hurled back--"We should if they had been Englishmen."
The fierce, untamed animal hesitated a moment between anger
and admiration, and then the English love of fair play and
pluck prevailed, and the crowd cheered him and let him go
on.

But any man who reads Beecher's delightful "Letters from the
White Mountains," or some of his sermons, and imagines his
great frame, and far-sounding voice, will get a conception
of his power to play on the feelings or men, of his humor,
and pathos, and intense conviction, and rapidity in passing
from one emotion to another, and will understand him.

I heard Rufus Choate a great many times. I heard nearly
all the speeches given in Brown's Life; and I heard him a
great many times at the Bar, both before juries and the full
Court. He is the only advocate I ever heard who had the
imperial power which would subdue an unwilling and hostile
jury. His power over them seemed like the fascination of
a bird by a snake. Of course, he couldn't do this with able
Judges, although all Judges who listened to him would, I think,
agree that he was as persuasive a reasoner as ever lived.
But with inferior magistrates and juries, however intelligent,
however determined they were in a made-up opinion, however
on their guard against the charmer, he was almost irresistible.
There are very few important cases recorded that Choate lost.
Non supplex, sed magister aut dominus videretur esse judicum.

Choate's method was pure persuasion. He never appealed to
base motives, nor tried to awake coarse prejudices or stormy
passions. He indulged in no invective. His wit and sarcasm
and ridicule amused the victim almost as much as it amused
the bystander. He had the suaviloquentia which Cicero attributes
to Cornelius. There was never a harsh note in his speech.

Latrantur enim jam quidam oratores, non loquuntur.

When he was confronted with some general rule, or some plain
fact, he had a marvellous art of subtle distinction. He
showed that his client, or witness, or proposition, belonged
to a class of itself. He invested it with a distinct and
intense personality. He held up his fact or his principle
before the mind of the Court and the jury. He described
and pictured it. He brought out in clear relief what distinguished
it from any other fact or proposition whatever. If necessary,
he would almost have made a jury, before he was through, think
the Siamese twins did not look alike, and possibly tha