"Yet having amassed a handsome fortune, he established himself in a beautiful home, surrounded by a large and interesting family, and he felt himself entitled to some relaxation from the arduous demands of his profession--or at least from its drudgery. He, therefore, relegated to the younger members of the bar all minor causes, in the matter of taking depositions and the like vacation duties. But for ten years following the date of my introduction to him, there was hardly an important or celebrated cause tried at the Staunton bar, whether in the State Courts or the United States Courts, without the aid and illumination of his splendid intellect; whilst also in Albemarle, Rockbridge and Bath counties, he largely participated in the like weighty causes. "In the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, his reputation throughout the State enlarged the theatre of his professional service much beyond that of his local circuit. "I wish it were in my power to give a just and discriminating analysis of his processes in the investigation and conduct of a great cause, or even a fair description of his style of forensic argument. This much may be safely said: that he seized, by apparent intuition, upon the strong and dominating points in a case, not infrequently finding those, or some of them, buried out of sight from a scrutiny less searching than his, beneath a mass of irrelevant or conflicting testimony. "Having thus entrenched himself in one, or a few strong positions, his array of the facts was so masterly, his presentation of them so luminous, and his arguments from them so logical, that he rarely failed to carry the tribunal with him safely and irresistibly to his conclusions. Discarding thus the minor points and less material phases of the cause from his examination and discussion, or dismissing them in a few rapid, searching sentences, his debate was conspicuous for its compactness and logical order. Accordingly, his speeches did not ordinarily exceed one hour, and even in the most complex and voluminous causes they rarely went beyond two hours. I can recall but one occasion in which he consumed nearly three hours. His style was fluent, but not of that fluency which comes of redundant words and phrases, for I have never listened to one so terse and vigorous. I think it can be said there was hardly a superfluous word, and every sentence bore upon the conclusion aimed at. It was, therefore, never a weariness to hear this great advocate, and the promiscuous audience followed his argument, his sarcasm or his invective, with as much apparent interest as did court and jury.