We have said that Mr. Peyton was thoroughly furnished in every part of his profession; in one department his qualifications were peculiar and unsurpassed. Without disparagement to others, it may be said, we think, that he was the best Commonwealth's Attorney in the State of Virginia. He was the lawyer of the Commonwealth, and he treated the Commonwealth as a client, and he labored for her with the same industry, zeal and fidelity that he manifested in behalf of any other client. The oft-quoted merciful maxim of the common law, "better that ninety and nine guilty men should escape than one innocent man suffer," he interpreted as a caution to respect the rights of the innocent, and not as an injunction to clear the guilty, and he labored to reduce the percentage of rogues unwhipt of justice, as low as possible. With a clearness and force rarely equaled would he point out the necessity of punishing the guilty in order that the innocent might be safe, thus exhibiting the absolute consistency of strict justice with true mercy. So simply and earnestly would he do this, that he not only bound the consciences of the jury, but also made them feel that they were individually interested in the faithful execution of the laws. Here his clear perception of the moral principles upon which rests the penal code, and his fondness for recurring to general principles, stood him in great stead. It was delightful to hear him expatiate upon this theme, for upon no other was he more truly eloquent. Mr. Peyton served at different times in both branches of the Legislature, but we speak not of him as a politician. Our purpose has been solely to exhibit some of the qualities which made him an eminent member and ornament of the legal profession. SKETCH OF JOHN HOWE PEYTON, BY WILLIAM FRAZIER, A. M., OF YALE. "My personal acquaintance with Mr. Peyton," says Mr. Frazier in the History of Augusta County, "commenced in October, 1824, when I entered upon the practice of my profession at the Staunton bar. He was then, as I learn from his biography, in his fifty-seventh year, and from that circumstance only, it might be inferred he had passed his climatric. Certainly nothing in his physical appearance or his forensic display betokened a decay of power, bodily or mentally.