University of Virginia Library

14. HON. S. S. PRENTISS.

The character of the bar, in the older portions of the
State of Mississippi, was very different from that of the bar
in the new districts. Especially was this the case with the
counties on and near the Mississippi river. In its front ranks
stood Prentiss, Holt, Boyd, Quitman, Wilkinson, Winchester,
Foote, Henderson, and others.

It was at the period first mentioned by me, in 1837, that
Sargeant S. Prentiss was in the flower of his forensic fame.
He had not, at that time, mingled largely in federal politics.
He had made but few enemies; and had not “staled his presence,”
but was in all the freshness of his unmatched faculties.
At this day it is difficult for any one to appreciate
the enthusiasm which greeted this gifted man, the admiration
which was felt for him, and the affection which followed him.
He was to Mississippi, in her youth, what Jenny Lind is to
the musical world, or what Charles Fox, whom he resembled
in many things, was to the whig party of England in his day.
Why he was so, it is not difficult to see. He was a type of
his times, a representative of the qualities of the people, or

rather of the better qualities of the wilder and more impetuous
part of them. The proportion of young men—as in
all new countries—was great, and the proportion of wild
young men was, unfortunately, still greater.

He had all those qualities which make us charitable to
the character of Prince Hal, as it is painted by Shakespeare,
even when our approval is not fully bestowed. Generous as
a prince of the royal blood, brave and chivalrous as a knight
templar, of a spirit that scorned every thing mean, underhanded
or servile, he was prodigal to improvidence, instant in
resentment, and bitter in his animosities, yet magnanimous
to forgive when reparation had been made, or misconstruction
explained away. There was no littleness about him. Even
towards an avowed enemy he was open and manly, and bore
himself with a sort of antique courtesy and knightly hostility,
in which self-respect mingled with respect for his foe, except
when contempt was mixed with hatred; then no words can
convey any sense of the intensity of his scorn, the depth of
his loathing. When he thus outlawed a man from his courtesy
and respect, language could scarce supply words to express
his disgust and detestation.

Fear seemed to be a stranger to his nature. He never
hesitated to meet, nor did he wait for, “responsibility,”
but he went in quest of it. To denounce meanness
or villainy, in any and all forms, when it came in his way,
was, with him, a matter of duty, from which he never shrunk;
and so to denounce it as to bring himself in direct collision
with the perpetrator or perpetrators—for he took them in

crowds as well as singly—was a task for which he was instant
in season or out of season.

Even in the vices of Prentiss, there were magnificence
and brilliancy imposing in a high degree. When he treated,
it was a mass entertainment. On one occasion he chartered
the theatre for the special gratification of his friends,
—the public generally. He bet thousands on the turn of a
card, and witnessed the success or failure of the wager with
the nonchalance of a Mexican monte-player, or, as was most
usual, with the light humor of a Spanish muleteer. He broke
a faro-bank by the nerve with which he laid his large bets,
and by exciting the passion of the veteran dealer, or awed
him into honesty by the glance of his strong and steady
eye.

Attachment to his friends was a passion. It was a part
of the loyalty to the honorable and chivalrie, which formed
the sub-soil of his strange and wayward nature. He never
deserted a friend. His confidence knew no bounds. It scorned
all restraints and considerations of prudence or policy.
He made his friends' quarrels his own, and was as guardful
of their reputations as of his own. He would put his name
on the back of their paper, without looking at the face of it,
and give his carte blanche, if needed, by the quire. He was
above the littleness of jealousy or rivalry; and his love of
truth, his fidelity and frankness, were formed on the antique
models of the chevaliers. But in social qualities he knew no
rival. These made him the delight of every circle; they
were adapted to all, and were exercised on all. The same

histrionic and dramatic talent that gave to his oratory so irresistible
a charm, and adapted him to all grades and sorts
of people, fitted him, in conversation, to delight all men. He
never staled and never flagged. Even if the fund of acquired
capital could have run out, his originality was such, that
his supply from the perennial fountain within was inexhaustible.

