"He has watched him closely ever since he entered public life, in 1812, the opponent of James Madison, and drew a most faithful picture of him from that time down to this. Van himself, could he have heard Mr. P., would have been forced to admit, that a more exact likeness never was drawn. He traced him with much minuteness throughout his tortuous and slimy career, and showed to the satisfaction of every man present, that he had been alternately the lickspittle and libeller of almost every man in the country. So in reference to almost every important question which has agitated the country for the last 30 years, Martin had been found on both sides--and no man could tell what his principles were. Mr. P. ridiculed in a most inimitable manner, amid roars of laughter from his audience, the claim set up by Van's Southern friends, that he 'is a Northern man with Southern principles.' Even were it true, Mr. P. contended that it did not elevate Martin in his estimation, for that if there were any one thing he abominated more than another, it was a Northern man with Southern principles or a Southern man with Northern principles. He went for no such half-frog half-tadpole animal. "Mr. P. laughed at the very idea of Martin Van Buren being held up to the country as a Republican. He remembered well the part he took in the memorable contest between Mr. Madison and DeWitt Clinton. He was then leagued with the blue light Federalists, and his course ever since had been in utter disregard of the good old Republican doctrines of '98 and '99." VISITOR TO WEST POINT. Sometime before, June, 1841, he was appointed a visitor to the United States Military Academy at West Point, and attended the meetings of the Board of Visitors, where he so impressed the Board, that he was selected to write their report for that year, which he did. From West Point he visited his brother, Col. Rouze Peyton, at his home in Geneva, and in the company of the late Randolph Harrison, of Elk Island, James river, General Bernard Peyton, of Richmond, Colonel Hill Carter, of Shirley and others, and made a delightful excursion to Niagara Falls. At the next session of the Senate Mr. Peyton was a working member. He never discharged any duty in a perfunctory manner, but as chairman of the committee on the Judiciary labored zealously in behalf of reform in our laws. MR. PEYTON'S LETTER ON BEHALF OF THE BAR TO JUDGE TUCKER. In 1841, H. St. George Tucker resigned his position as a Judge of the Court of Appeals, in order to accept the position of Professor of Law in the University of Virginia. The following proceeding took place. A meeting of the bar assembled over which Mr. Peyton presided, and the meeting appointed him a committee of one to express their sentiments on the occasion which he did, and the Court adopted them as its sentiments and ordered them to be placed on record, as follows: