C. Dawson, Thaddeus
Goode Holt, and many others of less distinction, all of whom are gone
save Judge Holt, who remains a monument and a memory of the class and
character of the Bar of Georgia fifty years ago, when talent and
unspotted integrity characterized its members universally, and when the
private lives and public conduct of lawyers were a withering rebuke to
the reiterated slanders upon the profession--when Crawford, Berrien,
Harris, Cobb, Longstreet, the brothers Campbell, and a host of others,
shed lustre upon it.

1820 was spent by the writer at the law-school at Litchfield, in
company with William Crawford Banks, Hopkins Holsey, Samuel W. Oliver,
and James Clark, from Georgia. All are in the grave except Clark, who,
like the writer, lives in withered age. His career has been a
successful and honorable one, and I trust a happy one.

During this probation it was my fortune to form many acquaintances
among the young and the old whom I met there, and from them to learn
much, especially from the old. At that time there resided in the
pleasant little village, Governor Oliver Wolcott, Benjamin Talmadge,
and my distinguished preceptors, Tapping Reeve and James Gould.

Colonel Benjamin Talmadge was a distinguished officer in the American
army of the Revolution, and was a favorite aide of Washington. It was
he who was charged with the painful duty of superintending the
execution of Major Andre, who suffered as a spy. He was a tall,
venerable man, and though cumbered with years, when I knew him, was
active and energetic in attending to his business. The first time I
ever met him, he was standing in front of his yard-gate, shaping a
gate-pin with a small hatchet, which he used as a knife, to reduce it
to the desired size and form. One end he held in his left hand; the
other he rested against the trunk of a sycamore-tree, which grew near
by and shaded the sidewalk. I knew his character and his services. As I
approached him, my feelings were sublimated with the presence of a man
who had been the aide to and confidant of George Washington. He was
neatly attired in gray small-clothes. His white hair was carefully
combed over the bald portion of his head, as, hatless, he pursued his
work. His position was fronting me, and I caught his brilliant gray
eyes as he looked up from his work to know who was passing.
Involuntarily I stopped, and, lifting my hat from my head, bowed
respectfully to him, and passed him uncovered, as