his abode.  Its position in front of a large lawn overlooking the Elizabeth could not be surpassed.  The water came rippling up to the southern enclosure twice a day from the sea, and presented a broad silvery expanse on which every arriving and departing vessel of the port was borne in broad view from the portico.  But, aside from the assessed value of the lot, which was accidental and produced nothing, there was no exhibition of wealth within.  All was plain as became the residence of a man who had those claims to public respect which no mere wealth could give, and which the absence of wealth could not impair.  As you lifted the knocker of his door—­for he never adopted the comparative novelty of bells in our region—­a black servant, who, with his ancestors of several generations, had been born in the family, soon appeared, and you entered a broad central passage which extended through the house, which was the old sitting place of Virginia families for nine months of the year, and which is hardly known in the crowded cities of the North.  The floor of the passage was covered with a strip of carpeting in winter, and in summer presented a smooth polished surface devoid of matting.  If you opened the first door on the left, you entered the office of Mr. Tazewell, a well lighted southern room, fourteen by twenty, in the middle of which was a table furnished with writing apparatus and covered with books and manuscripts.  By that table, in an arm-chair, he commonly sate in cold weather; and the chances were, at least during the morning, you would find him pen in hand, and sheets of paper freshly written and full of figures strewn about him.  It was rare that you saw any thing like continuous writing except in the case of a letter.  He delighted in calculations, which kept his mind sweet and clear.  At his left hand, and a little behind him, was a small bookcase containing about two hundred volumes, neatly bound, of the English classics, all printed forty years ago and more, the very pith and quintessence of the philosophy, the politics, the literature of all ages strained through the alembic of the Anglo-Saxon mind.  The office opened by a large folding-door into the capacious dining-room where the family usually sate, and where he lingered after each meal, talking, or reading the day’s paper, which he took in to the last, as if loth to retire to his own particular den.  In summer he sate in the passage, or on the broad tessellated pavement of the portico.  On the right hand on entering the front door you saw a small room in which an aged or invalid guest might repose without ascending the stairway, and in which Gen. Jackson and Mr. Randolph lodged at various times.  And adjoining this room was the parlor, a single room of twenty by twenty, containing probably the same furniture he purchased when he first went to housekeeping, all plain now, though elegant in its day, and thoroughly kept; and suspended from the walls of the room were the portraits of his father, Judge Tazewell, a handsome