Chapter VI: Preface (6)

As father was too feeble to write you a longer letter, he requested me to add a few lines in order to give you the Staunton news. I proceed to do so briefly and hurriedly. Since you left, the town has been more lively than usual. One of the excitements has been a flock of wild pigeons--millions of them--which rested 24 hours in the neighborhood, and afforded the sportsmen rare fun. Thousands have been killed, and as much powder and shot used as if we had been repelling a Mexican invasion.

Another stir has been caused by the Governor's proclamation calling for troops for the Mexican war. Nearly everybody wants to go, only a few can be accepted, as Virginia is permitted to furnish only two regiments. The early bird catches the worm, and V. E. Geiger and Wm. Harman have gone to work actively to recruit a company. Thirty have already volunteered to go with them, and the two militia regiments of the county will be mustered in a few days, at their usual training grounds, that these gallant young men may speak and thus fill the ranks of their company at once. Though it is not necessary, speeches will be made at the big musters to the regiments [we can't do anything in our country without speaking] by Mr. Michie, Judge Thompson, Geiger, Harman, Harper, and others. It is believed that hundreds more than are needed will volunteer. Baldwin's company declined to volunteer as a company. Harper is to command the new company, at least the command will be tendered to him, as it is said he is anxious to go to Mexico. His health is very bad, and he thinks service in Mexico will do him good, besides he is full of fight.

Another excitement was a fire in Long's grocery, near the Virginia Hotel. It was soon put out by the crowd, which quickly assembled after the alarm. As I was returning from the fire, I met the engines, followed by a hilarious crowd, crying out, at the top of their voices, as if they were celebrating a political victory.

But to come nearer home. Notwithstanding my father's crippled and prostrate physical condition, he is, as ever, bent on hospitality, and we give a dinner party next Wednesday. Invitations have already been sent out and accepted by Judge Thompson and family, Mr. and Mrs. Michie, Mr. and Mrs. Castleman, Mrs. Judge Baldwin, Mr. McElroy, Baldwin and Susan, Emma Terrill, Holcombe, John Dabney, Rosa Boys, and others.

Holcombe is a clever young man from Lynchburg attending law lectures, said to be worth capturing, so come back and let us see which of you three can bag the game.

We have been visited by the _Harmonicons_, of Boston, whose performances have been very successful. One would hardly suppose the peculiarities of the negro dialect and character could be so accurately reproduced by a company from the "Hub." All the town ladies attended, among them, somewhat to my surprise, Rosa Boys and Susan Baldwin.

When Dabney called yesterday and asked when _Mary_ was coming back--I lashed him into a silent fury and enjoyed the fun, by saying you might be absent six weeks or two months. He smoked five pipes in gloomy abstraction, and then left, apparently considerably "cut up," that is to say, in the dumps.

Sue Tapscott and Mary Eskridge are at Stuarts still. No news of Add., but I saw Kate and Martha yesterday for the first time since you left. Hendren has taken a law office in the old frame building on Augusta street formerly occupied by the Deaf and Dumb pupils. Charles H. Lewis[22] has become the owner and editor of a newspaper published in Martinsburg and will soon leave here to make that town his permanent home. It is to be hoped that he will now give up poetry and enter on practical life. Poetry is too unprofitable for a man working for his daily bread. He will be much missed in Staunton, especially by the nest of singing birds of which he has always been a warbler of the first feather.

[22] NOTE.--During the administration of President Grant
appointed Minister Resident to Portugal.

John Harman has returned from Texas and tells many strange stories of the rangers and life on the border.

Cousin John R. Green has just written, giving us news of our Kentucky kin, who are generally _in status quo_. He says Bat is leading an idle life there, is, indeed, so lazy that he can't make love to his sweetheart, who, though she prefers Bat to other lovers, is about to accept the offer of another suitor, despairing of Bat's ever getting enough energy to propose! I have heard of lazy men before, but never one who filled this description.

I received a letter from B. Gallagher on yesterday. He will make us a visit within a few weeks. Lieut. Getty[23] has removed his recruiting quarters to Lynchburg. I am sorry for it, as I have none of the ridiculous prejudices of some for West-Pointers, and like Getty very much. He is a sensible, well mannered, highly educated and companionable man and officer. It is said he is engaged to be married to Miss Elizabeth Stevenson. I have just complied, in a way, with father's request.

[23] Afterwards Gen. Geo. W. Getty, U. S. A.

I have only room to say good-bye. With love to Uncle and Aunt Lynn and all, including, if the word is permissible, Miss Lou Coleman,

I am your affectionate brother,
J. LEWIS PEYTON.

JOHN H. PEYTON TO HIS DAUGHTERS, ANN AND MARY.

Montgomery Hall, Dec. 9th, 1846.

_My Dear Children_:

On consideration I have determined to send Ned and the carriage to Charlottesville for you. You can return in it more comfortably than in the stage coach. I leave it to you to decide whether you will make the journey back in one or take two days for it. If the weather continues dry and the roads are as good as to-day it will be advisable to make the journey in one day. It is difficult to count on more than three bright, dry days at this season. As you return call for a few minutes on my old friends, the Bowens. I am apprehensive that if you remain longer, though I well know the hospitality and kindness of your uncle and aunt, that you will make them _twice glad_--a thing I have never done, and I hope never will.

