University of Virginia Library

XX. The Three American Professors

We have seen how insuperable were the obstacles which
Gilmer, though assisted by English and Scotch scientists
of influence, had to overcome in his endeavor to secure a
professor of natural history in the British universities.
On his return to the United States without success in obtaining
one, he offered, at Monroe's suggestion apparently,
the professorship to Torrey, of West Point Academy,
afterwards the distinguished incumbent of the chair

of botany and chemistry in the famous College of Physicians
and Surgeons, situated in New York City. Torrey
was unwilling to accept it, but recommended Dr. John
Patton Emmet, whose "talents as chemist and scholar
and standing as a gentleman, were," he said, "of the first
rank. I know him well and know none before him."
The interview between Gilmer and Emmet which followed
led ultimately to his selection to fill the vacant professorship.

Emmet was a nephew of the famous Irish patriot of the
same patronymic, and had first opened his eyes upon the
world in a house in Dublin. He was too young at the
time of his father's emigration to have acquired many
Celtic traits by actual personal intercourse with his fellow
Irishmen, but those characteristics in their finest aspects
had been inherited by him with his blood.[2] He was
eight years of age when, coming up from the sea, he saw
the Battery at New York for the first time. As soon as
eligible, he had succeeded in obtaining an appointment to
West Point Academy as a cadet, and before he left that
institution, had won so much reputation by his acquirements
as to be chosen an assistant instructor in mathematics.
His health had been permanently debilitated by
one attack after another of smallpox, measles, and whooping
cough, and in the hope of throwing off the physical
infirmity that resulted, he spent a year in the mild climate
of Naples; and while at leisure there, amused himself
with the study of Italian, and also of music, sculpture,
and painting. After his return to New York, so delicate
were his lungs still, that, during the harsh months of
winter, he kept closely under the roof of his own home.
When it was safe to go out of doors, he attended lectures

in the College of Physicians and Surgeons; and graduating
from that institution, received the degree of a
doctor of medicine. In the meanwhile, his inquiring and
speculative mind was very deeply interested in researches
in the science of chemistry. Setting up a laboratory in
his father's house, he pursued, with ardor, a line of experiments
that looked to the creation of highly valued
articles out of very ordinary materials,—such, for instance,
as the conversion of cheap wines into costly Madeira
and the like.

Hoping that a warmer climate would give a lasting
good turn to his health, which was still uncertain, he
settled in Charleston, in 1822, with the intention of residing
there permanently as a practitioner of medicine.
A course of lectures on the sciences which he delivered in
that city was received with popular applause; and this,
with his record at West Point Academy, led Professor
Torrey to recommend him to Gilmer for the chair of natural
history, when he himself was unable to accept it.

Like Professor Long, Emmet called on Jefferson within
a few days after he reached the University. This visit
must have been made on foot, for he records somewhat
ruefully, after his return from the laborious tramp, that
he had found that, in reality, Monticello was not the little
mountain which its name suggested. "I have dined
several times in the family since my arrival," he wrote to
his father, "and would go oftener, notwithstanding the
distance and altitude, were it not for lectures, lectures,
lectures,—an extremely pleasant old man and hospitable
as can be. We all take the greatest delight in promoting
his views, and he has expressed himself as well pleased."

Although Emmet had spent his early life in communities
which had discarded the institution of African slavery,
and professed to abhor it, yet, in beginning housekeeping

in his pavilion, he was anxious to purchase a black
house-servant. "I have experienced nothing but disappointment
from the hired ones," he wrote Cocke, impatiently.
Would Cocke assist him in buying one? Very
much exasperated by the condition in which he found his
apartments, he wrote the proctor a hasty and uncivil
note; and he seems to have been drawn into further controversy
with the same official by his desire to obtain the
money required to build an addition of one room to the
main structure. While still a bachelor, he exhibited that
fondness for the society of animals which formed such
a delightful and amusing side of the daily life of the English
naturalist, Frank Buckland,—his intimate companions
under his own roof were numerous snakes, that slided
about at will in one of the chambers, a white owl, and a
very friendly bear, which, permitted to run at large in the
house and garden, had the bad habit of suddenly alarming
the visitors by appearing unexpectedly. Marriage put an
end to this primaeval affiliation; Mrs. Emmet is said to
have taken advantage of the softness of the honeymoon to
insist that the owl should be let loose in the woods, and
the snakes and bear killed. It was the fate of the unhappy
bear to be served up at table as a very rare dish.

