THE
FLUSH TIMES
OF
ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
A Series of Sketches.

BY

JOSEPH G. BALDWIN.

NINTH THOUSAND.

NEW-YORK:
D. APPLETON & CO., 346 & 348 BROADWAY;
LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN.
M.DCCC.LIV.

ENTERED, according to act
of Congress, in the year 1853, by
D. APPLETON & COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Southern District of New-York.

TO
"THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME"
MY FRIENDS
IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHENANDOAH,
This Volume
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

first publication, felt strongly inclined to offer a sneaking apology for the many errors and imperfections of his work; such as the fact that the articles were written in haste, under the pressure of professional engagements and amidst constant interruptions; and that he has no time or opportunity for correction and revision. But he anticipated the too ready answer to such a plea: "If you had no time to write well, why did you write at all? Who constrained you? If you were not in dress to see company, why come unbidden into the presence of the public? Why not, at least, wait until you were fit to be presented?" He confesses that he sees no way to answer these tough questions, unless the apology of Falstaff for rushing into the presence of King Hal, "before he had time to have made new liveries" - "stained with travel and sweating with desire to see him," - be a good one - as, "inferring the zeal he had to see him" - "the earnestness of affection" - "the devotion:" but in poor Jack's case, "not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift him," was not a very effectual excuse for his coming out of sorts; and we are afraid, that that other Sovereign, the

Public, is not more facile of approach, or more credulous of excuses; for, unfortunately, the ardor of an author's greeting is something beyond the heat of the Public's reception of him, or, as Pat expresses it, the reciprocity of feeling is all on one side.

        Without apology, therefore, he gives these leaves to the winds, - with that feeling of comfort and composure which comes of the knowledge that, let the venture go as it may, he loses little who puts but little at hazard.

        The author begs to return to the accomplished Editor of the Messenger, JNO. R. THOMPSON, ESQ., his acknowledgments, for revising and correcting this work as it passed through the press.

LIVINGSTON, Ala., 1853.

CONTENTS

• OVID BOLUS, ESQ Attorney at Law, and Solicitor in Chancery. . . . . . . 1
• MY FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE BAR Higginbotham vs. Swink, Slander . . . . . 20
• THE BENCH AND THE BAR Introduction - Jolly Times - Chaos of Jurisprudence - The Era of Quashing - Jim T., a Character - How to get rid of Counts in a Declaration - A Nonsuit - The Commonwealth vs. Foreman - Yankee Schoolmaster in a Fix - The Argument and Verdict, &c. . . . . . 47
• HOW THE TIMES SERVED THE VIRGINIANS Virginians in a NEW Country - The Rise, Decline, and Fall of the Rag Empire . . . . . 72
• ASSAULT AND BATTERY Burrell &c., or Burwell Shines - His Testimony in Full - Verdict of the Jury. . . . . . 106
• SIMON SUGGS, JR., ESQ.; A LEGAL BIOGRAPHY Correspondence. . . . . . 114
• SQUIRE A. AND THE FRITTERS . . . . . 142
• JONATHAN AND THE CONSTABLE . . . . . 147
• SHARP FINANCIERING . . . . . 151
• CAVE BURTON, ESQ., OF KENTUCKY His Traits and Characteristics - The Earthquake Story - A Breach of Promise - A Fining Judge - Scene in a Court-House - Miss Jule Pritcher - Catastrophe, &c., &c. . . . . . 153

• JUSTIFICATION AFTER VERDICT . . . . . 177
• AN AFFAIR OF HONOR . . . . . 192
• HON. S.S. PRENTISSA Sketch of his Character, and Review of his Public Career. . . . . . 197
• THE BAR OF THE SOUTH-WESTJurisprudence in a New Country - The Young Attorney and the Celebrated Lawyer - Litigation attending Frontier Life - The Poetry of Swindling, &c., &c. . . . . . 223
• HON. FRANCIS STROTHER 'Portrait of a Gentleman' - The Genius of Labor - Rare Union of the Suaviter and the Fortiter - The Hon. Francis's Munificence - His Services to the State, &c., &c.. . . . . 250
• MR. TEE AND MR. GEE . . . . . 264
• SCAN. MAG . . . . . 271
• AN EQUITABLE SET-OFF . . . . . 273
• A COOL REJOINDER . . . . . 275
• A HUNG COURT Smith vs. Johnson . . . . . 276
• SAMUEL HELE, ESQA Yankee Schoolmistress and an Alabama Lawyer. . . . . . 284
• JOHN STOUT, ESQ., AND MARK SULLIVAN . . . . . 304
• MR. ONSLOW . . . . . 312
• JO. HEYFRON . . . . . 316
• OLD UNCLE JOHN OLIVE . . . . . 318
• EXAMINING A CANDIDATE FOR LICENSE . . . . . 324

OVID BOLUS, ESQ.,

ATTORNEY AT LAW AND SOLICITOR IN CHANCERY.

A FRAGMENT

        AND what history of that halcyon period, ranging from the year of Grace, 1835, to 1837; that golden era, when shinplasters were the sole currency; when bank-bills were "as thick as Autumn leaves in Vallambrosa," and credit was a franchise, - what history of those times would be complete, that left out the name of Ovid Bolus? As well write the biography of Prince Hal, and forbear all mention of Falstaff. In law phrase, the thing would be a "deed without a name," and void; a most unpardonable casus omissus.

        I cannot trace, for reasons the sequel suggests, the early history, much less the birth-place, pedigree, and juvenile associations of this worthy. Whence he or his forbears got his name or how, I don't know: but for the fact that it is to be inferred he got it in infancy, I should have thought he

borrowed it: he borrowed every thing else he ever had, such things as he got under the credit system only excepted: in deference, however, to the axiom, that there is some exception to all general rules, I am willing to believe that he got this much honestly, by bona fide gift or inheritance, and without false presence.

        I have had a hard time of it in endeavoring to assign to Bolus his leading vice: I have given up the task in despair; but I have essayed to designate that one which gave him, in the end, most celebrity. I am aware that it is invidious to make comparisons, and to give pre-eminence to one over other rival qualities and gifts, where all have high claims to distinction: but, then, the stern justice of criticism, in this case, requires a discrimination, which, to be intelligible and definite, must be relative and comparative. I, therefore, take the responsibility of saying, after due reflection, that in my opinion, Bolus's reputation stood higher for lying than for any thing else: and in thus assigning pre-eminence to this poetic property, I do it without any desire to derogate from other brilliant characteristics belonging to the same general category, which have drawn the wondering notice of the world.

        Some men are liars from interest; not because they have no regard for truth, but because they have less regard for it then for gain: some are liars from vanity, because they would rather be well thought of by others, than have reason for thinking well of themselves: some are liars from a sort of necessity, which overbears, by the weight of temptations, the

sense of virtue: some are enticed away by the allurements of pleasure, or seduced by evil example and education. Bolus was none of these: he belonged to a higher department of the fine arts, and to a higher class of professors of this sort of Belles-Lettres.Bolus was a natural liar, just as some horses are natural pacers, and some dogs natural setters. What he did in that walk, was from the irresistible promptings of instinct, and a disinterested love of art. His genius and his performances were free from the vulgar alloy of interest or temptation. Accordingly, he did not labor a lie: he lied with a relish: he lied with a coming appetite, growing with what it fed on: he lied from the delight of invention and the charm of fictitious narrative. It is true he applied his art to the practical purposes of life; but in so far did he glory the more in it; just as an ingenious machinist rejoices that his invention, while it has honored science, has also supplied a common want.