Present me kindly to Cochran and Lynn. I am glad they have been so kind and do not think Lynn ought, in the condition of her health, to give you the party she speaks of. Remember me to Lou Coleman and tell her to return with you in the carriage. Baldwin will take charge of her and your trunks and fetch them back in the stage coach. I have supplied Ned with money for his journey to and fro, for tolls, feed, &c.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN H. PEYTON.

JOHN L. PEYTON TO HIS MOTHER.

Baltimore, 1848.

_My Dear Mother_:

I reached here to-day on my return from the west, but am so much fatigued by a continuous journey of 800 miles that I have decided to lay over Saturday and Sunday for rest and recuperation. It will give me an opportunity also to see the Hulls, Howards, Williams and other friends. On Tuesday morning I expect to reach Staunton and will be glad to find the carriage at the Virginia Hotel to take me home. Tell Sheets to send my riding horse to Gregory, and have him shod all round. I write in great haste and will defer any account of my travels until I get back. I will tell you of the new scenes, the strange people and all the keen excitement consequent upon my wanderings.

Thank Lizzie for her letter which I received at Niagara, also Gallagher, for his received at the same place. He says you have had nothing but rain since he reached Montgomery Hall. I am glad he hasn't had a dry time and presume from the spirits in which he writes that his suit is likely to end in success. What says Mary.

I met my cousin, Dr. James McDowell, son of Governor McDowell, of Lexington, and his western wife, _nee_ Bent, of St. Louis, in Buffalo, N. Y. He was recently married and from the way he wined and dined (on Champagne, etc.,) I presume he is on his bridal tour with a pocket full of money. His wife is an amiable and sensible woman, is not pretty, but inherited four hundred thousand dollars. This will cover over a multitude of small deficiencies if she should have any, besides plain looks. They urged me to go down the St. Lawrence with them, but the scenery of the 1000 Islands would hardly compensate a third party for the boring society of a newly married pair. I therefore withstood all their importunities, and they were so earnest that I began to think they were tired of each other.

With much love to all the family, believe me my dear mother, your dutiful and affectionate son, J. LEWIS PEYTON.

P. S. If I should not arrive on Tuesday send Gilbert in with the carriage, from day to day, until I do reach Staunton. I expect, however, certainly to get back on Tuesday. J. L. P.

FROM WM. MADISON PEYTON TO MRS. JOHN H. PEYTON.

Philadelphia, June 20th, 1847.

_My Dear Cousin_:

I arrived in this place a few hours since and finding from consultation with my children, that our respective purses are so nearly exhausted as to make it necessary that we should husband what remains and take the straight _chute_ for home. I have determined to confide the articles purchased for you to the care of Lawyer Davidson, of Lexington. Both the children and myself regret exceedingly our disappointment in the visit to Staunton, but their and my unexpected long absence from home, and the extreme anxiety of my wife for our return, leaves us no alternative. We must select some more appropriate occasion and pay you a special visit from Elmwood. I have ransacked the whole country for teachers without success. The young lady recommended by Dr. Nandain, was engaged by Wyndham Robertson before I reached here. None others unite the qualifications specified in your memorandum, without requiring a salary greatly beyond your limit. I have, however, set a good deal of machinery to work, which will in a short time put me in possession of a great deal of information on this subject, and enable me to provide you with a good teacher, at a reasonable price. My children are improving very much where they are at present, and I regret exceedingly the necessity of their removal. Sally, (his daughter,) has employed a Dolce Cantati, a Dolce Digetati, a Danseuse, a chirographist and a "_parlez vous Francais_" professor--that is, a singing mistress, a pianist, a dancing mistress, a teacher of penmanship and a teacher of the French language,--with her fine _he_ and _she_ professors, she enjoyed the greatest advantages, fullest opportunities for information in the branches taught by them, and I think she has shown a most commendable disposition to profit by them. She goes to work as if she expected to make her living by teaching.

Susan[24] is so absorbed with religion that I think she heeds little except a professor of Theology in the form of an antiquated spinster, who daily mounts the tripod, and delivers her oracles to Susan and other anxious and enquiring spirits. Susan, however, is "a gem of purest ray serene," and promises to be to her parents a source of just pride and heartfelt gratulation. I like her religious temper, but would be pained to see her run wild with her youthful fervor and disfigure by fanaticism, what would otherwise be so beautiful.

[24] Col. Peyton's eldest daughter, afterwards Mrs. Jos. H. White.

I have purchased for my sisters, Ann, Mary and Lucy, three of the finest and prettiest breastpins to be found in the Northern cities, and such as are in vogue at present. They are jewels for a lifetime, being of the finest and best workmanship. I also send them a pencil and gold pen each. I will add to this my daguerreotype for my sister Susan, who honored me by requesting it. To you, I send your granddaughters grouped with their father. Susan is reading her favorite book, the Bible, to her attentive father and affectionate sister. The likeness of Sue is perfect. Sally's doesn't do her justice. Mine looks like an Othello. Give my love to all the family, and accept for yourself the love of yours.