Emmet's mind revealed its inventive and constructive
turn from the very beginning of his University career.
He had not long been associated with the institution when
he suggested that a vacuum of the air might be used to
generate propulsive power; and that chemistry could be
made very effective in forcing the growth of vegetables.
He proved that the kaolin in the contiguous soil offered
very good material for the manufacture of pottery and
porcelain vases; and he purchased ground and planted
the Chinese mulberry to carry on his experiments in the
nurture of the silk-worm. He built a house in which to

manipulate the silk itself, and manufactured his own dyes.
He also cultivated those kinds of grapes, from which, in
foreign countries, were expressed the most costly wines
and brandies, and produced the latter for his own enjoyment.[3]
He grew pyrocanthus hedges, set out rare fruit
trees, planted new species of esculents, and introduced
flowers unknown hitherto in our climate. He was interested
in domestic economy so far as to test various acids
for the best means of curing hams; and experimented at
length with steam for the generation of rotatory motion.
He could compose sonnets, fashion busts from the kaolin
dug up in his own fields, and throw off sketches, chiefly
comic, with ease. His generous disposition was swayed
by the impulsiveness of the Irish nature: it was said of
him that sudden and lively emotions prompted his likings
and distastes, and that he was keenly grateful for kindness,
and unreasonably resentful of supposed injuries.
"Disease, when he was in company," remarks Professor
Tucker, "could not overcome the warmth of his feelings,
cloud the cheerfulness of his temper, or dim the corruscations
of his wit."[4]

In a description of the University which was printed
in the columns of the Richmond Enquirer, in May, 1824,
General Cocke emphasized the intention of the Board of
Visitors to confine the selection of incumbents for the
chairs of ethics and law to American citizens. In harmony
with this pronouncement, George Tucker was invited to
accept the chair of ethics. Both Jefferson and Madison
had formed a very exalted estimate of his abilities and
accomplishments; and as they possessed the controlling
voice in the selection of the professors, they requested
Cabell to inform him of their decision in his favor.
Tucker, who was, at this time, a member of Congress
(1825), was in Washington, and so soon as the House
adjourned, he visited Monticello to find out from Jefferson
in person about the duties and emoluments of the
place; and above all, as to whether the tenure would be
temporary or permanent. There is no room for doubt
that he was influenced in abandoning public life by the
prospect of obtaining, in the new chair, the leisure which
was necessary for the full gratification of his taste for
literary composition. Although closely identified with
the public affairs of Virginia, he was not a native of the
State or even of the American continent. His birthplace
was on the island of Bermuda, where his family
had enjoyed a position of importance, both social and
political, during several generations. Trained to the
profession of law in the office of that island's principal
barrister, he debated, at the age of twenty, whether he
should emigrate to England or to the United States. He
finally determined to pursue a course of study in the College
of William and Mary, to which he was perhaps

drawn by the fact that his cousin, St. George Tucker,
now a distinguished judge, resided in Williamsburg. He
was soon congenially domiciled there, and has left a sympathetic
description of its pleasant social life. "Some
twelve or fifteen families," he said, "all in easy circumstances,
were constantly exchanging dinners and evening
parties, attended by visitors from a distance, and enlivened
by wit, intelligence, and abundant living."

Tucker filled up the intervals of relaxation from study
with writing didactic papers and memorial poetry. A
visit to Philadelphia and New York brought him into
the most conspicuous society of those cities. He was introduced
to Jay and Clinton; and was invited to a reception
given by President Washington, whose majestic
figure, dressed in black velvet, and whose imposing mien,
he never afterwards forgot. After one year spent in
Bermuda, Tucker returned to Virginia in 1800, with the
intention of becoming a member of the Richmond bar.
In that town, he at once entered the literary and political
circle that gave it so much charm and distinction during
that period,—was a friend of Wirt, Hay, Peyton,
Randolph, and Ritchie, and with them contributed to the
Enquirer, a famous journal of that and a later day.
Other papers and periodicals served as additional mediums
of publication for the numerous essays and poems
which he was now composing. His professional business
brought him into constant intercourse with John Marshall
and John Wickham,—the one, the foremost figure on the
bench; the other, at the bar. Having, in 1802, married
Maria Carter, the daughter of Charles Carter, of Blenheim,
and a great-niece of Washington, he found himself
united by the widest family ramifications with all that was
socially distinguished in his adopted State. A certain
prospect of a lucrative practice opening up in Pittsylvania

county, he made his home there in 1806; represented the
county in the General Assembly; and during ten years,
stood in the front rank of its learned and gifted bar.
In spite of his active calling and distance from libraries,
while a citizen of that community, he was able to write
an elaborate series of papers, which, under the title of
Thoughts of a Hermit, was published in the Philadelphia
Portfolio. In 1818, he removed to Lynchburg, a town
of three thousand people at this time; and the force of
his personal influence was now so dominant in the district,
that he was nominated and elected a member of Congress;
and again elected at the end of his first term.

