to any other man in Massachusetts the subsequent change to eleven hours was owing to "the girl's lawyer," as we shall see in a moment. His advice to the girls, at their mass-meeting in the grove, was well pleasing to the lords of the mill, some of whom, from this time, gave him occasional employment.

But our young friend remained a democrat-a democrat during the administration of General Jackson-a democrat in Lowell, supposed to be the creation of that protective tariff which a democratic majority had reduced and was reducing! It was like living at Cape Cod and voting against the fishing bounties, or in Louisiana and opposing the sugar duty. And this particular democrat was a man without secrets and without guile; positive, antagonistic and twenty-two; a friend and disciple of Isaac Hill, and one who had seen that little lame hero of democracy assaulted by the huge Upham in the streets of Exeter, with feelings not unutterable. In such odium were his opinions held in Lowell at that time, that he could not appear at the tavern table in court time without being tabooed or insulted. The first day of his sitting at dinner with the bar, the discussion grew so hot that the main business of the occasion was neglected, and he concluded that if he meant to take sustenance at all he must dine elsewhere. He did so for one day; but feeling that such a course looked like abandoning the field, he returned on the day following, and faced the music to the end of the session.

His audacity and quickness stood him in good stead at this pe riod. One of his first cases being called in court, he said, in the usual way, "Let notice be given!"

"In what paper?" asked the aged clerk of the court, a strenuous whig.

of

"In the Lowell Advertiser," was the reply; the Lowell Advertiser being a Jackson paper, never mentioned in a Lowell court; whose mere existence, few there present would confess a knowledge.

"The Lowell Advertiser ?" said the clerk, with disdainful nonchalance, "I don't know such a paper."

"Pray, Mr. Clerk," said the lawyer, "do not interrupt the proceedings of the court; for if you begin to tell us what you don't know, there will be no time for anything else."

He was always prompt with a retort of this kind. So, at a later

2

day, when he was cross-questioning a witness in not the most respectful manner, and the court interposing, reminded him that the witness was a professor in Harvard college, he instantly replied; "I am aware of it, your honor; we hung one of them the other day."

Ilis politics were not, in reality, an obstacle to his success at the bar, though his friends feared they would be. There are two sides to every suit; and as people go to law to win, they are not likely to overlook an advocate who, besides the ordinary motives to exertion, has the stimulus of political and social antagonism. He won his way rapidly to a lucrative practice, and with sufficient rapidity, to an important, leading, conspicuous practice. He was a bold, diligent, vehement, inexhaustible opponent. He accepted the theory of his profession without limitation or reserve, conceiving it to be his duty to save or serve his client with not the slightest regard to the moral aspects of the matter in dispute. That is the concern of the law-maker and the court; the advocate's business, in his opinion, is simply and solely, to serve his client's interests. And if there should be lawyers at all, this is, beyond question, the correct theory of the vocation.

In some important particulars, General Butler surpassed all his contemporaries at the New England bar. His memory was such, that he could retain the whole of the testimony of the very longest trial without taking a note. His power of labor seemed unlimited. In fertility of expedient, and in the lightning quickness of his devices, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, his equal has seldom lived. To these gifts, add a perseverance that knew no discouragement, and never accepted defeat while one possibility of triumph remained. One who saw him much at the bar in former times, wrote of him three years ago:

"His devices and shifts to obtain an acquittal and release are absolutely endless and innumerable. He is never daunted or baffled until the sentence is passed and put into execution, and the reprieve, pardon, or commutation is refused. An indictment must be drawn with the greatest nicety, or it will not stand his criticism. A verdict of guilty is nothing to him; it is only the beginning of the case; he has fifty exceptions; a hundred motions in arrest of judgment; and after that the habeas corpus and personal replevin. The opposing counsel never begins to feel safe until the evidence is all in;

for he knows not what new dodges Butler may spring upon him. He is more fertile in expedients than any man who practices law among us. His expedients frequently fail, but they are generally plausible enough to bear the test of trial. And faulty and weak as they oftentimes are, Butler always has confidence in them to the last; and when one fails, he invariably tries another. If it were not that there must be an end to everything, his desperate cases would never be finished, for there would be no end to his expedients to obtain his case."

