It is well known upon one of the English circuits that a leading barrister once undertook to speak while an express went twenty miles to bring back a witness whom it was necessary to produce upon the trial. But what is this to the performance of an American counsellor, who upon a like emergency held the judge and the jury by their ears for three mortal days! He indeed was put to his wits end, for words wherewith to fill up the time; and he introduced so many truisms, and argued at the utmost length so many indisputable points, and expatiated so profusely upon so many trite ones, that Judge Marshal (the biographer of Washington and the most patient of listeners,) was so far moved at last as to say, “Mr. Such a one!—(addressing him by his name in a deliberate tone of the mildest reprehension,)—there are some things with which the Court should be supposed to be acquainted.” I can say with Burton, _malo decem potius verba, decies repetita licet, abundare, quam unum desiderari._ “To say more than a man can say, I hold it not fit to be spoken: but to say what a man ought to say,—there,”—with Simon the tanner of Queenborough,—“I leave you.” CHAPTER LXXXIV. A LOOP DROPT IN THE FOREGOING CHAPTER IS HERE TAKEN UP. _Enobarbus._ Every time Serves for the matter that is then born in it. _Lepidus._ But small to greater matters must give way. _Enobarbus._ Not if the small come first. SHAKESPEAR. In the last chapter an illustration of tediousness was omitted, because it so happily exhibits the manner in which a stop may be put to a tedious discourse without incivility, that it deserves a chapter to itself.