A volume of essays which he issued during his tenure
of this office, impressed Mr. Madison so favorably that
it was the cause of his recommending him to Jefferson as
highly competent to fill the chair of ethics. He had
reached his fiftieth milestone when called to this chair,
and it was due to his greater maturity in years, his genial
disposition and popular manners, and his knowledge of
the world acquired from his association with the best society,
that he was selected as the first chairman of the
Faculty. "My colleagues," he records in his autobiography,
"were all agreeable, well-informed men; they
had all travelled quite extensively in foreign countries.
We were very sociable, often dining and passing the evening
together; and the life which we then led, though
seemingly monotonous and devoid of interest, has, no
doubt, appeared to all, in retrospect, as one of the happiest
portions of our lives."

Not long before his acceptance of the chair of ethics,
Tucker had written a novel entitled the Valley of the
Shenandoah. It was printed in the United States, but
not distributed, and a copy finding its way to London, led
to a second edition, which was afterwards translated into

German. He was now in the possession of greater leisure
for his literary ventures; these took most often the
form of transient articles for reviews and daily journals;
but there were separate volumes too, which reflected his
lighter as well as his more solid tastes: A Voyage to the
Moon; Rents, Wages and Profits; Progress of the United
States in Population and Wealth; Theory of Money and
Banks; the Life of Jefferson. The last work was too impartial
to please either the Federalists or the Republicans,
but it caused Brougham to remark that it had given him a
much juster conception of the merits of the former President
than he had had before. The volume on the different
phases of political economy, which were received
with so much approbation by serious students of the subject,
were the target of numerous jokes among his own
pupils. As the accomplished professor would ride by,
they would say, "Yonder goes dear old Tucker on Money
and Banks." It is a proof of his versatility that he could
compose a novel that would be thought worthy of translation
into a foreign language, and draw up a treatise that
would cause his election to membership in the Statistical
Society of Paris. When the Museum was first issued by
professors of the University, he suggested that he should
contribute a story to its pages. Dunglison, who made no
pretension to any literary culture beyond what was needed
by the scientist, was the editor of the periodical at that
time; and he was so unreasonably resentful of the proposition,
that he wrote in disgust to Cabell, "If there is
anything which has detracted more than another from the
reputation of Mr. Tucker, it is the fact of his having
written works of this character. Wherever I travel, I
hear this objected to him, and find him underrated, for
his merits are very far beyond his reputation. Of these
objections, he does not seem aware, although the want of
success in the production of what he has issued, ought to
have warned him of it."

It is to be inferred from this impatient comment that
Professor Tucker's colleagues had no admiration for his
imaginative faculty; and as neither his poems nor his
novels have survived in popular favor, it is quite probable
that their apparently severe judgment was correct.
His figure, from the literary point of view alone, seems
an incongruous one in the provincial Virginia of those
times, in spite of the success of the British Spy; there
was no encouragement then in the State for a literateur of
secondary merit, as Tucker unqestionably was; and he
would have found a more congenial and profitable atmosphere
in London for that side of his intellectual activities,
had he settled there, as he had thought of doing in early
manhood. It reveals his moderate opinion of Virginia as
a bookish community, that, when he resigned his chair
in 1845, in order to give up his entire life to literary pursuits,
he removed his home to Philadelphia, because he
was assured there of a larger reading public and of more
facilities for the gratification of his dominant literary
tastes. The intellectual energy of the man, as late as
his seventy-fifth year, was exhibited in his undertaking to
write, at that time of life, a voluminous history of the
United States; and other works, marked by pregnancy
of thought and wealth of learning, did not cease to drop
from his pen until he had passed his eighty-fifth birthday.
His last production was a characteristic series of verses
entitled, Pleasures Left to Old Age,—pleasures, which
so far as an industrious hand, a clear, contented, and
benignant mind could create them, continued to attend his
gentle decline until the end. Like so many of the members
of the distinguished family to which he belonged,
he possessed the clarifying quality of humor; and as that

