LETTER XXXV.

TO THE SAME.

THE three gentlemen whom I have already described to you, stand together, at a considerable elevation, above all the rest of their brethren, chiefly because they possess each of them a union of powers and talents, that must be sought for separately, (and may be found separately)—elsewhere. There are, indeed, no persons at present at the Scottish Bar, who can pretend to be quite so great lawyers as Mr. Clerk or Mr. Cranstoun, but there are some who come so near to them in this respect, that their inferiority would be much less observed or acknowledged, did they possess any of the extraordinary abilities in pleading displayed by those very remarkable men. And, in like manner, there are some others who speak so well, that they might easily take place with Mr. Cranstoun or Mr. Jeffrey, did they bring with them any measure of legal knowledge, which might sustain a comparison with that of the former, or were they capable of rivalling that intuitive keenness of intellect or of genius, which supplies, and more than supplies, the want of ordinary drudgery and ordinary information in the case of the latter.

There is one gentleman, however, whose inferiority of practice I am much at a loss to account for, because I understand that he is, if not a first-rate, certainly a very excellent lawyer, and I have myself seen and heard enough to be able to attest, that as a pleader, he is, in many respects, of the very first order of eminence. His practice, however, is also very considerable, and perhaps he is inferior in this respect to his rivals, only because it is impossible that more than three or four men should, at the same time, hold firstrate practice at this Bar. He seems to have been cast by Nature in the happiest of all possible moulds, for the ordinary routine of business, and withal to have received abundantly gifts that might qualify him for doing justice to many

of the highest and noblest functions, which one of his profession can ever be called upon to discharge. Nay, great and splendid and multifarious as are the faculties of the three wonderful men of whom I have spoken to you, there are some things in which they are each and all of them totally and manifestly deficient, and it so happens that those very things are to be found in perfection in this Mr. Henry Cockburn. This, however, is only adding to a difficulty, which, as I have already said, I find myself unable adequately to resolve.

It is, I think, a thousand pities that this gentleman should wear a wig in pleading; for when he throws off that incumbrance, and appears in his natural shape, nothing can be finer than the form of his head. He is quite bald, and his is one of those foreheads, which in spite of antiquity, are the better for wanting hair. Full of the lines of discernment and acumen immediately above the eye-brows, and over these again of the marks of imagination and wit, his skull rises highest of all in the region of veneration; and this structure, I apprehend, coincides exactly as it should do with the peculiarities of his mind and temperament. His face also is one of a very striking kind-pale and oval in its outline, having the nose perfectly aquiline, although not very large-the mouth rather wide, but, nevertheless, firm and full of meaning-the eyes beautifully shaped, in colour of a rich clear brown, and capable of conveying a greater range of expression than almost any I have seen. At first, one sees nothing (I mean when he wears his wig) but a countenance of great shrewdness, and a pair of eyes that seem to be as keen as those of a falcon; but it is delightful to observe, when he gets animated with the subject of his discourse, how this countenance vibrates into harmony with the feelings he would convey, and how these eyes, above all, lose every vestige of their sharpness of glance, and are made to soften into the broadest and sweetest smile of good humour, or kindle with bright beams, eloquent to overflowing of deepest sympathy in all the nobler and more mysterious workings of

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the human heart. It is when these last kinds of expression reveal themselves, that one feels wherein Mr. Cockburn is superior to all his more celebrated rivals. Of all the great pleaders of the Scottish Bar, he is the only one who is capable of touching, with a bold and assured hand, the chords of feeling; who can, by one plain word and one plain look, convey the whole soul of tenderness, or appeal, with the authority of a true prophet, to a yet higher class of feelings, which slumber in many bosoms, but are dead, I think, in

none.