Truly and affectionately,
W. M. PEYTON.

* * * * *

On the 3d of April, 1847, John H. Peyton died at Montgomery Hall in his 69th year, and it has been truly said that there was no one in his public and private relations who was more honored and beloved by those who knew him best. Among the numerous letters received on this occasion is the following. It alone has been preserved. It is from his brother, Col. Rowze Peyton, of Geneva, N. Y., to Col. John B. Baldwin:

Geneva, N. Y., April 15th, 1847.

_My Dear Sir_:

The receipt of your letter conveying the melancholy intelligence of the death of my much loved brother shocked me indescribably, notwithstanding his long illness and the helpless condition he was in when I left twelve months ago. I then hoped he might be spared a few years, as, if not actively useful to himself, he could be, by his advice, exceedingly so to his young and promising family. He was a most noble and generous man, a true man in every sense, and in heart and mind a great and good man, to whom I was ardently attached, and the thought that I shall never see him again in this world, causes a sorrow and sadness which may be imagined, but cannot be described. I sympathize, from the bottom of my heart with his dear wife and children. It is a terrible loss to them, and I pray they may have strength to bear it with Christian fortitude, knowing that it is the fiat of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, who disposes of us as he will, and to whose will we should bow with humble submission. That this melancholy event may be sanctified to the salvation of each individual member of his family, and all connected with them, is the earnest prayer of, dear Baldwin,

Your sincere friend,
R. PEYTON.

MR. PEYTON'S RESIGNATION OF OFFICE OF ATTORNEY FOR THE COMMONWEALTH.

In our last paper, the appointment of Thomas J. Michie, Esq. to the office of Commonwealth's Attorney for Augusta county, in the place of John H. Peyton, Esq., resigned, was announced. We now learn from a friend (having been absent from town at the time,) that upon returning into the hands of the court the office which he had so long and so ably and faithfully filled, _Mr. Peyton_ delivered a short but pertinent and touching valedictory. He said it was just thirty-two years since he had been honored by the court with the appointment, that in casting his eyes along the bench, he recognized but a single magistrate[25] who was present on that occasion. He saw the sons, however, the relatives and friends of his former friends; and that alike from the fathers and the sons, he had received tokens of confidence which had greatly gratified him in the discharge of his duties during this long lapse of years. His great purpose had always been to protect the rights of the Commonwealth, and perform faithfully the duties of an officer of the court; and he thanked the court for their forbearance when he had erred, and for their uniform courtesy and kindness and the confidence they had ever shown him.

[25] L. Waddell, Sr.

When _Mr. Peyton_ concluded his remarks so inadequately reported, _Lyttleton Waddell, Esq._, a member of the court, presented the following minute, which was adopted by a unanimous vote, and ordered to be spread upon the records:

"AUGUSTA COUNTY COURT, }
1st day of June term, 1844. }

"_John H. Peyton, Esquire_, who has acted as Commonwealth's Attorney in this county for thirty-two years, having on this day resigned the said office, the Justices of the county, in full session at their June term, do, with unanimous consent, express their high sense of Mr. Peyton's long and valuable services. They add a willing testimony to the distinguished ability, fidelity and zeal, with which he has guarded the interests of the Commonwealth within the limits of the county--to his impartiality, prudence, and firmness as a public prosecutor, and to the commendable courtesy which has marked his intercourse with the Court, as becoming a public officer and a representative of the Commonwealth. And it is the will of the Court that this testimonial, as an additional tribute of respect, be spread upon the records."

_Spectator, July 4, 1844._

Immediately after his resignation, the County Court, as the only honor yet in their power to confer, elected him a member of their body, and on several occasions, before his death, he presided in the Court where he had so long practiced.

Mr. Peyton was a member of the committee, appointed in 1843, to prepare an address to the people of Virginia, and aided in the preparation of that able and interesting document, but as it covers over fifty pages and may be found in the newspapers of the day, it is not necessary to insert it here, in order to make clear what were his political opinions. The committee was composed of B. W. Leigh, Robert W. Carter, James R. Hubbard, Chas. J. Faulkner, Wyndham Robertson, Chapman Johnson, and John H. Peyton, and was said to have united more talent than any similar body ever raised in Virginia.

SKETCH OF JOHN HOWE PEYTON,

BY

COL. JOHN T. L. PRESTON, A. M., OF YALE, PROFESSOR OF
MODERN LANGUAGES &c., IN THE V. M. INSTITUTE.

The late John H. Peyton, Esq., of Staunton, Va., was one of the finest specimens that we have ever known of the complete lawyer. During the prime of his life he pursued the profession with a laborious assiduity rarely equalled, and though as age advanced upon him he remitted his efforts, he did not discontinue his practice until a short time before his death, [he took no new cases after his 60th year]. None of his contemporaries secured a more ample reward in either reputation or pecuniary emolument.

