Excerpt from An Address on the Life and Character of the Late Richard H. Menefee: Delivered Before the Law Society of Transylvania University, in the Chapel of Morrison College in Lexington, April 12th, 1841

The shaft 18 sped, the arrow's in 1115 breast. Death canonizes a great name and the seal of the sepulchre excludes from its slumbering tenant the breath of envy. I'might fling the reins to fancy and indulge in the utmost latitude ofpanegyric without offence; the praises of the dead fret not the living. But I am not here upon an ordinary occasion to pro nounce a pompous eulogy rn set terms of a vague and general praise. You have directed me to draw the life and character, to delineate the very form and figure of the mind of one, whose moral likeness you wish to inscribe in enduring and faithful colors upon your archives, not only as a memorial of one loved and lost, but as an example and model for the study and imita tion of yourselves and successors. It is not a sample of rhetoric, but a perpetuation of his image, that you seek, as the monument best suited to the subject, as a real and historic standard by which the youth of after times may measure and elevate the idea and the stature of excellence. And surely, if ever there were mirror in which young genius could glass and fashion itself; if ever there were mould in which the forming intellect could be cast in the just and full proportions of graceful energy and per feet strength; he, of whom we are to speak this day, was that mirror and that mould. Would that the artist were equal to his work, would that his mind were fully up to the dignity of his subject; then indeed would] gladly obey your hrgh command, and give to posterity embodied in my land's language, the very form and lineament, the breathing attitude, the intrepid port, the beaming hope, the dauntless energy of a genius wlrrch poverty and disease could not impair, and which death itself destroyed, rather than subdued. Ah, had he but have lived! On that broad pedestal laid already, he would himself have raised a statue co lossal and historic, an individual likeness, but a national monu ment, than which never did the Grecian chisel, from out the sleeping marble, awake a form of grander proportions or of more enduring beauty. He meditated such a work and was fast gathering round him the eternal materials. Type of lris country, he sought to mingle himself with her existence and her fame and to transmit his name to remote generations as an epit ome of her early genius and her history, and as the most signal example of the power of her institutions, not only for the pro duction, but for the most perfect developement of the greatest talents and the most exalted virtue.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.