        Bolus's genius for lying was encyclopediacal: it was what German criticism calls many-sided. It embraced all subjects without distinction or partiality. It was equally good upon all, "from grave to gay, from lively to severe."

        Bolus's lying came from his greatness of soul and his comprehensiveness of mind. The truth was too small for him. Fact was too dry and common-place for the fervor of his genius. Besides, great as was his memory - for he even remembered the outlines of his chief lies - his invention was still larger. He had a great contempt for history and historians. He thought them tame and timid cobblers; mere

tinkers on other people's wares, - simple parrots and magpies of other men's sayings or doings; borrowers of and acknowledged debtors for others' chattels, got without skill; they had no separate estate in their ideas: they were bailees of goods, which they did not pretend to hold by adverse title; buriers of talents in napkins making no usury; barren and unprofitable non-producers in the intellectual vineyard - nati consumere fruges.

        He adopted a fact occasionally to start with, but, like a Sheffield razor and the crude ore, the workmanship, polish and value were all his own: a Thibet shawl could as well be credited to the insensate goat that grew the wool, as the author of a fact Bolus honored with his artistical skill, could claim to be the inventor of the story.

        His experiments upon credulity, like charity, began at home. He had long torn down the partition wall between his imagination and his memory. He had long ceased to distinguish between the impressions made upon his mind by what came from it, and what came to it: all ideas were facts to him.

        Bolus's life was not a common man's life. His world was not the hard, work-day world the groundlings live in: he moved in a sphere of poetry: he lived amidst the ideal and romantic. Not that he was not practical enough, when he chose to be: by no means. He bought goods and chattels, lands and tenements, like other men; but he got them under a state of poetic illusion, and paid for them in an imaginary way. Even the titles he gave were not of the earthy

sort - they were sometimes clouded.He gave notes, too, - how well I know it! - like other men; he paid them like himself.

        How well he asserted the Spiritual over the Material! How he delighted to turn an abstract idea into concrete cash - to make a few blots of ink, representing a little thought, turn out a labor-saving machine, and bring into his pocket money which many days of hard exhausting labor would not procure! What pious joy it gave him to see the days of the good Samaritan return, and the hard hand of avarice relax its grasp on land and negroes, pork and clothes, beneath the soft speeches and kind promises of future rewards - blending in the act the three cardinal virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity; while, in the result, the chief of these three was Charity!

        There was something sublime in the idea - this elevating the spirit of man to its true and primeval dominion over things of sense and grosser matter.

        It is true, that in these practical romances, Bolus was charged with a defective taste in repeating himself. The justice of the charge must be, at least, partially acknowledged: this I know from a client to whom Ovid sold a tract of land after having sold it twice before: I cannot say, though, that his forgetting to mention this circumstance made any difference, for Bolus originally had no title.

        There was nothing narrow, sectarian, or sectional. in Bolus's lying. It was on the contrary broad and catholic. It had no respect to times or places. It was as wide, illimitable,

as elastic and variable as the air he spent in giving it expression. It was a generous, gentlemanly, whole-souled faculty. It was often employed on occasions of this sort, but no more; and no more zealously on these than on others of no profit to himself. He was an Egotist, but a magnificent one; he was not a liar because an egotist, but an egotist because a liar. He usually made himself the hero of the romantic exploits and adventures he narrated; but this was not so much to exalt himself, as because it was more convenient to his art. He had nothing malignant or invidious in his nature. If he exalted himself, it was seldom or never to the disparagement of others, unless, indeed, those others were merely imaginary persons, or too far off to be hurt. He would as soon lie for you as for himself. It was all the same, so there was something doing in his line of business, except in those cases in which his necessities required to be fed at your expense.

        He did not confine himself to mere lingual lying: one tongue was not enough for all the business he had on hand. He acted lies as well. Indeed, sometimes his very silence was a lie. He made nonentity fib for him, and performed wondrous feats by a "masterly inactivity."

        The personnel of this distinguished Votary of the Muse, was happily fitted to his art. He was strikingly handsome. There was something in his air and bearing almost princely, certainly quite distinguished. His manners were winning, his address frank, cordial and flowing. He was built after the model and structure of Bolingbroke in his youth, Americanized

and Hoosierized a little by a "raising in," and an adaptation to, the Backwoods. He was fluent but choice of diction, a little sonorous in the structure of his sentences to give effect to a voice like an organ. His countenance was open and engaging, usually sedate of expression, but capable of any modifications at the shortest notice. Add to this his intelligence, shrewdness, tact, humor, and that he was a ready debater and elegant declaimer, and had the gift of bringing out, to the fullest extent, his resources, and you may see that Ovid, in a new country, was a man apt to make no mean impression. He drew the loose population around him, as the magnet draws iron filings. He was the man for the "boys," - then a numerous and influential class. His generous profusion and free handed manner impressed them as the bounty of Cæsar the loafing commonalty of Rome: Bolus was no niggard. He never higgled or chaffered about small things. He was as free with his own money - if he ever had any of his own - as with yours. If he never paid borrowed money, he never asked payment of others. If you wished him to lend you any, he would give you a handful without counting it: if you handed him any, you were losing time in counting it, for you never saw any thing of it again: Shallow's funded debt on Falstaff were as safe an investment: this would have been an equal commerce, but, unfortunately for Bolus's friends, the proportion between his disbursements and receipts was something scant. Such a spendthrift never made a track even in the flush times of 1836. It took as much to support him as a first class steamboat. His bills at the groceries

were as long as John Q. Adams' Abolition petition, or, if pasted together, would have matched the great Chartist memorial. He would as soon treat a regiment or charter the grocery for the day, as any other way; and after the crowd had heartily drank - some of them "laying their souls in soak," - if he did not have the money convenient - as when did he? - he would fumble in his pocket, mutter something about nothing less than a $100 bill, and direct the score, with a lordly familiarity, to be charged to his account.

        Ovid had early possessed the faculty of ubiquity. He had been born in more places than Homer. In an hour's discourse, he would, with more than the speed of Ariel, travel at every point of the compass, from Portland to San Antonio, some famous adventure always occurring just as he "rounded to," or while stationary, though he did not remain longer than to see it. He was present at every important debate in the Senate at Washington, and had heard every popular speaker on the hustings, at the bar and in the pulpit, in the United States. He had been concerned in many important causes with Grymes and against Mazereau in New Orleans, and had borne no small share in the fierce forensic battles, which, with singular luck, he and Grymes always won in the courts of the Crescent City. And such frolics as they had when they laid aside their heavy armor, after the heat and burden of the day! Such gambling! A negro ante and twenty on the call, was moderate playing. What lots of "Ethiopian captives" and other plunder he raked down vexed Arithmetic to count and credulity to believe; and, had

it not been for Bolus's generosity in giving "the boys" a chance to win back by doubling off on the high hand, there is no knowing what charges of owners would not have occurred in the Rapides or on the German Coast.

