no refined susceptibility in this rough and hardy man? Choate brought the music out of his soul, as the wind does out of the woods. He held Hardin as with the glittering eye of the ancient mariner. It was done by no other necromancy than the silver tongue and golden thought, interwoven and intertwisted by a skill that would puzzle a Genoese filigree-worker."

A distinguished lawyer and ex-member of a former presidential cabinet, Hon. Joseph Holt, writes that he does not "feel that he could contribute any information in illustration of Mr. Hardin's character," yet he adds: "He was a man of the most marked individuality of character, and this individuality was constantly maintained. He was uniformly kind to me, both personally and professionally, so that, with a glowing admiration of his wonderful intellectual gifts, the recollection of him that I cherish is at once grateful and affectionate.

*Colonel Alfred Allen, of the Hardinsburg bar, once prominent. in State politics, and formerly American minister to China, from his boyhood knew Mr. Hardin. In a letter to the author, among other things, he says:

"Mr. Hardin's clothes were loose and ill-fitting, although always made of the best material suitable to the season. He was studious, and liked all He was a splendid historian,

sorts of reading matter, especially history. and had a taste for fiction, whether in prose or verse, although his quotations were mostly from the Old Testament, the old poets, and ancient history. His quotations were always apropos and striking. He never had justice done him as a man of letters. I can not just now remember sufficient to quote a specimen of his pathos, but do remember that his pathos, in its place, was as melting as his wit was brilliant and inspiriting."

In a lecture by Colonel James P. Barbour, before the Historical Society of Lebanon, Ky., in March, 1885, on the subject of Mr. Hardin's life and character, the speaker commented as follows:

"Mr. Hardin's education has been criticised and underrated, and it is true that he had not the advantages that the young men of this generation enjoy. But, with the foundation laid by his teachers in his mother tongue and in the classics, added to his great natural endowments, his extensive reading, etc., I think that in listening to one of his great speeches the keenest observer would hardly recognize that the speaker was really suffering from any embarrassment in that line.

"There was never a more original speaker than Mr. Hardin. Whether in argument or illustration, in logic or humor, his style and methods were

* President Lincoln, born in the region where Mr. Hardin spent his life, and familiar with his name and fame from his earliest years, always expressed the heartiest admiration for his talents and genius, and sometimes entertained his friends by repeating extracts from his speeches.

all his own. It has been said that 'brevity is the soul of wit." With this definition admitted, he was certainly not a wit, but in humor and anecdote he had few, if any, equals, and in these his methods and execution were perfect.

"He was emphatically a man of the people, the common people, that middle class of virtue and intelligence that constitutes the great mass of our population. With these his tastes were congenial, with them he loved to associate. From them many of the common sense ideas and happy illustrations that distinguished his most taking speeches were drawn. There was nothing aristocratic about him either in dress or bearing."

Recently the accomplished writer and author, Dr. Rob Morris, of Lagrange, Ky., contributed a series of papers to the leading daily of the State, entitled "Jesters With Whom I Have Jested." From one of those papers the following extracts are made:

"As I remember him, Ben Hardin was singularly attractive in person and manner. The pert and nimble spirit of mirth seemed to surround him as with a halo. His eyes were piercingly bright. His forehead was capacious and square. In his prominent cheek bones there was a suggestion of the aboriginal, and the same was apparent in his oratory. Yet his good things were always delivered in a fine, quaint, graceful fashion, that reminded me of Felix Grundy and Tom Corwin. * * * Other admirers characterized Mr. Hardin's methods of sarcasm by various terms. Collins says he was pungent, sarcastic, pointed, and energetic-making him an antagonist to be feared. The editor of the old National Intelligencer warmed over him and his powers of conversation. George D. Prentice, in one of his terse paragraphlets, termed him a diasyrm, and when I demanded the definition of so awesome a title, he derived it from diasuridzo, which, he said, meant to mock, hiss, and ridicule.

"Mr. Prentice was a great admirer of Ben Hardin, and many a joust of humor had the two men, wherein a wealth of fancy and of language was served out. I heard him say of Ben Hardin, that in his prime, when addressing a Kentucky audience from the steps of some old-fashioned court-house, his jokes fell a hissing shower of hot shot into all parts of the assembly, stirring the hearers like an irruption of hornets. This description is verified. by the recollections of others not too young to remember a man whose work was finished a third of a century since. * * * To conclude, Ben Hardin knew exactly the pulse of the average jury, and, although keeping his arguments and appeals upon the popular level, he never condescended to vulgarity. He possessed a singular susceptibility. He was open to every sense of intellectual enjoyment, and in his generation represented in his own district the position which Chauncey Dupuy and S. S. Cox represent as humorists at the present time in New York."

