It was always a matter of astonishment, to all who could never make of a political enemy a personal friend, why it was that Prentiss, so bitter in his political denunciations of political partisans, and so bitter a partisan, should yet, among the opposition, have so many warm admirers and most devoted friends.  His nature was sensitive, generous, and confiding.  There was no malice festering in his heart, and in his opposition, he was only so to the politics, not the personal qualities of the man.  By these he judged of the man, and the character of these regulated his conduct toward him.  He did not pass through life without enemies.  The man to whom this is possible is one of no positive points in his character, no strength of will, no fixity of purpose, and of but little intellect.  Such men never occupy the public attention—­are altogether negative, as well in action as in mind.  The enemies of Prentiss were such from envy, or political hatred.  His great abilities, when brought in contact with those suing for popular favor, so shrivelled and dwarfed them as to inspire only fear and hatred.  But men of this character were scarce in that day in Mississippi.  Such was the tone of society, and such the education of her sons, that traits so dishonorable rendered odious the man manifesting them, and those of talent and education emigrating to the country soon caught this spirit as by inoculation.  If there were any who were influenced by such base and degrading motives, and who felt these a part of their nature, they most generally could command policy enough to conceal them.

No community is long in discovering the genuine from the counterfeit character.  It did not require months to learn all the heart, all the nature of Prentiss.  Too frequently are great abilities coupled with a mean spirit, and transcendent genius underlaid with a low, grovelling nature; but these may be known by the peculiar form or development of the cranium.  The high coronal developments discover the intense moral organization:  the lofty and expansive forehead, the steady, unblenching eye, and the easy self-possession of manner are all indications of high moral organization, and the possession of a soul superior to envy, malice, and vindictive hatred, and one to which little meannesses are impossible.  Such a head and such a soul had S.S.  Prentiss.  His whole character was in his face, and so legible that the most illiterate could read it.  This won to him like natures, and all such who knew him were instinctively his friends.

Judge Wilkinson was such a man, and though as ardently Democratic as Prentiss was Whig, and as uncompromising in his principles, yet these two were friends in the loftiest sense of the term.  Judge Wilkinson had a difficulty with a tailor in Louisville, Kentucky, who attempted an imposition upon him to which he would not submit.  A quarrel ensued, and the knight of the needle and shears determined on revenge.  Collecting about him his ready associates, they went