        The Florida war and the Texas Revolution, had each furnished a brilliant theatre for Ovid's chivalrous emprise. Jack Hays and he were great chums. Jack and he had many a hearty laugh over the odd trick of Ovid, in lassoing a Camanche Chief, while galloping a stolen horse bare-backed, up the San Saba hills. But he had the rig on Jack again, when he made him charge on a brood of about twenty Camanches, who had got into a mot of timber in the prairies, and were shooting their arrows from the covert, Ovid, with a six-barrelled rifle, taking them on the wing as Jack rode in and flushed them!

        It was an affecting story and feelingly told, that of his and Jim Bowie's rescuing an American girl from the Apaches, and returning her to her parents in St. Louis; and it would have been still more tender, had it not been for the unfortunate necessity Bolus was under of shooting a brace of gay lieutenants on the border, one frosty morning, before breakfast, back of the fort, for taking unbecoming liberties with the fair damosel, the spoil of his bow and spear.

        But the girls Ovid courted, and the miraculous adventures he had met with in love beggared by the comparison, all the fortune of war had done for him. Old Nugent's daughter, Sallie, was his narrowest escape; Sallie was accomplished to the romantic extent of two ocean steamers, and

four blocks of buildings in Boston, separated only from immediate "perception and pernancy," by the contingency of old Nugent's recovering from a confirmed dropsy, for which he had been twice ineffectually tapped. The day was set - the presents made - superb of course - the guests invited: the old Sea Captain insisted on Bolus's setting his negroes free, and taking five thousand dollars apiece for the loss. Bolus's love for the "peculiar institution" wouldn't stand it. Rather than submit to such degradation, Ovid broke off the match, and left Sallie broken-hearted; a disease from which she did not recover until about six months afterwards, when she ran off with the mate of her father's ship, the Sea Serpent, in the Rio trade.

        Gossip and personal anecdote were the especial subjects of Ovid's elocution. He was intimate with all the notabilities of the political circles. He was a privileged visitor of the political greenroom. He was admitted back into the laboratory where the political thunder was manufactured, and into the office where the magnetic wires were worked. He knew the origin of every party question and movement, and had a finger in every pie the party cooks of Tammany baked for the body politic.

        One thing in Ovid I can never forgive. This was his coming it over poor Ben. I don't object to it on the score of the swindle. That was to have been expected. But swindling Ben was degrading the dignity of the art. True, it illustrated the universality of his science, but it lowered it to a beggarly process of mean deception. There was no skill

in it. It was little better than crude larceny. A child could have done it; it had as well been done to a child. It was like catching a cow with a lariat, or setting a steel trap for a pet pig. True, Bolus had nearly practised out of custom. He had worn his art threadbare. Men, who could afford to be cheated, had all been worked up or been scared away. Besides, Frost couldn't be put off. He talked of money in a most ominous connection with blood. The thing could be settled by a bill of exchange. Ben's name was unfortunately good - the amount some $1,600. Ben had a fine tract of land in S-r. He has not got it now. Bolus only gave Ben one wrench - that was enough. Ben never breathed easy afterwards. All the V's and X's of ten years' hard practice, went in that penful of ink. Fie! Bolus, Monroe Edwards wouldn't have done that. He would sooner have sunk down to the level of some honest calling for a living, than have put his profession to so mean a shift. I can conceive of but one extenuation; Bolus was on the lift for Texas, and the desire was natural to qualify himself for citizenship.

        The genius of Bolus, strong in its unassisted strength, yet gleamed out more brilliantly under the genial influence of "the rosy." With boon companions and "reaming suats," it was worth while to hear him of a winter evening. He could "gild the palpable and the familiar, with golden exhalations of the dawn." The most common-place objects became dignified. There was a history to the commonest articles about him: that book was given him by Mr. Van Buren

- the walking stick was a present from Gen. Jackson thrice-watered Monongahela, just drawn from the grocery hard by, was the last of a distillation of 1825, smuggled in from Ireland, and presented to him by a friend in New Orleans, on easy terms with the collector; the cigars, not too fragrant, were of a box sent him by a schoolmate from Cuba, in 1834 - before he visited the Island. And talking of Cuba - he had met with an adventure there, the impression of which never could be effaced from his mind. He had gone, at the instance of Don Carlos y Cubanos, (an intimate classmate in a Kentucky Catholic College,) whose life he had saved from a mob in Louisville, at the imminent risk of his own. The Don had a sister of blooming sixteen, the least of whose charms was two or three coffee plantations, some hundreds of slaves, and a suitable garnish of doubloons, accumulated during her minority, in the hands of her uncle and guardian, the Captain General. All went well with the young lovers - for such, of course, they were - until Bolus, with his usual frank indiscretion, in a conversation with the Priest, avowed himself a Protestant. Then came trouble. Every effort was made to convert him; but Bolus's faith resisted the eloquent tongue of the Priest, and the more eloquent eyes of Donna Isabella. The brother pleaded the old friendship - urged a seeming and formal conformity - the Captain General argued the case like a politician - the Señorita like a warm and devoted woman. All would not do. The Captain General forbade his longer sojourn on the Island. Bolus took leave of the fair Señorita: the parting interview held in the

orange bower, was affecting: Donna Isabella, with dishevelled hair, threw herself at his feet; the tears streamed from her eyes: in liquid tones, broken by grief, she implored him to relent, - reminded him of her love, of her trust in him, and of the consequences - now not much longer to be concealed - of that love and trust; ("though I protest," Bolus would say, "I don't know what she meant exactly by that.") "Gentlemen," Bolus continued, "I confess to the weakness - I wavered - but then my eyes happened to fall on the breast-pin with a lock of my mother's hair - I recovered my courage: I shook her gently from me. I felt my last hold on earth was loosened - my last hope of peace destroyed. Since that hour, my life has been a burden. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you a broken man - a martyr to his Religion. But, away with these melancholy thoughts: boys, pass around the jorum." And wiping his eyes, he drowned the wasting sorrow in a long draught of the poteen; and, being much refreshed, was able to carry the burden on a little further, - videlicet, to the next lie.

        It must not be supposed that Bolus was destitute of the tame virtue of prudence - or that this was confined to the avoidance of the improvident habit of squandering his money in paying old debts. He took reasonably good care of his person. He avoided all unnecessary exposures, chiefly from a patriotic desire, probably, of continuing his good offices to his country. His recklessness was, for the most part, lingual. To hear him talk, one might suppose he held his carcass merely for a target to try guns and

knives upon; or that the business of his life was to draw men up to ten paces or less, for sheer improvement in marksmanship. Such exploits as he had gone through with, dwarfed the heroes of romance to very pigmy and sneaking proportions. Pistol at the Bridge when he bluffed at honest Fluellen, might have envied the swash-buckler airs, Ovid would sometimes put on. But I never could exactly identify the place he had laid out for his burying-ground. Indeed, I had occasion to know that he declined to understand several not very ambiguous hints, upon which he might, with as good a grace as Othello, have spoken, not to mention one or two pressing invitations which his modesty led him to refuse. I do not know that the base sense of fear had any thing to do with these declinations: possibly he might have thought he had done his share of fighting, and did not wish to monopolize: or his principles forbade it - I mean those which opposed his paying a debt: knowing he could not cheat that inexorable creditor, Death, of his claim, he did the next thing to it; which was to delay and shirk payment as long as possible.

