Choate's clients, rescued by him from the extreme
penalties of the law ; but in spite of grave faults of
taste, the brilliancy of Mr. Choate, his fervor, pas-
: sion, and verbal opulence put him in the front rank
^^^ of rhetoricians. Unfoitunately, he has left little or
nothing to justify the great reputation which he at-
tained while living. Posterity cannot see his flash-
ing eye, nor mark his dramatic action, nor hear the



OLD POLITICS, POLITICIANS, AND OR A TORS. 75

wonderful intonations which colored and intensified
bis elocution. His fame will experience something
of the actor's ill-fortune. But no man was more ^
talked of in his time, which already seems so far off,
— his habits, his curious learning, his great power of
application, his winning way with juries, his classi- \/'
cal tastes, and liis astonishing handwriting, the most
illegible which I ever Saw. I recall one occasion
when anybody who could have read one of his let-
ters would have been entitled to a handsome gratu-
ity. I was studying law in the office of the Hon.