His humor was as various as profound—from the most
delicate wit to the broadest farce, from irony to caricature,
from classical allusion to the verge—and sometimes beyond
the verge—of coarse jest and Falstaff extravagance; and no
one knew in which department he most excelled. His animal
spirits flowed over like an artesian well, ever gushing
out in a deep, bright, and sparkling current.

He never seemed to despond or droop for a moment: the
cares and anxieties of life were mere bagatelles to him. Sent
to jail for fighting in the court-house, he made the walls of
the prison resound with unaccustomed shouts of merriment
and revelry. Starting to fight a duel, he laid down his hand
at poker, to resume it with a smile when he returned, and
went on the field laughing with his friends, as to a pic-nic.
Yet no one knew better the proprieties of life than himself
—when to put off levity, and treat grave subjects and persons
with proper respect; and no one could assume and preserve
more gracefully a dignified and sober demeanor.

His early reading and education had been extensive and
deep. Probably no man of his age, in the State, was so well
read in the ancient and modern classics, in the current

literature of the day, and—what may seem stranger—
in the sacred scriptures. His speeches drew some of their
grandest images, strongest expressions, and aptest illustrations
from the inspired writings.

The personnel of this remarkable man was well calculated
to rivet the interest his character inspired. Though he
was low of stature, and deformed in one leg, his frame was
uncommonly athletic and muscular; his arms and chest were
well formed, the latter deep and broad; his head large, and
a model of classical proportions and noble contour. A handsome
face, compact brow, massive and expanded, and eyes of
dark hazel, full and clear, were fitted for the expression of
every passion and flitting shade of feeling and sentiment. His
complexion partook of the bilious rather than the sanguine
temperament. The skin was smooth and bloodless—no excitement
or stimulus heightened its color; nor did the writer ever
see any evidence in his face of irregularity of habit. In repose,
his countenance was serious and rather melancholy—certainly
somewhat soft and quiet in expression, but evidencing
strength and power, and the masculine rather than the
light and flexible qualities which characterized him in his
convivial moments. There was nothing affected or theatrical
in his manner, though some parts of his printed
speeches would seem to indicate this. He was frank and
artless as a child; and nothing could have been more winning
than his familiar intercourse with the bar, with whom he was
always a favorite, and without a rival in their affection.

I come now to speak of him as a lawyer.

He was more widely known as a politician than a lawyer,
as an advocate than a jurist. This was because politics form
a wider and more conspicuous theatre than the bar, and because
the mass of men are better judges of oratory than of
law. That he was a man of wonderful versatility and varied
accomplishments, is most true; that he was a popular orator
of the first class is also true; and that all of his faculties
did not often, if ever, find employment in his profession,
may be true likewise. So far he appeared to better advantage
in a deliberative assembly, or before the people, because
there he had a wider range and subjects of a more general
interest, and was not fettered by rules and precedents; his
genius expanded over a larger area, and exercised his powers
in greater variety and number. Moreover, a stump speech
is rarely made chiefly for conviction and persuasion, but to
gratify and delight the auditors, and to raise the character
of the speaker. Imagery, anecdote, ornament, eloquence and
elocution, are in better taste than in a speech at the bar,
where the chief and only legitimate aim is to convince and
instruct.

It will always be a mooted point among Prentiss's admirers,
as to where his strength chiefly lay. My own opinion
is that it was as a jurist that he mostly excelled; that
it consisted in knowing and being able to show to others
what was the law. I state the opinion with some diffidence,
and, did it rest on my own judgment alone, should not hazard
it at all. But the eminent chief-justice of the high
court of errors and appeals of Mississippi thought that

Prentiss appeared to most advantage before that court; and
a distinguished judge of the Supreme Court of Alabama, who
had heard him before the chancellor of Mississippi, expressed
to me the opinion that his talents shone most conspicuously
in that forum. These were men who could be led from a
fair judgment of a legal argument by mere oratory, about
as readily as old Playfair could be turned from a true criticism
upon a mathematical treatise, by its being burnished
over with extracts from fourth-of-July harangues. Had brilliant
declamation been his only or chief faculty, there were
plenty of his competitors at the bar, who, by their learning
and powers of argument, would have knocked the spangles
off him, and sent his cases whirling out of court, to the astonishment
of hapless clients who had trusted to such fragile
help in time of trial.

