The Van Buren press., 1859-10-28


| Of Pike and the thunder Of Prentiss
..Have you no counsel?" inquired Judge
Mills. looking kindly at the plaintiff
mo, sir. they have all deserted me, and
/ am too poor to employ any more" replied
the beautiful Mary, bursting into tears.
| I'm such a case, will not some chival-
rous member of the profession volunteer
asked the Judge, glancing around the bar
The thirty lawyers were silent.
II will, your Honor" said voice from
the thickest of the crowd, situated behind
the bar 81
AT the sound of the voice many started
half from their seats, and perhaps there was
no heart in the intense throng that did not
beat somewhat quicker-it was so unearth-
ly, sweet, ringing and mournful
! The first sensation was changed, howev-
el, into laughter, when tall. geunt. spec
tral figure, that no person preseat remem-
bered to have seen before, elbowed E way
through the crowd and placed himsel with
in the bar.
| His appearance was problem to puzzle
the sphynx herself. His high pale fore
head, and his small, nervously -twitching
face, seemed active with the concentrated
essence of genius; but his imantile blue
eyes, were hardly visible beneath their mas
sive arches, looking dim and dreamy, and
almost unconscious, and his clothing Sc
shabby that the court almost hesitated to let
the case proceed under his management
| "Has you name been entered on the rolls
of the State?' demanded the Judge, suspi-
ciously.
| alt is immaterial about my name being
on your rolls" answered the stranger, his
thin bloodless lips curling up into a sneer.
81 may be allowed by the courtesy of the
court and bar. Hercis my license from the
| highest tribunal in America" !" and he hand
ed Judge Mills a broad parchment.
The trial Immediately went on. In the
examination of the witnesses the stranger
evinced little ingenuity, as commonly tho't.
| He suffered each one to tell his own story
without interruption, though he generally
managed to make each one tell it over tw o
or three times He put few cross-questions
which, with keen witnesses, only served to
correct mistakes; andshe made no notes,
which. in strong memories, only tend to
embarrass. The examination being ended,
as counsel for the plaintiff he had right to
the opening, as well as the closing speech.
But. to the astonshment of every one. he
declined the former and allowed the defense
to lead off
Then shadow might have been seen to
fit across the features of Pike, and to dark
en- the bright eyes of Prentiss. They saw
that they had caught tartar" but who it
was, or how it happened, it was impossible
to guess.
Col. Ashley spoke first. He dealt the
jury dish of that close, dry logic which,
years afterward, rendered hirs fa.slo,,s in the
Senate. The poet, Albert Pike, followed
with vein of wit, and a half torrent of
ridicule, in which neither the plaintiff nor
her ragged attorney, were forgotten or
spared.
The great Prentiss concluded for the de-
fendant, with gorgeous flow of words,
brilliant as shower Of falling stars, and
with bursts Of oratory that brought the
house down in cheers, in which even the
sworn jury themselves joined, notwithstand-
ing the stern order of the bench Thus
wonderfully susceptible are the Southern
people to the charms of impassioned elo
quence.
1t was the strangers turn. He had re-
mained apparently abstracted during all the
previous speeches. Still and straight in his
seat, his pale forehead shooting high like q
cone of snow, and but for that continued
twitch that came and went perpetually in
his sallow face, You would have taken him
for a mere man of marble, or a human form
carved in ice. Even his dim, dreamy eyes
were invisible beneath those shaggy eve
brows.
But now at last he rises-before the bar,
not hahipI if-opH cn mar III,
jury that he might touch the foreman with
his bony finger. With eyes half shut, and
standing rigid as a pillar of iron, his thin
lips curled as if in scorn, slis htly apart, and
the sound comes forth.
AT first it is low and sweet, insinuating
itself into the brain, as an artless tune, win
ming its way into the deepest recesses of the
heart like the melody of a magic incarna-
tion-while the speaker proceeds, without
gesture or the least signal of excitement, to
tear in pieces the arguments of Ashley, that
melt away at his touch, as frost before the
sunbeam. Every one looked surprised
His logic was at once SO brief and so lumin-
ously clear, that the rudest peasant could
comprehend it without an effort.
Anon he came to the dazzling wit of the
poet-lawer, Pike. Then the curl of his lin
grew sharper, his smooth face began to kin
die up, and his eyes to open-dim and
dreamy no longer, but vivid as lightning,
red as fire globes, and glarins as twin me-
teors. The whole soul was in his eve; the
full heart streamed out of his face In five
minutes Pixies wit seemed the foam of fol-
ly, and his finest satire horrible profanity,
when contrasted with the inimitable saliies
and extermihating sarcasms of the stranger,
interspersed with jests and anecdotes that
filled the forum with roars of oflaughter.
Then, without as much as bestowing an
allusion upon Prentiss, he turned round
short upon the perured witnesses of Hop
kins, tore their testimony into atoms. and
hurled in their faces such terrible invcctives
that all trembled as with aguc, and two of
them actually fled in dismay from the court
house.
The excitement Of the crowd was becom-
ing tremendous. Their united life and soul
seemed to hang upon the burning tongue of
the stranger He inspired them with the
power of his own passions. He saturated
them with the poison of his own malicious
feelings. He seemed to have stolcn natures