in Virginia a hundred and fifty years ago, was presently succeeded in that office by his son John, father of Edmund. Edmund was born August 10. 1753, at Williamsburg,—the old capital. Never did fairer prospect open before youth than that which welcomed this heir of a wealthy and famous house when, at the age of eighteen, his career at William and Mary,—then second to no American college—culminated in an oration commemorative of its Founders, which the (acuity published (1771) in
