The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-11-11
Giant. OF the New Hampshire Bar.

In the September number Of the Lao Re
porter, Ga valuable monthly journal published
by LITTLE and .BRowN, Of Boston, } we find
biographical notice of the late lamented Mr..
Justice WOODBURY., from the pen of ROBERT
RANroUL, jr., esq. From this article We copy
sketch of some OF the men who fixed the
standard of talent at the New Hampshire bar
in the first quarter of the nineteenth century:
'There were giants in the land in those days
1t was customary for the advocates, whose profes
siona aid was in most request at that time, to at
tend the courts from county to county through the
State as the leading barristers ride the circuit in
England. Every important trial was tourna-
ment, in which these established celebrities were
matched against each other, or against any rash
adventurer who dared TO enter the lists with them.
In the ratio of her population, New Hampshire has
contributed more mental and more moral strength
the Bar, to the Senate, and to the Cabinet of the
country, than any other State in the Union, and
that the season of her intellectual greatness.
IcHABoD BARTLETT, the RANDOLPH of the North,
the brilliant flashes of whose wit, keen sarcasm,
and pungent irony, gave life and spirit to the dry
juridicnl discussions whose logical congruity they
were allowed to relieve, but not to impair SULLI
VAN the fascination OF whose happy eloquence still
fingers in the recollection of that hear me
FLETCHER, whose legal acumen, clear, distinct,
and precise statement closely reasoned argument,
and conscientious mastery of his subject, adorn no
less the bench than formerly the bar-JEHEMIAH
mason, that counsellor of marvellous sagacity,
unrivalled in his knowledge of human nature,
skilled to drag to light the fraud hidden in the
crafty soul of the false witness, and forcing con-
viction straight TO the heart Of the most preudiced
and reluctant jpror-EzEKrEL WEBSTER, who
wanted but more conspicuous theatre to have
commanded world wide reputation, and to have
read his history in nations eyes-together with
that gigantic intellect, whom nowhere in America
need name, whom the forensic art has far surpassed
all emulation in this hemisphere-and, in my judg-
ment, looking through this present generation of
men, in the old world also; combining the fiery
energy of movement, sustained though impetuous.
proper to the great vindicator of Athenian liberty,
with fancy as rich, and diction glowing, as
| those of the Roman orator, but whose exuberance
is chastened and restrained by the severer taste
which subjects all ornament to the necessities of
dense and ponderous logic, TO form an oratory like
which there is nothing, and second to which there
ia nothing, m the works of other statesmen of our
times-these were the knights whose shields hung
in the portals of the temple of justice, and to en-
| counter whom was incumbent on the youth who
| challenged and would win and wear the highest
honors of the profession. To have met in equal
strife these anakim, and come off not ingloriousiy
from the frequent controversy, is proof not lightly
to be invaldated, that the young champion welded
with stalwart arm the weapons of forensic war