An old friend and fellow-practitioner of General Butler, Mr. J. Q. A. A. Griffin, of Charlestown, Massachusetts, favors the reader with some interesting reminiscences of the general's career at the bar: "General Butler," he remarks, "has the power possessed by but few men, of attending to several important mental operations at the same time. An incident will show you my meaning:

"In a trial of a quite important matter, in the year 1860, I was counsel on the same side with General Butler. It was a busy season of the year for lawyers like him who always had an overflowing docket. The trial began just after his return from the nomination of Breckinridge. He was to make a report of his doings. to his constituents at Lowell. The meeting was called to be held at night. Dissatisfaction existed in the party, and the General therefore must speak with care and consideration. He determined to write what he was to say. But the court began early and sat late. He took his seat in court, and while the adverse party examined their witnesses in chief, he wrote out his speech, apparently absorbed therein. But he cross-examined each witness at great length, with wonderful thoroughness and acuteness, evincing a perfect knowledge, not only of what the witness had said in substance, but when needful, of the phrases in which he had uttered it. At noon, over our dinner, he read over what he had written and made such corrections as were needful, which were quite as few, I thought, as would have been found if the speech had been written in the quiet of his study. In the afternoon he went through the same routine, and at night made his speech. This is but an inAmid confusion of transactions, where other men became indecisive, he always saw his way clear. Whatever his occupations, however intently his mind was employed, it was always safe to interrupt him by suggestions or inquiries about the matter in

stance.

hand, or anything else, for he could answer on the instant, clearly and without the slightest confusion, or distraction of his purpose. "Unexampled success attended his professional efforts, so characterized by shrewdness and zeal. When the war summoned him from these toils, he had a larger practice than any other man in the state. I have no doubt, he tried four times more causes, at least, than any other lawyer, during the ten years preceding the war. The same qualities which make him efficient in the war, made him efficient as a lawyer. Fertile in resources and stratagem; earnest and zealous to an extraordinary degree; certain of the integrity of his client's cause, and not inclined to criticise or inquire whether it was strictly 'constitutional' or not, but defending the whole line with a boldness and energy that generally carried court and jury alike. His ingenuity is exhaustless. If he makes a mistake in speech or action, it has no sinister effect, for the reason that he will himself discover and correct the error, before any 'barren spectator' has seized upon it.

"He is faithful and tenacious to the last degree. There is no possibility of treachery in his conduct. He would not betray the devil to his fellow.' Every other prominent Massachusetts democrat, when it became profitable to do so, condemned a previous coalition that had been entered into between them and the freesoilers after they had taken and consumed its fruits. General Butler's political interests strongly urged him to the same dishonor. But he never hesitated an instant, and uniformly justified the coalition, and openly defended it in every presence and to the most unwilling ears. In his personal relations the same traits are observable. He is quite too ready, I have sometimes thought, to forgive (he never forgets) injuries, but his memory never fails as to his friends.

"The basis of Napoleon's character,' says Gourgand, 'was a pleasant humor.' And a man who jests,' continues Victor Hugo, 'at important junctures, is on familiar terms with events.'

"A pleasant humor and a lively wit, and their constant exercise, are the possession and the habit of General Butler. Everybody has his anecdote of him. Let me refer to one anecdote of him in this respect, and that shall suffice for the hundreds that I might recall.

"The general was a member of our house of representatives

one year, when his party was in a hopeless and impotent minority, except on such occasions as he contrived to make it efficient by tactics and stratagems of a technical, parliamentary character. The speaker was a whig, and a thorough partisan. The whigs were well drilled and had a leader on the floor of very great capacity, Mr. Lord, of Salem. During one angry debate, General Butler attempted to strangle an obnoxious proposal of the majority by tactics. Accordingly he precipitated upon the chair divers questions of order and regularity of proceeding, one after the other. These were debated by Mr. Lord and himself, and then decided by the speaker uniformly according to the notions advanced by Mr. Lord. The general bore this for some time without special complaint, contenting himself with raising new questions. At length, however, he called special attention to the fact that he had been overruled so many times by the chair, within such a space of time, and that, as often, not only had the speaker adopted the result of Mr. Lord's suggestions, but generally had accepted the same words in which to announce it; and, said he, 'Mr. speaker, I cannot complain of these rulings. They doubtless seem to the speaker to be just. I perceive an anxiety on your part to be just to the minority and to me, by whom at this moment they are represented, for, like Saul, on the road to Damascus, your constant anxiety seems to be, LORD, what wilt thou have me to do?'

"No man in America can remember facts, important and unimportant, like General Butler. Whatever enters his mind remains there for ever. And his knowledge, as I have said, is available the instant it is needed, without confusion or tumult of thought. The testimony delivered through days of dreary trials, without minutes or memoranda of any kind, he could recall in fresher and more accurate phrases, remembering always the substance, and generally all the important expressions, with far more precision than the other counsel and the court could gather it from their writing books,' wherein they had endeavored to record it. Practice for a long series of years had so disciplined his mind in this respect that I think it quite impossible for him to forget. And as he has mingled constantly with every business and interest of humanity since he was admitted to the bar, he has become possessed of a marvelous extent and variety of knowledge respecting the affairs of mankind." These passages, written by men conversant with the bar of