There was little of incident or stirring adventure in the life of Mr. Peyton, and this is the case generally, as to literary and professional men, but the life of such a man should not be permitted to sink into oblivion. He is represented by his contemporaries to have been a great and truly good man, who pursued his profession, not merely to gain a subsistence, but to do good, to advance justice and humanity, to promote the well being of his fellow creatures, and the general interests of society. Not his eloquence alone, but all of his powers were ever exerted for the cause of right and justice. And thus his gifts became a public benefit and blessing. If such a man does not deserve to be remembered, we might well ask, who does?
During the two brief episodes in his professional life, when a member first of the lower and then the upper House of the General Assembly, he labored to improve the Criminal laws, the Land laws, the laws relating to the rights of person and the rights of property; in fact, our whole system of jurisprudence, and to advance the cause of popular education and of internal improvements.
He was a man of large and progressive ideas, ready to accept any and all improvements, if persuaded that the remedies proposed were, indeed improvements, but while always ready to correct abuses, he was far from believing that all change meant reform—was too sagacious and far seeing, too much alive to the public interests, to encourage rash and ill advised men or measures, was wise and firm enough to oppose all fanatics and doctrinaires, in their excesses. In fact he stood in the way of these men and opposed their measures, as tending to the subversion of existing laws and the Constitution, and the introduction of anarchy and confusion. As a Public Prosecutor, it was both his duty and ambition to see the laws faithfully executed, and an example made of evil doers. In a word, he was a man who sought to do his duty, not to gain the applause of men, but to meet the approval of his God. At all times, and on all occasions, he was zealous for the common weal; and such was his goodness and magnanimity, that he desired to conceal, rather than display his deeds, and derive fame from them. If his course was beneficial to mankind—advanced the interest and prosperity of society and his country—he was content. For himself, he asked nothing, and always derived happiness from the preferment of others. Public honors were often bestowed upon others, which were looked upon as his due. So far from regretting it, or envying those who got them, he enjoyed seeing competent men promoted and when incompetent men were advanced, he would say, "let us make the most of them," so far was he from and above the littleness of vanity and jealousy. In a word he belonged to the class which "finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Of ambition for noisy honors, newspaper notoriety, or office, he had none. If ambition he had, it was gratified by the general recognition of the purity of his motives, the inflexibility of his personal integrity, by the evidences he constantly received that his labors to alleviate human suffering and to cure social disorders, were understood and appreciated. If he had ambition, it was to do good to his forlorn fellow creatures, to excel in his profession, and this latter he did so eminently that the great lawyers in every part of the State consulted him on many if not all important cases and abstruse points, and for years no law was passed, nor any important change made in existing laws, by the Legislature of Virginia, without members of the body, especially of the judiciary committee, asking his opinion and advice. That he had true ambition, loved honorable fame, we doubt not, and thus this exalted passion was, as we opine, the source of those noble actions and life-long labors, which caused him to be so much honored while living, and to be so venerated now that he is dead. And it is the duty of posterity to bestow on him that praise, after his death, which he declined while living.
Believing that the most efficacious method of exciting the talent of the living, is to confer due honors on departed merit, we have, nearly fifty years after his death, and thirty years after the destruction of his papers and almost everything throwing light upon his life undertaken this compilation. It must necessarily be very imperfect and incomplete, but inadequate as it is, it seems well to preserve it, as showing a wish, at least, to give to heaven-born talent its due.
We should like to have had sufficient material for fully portraying this remarkable man, his actions, his feelings, his thoughts and his adventures. Such a work would have derived additional interest from the fact that it would have recalled and preserved the recollection of his companions and friends, the kindred spirits of his day, now dead and nearly forgotten. As this could not be done, we have garnered up, in a fragmentary way, and not always in chronological sequence, the material, some of it light and trivial, [for it is said, P's 1st, "of the Godly man" "his leaf also shall not wither,">[ presented in the following pages, and while it is only a half lifting of the veil of oblivion, it gives us a glimpse, at least, into an almost forgotten life, and serves too, to keep in memory his interesting family of Montgomery Hall. Like all families, it has been dispersed, but it richly deserves to be held in memory and handed down to posterity.
In one of his eloquent sermons, Dr. Talmage thus speaks of oblivion, which he styles the cemetery of the human race. "Why, just look at the families of the earth how they disappear. For awhile they are together, inseparable and to each other indispensable and then they part, some by marriage going to establish other homes, and some leave this life, and a century is long enough to plant a family, develop it, prosper it, and obliterate it. So the generations vanish."
Mr. Peyton's family, forming no exception to the rule, has been dispersed, but it survives in its branches and without signs of decay. Indeed, some of the young shoots exhibit the life and vigor, the virtue and valor of the original stock, which has stood for centuries, in the language of Lord Bacon, "against the winds and weathers of time." May these vigorous branches spread out, increase, keep pace with the grand march of humanity, and the oblivion of the family be as distant in the future as was its origin in the past.
This, we believe, will be the case, for we do not belong to those who imagine that humanity is on the decline, that the energy of man is decaying, that the heart is becoming harder, and the imagination and intellect are dwindling away. On the contrary, in our opinion, man is, on the whole, advancing, and will continue to advance, intellectually and morally, until the world shall have answered all the purposes of its creation and the immortal state begins. What else means the vast improvement in morals, the ameliorations of war, the progress of political science, the redemption of woman from her degradation and bondage, the abolition of slavery, the general and wonderful progress of the race the last hundred years.
To his descendants now scattered through the States of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, New York, and the far West, this compilation will possess deep interest, if it possess none for others, and for them and their connections alone, it is designed. May the remembrance and contemplation of his virtues inspire them with a desire to imitate them!