        It remains to add a word of criticism on this great Lyric artist.

        In lying, Bolus was not only a successful, but he was a very able practitioner. Like every other eminent artist, he brought all his faculties to bear upon his art. Though quick of perception and prompt of invention, he did not trust himself to the inspirations of his genius for improvising a lie, when he could well premeditate one. He deliberately

built up the substantial masonry, relying upon the occasion and its accessories, chiefly for embellishment and collateral supports: as Burke excogitated the more solid parts of his great speeches, and left unprepared only the illustrations and fancy-work.

        Bolus's manner was, like every truly great man's, his own. It was excellent. He did not come blushing up to a lie, as some otherwise very passable liars do, as if he were making a mean compromise between his guilty passion or morbid vanity, and a struggling conscience. Bolus had long since settled all disputes with his conscience. He and it were on very good terms - at least, if there was no affection between the couple, there was no fuss in the family; or, if there were any scenes or angry passages, they were reserved for strict privacy and never got out. My own opinion is, that he was as destitute of the article as an ostrich. Thus he came to his work bravely, cheerfully and composedly. The delights of composition, invention and narration, did not fluster his style or agitate his delivery. He knew how, in the tumult of passion, to assume the "temperance to give it smoothness." A lie never ran away with him, as it is apt to do with young performers: he could always manage and guide it; and to have seen him fairly mounted, would have given you some idea of the polished elegance of D'Orsay, and the superb manage of Murat. There is a tone and manner of narration different from those used in delivering ideas just conceived; just as there is a difference between the sound of the voice in reading and in speaking. Bolus knew

this, and practised on it. When he was narrating, he put the facts in order, and seemed to speak them out of his memory; but not formally, or as if by rote. He would stop himself to correct a date; recollect he was wrong - he was that year at the White Sulphur or Saratoga, &c.: having got the date right, the names of persons present would be incorrect, &c.: and these he corrected in turn. A stranger hearing him, would have feared the marring of a good story by too fastidious a conscientiousness in the narrator.

        His zeal in pursuit of a lie under difficulties, was remarkable. The society around him - if such it could be called - was hardly fitted, without some previous preparation, for an immediate introduction to Almack's or the classic precincts of Gore House. The manners of the natives were rather plain than ornate, and candor rather than polish, predominated in their conversation. Bolus had need of some forbearance to withstand the interruptions and cross-examinations, with which his revelations were sometimes received. But he possessed this in a remarkable degree. I recollect, on one occasion, when he was giving an account of a providential escape he was signally favored with, (when boarded by a pirate off the Isle of Pines, and he pleaded masonry, and gave a sign he had got out of the Disclosures of Morgan,) Tom Johnson interrupted him to say that he had heard that before, (which was more than Bolus had ever done.) B. immediately rejoined, that he had, he believed, given him, Tom, a running sketch of the incident. "Rather," said Tom, "I think, a lying sketch." Bolus scarcely

smiled, as he replied, that Tom was a wag, and couldn't help turning the most serious things into jests; and went on with his usual brilliancy, to finish the narrative. Bolus did not overcrowd his canvas. His figures were never confused, and the subordinates and accessories did not withdraw attention from the main and substantive lie. He never squandered his lies profusely: thinking, with the poet, that "bounteous, not prodigal, is kind Nature's hand," he kept the golden mean between penuriousness and prodigality; never stingy of his lies, he was not wasteful of them, but was rather forehanded than pushed, or embarrassed, having, usually, fictitious stock to be freshly put on 'change, when he wished to "make a raise." In most of his fables, he inculcated but a single leading idea; but contrived to make the several facts of the narrative fall in very gracefully with the principal scheme.

        The rock on which many promising young liars, who might otherwise have risen to merited distinction, have split, is vanity: this marplot vice betrays itself in the exultation manifested on the occasion of a decided hit, an exultation too inordinate for mere recital, and which betrays authorship; and to betray authorship, in the present barbaric, moral and intellectual condition of the world is fatal. True, there seems to be some inconsistency here. Dickens and Bulwer can do as much lying, for money too, as they choose, and no one blame them, any more than they would blame a lawyer regularly fee'd to do it; but let any man, gifted with the same genius, try his hand at it, not deliberately and in writing,

but merely orally, and ugly names are given him, and he is proscribed! Bolus heroically suppressed exultation over the victories his lies achieved.

        Alas! for the beautiful things of Earth, its flowers, its Sunsets - its lovely girls - its lies - brief and fleeting are their date. Lying is a very delicate accomplishment. It must be tenderly cared for, and jealousy guarded. It must not be overworked. Bolus forgot this salutary caution. The people found out his art. However dull the commons are as to other matters, they get sharp enough after a while, to whatever concerns their bread and butter. Bolus not having confined his art to political matters, sounded, at last, the depths, and explored the limits of popular credulity. The denizens of this degenerate age, had not the disinterestedness of Prince Hal, who "cared not how many fed at his cost;" they got tired, at last, of promises to pay. The credit system, common before as pump-water, adhering, like the elective franchise to every voter, began to take the worldly wisdom of Falstaff's mercer, and ask security; and security liked something more substantial than plausible promises. In this forlorn condition of the country, returning to its savage state, and abandoning the refinements of a ripe Anglo-Saxon civilization for the sordid safety of Mexican or Chinese modes of traffic; deserting the sweet simplicity of its ancient trustfulness and the poetic illusions of Augustus Tomlinson, for the vulgar saws of poor Richard - Bolus, with a sigh like that breathed out by his great prototype after his apostrophe to London, gathered up, one

bright moonlight night, his articles of value, shook the dust from his feet, and departed from a land unworthy of his longer sojourn. With that delicate consideration for the feelings of his friends, which, like the politeness of Charles II., never forsook him, he spared them the pain of a parting interview. He left no greetings of kindness; no messages of love: nor did he ask assurances of their lively remembrance. It was quite unnecessary. In every house he had left an autograph, in every ledger a souvenir. They will never forget him. Their connection with him will be ever regarded as

                        - "The greenest spot
                        In memory's waste."

        Poor Ben, whom he had honored with the last marks of his confidence, can scarcely speak of him to this day, without tears in his eyes. Far away towards the setting sun he hied him, until, at last, with a hermit's disgust at the degradation of the world, like Ignatius turned monk, he pitched his tabernacle amidst the smiling prairies that sleep in vernal beauty, in the shadow of the San Saba mountains. There let his mighty genius rest. It has earned repose. We leave Themistocles to his voluntary exile.

MY FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE BAR.

