and ability; because not all the sons of great men are great; and even where they inherit the parental mind, by reason of the care and exemption from toil the father's success brings to the sons, and the groundless confidence reposed in ancestral greatness as a safe passage through the world, the sons often fail; but not so of Underwood. He is of fine form and person, of fluent language and delivery in speeches and in conversation. His voice is clear and distinct, though not capable like Wright's of expanding and enlarging in volume with the passion and power of the oration. But, nevertheless, he is a powerful and effective advocate and stump speaker, a learned and able lawyer and counsellor. His father's wit is a thunderbolt that regards not the company or presence, and consults no man's opinions or feelings. His is the gentle and refreshing breeze, and sometimes almost a gale, that fans and cools and enlivens all men, and blows nobody ill.

Alexander is not distinguished for wit nor eloquence, but is a sound and safe counsellor and effective and logical advocate whom passion never betrays into error; a safe ally and a dreaded foe; open, candid, true and unimpassioned. All three of the men are of pure private character.

Henry R. Jackson, of Savannah, and William Hope Hull, are men of rare production, universal confidence, and general admiration. The first the cousin, the latter the neighbor, and both life-long bosom friends, of Howell Cobb, and both Democrats from youth. Hull is much like Cobb in size and form, without favor of features, and in breadth, quickness, and power of mind, which has been confined mainly to the law practice.

Jackson was an ardent and impassioned student and advocate, full of ambition and chivalry, and proud custodian of the honor and dauntless courage as well as ability

of his historic family. He was a gallant commander of a Georgia regiment in the late Mexican war; has been an able and inflexible judge, and an eloquent and effective Democratic orator. He is, withal, a man of literary taste and cultivation, and of rare poetic gifts. As lawyer, scholar, and patriot, he is loved by his able associates, seniors and juniors, of the Savannah bar, and by the people of the State.

Among the multitude of able and promising of the younger class of my seniors, I mention particularly six a little older than myself, and nearly of equal ages, who are endowed naturally with great minds, each having the most abundant capacity to sustain himself in any height to which the political seas may drift, or the storms of party drive him. Robert G. Harper, and Lucius Q. C. Lamar, of Newton; Thomas R. R. Cobb, of Clarke; Linton Stephens, of Hancock; Benjamin H. Hill, of Troup; and Joseph E. Brown, of Cherokee county.

It is rare to find among so large a number approximating them, in any State or country, such a number of contemporaries who are the equals of these; and they all differ from each other in mind and temper.

Harper and Lamar, after graduating at Emory college and tarrying in the vestibule of court till their beards grew, set out as partners in law practice at Covington. Harper is gentle and modest, but firm, resolute, and persistent. The rays of the diamond sparkle more brightly as the scintillations of genius are struck by action and contact, and as the obscuring rubbish of modesty and unpretension is thrown aside, leaving bare to the gaze of the most astute critic the God-made man of worth; and yet he is less known, less appreciated, applauded and honored than the others.

Lucius Lamar is of over-endowed brain and nerve power, is charged as if by a galvanic battery in all his physical and mental composition when called forth to make intellectual effort. Impetuous from inherited love of right, and antipathy to wrong; honest himself, he demands more than mortal effort and ambition can achieve; that is, to see all other men true and honest. No power is too high to be questioned, no influence potent enough to awe him. Disappointment may await, but its augurs have no terrors for the brave heart and buoyant hopes of this young man eloquent, who comes heralded by parental greatness and powerful family prestige.

Thomas Cobb and Linton Stephens are alike in one incident and barrier to their hopes of public political honors. They have each a senior brother among the popular and ambitious men of the period; each has an idol in his own household, above self and next to the Deity. Cobb is a great, learned, laborious, untiring, ambitious lawyer, while his brother Howell, with a larger brain but none the more powerful, carries all his plans and aims into the line of political promotion; and the junior is none the less fit for high position and power in the State.

Linton Stephens differs from his brother in all but great mind, courage, integrity and fraternal devotion. Alexander has always, when composed, looked like he was almost ready for the undertaker. Linton has a bilious, nervous composition, with a strong frame and hard muscles that can stand labor and endure exposure. He is brave, and despises the opposite quality; confident in his own judgment, and contemns the feeble reasoning power that reaches an opposite conclusion. Careless in manner and in dress, fears no personal opposition or danger, and carries his life in his hand for the friends he confides in

and loves, yet assails or invades none who assail or invade not him. He is shaded by the fame of his brother, but for powerful, severe logic, and aggressive, persistent, exhaustive analysis and argument he has but few equals in the State.

Benjamin H. Hill is one of the rare young men of the age, and exceeds them all in the most coveted and courted gift of political aspirants,-popular eloquence. He has full self control upon all emergencies, at the bar of the supreme court, before the judge of the circuit, or the jury, where he is irresistible, and in the popular meetings, large and small.

Nature made him an orator by giving him a commanding and attractive person, a large and active brain, and unbounded capacity for utterance. He has the physical power to rise with his own estimate of the magnitude. of his theme, and I have never seen his spirit fag or his voice fail to meet the enormous demands of his fruitful imagination. He has the courage to assert any premises that may be needed, and it puzzles the severest critics to detect the error of argumentation to sustain what he asserts.

Most of the old party leaders in opposition to the Democracy have come over to us, and Hill has a limitless. field in which to exert his power before the people in opposing the resistless career of the party.

Joseph E. Brown has been reared in the mountain district of Cherokee, Georgia; comes of the race of hardy, honest and true men of the times. He has the largest and best balanced brain of all the young men of the State and scarcely has an equal in energy and perseverance. As orator, in the popular and appropriate understanding of the term, he is barely the equal of either of the

five alluded to; but as a debater he is the inferior of none, and the superior of most of them. He is never caught unprepared, and never meets an emergency, however sudden or great, which he cannot summon resources to meet. Never is a blow aimed at him or his cause, that he cannot ward off or parry. He was a lawyer at an early period of life, and almost as soon, among the front and able lawyers of Cherokee, Georgia, feared and respected for his masterly powers. He is cautious, watchful, never tires, or leaves any means untried which promise success, and never leaves a fortress or battery of his adversary unassailed.

An ardent Democrat from his boyhood, a leading member of the State Senate at twenty-eight years of age, presidential elector at thirty-two; active in all the popular elections and debates since he came to manhood, he possessed the full confidence and challenged the full support of his party in the election for the judgeship, an office not political, against the popular incumbent, David Irwin, one of the ablest among the old judges and one of the purest and best men of the circuit. The bitterness and prejudice growing out of the race, connected as it was with the political strife between the Democratic and American parties, soon subsided after he entered on the discharge of official duties. Firm, impartial, vigilant, sober, moral, fearless in the administration of civil and criminal law, the people of both parties approve and sanction his election. Thorough in knowledge of the law and practice, and with abilities that would distinguish him in any court of the State, the lawyers pronounce him an able judge.

There are four men in the State to whom the public mind turns as naturally, when the matter of intellectual greatness, moral and political power with reference to our