It may be asked how is this possible? How is it consistent
with the jealous demands which the law makes of
the ceaseless and persevering attention of her followers as
the condition of her favors? The question needs an answer.
It is to be found somewhere else than in the unaided
resources of even such an intellect as that of Sergeant
Prentiss. In some form or other, Prentiss always was a
student. Probably the most largely developed of all his
faculties was his memory. He gathered information with
marvellous rapidity. The sun-stroke that makes its impression
upon the medicated plate is not more rapid in transcribing,
or more faithful in fixing its image, than was his
perception in taking cognizance of facts and principles, or

his ability to retain them. Once fixed, the impression was
there for ever. It is true, as Mr. Wirt observed, that genius
must have materials to work on. No man, how magnificently
soever endowed, can possibly be a safe, much less a great
lawyer, who does not understand the facts and law of his
case. But some men may understand them much more
readily than others. There are labor-saving minds, as well
as labor-saving machines, and that of Mr. Prentiss was one
of them. In youth he had devoted himself with intense
application to legal studies, and had mastered, as few men
have done, the elements of the law and much of its textbook
learning. So acute and retentive an observer must
too—especially in the freshness and novelty of his first years
of practice—“have absorbed” no little law as it floated
through the court-house, or was distilled from the bench and
bar.

But more especially, it should be noted that Mr. Prentiss,
until the fruition of his fame, was a laborious man, even
in the tapestring sense. While the world was spreading
the wild tales of his youth, his deviations, though conspicuous
enough while they lasted, were only occasional, and at
long intervals, the intervening time being occupied in abstemious
application to his studies. Doubtless, too, the
supposed obstacles in the way of his success were greatly exaggerated,
the vulgar having a great proneness to magnify
the frailties of great men, and to lionize genius by making it
independent, for its splendid achievements, of all external
aids.

With these allowances, however, truth requires the admission
that Mr. Prentiss did, when at the seat of government,
occupy the hours, usually allotted by the diligent practitioner
to books or clients, in amusements not well suited
to prepare him for those great efforts which have indissolubly
associated his name with the judicial history of the
State.

As an advocate, Mr. Prentiss attained a wider celebrity
than as a jurist. Indeed, he was more formidable in this
than in any other department of his profession. Before the
Supreme, or Chancery, or Circuit Court, upon the law of the
case, inferior abilities might set off, against greater native
powers, superior application and research; or the precedents
might overpower him; or the learning or judgment of the
bench might come in aid of the right, even when more feebly
defended than assailed. But what protection had mediocrity,
or even second-rate talent, against the influences of excitement
and fascination, let loose upon a mercurial jury, at least
as easily impressed through their passions as their reason?
The boldness of his attacks, his iron nerve, his adroitness,
his power of debate, the overpowering fire—broadside after
broadside—which he poured into the assailable points of his
adversary, his facility and plainness of illustration, and his
talent of adapting himself to every mind and character he
addressed, rendered him, on all debatable issues, next to
irresistible. To give him the conclusion was nearly the same
thing as to give him the verdict.

In the examination of witnesses, he was thought particularly

to excel. He wasted no time by irrelevant questions.
He seemed to weigh every question before he put it, and see
clearly its bearing upon every part of the case. The facts
were brought out in natural and simple order. He examined
as few witnesses, and elicited as few facts as he could
safely get along with. In this way he avoided the danger of
discrepancy, and kept his mind undiverted from the controlling
points in the case. The jury were left unwearied and
unconfused, and saw, before the argument, the bearing of the
testimony.

He avoided, too, the miserable error into which so many
lawyers fall, of making every possible point in a case,
and pressing all with equal force and confidence, thereby
prejudicing the mind of the court, and making the jury
believe that the trial of a cause is but running a jockey
race.

In arguing a cause of much public interest, he got all
the benefit of the sympathy and feeling of the by-standers.
He would sometimes turn towards them in an impassioned
appeal, as if looking for a larger audience than court and
jury; and the excitement of the outsiders, especially in
criminal cases, was thrown with great effect into the jury-box.

