William Sampson. Oh, that the manuscript had been so filed! But instead of that, it was probably deliv ered to the printer for copy and stupidly de stroyed. The case was so amusing, and Sampson's mirth was so infectious, that Mayor Clinton, in pronouncing judgment of acquittal, remarking upon the mother's con cession of the dual masculine attentions which she had contemporaneously received, ob served : " It cannot be expected that we should have recourse to the miraculous to bear out and support the testimony of the mother. The rule in dramatic poetry will apply to cases of this nature : — "Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignius vindice nodus Incident!" In other volumes of Wheeler's Criminal Cases are reported some fervid arguments of Sampson, as counsel in the prosecution of Orangemen for riot, and assault and battery, but they call for little special remark. In one of these he undertook to read passages to the jury, in opening, from Plowden's His tory of Ireland, which being objected to, he said : "I have a right to read and print any speech too, and have I not a right to take part of it from Plowden's history, or any other history I think proper? " We are glad he acted on his right to print his speeches. In the same speech we glean one item of his biography. It was in 1824, and he said : " I have been here twenty years, and it is some proof that I shall not talk nonsense." Sampson was of counsel for the artist Mezzara, who, having painted an unsatisfactory portrait of Mr. Palmer, a lawyer and master in chancery, which the sitter refused to accept, added a pair of asses' ears to it, and in that state it was seized on execution in favor of
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Palmer, and exposed for sale, Mezzara him self drawing attention to the picture by an ad vertisement in a newspaper. Mezzara was convicted of libel, and fined $100. The re porter (1 City Hall Recorder, 113) was somewhat learned and funny on his own ac count, but we devoutly wish that instead he had given us Sampson's speech, marked, as he says, by " much energy and humour." It does one good to turn aside from the dusty and busy ways ofmodern jurisprudence to the old City Hall, and to those leisurely days when the New York General Sessions was a famous and an able and learned court, in which the most eminent lawyers of the city were wont to lock horns and quote the Latin classics. There stands to Emmet a stately monu ment in the churchyard of old St. Paul's, in Broadway, New York, but the antiquary would probably seek in vain for any mortuary monumentto Sampson. He has however left a more durable monument to himself in the marvelous speeches which I have reviewed. Every thoughtful man must be puzzled in conjecturing what may be the occupations of the future state of being. There is so much time in eternity that earthly occupa tions will not go very far. But it seems to mc that I could pass a good deal of time very pleasantly in sitting on the same cloud with William Sampson, Frederick Coudert and Oakey Hall, and listening to the dis course of those wits, scholars and charming companions. Miss Phelps thinks there will be pianos in heaven. But at all events, an air on Sampson's flute would prove a pleas ing variation from the monotony of the con ventional harping.
