the exact sciences, than any man whom I have the fortune to know." While an audience was an incentive to Mr. Beach, it was not a necessary one. One of his contemporaries has said that the most eloquent and perfect piece of oratory he ever heard from his lips was delivered to a judge, at Schenectady, holding chambers' in his private office, when no one was present but the judge, the opposing counsel, and the two lawyers who were waiting to argue the next motion. When Mr. Beach came to the bar Saratoga was one of the legal centres of the State of New York. Chancellor Walworth resided there. The greatest lawyers of the State came there to argue cases before him. Esek Cowen lived there, engaged then in preparing his famous notes to " Phillips on Evidence." He was afterwards for many years a judge of the Supreme Court. Nicholas Hill, Jr., was Cowen's partner, and was assisting him in the preparation of his " Notes." They both appeared frequently at the bar in important cases. John K. Porter, whose career ran parallel with Beach's throughout their lives, then lived at Waterford, in Saratoga County. Beach and Porter were of about the same age. Both practised at the Saratoga Bar and that of the neighboring counties from about 1835 to 1850. Porter removed to Al bany, and Beach to Troy, about 1851. Porter removed to New York City in 1869; Beach, in 1870. They were life-long antagonists and life-long friends. In the greater number of the important cases tried at Saratoga, Wash ington, Rensselaer, and Albany circuits, for a period of about thirty-five years, these two giants were engaged, — generally on opposite sides. Each put the other to the exercise of all his best powers. " It is he who contends with us that makes us strong." What Ichabod Bartlett and Jeremiah Mason did for Daniel Webster, Beach and Porter did for each other. Though they had many qualities in com mon, they were singularly unlike. Beach has already been described. Porter was
short, swarthy, and spectacled. He had not the charm of graceful and smooth-flowing oratory; but he had fluency, a dramatic — not to say theatrical — delivery, tireless en ergy, a fertile and suggestive mind, fecundity of illustration, great plausibility, and, withal, an intense and flaming earnestness that made his oratory magical and magnetic. There was something weird and fascinating about him. He won verdicts by the quality called " personal magnetism." His speech reminded one sometimes of a mountain tor rent, sometimes of a conflagration. Beach's was always like a majestic, smooth-flowing river, with here and there a cataract. Each had the temperament of the advocate rather than that of the judge; but it must be ad mitted that Beach had the more candid judgment and character. It used to be said that Porter was equally earnest and effective on the good or the bad side of a case. This was not true of Beach, though it was one of the misfortunes of his eminence that he was frequently engaged on the desperate side of desperate cases. He could, indeed, present all the arguments that could fairly be made on the bad side of a case; but he scorned pettifogging, truckling, and humbug, and when he felt he was on the wrong side of a case, it was quite apparent to his friends, though perhaps a casual observer would have failed to notice that he was struggling against his own convictions. Porter could get down to the level of the jury; Beach always tried to raise them to his own. One of the criticisms frequently made upon him was that he " talked over the heads of the jury." Though Porter was perhaps as great a " verdict-getter," the palm of oratory was by almost universal opinion awarded to Beach. One defect they had in common, — neither had any humor. They could be sar castic, even caustic, but neither ever set the table or the jury in a roar. They were always in deadly and dignified earnest. While the great triumphs of both were gained in jury trials, both were equally able and effective in the argument of questions of
