University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

As the time approached, when the candidates for
state legislature were generally announced,—Jekyl,
who, as our readers are aware, had become the
editor of a weekly paper, called on Bradshaw,
and said—

“Mr. Bradshaw, they talk of bringing you out
for the legislature.”

“Ah! do they. What chance do you think I'd
stand?”

“I think you would be elected.”

“I'm told that Talbot intends being a candidate.
Is it a fact?”

“I have heard such a rumour, but I don't know
what credence to give it. Old Broadbelt and
yourself, I have no doubt, will be elected. Have
you been spoken to on the subject?”

“Yes, several of my friends have mentioned it
to me.”

“There will be a meeting of the wards of the
city where I live—of the mechanics—next Thursday
evening, and you will be nominated.”

“Jekyl, my friend,” said Bradshaw, “if I'm nominated,
of course, I wish to be elected; there are several
very popular men spoken of as candidates, and

as a number of important measures will be brought
before our legislature this winter, there will be a
deep interest felt in the election. I am obliged to
you for your friendly feeling towards me; but you
must give me time to think upon the business before
the nomination is made.”

“The workies are determined to nominate you,
Bradshaw. It will be done. You can decline,
you know, if you choose, after the nomination is
made; but I really think you will be elected, and
it will be of service to you in your profession.”

Here, a client entered, and Jekyl took his leave,
saying he would call again.

When his client left, Bradshaw walked to Glassman's,
with whom he had promised to sup, and go
to the theatre, determined to consult him on the
matter.

“Why, Bradshaw,” said Glassman, “as Sir
Roger would say, much may be said on both sides.
You know, as I have told you, I've no turn for politics
myself. The law is a jealous mistress, and
requires, I might almost say, exclusive devotion
from her votaries, if they would be successful: at
least from most of them. Those who have high
talents may wander, and yet advance in her good
graces, even facilitating their progress by a knowledge
of politics: for politics is the philosophy of
law—but the number is small. You know there
are many who can practise what they have only
learned by rote, as the mountebank, by the
aid of chemistry, can perform many tricks, though
he knows nothing of the properties of the science.

Thus practise too many lawyers. When a lawyer
would be great, a knowledge of politics—I do
not mean of party politics, but of the political
history of his country—is necessary to his success
in the high walks of his profession. But, nowdays,
alas! politician and trickster, statesman and
charlatan, are synonymous terms. Yet we—you
are not compelled to tread the road, in becoming
a politician, that others tread—if I have read you
right, your nature will not let you. A man of your
character and talents, (I speak to you as a friend;
I use no flattery,) cannot avoid becoming a politician
You have every requisite for making a statesman;
ambition can be loftier than that of a successful a
patriotic one—and, as you will sooner or later enter
the arena, be your resolutions now what they
may, I do not know but what you had better commence
now: you can thus test the soundness of your
partiality for political life, and if you think yourself
unfitted for it, which, if you do justice to yourself,
I believe you will not, you can quit it at once
and much easier than if you were to commence
politician after you had acquired an extensive legal
reputation: then you would be more anxious to
succeed even than you are now, because you would
be aware, more would be expected from you, as
ambition grows; yet, to tell the truth, your capability
might be less, for the fact is, few lawyers
who commence politicians late in life, do succeed.
The law, as Burke says, is the `Chinese shoe on
the mind,'—and, to make a pun, if you put the shoe
on early, and wear it perpetually, you must expect
to have a narrow understanding. To quote
Burke again `when a new and a troubled scene
is opened, and the file affords no precedent,' the
man who has been all his life acting from precedent,
and particularly from the technical precedents
of the law, is in a situation that, whatever
may be his natural capacity, is an embarrassed
one, in which he is just as apt to go wrong as right.
Bradshaw, I do not know of any animal in the
natural history, who has so much unmitigated dulness
about him, and upon him, as one of your mere
lawyers. Meet one of them where you will, under
any circumstances, at a bridal, or burial, at
a play-house, or a prayer-meeting, and, if he can
possibly find, or make an opportunity, he will poke
some mooted tweedle dum tweedle dee point of law
at you. His brain is like his parchment, engrossed
with technicalities and quibbles: every thing else
is foreign to the record.”

