s of expression was, that, when it became necessary for him
to be iterative, he was never tedious. They gave full play to his
imaginative humor and irony, and to his poetic unexpectedness and
surprises. A wise observer, hearing him try a case from first to
last, while recognizing those higher qualities of genius which we
have before described, saw, that, for all the purposes of persuasion
and argumentation, for conveying his meaning in its full force and in
its most delicate distinctions and shadings, for analytic reasoning
or for the "clothing upon" of the imagination, for all the essential
objects and vital uses of language, his style was perfect for his
purpose and for his audience. His excesses came from surplus power
and dramatic intensity, and were pardoned by all imaginative minds to
the real genius with which they were informed.

Every great advocate must, at times, especially in the trial of
capital cases, be held popularly responsible for the acquittal of men
whom the public has prejudged to be guilty. This unreasoning,
impulsive, and irresponsible public never stops to inform itself;
never discriminates between legal acumen and pettifogging trickery,
between doing one's full duty to his client and interposing or
misrepresenting his own personal opinions; and never remembers that
the functions of law and the practice of law are to prevent and to
punish crime, to ascertain the truth, and to determine and enforce
justice,--that trial by jury, and the other means and methods through
which justice is administered, are founded in the largest wisdom,
philanthropy, and experience,--that they cannot work perfectly,
because human nature is imperfect, but they constitute the best
practical system for the application of abstract principles of right
to the complicated affairs of life which the world has yet seen, and
which steadily improves as our race improves,--and that every great
lawyer is aiding in elucidating truth and in administering justice,
when doing his duty to his client under this system. Our trial by
jury has its imperfections; but, laying aside its demonstrated value
and necessity in great struggles for freedom, before and since the
time of Erskine, no better scheme can be devised to do its great and
indispensable work. The very things which seem to an uninformed man
like rejection or confusion of truth are a part of the sifting by
which it is to be reached. The admission or rejection of evidence
under so