We often hear of the Chief Justice at his “Quoit Club.” He was a famous player at quoits. A club had been formed by some of the early Scotch settlers of Richmond, and it came to include among its members leading men of the city, such as Marshall, Wirt, Nicholas, Call, Munford, and others. Chester Harding, the artist who painted the full-length portrait of Marshall that hangs in the Boston Athenæum, tells us of seeing him at the Quoit Club. Fortunately, language does not, like paint, limit the artist to a single moment of time. He gives us the Chief Justice in action. Marshall was then attending the Virginia Constitutional Convention, which sat from October, 1829, to January, 1830. The Quoit Club used to meet every week in a beautiful grove, about a mile from the city. Harding went early. “I watched,” he says, “for the coming of the old chief. He soon approached, with his coat on his arm and his hat in his hand, which he was using as a fan. He walked directly up to a large bowl of mint julep, which had been prepared, and drank off a tumblerful of the liquid, smacking his lips, and then turned to the company with a cheerful ‘How are you, gentlemen?’ He was looked upon as the best pitcher of the party, and could throw heavier quoits than any other member of the club. The game began with great animation. There were several ties; and before long I saw the great Chief Justice of the United States down on his knees, measuring the contested distance with a straw, with as much earnestness as if it had been a point of law; and if he proved to be in the right, the woods would ring with his triumphant shout.”[46]