Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-12-03

into fiendiSh Sneer. &c may be al
lowed to appear once by he codttseT Of
the court and bar. Here is my license
from the highest tribunal in America "
and he handed Judge Mills broad parch-
ment. The trial Immediately went on.
In the examination of witnesses the
stranger evinced but little ingenuity, Is
we commonly thought. He suffered each
ore to tell his own story without inter-
ruption, though he contrived to make
each tell it over two or three times. He
put few cross questions, which, with
keen witnesses, only served to correct
mistakes, and he made no notes, which,
in mighty memories, always tends to en-
barrass. The examination being ended,
as counsel for the plaintiff he had a right
to the opening speech as well as the close;
but to the astonishment of every one he
declined the former, and allowed the de-
fence to lead off. Then a shadow might
have been observed to fit across the fea-
lures of Pike, and to darken even the
bright eyes of Prentice. They saw that
they had " caught Tartar - but who it
was, or how it happened, was impossible
to guess.
Col. Ashley spoke first. He dealt the
jury a dish of that close dry logic, which
years afterwards rendered him famous in
the Senate of the Union.
The poet, Albert Pike, followed with a
rich vein of wit, and hail torrent of rid
ic,lle, in which you may I've sure neither
the plaintiff nor the plaintiffs ragged at
torney were either forgotten or spared.
The great Prentice concluded for the
defendant, with glow ofgorgeous words,
brilliant as shower of falling stars, and
with final burst oforatory that brought
the house down in cheers. in which the
sworn jury themselves joined, notwith-
standing the stern "order" of the bench.
Thus wonderfully susceptible are the
southwestern people TO the charms ofim-
passioned eloquence.
1t was then the strangers turn. He
had remained apparently abstracted du-
ring all the previous speeches. Still, and
straight, and motionlesS in his seat, his
pale, smooth forehead shooting up high
like mountain cone of snow; but for
that eternal twitch that came and went
perpetually in his sallow cheeks, you
would have taken him for mere man of
marble, or a human man carved in ice.
Even his dim, dreamy eyes were invisi.
bic beneath those gray shaggy eyebrows.
But now, at last, he rises before the
bar railing, not behind-and so near to
the wondering jury that he might touch
the foreman with his long, bony finger.
With eyes still half shut, aud standing
rigid as pillar of iron, his thin lips curl
as if in measureless Scorn, slightly part,
and the voice comes forth. At first, it is
low and sweet, insinuating itself through
the brain as an artless tune winding its
way into the deepest heart like the melo-
dy of magic incantation; while the
speaker proceeds without gesture OF the
least sign of excitement to tear in pieces
the argument of Ashley, that melts away
at his touch as frost before the sunbeam.
Every one looked surprised. His logic
was at once SO brief, and so luminously
clear, that the rudeSt peasant could com.
prehend it without effort.
Anon, he came to the dazzling wit O.
the poet lawyer, Pike. Then the curl o.
his lip grew sharper: his sallow face kin.
died up; and his eyes began to open,
dim and dreamy no longer, but vivid as
lightning, red as firc-globes, and glarine
like twin meteors. The whole soul was
in the eye-the full heart streamed out
on the face. In five minutes Pixies vii
seemed the foam of folly, and his fines,
satire, horrible profanity, when contrastd
with the inimitable sallies and extermi.
mating sarcasms of the stranger, inter.
spersed with jest and anecdote that filled
the forum with roars of laughter.
Then, without so much as bestowine
an allusion to Prentice, he turned short
on the perjured witnesses of Hopkins
tore their testimony into atoms, and
hurled in their faces such terrible invec
tive that all trembled as with an ague
and two of them actually fed dismayed
from the court house.
The excitement of the crowd was be
coming tremendous. The united life an(
soul appeared to hang on the burning
tongue of the stranger. He inspired
them with the powers fhis own passions
He saturated them with the poison of hi:
own malicious feelings. He seemed tc
have stolen natures long hidden secret o
attraction. Hewas the sun to the sea O
all thought and emotion which rose and
fell, and boiled in pillows as he chose
But his greatest triumph was to come.
His eyes began to glare furtively at
the assassin Hopkins, and his lean, tape,
fingers slowly assumed the same direc.
ton. He hemmed the wretch with a cir.
cumvallation of strong evidence and I'M.
pregnable argument, cutting off all hope
of escape. lie piled up huge bastions
of insurmountable facts.
He dug beneath the murderer and SLAM
derer's feet bitches of dilemmas, such as
no sophistry could overleap, and nc
stretch of ingenuity evade; and having
thus, as one might say, impounded his
victim, and girt him about like scor-
pion in a circle of fire, he stripped him.
self to the work of massacre.
Oh. then, but it was vision both
glorious and dreadful to behold the ora.
tor. His actions, before graceful as the
wave of a golden willow in the breeze
grew impetuous as the motion of an oak
III the hurricane. His voice became a
trumpet filled with wild whirlpools, deaf.
ening the ears with crashes of power,
and vnt intarni upIpd oil tho u-biIn NTH :,