e short cuts, and
kept steadily along in the old way. His heroes, like those of
Dickens, were taken from the common walk; the men he had met in
the road and at the hustings, at whose firesides he had passed many
hours. Whatever concerned them, whatever involved in any manner
their welfare, was of deep interest to him. If he had chosen
his own epitaph it might have read:

"In common ways, with common men,
I served my race and time."

He was both an artist and a poet. He loved flowers, and there was
to his ears no music so sweet as the merry laughter of children.
And, whether in private life, or in his great executive office
as "the arbiter of human fate," the tale of woe never failed to
touch a sympathetic cord. He had in very deed,

"A tear for pity, and a hand open as day to melting
charity."

He was welcome at every hearthstone, as one "who cometh unto you
with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the
chimney corner."

Soon after his admission to the bar, Mr. Knott removed to Missouri,
where he was almost immediately elected to the responsible position
of Attorney-General of the State. In due time he returned to
his native State, and was for six terms a representative in Congress.
Yet later, and as the shadows were beginning to fall to the eastward,
he was, almost by common acclaim, called to the chief executive
office of the commonwealth. It may truly be said of him that "with
clear head, and with clean hands, he faithfully discharged every
public trust."

Mr. Knott entered Congress just at the close of the great Civil
War. It was a period of excitement throughout the entire country,
and of intense foreboding to the section he represented. In the
debates of that stormy period he bore no mean part. He was counted
a foeman worthy the steel of the ablest who entered the lists.
A thorough student from the beginning, of all that pertained to
Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Federal Constitution, he
was equipped as few men have been, for forensic contests that have
left their deep impress upon history. The evidence of his ability
as a lawyer is to be found in the satisfactory manner in which for
three Congresses he discharged the duties of the trying position
of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives.
The ablest lawyers of both political parties constituted this great
committee, and its chairman, if possessing only mediocre talents
or