Take him all in all, we have not seen " his like again." By the consensus of the pro fession he is the greatest judge who has ever sat upon the bench in North Carolina, and those few who may deny him this honor will admit that he has had no superior. In political opinions he was a follower of Jeffer son; but this did not prevent his reverence for Chief-Justice Marshall, who was his
personal friend, as was also Chancellor Kent. He was succeeded as Judge by Battle (on Battle's second call to the Supreme bench), and as a Chief-Justice by Nash, both from his own county of Orange. When he left the Supreme Court bench in 1859, after hav ing been recalled to it, he was succeeded by Judge Manly.
THE COMMON LOT OF THE LAWYER. By Frank J. Parmenter. /CRIBBED in his office, where sunshine was rare, And the spider unscared wove his murder ous snare, Surrounded by furniture needing repair, As a quick eye would note in a casual stare; Laden with sorrow, and burdened with care, And pallid for want of a little fresh air, And weary from waiting, almost in despair, While the lamp cast a shadow upon his dark hair, Musing he sat in his uncushioned chair, Persuading himself he was Misfortune's heir To the entire estate instead of a share, Upholding a cross that Christ only could bear, And pensively twisting his mustache there.
Of years he had numbered but one lustrum more In his studious course than the frolic first score Of existence that Time had swept rapidly o'er, In haste to waft life to Eternity's shore, Where one lays down forever the burden he bore, For God to exalt or depress it still lower, According as life had developed before On earth, and been lessoned to sink or to soar; But our hero had learned to take Time by the fore, And thus had he garnered of Law a vast store.
His eye, large and restless, was black as the night; His brow, broad and high, as the marble was white; His lips, thin and bloodless, were cold and shut tight; And the lines of the sad face betokened a might Could make itself feared in the wrong or the right, On which side soever engaged in the fight.
He loved its stern science, but literature took, Through a love not less ardent, the bait from his hook; And, halting between them with alternate look, Like the ass 'mid the haystacks, of neither partook; Or, standing in pause like the Dane in the book,