Among the restless and nomadic Americans, one interesting fact has often been verified, and that is, that those swept westward by the tide of emigration retain the most vivid recollection of scenes and events in the old homes left behind. That chapter of life seems

closed, and when the book of memory is again opened, the old scenes and old times are as fresh as if recorded yesterday. Subsequent occurrences have not blurred nor cross-lined the long-hidden page. To the pen of one of these emigrant Kentuckians, Hon. Martin D. McHenry, of Iowa, allied to some of the best blood of his native State, and formerly prominent in its politics, and long an associate of Mr. Hardin, the readers of this work owe not a little. Leaving Kentucky shortly after Mr. Hardin's death, to him, no doubt, it seems but yesterday since he last saw the tall, auburnhaired, big, and busy-brained friend of his early manhood. weight is due his estimate of Mr. Hardin's character. McHenry:

Especial Says Mr.

"I will say that, during all my intercourse with him, and with the hundreds and thousands who knew him well, and among whom I lived until I was fifty years of age, I never heard any man call in question the truth of anything he said, or the good faith or reliability of anything he promised. Ben Hardin's positive, intelligent statement of facts needed no corroboration. It was an end of controversy. His distinct, laconic, defined promise of assurance needed no indorsement. Any man who knew him felt satisfied that it would be fulfilled, and asked for no witness to perpetuate the recollection of it. It was enough that Ben Hardin had said that it should be done."

In conducting some inquiries respecting Mr. Hardin, near four decades after his death, in the vicinity of his old home, and amid the scenes where he achieved his career, one significant fact has been observed, and that is, that almost every one that ever met him bore away some of the intellectual ingots that he profusely scattered along his pathway. It is a slight circumstance, but a most forcible illustration of the mental force of the man.

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Since I have been judge of this district," writes Hon. Charles A. Hardin, of Harrodsburg, "in which Mr. Hardin lived and practiced law, I have been astonished at the deep and wide-spread impression he everywhere made upon the people. Every man who ever saw and heard him in the court-house, or on the hustings, has some vivid recollection of his appearance and manner, and can repeat some anecdote or illustration he used."

His intellectual equipment was tersely and aptly epitomized in a speech delivered in the Kentucky Legislature in 1867, by Hon. R.

KEEPING ONE'S FRIENDS IN COUNTENANCE.

581

Alluding to Mr.

M. Spalding, representative from Marion county. Hardin, he said: "In original genius and natural reach of intellect, perspicuity of thought and power of analysis, in wit, in bitter and withering sarcasm, and invective, no man in the State was his superior."

Such are some of the things that others said and thought of him.* Further estimates of his character are made in describing him as a lawyer, and in alluding to the domestic and other special phases of his life. But to justly estimate it, will require a careful study of his whole career, from the humble beginnings of the farmer's boy, until the death of the lawyer and statesman, full of years and honor.

It will be nowhere pretended in these pages that Mr. Hardin was faultless, or his character free from infirmities. The diamond has flaws and there are spots on the sun. Compensating for his failings, however, he possessed a host of manly virtues. He was no Pharisee, and had a whole-souled and abiding contempt for a hypocrite. His shortcomings were those of his day and locality-and of genius and power in all ages. While calumny was ever snapping at his heels, he averaged in personal virtue with his associates. That he was "no saint," doubtless made him a broader man. He might well have jus tified himself with the reasoning of the philosophic Franklin:

"For something, that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that such extreme nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself to keep his friends in countenance.Ӡ

CHAPTER XXXVII.

T

CLOSE OF PUBLIC LIFE.

HE constitutional convention completed its labors in June, 1850. For a year following that event, Mr. Hardin was occupied with professional pursuits and the care of his private affairs. In the summer of 1851 he became a candidate to represent the Nelson district in the Senate, and in August was elected. In this it may well be assumed that he had some motive beyond the mere honor or the small profit of a seat in the State Legislature. Whether he sought some favor within the power of the Legislature to bestow-for example, the United States Senatorship, or, as seems more probable, desired to participate in originating, shaping, and completing that legislation necessary to put in working order the Constitution he had labored so zealously and diligently to construct, is matter for conjecture.

The first governor under the new Constitution was chosen that same August. The Whigs had nominated Archibald Dixon, of Henderson, for governor, and John B. Thompson, of Mercer, for lieutenant-governor; the Democrats, Lazarus W. Powell, also of Henderson, and Robert N. Wickliffe, of Fayette. In the selection of tickets each party had acted with undoubted wisdom and sagacity. All four were excellent orators, were well known throughout the State, had had large experience, filled many honorable posts with credit, and enjoyed the confidence of their respective parties. Dixon was a dashing leader a political Murat-brave, impetuous, and fiery, and widely separated from the emancipation element, at that period supposed to lurk in Whig coverts. Powell, to profound political acumen, united a magnetic quality of winning and holding friends, and was a very Talleyrand in party diplomacy. Wickliffe, nicknamed "greasy Bob," was a talented scion of an old and influential family, whose very name was a tower of strength. Thompson-genial Jack Thompson—was the prince of good fellows, whose heart had been bereaved by death in his youth, and, thereafter, he had given all his affections to his friends, and these were mankind in general. The campaign was prosecuted with vigor, but Mr. Hardin took no part; in fact, he had scarcely