HIGGINBOTHAM vs. SWINK, Slander.

        I must premise by observing that, some twenty years ago - more or less - shortly after I obtained license to practise law in the town of H- , State of Alabama, an unfortunate client called at my office to retain my services in a celebrated suit for slander. The case stands on record,Stephen O. Higginbotham vs. Caleb Swink. The aforesaid Caleb, "greatly envying the happy state and condition of said Stephen," who, "until the grievances," &c., "never had been suspected of the crime of hog-stealing," &c., said,

"in the hearing and presence of one Samuel Eads and other good and worthy citizens," of and concerning the plaintiff, "you" (the said Stephen meaning) "are a noted hog thief, and stole more hogs than all the wagons in M- could haul off in a week on a turnpike road." The way I came to be employed was this: Higginbotham had retained Frank Glendye, a great brick in "damage cases," to bring the suit, and G. had prepared the papers, and got the case on the pleadings, ready for trial. But, while the case was getting ready, Frank was suddenly taken dangerously drunk, a disease to which his constitution was subject. The case had been continued for several terms, and had been set for a particular day of the term then going on, to be disposed of finally and positively when called. It was hoped that the lawyer would recover his health in time to prosecute the case; but he had continued the drunken fit with the suit. The morning of the trial came on; and, on going to see his counsel, the client found him utterly prostrate; not a hope remained of his being able to get to the court-house. He was in collapse; a perfect cholera case. Passing down the street, almost in despair, as my good or evil genius would have it, Higginbotham met Sam Hicks, a tailor, whom I had honored with my patronage (as his books showed) for many years; and, as one good turn deserves another - a suit for a suit - he, on hearing the predicament H. was in, boldly suggested my name to supply the place of the fallen Glendye; adding certain assurances and encomiums which did infinite credit to his friendship and his imagination.

        I gathered from my calumniated client, as well as I could, the facts of the case, and got a young friend to look me up the law of slander, to be ready when it should be put through, if it ever did get to the jury.

        The defendant was represented by old Cæsar Kasm, a famous man in those days; and well might he be. This venerable limb of the law had long practised at the M- bar, and been the terror of this generation. He was an old-time lawyer, the race of which is now fortunately extinct, or else the survivors "lag superfluous on the stage." He was about sixty-five years old at the time I am writing of; was of stout build, and something less than six feet in height. He dressed in the old-fashioned fair-top boots and shorts; ruffled shirt, buff vest, and hair, a grizzly gray, roached up flat and stiff in front, and hanging down in a queue behind, tied with an eel-skin and pomatumed. He was close shaven and powdered every morning; and, except a few scattering grains of snuff which fell occasionally between his nose and an old fashioned gold snuff-box, a speck of dirt was never seen on or about his carefully preserved person. The taking out of his deliciously perfumed handkerchief, scattered incense around like the shaking of a lilac bush in full flower. His face was round, and a sickly florid, interspersed with purple spots, overspread it, as if the natural dye of the old cogniac were maintaining an unequal contest with the decay of the vital energies. His bearing was decidedly soldierly, as it had a right to be, he having served as a captain some eight years before he took to the bar, as being the more pugnacious

profession. His features, especially the mouth, turned down at the corners like a bull-dog's or a crescent, and a nose perked up with unutterable scorn and self-conceit, and eyes of a sensual, bluish gray, that seemed to be all light and no heat, were never pleasing to the opposing side. In his way, old Kasm was a very polite man. Whenever he chose, which was when it was his interest, to be polite, and when his blood was cool and he was not trying a law case, he would have made Chesterfield and Beau Brummel ashamed of themselves. He knew all the gymnastics of manners, and all forms and ceremonies of deportment; but there was no more soul or kindness in the manual he went through, than in an iceberg. His politeness, however seemingly deferential, had a frost-bitten air, as if it had lain out over night and got the rheumatics before it came in; and really, one felt less at ease under his frozen smiles, than under any body else's frowns.

        He was the proudest man I ever saw: he would have made the Warwicks and the Nevilles, not to say the Plantagenets or Mr. Dombey, feel very limber and meek if introduced into their company; and selfish to that extent, that, if by giving up the nutmeg on his noon glass of toddy, he could have christianized the Burmese empire, millennium never would come for him.

        How far back he traced his lineage, I do not remember, but he had the best blood of both worlds in his veins; sired high up on the paternal side by some Prince or Duke, and dammed on the mother's by one or two Pocahontases. Of

course, from this, he was a Virginian, and the only one I ever knew that did not quote those Eleusinian mysteries, the Resolutions of 1798-99. He did not. He was a Federalist, and denounced Jefferson as a low-flung demagogue, and Madison as his tool. He bragged largely on Virginia, though - he was not eccentric on this point - but it was the Virginia of Washington, the Lees, Henry, &c., of which he boasted. The old dame may take it as a compliment that he bragged of her at all.

        The old Captain had a few negroes, which, with a declining practice, furnished him a support. His credit, in consequence of his not having paid any thing in the shape of a debt for something less than a quarter of a century, was rather limited. The property was covered up by a deed or other instrument, drawn up by Kasm himself, with such infernal artifice and diabolical skill, that all the lawyers in the county were not able to decide, by a legal construction of its various clauses, who the negroes belonged to, or whether they belonged to any body at all.

        He was an inveterate opponent of new laws, new books, new men. He would have revolutionized the government if he could, should a law have been passed, curing defects in Indictments.

        Yet he was a friend of strong government and strong laws: he might approve of a law making it death for a man to blow his nose in the street, but would be for rebelling if it allowed the indictment to dispense with stating in which hand he held it.

        This eminent barrister was brought up at a time when zeal for a client was one of the chief virtues of a lawyer - the client standing in the place of truth, justice and decency, and monopolizing the respect due to all. He, therefore, went into all causes with equal zeal and confidence, and took all points that could be raised with the same earnestness, and belabored them with the same force. He personated the client just as a great actor identifies himself with the character he represents on the stage.

        The faculty he chiefly employed was a talent for vituperation which would have gained him distinction on any theatre, from the village partisan press, down to the House of Representatives itself. He had cultivated vituperation as a science, which was like putting guano on the Mississippi bottoms, the natural fertility of his mind for satirical productions was so great. He was as much fitted by temper as by talent for this sort of rhetoric, especially when kept from his dinner or toddy by the trial of a case - then an alligator whose digestion had been disturbed by the horns of a billy goat taken for lunch, was no mean type of old Sar Kasm (as the wags of the bar called him, by nickname, formed by joining the last syllable of his christian, or rather, heathen name, to his patronymic). After a case began to grow interesting, the old fellow would get fully stirred up. He grew as quarrelsome as a little bull terrier. He snapped at witnesses, kept up a constant snarl at the counsel, and growled, at intervals, at the judge, whom, whoever he was, he considered as ex officio, his natural enemy, and so regarded

every thing got from him as so much wrung from an unwilling witness.

