Sketches of Public Characters Drawn from the Living and the Dead; With Notices of Other Matters

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: countenance, a slow, low voice, with a head covered with thick hair growing rapidly grey, and with eyes fixed upon his papers, talking to the court as if they were statues, but in a strain of most powerful reasoning: This is General Waller Jones, one of the first lawyers in the United States. He was educated at William and Mary College, is a good classical scholar, and one of the best metaphysicians of the country. He is unlike the orators of the south; there is no dash of eloquence in his speeches, but a neat, elegant and appropriate choice of words is found in every remark that falls from him. Those who know him speak well of him as a gentleman; but it is only as a public man that I know him. He resides in the city of Washington and is engaged in all the important causes that originate there, and in many from abroad. When once engaged he touches every point in a subject before he sits down; and he is sometimes tedious from the great length and minuteness of his arguments, but in making an analysis of them, when he has finished you find that they have been as close and particular as the subject would admit of, and the reviewer would meet with no small difficulty in suggesting any alterations for the better. The Supreme court have a profound respect for General Jones and never lose a word of his argument however long he may be in a cause. He meets the arguments of his opponents with more ingenuity, if possible, than he shows in inakng his own; he seizes the weak points with acuteness and turns them to his advantage with great adroitness, but without sneer or sarcasm. In the circuit court of the District of Columbia he is engaged in all the trials, and is as good a jury lawyer as any man at the bar. There are times, when warmed with his cause before a jury, that he is thoug...