and labored with matchless perseverance to disabuse the tribunals, with which he was familiar, of this disparaging opinion.  How he succeeded, his compeers at the bar have often testified.  None amongst them ever brought to the judgment-seat a more complete preparation for trial—­none ever more thoroughly argued a case through minute analysis and nice discrimination of principles.  In logical precision of mind, clearness of statement, full investigation of complicated points, and close comparison of precedents, he had no superior at the bar of the Supreme Court.  He often relieved the tedium of argument with playful sallies of wit and humor.  He had a prompt and effective talent for this exercise, to which his extensive and various reading administered abundant resource; and he indulged it not less to the gratification of his auditory than to the aid of his cause.  In such tactics, Mr. Wirt was well versed.  In sarcasm and invective he was often exceedingly strong, and denounced with a power that made transgressors tremble; but the bent of his nature being kindly and tolerant of error, he took more pleasure in exciting the laugh, than in conjuring the spirit of censure or rebuke.

His manner in speaking was singularly attractive.  His manly form, his intellectual countenance and musical voice, set off by a rare gracefulness of gesture, won, in advance, the favor of his auditory.  He was calm, deliberate, and distinct in his enunciation, not often rising into any high exhibition of passion, and never sinking into tameness.  His key was that of earnest and animated argument, frequently alternated with that of a playful and sprightly humor.  His language was neat, well chosen, and uttered without impediment or slovenly repetition.  The tones of his voice played, with a natural skill, through the various cadences most appropriate to express the flitting emotions of his mind, and the changes of his thought.  To these external properties of his elocution, we may ascribe the pleasure which persons of all conditions found in listening to him.  Women often crowded the court-rooms to hear him, and as often astonished him, not only by the patience, but the visible enjoyment with which they were wont to sit out his argument to the end,—­even when the topic was too dry to interest them, or too abstruse for them to understand his discourse....  His oratory was not of that strong, bold, and impetuous nature which is often the chief characteristic of the highest eloquence, and which is said to sway the Senate with absolute dominion, and to imprison or set free the storm of human passion, in the multitude, according to the speaker’s will.  It was smooth, polished, scholar-like, sparkling with pleasant fancies, and beguiling the listener by its varied graces, out of all note or consciousness of time.

* * * * *

=_William Ware, 1797-1852._= (Manual, p. 510.)

From “Aurelian, or Rome in the Third Century.”