He immediately went home and notified his wife to prepare to move to Bardstown. Within a week he was domiciled in the latter place. He had been retained in Bray's case, and the latter, after all, had the services of a Bardstown lawyer.* As Mr. Hardin came to Bardstown his old preceptor, Felix Grundy, was leaving for a fresh field of fame -the rising young State of Tennessee. But Rowan, Duvall, Charles Wickliffe, and others remained to contest the triumphs of the bar. Dr. Henry Chapeze, father of the subsequently-distinguished lawyer, Ben Chapeze, told Hardin that he would find success at Bardstown difficult on account of the legal talent already there. "But," said the doctor, "I have seen a little bull crowded from a haystack by larger cattle, who kept trying to get in so persistently that finally the older and stronger yielded him a place. So you will find it." The talented and popular William P. Duvall was county attorney in Nelson at that time-a post filled annually by the justices-and to which Duvall had been frequently re-elected. A short time before this office was to be filled Mr. Hardin visited the various justices and obtained the promise of each to vote for him. This they did somewhat unexpectedly to Duvall.

In his first important case at Bardstown, one May was his client, and a large body of land was involved. He was alone on his side of the case, while the opposite side had retained several of the most distinguished attorneys at the bar. Hardin was diligent and laborious in preparation, and when the trial came on, he threw his whole soul into the contest. He scarcely ate or slept. He ransacked authorities, reviewed the evidence and record, and, in the adjournments of court, when not at work otherwise at the case, walked to and fro in wrapt revery, mentally reviewing, planning his argument, and conning over every detail of law and fact. To his wife's importunities to eat, sleep, and rest, he answered that if he won his case his fame was made, and he had resolved to win. Finally, the case was argued thoroughly and ably, but none surpassed Hardin. The verdict came, and his client was victor. It was a proud moment-the proudest of his life. It was pardonable for him to hasten from the court-room to bear the glad tidings to his anxious and expectant young wife, that she might share with him the luxury of success. He had, however, been anticipated. Father Baden, the warm-hearted French priest, and Barry, his old Irish preceptor, had witnessed the trial, and on its conclusion had hastened to Hardin's house, feeling that his wife alone could sympathize with their excess of joy.

Letter of Mrs. Kate Riley.

When the stalwart young lawyer came, the enthusiastic little French priest embraced and kissed him (despite his protest), and the Irish teacher was scarcely less demonstrative. It ought not to be recorded how freely the wine flowed, or how the Irishman boasted that he was no less than the author and finisher of young Hardin, or how the French father had all the time predicted his certain, early, and magnificent success. Pleasurable as was this early triumph, the better part of it was the substantial results that followed. His fame went abroad, and an abundant practice came in. Neither dazzled nor puffed up by success, he remembered that it first came by diligence and study, and reasoned rightly that diligence and study would retain it.

March 19, 1810, he was appointed, by Judge Stephen Ormsby, Commonwealth's attorney for the district in place of Gabriel I. Johnson, Esq. This office he held for several years. How far the efficient discharge of its duties may have developed certain traits of character in Mr. Hardin is an interesting question. Whether a certain austerity of manner, and a certain real or apparent uncharitableness in dealing with an adversary may not have been developed in the exercise of the prosecutor's duties can neither be confidently affirmed nor denied. The affirmative theory is not improbable. The position of prosecutor was certainly not without its advantages. It gave a man of bright parts a chance to show his ability. It threw him in competition with the best talent at the bar. Mr. Hardin was one to profit by this opportunity. He laid the foundation of that fame as a prosecutor that made him the terror of the criminal class of his day. Not only did he profit in the way of reputation, but his receipts from official fees amounted to fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars per

annum.

IN

CHAPTER V.

OUTSET IN POLITICAL LIFE.

N his twenty-seventh year, Mr. Hardin took his first step in political life. At the August election, 1810, he was chosen representative in the State Legislature, from Nelson county. Then, as later, a seat in the Legislature was deemed the proper beginning of an ambitious career-the stepping-stone to something better. It afforded especial advantages to a good debater. It also brought one in familiar contact with the best talent and highest social life of the State. It enabled a man of parts to form associations and friendships helpful to higher aspirations. It was an arena in which Mr. Hardin immediately became conspicuous.

