I was never known to receive the successes of my own country
with trembling, with sighs, with my eyes bent to the earth,
like those impious men who are the defamers of their
country, as if by such conduct they were not defamers of
themselves."
Is it Clay, or is it Demosthenes? Or have we made a mistake, and
copied a passage from the speech of a Unionist of 1865?
After serving four years as clerk and amanuensis, barely earning a
subsistence, Clay was advised by his venerable friend, the Chancellor,
to study law; and a place was procured for him in the office of the
Attorney-General of the State. In less than a year after formally
beginning his studies he was admitted to the bar. This seems a short
preparation; but the whole period of his connection with Chancellor
Wythe was a study of the law. The Chancellor was what a certain other
chancellor styles "a full man," and Henry Clay was a receptive youth.
When he had obtained his license to practise he was twenty years of
age. Debating-society fame and drawing-room popularity do not, in an
old commonwealth like Virginia, bring practice to a lawyer of twenty.
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