quality is most often simply common sense in a scintillant
form, it will be seen that it helped him, as chairman of
the Faculty, to solve many serious problems in the government
of the students, with a sympathy and moderation
which were frequently lost sight of by the authorities of
the University in those turbulent times. As lawyer, congressman,
professor, and literateur, he exhibited talents
and accomplishments of a very high order; and in private
life, was beloved for his kind, genial, and winning traits.
That he had an invincible inclination for domesticity, and
was by nature hostile to race suicide, was disclosed in his
three successful marriages; and, in each instance, to a
woman of uncommon intelligence and charm.

Of all the professorships to which appointments had
to be made at the beginning, the most difficult was the
chair of law. This condition was not due to the rigid
Republican standard by which Jefferson had resolved to
test the political opinions of each candidate. As a matter
of fact, there was no disciple of John Marshall in
Virginia who would have had the temerity to offer testimonials
in support of his application for the position.
The promptness with which such a person would have
been turned down by Jefferson and Madison, had his
name been presented, would not have startled any of the
colleagues of the two former Presidents on the Board of
Visitors. But it was not necessary to look to the thin
ranks of the Federalists in the State, for there were too
many astute and learned members of its bar who were
fervently in sympathy with the political principles which
Jefferson had so long and so successfully advocated.

The first obstacle which had to be surmounted before
the chair could be filled properly was the small inducement
which its comparatively meagre salary offered to
men who were moving along on the crest of a lucrative

practice. The other chairs could be filled by calling to
them persons who had occupied similar professorships in
other colleges, where, perhaps, they had been receiving an
even lower rate of remuneration; but the number of lawyers
who had abandoned the bar and become instructors
in jurisprudence was too small to ensure an easy and early
selection among them, even by offering a higher income
than they were already earning. Of all the local colleges,
the College of William and Mary alone had employed a
regular lecturer in this department of study; and in 1824,
there were probably not more than three or four private
law schools in Virginia. On the other hand, the number
of capable barristers in proportion to the number of inhabitants
was never so great in the history of the same
community; and yet, as we shall see, the chair of law at
the University was only permanently filled after a monotonous
reception of somewhat mortifying declinations.
Gilmer, in a letter addressed to Cabell, mentions the
second reason which, with the first, fully explains the
unwillingness to accept this chair. "In Virginia," he
said, "law was the foremost profession, and leads to all
preferment." There was no man of prominence at the
bar who was not ambitious of rising ultimately to high
judicial or political office. Political honors especially
were keenly coveted, and few with capacity to acquire
them were ready to cut themselves off from their possession
by accepting a professorship in any seat of learning,
however great its importance. Nor would it have logically
followed that a very able lawyer at the bar of that
day would have been an equally able teacher of law in
the University lecture-room. The aptitudes demanded
in either calling were not then and still are not the same.
The history of the institution, during the first century of
its existence, has shown that the most competent instructors
who have filled its professorships of law, have
been men who were drawn away from the bar in early life
before rising to eminence, and who made a profession of
teaching law, as they had, at one time, intended to make a
profession of practising it.

The first appointment to the chair took place before
Central College was converted into the University.
Among the multitudinous subjects to be taught by Dr.
Cooper were the various branches of jurisprudence, and
he was supposed to have prepared himself for it by his
career at the bar and on the bench in Pennsylvania, and
by his authorship of at least one legal treatise of value.
In 1823, there seems to have been some expectation that
Chancellor Kent could be induced to take the position
which Cooper had been forced to resign by the outcry
against his religious creed. When the Board met in
April, 1824, they offered Gilmer the option of becoming
the professor either of law or of morals. From a letter
which he wrote Chapman Johnson from Edinburgh,
in the following August, it is patent that he had not
even then made up his mind to accept the chair of law,
the one which he preferred. "Long as I have delayed it,
I yet want the material for a final judgment," he remarked,
"but think it proper to say, that, considering
the immense labors thrown on one, the very short vacation,
and my prospects at the bar, a salary of two thousand
dollars is the least I could accept. With that beginning
in October, to enable me to prepare my course in
the winter, I believe I should accept it. But not knowing
that you will grant it on these terms, I think it best to
give you notice that you may look elsewhere in time. If
you would make me President or something, with the
privilege of residing anywhere within three miles of the

Rotunda, it would be a great inducement. But to put me
down in one of those pavilions is to serve me as an apothecary
would a lizard or beetle in a phial of whiskey set
in a window and corked tight. I could not for fifteen
hundred dollars endure this, even if I had no labor."

