nature. Genial, gentle, sympathetic, com panionable, and noble, he was endowed with the spirit of love for his fellow-men; he was the delight of his auditory in the court-room and before a popular audience. A festive gathering, in many of which he figured de lightfully, was considered quite incomplete, a play without a star, if he were not an actor; for he was, "From the charmed council to the festive board, Of human feelings the unbounded lord." His education was fostered under the careful guidance of his father, Thomas S. Brady, who was a man of clever legal at tainments and varied accomplishments, and who for several years kept a school where he fitted boys for college, and he after ward practised law with success in the city of New York. It was in that school that James might have been seen, — a largeheaded little boy poring over his books and laggingly committing his lessons; for he was " slow of study," as were Webster and many others who in mature manhood be came distinguished; neither did he display any positive marks or distinctive qualities of mind or genius in youth which foreshadowed eminence in coming years. "I remember him," says ex-Chief Justice Daly of the Court of Common Pleas of New York, " and such of his schoolmates as sur vive remember him, as a warm-hearted little boy; exceedingly unselfish, most affection ate in his attachments to his young school companions, and exceedingly beloved by them, — qualities which in all his subsequent career, and the distinction that attended him, were never abated or extinguished, as every one will testify who ever knew him or came in personal contact with him." James T. Brady was born on the ath of April, 1815, in New York City. Although he was a shy and retiring lad, his father, who knew his nature best, always regarded him as a self-reliant and promising boy, who would some day make a figure in the world. His earliest ambition was to be a
lawyer, and he ever had an elevated opinion of the profession, considering that the beau ties and honors of y.:stitia far outshone the wealth of " Ormus and of Ind." At the age of sixteen he had acquired a good knowledge of law, and at twenty-one was admitted to the bar. About the first case in which he dis tinguished himself was in releasing Sarah Coppin, a young English girl who on arriving in New York was robbed of her money, turned into the street, and afterward bound out by the authorities; she was liberated by young Brady. Of a Celtic origin, he partook largely of the fervid imagination and flowery style peculiar to that race. He possessed an unhesitating command of language and a felicity of classical illustration, which in his later efforts rendered him worthy to tread in the footsteps of such a man as Thomas Addis Emmet, and kindred lights of the bar. The oratorical philosopher, Lord Bolingbroke, while declaring that the profession of the law is in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, with just enthusiasm says : " There have been lawyers that were orators, philosophers, historians; there have been Bacons, and Clarendons.; there shall be none such any more, till in some better age men learn to prefer fame to pelf, and climb to the vantage-ground of general science." In this country there have been several advo cates of national repute — Wirt, Pinkney, Choate, Legare, Prentiss, of the last genera tion, and Hon. William M. Evarts, ex-Judge John F. Dillon, and some others of our day — who have blended the qualities of the lawyer with the attributes of genius. Two at least of those mentioned stand as chiefs at the bar, —facile priucipes, who united the qualities of the advocate-orator carried to higher excellence; and those were William Pinkney and Rufus Choate. While Mr. Brady did not particularly de light in using " long tailed words in osity and atinn" lie was exceedingly apt in putting the right word in the "right place, empha sizing it, and carrying conviction to the mind of the jury. When Mr. Brady came to the
