occurrence referred to, leaving the head of that then young man almost as white as the frost, the manly form, pleasing face and generous conduct of Mr. Peyton are fresh and green in his memory, and he has here undertaken this imperfect sketch of his recollections of Mr. Peyton as a small tribute to his memory.[27] DAVID S. YOUNG. Staunton, Va., January 31st, 1879. [27] The young man above mentioned was D. S. Young himself. FROM HON. GEO. W. THOMPSON, FORMERLY M. C. FOR THE WHEELING DISTRICT, W. VA., AND UNITED STATES DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR WESTERN VIRGINIA. HIS IMPRESSIONS OF JOHN HOWE PEYTON. Steenrod, near Wheeling, W. Va., June 11th, 1879. _To Col. John L. Peyton, Staunton, Va._: _Dear Sir_--Your note of May 31st was forwarded to me at the "Hills" in Marshall county, and thence to the court at Clarksburg, from which I have returned this week. I have hastened, and possibly with too much haste, to reply to your note. Herewith I send you the impressions your father made upon me. It is perhaps a little severe and stern for the effeminate men of these times, but the latter would be benefitted by comparison or contrast with the men of that day in which John Howe Peyton and Briscoe G. Baldwin were the samples of excellence. My acquaintance with John Howe Peyton became more intimate in 1828, when I was Attorney for the United States for the Western District of Virginia. He was then prominent as a remarkable man, and as an able and distinguished lawyer. He was a man of that tone and quality of mind, which soft and vacillating natures, or other minds not well grounded in high principles of conduct, _might_ term austere. The logical character of his mind was that of severity of thought, and well trained in historical criticism. From such a mental constitution and from such culture all his motives of conduct, public and private, may well be supposed to have been the convictions of principles. As a statesman such a man could not do otherwise than shape his public life to the loftiest patriotism, as a lawyer to the sternest integrity of public right and justice, and as a man to all that was above what was low, base, or corrupt, or even common-place. Hence as a party leader or defender of right he had no mercy, in the public discussions of his times, for the mere trickster and demagogue, as public prosecutor he had no compromises with crime or guilt, and as a lawyer was inflexible and professionally just in the application of the principles of the law, which he looked upon as a science which tended to secure the rights of men and preserve the purity of the general life. There were not many men who could make such quick and decisive analysis of facts, and generalise from them the principles by which they should be governed, and state the results to which they lead, and this both in the domain of politics and of professional life.