JOHN MARSHALL was born Sept. 24th, 1755, in Fauquier County, Virginia--a little more than two months after Braddock's defeat; and was the eldest of fifteen children, of Thomas Marshall, who was a colonel in the continental line of the Revolutionary Army, remarkable for courage, and for strength of mind. His courage was signalized at the Battles of Trenton and Brandywine; his regiment, at the latter, bearing the brunt of the attacking column led by Cornwallis in person. Though greatly outnumbered, it "maintained its position without losing an inch of ground, until both its flanks were turned, its ammunition nearly expended, and more than half the officers and one third of the soldiers were killed or wounded. Col. Marshall, whose horse had received two balls, then retired in good order to resume his position on the right of his division, but it had already retreated."[2] The heroism of such a father, could not be lost upon the son. [Footnote 2: 1. Marshall's Washington, 158.] The sparsely peopled region in which he lived, co-operating with a narrow fortune, afforded Col. Marshall but little opportunity for sending his children to school; and he was compelled to be almost exclusively himself their teacher. In his eldest son he early implanted a taste for English literature; "especially for poetry and history." At the age of twelve, John had _transcribed_ the whole of Pope's Essay on Man, and some of his Moral Essays; and had _committed to memory_ many of the most interesting passages of that distinguished poet. "The love of poetry, thus awakened in his warm and vigorous mind, soon exerted a commanding influence over it. He became enamored of the classical writers of the old English school, of Milton, and Shakspeare, and Dryden, and Pope; and was instructed by their solid sense and beautiful imagery. In the enthusiasm of youth, he often indulged himself in poetical compositions, and freely gave up his leisure hours to those delicious dreamings with the muses, which (say what we may) constitute with many the purest source of pleasure in the gayer scenes of life, and the sweetest consolation in the hours of adversity. {182} "One of the best recommendations, indeed, of the early cultivation of a taste for poetry, and the kindred branches of literature, is, that it does not expire with youth. It affords to maturer years a refreshing relaxation from the severe cares of business, and to old age a quiet and welcome employment, always within reach, and always bringing with it, if not the charms of novelty, at least the soothing reminiscences of other days. The votary of the muses may not always tread upon enchanted ground; but the gentle influences of fiction and song will steal over his thoughts, and breathe, as it were, into his soul the fragrance of a second spring of life.