After Gilmer's arrival in New York from England, he
seems to have abandoned whatever intention he may have
had of accepting the chair of law, for we soon find him in
negotiation with Professor Kent, who was now delivering
at Columbia College a series of lectures which were afterwards
to be expanded into his well-known Commentaries.
So great was his fame already and so enormous would be
the distinction which he would give to the Law School,
should he consent to take charge of it, that Gilmer at least
appears to have been ready to sink all thought of his
political convictions. As the communication between the
two men was brief, and without result, it is not possible
to say how far Jefferson would have approved the appointment
of this political heretic, mild, and reasonable,
and academic as he was.

Gilmer himself having declined the chair for himself,
and having failed to secure the ripe learning of Kent, it
was decided, at the instance of Cabell, it would appear, to
offer the professorship to Henry St. George Tucker.
Tucker was the son of St. George Tucker, of Williamsburg,
who was a judge and lecturer of distinction, and
also a man of unusual literary culture. Henry St. George
was a half-brother of John Randolph of Roanoke and
was himself a man of uncommon talents, a lawyer of
extraordinary learning, and in disposition remarkable for
his genial qualities, sense of humor, pure spirit, and perfect
uprightness. He was now domiciled in Winchester,
where he was conducting a private law school, which enjoyed

the highest reputation among the members of the
Virginian bar. Tucker had a large family dependent
upon him for support, and, perhaps, for this reason principally,
he was unwilling to accept the law professorship,
as the salary was too small to afford him, at that time at
least, a comfortable subsistence. His family too were
attached to Winchester, where Mrs. Tucker's mother was
still living at an advanced age. An additional reason
was that he did not think himself competent to govern
so large a body of young men as would be assembled
under him at the University; and, moreover, he was distrustful
of his ability to teach the sciences of politics and
political economy.[5] Such fears were not shared by the
Board of Visitors.

P. P. Barbour was next invited. Barbour was a lawyer
of equal ability, and perhaps even greater distinction, if
not at this, at a subsequent period, for among the honors
which had adorned, or were still to adorn his career,
were the Speakership of the House of Representatives,
and a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court. Barbour
also declined the offer. In April, 1825, several weeks
after the University had opened its doors, and when every
other chair had been filled, Madison admitted in a letter
to Cocke that he had begun to look upon the vacancy in
the law professorship with a feeling almost of despair;
and as that professorship was still unoccupied at the close
of the first session in December of the same year, this
feeling had, doubtless, only increased in intensity. It
was fully justified, for, in addition to Gilmer, Tucker, and
Barbour, Judge Carr, a nephew of Jefferson, had refused
it, and also Judge Dade, a member of the Rockfish Gap
Commission. In January, 1826, Jefferson's hopes, in

spite of Gilmer's low condition, seem to have turned again
to him.[6] His health in August of the previous year was
apparently sufficiently restored by a visit to the Springs
to allow him to perform the quiet duties of the chair,
and it was thought that he would be able to do this with
the more cheerfulness because all expectation of a public
career had been abandoned as subjecting his remaining
strength to the stress of too many vicissitudes. Before,
however, he could make any preparation for beginning a
course of lectures, his former weakness returned, and he
was precipitated again upon the downward road which
was to end so soon in his death.

As late as March, 1826, when the second session was
fully underway, the vacant chair had not been filled.
Judge William H. Cabell now suggested the name of the
famous William Wirt. "If you can offer to give him
three thousand dollars, besides tuition fees," he wrote
his brother Joseph, "you might probably get him for
your professor of law. What a splendid professor he
would make, and what numbers he would attract to the
University! The qualifications necessary for a professor
of law enable its possessor to make so much money in
other ways, and to use such honorable professional rewards,
that you will try in vain to get a suitable man unless
you give him a greater fixed salary than you allow
to the other professors. But you say you cannot afford

it. Then make up your mind that the University is
neither to derive reputation or to confer benefits so far
as that professorship is concerned. ... Then you might
make him President for the present, and give him something
on that score; and then you may make his students
pay a little more than the others. By these means united,
I have strong hopes that you might give enough to attract
even such a man as Wirt. I have not heard from him
directly or indirectly on the subject. But I know the turn
of his mind: that is an offer which I verily feel he would
prefer to any other, provided that the emoluments could
come within the amount deemed sufficient."

It is particularly significant that both Gilmer and W.
H. Cabell, two lawyers who were familiar with the pecuniary
side of legal practice in Virginia, suggested the association
of the Presidency of the University with the professorship
of law; and that both had in mind simply the
most available means of increasing the salary of that
chair to a point that would assure its acceptance by some
man of the highest ability and learning. It was probably
recognized by the Board that jealousies would be aroused
in the ranks of the Faculty, should one of their number
be awarded a far greater remuneration for his lectures
and recitations than the rest. The value of the Presidency
as an executive office does not seem to have been
grasped at this time, in spite of the existence of that office
in every other prominent college in the United States.
The only question that interested the minds of the Visitors
in connection with its creation now was its possible
usefulness in aiding them to secure a competent instructor
without apparently breaking the rule that fixed the salaries
of all the members of the Faculty at the same definite
figure. How urgent, in the contemplation of the
Board, was the necessity of filling the vacant chair at once

is proven by their determination to disregard Jefferson's
energetic protest against the proposed innovation. It
was the only instance of an important action on their part
in which his wishes did not control their decision; and this
shows how much perplexed the Board was after a full
year of continuous effort to induce a lawyer of distinction
to accept the position. Perhaps Wirt was privately informed
of Jefferson's earnest opposition to the creation
of the new office; but whether this was so or not, he declined
the offer and remained in active practice until his
death.[7]

The first suggestion of the name of Lomax, a lawyer of
high standing in Fredericksburg, and a member of a respected
family that had long resided in that part of Virginia,
was made apparently by Geo. W. Spotswood in a
letter to Cabell in January, 1826. Spotswood was one
of the men, of excellent social connections, who had been
put in charge of the University hotels. "Have you
thought of Lomax?" he asked. "He is undoubtedly a
man of talents, and I should suppose would fill the place
ably. I once had some conversation with him on that
subject. He observed that, if it was offered to him, he
would not refuse it." The selection of Lomax seems to

have been made conditional upon Wirt's declination; and
when this event occurred, the appointment was offered to
him definitely, and was accepted. He was remarkable
for his warm benevolence and sensitive probity of character.
From the very start, he took a very lofty view of
the moral possibilities of the professorship which he was
called upon to occupy: he assured Cabell that he concurred
with him in looking upon his chair as "one of the
highest stations on earth." The important duties which
he had now to perform were not, in his eyes, personal to
himself and his students only,—he undertook them with
the primary intention of contributing directly to the
broadest welfare of his native State. The feeling of exaltation
with which he began continued throughout his
incumbency. When he resigned in 1830, he declared,
with transparent truthfulness, that only "apprehension on
account of his family had warned him to give up a station
which seldom offers itself more than once in a man's
life." The salary had proved inadequate for their support;
and when he was elected by the General Assembly to
a judgeship, he felt under compulsion to accept it.

By the late spring of 1826, the circle of the original
professors was finally and satisfactorily completed. Each
chair was now occupied, and omitting Dr. Blaettermann,
who showed a violent spleen at times, the incumbents
were remarkable, not only for their scholarly and scientific
acquirements, but also, as Jefferson had said, for
excellence of character and propriety of conduct. With
the exception of Tucker, they were young men; so young,
indeed, that, in several instances, they were just starting
upon their careers as teachers.

What was their appearance? Among the persons who
resided within the University precincts during the first
years was Mrs. Beirne, a niece of Mrs. Long, a lady of

