in the Western country. Kentucky had tried him, and found him
perfectly to her mind. He was an easy, comfortable man to associate
with, wholly in the Jeffersonian taste. His wit was not of the highest
quality, but he had plenty of it; and if he said a good thing, he had
such a way of saying it as gave it ten times its natural force. He
chewed tobacco and took snuff,--practices which lowered the tone of
his health all his life. In familiar conversation he used language of
the most Western description; and he had a singularly careless,
graceful way with him, that was in strong contrast with the vigor and
dignity of his public efforts. He was an honest and brave young man,
altogether above lying, hypocrisy, and meanness,--full of the idea of
Republican America and her great destiny. The splendor of his talents
concealed his defects and glorified his foibles; and Kentucky rejoiced
in him, loved him, trusted him, and sent him forth to represent her in
the national council.

During the first thirteen years of Henry Clay's active life as a
politician,--from his twenty-first to his thirty-fourth year,--he
appears in politics only as the eloquent champion of the policy of Mr.
Jefferson, whom he esteemed the first and best of living men. After
defending him on the stump and aiding him in the Kentucky Legislature,
he was sent in 1806, when he was scarcely thirty, to fill for one term
a seat in the Senate of the United States, made vacant by the
resignation of one of the Kentucky Senators. Mr. Jefferson received
his affectionate young disciple with cordiality, and admitted him to
his confidence. Clay had been recently defending Burr before a
Kentucky court, entirely believing that his designs were lawful and
sanctioned. Mr. Jefferson showed him the cipher letters of that
mysterious and ill-starred adventurer, which convinced Mr. Clay that
Burr was certainly a liar, if he was not a traitor. Mr. Jefferson's