old commonwealth like Virginia, bring practice to a lawyer of twenty.
But, as a distinguished French author has recently remarked of Julius
Caesar, "In him was united the elegance of manner which wins, to the
energy of character which commands." He sought, therefore, a new
sphere of exertion far from the refinements of Richmond. Kentucky,
which Boone explored in 1770, was a part of Virginia when Clay was a
child, and only became a State in 1792, when first he began to copy
Chancellor Wythe's decisions. The first white family settled in it in
1775; but when our young barrister obtained his license, twenty-two
years after, it contained a white population of nearly two hundred
thousand. His mother, with five of her children and a second husband,
had gone thither five years before. In 1797 Henry Clay removed to
Lexington, the new State's oldest town and capital, though then
containing, it is said, but fifty houses. He was a stranger there, and
almost penniless. He took board, not knowing where the money was to
come from to pay for it. There were already several lawyers of repute
in the place. "I remember," said Mr. Clay, forty-five years after,

"how comfortable I thought I should be if I could make one
hundred pounds a year, Virginia money; and with what delight
I received my first fifteen-shilling fee. My hopes were more
than realized. I immediately rushed into a successful and
lucrative practice."

In a year and a half he was in a position to marry the daughter of one
of the first men of the State, Colonel Thomas Hart, a man exceedingly
beloved in Lexington.

It is surprising how addicted to litigation were the early settlers of
the Western States. The imperfect surveys of land, the universal habit