The brightest threads of human life, alas! are woven with sable. The United States ship Epervier, which bore the treaty and the liberated Americans homeward, went down unnoted in the depths of the Atlantic.

rican prisoners, who had fed on the At home his name was in equal bitterness of Algerian bondage, were honor; and again, popular triumphs led forth; and as they stood before and festivities were liberally awarded Decatur, imagination may fondly dwell him. He now took up his residence upon the scene, for no more honorable at Washington, and became engaged in trophy adorns the page of history. the duties of the board of navy comThe hero stood forth the crowned missioners, of which he was appointed champion of civilization. a member. This employment brought him again in a certain relation of opposition to Commodore Barron, who, suspended from the service after the affair of the Chesapeake, had not been again recalled to duty. He had absented himself from the country-was Decatur repeated his successful nego- a sore, disappointed man; and felt tiations at Tunis and Tripoli. His himself impelled to offer a challenge to very name was a powerful argument. Decatur, whose manly, well-intentioned "Why," asked the Bey of Algiers of discharge of duty, he chose to consider Noah, the consul, recalling the burning personal opposition. A correspondence of the Philadelphia, "why do they took place, running over several months send wild young men to treat with old from the early part of June. Decatur's powers?" A convincing demonstration portion of it is written with his usual with these barbarians was the sight in direct, manly emphasis. He is evidently their harbors of such English vessels impatient of the whole affair, which as the Macedonian and Guerriere, bear was not of a nature to interest his ing the American flag. "You told us," mind. To duelling itself, he is even said the Algerian prime minister to the indifferent. "I do not think," he says, British consul, "that the Americans "that fighting duels under any circumwould be swept from the seas in six stances can raise the reputation of any months by your navy, and now they man, and have long since discovered make war upon us with some of your that it is not even an unerring criteown vessels which they have taken." rion of personal courage." With this Tripoli knew Decatur still better. The opinion, he admits that "the man who liberation of ten Christian slaves at- makes arms his profession is not at tended his mediation. Eight of them, liberty to decline an invitation from a single family of Sicilians, father, mo- any person, who is not so far degraded ther and children, were taken home by as to be beneath his notice." In truth, their liberator to Syracuse. Decatur's Decatur had committed himself strongly praises were loudly sounded in the to the duel. In early life, while junior Mediterranean. The King of Naples lieutenant in the United States, at the gave him a royal reception at his villa, instigation of his father, he had chalon the bay of Naples. lenged the mate of an Indiaman who

had insulted him in an affair of the ried to his house at Washington, where recruiting service. Somers had acted as he died that night. His last thoughts. his friend, and he had shot his antago- were of his wife, to whom he be nist. Again, while on service in the queathed his property. The intelliMediterranean, at Barcelona, he was gence struck a mingled feeling of pity with difficulty restrained from chal- and indignation into the heart of the lenging a Spanish officer who was country. Sad were the distinguished grossly in wrong, and we have seen his honors paid to his memory at his participation in the affair at Malta. burial, at the seat founded by Joel Indeed, it was only a few months Barlow-the beautiful Kalorama near before that he had acted as the secre- Washington; honors, alas! maimed tary of Commodore Perry. We are in Congress by the manner of his not the advocates of duelling under any circumstances, but certainly in such a case as this he was not a man to be challenged. A thought of his country, of the honors she had conferred, of the pedestal upon which she had placed him, should have stayed his hand. George Washington should not have been more unassailable.

fall.

The figure of Decatur is known by many popular engravings to his coun trymen. A contemporary, in the " Analectic Magazine," thus describes him in 1813: "He is now in the very prime of life, pleasing in his person, of an intelligent and interesting countenance, and an eye in whose mild and brilliant We have hardly patience to pursue lustre, spirit, enterprise and urbanity the details of this miserable affair. are happily blended. His deportment It was finally arranged that the par- is manly and unassuming, and his manties should meet at Bladensburg, ners peculiarly gentle and engaging; near Washington, on the twenty- uniting the polish of a gentleman with second of March, 1820. Commodore the frank simplicity of the sailor." Bainbridge was the second of Decatur, Captain Jesse D. Elliott of Barron. The duel was fought at the appointed place, at eight paces, with pistols. The words one, two, three, were given by Bainbridge; at the instant both fired together; Barron fell wounded in the hip, Decatur mortally struck in the abdomen. "He wished," he said, "that he had fallen in the defence of his country." He was car

His temper, we are told, was naturally excitable; but, as he advanced in life, was brought under perfect control. He was generous, humane, feeling. He had both the mental and bodily habits of the soldier-the quiet, ardent mind, in the lithe, active, frugally nurtured body. No man had a finer sense of honor, in the better meaning of the word-a contempt and hatred of fraud and perfidy.

WILLIAM WIRT.

THE biography of William Wirt, greedy devourers of novels, to the written by Mr. John P. Kennedy, is a surprise of persons on a lower level of warm and honest tribute to a man mental training. It will indeed be who united the charms of literary sen- found, we think, as a general rule, the sibility and the graces of character more profound the culture, the more with the pursuits of legal and political catholic the taste; the more of insight life. The union is not uncommon in for one great occupation, the better dismembers of the legal profession, espe- position for others. Marshall, Kent cially with those of the higher grade, and Story, among others, afford nowhere a genial philosophic culture table examples of the love of letters as bestows vitality upon otherwise bar a support and relief to the rigid de ren principles. A good lawyer is none mands of the bar and the bench. the worse for a keen participation in William Wirt was born at Bladensliterary enjoyments. The refinements burg, Maryland, November 8, 1772. of authorship are not to be neglected His father, Jacob Wirt, was an emi in the training of the mind, even grant from Switzerland, who came to alongside of the subtilties of the law. America some years before the Revolu It is necessary, too, for a counsellor to tion, and established himself at the know many things besides the mere place of his son's birth as a tavernletter of his text-book. He must study keeper. William was the youngest of in particular the powers of language, the family. He was but two years old and for this purpose he will find no when his father died, and at eight, on better instructor outside of his techni- the death of his mother, who was by birth calities than the precision of classic a German, was left to the care of an poets and prose writers. He must uncle. The influence of his childhood know the characters and motives of at Bladensburg, then a place of consimen, a species of knowledge in which derable activity, appeared upon the Locke and Fielding are more available whole to have been happy, and the than Coke and Littleton. He must, to boy's education was well provided for pursue his own studies with effect, in various schools in Maryland. His have an interchange of books and in- childhood embraced the period of the tervals of repose for the mind. Hence war, and he retained in his juvenile regreat lawyers have sometimes been collections a vivid impression of the