San Andreas independent., 1859-08-27
Anecdotes of Rufus Choate.

men have been so complimented by the press
North and South; the death of few so gener-
ally mourned. His conservative political
course, and his brilliant legal achievements,
varied, yet solid, requirements, and strong
individuality, have contributed to make him a
fame which follows him as a radient shadow.
Save Douglas Jerrold no public man of the
age has left behind him so many characters
tic anecdotes and civic life-incidents
The following will be read with interest:
Mr.. Choate is great actor, artist of
the first rate; but an actor after all. We rath-
er think from the piles of written sheets be-
hind which he rises to address jury, and
which disappear one by one as the speech
rolls on, that every word of the eloquent and
lmpassioned argument is all there, cut and
dried
We heard Webster, once, in sentence and a
look, crush an hours argument of the curious
workman; it was most intellectually wire
drawn and hair-splitting with Grecian soph.
istry, and subtlety the Leontine Georgias
might have enved. 1t was about two car
wheels, which, to common eyes, looked as like
as two eggs; but Mr. Choate, by fnc line of
argument between tweedle-dum and tweedle-
zee, ana discourse on 'the fxation of points,
SO deep and fine as to be lost in obscurity,
'howed the jury that there was Heaven wide
difference between them. "But," said Mr..
Webster, and his great eyes opened wide and
black as lie stared at the big tin wheels be-
fore him, gentlemen of the jury, there they
are-look ut em p and as he pronounced this
answer in tones of vast volume, the distorted
wheels seemed to shrink back again into their
original similarity, and the long argument on
'fxation of points" died natural death 1t
WAS an example of the ascendancy of mere
character over mere inteilectualify but so much
greater, nevertheless, the intelectuality
'You would by no means suspect the vol
canic energies lurking beneath, from any ap-
pearance on the surface. In his wan and
worn, and bloodless, but benignant face, you
would see enough to suspect intellectual treas
ures slowed up, and an inner life of strange
and unusual topics and movement. He looks
as 1t he moved about in his own mysterious
solitude forever, whether in crowds or alone
like some strange child of a land bathed in
sunset beauty, musing ever on warm Arabian
skies, and the burning stars and gorgeous
bloom OF the hanging gardens of his home
But his mere oratoric presence is nothing; and
therefore he never impresses an audience, es-
pecally professional one, with sense of his
greatness till he does something; till he speaks
or acts in the legal drama.
1--WE see no external symptom of overpow-
ering native character; no symptom of any
thing which would make you think that that
man, by his grand movement, by his basiisk
eye, by his uplfted arm, might strike dumb
opposition and palsy hate. And yet we hare
seen him when in battle, his battle, that of
thoughts and words, standing right over le-
gal adversary, with ontstretched arm, with eye
burning black with smothered fire, and face
white with IL death-like pallor, his form erect,
his browsmore spacious, and the dark curly
locks on his temples fiuttering about and wav-
ing and uplifting, like battle flags to faunt
defiance to the foe, and then lie looked the
oratoric war god. He can present his thoughts
as bold and bare as bleeding bones, but he
prefers to give it forth as it first comes to him,
embodied in beauty and robed in splendor-
You can never listen to him ten minutes any,
where without being walked up by some sur
prising imaginative analogy or tancful illus
tration. In court or with an audience, this
warm imagery appears, equally when in an
insurance case he apostrophizes I" the spirit
which leads the philanthropy of two hemis-
pheres to the icy grave of Sir John Franklin"
or when in Feneuil Hall he conjures up before
the eyes of wildly applauding political as
sembly vision beauteous of "the dark eyed
girls OF Mexico wailing to the light guitar, All |
wo is me, Albania, for thousand years." and
by the vividness of his conception and the cor
responding intensity of his delivery causing
The people almost to hear with the mortal ear
the long lament as of the daughters Of Judea
over ruined land sounds the most melan-
choly OF all the sorrow stricken fields of earth.
"How often have we seen the opposite cOun-
sci in a case utterly puzzled and baffled by the
strange way in which Choate seemed to be
putting the facts to the jury, and interrup,ing
him again and again in vain, met and foiled
every time by the reply, ado | misstate the
facts? I'm only arguing upon them and
the dlscomhtted interrupter would sink back
in despair, utterly unable to detect precisely
where was the error, yet feeling sure that he
had heard no such evidence. The fact was,
Choate had the basis fact all right; he was
only painting and inflaming it with his own
colors; but the paints on his pallet were to his
adversaries as the sky of Italy is to the sky of
Sweden, and they were brought on his canvas
in even more perplexing and bewildering hue
by the impassioned heat of his unbridled sem
sibility.
brilliantly was this capacity exhibited in
the case of Captain Martin, indicted in the U.
s District Court for casting away his vessel
off San Domingo, with the intent to procure
the insurance. The Government had been at
the cost of sending a special agent 10 Hayti
for evidence, and lie had brought with him
black man from Soulouque's Empire. called
by the swelling appelation of Duke Pino."-
All the other evidence was manageable, but
his testimony was very ugly. He sworc posi-
lively, through an interpreter, that he dived
down under water and examined the logwood
cargo of the ship, and her starboard bow, and
in the latter he found great smooth hole, not
rough enough for rock to have made, and
which evidently was the DEATH wound of the
ship. All the other parts of the proof of the
Government might be got over; some OF them,
indeed, were somewhat favorable; but that
awful hole threatened to swallow up case. cap-
tain, advocate, and all. All the rest he man
aged adroitly and aptly; but when on the Sec
ond day OF his argument to the jury he came
to that part, he didn't think at all; he rose
right at the wall.
He told the jury in his terms that they need
not think that he was afraid of that dark
duke, buttng his black head among the log
wood fathoms deep under water; and then all
at once he opened his whole armament in such
double hroadside of eloquence, and fiction,
and ridicule, that he riddled poor Duke Pine
himself into honey-comb. And then taking
advantage of feiicitous circumstance in the
captains conduct. to-wit that he did not fy
when accused, he concluded with sngularly
noble, simple and scriptnral burst, which came
in like some grand trumpet choral to crown
1,.r lx-rs 40 a.