“Yet, ours is a noble profession.”

“Certainly, a noble profession to a noble mind,—
a mind that connects literature and general science
with it. But the fact is, Bradshaw, the mind must
be a great one, indeed, that the study of the law
does not `cabin, crib, confine.' In my intercourse
with men, who stand the highest in their profession, I
have been literally astonished with the extent of
their ignorance, and the audacity with which they
will proclaim it, like a states' witness recounting
his rascalities.”

“That was a pungent sarcasm of Burke on Erskine,
when he said, in combating Erskine's notions
of an impeachment, that a nisi prius' lawyer, giving
an opinion upon the duration of an impeachment,

was like a rabbit that breeds six times a year, pretending
to know of the gestation of an elephant.”

“But it does not come under the definition that
some one gives of wit—`a good thing well applied.'
It is a good thing mis-applied, in that instance,
though, no doubt, it applies generally to nisi prius'
lawyers. I think Erskine the model of a constitutional
lawyer. Was it not Johnson who said, that
he who would write the English language correctly,
must devote his days and nights to Addison? I
should say, that the advocate who would utter
arguments that convince, and eloquence that warms
and persuades, must devote his days and nights to
Erskine. I know no forensic efforts, that, take
them all in all, compare with his. Read his argument
in Hatfield's case—what a profound exposition
of the different species of insanity, of their characteristics,
and the legal responsibilities of each.
What a glorious constitutional argument is that, on
the trial by jury, in the Dean of St. Asaph's case.
His defence of Stockdale I have read over and over
again—that is a fine passage where he describes
the `striking spectacle daily exhibited' at Hastings'
trial: and he well characterizes the efforts of
Burke and Sheridan, as `anathemas of superhuman
eloquence.' That is a fine passage, too, where he
describes the nature of British dominion in the east;
and what can be more eloquent than his description
of the `savage, holding a bundle of sticks in
his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence.'
His conclusion, where he says, that the benevolent
author of our being will judge us, as the jury should
judge the passages in the book of Logan, which

were indicted as libellous,—`holding up the great
volume of our lives, and regarding the general scope
of them,' is not surpassed in appropriateness, and
in the combination of reason, eloquence, and sound
morality, in any forensic effort I know of, unless it
is by himself, in the defence of Bingham.

“Erskine, Mr. Bradshaw, in his intercourse with
the bar and bench, was a model of what becomes
a lawyer. In his very first effort, when unknown,
and when judges are more apt to be courted than
opposed by a young aspirant, Erskine acted not
only fearlessly, but nobly. When Lord Mansfield,
from the bench, told him, in no very gentle manner,
that Lord Sandwich was not before the court,
Erskine exclaimed, he would bring him before the
court, and indignantly commented on his conduct.
Remember, that Sandwich was high in place and in
power, that Erskine was powerless—was making
his first speech, and in a borrowed gown, for he
was too poor to buy one—that he had every thing
to lose, and nothing to gain. I am wrong, he had
something to gain,—the approval of his conscience
and his country—the best rewards of honourable
exertion. This manly spirit guided and guarded
him through life. Erskine had his errors—who
has not? For my part, when I gaze upon the diamond
I think of its brilliant qualities, and not of
the dirt that may sometimes partially obscure them.
But you know his speeches, Bradshaw, as well as
I—better, for you are fresh in them. Our professional
men should devote themselves more to literature,
biography, poetry, and history.”

“It seems to me,” said Bradshaw, “that our

statesmen—and most of them are, or have been,
lawyers—are not surpassed by any in the world.”

“Certainly not,” said Glassman. “I was not
speaking particularly of our very foremost men,
though they, I think, do not enough cultivate literature:—law
and politics (and, I fear, party, personal
politics) engross their attention, at least, now-a-days—I
was speaking of the profession, generally.
In a country where there is so general a diffusion
of knowledge, as in ours, 'tis not he who knows the
most, that has the greatest influence, but he who
can make himself best understood, and who pleases
while he instructs. Who thinks of wading through
the interminable speeches of our congressmen?
Most of the speakers do not want information on
the subject on which they speak; but they deliver
it in a jumbled, discordant mass, often with as little
attention to the construction of their arguments,
as their sentences. And, as for beauty of language,
historical citation, or literary adornment, except in
the speeches of two or three of our leading men, I
do not know where you can find it.”