We have spoken of Mr. Peyton as a complete lawyer. Law as a practical profession, has several departments, and it is not unusual to see a lawyer distinguished in some of them, with a compensating deficiency in others. Some practitioners are successful collectors; some are much esteemed as judicious advisers in matters not strictly legal; some are designated good judges of law, or, in other words, safe counselors, and with some the _forte_ is, Common law practice, while others are distinguished as Chancery lawyers. The organization of the courts in Virginia, and the nature of the business, at least in the interior, requires every lawyer to enter upon the whole of this miscellaneous practice; and it is not to be wondered at, that some, even good lawyers, are not equally strong in every part. Mr. Peyton knew every part of his profession thoroughly. He had studied diligently as a student, and had known the expectant struggles of the young practitioner; he had practised under the old system before the reorganization of the judiciary, and afterwards under the new; he had met in contest the strongest men in each department of the profession, and he had made himself a champion in all. We may add that some lawyers who exhibit the highest skill in securing the rights of their clients, are foolishly ignorant of their own; in other words they let slip the fair, well-earned profits of their profession. Not so with Mr. Peyton. He knew the value of his professional services, he gave them to the fullest extent to those who applied for them, and then he insisted upon just remuneration. We notice this point, not at random, but to present a feature belonging to the character of the complete lawyer.

The characteristic of Mr. Peyton's life was efficiency. This efficiency had for its elements native vigor of intellect, great resolution of character and courageous self-confidence, ample and thorough acquirements and the quickness, precision and dexterity of action that belong only to those who have been taught by a varied experience to understand thoroughly human nature. In conversation, Mr. Peyton was ready, entertaining and instructive. But conversation was not his _forte_, though he was fond of it. He was not fluent. His manner was sometimes too direct for the highest style of polished social intercourse of a general nature, and besides he had a remarkable way of indulging in a strain of satirical banter, when his words would be so much at variance with the expression of his countenance, and particularly with the expression of his mouth, that the hearer was often in an uncomfortable state of uncertainty how to take him. His person was large and his bearing dignified, but not graceful. His manner was unaffected, but not without formality, nor was it perfectly conciliatory. Some styled him aristocratic, while none could deny that his self-respect and confident energy gave an imperious cast to his demeanor. We have oftener than once thought applicable to him, in a general way, those lines of Terence,

"Ellum, confidens, catus, Cum faciem videas, videtur esse quantivis preti, Tristis severitas inest in voltu, atque in verbis fides."

His voice was true and clear, and capable of sufficient variety, but without a single musical intonation, and a little sharper than you would expect to hear from a man of his size and form. If it is asked what is the style of his speaking, it may be replied, just what might be expected to belong to such a man as he has been described, that is to say, never was the speaker a more complete reflection of the man than in his case. We cannot believe that any one who knew him was ever surprised when they heard him speak; what he said was just what they could expect him to say. This is often the case with speakers and writers, but not always. Energy, reality, and efficiency were his characteristics as a man, and equally so as a speaker. Distinctness of conception lay at the foundation of his excellence. Some great speakers, some even pre-eminently great speakers, not unfrequently hurl unforged thunderbolts. They feel the maddening impulse of the god, but give forth their utterance before the true prophetic fury comes on.

Mr. Peyton's mind was no sybils cave whence came forth wind-driven leaves inscribed with mighty thoughts disposed by chance, but a spacious castle, from whose wide open portal issued men at arms, orderly arrayed. He had hardly opened his case when the hearer was aware that he had thought over the whole of it, had given a course to pursue, and would close when he came to the end of it. This distinctness of conception comprehended the subject as a whole, and shed its light upon each detail belonging to it. This insured the most perfect method in all that he said. Before he began to speak he had determined in his own mind, not only the order of the different parts of his discourse, but also their relative importance in producing the general impression. Hence, he was never led away by the tempting character of any peculiar topic, to expatiate upon it unduly; he did not take up matter irrelevant to the case because it might touch him personally; he never spoke for those behind the bar, nor did he neglect to secure the fruits of victory in order to pursue an adversary to utter discomfiture. He spoke as a lawyer, he spoke for the verdict, and expected to gain it by showing that he was entitled to it. Some speakers hope to accomplish their object by single, or at least, successive impulses--now a clinching argumentative question, now a burst of brilliant declamation, and now a piece of keen wit, or a rough personality. Such speakers forget, or do not know, that a jury may admire, may be diverted, and even moved, without being won. He that gains the verdict must mould, and sway, and lead, and this is to be effected by continued, persistent pressure, rather than by _tours de force_. This Mr. Peyton knew well and observed it with perfect self-command. His hearers came away satisfied with the whole, rather than treasuring up remarkable points and passages. Let it not be supposed, however, that he was a cold speaker, who treated men as mere intellectual machines, to be set in motion by the pulleys, screws and levers of logic, far from it; he understood human nature well, and knew the motive power of the feelings; but then he knew, too, that the way to excite the most effective sympathy is not to make a loud outcry, but to make a forcible exhibition of real suffering--that the best way to rouse our indignation against fraud, deceit or oppression, is not to exhort us to hate it, but to show its hatefulness. One of his most distinguished contemporaries upon the same circuit was celebrated for his powers as a criminal advocate; his manner was obviously upon the pathetic order, perhaps a trifle too declamatory. We have seen them in the same cause, and have thought that if the eloquence of Gen. Briscoe G. Baldwin flushed the countenance quicker, the earnestness of Mr. Peyton stirred the heart deeper. Of the oratory of a class of speakers by no means rare (not, however, including in his class the distinguished jurist above alluded to,) it has been well said, "declamation roars while passion sleeps," of speaking justly characterised by this line, Mr. Peyton's was the precise reverse. With him thought became passionate before the expression became glowing, as the wave swells before it crests itself with foam.

