The New International Encyclopædia/Wirt, William

WIRT, wẽrt, William (1772-1834). An American lawyer, statesman, and author, born at Bladensburg, Md. He obtained a grammar school education, served as a tutor, studied law, and, moving to Virginia, practiced his profession and held office. In 1803 he printed his Letters of a British Spy, containing sketches of popular speakers, which were Addisonian in style and highly popular. A second series of essays, entitled The Rainbow, appeared later in the Richmond Enquirer, but was not so successful. The Old Bachelor (1812), first published in the same paper by Wirt and some of his friends, was more popular, but as an author Wirt achieved more fame by his readable though not very accurate Life of Patrick Henry (1817). Meanwhile he had settled in Richmond in 1806 and gained a high reputation by his speech in prosecution of Aaron Burr. He supported Jefferson in politics, and became a member of the Virginia Legislature (1807-08), and United States District Attorney (1816) and Attorney-General of the United States during the administrations of Monroe and J. Q. Adams (1817-29). On retiring he settled in Baltimore, and in 1832 accepted the Anti-Masonic nomination for the Presidency. He was an able and amiable man, a good speaker, an effective though somewhat florid writer, and a lawyer and statesman of tried integrity and success. Consult the Memoir by J. P. Kennedy (Philadelphia, 1849); also “English Culture in Virginia,” by W. P. Trent, in Johns Hopkins University Studies.