Mr. Prentiss was never thrown off his guard, or seemingly
taken by surprise. He kept his temper; or, if he got
furious, there was “method in his madness.”

He had a faculty in speaking I never knew possessed by
any other person. He seemed to speak without any effort

of the will. There seemed to be no governing or guiding
power to the particular faculty called into exercise. It
worked on, and its treasures flowed spontaneously. There
was no air of thought, no elevation, frowning or knitting of the
brow—no fixing up of the countenance—no pauses to collect
or arrange his thoughts. All seemed natural and unpremeditated.
No one ever felt uneasy lest he might fall; in
his most brilliant flights “the empyrean heights” into which
he soared seemed to be his natural element—as the upper
air the eagle's.

Among the most powerful of his jury efforts, were his
speeches against Bird, for the murder of Cameron; and
against Phelps, the notorious highway robber and murderer.
Both were convicted. The former owed his conviction, as
General Foote, who defended him with great zeal and ability,
thought, to the transcendent eloquence of Prentiss. He was
justly convicted, however, as his confession, afterwards made,
proved. Phelps was one of the most daring and desperate
of ruffians. He fronted his prosecutor and the court, not
only with composure, but with scornful and malignant defiance.
When Prentiss rose to speak, and for some time
afterwards, the criminal scowled upon him a look of hate
and insolence. But when the orator, kindling with his subject,
turned upon him, and poured down a stream of burning
invective, like lava, upon his head; when he depicted the
villainy and barbarity of his bloody atrocities; when he
pictured, in dark and dismal colors, the fate which awaited
him, and the awful judgment, to be pronounced at another

bar, upon his crimes, when he should be confronted with his
innocent victims: when he fixed his gaze of concentrated
power upon him, the strong man's face relaxed; his eyes
faltered and fell; until at length, unable to bear up longer,
self-convicted, he hid his head beneath the bar, and exhibited
a picture of ruffian-audacity cowed beneath the spell of
true courage and triumphant genius. Though convicted, he
was not hung. He broke jail, and resisted recapture so desperately,
that although he was encumbered with his fetters,
his pursuers had to kill him in self-defence, or permit his
escape.

In his defence of criminals, in that large class of cases in
which something of elevation or bravery in some sort, redeemed
the lawlessness of the act, where murder was committed
under a sense of outrage, or upon sudden resentment,
and in fair combat, his chivalrous spirit upheld the the public
sentiment, which, if it did not justify that sort of “wild
justice,” could not be brought to punish it ignominiously.
His appeals fell like flames on those

I have never heard of but one client of his who was convicted
on a charge of homicide, and he was convicted of one
of its lesser degrees. So successful was he, that the expression—“Prentiss
couldn't clear him”—was a hyperbole that
expressed the desperation of a criminal's fortunes.

Mr. P. was employed only in important cases, and generally

as associate counsel, and was thereby relieved of
much of the preliminary preparation which occupies so much
of the time of the attorney in getting a case ripe for trial.
In the Supreme and Chancery Courts he had, of course, only
to examine the record and prepare his argument. On the
circuit his labors were much more arduous. The important
criminal and civil causes which he argued, necessarily required
consultations with clients, the preparation of pleadings
and proofs, either under his supervision, or by his advice and
direction; and this, from the number and difficulty of the
cases, must have consumed time and required application
and industry.

At the time of which I speak, his long vigils and continued
excitement did not enfeeble his energies. Indeed, he
has been known to assert, that he felt brighter, and in better
preparation for forensic debate, after sitting up all night in
company with his friends than at any other time. He required
less sleep, probably, than any man in the State, seldom
devoting to that purpose more than three or four hours
in the twenty-four. After his friends had retired at a late
hour in the night, or rather at an early hour in the morning,
he has been known to get his books and papers and prepare
for the business of the day.

His faculty of concentration drew his energies, as through
a lens, upon the subject before him. No matter what he
was engaged in, his intellect was in ceaseless play and motion.
Alike comprehensive and systematic in the arrangement of
his thoughts, he reproduced without difficulty what he had
once conceived.

