proportions. He had an indescribable refinement of face which seemed
to come from the softness of the eye and the tenderness and
intellectuality of the mouth, which reflected his gentle and generous
spirit.

At the time of Talcott's appointment, though he had not distinguished
himself as a legal competitor of Van Buren, he displayed the gentle
manners and amiable traits that naturally commended him to one of Van
Buren's smooth, adroit methods. The Kinderhook statesman had, however,
in selecting him for attorney-general, looked beyond the charming
personality to the rapidly developing powers of the lawyer, who was
even then captivating all hearers by the strength of his arguments and
the splendour of his diction. Contemporaries of Talcott were fond of
telling of this remarkable, almost phenomenal gift of speech. One of
them mentions "those magical transitions from the subtlest argument to
the deepest pathos;" another describes him as "overpowering in the
weight of his intellect, who produced in the minds of his audience all
the sympathy and emotion of which the mind is capable." William H.
Dillingham, a classmate and lifelong friend, declared that the
extraordinary qualities which marked his career and so greatly
distinguished him in after life--towering genius, astonishing facility
in acquiring knowledge, and surpassing eloquence, were developed
during his college days. The life of Talcott recalls, in its brilliant
activity, the dazzling legal career of Alexander Hamilton. Wherever
the greatest lawyers gathered he was in their midst, the "Erskine of
the bar." At his last appearance in the Supreme Court of the United
States he opposed Daniel Webster in the "Sailors' Snug Harbor" case.
"Beginning in a low and measured tone," says Bacon, in his _Early Bar
of Oneida County_, "he gathered strength and power as he proceeded in
his masterly discourse, and for five hours held the breathless
attention of bench and bar and audience, in an argument which the
illustrious Marshall declared had not been equalled in that court
since the days of the renowned William Pinckney."

Benjamin F. Butler was very much like Talcott in gentleness of manner
and in power of intellect. He was born in Kinderhook, Columbia County,
where his father, starting as a mechanic, became a merchant, and,
after a brief service in the Legislature, received the appointment of
county judge. But there was no more reason to expect Medad Butler to
bring an illust