A Ghost of Nisi Pritts. holds a seat in this distracted globe,' " at the same time touching my own head theatrically in the manner approved by Macready, Wallack, Fechter and Davenport when reciting the lines as Hamlet. "I was a very youngster when Hamilton was at the bar," began the ghost. "This City Hall was not then built, and the courts were held in Wall Street; but my sire was a lawyer, and from boyhood I had a pen chant for court trials. The court-room was ever to me what the theatre is to many boys and men. I died in 1860, ninety years old, and of course had a long siege of nisi prius. Hamilton, after he ceased official life at Washington, tried several cases upon the hearing of which I attended. What a noble Roman he was- in looks and bearing. He was at once the handsomest and most dis tinguished looking American I ever saw, either when I was in the flesh or since I have been permitted ghostly flittings. But his portraits abound, and this generation can also view him. He attracted attention even when he uttered monosyllables. His voice possessed an innate charm of command. At the very first words of, * Mr. Foreman, and gentlemen of the jury ' he seemed to have won their confidence. I recall that he always pursued the plan of rhetorician Ouintilian, ' aim first to win the individual sym pathies of your audience.' He made state ments without haste of enunciation, and conversationally, as if seated in his library. These were as simple as the sentences a par ent would address to a child; then he would grow more animated and indulge in many rhetorical ornaments. His gestures were eminently graceful, and in every case, after the most approved elocutionary rules in all ages, the gesture applicable to the coming sentence would precede it quickly as the lightning flash precedes the burst of thunder. He was therefore, insensibly to himself, a master of pantomime. He never lost com mand of his temper, and was ever as cour teous in the court-room as if he were in the
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drawing-room. These peculiarities de scended to his posterity. As late as 1850 his grandson and namesake used to plead in the New York courts with like rhetorical treat ment, power and suavity. But soon after he ceased to be Secretary of the Treasury, and practiced his profession again in New York City, he comparatively neglected nisi prius, and was mainly the recipient of briefs on ap peals from attorneys, especially in insurance contentions and commercial complications incident to a new government. I am sure that the first law reports of Coleman and Caine would show him on some particular side in every controversy arising from the law of insurance He became the legal idol of the young Chamber of Commerce. Of all the great lawyers seen and heard in my youthful days, commend me to Alexander Hamilton as the most distinguished looking of all, and the most graceful in his poses and gestures. I can best describe him as an oratorical machine put together and working with the care and nicety displayed in a Geneva watch. "Dwelling upon Hamilton of course brings up appropriately the name of Burr, who will be found to figure also often in those reports." "But tell me also about all the great lawyers of that early generation whom you remem ber. Did you, in attending court with your father, hear Attorney-General Egbert Benson, or Aaron Burr, or Attorney-General Lewis, or the Livingstons, or the first Samuel Jones, or the first Ogden Hoffman, or James Kent?" "I heard every one, although not until later years did impressions turn into memo ries and opinion into judgment. I should say that Burr was the greatest nisi prius lawyer of them all. He was so magnetic in eye, look, voice and manner with jurors, small wonder that he was so successful with women. But he lacked the graceful Addi sonian language of Hamilton, and his logical powers. Burr was not successful in argu ments before judges. They seemed to dis trust him. I soon learned to know whether the
