But if he was allowed admission _ex gratia_, and without the requisite amount of learning, he was not long in supplying the deficiency. The powers of mind and eagerness in quest of knowledge which had been exhibited in his scholastic studies enabled him to make rapid progress in the law. His professional studies were directed by William Duffy, Esq., an eminent lawyer, then residing in Hillsborough, to whom he was ever afterwards affectionately attached, and to whose memory he paid a grateful tribute among his sketches of public and professional men of North Carolina, in an oration before the Literary Societies of the University in his latter years. Mr. Murphy advanced rapidly to the first rank of the advocates of his day, and notwithstanding his turning aside, to the indulgence of his tastes for general literature, his enlightened labors and bright career in legislation, his promotion and service on the bench for two years, his decayed health and irregular attendance on the courts in his latter days, he maintained his position in the public estimation, even to the end of his life. When it is remembered that among his competitors at one time or another, for more than a quarter of a century, were Archibald Henderson, Cameron, Norwood, Nash, Seawell, Yancey, Ruffin, Badger, Hawks, Mangum, and Morehead, it must be admitted that he was at a bar where the remark of Pinkney that "it was not a place where a false and fraudulent reputation for talents can be maintained," was fully justified. His practice for many years was not exceeded by that of any gentleman in the State, and his success corresponded with its extent. Both his examination of witnesses and argument of causes before juries on the circuit could not be excelled in skillfulness. He had a Quaker-like plainness of aspect, a scrupulous cleanness and neatness in an equally plain attire, an habitual politeness and a subdued simplicity of manner which at once won his way to the hearts of juries, while no Greek dialectician had a more ready and refined ingenuity or was more fertile in every resource of forensic gladiatorship. His manner of speaking was never declamatory or in any sense boisterous, but in the style of earnest and emphatic conversation, so simple and apparently undesigning that he seemed to the jury to be but interpreting their thoughts rather than enunciating his own, yet with a correctness and often elegance of diction which no severity of criticism could improve. A pattern of politeness in all his intercourse, public and private, he could torture an unwilling or corrupt witness into a full exposure of his falsehood, and often had him impaled before he was aware of his design; no advocate had at his command more effective raillery, wit, and ridicule to mingle with his arguments.