add, but others will, that his industry was effectively aided by a rugged honesty and the keenest sense of gratitude for early bene factions which came to him by reason of his apparent trustworthiness. From his ob scure and struggling youth to his rich and honored old age, among all the harsh traits of his character, and the unpleasant incidents of his career which it is the duty of an impartial biographer to chronicle, let it be recorded to his credit, that he never forgot a friend nor a favor, never turned a deaf ear to the appeal of distress or struggling merit, never used his tremendous powers against any but the powerful, and never blazoned forth his own good deeds. His somewhat rugged, austere and reserved character was adorned by an unswerving fidelity and an open-handed gen erosity to the struggling and unfortunate. There probably never went into a court room, in this country or any other, a better "all-round lawyer" than Charles O'Conor. In the preparation and management of a case, in the examination of witnesses, in tact, in fertility of resources, in courage, in compo sure, and in the conduct of the appeals, he could not be surpassed. In the highest at tributes of eloquence he was lacking, although his style was elegant, his elocution was ani mated and graceful, and his arguments were manly and cogent. He superintended the smallest details and foresaw the most remote possibilities, but he lacked just the one spark that inflames the hearts of hearers. As Na poleon, on setting out for Moscow, before hand looked after every harness-buckle and wagon load of provender, as well as ap pointed every halting and meeting place of his half million men, so that everything should proceed with the precision of the heavenly bodies, yet failed for once because he did not sufficiently take into account the cold, so Mr. O'Conor, with a mental grasp of small things and large very unusual and almost unparalleled, found the only obstacle to the successes which genius alone achieves in the coldness of his nature. He was truly
a learned lawyer — a learned lawyer in the proper sense of the term, so that in Mr. Carter's words, " He could have stepped into Westminster Hall and argued a special demurrer with success against Sergeant Williams." So Mr. Evarts generously said, he " was in my judgment and to my per ception, the most accomplished lawyer in the learning of the profession, of our Bar. Indeed I cannot be mistaken in saying that he was entitled to pre-eminence in this pro vince of learning among his contemporaries in this country, and among the most learned of the lawyers of any country, under our system of jurisprudence." And so John K. Porter ranked him with Alexander Hamilton and Nicholas Hill, calling them the three greatest lawyers this country has produced. He was not distinguished as a constitutional lawyer, because he argued comparatively few constitutional questions; but with all his powers it may be doubted whether he could have held his own against Webster or Evarts in their magnificent exhibitions, any more than he could have maintained himself against Choate's inspired and humane elo quence in the Dalton divorce case. He pos sessed the largest measure of talents, but stopped just short of the divine endowment of genius. He ranks with Scarlett and Ben jamin, not with Erskine, Webster and Choate. It may be doubted whether his judgment was equal to his other endowments. He sometimes made and persisted in serious blunders, which a man of less strength would have avoided or abandoned, thinking to carry his point by the force of his intel lect and his reputation. But comparisons arc deceptive and odious. He was unique in his sphere — " teres et rotundus." It would be a tedious task to enumerate celebrated or important cafees in which Mr. O'Conor was engaged. vi It may be said, without exaggeration, that he was in every one of the most important cases in the New York courts of the period of thirty years ago. He was the leading counsel in the Parrish,
