Major-General Morgan, who commanded the troops detailed from Virginia, at first demurred, Morgan having been a brigadier in the old service of the Revolution, while the rank of Lee was that of lieutenant-colonel; but the hero of the Cowpens soon waived his claims of rank, with the same magnanimous sentiments which afterward distinguished the estimable Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, in the difference about rank, in the army of 1798, who said, "He [the chief] should know us best; we are all his children, and he must be the best judge of our respective merits."

With the advantages of a classical education, General Lee possessed taste, and distinguished powers of eloquence; and was selected, on the demise of Washington, to deliver the oration in the funeral solemnities decreed by Congress in honor of the Pater Patriæ. The oration having been but imperfectly committed to memory, from the very short time in which it was composed, somewhat impaired its effect upon the auditory; but, as a composition, it has only to be read to be admired, for the purity and elegance of its language, and the powerful appeal it makes to the hearts of its readers; and we will venture

equally unpopular, was passed by Congress in the spring of 1794; and when, soon after the session had closed, officers were sent out to the western districts of Pennsylvania to enforce the law, the inhabitants presented armed resistance. The insurrection became general throughout all that region, and in the vicinity of Pittsburgh many outrages were committed. Buildings were burned, mails were robbed, and government officers were abused. President Washington first issued two proclamations (August 7 and September 25), but without effect. All peaceable means for maintaining law being exhausted, he ordered out a large body of the militia of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. These marched to the insurgent district in October, under the command of General Lee, who was then the governor of Virginia. The military argument was effectual, and the rebellion was crushed.

* An account of the congressional proceedings on that occasion will be found in another part of this work.

to affirm, that it will rank among the most celebrated performances of those highly distinguished men who mounted the rostrum on that imposing occasion of national mourning.*

With his congressional career ended the better days of this highly-gifted man. An unhappy rage for speculation caused him to embark upon that treacherous stream, which gently, and almost imperceptibly, at first, but with sure and fearful rapidity at last, hurries its victims to the vortex of destruction. It was, indeed, lamentable to behold the venerable Morris and Lee, patriots, who, in the senates of liberty, and on her battle-fields, had done the "state such service," instead of enjoying a calm and happy evening of life, to be languishing in prison and in exile. Lee, after long struggling with adversity, sought in a foreign land a refuge from his many ills, where, becoming broken in health, he returned home to die. He reached the mansion of Greene, and fortune, relenting of her frowns, lit up his few remaining days with a smile. There, amid attentions the most consoling and kindly, surrounded by recollections of his old and loved commander, the most fond and endearing, the worn and wearied spirit of the patriot, statesman, and soldier of liberty, found rest in the grave.†

In one particular, Lee may be said to have excelled his illustrious cotemporaries Marshall, Madison, Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and Ames. It was in a surprising

* Lee's oration is printed in the appendix of this volume.

† General Lee was severely injured by a political mob in Baltimore, in 1812, and never recovered. He went to the West Indies with the hope of improving his health, but it continually declined. Early in 1818 he returned to the United States. He stopped at the house of Mrs. Shaw, the daughter of his old friend and companion-inarms, General Greene, on Cumberland island, off the coast of Georgia, where he died on the twenty-fifth of March, at the age of sixty-two years.

quickness of talent, a genius sudden, dazzling, and always at command, with an eloquence which seemed to flow unbidden. Seated at a convivial board, when the death of Patrick Henry was announced, Lee called for a scrap of paper, and, in a few moments, produced a striking and beautiful eulogium upon the Demosthenes of modern liberty. His powers of conversation were also fascinating in the extreme, possessing those rare and admirable qualities which seize and hold captive his hearers, delighting while they instruct. That Lee was a man of letters, a scholar who had ripened under a truly classical sun, we have only to turn to his work on the southern war, where he was, indeed, the "magna pars fui" of all which he relates-a work which well deserves to be ranked with the commentaries of the famed master of the Roman world, who, like our Lee, was equally renowned with the pen as the sword.* But there is a line, a single line, in the works of Lee, which would hand him over to immortality, though he had never written another. "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” will last while language lasts. What a sublime eulogium is pronounced in this noble line! So few words, and yet how illustrative are they of the vast and matchless character of Washington! They are words which will descend with the memory of the hero they are meant to honor, to the veneration of remotest posterity, and be graven on colossal statues of the Pater Patriæ in some future age.‡

* General Lee's Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, were written in 1808, and the last edition was printed in 1827. It is a work of great interest, and very reliable. It is now sought after by all collectors of works on American history, but can rarely be found, having been out print for many years. †This notable expression was used by General Lee in his oration on the character of Washington.

"

These words were cut upon the granite pedestal of Greenough's colossal

The attachment of Lee to Washington was like that of Hamilton, pure and enthusiastic-like that of the chivalric Laurens, devotional. It was in the praise of his "hero, his friend, and a country's preserver," that the splendid talent of Lee were often elicited, with a force and grandeur of eloquence wholly his own. The fame and memory of his chief was the fondly-cherished passion to which he clung amid the wreck of his fortunesthe hope, which gave warmth to his heart when all else around him seemed cold and desolate.

But shall the biographer's task be complete, when the faults of his subject are not taken in the account? Of faults, perhaps the subject of our memoir had many; yet how admirable is the maxim handed down to us from the ancients, “de mortuis nil, misi bonum." Let the faults of Lee be buried in his distant grave-let the turf of oblivion close over the failings of him, whose early devotion to liberty, in liberty's battles-whose eloquence in her senates, and historical memoirs of her times of trial, shed a lustre on his country in the young days of the Republic; and when the Americans of some future date shall search amid the records of their early history for the lives of illustrious men, who flourished in the age of Washington, high on a brilliant scroll will they find inscribed, Henry Lee, a son of Virginia-the patriot, soldier, and historian of the Revolution, and orator and statesman of the Republic.

statue" of Washington (now within the square, eastward of the Federal capitol) fifteen years after this prophecy was written.

CHAPTER XVII.

BIRTH-NIGHT BALLS AND THE THEATRE.

INSTITUTION OF THE BIRTH-NIGHT BALL-CELEBRATION OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAYWASHINGTON'S ATTENDANCE UPON THE BALLS-DECORATIONS OF THE LADIES-THE MINUET-WASHINGTON'S LAST DANCE - HIS LAST ATTENDANCE AT A BALL-WASHINGTON FOND OF THE THEATRE- RECEPTION OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE THEATRE- THE THEATRICAL COMPANY-MUSIC ON THE OCCASION OF WASHINGTON'S ATTENDANCE- DESPOTISM OF THE PIT AND GALLERY-REVOLUTIONARY SENTIMENT.

THE birth-night ball was instituted at the close of the Revolutionary war, and its first celebration, we believe, was held in Alexandria.* Celebrations of the birth-night soon became general in all the towns and cities, the twenty-second of February, like the fourth of July, being considered a national festival, while the peculiarity attending the former was, that its parade and ceremonies always closed with the birth-night ball. In the larger cities, where public balls were customary, the birth-night, in the olden time, as now, was the gala assembly of the season. It was attended by all the beauty and fashion, and at the seat of government, by the foreign ambassadors, and by strangers of distinction. The first president

The French officers who served in America during the Revolution, appear to have celebrated the birthday of Washington immediately after the war. This fact is indicated by the following paragraph in a letter written by Washington to the Count de Rochambeau, in the spring of 1784. He says, "The flattering distinction paid to the anniversary of my birthday, is an honor for which I dare not attempt to express my gratitude. I confide in your excellency's sensibility to interpret my feelings for this, and for the obliging manner in which you are pleased to announce it."