“Did you know the late William Pinckney?”

“Ah! yes. You should have heard him speak
of Erskine. When Pinckney was minister at the
court of St. James, he became acquainted with him,
and heard him repeatedly. He entertained the
highest opinion of him. Pinckney was, perhaps, the
most thoroughly ambitious man I ever knew. He
laboured in his last cause harder than he did in
his first; and in every cause, as if his professional
reputation depended upon it. Pinckney's style was
too verbose and declamatory, and his manner violent

beyond all description. Before he went to
England, I am told by those who often heard him,
his manner of speaking was mild and persuasive,
and his voice silvery: on his return, he adopted a
directly opposite oratory, which did not suit him.
He was an intense student. We have often met
in attendance on the supreme court, and I have
repeatedly occupied a room adjoining his; when, if
I had been a prisoner to my own, I could have told
when any case of great importance, that excited
public attention, and in which a distinguished man
was to oppose him, was before the court. He
would often walk his room all night; and not unfrequently,
as I lay in bed, did I hear the rehearsal
of the argument, which, the next day, I listened to
in court. His perseverance was tireless. He loved
his profession, devotedly; and, I doubt much, if, in
any other vocation, he could have won so high a
reputation. His mind was of an order that could
rather acquire than create. He could not have
succeeded in a work of the imagination—he might
as an historian, if he had improved his style. But
with the law his mind was thoroughly imbued—he
comprehended its broadest principles, while he
made a microscopic observation of the merest technicalities.
His mind was argumentative and subtle;
his figures of speech, his flights of fancy, cost him
more labour than his argument: he almost always
wrote them out, and committed them to memory.
His argument was perfect without his fancy-work;
and his fancy-work was perfect without his argument.
His fancy did not grow out of his subject,
like the leaf from the summer bough: it was rather
stuck on it, like a flower in a cap, for display;
and a certain chillness reminded us that it was a
hot-house plant—a forced cultivation. Yet, as a
lawyer, I know not his superior; and no man could
do better than to confide his case to Mr. Pinckney
—because he never neglected it, through indolence,
pleasure, or inattention; and, if he took it in hand,
he attended to it, not more for emolument, than for
success and fame. An anecdote is related of him,
which strikingly shows his character. When at
the court of St. James, he was dining in company
with Burke, Sheridan, Fox, and a host of great
names, when a discussion arose upon some line in
Virgil, I believe. All of them expressed their opinions
but Mr. Pinckney; and, as he had said nothing,
pro or con, they appealed to him as umpire.
He had to confess his ignorance of the Latin language;
but when he left the company, he sent immediately
for a teacher, and commenced the study
of it. He became an accomplished Latin scholar.
While abroad, I am told, he was a hard student of
the law, and a regular attendant on the courts, so
that, when he returned, and again became a practitioner,
instead of his contemporaries finding him
rusty, as they expected, he entered the lists with
his armour bright, and armed at all points.”

“I like that in his character,” exclaimed Bradshaw;
“it shows character.”

“Bradshaw,” said Glassman, musingly—“yes,
you had better be a candidate for the legislature.
I think you will be elected. The Superior Court
will meet, you know, at —, the same time as the
legislature. You ought to attend that court, and

your election will send you to — in a double
capacity, as a legislator and a lawyer. But, come,
let us to the theatre—Mrs. Drake, the western
actress, makes her appearance to-night, for the
first time, I believe, on our boards. Your friend,
Willoughby, whom I like very much, who is just
such a man as you described him to be, promises
me great things in her performance.”

The theatre was crowded. Mrs. Drake appeared
in the “Soldier's Daughter;” and when the
curtain fell, Glassman, after the silent musing of a
moment, exclaimed,

“I cannot remove the impression from my mind,
that it is impossible for Mrs. Drake to play any
other character than this—she plays so naturally,
that, never having seen her before, it seems to me
it is her own character; and yet, you tell me, in
Bianca and in Julia, she is just as great. O! what
a gift is genius! and how fascinating in a woman!”