Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/367

 Judge William Brockenbrough. :*.">!

A NOBLE LIFE.

Address Delivered at Tappahannock, Essex County, Va., July 17, 1899, Presenting to Essex Court a Portrait of

JUDGE WILLIAM BROCKENBROUatl.

BY JOHN P. McGUIRE.

Ladies and Gentlemen :

A Virginian in a Virginia assembly is always among friends; but for myself, and here in this county of Essex, as a wanderer returned to his home again, I stand among you and respectfully salute you all.

In the far dawn of human history, the blind old bard of Chios, with mental vision doubly clear, surveyed the course of human life, and this true picture drew:

" Like leaves on trees, the race of men are found, Some green in youth, some withering on the ground.



So generations in their course decay ; These come to life, and others pass away."

Countless as the leaves of the forest or the sands along the shore are the men who, in ages gone, have run their restless course on this round world, even as the busy ants run to and fro upon their hillock home. Brief parts the actors play; the scene changes and they dis- appear. I saw a clown upon a narrow stage. Decked in the tawdry tinsel of his craft, he entered on the one side, stopped one moment, and pointing to the other door, he said not knowing what he said: "I came in here to tell you that I am going out yonder." 'Alas! ' I thought, ' this is our human life.' ' Good health to-day, my friend," I say, and so the greeting passes, ' and now good morrow.'

Millions of millions have passed on; how few are remembered! And, of the few, why keep we record and memory of their names ? Why, and how long ? Let us examine the record, and from it learn that a noble life alone is memorable ; that man's life is made noble, his memory made sweet, his name engraven where it cannot be effaced, " not by might, nor by power," but by noble thoughts and noble purposes wrought out in noble deeds, even "by the works of