The Green Ba Vol. X.
No. n.
BOSTON.
November, 1898.
WILLIAM WIRT. By Henry M. Dowling of the Indianapolis Bar. OIXTY years ago the name of William and vitality of his genius, his indefatigable O Wirt was familiar to the American industry, and irreproachable character. public as that of a cultured gentleman, a He was born a Southerner. By nature thorough scholar, an effective orator, and a imaginative and vivacious, his youth was brilliant and successful lawyer. To-day his spent amid surroundings highly congenial fame is confined to the few who, in advanced to his singularly warm-hearted and buoyant years, treasure the rumors of his greatness disposition. His birthplace, the small town received in childhood, or whose knowledge of Bladensburg, Maryland, was, in 1772, a of his ability is derived from the meager re thriving village, with its schoolmaster, a typi ports of those important cases in which he cal gentleman of the old school, its rubicund, once participated. The brief reputation of well-to-do merchants, its French dancingthis man, who was intensely ambitious to master, and humble fishermen. Wirt, in his live in the minds and hearts of his country early childhood, lived in the midst of the men, proves the ephemeral character of hospitality and genial good-feeling of this much of the renown acquired at the bar. country town. He was there introduced to In stimulating the ambition of a friend, Mr. the stirring scenes of the Revolution, and so deeply was the idea of war impressed upon Wirt exhibited the motive force which con stantly impelled his own efforts: "If you his mind that he conceived it the natural find your spirits and attention beginning to and customary condition of the country. flag, think of being buried all your life in The martial spirit thus acquired in infancy obscurity, confounded with the gross and manifested itself during his mature manhood ignorant herd around you; " and in express in an enthusiastic, though ineffectual, part ing his horror at the thought of oblivion, he which he performed in the War of 18 12. said, " The idea has been always very dismal Wirt's elementary education was such as to me of dropping into the grave like a stone the grammar and classical schools of the into the water, and letting the waves of Time section could provide, supplemented by that close over me so as to leave no trace of the reading which his tastes and opportunities spot on which I fall." That which he so directed, ranging from Josephus to Peregrine much deprecated, threatens to overtake his Pickle. Before his general education could memory. be considered complete, he was installed as In the early part of the present century, private tutor in the house of a cultivated and hospitable gentleman of Maryland. His in William Wirt was the companion and com clinations, however, were for the bar, despite petitor of many of the ablest men the coun the seemingly insuperable obstacles of great try had produced, and his steady advance ment, both in his profession and in the respect reluctance at appearing conspicuously in of his fellow-citizens, attested the strength public, a thick and indistinct articulation, 4M