Probably something would have still been wanting to explain
his celerity of preparation for his causes, had not partial
nature gifted him with the lawyer's highest talent, the
acumen which, like an instinet, enabled him to see the points
which the record presented. His genius for generalizing
saved him, in a moment, the labor of a long and tedious reflection
upon, and collation of, the several parts of a narrative.
He read with great rapidity; glancing his eyes through
a page he caught the substance of its contents at a view.
His analysis, too, was wonderful. The chemist does not reduce
the contents of his alembic to their elements more rapidly
or surely than he resolved the most complicated facts
into primary principles.

His statements—like those of all great lawyers—were
clear, perspicuous and compact; the language simple and
sententious. Considered in the most technical sense, as forensic
arguments merely, no one will deny that his speeches
were admirable and able efforts. If the professional reader
will turn to the meagre reports of his arguments in the cases
of Ross v. Vertner, 5 How. 305; Vick et al. v. The Mayor
and Aldermen of Vicksburg, 1 How. 381; and The Planters'
Bank v. Snodgrass et al, he will, I think, concur in
this opinion.

Anecdotes are not wanting to show that even in the Supreme
Court he argued some cases of great importance, without
knowing any thing about them till the argument was commenced.
One of these savors of the ludicrous. Mr. Prentiss
was retained, as associate counsel, with Mr. (now Gen.) M—,

at that time one of the most promising as now one of the
most distinguished, lawyers in the State. During the session
of the Supreme Court, at which the case was to come on,
Mr. M— called Mr. P.'s attention to the case, and proposed
examining the record together; but for some reason this was
deferred for some time. At last it was agreed to examine
into the case the night before the day set for the hearing.
At the appointed time, Prentiss could not be found. Mr.
M— was in great perplexity. The case was of great importance;
there were able opposing counsel, and his client and
himself had trusted greatly to Mr. P.'s assistance. Prentiss
appeared in the court-room when the case was called up. The
junior counsel opened the case, reading slowly from the record
all that was necessary to give a clear perception of its
merits; and made the points, and read the authorities he had
collected. The counsel on the other side replied. Mr. P.
rose to rejoin. The junior could scarcely conceal his apprehensions.
But there was no cloud on the brow of the speaker;
the consciousness of his power and of approaching victory
sat on his face. He commenced, as he always did, by
stating clearly the case, and the questions raised by the facts.
He proceeded to establish the propositions he contended for,
by their reason, by authorities, and collateral analogies, and
to illustrate them from his copious resources of comparison.
He took up, one by one, the arguments on the other side, and
showed their fallacy; he examined the authorities relied upon
in the order in which they were introduced, and showed their
inapplicability, and the distinction between the facts of the
cases reported and those in the case at bar; then returning
to the authorities of his colleague, he showed how clearly,
in application and principle, they supported his own argument.
When he had sat down, his colleague declared
that Prentiss had taught him more of the case than he had
gathered from his own researches and reflection.

Mr. Prentiss had scarcely passed a decade from his majority
when he was the idol of Mississippi. While absent
from the state his name was brought before the people for
Congress; the State then voting by general ticket, and electing
two members. He was elected, the sitting members
declining to present themselves before the people, upon the
claim, that they were elected at the special election, ordered
by Governor Lynch, for two years, and not for the called
session merely. Mr. Prentiss, with Mr. Word, his colleague
went on to Washington to claim his seat. He was admitted
to the bar of the House to defend and assert his right. He
delivered then that speech which took the House and the
country by storm; an effort which if his fame rested upon it
alone, for its manliness of tone, exquisite satire, gorgeous
imagery, and argumentative power, would have rendered his
name imperishable. The House, opposed to him as it was
in political sentiment, reversed its former judgment, which
declared Gholson and Claiborne entitled to their seats, and
divided equally on the question of admitting Prentiss and
Word. The speaker, however, gave the casting vote against
the latter, and the election was referred back to the people.

