Mr. Randolph discoursed on these two points in a most amusing manner,
displaying all the impudence and ignorance of the tory, inextricably
mingled with the good sense and wit of the man. "General Jackson
cannot write," said a friend. "Granted," replied he. "General Jackson
cannot write because he was never taught; but his competitor cannot
write because he was not teachable." He made a bold remark in one of
his Jacksonian harangues. "The talent which enables a man to write a
book or make a speech has no more relation to the leading of an army
or a senate, than it has to the dressing of a dinner." He pronounced a
fine eulogium on the Duke of Marlborough, one of the worst spellers in
Europe, and then asked if gentlemen would have had that illustrious
man "superseded by a Scotch schoolmaster." It was in the same
ludicrous harangue that he uttered his famous joke upon those schools
in which young ladies were said to be "finished." "Yes," he exclaimed,
"_finished_ indeed; finished for all the duties of a wife, or mother,
or mistress of a family." Again he said:
"There is much which it becomes a second-rate man to know,
which a first-rate man ought to be ashamed to know.
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