In spite of the dedication, Prentiss, like the osprey, had captured the prey which Lane had drawn in the Vicksburg net, but now the eagles, led by Lane, recaptured it from him.

It was a fortunate thing for him in this his dark day of adversity that he was blessed by the companionship of a noble woman to cheer and sustain him in his struggle. By a sort of a paradox the weaker sex becomes the stronger in the hour of misfortune, and bears the ills of life with more fortitude than men. But for woman many a strong man in his agony would fall, never to rise again. I use the word agony, for to a man of Prentiss's sensitive nature it must have been agony to have been compelled, day after day, to meet the creditor, "tapping, tapping" at his door with the answer, "never more." The noble fountain of benefaction to his family, too, was now dried up. The open hand of charity had to be shut, and the ear closed to the cry of pity for help. An ordinary man would have been crushed in this fall from the pinnacle of prosperity to the ragged rock of bankruptcy, but he was not.

The announcement he made in his closing speech at Jackson, that it was his purpose to leave the State, fell like a note of sorrow upon his friends. This determination was the result of mature deliberation. The fact was that, in spite of his great lucrative practice as a lawyer, his private affairs had become irretrievably embarrassed unless he could increase his income. He himself, in one of his letters, describes his situation as "floundering with my debts like a fish in a net." It was, therefore, with a view of extricating himself that he fixed his eye on New Orleans, as a field in which a richer harvest could be gathered.

Prodigal of his means and prodigal of his name, his own individual debts and his endorsement debts now came flocking around him like vultures to gnaw at his vitals. So generous was he with his name that on one occasion, just as he was on the eve of departure for Washington City, he signed, in blank, several sheets and handed them to a friend for the use of Colonel His friend expostulated with him in vain; his noble reply was, "Colonel — was kind to me, and assisted me when I came to the State poor and struggling for a livelihood, and I shall never cease

to be grateful to him for this. I am willing to trust to his honor."

An amusing instance of his prodigality was related to me in substance, as follows: During one of his visits to Louisville the occupants of the rooms on either side of the corridor in the hotel were one morning awakened by an uproarious noise as of the laughter of a crowd; they peeped out, and there stood Prentiss, rolling half-dollars down the hall just for the fun of seeing the waiters scramble for them at the other end.

His transplantation to New Orleans was hazardous, for, before obtaining his license, he had to pass through the ordeal of a rigid examination by the Supreme Court, before which, it is said, distinguished practitioners from other States had sometimes been rejected. He, however, passed triumphantly. He was now thirty-eight years of age; he had grown up to maturity under the old common law system. That grand old law had sprung up in the Anglo-Saxon soil, and, like the native British oak, was ragged and jagged, with here and there a parliamentary graft, here and there a custom and equity, like a vine, intertwined around it. Its rude jargon of phrases, half Saxon, half Latin, took almost a lifetime to learn. Its quaint pleadings of declarations, pleas, replications, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters, sur-rebutters, and demurrers were prolific parents to beget but one issue. All these had been mastered by him, but, like the useless armor of the days of chivalry, they had now to be doffed and laid aside.

Louisiana, as is well known, was the only State that had adopted the civil law. I have compared the common law to the British oak, and it seems quite as apposite to compare the civil law of Louisiana to the symmetrical Oriental fir, with every leaf trimmed and set to its place, every imaginable phase of contract sought to be provided for, and written down in curt, short sentences to be memorized and applied. Under the one system the court gave the law and the jury the facts. Under the other the court was in most civil cases judge and jury. The technical nomenclature of the two systems was in marked contrast. There was not so much difference in the administration of the criminal law, for Louisiana early adopted the fundamental principles of the common law in that branch.

From the above brief contrast it is evident that it was no light matter for a practitioner of long standing under one system easily to adapt himself to the other.

Prentiss jocularly remarked, "My constantly addressing juries has ruined me." This he said because he felt that a play upon the passions was of no use before a court; but, to use a paradox, there never lived a more humble, self-reliant man than he, and he writes to his brother, as early as 1845,

"I am busy studying civil law and preparing myself for New Orleans. I have met with much difficulty and annoyance in closing up my old business, and do not expect to save anything from the wreck. Indeed, I shall be satisfied to get out of the State as rich as I got into it."

When it ripened into a fact that he was going to leave the State, his old friends at Natchez, James C. Wilkins, Dr. Stephen Duncan, George Winchester, Adam L. Bingaman, and others, "anxious to testify their warm personal regard, as well as to convince him of their admiration for those great abilities he had so conspicuously and efficaciously exerted in the effort to strangle the monster (repudiation) and at the same time to arrest the political perversity which in its overwhelming course threatens to demolish all moral and constitutional restraints," tendered him a public dinner to be given at Natchez. His old friends and neighbors at Vicksburg had done the same.