lively talents and observant curiosity. We are indebted
to her for a brief account of her impressions of these
young men, most of whom had recently left their own
country to assist in setting the new institution in motion.
Dr. Emmet, she said, was not remarkable for good looks,
because his face was pitted with small pox, but he was
charming in his manners, and very interesting in conversation.
Long, who was described by one of his biographers
as "the essence of truth and honesty, and a hater of all
sham, social or intellectual," was small in figure, blond
in coloring, but delicate in appearance. Dr. Thomas
Brockenbrough said of him that he was so young looking
that he would have passed for a "bashful boy," had it
not been for the dignity of his bearing. Nevertheless,
he told a good story and enjoyed a hearty laugh. Key
escaped Mrs. Beirne's notice, but we learn from Burwell
Stark, a student during the first session, that he was nearly
six feet in height,—this tallness being accentuated by
slenderness,—and that, while his face was full of intelligence,
it was not conspicuous for comeliness. Bonnycastle,
who, at his death, was pronounced by the Faculty
to have possessed all the domestic virtues and a delicate
sense of honor, and who had the reputation of being a
man of such universal learning that he could fill any chair
in the University with ease, was not considered by Mrs.
Beirne to be handsome, but "amiable, gentlemanlike,
and charming in his manners." Dunglison was described
as "fine looking and agreeable." But the most popular
of all the professors was Tucker, the fountains of whose
geniality never ran dry, and who never failed to delight
with his keen sense of humor, his inexhaustible fund of
anecdotes, and his racy information on every subject that
arose in conversation. Blaettermann, who was soon
plunged in quarrels with members of his class, passed
without comment on his appearance or character. Lomax
was remarkable for the benevolence of his face; and
as was to be expected from his lofty attitude towards
the duties of his chair, he was looked upon by all, according
to the same lady, as "a lovely Christian gentleman."[8]

From the day that the lectures began, it was a topic for
comment that Long and Key, who were nearly of the
same age, and already ripe friends through their association
at college in England, showed little disposition to cultivate
the society of the other professors. With at least
one member of that circle, Key seems to have been on
terms of irritable, if not fierce, hostility. The professor
of mathematics,—so Mr. Wertenbaker has related,—
"once kicked at the professor of modern languages,
Blaettermann, under the faculty-table, and the latter told
him that he kicked like an ass." It may be inferred from
this scene that Key did not allow his new dignity to check,
even in the faculty-room, any returning desire to repeat
the rough horse-play with which he had dispersed the
tedium of his ocean passage. Cocke, like most of his
class in Virginia, was, perhaps, not fully in sympathy with
the importation of foreign instructors,[9] and this probably
explains the prejudiced tone of his allusion to Key
and Long on the occasion of a quarrel which had detached
them from their English colleague, Bonnycastle. "From
what I saw of the stuff of which these two savants are

composed," he wrote to Cabell, "I can well believe them
capable of a cross course."

Did the foreign professors find the strange and remote
community in which they were now secluded thoroughly
congenial to their tastes? It would have been extraordinary
had four Englishmen, of characteristic insular instincts,
and accustomed to the stately English colleges,
with their century-old buildings, and their traditions of
scholarship running back to the mediaeval age, been satisfied,
at first, in a University of red bricks too raw as yet
to be covered with ivy, or to possess a single memory of
achievement to spur emulation and excite the sense of
pride. Moreover, the confusion that resulted from the
loose regulations supposed to govern the students, was exasperating
to the tempers even of Emmet, Lomax, and
Tucker, who had been educated in American seats of
learning. "You know," wrote Tucker to Cabell, "that
of four English professors, three found the place not to
their taste, and have left it; and that the fourth does not
disguise the fact that he means to go as soon as he has
made enough to live in England." There is no record
independently of this to prove that Dunglison and Bonnycastle
at least were from the start displeased with their
surroundings at the University. It is true that one of the
two accepted a call to another institution; but the inducement,
in this instance, lay in the greater advantages of a
large city, and what was perhaps even more alluring, a
larger salary. Bonnycastle died at the University, and
his death was deeply lamented there.[10] Long, who was
married to an American woman, was, for that reason,
perhaps, better satisfied than Key, and the recollections
of his career in Virginia, which he committed to paper,

reveal the kindly feeling with which he looked back on his
sojourn in the State. There is no surviving minute of
any kind to prove that Key retained a pleasant impression
of his professorship. His wife was an English woman
of few intellectual resources,—if her ignorance of the
existence of Scott and Byron can be taken as a test,—
and very probably missed the society of her own circle
of kin, and the amusements she had been accustomed
to in her native land. If this was the case, it was natural
that she should have used her influence to diminish
her husband's sense of the value of his chair in a foreign
university. Key and herself returned to England before
the termination of his contract; and the main reason
which he seems to have given for the rupture of his relations
was that the climate of Virginia, even in the salubrious
Piedmont, was not congenial to his health, but as the
entire State had been originally settled by English people,
and his fellow English professors made no complaint of
its heats in summer or rigors in winter, it is possible that
this justification, however honestly put forward, was not
really the principal impulse of his unexpected departure.
His action was all the more open to comment because he
had expressed to Gilmer an intention to become a citizen
of the United States so soon as he should arrive at his
destination.[11]