Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1854-04-27

brow, and small nervously twtching face
seemed alive with the concentrated essence
and cream Of genius; hut then his infantin
blue eyes, hardly visible beneath their mas
sive arches, looked dim, dreary, almost un
conscious; and his clothing was so shabb,
that the court hesitated to let the cause pro
ceed under his management.
Has your name been entered on the roll
of the State :" demanded the Judge suspici
ouslv
at is immaterial about my name bein!
on your rolls" answered the stranger, hi
thin blondless lips curling up into fiendisl
sneer =" may he allowed to appear once
by the courtesy of the court and bar. Here
is my license from the highest tribunal ir
Americaw and he handed Judge Mills ;
broad parchment. The trial immedatel,
went on.
In the examination of witnesses the stran
ger evinced but little ingenuity as was com
monty thought. He suffered each one to
tell his own story without interruption
though he contrived to make each tell II
over two or three times. He put few cross
questions, which, with keen witnesses, only
serve to correct mistakes, and he made no
notes, which, in mighty memories always
! tend to embarrass. 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 asionishment of every one,
he declined the former, and allowed the de-
fence to lead of. Then shadow might
have been observed to fit across the features
of Pike, and to darken even the bright eyes
of Prentice. They saw that they had
:" caught tartar" hut who it was, or how
it happened, was impossible to guess.
Col. Ashley spoke first. He dealt the jury
dish Of that close. dry logic, which years
afterwards rendered him famous in the Sen.
ate Of the Union.
The poet, Albert Pike, followed with a
rich vein of wit, and hail.torrent of ridi-
cuIe, in which you may be sure neither the
plaintiff or the plaintiffs ragged attorney
were either forgotten or spared.
The great Prentice concluded for the de.
frndant, with glow of gorgeous words,
brilliant as a shower Of falling stars, and
with final burst Of oratory that brought
the house down in cheers, in which the
sworn jury themselves joined, notwithstand.
ing the stern order" of the bench. Thus
wonderfully susceptible are the southwestern
people to the charms of impassioned elo-
quence.
1t was then the strangers turn. He had
remained apparently 1ohe,-actpd dariass all
the previous speeches. Still, and straight
and molionless 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 human form carv-
ed in ice. Even his dim, dreary eyes were
invisible beneath those gray shaggy eye
brows.
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 a
pillar of iron, his thin lips Gull as in meas.
ureess scorn, slightly part, and the voice
comes forth. At first it is low and sweet
insinuating itself through the brain, as an
artIess tune winding its way into the deepest
heart, like the melody Of magic incanta'
ton; while the speaker proceeds without a
gesture, or the least sign Of excitement to
tear in pieces the arguments Of Ashley, that
meI,s away at his touch as frost before the
sunbeam Every one looked surprised
His logic was at once SO brief, and so luml.
nously clear, that the rudest peasant could
comprehend it without effort.
Anon he came to the dazzling wit of the
poet LAWYER, Pike Then the curl of his lip
grew sharper; his sallaw face kindled up; aud
his eyes began to open, dim and dreary no
longer, but vivid as lightning, red as fire
globes, and glaring like twin meteors.
The whole soul was in the eye-the full
heart streamed out on the face. In five mln'
ules, Pixies wit seemed the form of folly,
aud his satire, horrible profanity, when
contrasted with the inimitable sallies and
exterminating sarcasm of the stranger, in
terspersed with Jest and anecdote that filled
the forum with roars Of laughter.
Then, without so much as bestowing an
allusion on Prentice, he turned short on the
periured witnesses Of Hopkins, tore their
testimony into atoms, and hurled into theil
faces such terrible invective that all trembleo
us with an agne, and two Of them actually
fled dismayed from the court house.
The excitement Of the crowd was be
coming tremendous. Their united life anc
soul appeared to hang on the burning tongue
of the stranger. He inspired them with the
powers of his own passions. He saturated
them with the poison Of his own malicious
feelings He seemed TO have stolen's Ma
ture's long hidden secret of attraction. III
was the sun to the sea of all thought ant
emotion, which rose and fell, and boiled il
billows as he chose. But his greatest trl
umph was to come.
flis eyes began to glare futively at TIL
assassin, Hopkins, ard his lean taper finge
slowly assumed the same direction. H'
hemmcd the wretch with decentralization
strong evidence and impregnable argnmen
cutting off all hope of escape. lie pIlle'
Fup huge bastions of unsurmountable facts
He dug beneath the murderer and slam
derers feet bitches of dilemmas, such as NJ
sopbistry could over.eap, and no stretch
ingenuity invade; and having thus, as ON
might say, unbounded his. victim, and g'r
him about like scorpion in. a circle OF fir
he stripped himself to the work of. massacre
Oh then but it was vision both glorlou
and dreadful to behold the orator. His ae
tions, before graceful as the wave Of gold
ing willow in the breeze, grew impetuous a
the motion Of the oak in hurricane. HI