Mr. Prentiss addressed a circular to the voters of Mississippi,

in which he announced his intention to canvass the
State. The applause which greeted him at Washington, and
which attended the speeches he was called on to make at the
North, came thundering back to his adopted State. His
friends—and their name was legion—thought before that his
talents were of the highest order; and when their judgments
were thus confirmed—when they received the indorsement
of such men as Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, they felt a kind
of personal interest in him: he was their Prentiss. They
had first discovered him—first brought him out—first proclaimed
his greatness. Their excitement knew no bounds.
Political considerations, too, doubtless had their weight.
The canvass opened—it was less a canvass than an ovation.
He went through the State—an herculean task—making
speeches every day, except Sundays, in the sultry months of
summer and fall. The people of all classes and both sexes
turned out to hear him. He came, as he declared, less on
his own errand than theirs, to vindicate a violated constitution,
to rebuke the insult to the honor and sovereignty of the
State, to uphold the sacred right of the people to elect their
own rulers. The theme was worthy of the orator, the orator
of the subject.

This period may be considered the golden prime of the
genius of Prentiss. His real effective greatness here attained
its culminating point. He had the whole State for his
audience, the honor of the State for his subject. He came
well armed and well equipped for the warfare. Not content with
challenging his competitors to the field, he threw down the

gauntlet to all comers. Party, or ambition, or some other
motive, constrained several gentlemen—famous before, notorious
afterwards—to meet him. In every instance of
such temerity, the opposer was made to bite the dust.

The ladies surrounded the rostrum with their carriages,
and added, by their beauty, interest to the scene. There
was no element of oratory that his genius did not supply.
It was plain to see whence his boyhood had drawn its romantic
inspiration. His imagination was colored and imbued with
the light of the shadowy past, and was richly stored with the
unreal but life-like creations, which the genius of Shakspeare
and Scott had evoked from the ideal world. He had lingered,
spell-bound, among the scenes of mediæval chivalry. His
spirit had dwelt, until almost naturalized, in the mystic
dream-land they peopled—among paladins, and crusaders,
and knights-templars; with Monmouth and Percy—with
Bois-Gilbert and Ivanhoe, and the bold McGregor—with the
cavaliers of Rupert, and the iron enthusiasts of Fairfax. As
Judge Bullard remarks of him, he had the talent of an Italian
improvisatore, and could speak the thoughts of poetry with the
inspiration of oratory, and in the tones of music. The fluency
of his speech was unbroken—no syllable unpronounced—
not a ripple on the smooth and brilliant tide. Probably he
never hesitated for a word in his life. His diction adapted
itself, without effort, to the thought; now easy and familiar,
now stately and dignified now beautiful and various as the
hues of the rainbow, again compact, even rugged in sinewy
strength, or lofty and grand in eloquent declamation.

His face and manner were alike uncommon. The turn of
the head was like Byron's; the face and the action were just
what the mind made them. The excitement of the features,
the motions of the head and body, the gesticulatian he used,
were all in absolute harmony with the words you heard. You
saw and took cognizance of the general effect only; the particular
instrumentalities did not strike you; they certainly
did not call off attention to themselves. How a countenance
so redolent of good humor as his at times, could so soon be
overcast, and express such intense bitterness, seemed a marvel.
But bitterness and the angry passions were, probably,
as strongly implanted in him as any other sentiments or qualities.

There was much about him to remind you of Byron: the
cast of head—the classic features—the fiery and restive nature—the
moral and personal daring—the imaginative and
poetical temperament—the scorn and deep passion—the deformity
of which I have spoken—the satiric wit—the craving
for excitement, and the air of melancholy he sometimes wore
—his early neglect, and the imagined slights put upon him
in his unfriended youth—the collisions, mental and physical,
which he had with others—his brilliant and sudden reputation,
and the romantic interest which invested him, make up
a list of correspondencies, still further increased, alas! by
his untimely death.

With such abilities as we have alluded to, and surrounded
by such circumstances, he prosecuted the canvass, making
himself the equal favorite of all classes. Old democrats were,

seen, with tears running down their cheeks, laughing hysterically;
and some, who, ever since the formation of parties,
had voted the democratic ticket, from coroner up to governor,
threw up their hats and shouted for him. He was returned
to Congress by a large majority, leading his colleague, who
ran on precisely the same question, more than a thousand
votes.

The political career of Mr. Prentiss after this time is
matter of public history, and I do not propose to refer to it.

