to the emotions
of sensibility. Nature had been liberal in bestowing many of
the qualifications of a great advocate upon him. He had a strong
compelling will, when he chose to exercise it, which in the conflicts
of the bar often prevails, and courage of a chivalrous cast, which
throws a man impetuously and audaciously upon strong points, and
enables him to gain a footing by the boldness and force of his onset.
Barton was one to lead a forlorn hope, or defend a pass single handed,
against a host. Without something of this quality, a great advocate is
impossible.

With a warm, poetic imagination, Nature had given him quick perceptive
powers, and the faculty of expressing his thoughts without apparent
effort, in simple, strong language, as well defined, and sharply
cut as a cameo. Beyond this, and better than all, was a tender,
sympathetic sensibility; which, if it sometimes overmastered him, made
him the master of others. The commonest things in his hands took
the motion and color of living things. It was not the mere sensuous
magnetism of powerful physical nature; but it excited the higher
intellectual sympathies, which in turn awoke and captivated the
reasoning and reflective organs, that found themselves delightfully
conducted along a natural and logical course, that led them
unconsciously to inevitable conclusions and convictions, ere the
danger was perceived, or an alarm was sounded.

On the present occasion, he had not been on his feet five minutes ere
it was felt that a real power, of an unusual order, was manifesting
itself.

The case was not one framed or arranged with any vulgar reference to
a forensic display. Cases never will get themselves up for any
such occasion; and if the lawyer waits for such a case, he will die
unknown. Cases spring out of dry, hard contentions, with nothing
but vulgar surroundings; and it is to these, that the real advocate
applies himself, breathes upon them the breath of genius and creative
power, and clothes them with life, and interest, and beauty, endows
them with his own soul and imagination, and lifts them from the
level of the common to the height of the remarkable, the unusual, and
sometimes of the wonderful; and endeavors to establish between them,
and a jury and himself, the bonds of intense sympathy, upon which
their emotions and sensibilities will come and go, as did the angels
on the dream-ladder of the patriarch.

In the advocate's hour of strength and glory, the f