son of the 2d William Randolph, was Clerk of the House of Burgesses and Attorney-General. Peyton, brother of John, was Speaker of the House of Burgesses and President of the first Congress held at Philadelphia. Thomas Mann Randolph, great grandson of William, of Turkey Island, was a member of the Virginia Convention, 1775, from Goochland. Beverly Randolph was Member of Assembly, from Cumberland, during the Revolution, and member of the Convention that formed the Federal Constitution, and of the Virginia Convention that ratified it, Governor of the State of Virginia and Secretary of State of the United States. Robert Randolph, son of Peter; Richard Randolph, grandson of Peter; and David Meade Randolph, son of the 2d Richard, were cavalry officers in the War of the Revolution.

John Randolph, of Roanoke, was grandson of the 1st Richard. Many distinguished families in Virginia, including Thomas Marshall, father of the Chief Justice, were descended from Randolph of Turkey Island.

Jane Bolling, great-grand-daughter of Pocahontas, married Richard Randolph, of Curles. John Randolph, Jr., of Roanoke, seventh child of that marriage, married Frances Bland, and our hero, John Randolph, of Roanoke, was one of the children of this union.

The Randolphs were proud of their patrician blood, and named their respective seats with sounding titles of distinction; such as Thomas, of Tuckahoe; Isham, of Dungeness; Richard, of Curles; and John, of Roanoke. Other branches of this famous family had their splendid mansions at Turkey Island, Bremo, Varina, Wilton, and

Chatswort, venerable localities eagerly contemplated by the curious traveller on James River. The crest of the arms of the Virginia Randolphs is an antelope's head.

John Randolph's early education, according to his own account, was very irregular. He was sent to a country school at an early age, where he acquired the rudiments of the Latin and Greek languages. His health failing, his mother sent him to Bermuda, where he remained more than a year, losing all his Greek, but reading with great avidity many of the best English authors. After his return to the United States, he was sent with his brother Theodorick, to Princeton College, where they commenced their studies in March, 1787. In the year 1788, after the death of his mother, he was sent to college in New York, but returned to Virginia, in 1790. In the same year he went to Philadelphia, to study law in the office of Edmund Randolph, then recently appointed Attorney-General of the United States. But his law studies scarcely extended beyond the first book of Blackstone. He became of age in June, 1794, up to which time he appears to have led an irregular, desultory life, with a residence as fluctuating as his object of pursuit was undecided.

In Greek literature, John Randolph never was a proficient; in Latin he was better read, and quoted its treasures with promptness and accuracy. But with the best English classics he was thoroughly and comprehensively acquainted. In his "Letters to Dudley," he speaks of his education as follows: "I think you have never read Chaucer. Indeed, I have sometimes blamed myself for not cultivating your imagination when you