After his return from Congress, Mr. Prentiss continued
to devote himself to his profession; but, subsequently to 1841
or 1842, he was more engaged in closing up his old business
than in prosecuting new. Some year or two afterwards, the
suit which involved his fortune was determined against him
in the Supreme Court of the United States; and he found
himself by this event, aggravated as it was by his immense
liabilities for others, deprived of the accumulations of years
of successful practice, and again dependent upon his own exertions
for the support of himself and others now placed under
his protection. In the mean time, the profession in Mississippi
had become less remunerative, and more laborious.
Bearing up with an unbroken spirit against adverse fortune,
he determined to try a new theatre, where his talents might
have larger scope. For this purpose, he removed to the city
of New Orleans, and was admitted to the bar there. How
rapidly he rose to a position among the leaders of that
eminent bar, and how near he seemed to be to its first
honors, the country knows. The energy with which he

addressed himself to the task of mastering the peculiar
jurisprudence of Louisiana, and the success with which his
efforts were crowned, are not the least of the splendid
achievements of this distinguished gentleman.

The danger is not that we shall be misconstrued in regard
to the rude sketch we have given of Mr. Prentiss in any such
manner as to leave the impression that we are prejudiced
against, or have underrated the character of, that gentleman.
We are conscious of having written in no unkind or unloving
spirit of one whom, in life, we honored, and whose memory
is still dear to us; the danger is elsewhere. It is twofold:
that we may be supposed to have assigned to Prentiss
a higher order of abilities than he possessed; and, in the
second place, that we have presented, for undistinguishing
admiration, a character, some of the elements of which do not
deserve to be admired or imitated—and indeed, which are
of most perilous example, especially to warm-blooded youth.
As to the first objection, we feel sure that we are not mistaken,
and even did we distrust our own judgment we would
be confirmed by Sharkey, Boyd, Wilkinson, Guion, Quitman,
to say nothing of the commendations of Clay, Webster, and
Calhoun, “the immortal three,” whose opinions as to Prentiss's
talents would be considered extravagant if they did not
carry with them the imprimatur of their own great names.
But we confess to the danger implied in the second suggestion.
With all our admiration for Prentiss—much as his
memory is endeared to us—however the faults of his character
and the irregularities of his life may be palliated by the

peculiar circumstances which pressed upon idiosyneracies of
temper and mind almost as peculiar as those circumstances,
—it cannot be denied, and it ought not to be concealed, that
the influence of Prentiss upon the men, especially upon
the young men of this time and association, was hurtful.
True, he had some attributes worthy of unlimited admiration,
and he did some things which the best men might take as
examples for imitation. He was a noble, whole-souled, magnanimous
man: as pure of honor, as lofty in chivalric bearing
as the heroes of romance: but, mixed with these brilliant
qualities, were vices of mind and habit, which made them
more dangerous than if they had not existed at all: for vice
is more easily copied than virtue: and in the partnership
between virtue and vice, vice subsidizes virtue to its uses.
Prentiss lacked regular, self-denying, systematic application.
He accomplished a great deal, but not a great deal for his
capital: if he did more than most men, he did less than the
task of such a man: if he gathered much, he wasted and scattered
more. He wanted the great essential element of a true,
genuine, moral greatness: there was not—above his intellect
and the bright army of glittering faculties and strong powers
of his mind—above the fierce host of passions in his soul—a
presiding spirit of Duty. Life was no trust to him: it was
a thing to be enjoyed—a bright holiday season—a gala day,
to be spent freely and carelessly—a gift to be decked out
with brilliant deeds and eloquent words and all gewgaws of
fancy—and to be laid down bravely when the evening star
should succeed—the bright sun and the dews begin to fall
softly upon the green earth. True, he labored more than
most men: but he labored as he frolicked—because his
mind could not be idle, but burst into work as by the irrepressible
instinct which sought occupation as an outlet to intellectual
excitement: but what he accomplished was nothing
to the measure of his powers. He studied more than
he seemed to study,—more, probably, than he cared to
have it believed he studied. But he could accomplish
with only slender effort, the end for which less gifted men
must delve, and toil, and slave. But the imitators, the many
youths of warm passions and high hopes, ambitious of distinction—yet
solicitous of pleasure—blinded by the glare of
Prentiss's eloquence, the corruscations of a wit and fancy
through which his speeches were borne as a stately ship
through the phosphorescent waves of a tropical sea—what
example was it to them to see the renown of the Forum, the
eloquence of the Hustings, the triumphs of the Senate associated
with the faro-table, the midnight revel, the drunken
carouse, the loose talk of the board laden with wine and cards?
What Prentiss effected they failed in compassing. Like a
chamois hunter full of life, and vigor, and courage, supported
by the spear of his genius—potent as Ithuriel's—Prentiss
sprang up the steeps and leaped over the chasms on his way to
the mount where the “proud temple” shines above cloud and
storm; but mediocrity, in assaying to follow him, but made
ridiculous the enterprise which only such a man with such
aids could accomplish. And even he, not wisely or well: the
penalty came at last, as it must ever come for a violation of
natural and moral laws. He lived in pain and poverty drooping
in spirit, exhausted in mind and body, to lament that
wasting of life, and health, and genius, which, unwasted, in
the heyday of existence, and in the meridian lustre of his unrivalled
powers, might have opened for himself and for his
country a career of usefulness and just renown scarcely paralleled
by the most honored and loved of all the land.

