consisted in an earnestness and dignity of manner and strong powers of reasoning. He seized one or two strong points, and these he illustrated and enforced. His exordium was short and appropriate; he quickly marched up to the great point in controversy, making no manœuvre as if he were afraid to approach it, or was desirous of attacking it by surprise. The confidence he exhibited of success he gradually imparted to his hearers; he grew more warm and earnest as he advanced in his argument, and seizing the critical moment for enforcing conviction, he brought forth his main argument, pressed it home and sat down. As he advanced in life he seemed more and more anxious that the laws should be interpreted and administered by the rules of common sense. He lost his reverence for artificial rules; he said the laws were made for the people, and they should be interpreted and administered by rules which the people understood, whenever it was practicable; that common sense belonged to the people in a higher degree than to learned men, and that to interpret laws by rules which were at variance with the rules of common sense necessarily lessened the respect of the people for the laws, and induced them to believe that courts and lawyers contrived mysteries in the science merely for the purpose of supporting the profession of lawyers. He said the rules of pedantry did not suit this country nor this age; that common sense had acquired dominion in politics and religion, and was gaining it in the law; that judges and lawyers should have the independence and magnanimity to strip off the veil of mystery from every branch of the science, and simplify and make it intelligible, as far as possible, to the understanding of the common people. In all free States eloquence has preceded poetry, history, and philosophy. By opening the road to wealth and fame it subserves the purposes of avarice and ambition; society is led captive by its charms, and sometimes bound in fetters by its powers. In this State the bar and the General Assembly have been thus far the theatres for its display. Oratory is the branch of literature which we have cultivated with most success, and in which we have not been far behind any of our sister States.