As every truly pathetic speaker must be, Mr. Cockburn is a homely speaker; but he carries his homeliness to a length which I do not remember ever to have heard any other truly great speaker venture upon. He uses the Scottish dialectalways its music, and not unfrequently its words-quite as broadly as Mr. Clerk, and perhaps, at first hearing, with rather more vulgarity of effect-for he is a young man, and I have already hinted, that no young man can speak Scotch with the same impunity as an old one. Nevertheless, I am sure, no man who has witnessed the effect which Mr. Cockburn produces upon a Scottish Jury, would wish to see him alter any thing in his mode of addressing them. He is the best teller of a plain story I ever heard. He puts himself completely upon a level with those to whom he speaks; he enters into all the feelings with which ordinary persons are likely to listen to the first statement from a partial mouth, and endeavours, with all his might, to destroy the impression of distrustfulness, which he well knows he has to encounter. He utters no word which he is not perfectly certain his hearers understand, and he points out no inference before he has prepared the way for it, by making his hearers understand perfectly how he himself has been brought to adopt it. He puts himself in the place of his audience; an obvious rule, no doubt; but in practice, above all others, difficult, and which it requires the skill of a very master in the knowledge of human nature to follow with precision. Instead of labouring, as most orators do, to impress on the minds of his audience

a high notion of his own powers and attainments—this man seems to be anxious about nothing except to make them forget that he wears a gown, and to be satisfied that they are listening to a person who thinks, feels, and judges, exactly like themselves. He despises utterly the Ciceronian and Pindaric maxim.

Χρη θέμεν προσωπον τηλαυγές.

It is not his ambition to be admired: he wishes only to be trusted. He does not, by one word or gesture, show that he aspires to be reckoned a great man; but it is plain, he would give the world they should believe him to be an honest one. And after he has been allowed to tell his story in his own way, for ten minutes, I would defy Diogenes himself to doubt it.

His use of the language, and his still more exquisite use of the images and allusions of common Scottish life, must contribute in the most powerful manner to his success in this first great object of all his rhetoric. There is an air of broad and undisguised sincerity in the simple tones and energetic phrases he employs, which finds its way like a charm to the very bottom of the hearts around him. He sees it painted in their beaming and expanding faces, and sees, and knows, and feels at once, that his eloquence is persuasive. Once so far victorious, he is thenceforth irresistible. He has established an understanding between himself and his audience, a feeling of fellowship and confidence of communion, which nothing can disturb. The electricity of thought and of sentiment passes from his face to theirs, and thrills back again from theirs to his. He has fairly come into contact; he sees their breasts lie bare to his weapon, and he will make no thrust in vain.

I heard him address a jury the other day in behalf of a criminal, and never did I so much admire the infallible tact of his homely eloquence. In the first part of his speech, he made use of nothing but the most pedestrian language, and the jokes with which he interspersed his statement were fa

miliar even to coarseness, although the quaintness of his humourous diction was more than enough to redeem that defect. Nothing could surpass the cunning skill with which he threw together circumstances apparently (and essentially) remote, in order to make out a feasible story for his culprit, and for a time it seemed as if he had succeeded in making the jury see every thing with such eyes as he had been pleased to give them. But when he came upon one fact, which even his ingenuity could not varnish, and which even their confidence could not be brought to pass over, there needed not a single word to let him see exactly in what situation he stood. He read their thoughts in their eyes, and turned the canvas with the touch of a magician. Instead of continuing to press upon their unwilling understandings, he threw himself at once upon the open hearts which he had gained. The whole expression of his physiognomy was changed in an instant, and a sympathetic change fell softly and darkly upon every face that was turned to him. His baffled ingenuity, his detected sophistry, all was forgotten in a moment. He had drawn more powerful arrows from his quiver, and he prepared to pierce with them whom he listed. His voice was no longer clear and distinct, but broken and trembling-his looks had lost its brightness, and his attitude its firmness-his lips quivered and his tongue faultered, and a large drop gathered slowly under his eye-lids, through which the swimming pupil shot faint and languid rays, that were more eloquent than words.

And yet his words, though they came slowly, and fell heavily, were far better than eloquent. The criminal had been the son of respectable parents-and he was yet young-and he had no hope but in their mercy; and well did his advocate know what topics to press on men that were themselves sons and fathers-and themselves conscious of weaknesses, and errors, and transgressions. It was now that I felt, in all its potency, the intense propriety of the native dialect, in which he chose to deliver himself. The feelings and sympathies which he wished to nourish-the reverend images which he wished to call up in aid of his failing argument-would have