If to squander thus such rare gifts were a grievous fault,
grievously hath this erring child of genius answered it.
But painfully making this concession, forced alone by the
truth, it is with pleasure we can say, that, with this deduction
from Prentiss's claims to reverence and honor, there yet
remains so much of force and of brilliancy in the character
—so much that is honorable, and noble, and generous—so
much of a manhood whose robust and masculine virtues are
set off by the wild and lovely graces that attempered and
adorned its strength, that we feel drawn to it not less to admire
than to love.

In the midst of his budding prospects, rapidly ripening
into fruition, insidious disease assailed him. It was long
hoped that the close and fibrous system, which had, seemingly,
defied all the laws of nature, would prove superior to
this malady. His unconquerable will bore him up long
against its attacks. Indeed it seemed that only death itself
could subdue that fiery and unextinguishable energy. He
made his last great effort, breathing in its feeble accents but
a more touching and affecting pathos, and a more persuasive
eloquence, in behalf of Lopez, charged with the offence of

fitting out an expedition against Cuba. So weak was he,
that he was compelled to deliver it in a sitting posture, and
was carried, after its delivery, exhausted from the bar.

Not long after this time, in a state of complete prostration,
he was taken, in a steamboat, from New-Orleans to
Natchez, under the care of some faithful friends. The opiates
given him, and the exhaustion of nature, had dethroned
his imperial reason; and the great advocate talked wildly
of some trial in which he supposed he was engaged. When
he reached Natchez, he was taken to the residence of a relation,
and from that time, only for a moment, did a glance
of recognition fall—lighting up for an instant his pallid features—upon
his wife and children, weeping around his bed.
On the morning of — died this remarkable man, in the
42d year of his age. What he was, we know. What he
might have been, after a mature age and a riper wisdom, we
cannot tell. But that he was capable of commanding the
loftiest heights of fame, and marking his name and character
upon the age he lived in, we verily believe.

But he has gone. He died, and lies buried near that
noble river which first, when he was a raw Yankee boy,
caught his poetic eye, and stirred, by its aspect of grandeur,
his sublime imagination: upon whose shores first fell his
burning and impassioned words as they aroused the rapturous
applause of his astonished auditors. And long will
that noble river flow out its tide into the gulf, ere the roar
of its current shall mingle with the tones of such eloquence
again—eloquence, as full and majestic, as resistless and sublime,

and as wild in its sweep as its own sea-like flood,

The tidings of his death came like wailing over the State,
and we all heard them, as the toll of the bell for a brother's
funeral. The chivalrous felt, when they heard that “young
Harry Perey's spur was cold,” that the world had somehow
grown commonplace; and the men of wit and genius, or
those who could appreciate such qualities in others, looking
over the surviving bar, exclaimed with a sigh—