as forensic orators, remarkable for a style at once copious and pure, picturesque yet chaste, and never offending against the canons of good taste — who had not a col lege training. Of course they had great natural powers, which were developed on the lines of their own individuality; of course, those powers were trained somewhat by happy accident; of course they read widely and wisely; but may it not be that by early directing their minds to a specific object and pursuing it with all the enthu siasm and energy of youth, training their faculties to do as well as to acquire, and practising the great professional arts of which college students sometimes only read, they secured a mental discipline and a de velopment of their natural powers quite as valuable as they could have obtained at the university? College training sometimes de velops the critical faculties, while it leaves the productive faculties all undeveloped. There is often more veneer than growth. Culture sometimes refines away vigor and destroys individuality. Many a man leaves his college with a wide acquaintance with what others have done, and without ability to do anything himself. He has watched the flight of other birds, but has never practised the art of flying. His despair of being able to produce anything like the masterpieces with which he is familiar prevents his at tempting to do anything at all. Every welltrained man has learned more from his own mistakes than from almost any other source. The man who begins early to do the things he must do in his life-work, and gets his education by constant practice, and by the observation of his own mistakes before it is too late to correct a settled fault, provided he has good natural judgment to guide him, sometimes gets a mental discipline, a power of persistent application and the ability to accomplish the work he is called to do, not less useful and effective than he can get from the conventional curriculum of the colleges. However that may be, certain it is there were not at the American bar in
the generation that is past, six men of better trained minds, greater power of sustained application to thought and study, more thor ough knowledge of the law as a science, and greater ability for profound reasoning and eloquent argument than the lawyers named above. Upon his admission to the bar, Mr. Beach at once entered on an active and success ful practice. He had none of that strug gle with poverty which is often said to be essential to the development of a great lawyer. His father was a man of consider able fortune, and his own success was assured from the very beginning of his career. He had a singularly handsome person.1 He was tall, erect, and of a pleasing yet dignified and impressive presence. His features were aquiline, his hair was dark, and his eyes a bluish gray. He was an athlete in form, and a champion in athletic sports. He was possessed of a vigorous intellect, dauntless and serene courage, wonderful physical and mental endurance, a glowing enthusiasm, capacity for continuous applica tion, a diction at once copious and elegant, and a voice whose sonorous melody " excelled the closes of sweetest rhyme," so that he seemed — "A combination and a form indeed. Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man." Besides, he had an individuality which no pen can describe, but which, more than any quality that can be described, makes a man an interesting and unique figure among his fellows. He at once challenged the respect of his seniors, and commanded the enthusiastic admiration of the young. From his earliest appearance at the bar, whenever it was known that he was to speak, crowds flocked to the court-room to hear " Gus Beach " (as 1 The frontispiece was copied from a photograph taken when Mr. Beach was sixty-five years of age. Before that time no entreaty of friends or family could persuade him to sit even for a photograph.