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During the first ten years of the present century," says a writer in Harper's Magazine, "the society of the little capital of Kentucky was very brilliant and amusing. The Federal Capital had not yet come to be regarded as the only field for the display of great genius, and the State courts and the Legislature frequently enlisted as much talent as was drawn to the support of the National administration. During the fall and winter months all the great men of our State were assembled in Frankfort, to attend the sittings of the House of Representatives or the Federal Court and Court of Appeals. Most of these, as we have said, were quite young-in the very heyday of health and spirits--none of them being over thirty-five years of age. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if they sometimes indulged in excesses which older men would have shunned. Here, it may be, we are violating the principal canon of modern biography, that bids us praise without ceasing, and always represent your hero without a blemish,' but these youthful statesmen were men, subject to like passions as we; and why should we expect of them a higher standard of morals than obtains at the present time? Public opinion, besides, was far less exacting on many points then than it is now; and gaming and drinking, in particular, were hardly regarded as vices, and were practiced openly by almost every one. Certain it is, their assemblies were often noisily, and even riotously, mirthful, and were sometimes the scenes of frolics which very proper persons might regard as scandalous. What would such a person think were he told that Mr. Clay was himself a rather wildish fellow in those days, and engaged in such freaks as the following:

"One night, after the bottle had circulated until a late hour, the great Compromiser announced his intention of finishing off the entertainment by

a grand Terpsichorean performance on the table, which he accordingly did, executing a pas seul from head to foot of the dining-table, sixty feet in length, amidst the loud applause of his companions, and to a crashing accompaniment of shivered glass and china; for which expensive music he next morning paid, without demur, a bill of $120!'"

October 1,

The Legislature at that period convened in October. 1849, Mr. Hardin remarked to a friend on the streets of Frankfort, pointing to the capitol, "thirty-nine years ago this day I first entered that building." He had forgotten at the moment that the capitol he entered in 1810 had been destroyed by fire in 1813. In 1810 General Charles Scott, a companion of Washington and hero of the Revolution, was governor, and Gabriel Slaughter lieutenant-governor. John Simpson, of Shelby county, was chosen speaker of the House. Noteworthy among Mr. Hardin's colleagues was his kinsman, General William Hardin, representing Breckinridge county. Robert Johnson, author of the law afterward famous as the "Bob Johnson law," and father of the subsequently-distinguished Colonel "Dick" Johnson, was a member from Scott. At this session, also, Solomon P. Sharp, as a member from Warren, began the brilliant career destined to terminate so soon and so tragically. With the latter Mr. Hardin contracted a friendship undisturbed by subsequent political differences, and ended only by death. Nothing is known of Mr. Hardin's participation in the proceedings of the session-save as the journals showand this would not lend interest to this narrative. The succeeding year he was again elected representative-elections occurring annually. At the opening of the session Simpson was again elected speaker. Johnson and Sharp were also members. Tunstal Quarles represented Pulaski county. Quarles was subsequently a member of Congress, and took a conspicuous part in the public affairs of that day. Hardin's friend, William Owsley, whom he had first met while he was studying law at Richmond, was, this session, the member for Garrard county. Their early friendship was now renewed "on the floor of the House."

At this session Mr. Hardin introduced and secured the passage of a bill, the object and effect of which was to discourage dueling. It provided that attorneys and officers should take an oath that they had not fought a duel, or sent a challenge to fight, and would not do so during their continuance in office. This event was important because it marked the inauguration of a course of legislation that has contributed to rid the country of a great evil.

Dueling had become a great scourge in Kentucky at that day. It was almost unknown in earlier times when the Indian maintained a predatory warfare on the "settlements. But the red man having succumbed to the inevitable, the spirit of war in his white enemy sought new arenas for its display. In default of laurels on the tented field, and in the absence of a public enemy, he betook himself to the field of honor," to encounter a personal foe, according to the regulations of its "code." Every community in the State had its socalled affair of honor. Frequently the amende honorable-an amicable adjustment, or the pusillanimity of one or both the combatants arrested its progress. Often, however, it was consummated by a hostile meeting. A few bad shots, even then, sometimes produced sudden reflection. The opportune intervention of friends not rarely proved effectual. A slight flesh wound of either combatant hastened the success of peaceful negotiations. When, however, the dead-shot-a numerous sort of person in such affairs-encountered an inexpert adversary -the kind he usually sought-the gentlemanly dead-shot avoided all danger by killing his man at the word. It was highly honorable, the reader will understand, highly honorable--or at least so considered in that perverted period. It must not be supposed, however, that the whole State or all its society was infected with this folly. Pugnacity, it is true, was the rule. The man of able body-who would fight in no fashion—was rare, and lacked public respect. Church relationship subdued, but did not extinguish, the combative passions. Premeditated personal altercations were indulged by the ruder classes. Men of the first respectability resented insults when given by a blow, and following it up, then and there avenged themselves. The late centenarian, Dr. C. C. Graham, grieved to say that, on one occasion, his friend, Henry Clay, indulged in a fist-fight in the streets of Lexington, the provocation, however, being sudden and great.

Rencounters with arms were not unfrequent, and their results often lamentable. To be distinguished from those who fought in these extemporaneous modes, was a class composed chiefly of professional men, politicians, men of fortune and social pretensions, who assumed to be the gentry of the land. This class laid claims to the highest sensibilities of honor. They were easily affronted by one of their own kidney. When affronted there were but two modes of redressan apology or "the satisfaction due from one gentleman to another." If both these were denied, the injured party had left a full and efficient remedy which was to brand his adversary as a "poltroon, and a coward