Mr. McKeon has said of him:  “We may refer to the period of his introduction to the bar of this city as an epoch in its history.  In looking back at the past, we see rising before us George Wood, treading with no uncertain step through the labyrinth of the law of real property; Daniel Lord, following, with his legal eye, commerce over the long and dreary waste of waters; David Graham, the younger, and Ogden Hoffman, standing in full panoply of intellectual power before our criminal tribunals.  Into the lists where stood these proud knights young Brady sprang, ready to contend with the mightiest of them.  How well he contended many of you well remember, and the honors paid to his memory are justified by the triumphs he has won.”

He grew rapidly in popularity, and in the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was intrusted with numerous cases of a class which had rarely until then been seen in the hands of a young lawyer.  His practice soon extended into the Supreme Court of the State, which at that time met quarterly, at New York, Albany, Utica, and Rochester.  The practice of this court was entirely in the hands of men of high standing in their profession,—­the great lawyers of the State,—­and it was no slight honor to our young lawyer to hold a place, and a proud place, too, among them.

He won additional honors in the famous India-rubber suits, which have been mentioned elsewhere in this volume, acting as one of the counsel of Charles Goodyear, and being associated with Daniel Webster.  Brady applied himself with intense energy to master the case, and when the trial came off at Trenton, in the United States Circuit Court, before Justices Grier and Dickerson, he opened the case in a speech which lasted two days, and which Daniel Webster said in the beginning of his remarks had so exhausted it as to leave him nothing to say.

Turning to Mr. Brady, Mr. Webster said, “You have cut a highway through this case, and if it is won, it will be because of the manner in which you have brought it before the court.”  The suit was won by Goodyear.

“In connection with the India-rubber cases is a fact which testifies to his character.  A salary of twenty-live thousand dollars a year for life was offered to be settled on him by the rubber company, if he would advise a certain course; but not deeming it right, he rejected the offer.  When in France, in 1851, the rubber cases coming in controversy there, Mr. Brady substantially gave in French, to Etienne Blanc, the French advocate, the materials for his brief.”

Mr. Brady practiced law for thirty-four years, and during the major part of that time there was scarcely a case of great importance, in either the civil or criminal courts, in which he did not figure.  He was compelled to refuse case after case from lack of time to give to it; and yet he frequently found time to respond to the appeals of the courts to defend men indicted for capital offenses who were unable to