Mr. Peyton's language was forcible, pure and idiomatic. It served well as the vehicle of his thoughts, but contributed nothing to them. There is a real and legitimate advantage belonging to the masterly use of words, of which many great speakers know how to avail themselves. Mr. Peyton attempted nothing of the sort. His diction was thoroughly English, with a marked preference for the Anglo Saxon branch of the language, and his sentences came out in the most natural order with unusual clearness and vigor, but not unfrequently with a plainness that bordered upon homeliness. His style, however, was always that of speaking, as distinguished from mere conversation--a distinction which some of our modern speakers forgot, when in order to appear at their ease, they treat, with no little disregard, not only the rules of rhetoric, but the rules of grammar as well, and use words and phrases which are (to take a word from the vocabulary which we are condemning) nothing better than slang. On the contrary, there was in Mr. Peyton's style the fruit of early studies and high-bred associations, a classical tinge, extremely pleasant to the scholar, though not perhaps appreciable by those for whom he generally spoke. It must not be supposed from what has been said of his excellent method, that he resembled in this respect some of our able, but greatly tedious lawyers, who take up, in regular succession, every possible point in the case, however minute, and worry us by officiously offering help where none is needed. So far from it, he showed his consummate skill as well in what he omitted as in what he handled, and, as a general thing, his speeches were shorter in duration, and yet fuller of matter than those of his opponent. His use of figurative language was easy and natural, and not stinted; but his figures were always introduced as illustrations and not as arguments. It is not unusual to meet with a speaker who is unable to enounce distinctly the general principles he wishes to use, throw out an illustration to enable himself to pick out the principle from it, or at least to give his hearers a chance to do it for themselves; not so with Mr. Peyton. He held up the torch of illustration, not to throw a light forward to guide himself in his own investigations, but to enable those following the more readily to tread the road along with him. He had a very noticeable fondness for recurring to the primary fundamental principles of morals, and doubtless he was restrained, by his practical judiciousness, from indulging this disposition to the full. One of his favorite books was Lord Bacon's essays, and under other circumstances he might himself have been a distinguished moral essayist.

As well may be supposed, his general vein was grave. The high idea he entertained of the dignity of his profession, and the earnestness with which he gave himself to it, alike precluded either levity or carelessness. However, he was fully able, quite ready upon occasion, to avail himself of a keen wit, that was all the more effective, because it was dry and sarcastic. It occurs to us to mention an instance, well known to his circuit, not illustrative of his severity, but of his pleasantry, in a criminal prosecution. He, as prosecuting attorney, was opposed by two gentlemen of ability, whose pathos had been so great as to draw abundant tears from their own eyes. One of them, a gentleman who has since filled a distinguished national position (Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior of the United States, 1850-53) was noted for the facility with he could cover over his brilliant eloquence with the liquid varnish of his tears. On this occasion he had been singularly lachrymose, and supported by his colleague, General, afterwards Judge Baldwin, in the same way, the sensation produced was very considerable. Mr. Peyton commenced his reply by regretting the disadvantage the Commonwealth labored under in being represented by him who was a very poor hand at crying, and certainly was not able to cry against two at a time. The ludicrousness of the expression completely neutralized the pathos of his opponents. He was not averse either to a bit of farce, now and then, as is shown by a story told of him. In a remote part of the circuit a lawyer wished to adorn a moving passage of a speech he was just rising to make, with an apposite example, and applied to Mr. Peyton, sitting beside him, to help him to the name of the man in the Bible who would have his pound of flesh. With imperturbable gravity, he answered Absalom! The effect of thus confounding Shakespeare and the Bible may be imagined.

We have said that Mr. Peyton was thoroughly furnished in every part of his profession; in one department his qualifications were peculiar and unsurpassed. Without disparagement to others, it may be said, we think, that he was the best Commonwealth's Attorney in the State of Virginia. He was the lawyer of the Commonwealth, and he treated the Commonwealth as a client, and he labored for her with the same industry, zeal and fidelity that he manifested in behalf of any other client. The oft-quoted merciful maxim of the common law, "better that ninety and nine guilty men should escape than one innocent man suffer," he interpreted as a caution to respect the rights of the innocent, and not as an injunction to clear the guilty, and he labored to reduce the percentage of rogues unwhipt of justice, as low as possible. With a clearness and force rarely equaled would he point out the necessity of punishing the guilty in order that the innocent might be safe, thus exhibiting the absolute consistency of strict justice with true mercy. So simply and earnestly would he do this, that he not only bound the consciences of the jury, but also made them feel that they were individually interested in the faithful execution of the laws. Here his clear perception of the moral principles upon which rests the penal code, and his fondness for recurring to general principles, stood him in great stead. It was delightful to hear him expatiate upon this theme, for upon no other was he more truly eloquent.

