on. Rosen's good enough for Carroll "; and he went on. That was not Bartlett's idea. He would rather have endorsed Rufus Choate's reply to the critic who asked him how he could expect a commonplace jury to appreciate his rhetoric. " They appreci ate which side it's on," said Choate, " and that's enough." As with Choate, too, the study of language was his delight. He would turn the pages of a dictionary by the hour. He came to Isaac Fletcher's office at Lyndon Corner one morning to study law, — the greenest, gawkiest lad in all these parts. With a few years of district school ing behind him, and a term or two in the Academy, he was to be henceforth in ed ucation a law unto himself. What wonder that he never endured the rigorous discip line which makes a reasoner, never became a thorough lawyer. He had that lazy, moody strength which, after each great effort, lapses into long periods of indolent repose wherein the brooding genius nourishes itself for another flight. On idle summer days he would sit from morning till night before his office door, steeped in the mellow sunshine, oblivious to all that passed around him. And yet he loved his books, — knew his Blackstone well, and could plant his feet, at need, on the solid foundations of the law. It seems to have been a favorite device with him to give an important case interest and dignity by clearly identifying it with some "fundamental principle," which, as he would proclaim in sounding phrase, " underlies the whole fabric of jurisprudence, — the vindication of which has twice deluged England with blood, and more recently our own fair land in fraternal gore." We shall be apt to smile at the Buzfuzzian period. Perhaps his rival smiled, too, but he did so at his peril. It did its work. It impressed the imagination of his jury and tempted them to turn from the confusion of claims and counter claims they hardly understood back to a broad and simple truth where the
mind felt that it could rest in safety. His style must often have been pompous, gran diloquent. Yet no one could more deftly prick an overblown bubble for an opponent. I think it was Stoddard B. Colby, an ac complished advocate of that day, who once sat down after an impressive appeal which left the jury on the verge of tears. Bartlett rose and began in funereal tones, with im perturbable gravity : " Dearly beloved breth ren, let us continue these solemn services by reading a brief portion of the original writ." The strain was too intense, the spell was snapped and tears gave way to laughter. This faculty of reducing his antagonist's position to absurdity, by saying "such a simple thing in such a solemn way," was characteristic of him and often did him yeoman service. Ossian Ray, then a young lawyer, was sum ming up a case of assault and battery against Bartlett's client. In an unhappy moment he declared, " We do not demand an exorbitant sum. We do not ask for a million dollars." The defendant sat within the bar, shabbily dressed, unkempt, a picture of poverty. Bartlett rose slowly to reply. "I knew my brother Ray as a boy. He was a generous, noble-spirited lad. He has grown to be a generous, magnanimous man. He says he does not demand a million dol lars of my client. I am glad and grateful that he does not. For if he should demand it, and you, gentlemen of the jury, should render a verdict for that amount, and my client should be compelled to pay it, he would be reduced to comparative poverty; it would seriously impair his annual rents and profits." All this spoken with dignified courtesy; no curl of the lip, no twinkle in the eye, not a suggestion in voice or counte nance that he was conscious of any incon gruity whatever between his ragged client and this stately acknowledgment. The ef fect may be imagined; it can hardly be described. If he was not a power in Congress his case was not the first proof that eminence at the
