an interesting conversationalist, and had a cacoethes loquendi of mammoth range and volume.

He was an excellent host and entertainer, and was sedulous to aid in all ways (that involved no pecuniary outlay) young men of parts who came fresh to our bar, and strangers who happened to strike his fancy. He was an efficient and willing mediator in all petty difficulties which arose within the charmed circle of his friends, and his word was social law with all of us.

He understood the laws of good breeding and the canons of true politeness as thoroughly as Count d'Orsay, and his sense of propriety was absolute and inflexibly correct. He was an ornament to society, and although his self-appreciation was great, it was no more so than his merits and worth authorized.

When he commenced the world: he was shy, modest and diffident:-necessity and ambition forced him to take a bolder stand than his native disposition prompted: his ag. gressiveness was grafted on his nature by culture, experience and determination.

He was earnest and solicitous to promote the welfare of his friends-but he was a good hater: and more than willing to let the object know and understand it.

In pecuniary matters, he was a man of conflicting notions and desires:-he would have been very fond of ostensible generosity-but he was excessively penurious: and thoroughly practical and business-like in small, as well as great, matters.

While he was a member of the Supreme Court and of the Senate, his correct idea, as a business man, was that as he paid a high price for his board: it was a woeful waste and practically wrong to also pay out money for lunches at the capitol: hence he watched that outlay with a jealous eye, and circumscribed it within the narrowest limits.

In short, he viewed that matter, as he would any business affair: and not only did not relish the paying out of

money twice for his provender; but likewise did not relish paying 1,000 per cent profit even on a few apples or a glass of milk, which constituted his repast at noon-tide. He was a strict business man in this, as in all else; and he did right in resisting the small pilferings incident to life in Washington. He lent fifty dollars to an impecunious lawyer of Urbana, who soon thereafter died; leaving the debt unpaid: and his family in abject poverty. It was not in accordance with the Judge's system and business-like habits to let it stand in that way:-so he informed me that he intended to prove up the debt against the estate and might probably present it to the widow.

Altho' a great speculator, yet he was a thoroughly honest man, as he understood and realized that term: he would enter ten thousand acres of land in Illinois or Iowa with land-warrants; and hold on to it, till he realized ten dollars an acre: and he would acquire farms by foreclosure at much less than their value, and this was, to him, strictly legitimate: but he abhorred anything which was universally conceded to be dishonest or mean.

This principle entered into, and animated his judicial duties: he disdained all fraud and sharp practice, on the part of the bar, and would not countenance it unless it was venial, and the practitioner was well compensated for it.

In some respects, he had great will power, of which he was very proud: but in other respects, his will power was feeble. At Paris, a murderer was convicted by the jury, and a sentence of death ordered: but the Judge had not the courage to pronounce sentence; and he admitted it; and his condition was pitiful as the term wore on, leaving this murderer unsentenced. So Charlie Constable came to his rescue; and in a bold, plain, hand wrote out a form of sentence and nerved the Judge up to the performance of reading it to the victim; which he did in a shaky voice.

After Lincoln was elected, and trouble was brewing down in Dixie, the Judge was exceedingly alarmed, and extremely

anxious that a compromise should be effected. He talked about it to every one who would listen to him, and wrote many letters on the subject: he had no plan or policy to suggest: but, agitated by fear, was in favor of anything that would placate and turn away the wrath of the South.

I frequently thought what a "mess" we should have had, if he had been the President, instead of Lincoln: it would have been Buchanan, over again.

From an ardent desire to execute even and exact justice; he shunned and abhorred all technicalities: and got right down to the essential merits of any law-suit or proposition. "It appears to me"-Swett once commenced, in an argument, on a demurrer. "I don't care how it appears to you, broke in the Judge; "hand up your authorities, if you have any." The imperturbable Swett, nothing daunted, commenced again: "As I was saying"-the Judge interfered again: "I don't care if you was, if you have any authorities in point, let's have them, without so much talk." That was Davis' style: any one who knew him, will recognize it.

Flattery and cajolery went further, and was more effective with him (if it was applied with a dainty brush and deftly done) than any other great man I ever knew: but if awkwardly put, or laid on thick, he would resent it, in unequivocal terms.

From young men he took an interest in, he expected and exacted unremitting and persistent adulation and servitude: one might be a servitor for nine years and three hundred and sixty-four days, but if he failed on the last day of the last year, all his previous efforts were in vain. It was debasing to be a henchman for the Judge: but also profitable if it was persisted in long enough: for the Judge used his political influence for all it was worth for his friends.

Leonard Swett was his great favorite when I first knew them both: but he was of too sturdy a manhood to long remain in an attitude of servility to any one. Among other pastimes indulged in by the Judge in 1856 was deriding and