Mr. Peyton served at different times in both branches of the Legislature, but we speak not of him as a politician. Our purpose has been solely to exhibit some of the qualities which made him an eminent member and ornament of the legal profession.

SKETCH OF JOHN HOWE PEYTON,

BY

WILLIAM FRAZIER, A. M., OF YALE.

"My personal acquaintance with Mr. Peyton," says Mr. Frazier in the History of Augusta County, "commenced in October, 1824, when I entered upon the practice of my profession at the Staunton bar. He was then, as I learn from his biography, in his fifty-seventh year, and from that circumstance only, it might be inferred he had passed his climatric. Certainly nothing in his physical appearance or his forensic display betokened a decay of power, bodily or mentally.

"Yet having amassed a handsome fortune, he established himself in a beautiful home, surrounded by a large and interesting family, and he felt himself entitled to some relaxation from the arduous demands of his profession--or at least from its drudgery. He, therefore, relegated to the younger members of the bar all minor causes, in the matter of taking depositions and the like vacation duties. But for ten years following the date of my introduction to him, there was hardly an important or celebrated cause tried at the Staunton bar, whether in the State Courts or the United States Courts, without the aid and illumination of his splendid intellect; whilst also in Albemarle, Rockbridge and Bath counties, he largely participated in the like weighty causes.

"In the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, his reputation throughout the State enlarged the theatre of his professional service much beyond that of his local circuit.

"I wish it were in my power to give a just and discriminating analysis of his processes in the investigation and conduct of a great cause, or even a fair description of his style of forensic argument. This much may be safely said: that he seized, by apparent intuition, upon the strong and dominating points in a case, not infrequently finding those, or some of them, buried out of sight from a scrutiny less searching than his, beneath a mass of irrelevant or conflicting testimony.

"Having thus entrenched himself in one, or a few strong positions, his array of the facts was so masterly, his presentation of them so luminous, and his arguments from them so logical, that he rarely failed to carry the tribunal with him safely and irresistibly to his conclusions. Discarding thus the minor points and less material phases of the cause from his examination and discussion, or dismissing them in a few rapid, searching sentences, his debate was conspicuous for its compactness and logical order. Accordingly, his speeches did not ordinarily exceed one hour, and even in the most complex and voluminous causes they rarely went beyond two hours. I can recall but one occasion in which he consumed nearly three hours. His style was fluent, but not of that fluency which comes of redundant words and phrases, for I have never listened to one so terse and vigorous. I think it can be said there was hardly a superfluous word, and every sentence bore upon the conclusion aimed at. It was, therefore, never a weariness to hear this great advocate, and the promiscuous audience followed his argument, his sarcasm or his invective, with as much apparent interest as did court and jury.

"It has been written of him that he was equally versed and at home in every department of the profession (unless admiralty and maritime law be excepted) but I think it was as a common law lawyer that he excelled, and that it was in the common law he found his chief delight. He was perfectly conversant with the principles of the Feudal law and immemorial usages of England as expounded by Littleton, Coke, Bacon, and all the fathers and great interpreters of English jurisprudence.

"Having come to the Bar while special pleading was yet a legal science and carefully practiced system, and before popular and not too well informed legislatures sought to 'simplify' the practice of the law by Statutes of Jeofails, he was, without doubt, one of the most practiced and expert special pleaders of his time. His naturally astute and logical mind, finding its expression through the channels of a terse and luminous style, caused his pleadings in all their stages to be master pieces of art.

"His fame as a prosecutor of the pleas of the Commonwealth has never been surpassed, if equaled, in Virginia. On this field he achieved triumphs of the most brilliant kind. His pride in his profession, and the great principles of right and justice underlying it, no less his inborn contempt for chicanery and fraud, not to speak of crime in its grosser forms, combined to make him a terror to evil doers. Some critics, even among the profession, sometimes were disposed to censure him as too harsh and unrelenting towards the prisoner at the bar, but if every circuit throughout our land possessed at this day so able, fearless and conscientious a prosecutor as did the Augusta and the surrounding circuit at that happier day in our history, perhaps we might find less cause to deplore the depreciation of the public morals, which so painfully invest the present era.

"It would be a halting and very defective sketch of this eminent jurist which failed to speak of his striking originality. Negatively speaking, there were little or no common-place and hum-drum in his forensic arguments, his debates in the Senate or his addresses from the hustings to his constituents. In a positive sense, his speeches, at least on great occasions, and when his powers were thoroughly roused, rarely failed to be marked by some flash of genius. I recall a conversation just after the close of a protracted and laborious term of the Augusta Circuit Court, in which the late Judge Lucas P. Thompson and Gen. Briscoe G. Baldwin bore the leading parts. The last named was paying generous tribute to Mr. Peyton's force and originality. Judge Thompson remarked, that he had never seen Mr. Peyton go through a cause, deeply interesting and moving him, in which he did not utter some view or sentiment illuminated by genius, or, at the least, some illustration marked by a bold originality, and he instanced two causes, tried at the late term, one a civil suit and a very heavy will case, in which he made a novel and searching application of a familiar fable of AEsop. I forbear to give its details, because both the critic and his subject have passed from earth.

