The distinguished Mr. Coke of South Carolina, seemed to me in some considerable intercourse, to have rather a brilliant fancy, but to lack that severe discipline which goes to make a man truly and permanently great and popular—yet he seldom failed in producing a considerable effect on an audience which he addressed, whatever might be the subject, and nervous as was his system—he rarely evinced on the morning after a defeat any tokens of irritation or discouragement. His wife made it her business, and it became her pleasure to be an auditor of his narrations—to hear his complaints against individuals at the moment of anger and seem to forget his charges when returning equanimity led him to speak in a different tone and temper of his vigorous and sometimes successful antagonist. He never came from a public exercise of his talents without being willingly compelled to give an account of the whole matter to his family, unless it was unpleasant; in that case his wife was the attentive soothing listener. The triumph of the forum or the ‘stump’ (pardon the Americanism,) was doubled in the joy which the narration gave to the family, and the unpleasant occurrences of such arenas were never referred to in the family, so that Coke was sure of pleasure at home, whatever may have been the pleasure abroad—he was sure of delicate sympathy at home whatever may have been the vexation abroad. His fireside was the seat of pleasure—his house was his home—his home was a home. What is the result of all this? The course of Mr. Coke as all know has been onward and upward—not with the swiftness or the sunlike aim of Blackstone—but steadily, constantly, and successfully. Charge Mrs. Blackstone with having impeded the course of her gifted husband, and she would start with anger at, and abhorrence of the charge. She had never disgraced him by misconduct, nor hindered him by interference. Credit Mrs. Coke with having been the cause of her husband’s success, and she would be not less astonished; she knew nothing of the subjects of which her husband had acquired fame by speaking; she had consequently never assisted in his preparation for public display, nor added an idea to his brief. The cold negative of Mrs. Blackstone had chilled her husband into indifference or disgust. The cheering warmth of Mrs. Coke’s affectionate attention and timely attendance had inspired her husband with that proper degree of self-respect which is necessary to self-dependence, and her soothing sympathies had lulled unfriendly feelings toward others, so that he lost nothing of acquired popularity by injudicious utterance of irritated feelings.