 | John Randolph |  |
RANDOLPH'S MINOR TASTES.
During the early years of his public life, Randolph drank
but little more than wine and coffee. His dwelling on his
Charlotte farm was a single-story wooden building, with
two rooms down stairs and two more under the roof. He
had no unnecessary furniture, but what he had was of the
neatest kind and generally of the best materials. One of
his favorite breakfasts was coffee, butter and honey, with
cold bacon.
Randolph was particularly fond of good coffee—good
and strong. If an inferior article was offered his sarcasm
had no bounds. On one occasion, while stopping at a hotel,
a cup of so-called coffee was set at his plate. One glance of
his eye and he beckoned the waiter.
"Servant," said he, "if this be coffee, give me tea, and
if it be tea, give me coffee."
Randolph was as fond of horses as Webster was of cattle
and imported not a few blooded English stallions and
mares. He occasionally put horses on the turf, but without
much success.
It is related that while attending a famous race in his
day between "Eclipse" and "Henry"—a Northern and a
Southern horse—a stranger stepped up to him and offered
to bet five hundred dollars on the former.
Of course Randolph was Southern to the core.
"Done," he said promptly.
"Colonel Thompson will hold the stakes," replied the
stranger.
"But who will hold Colonel Thompson?" promptly inquired
Mr. Randolph.
And Colonel Thompson's friend promptly retreated.
Randolph was a skillful hunter and one of the best marksmen
in the South. His love of dogs was great and whenever
he made a visit to a friend's house he usually brought
them with him. One who knows says: "They were suffered
to poke their noses into everything and go where they
pleased, from kitchen to parlor. They were a great annoyance
to ladies and housekeepers. This, however, was quietly
have been regarded as an insult to himself."
Randolph had a fine taste for music, which he says he inherited
from his grandmother. This he never cultivated,
"owing," he adds, "in a great measure to the low estimate
that I saw the fiddling, piping gentry held in when I was
young, but partly to the torture that my poor brother used
to inflict upon me when essaying to learn to play upon the
violin, now about forty years ago.
"I have a taste for painting, but never attempted drawing.
I had read a great deal upon it and had seen a few good
pictures before I went to England. There I astonished some
of their connoisseurs as much by the facility with which I
pointed out the hand of a particular master, without reference
to the catalogue, as by my exact knowledge of the
geography, topography and statistics of the country.
"For poetry I have had a decided taste from my childhood,
yet never attempted to write one line of it. This taste
I have sedulously cultivated. I believe I was deterred from
attempting poetry by the verses of Billy Mumford and some
other taggers of rime, which I heard praised (I allude to
espistles in verse, written at 12 or 13 years old) but secretly
in my heart despised. I also remembered to have heard
some poetry of Lord Chatham and of Mr. Fox, which I
thought then, and still think, to be unworthy of their illustrious
names—and before Horace had taught me that `neither
gods, nor men, nor booksellers' stalls could endure middling
poetry' I thought none but an inspired pen should
attempt the task."
| John Randolph | |