"In the same cause, three signatures were to be identified and proved, that of the testator and also of the two attesting witnesses, all three having died since their attestation. Many witnesses were called to prove the genuineness of the three names. Opposing counsel sought to badger the witnesses, by urging them to specify what peculiar marks there were in the handwriting and signatures, whereby they could speak positively as to their identity and genuineness. This, of course, for the most part they could not do, and in the argument of the cause before the jury, the same counsel strove to throw discredit and contempt upon those witnesses (all men of good character) for their failure and inability so to describe the quality and the peculiar marks and the calligraphy of the signers as to show they were familiar with their handwriting. In his reply to those sallies of his opponents, Mr. Peyton swept away the whole airy fabric by a single happy illustration:

"'Gentlemen,' he said, 'you have often been assembled in crowds upon some public or festive occasion. Your hats have been thrown pell-mell in a mass with perhaps a hundred other hats, all having a general resemblance. Suppose you had attempted to describe your hat to a friend or servant, so that he might go and pick it out for you. It has as many points, for description as a written signature--its color, height of crown, width of band, lining, &c. Do you think that a friend or servant could, by any possibility, have picked out your hat for you? And yet when you went yourself, the moment your eye would light upon it, you instantly recognize it among a hundred or five hundred hats. Familiarity with it has stamped its picture on your mind, and the moment you see it, the hat fills and fits the picture in your mind, as perfectly as the same hat fits your head.'

"The jury were evidently won, and gave full credence to the ridiculed witnesses.

"The other instance during the same term (cited by Judge Thompson,) occurred in the celebrated prosecution of Naaman Roberts for forgery--in forging the name of Col. Adam Dickinson to a bond for $600.00.

"The body of the bond was confessedly the handwriting of the prisoner at the bar. That was admitted. The signature was a tolerably successful attempt at imitating the peculiar handwriting of Adam Dickinson. But no expert could look at the whole paper and fail to see a general resemblance between the body of the instrument and the signature, raising a strong conviction in the mind that both proceeded from the same hand.

"The defense strongly insisted upon excluding the body of the instrument from the view of the witness, by covering it with paper or turning it down, and so confining the view to the signature only--upon the familiar doctrine of the law of evidence forbidding a comparison of various handwritings of the party as a ground for an opinion upon the identity, or genuineness of the disputed writing. And this point was ably and elaborately argued by the prisoner's counsel.

"The learned prosecutor met it thus:

"'Gentlemen, this is one entire instrument, not two or more brought into comparison. Let me ask each one of you, when you meet your friend, or when you meet a stranger, in seeking to identify him; what do you look at? Not his nose, though that is the most prominent feature of the human face; not at his mouth, his chin, his cheek; no, you look him straight in the eye, so aptly called "the window of the soul," you look him in the eye, but at the same time you see his whole face. Now put a mask on that face, leaving only the eyes visible, as the learned counsel would have you mask the face of this bond, leaving to your view only the fatal signature. If that human face, so masked, was the face of your bosom friend, could you for a moment identify him, even though permitted to look in at those windows of his soul? No; he would be as strange to you as this accursed bond has ever been strange to that worthy gentleman, Col. Adam Dickinson, but a glance at whose face traces the guilty authorship direct to the prisoner at the bar.'

"This most striking illustration seemed to thrill the whole audience, as it virtually carried the jury.

"Mr. Peyton never was a politician. His taste and predilection lay not in that direction. But no man was better informed of the course of public affairs, or had a keener insight into the character or motives of public men. Once, and so far as I knew, once only, did he participate in the debates of a Presidential canvass. It was the memorable one of 1840, and the speech was delivered from the Albemarle hustings. His analysis of the political character of Martin Van Buren, and his delineation of his public career from his desertion of DeWitt Clinton, down to his obsequious ingratiation with Andrew Jackson, was incisive and masterly and all the more powerful and impressive because pronounced in a judicial rather than a partisan temper. Competent judges, long familiar with the very able harangues and debates on that rostrum, declared it one of the ablest that had been listened to by any Albemarle audience.

"Of his services in the Virginia Senate, I need only say, what every one would naturally expect, they were most valuable from their enlightened conservatism in the prevention of crude and vicious legislation. In the last session of his first term in the Senate, a vigorous effort was made for the passage of a stay-law rather than an increase of taxation.

"It hardly needs to be said that he opposed the former and sustained the latter measure with all the vigor of his honest and manly nature. Nor could he ever have looked with any patience upon that brood of enactments since his day--the stay of executions, homestead exemptions, limitations upon sales of property, _et id omne genus_, professedly passed in the interest of the poor and the laboring man, yet in fact more detrimental to that class than any other, and most damaging to the State abroad.

