conscientious. Judge James V. Brooke who had been his law partner many years said : "He was well grounded in the science of the law and watched with care and appre hension the innovations of modern precedent upon doctrines grown heavy with age. In a word he was a lawyer in the highest, truest, noblest sense of the term, and a fit model for those who are to follow after him." He died August 5, 1897. His only son, R. Carter Scott, was appointed to serve out his father's unexpired term as attorney-general. As he is an able and well-equipped lawyer the selection was most proper. Henry A. Wise was born in Drummondtown, Accomac County, Va., December 3, 1806. He graduated at Washington Col lege, Pennsylvania, in 1825. He began practicing law in Nashville in 1828, but in one year returned to Virginia. In 1833 he was elected to Congress by the Jackson party, and after the election he fought a duel with his competitor for the office. He was twice re-elected. In 1837 he was sec ond in the celebrated duel between Jonathan Cilley, a member of Congress from Maine, and William Graves, a member from Ken tucky, in which Graves killed Cilley. " A man of undoubted ability and great influ ence," John W. Forney said, " standing be tween the two great parties in the house, he delighted in his isolation and rioted in the eccentricities of his genius." In 1842 he was appointed Minister to France, but the Senate refused to confirm him. Later he was appointed Minister to Brazil and lived in Rio Janeiro from 1844 to 1847. He was elected Governor of Virginia in 1855. While he was Governor, John Brown was hung. He was appointed Brigadier-General in the Confederate army. After the war he again practiced law. He wrote a very entertaining book entitled " Seven Decades of the Union : Memoir of John Tyler." He was descended from one of the very oldest English families and also from the Douglas's of Scotland, the family of the famous Earl of Angus. Some
of the old law books, which were the prop erty of Col. George Douglas, the first of the name who came to Virginia, and who prac ticed law in Accomac County, are still in the possession of Governor Wise's son, John S. Wise, a clever member of the New York bar. They include some old English re ports, a " Natura Brevium " of the first edition, and a " Coke on Littleton" printed in 1629. It is said : " Governor Wise's eloquence swayed men as the wind sways trees," and that he had wonderful power as a pleader. The following is told as an illustration of his eloquence: "One summer, during the prog ress of a camp meeting on the famous Tan gier beach, a man from the mainland disturbed the worship and almost broke up the meeting. The managers determined to prosecute him. His conviction seemed a certainty, and it was expected he would be severely punished. Mr. Wise rose to defend him, and the audience, at a loss to imagine what he could find to say, were amazed to hear him begin by admitting his client's guilt and lecture him severely for his con duct. Then he called for a Bible, and turn ing to the prosecutors preached them a splendid sermon on their conduct in prose cuting the man being opposed to the teach ings of the Christ they professed. Before he was through the jury was convinced that his client was a poor persecuted creature, and they rendered a verdict in his favor without leaving the room, the church having heavy costs to pay." One day Mr. Wise was visiting a friend near Crisfield and went with him to the sale of the effects of a poor man who had recently died. Among the things was a large old-fashioned punch-bowl. The widow had been in the habit of keeping her supply of loaf sugar in it, and while she was out of the room searching for something to empty the sugar into, the punch-bowl was sold, and when she returned the man refused to give up the sugar. The assembled crowd was very indignant, and at last he appealed to Mr. Wise, saying, " Mr. Wise,