        But his great forte was in cross-examining a witness. His countenance was the very expression of sneering incredulity. Such a look of cold, unsympathizing, scornful penetration as gleamed from his eyes of ice and face of brass, is not often seen on the human face divine. Scarcely any eye could meet unshrinkingly that basilisk gaze: it needed no translation: the language was plain: "Now you are swearing to a lie, and I'll catch you in it in a minute;" and then the look of surprise which greeted each new fact stated, as if to say, "I expected some lying, but really this exceeds all my expectations." The mock politeness with which he would address a witness, was any thing but encouraging; and the officious kindness with which he volunteered to remind him of a real or fictitious embarrassment, by asking him to take his time and not to suffer himself to be confused, as far as possible from being a relief; while the air of triumph that lit up his face the while, was too provoking for a saint to endure.

        Many a witness broke down under his examination, that would have stood the fire of a masked battery unmoved, and many another, voluble and animated enough in the opening narrative, "slunk his pitch mightily," when old Kasm put him through on the cross-examination.

        His last look at them as they left the box, was an advertisement to come back, "and they would hear something to their advantage;" and if they came, they heard it, if humility is worth buying at such a price.

        How it was, that in such a fighting country, old Kasm continued at this dangerous business, can only be understood, by those who know the entire readiness - nay, eagerness of the old gentleman, to do reason to all serious inquirers; - and one or two results which happened some years before the time I am writing of, to say nothing of some traditions in the army, convinced the public, that his practice was as sharp at the small sword as at the cut and thrust of professional digladiation.

        Indeed, it was such an evident satisfaction to the old fellow to meet these emergencies, which to him were merely lively episodes breaking the monotony of the profession, that his enemies, out of spite, resolutely refused to gratify him, or answer the sneering challenge stereotyped on his countenance. "Now if you can do any better, suppose you help yourself?" So, by common consent, he was elected free libeller of the bar. But it was very dangerous to repeat after him.

        When he argued a case, you would suppose he had bursted his gall-bag - such, not vials but demijohns, of vituperation as he poured out with a fluency only interrupted by a pause to gather, like a tree-frog, the venom sweltering under his tongue into a concentrated essence. He could look more sarcasm than any body else could express; and in his scornful gaze, virtue herself looked like something sneaking and contemptible. He could not arouse the nobler passions or emotions; but he could throw a wet blanket over them. It took Frank Glendye and half a pint of good

French brandy, to warm the court-house after old Kasm was done speaking: but they could do it.

        My client was a respectable butcher: his opponent a well-to-do farmer. On getting to the court-house, I found the court in session. The clerk was just reading the minutes. My case - I can well speak in the singular - was set the first on the docket for that morning. I looked around and saw old Kasm, who somehow had found out I was in the case, with his green bag and half a library of old books on the bar before him. The old fellow gave me a look of malicious pleasure - like that of a hungry tiger from his lair, cast upon an unsuspecting calf browsing near him. I had tried to put on a bold face. I felt that it would be very unprofessional to let on to my client that I was at all scared, though my heart was running down like a jack-screw under a heavy wagon. My conscience - I had not practised it away then - was not quite easy. I couldn't help feeling that it was hardly honest to be leading my client, like Falstaff his men, where he was sure to be peppered. But then it was my only chance; my bread depended on it; and I reflected that the same thing has to happen in every lawyer's practice. I tried to arrange my ideas in form and excogitate a speech: they flitted through my brain in odds and ends. I could neither think nor quit thinking. I would lose myself in the first twenty words of the opening sentence and stop at a particle; - the trail run clean out. I would start it again with no better luck: then I thought a moment of the disgrace of a dead break-down; and then I

would commence again with "gentlemen of the jury," &c., and go on as before.

        At length the judge signed the minutes and took up the docket: "Special case - Higginbotham vs. Swink: Slander Mr. Glendye for plff.; Mr. Kasm for deft. Is Mr. G. in court? Call him, Sheriff." The sheriff called three times. He might as well have called the dead. No answer of course came. Mr. Kasm rose and told the court that he was sorry his brother was too much (stroking his chin and looking down and pausing) indisposed, or otherwise engaged, to attend the case; but he must insist on its being disposed of, &c.: the court said it would be. I then spoke up (though my voice seemed to me very low down and very hard to get up), that I had just been spoken to in the cause: I believed we were ready, if the cause must be then tried; but I should much prefer it to be laid over, if the court would consent, until the next day, or even that evening. Kasm protested vehemently against this; reminded the court of its peremptory order; referred to the former proceedings, and was going on to discuss the whole merits of the case, when he was interrupted by the judge, who, turning himself to me, remarked that he should be happy to oblige me, but that he was precluded by what had happened: he hoped, however, that the counsel on the other side would extend the desired indulgence; to which Kasm immediately rejoined, that this was a case in which he neither asked favors nor meant to give them. So the case had to go on. Several members of the bar had their hats in hand, ready to leave the room when the case

was called up; but seeing that I was in it alone, suffered their curiosity to get the better of other engagements, and staid to see it out; a circumstance which did not diminish my trepidation in the least.

        I had the witnesses called up, posted my client behind me in the bar, and put the case to the jury. The defendant had pleaded justification and not guilty. I got along pretty well, I thought, on the proofs. The cross-examination of old Kasm didn't seem to me to hurt any thing - though he quibbled, misconstrued, and bullied mightily; objected to all my questions as leading, and all the witnesses' answers as irrelevant: but the judge, who was a very clever sort of a man, and who didn't like Kasm much, helped me along and over the bad places, occasionally taking the examination himself when old Kasm had got the statements of the witness in a fog.

        I had a strong case; the plaintiff showed a good character: that the lodge of Masons had refused to admit him to fellowship until he could clear up these charges: that the Methodist Church, of which he was a class-leader, had required of him to have these charges judicially settled: that he had offered to satisfy the defendant that they were false, and proposed to refer it to disinterested men, and to be satisfied - if they decided for him - to receive a written retraction, in which the defendant should only declare he was mistaken; that the defendant refused this proffer and reiterated the charges with increased bitterness and aggravated insult; that the defendant had suffered in reputation and credit; that the defendant declared he meant to run him off and

buy his land at his (defendant's) own price; and that defendant was rich, and often repeated his slanders at public meetings, and once at the church door, and finally now justified.

        The defendant's testimony was weak: it did not controvert the proof as to the speaking of the words, or the matters of aggravation. Many witnesses were examined as to the character of the plaintiff; but those against us only referred to what they had heard since the slanders, except one who was unfriendly. Some witnesses spoke of butchering hogs at night, and hearing them squeal at a late hour at the plaintiff's slaughter house, and of the dead hogs they had seen with various marks, and something of hogs having been stolen in the neighborhood.

        This was about all the proof.

        The plaintiff laid his damages at $10,000.

        I rose to address the jury. By this time a good deal of the excitement had worn off. The tremor left, only gave me that sort of feeling which is rather favorable than otherwise to a public speaker.

        I might have made a pretty good out of it, if I had thrown myself upon the merits of my case, acknowledged modestly my own inexperience, plainly stated the evidence and the law, and let the case go - reserving myself in the conclusion for a splurge, if I chose to make one. But the evil genius that presides over the first bandings of all lawyerlings, would have it otherwise. The citizens of the town and those of the country, then in the village, had gathered

in great numbers into the courthouse to hear the speeches and I could not miss such an opportunity for display.