On the 25th of September, 1845, he left for New Orleans, to make arrangement for his final move, and by the 3d of November was settled in his new home. The halo of his reputation had gone with him, and he had been but a few weeks in New Orleans when he wrote:

"I have already considerable business, although it has not yet ripened into fees; my friends predict for me much greater success than I choose to believe in. But, at all events, I am glad I am out of Mississippi, and only regret that I did not come here ten years ago. I shall quit politics entirely and devote myself to my profession."

Letters of encouragement flowed in upon him. One from Crittenden says,

"Now that you are fairly settled in New Orleans, you are to be regarded as a man of business, I suppose, devoted to your causes and your briefs.

I hope that it may be so, and that all the temptations of New Orleans may have no power over you. You have a noble career before you there if you but pursue it with diligence and industry."

Another friend wrote,

"With your vast fund of experience already treasured up, the best and readiest interpreter of all book knowledge, and with your unrivalled gifts, I really do not see what is to prevent your becoming, if you will, the deepest, the ablest, as well as the smartest lawyer in the land. May God bless you!"

In order to master his new mistress, the civil law, Prentiss became, for him, an intense student. The story runs that his youthful partner, Mr. Finney, once found him lying upon the floor in the office, with piles of law-books around him, deeply engaged in the unravelling of some abstruse points in a case in which he was engaged. Though supremely blessed in his domestic relations, he was harassed by his surrounding pecuniary difficulties, it is therefore no wonder that the intense application began to tell upon his hitherto stout constitution. Had he been allowed to pursue the even tenor of his way he might, perhaps, have recuperated, but such was his fame that, whenever there was a public demonstration requiring talents to gild the pageant, he was invariably called upon to assist, and, to use his own expression (already given), referring to a special occasion, "with his usual good nature, he could not refuse."

Scarcely had he settled down to his hard work in New Orleans before he was requested to deliver, on the 22d of December, 1845, the anniversary address of the landing of the Pilgrims. Being himself a New Englander, from the Ultima Thule of the Union, he could fully appreciate the eloquence of the theme. Strange to say, he was not willing on this occasion to trust to his power of extempore speaking. He wrote out the address and delivered it from the manuscript. With the exception of the eulogy on Lafayette, delivered years before, this was, I think, the only speech of his ever written and prepared, consequently, being unused to this style, it is said that he seemed to be cramped by the manuscript, and he did not, therefore, deliver it with the same unction as those speeches bursting from him in his usual mode. The address itself can still find a

responsive echo in the hearts of his people, and brings to the memory of Southerners the feeling they cherished before their affections were rent asunder by our late conflict.

"This is a day dear to the sons of New England, and ever held by them in sacred remembrance. On this day, from every quarter of the globe, they gather in spirit around the rock of Plymouth, and hang upon the urn of the Pilgrim fathers the garlands of filial gratitude and affection. We have assembled for the purpose of participating in this honorable duty of performing this pious pilgrimage. To-day we will visit that memorable spot, we will gaze upon the place where a feeble band of persecuted exiles founded a mighty nation, and our hearts will exult with proud gratification as we remember that on that barren shore our ancestors planted not only empire, but freedom. We will meditate upon their toils, their sufferings, and their virtues, and to-morrow return to our daily avocations with minds refreshed and improved by the contemplation of their high principles and noble purposes.

"The human mind cannot be contented with the present. It is ever journeying through the trodden regions of the past, or making adventurous excursions into the mysterious realms of the future. He who lives only in the present is but a brute, and has not attained the human dignity. Of the future but little is known. Clouds and darkness rest upon it. We yearn to become acquainted with its hidden secrets. We stretch out our arms to its shadowy inhabitants. We invoke our posterity, but they answer not. We wander in its dim precincts till reason becomes confused, and at last start back in fear, like mariners who have entered an unknown ocean, of whose winds, tides, currents, and quicksands they are wholly ignorant. Then it is we turn for relief to the past, that mighty reservoir of men and things. There we have something tangible, to which our sympathies can attach, upon which we can lean for support, from whence we can gather knowledge and learn wisdom. There we are introduced into Nature's vast laboratory and witness her elemental labors. We mark with interest the changes in continents and oceans by which she has notched the centuries. But our attention is still more deeply aroused by the great moral events which have controlled the fortunes of those who have preceded us and still influence our own. With curious wonder we gaze down the long aisles of the past upon generations that are gone. We behold, as in a magic glass, men in form and feature like ourselves, actuated by the same motives, urged by the same passions, busily engaged in shaping out their own destinies and ours. We approach them and they refuse not our invocation. We hold converse with the wise philosophers, the sage legislators, and the divine poets. We enter the tent of the general and partake of his most secret counsels. We go forth with him into the battle-field and behold him place his glittering squadrons, then we listen with a pleasing fear to the trumpet and the drum, and the still more terrible music of the booming cannon and the clashing arms, but most of all,