"Let me say, in conclusion, that the person and figure of Mr. Peyton were fine and commanding. His carriage was always erect, his head well poised on his shoulders, while his ample chest gave token of great vitality. On rising to address court or jury, there was something more than commonly impressive in his personal presence and whether clad in 'Virginia home-spun,' or English blue broadcloth with gold buttons, (and I have often seen him in both), whenever you saw him button his coat across his breast and slowly raise his spectacles to rest them on the lofty crown, you might confidently expect an intellectual treat of no mean order.

"There never was a broader contrast presented in the same person than that between Howe Peyton, the lawyer, the public prosecutor, or even the Senatorial candidate amongst the people, and the same individual in his own home. Here in the midst of his family, or surrounded by friends, the rigor of his manner relaxed, and he was the model of an affectionate husband and father, and the most genial of companions. He was 'given to hospitality,' and there was no mansion in all this favored region where it was more generously and elegantly dispensed, through many years, than at 'Montgomery Hall.'"

SKETCH OF JOHN HOWE PEYTON,

BY

JUDGE JOHN H. McCUE, B. L., UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

One of the truest tests of the greatness of a man is very often the impression, I think, which, without intending, he makes upon the minds of the young with whom he may come in contact. There are few of us who do not remember having met, in our earlier days, with men whose presence filled us with respect and awe, before even, perhaps, we had learned their names and reputations, and who, in after years, seemed to stand out from amid our youthful recollections, apart and distinct from the memories of other men--men who, unconsciously, stamp their individuality not only upon our minds, but who often serve, though we may not perceive it, as models upon which our own conduct is, or ought to be, moulded, and the impress of whose attributes and virtues serve as standards by which we judge of other men. The impressions I have of John Howe Peyton are those which I formed when a youth, but they were such as to stamp him, not only as an able and good man, but as a great man in the truest acceptation of the term. When a boy at the school at Waynesboro, Augusta county, of the Rev. James C. Wilson, D. D., a famous criminal trial was progressing in the Circuit Superior Court at Staunton. Mr. Peyton was the prosecutor, and was regarded as the ablest prosecuting attorney then, or who had ever been, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Everybody was talking of this trial, in which, for various reasons, not necessary to be here detailed, the community was deeply interested. Shortly after, as I remember, I saw standing, in the porch of the hotel at Waynesboro, a gentleman of splendid form, broad shoulders and extended chest, with a magnificent head which was carried erect, and which might be aptly compared to that of Daniel Webster. His eyes were large and bright, his features straight, finely chiseled, forming a face of Grecian lineaments and expression. I did not then know who he was. The idea formed on my youthful mind was that he must be a great and famous man. I inquired respecting him, and was told that he was Mr. Howe Peyton, the famous lawyer and prosecutor. I had often heard my father speak of Mr. Peyton as one of the great lawyers of Virginia, then having her Johnson, Wickham, Tazewell, Baldwin, Sheffey, Wirt, Leigh, Tucker, Stannard, and other eminent men, who were his contemporaries. I had never seen Mr. Peyton until now. There was something, however, in the noble and dignified appearance and bearing of the man now standing before me, that at once arrested attention and impressed the beholder. The opinion formed by me of his greatness was afterwards, upon a better acquaintance, fully justified.

I knew little of Mr. Peyton personally until after I entered the University of Virginia, with his son, John Lewis Peyton, in 1842, both of us members of the law class under the late Henry St. George Tucker. Mr. Peyton, at that time Commonwealth's Attorney for Albemarle, and the other counties composing the circuit of Judge Thompson, when in Charlottesville attending the court, sojourned at the residence of his brother-in-law, John Cochran, Esq., now (1879) surviving in his 86th year. Upon these occasions, at his request, his son and myself spent much time with him. Mr. Peyton manifested a deep interest, naturally, in the progress of his son, and in my own, because of his warm and intimate friendship for my father. It was during the frequent conversations which it pleased him to hold with us, that I learned to appreciate the great powers of his mind, not perhaps as to its capacity, but more especially as to the wonderful faculty he possessed of simplifying and rendering clear the most abstruse subjects. And in this perhaps, as much as in anything else lay the secret of his success as a lawyer. He could take, for instance, the most difficult point of law, and in a few well chosen, pithy sentences, place it clearly and forcibly before the minds of his hearers. As an illustration, I remember, shortly after we had commenced the study of law in the junior department, he made special inquiry as to our progress, examined us upon what we had gone over, and inquired the subject of our next lecture. We replied that it was "Uses and Trusts," frankly confessing that although we had read the text, we still felt ignorant of the subject. He then said, "Listen to me boys;" and went into a dissertation upon the intricate and difficult subject, and in a conversation of perhaps two hours, gave us a history, accurate in chronology, minute in detail, profound and clear, as an exposition of the whole science, and this without reference to book or note, thus indicating the profoundest learning, and rendering the subject so clear to our minds that when we went to the review the whole field seemed to be laid open before us. In this simple way he demonstrated not only his power before courts and juries, but likewise the rare ability he possessed to impart to others, in the clearest and most comprehensive manner, what he knew and what had heretofore seemed to them insuperably difficult.