        Looking over the jury I found them a plain, matter-of-fact looking set of fellows; but I did not note, or probably know a fact or two about them, which I found out afterwards.

        I started, as I thought, in pretty good style. As I went on, however, my fancy began to get the better of my judgment. Argument and common sense grew tame. Poetry and declamation, and, at last, pathos and fiery invective, took their place. I grew as quotatious as Richard Swiveller. Shakspeare suffered. I quoted, among other things of less value and aptness, "He who steals my purse steals trash," &c. I spoke of the woful sufferings of my poor client, almost heart-broken beneath the weight of the terrible persecutions of his enemy: and, growing bolder, I turned on old Kasm, and congratulated the jury that the genius of slander had found an appropriate defender in the genius of chicane and malignity. I complimented the jury on their patience - on their intelligence - on their estimate of the value of character; spoke of the public expectation - of that feeling outside of the box which would welcome with thundering plaudits the righteous verdict the jury would render; and wound up by declaring that I had never known a case of slander so aggravated in the course of my practice at that bar; and felicitated myself that its grossness and barbarity justified my client in relying upon even the youth and inexperience of an unpractised advocate, whose poverty of

resources was unaided by opportunities of previous preparation. Much more I said that happily has now escaped me.

        When I concluded Sam Hicks and one or two other friends gave a faint sign of applause - but not enough to make any impression.

        I observed that old Kasm held his head down when I was speaking. I entertained the hope that I had cowed him! His usual port was that of cynical composure, or bold and brazen defiance. It was a special kindness if he only smiled in covert scorn: that was his most amiable expression in a trial.

        But when he raised up his head I saw the very devil was to pay. His face was of a burning red. He seemed almost to choke with rage. His eyes were blood-shot and flamed out fire and fury. His queue stuck out behind, and shook itself stiffly like a buffalo bull's tail when he is about making a fatal plunge. I had struck him between wind and water. There was an audacity in a stripling like me bearding him, which infuriated him. He meant to massacre me - and wanted to be a long time doing it. It was to be a regular auto da fé. I was to be the representative of the young bar, and to expiate his malice against all. The court adjourned for dinner. It met again after an hour's recess.

        By this time the public interest, and especially that of the bar, grew very great. There was a rush to the privileged seats, and the sheriff had to command order, - the shuffling of feet and the pressure of the crowd forward was so great.

        I took my seat within the bar, looked around with an affectation of indifference so belying the perturbation within, that the same power of acting on the stage would have made my fortune on that theatre.

        Kasm rose - took a glass of water: his hand trembled a little - I could see that; took a pinch of snuff, and led off in a voice slow and measured, but slightly - very slightly - tremulous. By a strong effort he had recovered his composure. The bar was surprised at his calmness. They all knew it was affected; but they wondered that he could affect it. Nobody was deceived by it. We felt assured "it was the torrent's smoothness ere it dash below." I thought he would come down on me in a tempest, and flattered myself it would soon be over. But malice is cunning. He had no idea of letting me off so easily.

        He commenced by saying that he had been some years in the practice. He would not say he was an old man: that would be in bad taste, perhaps. The young gentleman who had just closed his remarkable speech, harangue, poetic effusion, or rigmarole, or whatever it might be called, if, indeed, any name could be safely given to this motley mixture of incongruous slang - the young gentleman evidently did not think he was an old man; for he could hardly have been guilty of such rank indecency as to have treated age with such disrespect - he would not say with such insufferable impertinence: and yet, "I am," he continued, "of age enough to recollect, if I had charged my memory with so inconsiderable an event, the day of his birth, and then I was in full

practice in this courthouse. I confess, though, gentlemen, I am old enough to remember the period when a youth's first appearance at the bar was not signalized by impertinence towards his seniors; and when public opinion did not think flatulent bombast and florid trash, picked out of fifth-rate romances and namby-pamby rhymes, redeemed by the upstart sauciness of a raw popinjay, towards the experienced members of the profession he disgraced. And yet, to some extent, this ranting youth may be right: I am not old in that sense which disables me from defending myself here by words, or elsewhere, if need be, by blows: and that, this young gentleman shall right well know before I have done with him. You will bear in mind, gentlemen, that what I say is in self-defence - that I did not begin this quarrel - that it was forced on me; and that I am bound by no restraints of courtesy, or of respect, or of kindness. Let him charge to the account of his own rashness and rudeness, whatever he receives in return therefor.

        "Let me retort on this youth that he is a worthy advocate of his butcher client. He fights with the dirty weapons of his barbarous trade, and brings into his speech the reeking odor of his client's slaughter-house.

        "Perhaps something of this congeniality commended him to the notice of his worthy client, and to this, his first retainer: and no wonder, for when we heard his vehement roaring, we might have supposed his client had brought his most unruly bull-calf into court to defend him, had not the matter of the roaring soon convinced us the animal was

more remarkable for the length of his ears, than even the power of his lungs. Perhaps the young gentleman has taken his retainer, and contracted for butchering my client on the same terms as his client contracts in his line - that is, on the shares. But I think, gentlemen, he will find the contract a more dirty than profitable job. Or, perhaps, it might not be uncharitable to suggest that his client, who seems to be pretty well up to the business of saving other people's bacon, may have desired, as far as possible, to save his own; and, therefore turning from members of the bar who would have charged him for their services according to their value, took this occasion of getting off some of his stale wares; for has not Shakspeare said - (the gentleman will allow me to quote Shakspeare, too, while yet his reputation survives his barbarous mouthing of the poet's words) - he knew an attorney 'who would defend a cause far a starved hen, or leg of mutton fly-blown.' I trust, however, whatever was the contract, that the gentleman will make his equally worthy client stand up to it; for I should like, that on one occasion it might be said the excellent butcher was made to pay for his swine.

        "I find it difficult, gentlemen, to reply to any part of the young man's effort, except his argument, which is the smallest part in compass, and, next to his pathos, the most amusing. His figures of speech are some of them quite good, and have been so considered by the best judges for the last thousand years. I must confess, that as to these, I find no other fault than that they were badly applied and ridiculously

pronounced; and this further fault, that they have become so common-place by constant use, that, unless some new vamping or felicity of application be given them, they tire nearly as much as his original matter - videlicet, that matter which being more ridiculous than we ever heard before, carries internal evidence of its being his own. Indeed, it was never hard to tell when the gentleman recurred to his own ideas. He is like a cat-bird - the only intolerable discord she makes being her own notes - though she gets on well enough as long as she copies and cobbles the songs of other warblers.

        "But, gentlemen, if this young orator's argument was amusing, what shall I say of his pathos? What farce ever equalled the fun of it? The play of 'The Liar' probably approaches nearest to it, not only in the humor, but in the veracious character of the incidents from which the humor comes. Such a face - so woe-begone, so whimpering, as if the short period since he was flogged at school (probably in reference to those eggs falsely charged to the hound puppy) had neither obliterated the remembrance of his juvenile affliction, nor the looks he bore when he endured it.

