"Possessing while at the bar, this intellectual elevation, which enabled him to look down and comprehend the whole ground at once, he determined immediately and without difficulty, on which side the question might be most advantageously approached and assailed. In a bad cause, his art consisted in laying his premises so remotely from the point directly in debate, or else in terms so general and so specious, that the hearer, seeing no consequence which could be drawn from them, was just as willing to admit them as not; but, his premises once admitted, the demonstration, however distant, followed as certainly, as cogently, as inevitably, as any demonstration in Euclid.
"All his eloquence consists in the apparently deep self-conviction, and emphatic earnestness of his manner; the correspondent simplicity and energy of his style; the close and logical connexion of his thoughts; and the easy gradations by which he opens his lights on the attentive minds of his hearers. The audience are never permitted to pause for a moment. There is no stopping to weave garlands of flowers, to hang in festoons, around a favorite argument. On the contrary, every sentence is progressive; every idea sheds new light on the subject; the listener is kept perpetually in that sweetly pleasurable vibration, with which the mind of man always receives new truths; the dawn advances with easy but unremitting pace; the subject opens gradually on the view; until, rising, in high relief, in all its native colors and proportions, the argument is consummated, by the conviction of the delighted hearer."
The following observations on the intellectual character of Judge Marshall, are from the pen of FRANCIS W. GILMER—one who, had he not been prematurely cut off by the hand of death, would have ranked with the foremost men of his age and country.
"His mind is not very richly stored with knowledge; but it is so creative, so well organized by nature, or disciplined by early education, and constant habits of systematic thinking, that he embraces every subject with the clearness and facility of one prepared by previous study to comprehend and explain it. So perfect is his analysis, that he extracts the whole matter, the kernel of inquiry, unbroken, clean, and entire. In this process, such are the instinctive neatness and precision of his mind, that no superfluous thought, or even word, ever presents itself, and still he says every thing that seems appropriate to the subject. This perfect exemption from needless incumbrance of matter or ornament, is in some degree the effect of an aversion to the labor of thinking. So great a mind, perhaps, like large bodies in the physical world, is with difficulty set in motion. That this is the case with Mr. Marshall's, is manifest, from his mode of entering on an argument, both in conversation and in public debate. It is difficult to rouse his faculties: he begins with reluctance, hesitation, and vacancy of eye: presently, his articulation becomes less broken, his eye more fixed, until, finally, his voice is full, clear, and rapid, his manner bold, and his whole face lighted up, with the mingled fires of genius and passion: and he pours forth the unbroken stream of eloquence, in a current deep, majestic, smooth and strong. He reminds one of some great bird, which flounders and flounces on the earth for a while, before it acquires impetus to sustain its soaring flight."
EMILIA HARRINGTON.
The Confessions of Emilia Harrington. By Lambert A. Wilmer. Baltimore.
This is a duodecimo of about two hundred pages. We have read it with that deep interest always excited by works written in a similar manner—be the subject matter what it may—works in which the author utterly loses sight of himself in his theme, and, for the time, identifies his own thoughts and feelings with the thoughts and feelings of fictitious existences. Than the power of accomplishing this perfect identification, there is no surer mark of genius. It is the spell of Defoe. It is the wand of Boccacio. It is the proper enchantment of the Arabian Tales—the gramarye of Scott, and the magic of the Bard of Avon. Had, therefore, the Emilia Harrington of Mr. Wilmer not one other quality to recommend it, we should have been satisfied of the author's genius from the simple verisimilitude of his narrative. Yet, unhappily, books thus written are not the books by which men acquire a contemporaneous reputation. What we said on this subject in the last number of the Messenger, may be repeated here without impropriety. We spoke of the Robinson Crusoe. "What better possible species of fame could the author have desired for that book than the species which it has so long enjoyed? It has become a household thing in nearly every family in Christendom. Yet never was admiration of any work—universal admiration—more indiscriminately or more inappropriately bestowed. Not one person in ten—nay, not one person in five hundred has, during the perusal of Robinson Crusoe, the most remote conception that any particle of genius, or even of common talent, has been employed in its creation. Men do not look upon it in the light of a literary performance. Defoe has none of their thoughts; Robinson all. The powers which have wrought the wonder, have been thrown into obscurity by the very stupendousness of the wonder they have wrought. We read, and become perfect abstractions in the intensity of our interest—we close the book, and are quite satisfied we could have written as well ourselves."
Emilia Harrington will render essential services to virtue in the unveiling of the deformities of vice. This is a deed of no questionable utility. We fully agree with our author that ignorance of wrong is not security for the right; and Mr. Wilmer has obviated every possible objection to the "Confessions," by a so cautious wording of his disclosures as not to startle, in warning, the virtuous. That the memoirs are not wholly fictitious is more than probable. There is much internal evidence of authenticity in the book itself, and the preface seems to hint that a portion at least of the narrative is true—yet for the sake of human nature it is to be hoped that some passages are overcolored. The style of Mr. Wilmer is not only good in itself, but exceedingly well adapted to his subjects. The letter to Augustus Harrington is vigorously written, and many long extracts might be taken from the book evincing powers of no ordinary kind.