delivered a speech which has never been surpassed in the forensic displays of the State. Analysis, denunciation, wit, ridicule, pathos, invective were in turn poured forth with such telling effect that not only was the defendant triumphantly acquitted, but it would have been dangerous for the plaintiff had the question of his life or death been in the hands of the jury. The audience alternately convulsed with laughter, bathed in tears, or burning with indignation, were enraptured with his eloquence, and could not be restrained from demonstrations of applause. Mr. Murphy delighted in the equity practice of his profession, and was accustomed to speak of this branch of our jurisprudence as the application of the rules of moral philosophy to the practical affairs of men. More of the pleadings in equity causes within the sphere and time of his practice will be found in his handwriting than in that of any other solicitor, and, with two or three exceptions, among those named above, he was by far the most adept as an equity pleader. He wrote with facility and accuracy, even amid the crowd of courts and confusion of clients, and his neat and peculiar chirography, to those a little accustomed to it, was as legible as print. In the year 1818 he was elected by the General Assembly a judge of the Superior Courts, and rode the circuits in that capacity for two years, when he resigned and returned to the practice of his profession. Under a clause in the criminal law establishing the present Supreme Court system, passed that session, which authorized the Governor by special commission to detail a judge of the Superior Court to sit in stead of a judge of the Supreme Court, in causes where any one of their number had been of counsel or had an interest in the result, he was commissioned by the Governor for this service, and presided in the Supreme Court in several causes, in place of Judge Henderson, who had been recently elected from the bar. This provision of the law, being afterwards thought to be in conflict with that clause of the Constitution which requires the judges of the Supreme Court to be elected by the General Assembly, was repealed. In his office as a judge he well sustained his reputation for learning and ability, which had been so well established at the bar, and attracted the admiration of the profession and the people by the courtesy, patience, dignity and justice which characterized his administration of the laws. Before taking leave of his career as a lawyer it is proper to mention his tribute to his profession in three volumes of reports of the Supreme Court of the State, embracing the decisions of cases of interest from 1804 to 1819.