Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1857-1865, 1860-03-23

opening as we'll as the closing speech but
to the astonishment Of every one he de-
clined the former and allowed the defence
: to lead off.
Then a shadow might have been seen
to fit across the features of Pike, and to
darken the bright eyes of Prentiss. They
saw they had caught a Tartar but who
it was, or how it happened, was impossible
to guess.
Col. Ashley spoke first. He dealt the
jury dish of that coarse, dry logic which
: years afterwards rendered him famous in
the Senate Of the Union.
The poet, Albert Pike, followed with a
vein of wit and in half torrent of ridi.
cule, in which neither the plaintiff or her
ragged attorney were forgotten or spared.
The great Prentiss concluded for the
defen dant with glow of georgeous words,
brilliant as a shower of falling stars, aud
with bursts Of oratory that brought the
house down in cheers, in which evep the
sworn jury themselves joined, notwith-
Thus wonderfully susceptible are the
Southern people to the charms Of impas-
stoned elequeuce.
1t was the strangers turn. He had re-
mained apparently distracted during all
the previous speeches. STILL and strait,
and motionless in his seat, his pale smooth
forehead shooting high like mountain
cone of snow, and but for that continued
twich that came and went perpetually in
his face, you would have taken him for a
mere man of marble, or human form
carved in ice. Even his dim, dreary eyes
were invisible beneath those grey, shaggy
eyebrows.
But now at last he rises--beforc the bar,
not behind it-and so near the wondering
Jury that he might touch the foreman with
bis long, bony fingers. With eyes half
shut, and standing rigid as pillar of iron,
his thin lips curled as is in measureless
scorn, slightly apart and then the sound
came forth
At first it is low and sweet, insinuating
itself into the brain, as an artless tune
winding its way into the deepest recessess
of the heart, like the melody of magic
; incantation, while the. speaker proceeds
without gesture or the least signal of
excitement, to tear to pieces the argument
of Ashley, which melts away at his touch
looked surprised His logic was at once
brief, and SO luminous clear, and the rudest
peasant could~comprehend it without an
effort.
Anon he came 70 the dazzling wit Of the
, poet.lawyer Pike. Then the curl of his
lips grew sharper, his smooth face began
to kindle up, and his eyes to open-dim
and dreamy no longer but vivid as lightn-
ing, red as FIRE globes. as glaring as twin
; meteers. The whole soul was in his eye
the full heart streamed out of his face
In five minutes Pixies wit seemed like
foam of folly, and his finest satire, horri-
ble profanity, when compared with the in
imitable sales and exterminating sarcasm
Of the stranger, interspersed with jests
and anecdotes that filled the forum with
laughter.
Then, without so much as bestowing an
allusion upon Prentiss, he turned round
short at the perjured witnesses of Hopkins
tore their testimony into atoms, and hurled
into their faces sucG invectives that all
trcmbled as with ague, and two of them
= actually fed in dismay from the Court
/, house.
The excitement of the crowd was be-
: coming tremendous. The united life and
/, souls seemed to hang upon the burning
= tongue of the stranger. He inspired them
with the power Of his own passion. He
= saturated them with the poison of his own
malicious feelings. He seemed to have
stolen natures long hidden secret of at
: thought and emotion, which rose and fell
and toiled in the billOws as he chose But
his greatest triumh was to come.
His eyes began to glance furtively al
the assassin Hopkins, as his lean taper
fingers assumed the same direction. He
hemmed the wretch with a circumvallation
Of strong evidence and impregnable argu
ment, cutting off all hope Of escape.
:, He piled up large bastions of insur
mOuntable facts. He dug beneath the
i murderer and slanderer's feet bitches o.
dlemmas such as no sophistry could over
= = leap, and no secrets OF ingenuity evade
and thus having as one might say, i'm
pounded his victim, and girt him about
y y like SCORPION in a circle of fire, he strip.
. ped himself to the work of massacre.
: Oh then it was a>vision both glorious
and dreadful to behold the orator. Hi
actions before graceful as the waves of the
golden willow in the breeze, grew impetu
v GUS as the motion of an oak in a hurri
! cane.
4 His voice became trumpet filled with
9 wild whirlpools, deafening the ear with tn,
: crashes OF power, aud yet interminglinl
II all the while with sweet undersong o
q the softest cadence.
n His face was as red as drunkard's-
3, his forehead glowed like heated furnace
IS his countenance was haggard likeahat o
5, a maniac, and ever and anon he flung hi
e long and bony arms on high, as if grasp
= ing after thunder bolts.
He drew a picture of the murder il
e such appalling colors, that in comparison
3, hell itself might be considered beautiful