He was one morning strolling, we are told, through the streets of Richmond, attired in a plain linen roundabout and shorts, with his hat under his arm, from which he was eating cherries, when he stopped in the porch of the Eagle Hotel, indulged in a little pleasantry with the landlord, and then passed on. A gentleman from the country was present, who had a case coming on before the Court of Appeals, and was referred by the landlord to Marshall as the best lawyer to employ. But “the careless languid air” of Marshall, had so prejudiced the man that he refused to employ him. The clerk, when this client entered the courtroom, also recommended Marshall, but the other would have none of him. A venerable-looking lawyer, with powdered wig and in black cloth, soon entered, and the gentleman engaged him. In the first case that came up, this man and Marshall spoke on opposite sides. The gentleman listened, saw his mistake, and secured Marshall at once, frankly telling him the whole story, and adding, that while he had come with one hundred dollars to pay his lawyer, he had but five dollars left. Marshall good-naturedly took this, and helped in the case. _Learned in the Law of Nations_ In time, John Marshall became a great lawyer. He declined the office of District Attorney of the United States at Richmond, that of Attorney General of the United States, and that of Minister to France, all offered him by Washington. When President Adams persuaded him to go as envoy to France, he wrote to another envoy of “General Marshall,” as he was then called, from his rank of Brigadier-General in the Virginia Militia:-- “He is a plain man, very sensible, cautious, guarded, and learned in the Law of Nations.” _James B. Thayer_ (_Arranged_) THE CONSTITUTION _As the British Constitution is the most subtile organism, which has proceeded from progressive history; so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time, by the brain and purpose of man._ WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE “A Constitution,” says the dictionary, is “the fundamental organic law or principles of Government of a Nation, State, Society, or other organized body of men. “Also a written instrument embodying such law.” This is not so hard to understand:-- The first statement may be applied to the English Constitution, which is not a written Document like ours. It is, instead, a vast body of laws and judicial decisions, which, accumulating through the centuries, and beginning long before the time of the Magna Carta, have been handed down from one generation to another.