Of his poate sud de Gestie transactions be remembrance; and 12× tr, »ngs, by supose and we hop ở to ser phy deficiency appear to love poemined flos princi GEORGE WYTHE. THE following account of Mr. WYTHE is much less circumstantial than is required by the dignity of the subject. The most important actions of his public life are so blended with the general history of the country, and his name so conjoined with the other patriots of the revolution, as to admit very little distinct or particular detail. Of his private and domestic transactions, he has himself left no remembrance; and his friends, by whose aid we hoped to supply the deficiency, appear to have postponed this principal object, to indulge in expressions of affection for his memory, and have furnished us rather a panegyric, than a history of his life. GEORGE WYTHE was born in the year 1726, in the county of Elizabeth City, on the shores of the Chesapeake, in the then colony of Virginia. He was descended from a respectable family, and inherited from his father, who was a farmer, an estate amply sufficient for all the purposes of ease and independence. His mother was a woman of great strength of mind, and of singular learning; amongst other acquirements, she possessed an accurate knowledge of the Latin language, and under her tuition he received the rudiments of his education. The instructions which he received at school, by some unaccountable negligence, were extremely limited; being confined to mere reading and writing the English language, with a very superficial knowledge of arithmetic. But his powerful mind, exerting its own efforts, soon supplied his defect of scholastic education; for, with the sole assistance afforded by his mother, he became one of the most accomplished Latin and Greek scholars of his country; and, by his unaided exertions, attained a very honourable proficiency in other branches of learning. To grammar, rhetoric, and logic, which he is said to have studied with great success, he added, at an early age, an extensive acquaintance with civil law; a profound knowledge of mathematics, as well as of natural and moral philosophy. Of these various attainments, so honourable to his industry and 202 533 |