litigation were the earlier settlers of
the Western States. The imperfect surveys of land, the universal habit
of getting goods on credit at the store, and "difficulties" between
individuals ending in bloodshed, filled the court calendars, with land
disputes, suits for debt, and exciting murder cases, which gave to
lawyers more importance and better chances of advancement than they
possessed in the older States. Mr. Clay had two strings to his bow.
Besides being a man of red-tape and pigeon-holes, exact, methodical, and
strictly attentive to business, he had a power over a Kentucky jury
such as no other man has ever wielded. To this day nothing pleases aged
Kentuckians better than to tell stories which they heard their fathers
tell of Clay's happy repartees to opposing counsel, his ingenious
cross-questioning of witnesses, his sweeping torrents of invective, his
captivating courtesy, his melting pathos. Single gestures, attitudes,
tones, have come down to us through two or three memories, and still
please the curious guest at Kentucky firesides. But when we turn to the
cold records of this part of his life, we find little to justify his
traditional celebrity. It appears that the principal use to which his
talents were applied during the first years of his practice at the bar,
was in defending murderers. He seems to have shared the feeling which
then prevailed in the Western country, that to defend a prisoner at the
bar is a nobler thing than to assist in defending the public against his
further depredations; and he threw all his force into the defence of
some men who would have been "none the worse for a hanging." One day, in
the streets of Lexington, a drunken fellow whom he had rescued from the
murderer's doom, cried out, "Here comes Mr. Clay, who saved my life."
"Ah! my poor fellow," replied the advocate, "I fear I have saved too
many like you, who ought to be hanged.". The anecdotes printed of his
exploits in cheating the gallows of its due, are of a quality which
shows that the power of this man over a jury lay much in his manner. His
delivery, which "bears absolute sway in oratory," was bewitching and
irresistible, and gave to quite common-place wit and very questionable
sentiment, an amazing power to please and subdue.

* * * * *

From an Article in the Atlantic Monthly.

=_111._= WESTERN THEATRES.

At the West, along with much reckless and defiant unbelief in every
thing high