        "There was something exquisite in his picture of the woes, the wasting grief of his disconsolate client, the butcher Higginbotham, mourning - as Rachel mourned for her Children - for his character because it was not. Gentlemen, look at him! Why he weighs twelve stone now! He has three inches of fat on his ribs this minute! He would make as many links of sausage as any hog that ever squealed at

midnight in his slaughter pen, and has lard enough in him to cook it all. Look at his face! why, his chops remind a hungry man of jowls and greens. If this is a shadow, in the name of propriety, why didn't he show himself, when in flesh, at the last Fair, beside the Kentucky ox; that were a more honest way of making a living than stealing hogs. But Hig is pining in grief! I wonder the poetic youth - his learned connsel - did not quote Shakspeare again. 'He never told his' - woe - 'but let concealment, like the worm i' the bud, prey on his damask cheek.' He looked like Patience on a monument smiling at grief - or beef I should rather say. But, gentlemen, probably I am wrong; it may be that this tender-hearted, sensitive butcher, was lean before, and like Falstaff, throws the blame of his fat on sorrow and sighing, which 'has puffed him up like a bladder.' (Here Higginbotham left in disgust.)

        "There, gentlemen, he goes, 'larding the lean earth as he walks along.' Well has Doctor Johnson said, 'who kills fat oxen should himself be fat.' Poor Hig! stuffed like one of his own blood-puddings, with a dropsical grief which nothing short of ten thousand dollars of Swink's money can cure. Well, as grief puffs him up, I don't wonder that nothing but depleting another man can cure him.

        "And now, gentlemen, I come to the blood and thunder part of this young gentleman's harangue: empty and vapid; words and nothing else. If any part of his rigmarole was windier than any other part, this was it. He turned himself into a small cascade, making a great deal of noise to

make a great deal of froth; tumbling; roaring; foaming; the shallower it ran all the noisier it seemed. He fretted and knitted his brows; he beat the air and he vociferated, always emphasizing the meaningless words most loudly; he puffed, swelled out and blowed off, until he seemed like a new bellows, all brass and wind. How he mouthed it - as those villainous stage players ranting out fustian in a barn theatre, [mimicking] - 'Who steals my purse, steals trash.' (I don't deny it.) ''Tis something,' (query?) 'nothing,' (exactly.) ' 'Tis mine; 'twas his, and has been slave to thousands - but he who filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enricheth him,' (not in the least,) 'but makes me poor indeed;' (just so, but whether any poorer than before he parted with the encumbrance, is another matter.)

        But the young gentleman refers to his youth. He ought not to reproach us of maturer age in that indirect way: no one would have suspected it of him, or him of it, if he had not told it: indeed, from hearing him speak, we were prepared to give him credit for almost any length of ears. But does not the youth remember that Grotius was only seventeen when he was in full practice, and that he was Attorney General at twenty-two; and what is Grotius to this greater light? Not the burning of my smoke house to the conflagration of Moscow!

        "And yet, young Grotius tells us in the next breath, that he never knew such a slander in the course of his practice? Wonderful, indeed! seeing that his practice has all been

done within the last six hours. Why, to hear him talk, you would suppose that he was an old Continental lawyer, grown grey in the service. H-i-s p-r-a-c-t-i-c-e! Why he is just in his legal swaddling clothes! HIS PRACTICE!! But I don't wonder he can't see the absurdity of such talk. How long does it take one of the canine tribe, after birth, to open his eyes!

        "He talked, too, of outside influences; of the public expectations, and all that sort of demagoguism. I observed no evidence of any great popular demonstrations in his favor, unless it be a tailor I saw stamping his feet; but whether that was because he had sat cross-legged so long he wanted exercise, or was rejoicing because he had got orders for a new suit, or a prospect of payment for an old one, the gentleman can possibly tell better than I can. (Here Hicks left.) However, if this case is to be decided by the populace here, the gentleman will allow me the benefit of a writ of error to the regimental muster, to be held, next Friday, at Reinhert's Distillery.

        "But, I suppose he meant to frighten you into a verdict, by intimating that the mob, frenzied by his eloquence, would tear you to pieces if you gave a verdict for defendant; like the equally eloquent barrister out West, who, concluding a case, said, 'Gentlemen, my client are as innocent of stealing that costing as the Sun at noonday, and if you give it agin him, his brother, Sam Ketchins, next muster, will maul every mother's son of you.' I hope the Sheriff will see to his duty and keep the crowd from you, gentlemen, if you should give us a verdict!

        "But, gentlemen, I am tired of winnowing chaff; I have not had the reward paid by Gratiano for sifting his discourse: the two grains of wheat to the bushel. It is all froth - all wind - all bubble."

        Kasm left me here for a time, and turned upon my client. Poor Higginbotham caught it thick and heavy. He wooled him, then skinned him, and then took to skinning off the under cuticle. Hig never skinned a beef so thoroughly. He put together all the facts about the witnesses' hearing the hogs squealing at night; the different marks of the hogs; the losses in the neighborhood; perverted the testimony and supplied omissions, until you would suppose, on hearing him, that it had been fully proved that poor Hig had stolen all the meat he had ever sold in the market. He asseverated that this suit was a malicious conspiracy between the Methodists and Masons, to crush his client. But all this I leave out, as not bearing on the main subject - myself.

        He came back to me with a renewed appetite. He said he would conclude by paying his valedictory respects to his juvenile friend - as this was the last time he ever expected to have the pleasure of meeting him.

        "That poetic young gentleman had said, that by your verdict against his client, you would blight for ever his reputation and that of his family - 'that you would bend down the spirit of his manly son, and dim the radiance of his blooming daughter's beauty.' Very pretty, upon my word! But, gentlemen, not so fine - not so poetical by half, as a precious morceau of poetry which adorns the columns of the village

newspaper, bearing the initials J.C.R. As this admirable production has excited a great deal of applause in the nurseries and boarding schools, I must beg to read it; not for the instruction of the gentleman, he has already seen it; but for the entertainment of the Jury. It is addressed to R*** B***, a young lady of this place. Here it goes."

        Judge my horror, when, on looking up, I saw him take an old newspaper from his pocket, and, pulling down his spectacles, begin to read off in a stage-actor style, some verses I had written for Rose Bell's Album. Rose had been worrying me for some time, to write her something. To get rid of her importunities, I had scribbled off a few lines and copied them in the precious volume. Rose, the little fool, took them for something very clever (she never had more than a thimbleful of brains in her doll-baby head) - and was so tickled with them, that she got her brother, Bill, then about fourteen, to copy them off, as well as he could, and take them to the printing office. Bill threw them under the door; the printer, as big a fool as either, not only published them, but, in his infernal kindness, puffed them in some critical commendations of his own, referring to "the gifted author," as "one of the most promising of the younger members of our bar."

        The fun, by this time, grew fast and furious. The country people, who have about as much sympathy for a young town lawyer, badgered by an older one, as for a young cub beset by curs; and who have about as much idea or respect for poetry, as for witchcraft, joined in the mirth with great