court, with a grace that would have done honour to Westminster Hall. In his reply to counsel, his remarks on the evidence, and on the conduct of the parties, he preserved the same distinguished deference and politeness, still accompanied, however, by the never-failing index of this sceptical smile, where the occasion prompted. In short, his features were manly, bold, and well proportioned, full of intelligence, and adapting themselves intuitively to every sentiment of his mind and every feeling of his heart.WIRT.

PERSON OF MARSHALL.

The chief justice of the United States is in his person tall, meager, emaciated; his muscles relaxed, and his joints so loosely connected, as not only to disqualify him, apparently, for any vigorous exertions of body, but to destroy every thing like elegance and harmony in his air and movements. Indeed, in his whole appearance and demeanour, - dress, attitudes, and gesture-sitting, standing, or walking-he is as far removed from the idolized graces of Lord Chesterfield, as any other gentleman on earth. To continue the portrait: his head and face are small in proportion to his height; his complexion swarthy; the muscles of his face, being relaxed, give him the appearance of a man of fifty years of age, nor can he be much younger. His countenance has a faithful expression of great good-humour and hilarity; while his black eyes-that unerring index-possess an irradiating spirit, which proclaims the imperial powers of the mind that sits enthroned within.-WIRT.

Rule 19. · The description of a person sometimes refers only to the manners.

Example:

MANNERS OF PATRICK HENRY.

He was, throughout life, negligent of his dress: but this, it is apprehended, applied rather to his habits in the country, than to his appearance in public. At the bar of the general court, he always appeared in a full suit of black cloth, or velvet, and a tie wig, which was dressed and powdered in the highest style of forensic fashion; in the winter season, too, according to the costume of the day, he wore, over his other apparel, an ample cloak of scarlet cloth; and thus attired, made a figure bordering on grandeur. While

he filled the executive chair, he is said to have been justly attentive to his dress and appearance; "not being disposed to afford the occasion of humiliating comparisons between the past and present government."

He had long since, too, laid aside the offensive rusticity of his juvenile manners. His manners, indeed, were still unostentatious, frank, and simple; but they had all that natural ease and unaffected gracefulness, which distinguish the circles of the polite and well-bred. On occasions, too, where state and ceremony were expected, there was no man who could act better his part. In general, his manners were those of the plain Virginian gentleman, kind-open-candid and conciliating-warm without insincerity, and polite without pomp-neither chilling by his reserve, nor fatiguing by his loquacity -but adapting himself, without an effort, to the character of his company. He would be pleased and cheerful with persons of any class or condition, vicious and abandoned persons only excepted; he preferred those of character and talents, but would be amused with any who could contribute to his amusement. He had himself a vein of pleasantry, which was extremely amusing, without detracting from his dignity. His companions, although per fectly at their ease with him, were never known to treat him with degrading familiarities. Their love and their respect for him equally forbade it. Nor had they any dread of an assault upon their feelings; for there was nothing cruel in his wit. The tomahawk and scalping-kuife were no part of his colloquial apparatus. He felt no pleasure in seeing the victim writhe under his stroke. The benignity of his spirit could not have borne such a sight, without torture. He found himself happiest, in communicating happiness to others. His conversation was instructive and delightful; stately where it should be so, but in the general, easy, familiar, sprightly and entertaining; always, however, good humoured, and calculated to amuse without wounding. -WIRT.

Rule 20. The description of a person sometimes refers only to the intellect.

DOCTOR ROBERTSON.

The genius of Dr. Robertson was not of that forward and irregular growth, which forces itself prematurely on public notice and it was only a few intimate and discerning friends, who, in the native vigour of his powers, and in the patient culture by which he laboured to improve them, perceived the dawn of his future eminence. He possessed an early and enthusiastic love of study.

Much and often would he muse on other times, and dwell with the bards and sages, whose names are written in the books of fame and of eternity. His studies and his meditations were an habitual poetry. His fancy wandered chiefly in the mild retreats of the elder poetry, the banks of Mæander and the Mincio. The scenes of ancient Greece and Latium were the hermit haunts of his imagination.

INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON.

In speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin by observing that the very splendour of his poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet, when in truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impregnate with his own intellectual power, his great and various acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagi nation shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest he should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together, by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries; and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed, almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness, which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, in whatever soil, or in whatever age it has burst forth, and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the right, and dignity, and pride of crea tive imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius. He felt that poetry was a universal presence. Great minds were every where his kindred. He felt the enchantment of oriental fiction, surrendered himself to the strange creations of "Araby the blest," and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was imbodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness contributions from all regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the department of imagination, that his acquisi.

tions were vast. He travelled over the whole field of knowledge, as far as it had then been explored. His various philological attainments were used to put him in possession of the wisdom stored in all countries where the intellect had been cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, history, theology, and political science of his own and former times were familiar to him. Never was there a more unconfined mind; and we would cite Milton as a practical example of the benefits of that universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinction of our times, but which some dread as unfriendly to original thought. Let such remember, that mind is in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite connexions and correspondencies; and, accordingly, its natural progress is from one to another field of thought; and, wherever original power or creative genius exists, the mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the variety of its acquisitions, will see more and more bearings, and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the objects of knowledge, will see mutual light shed from truth to truth, and will compel, as with a kingly power, whatever it understands to yield some tribute of proof, or illustration, or splendour, to whatever topic it would unfold.-CHANNING.

Rule 21.-Descriptions of persons sometimes refer to more than one, and sometimes to all these parts of the general character.

In these general views of persons, the pupil will take care to observe what is remarkable in the figure or countenance; what is peculiar in the manners; and what appears unusual in the attainments, the wisdom, or the genius of the individual. By careful recollection of and adherence to this instruction, it will not be difficult to perceive and remember the peculiarities of which the description of any person consists.

The following are examples suited to this rule:

ALFRED, KING OF ENGLAND.

The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may, with advantage, be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen, which the annals of any age, or any

CHARACTER OF CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

This extraordinary man, without the aid of fancy, without the advantages of person, voice, attitude, gesture, or any of the ornaments of an orator, deserves to be considered as one of the most eloquent men in the world; if eloquence may be said to consist in the power of seizing the attention with irresistible force, and never permitting it to elude the grasp until the hearer has received the conviction which the speaker intends.

His voice is dry and hard; his attitude, in his most effec. tive orations, was often extremely awkward, as it was not unusual for him to stand with his left foot in advance; while all his gesture proceeded from his right arm, and consisted merely in a vehement, perpendicular swing of it, from about the elevation of his head to the bar, behind which he was accustomed to stand.

As to fancy, if she hold a seat in his mind at all, which I very much doubt, his gigantic genius tramples with disdain on all her flower-decked plats and blooming parterres. How, then, you will ask, with a look, of incredulous curiosity, how is it possible that such a man can hold the attention of an audience enchained through a speech of even ordinary length? I will tell you.

He possesses one original, and almost supernatural faculty, the faculty of developing a subject by a single glance of his mind, and detecting at once the very point on which every controversy depends. No matter what the question: though ten times more knotty than "the gnarled oak," the lightning of heaven is not more rapid nor more resistless than his astonishing penetration. Nor does the exercise of it seem to cost him an effort. On the contrary, it is as easy as vision. I am persuaded that his eyes do not fly over a landscape, and take in its various objects with more promptitude and facility, than his mind embraces and analyzes the most complex subject.

Possessing while at the bar this intellectual elevation, which enabled him to look down and comprehend the whole ground at once, he determined, immediately, and without difficulty, on which side the question might be most advantageously approached and assailed. In a bad cause, his art consisted in laying his premises so remotely from the point directly in debate, or else in terms so general and specious, that the hearer, seeing no consequence which could be drawn from them, was just as willing to admit them as not; but, his premises once admitted, the demonstration, however distant, followed as certainly, as cogently, and as inevitably, as any demonstration of Euclid,