Part 31 (1/2)

”Phelps was one of theand desperate of ruffians

He fronted his prosecutor and the court not only with conant defiance When Prentiss arose to speak, and for some time afterwards, the criminal scowled upon hi with his subject, turned upon hi invective like lava upon his head; when he depicted the villainy and barbarity of his bold atrocities; when he pictured, in dark and disment to be pronounced at another Bar upon his crimes when his soul be confronted with his innocent victiaze of concentrated power upon hi th, unable to bear up under self-conviction, he hid his head beneath the bar, and exhibited a picture of ruffianly audacity cowed beneath the spell of true courage and triuenius”

In his early practice in Mississippi, in closing a touching and eloquent appeal to the jury on behalf of a client whose life was tre in the balance, Prentiss said:

”I have somewhere read that when God in His eternal councils conceived the thought of man's creation, he called to him the three ministers ait constantly upon the throne, Justice, Truth, and Mercy, and thus addressed them:

”'Shall we make man?'

”Then said Justice, 'O God, make him not, for he will trample upon Thy laws'

”Truth made answer also, 'O God, make him not, for he will pollute Thy sanctuaries'

”Then Mercy, dropping upon her knees and looking up through her tears, exclaih all the dark paths he may have to tread'

”Then God o and deal inof Mr Webster's marvellous power over a jury, Mr

Hubbard toldthe trial of a once celebrated divorce case in one of the courts of Boston The husband was the conized sufficiency in all countries Mr Webster was the counsel for the husband; Rufus Choate for the wife As an advocate, the latter has had few equals, no superiors, at the American bar In the case mentioned, with a distressed woman for a client, as dearer than life, her reputation, in the balance, it may well be believed that the wondrous powers of the advocate were in requisition to the utmost

At the conclusion of Choate's speech, as Mr Hubbard assured me, the case of the injured husband appeared hopeless It seemed impossible that such a speech could be successfully answered

The opening sentence, in deep and measured tones, of Webster in reply, the prelude to an unrivalled argument and to victory, was:

”Saint Paul in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter of his wondrous Epistle to the Romans says: 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver entlemen, can deliver this wretched man _fro can exceed the following froo, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a old, alus of black Egyptian marble where rest the ashes of that restless ht about the career of the greatest soldier of theupon the banks of the Seine conte down the mob in the streets of Paris; I saw hi the bridge at Lodi with the tricolor in his hand; I saw hiypt in the shadow of the Pyrales of France with the eagles of the crags; I saw hio, at Ulm, and at Austerlitz; I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves; I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to Elba

I saw hienius

I saw hihtful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fortune co, and I saw hi out upon the sad and soleht of the orphans and s he had lory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition; and I said I would rather have been a French peasant and ooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the rays of the autumn sun; I would rather have been that poor peasant withas the day died out of the sky, with my children about my knee and their arone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than have been that imperial iy upon Abrahahbor and friend, Hon Isaac N Phillips, said:

”He lived with Nature and learned of her He toiled, but his toil was never hopeless and degrading His feet were upon the earth but the stars shi+ning in perennial beauty were ever above hi of the thrush, and the carol of the lark He watched the sun in its course He knew the dim paths of the forest, and his soul ed by the power of the storalls's tribute to a departed colleague were sombre indeed:

”In the democracy of Death all ative, in the republic of the grave

At that fatal threshold the philosopher ceases to be wise, and the song of the poet is silent There Dives relinquished his riches and Lazarus his rags; the creditor loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation; the proud nity, the politician his honors, the worldling his pleasures Here the invalid needs no physician, and the laborer rests from unrequited toil Here at last is Nature's final decree of equity The wrongs of time are redressed, and injustice is expiated The unequal distribution of wealth and honor, capacity, pleasure, and opportunity, which edy, ceases in the realest has there no suprehtiest captain succumbs to the invincible adversary who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished”

In his day Edward Everett was the ifted of American orators

His style, however, to readers in ”these piping times of peace,”

seems a trifle stilted What orator of the twentieth century would atte froton:

”Let us make a national festival and holiday of his birthday; and ever, as the twenty-second of February returns, let us remember that, while with these solereat anniversary, our fellow-citizens on the Hudson, on the Potoed in the saratitude and love Nor we, nor they alone; beyond the Ohio, beyond the Mississippi, along that stupendous trail of i into States as itthe Western prairies, swar down their slopes, the naht will travel with the silver queen of heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part coh the Golden Gate of California, and passes serenely to hold ht court with her Australian stars There and there only in barbarous archipelagos, as yet untrodden by civilized ton is unknown; and there, too, when they sith enlightened millions, new honors shall be paid with ours to hisorator is Williaiftedlike Lord Bacon taken all knowledge for his province--a fearless chaht, he is in the loftiest sense ”without fear and without reproach”

In introducing hiton when he was first a candidate for the Presidency, I said: