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life led them away
from the profession. The association was cordial and uninterrupted
throughout, whether professional or social; and the latter did not
cease until the grave closed upon M'Cord. While in the law, however,
although assiduously addicted to the study of it, his heart
acknowledged a divided allegiance with literature; which he seemed to
compromise at length by addicting himself to cognate studies--of
political economy, the jural sciences, and political ethics.

When he left the bar, and retired from the more strenuous pursuits of
life, he found occupation and delight in these favorite
studies--stimulated and enhanced by the vigorous co-operation and warm
sympathy of his highly accomplished wife, who not only participated in
the taste for, but shared in the labors of, these studies--and amidst
these congenial and participated pursuits the latter years of his life
were passed. . . . . As his early life was amidst struggle and
bustle--the _fumum strepitumque_ of the public arena--so his latter
years were amidst the repose of an elegant and lettered retirement, in
his well-cultivated fields and amongst his books. His last moments
were solaced by the tender assiduities of his congenial helpmate, of
his children, and of his old and long-familiar friends.

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY.

~1795=1870.~

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and received
an excellent early education. He studied law, and was much in public
life; he filled a large place in his native city as a man of culture
and a public-spirited citizen. He served in the State Assembly and in
Congress, and was Secretary of the Navy under President Fillmore when
several important expeditions took place, that of Perry to Japan, of
Lynch to Africa, of Kane to the North Pole. Kennedy Channel was named
in his honor by Dr. Kane.

He made several trips to Europe and while in Paris became well
acquainted with Thackeray. "The Virginians" was appearing as a serial,
and the printers needed a new chapter. Thackeray said to Kennedy, "I
wish you would write one for me."--"Well," said Kennedy, "so I will if
you will give me the run of the story." And he really wrote the fourth
chapter of Vol. II., describing Warrington's escape and return home
through the region about the Cumberland, which he knew well.

He drew up the plan of the Peabody Institute, and was one of the
Trustees; to it he bequeathed his library and manuscripts, the latter
not to be published till 1900. He aided Poe in his early literary life
and was always his friend. He died at Newport, whither he had gone for
his health, and was buried in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore. See
Life by Tuckerman.

WORKS.

 Essays in Red Book, [a satirical journal edited by him and Peter
 Hoffman Cruse].
 Swallow Barn, [novel of Virginia life].
 Horse-Shoe Robinson, Tale of Tory Ascendancy in South Carolina.
 Rob of the Bowl, a Legend of St. Inigoes.
 Annals of Quodlibet, [political satires].
 Memoirs of the late William Wirt.
 Addresses, reports, &c.

Mr. Kennedy's writings were very popular during his life-time and
deserve to be so still, for his three novels give graphic and
excellent pictures of their times, and are true in their historical
details, while his Memoirs of Wirt are quite as interesting. His
"Cousin Lucretia's" remedy for chills was actually used by his
grandmother, Mrs. Pendleton of Virginia (see Tuckerman's Life of
Kennedy); and Horse-Shoe Robinson was a real hero of the Revolution
whom Kennedy met in upper South Carolina, 1818.

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN IN VIRGINIA.

(_From Swallow Barn._)

The master of this lordly domain is Frank Meriwether. He is now in the
meridian of life--somewhere about forty-five. Good cheer and an easy
temper tell well upon him. The first has given him a comfortable,
portly figure, and the latter a contemplative turn of mind, which
inclines him to be lazy and philosophical.

He has some right to pride himself on his personal appearance, for he
has a handsome face, with a dark blue eye and a fine intellectual
brow. His head is growing scant of hair on the crown, which induces
him to be somewhat particular in the management of his locks in that
locality, and these are assuming a decided silvery hue.

It is pleasant to see him when he is going to ride to the Court House
on business occasions. He is then apt to make his appearance in a coat
of blue broad-cloth, astonishingly glossy, and with an unusual amount
of plaited ruffle strutting through the folds of a Marseilles
waistcoat. A worshipful finish is given to this costume by a large
straw hat, lined with green silk. There is a magisterial fulness in
his garments which betokens condition in the world, and a heavy bunch
of seals, suspended by a chain of gold, jingles as he moves,
pronouncing him a man of superfluities.

. . . . .

I am told he keeps the peace as if he commanded a garrison, and
administers justice like a Cadi.

He has some claim to supremacy in this last department; for during
three years he smoked segars in a lawyer's office in Richmond, which
enabled him to obtain a bird's-eye view of Blackstone and the Revised
Code. Besides this, he was a member of a Law Debating Society, which
ate oysters once a week in a cellar; and he wore, in accordance with
the usage of the most prominent law-students of that day, six cravats,
one over the other, and yellow-topped boots, by which he was
recognized as a blood of the metropolis. Having in this way qualified
himself to assert and maintain his rights, he came to his estate, upon
his arrival at age, a very model of landed gentlemen. Since that time
his avocations have had a certain literary tincture; for having
settled himself down as a married man, and got rid of his superfluous
foppery, he rambled with wonderful assiduity through a wilderness of
romances, poems, and dissertations, which are now collected in his
library, and, with their battered blue covers, present a lively type
of an army of continentals at the close of the war, or a hospital of
invalids. These have all at last given way to the newspapers--a
miscellaneous study very attractive and engrossing to country
gentlemen. This line of study has rendered Meriwether a most perilous
antagonist in the matter of legislative proceedings.

A landed proprietor, with a good house and a host of servants, is
naturally a hospitable man. A guest is one of his daily wants. A
friendly face is a necessary of life, without which the heart is apt
to starve, or a luxury without which it grows parsimonious. Men who
are isolated from society by distance, feel these wants by an
instinct, and are grateful for an opportunity to relieve them. In
Meriwether the sentiment goes beyond this. It has, besides, something
dialectic in it. His house is open to everybody, as freely almost as
an inn. But to see him when he has had the good fortune to pick up an
intelligent, educated gentleman, and particularly one who listens
well!--a respectable, assentatious stranger!--All the better if he 

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