CHAPTER XV.

THE BAR OF BALTIMORE TWENTY YEARS AGO-POLITICAL EXCITEMENTS-THE AUTHOR HEARS OF A PLACE WITH BUT ONE LAWYER, AND IMMEDIATELY RESOLVES TO SET OUT FOR IT.

THE reader may feel a wish to read what I may have to say of the bar of Baltimore, at the period. to which my narrative refers. Mr Pinkney was then in Europe, and General Harper, although inferior to Luther Martin, and perhaps several others, as a mere lawyer, was, notwithstanding, generally considered as the head of the profession. In the admiralty court he was unrivalled; there his political informa tion and general knowledge had a field for display, while his mind was not cramped by that technicality and dry precision which was neces sary in the courts of common law. He was by no means a thorough bred, acute, discriminating lawyer-his oratory had been formed in congress, where he had figured for several years before he came to Baltimore, in order to attempt the profession, and for some time with poor success. He was an elegant debater; a finished scholar, with a mind stored with vari

ous reading, and perfect command of language; but his manner was not of that earnest, vehement kind, which is most popular at the bar. His deportment and manners were those of a dignified gentleman, his bust and features extremely fine, and if I may so express it, à l'antique. I was honoured with the personal acquaintance of General Harper, as far as one of my age could possess it, and my feelings were those of great respect, notwithstanding the continual abuse that was poured upon him by the presses of the party to which I belonged.

common.

Luther Martin was a being sui generis. In his appearance there could be nothing more His dress was generally filthy and vulgar, while his countenance indicated nothing beyond mere mediocrity. His voice was thick and disagreeable, his language and pronunciation rude and uncouth. With all these defects he possessed extraordinary powers. He had the finest capacity for discrimination and analysis, the faculty which, perhaps more than any other, distinguishes the lawyer. He had also wit, philosophy, a prodigious memory, and stores of learning, which were unsuspected until the occasion called for their display. On the different occasions on which I have heard him speak, he seemed to blunder along for an hour or two, as if he were merely meditating his subject, which was perhaps the case, for nothing could be more confused and obscure. It was in his recapitulation that he appeared to be great. He became warm, his language more

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happy, his leaden eye seemed to kindle, and for fifteen minutes or half an hour he spoke with admirable force and power. This would probably have been his speech if he had prepared himself in his closet. But his usual preparation was drinking enormous quantities of brandy. For twenty or thirty years, he was a perfect sot, and it is wonderful how both his constitution and intellect could withstand the destructive habit. I was informed by a friend that his masterly defence of Judge Chace, which is, perhaps, the first specimen of forensic eloquence preserved in this country, was written after it was delivered, with an eye to his fame, and thus reduced to its quintessence.

Among the younger advocates, Mr Winder was decidedly the most popular. He would have been a Cicero if he had been properly educated and trained in the arts of the orator. But he was not sufficiently imbued with literature, learning or philosophy. His language and taste wanted cultivation, and his imagination needed that kind of elevation, which the study of the poets would have given. He was little better than a first rate slang-whanger, with natural powers that would have rendered him a prodigy of eloquence. The form of his features was Roman, but his eyes and eyebrows were light and unexpressive. His person was that of an Apollo. Nothing could be more vehement than his manner; his voice was strained to its highest pitch, and his person thrown into a thousand elegant distortions. It is not this kind

of muscular effort which makes the animated speaker, who kindles the passions of his hearers. Speeches delivered in a fury, when read in the closet may appear cold and dull. The thought must be animated as well as the gesture. Mr Winder was by no means a ranting declaimer, but his manner was too uniformly vehement. He lived to improve it; and if his career had not been cut short almost in the prime of life, he would have risen to great eminence. In private life he was a noble fellow, his heart was as big as a mountain. His military career was unfortunate-his defence of Washington has been censured, but the fault was that which he displayed at the bar-too much vivacity, too mercurial-he wished to be vidette, aid, soldier, corporal as well as general, instead of being the stationary pivot upon which every thing ought to have turned.

If Mr Winder might have been the Cicero of this country, Mr Jennings may be regarded as the American Demosthenes-spoiled-at least in the attainment of the fame which generally follows the display of extraordinary gifts. He was the son of a celebrated orator of that name who flourished before the revolution. Mr Jennings was then turned of forty; and his talents were brought into sudden and unexpected display, by the appointment of public prosecutor for Baltimore. He had not been suspected of possessing uncommon eloquence. His life had passed in the gay and elegant society of Annapolis, and he was regarded as a young man of fashion and pleasure. He had studied in the

Temple, and had made the tour of Europe, like Goldsmith, on foot. His person, somewhat below the ordinary size, was of the most per fect symmetry, and his dress peculiarly neat and tasteful. His head was uncommonly fine; it might pass for a copy of that which is generally considered the head of the great orator of Greece the rounded, compact head and full forehead, like that of Napoleon and Alexander Hamilton, and the large, muscular upper lip, considered by Lavater as the mark of the orator, which is so conspicuous in Mr Clay, and which I have observed to be an almost invariable prognostic. The brilliancy of his first displays in Baltimore would have enabled Mr Jennings to have leaped at once to the first rank in his profession, and he would have been the orator with whom Pinkney would have had to grapple on his return to this country. From some cause or other, he did not seize the opportunity presented to him. His speech against Baptist Irvine, is generally admitted to be the finest forensic display ever witnessed in Baltimore. He occupied five hours in the delivery, and held his audience enchained. In the course of it, he thrice drew an involuntary burst of applause from the whole audience, similar to those by Curran on the trial of Fiverty. The speech was not preserved.

Mr Purviance was a perfect model of a practising lawyer. One who was desirous of exhibiting the favourable side of his profession, might point to Mr Purviance. Well read in the law, almost to a fault, his duty as an attor