The fact that they were legislated against as a nuisance, under the name of " mercenary attorneys," precludes the idea that they were men of character and influence. They were doubtless, as a class, mere charlatans at law, whose volubility of tongue and assumption of profundity secured for them a clientage among the ignorant, but whose abilities entitled them to class no higher than the genus pettifogger, the like of whom, though rare, still exists in some way back precincts. It is intended, of course, to except the Attorney Generals, who were officers of the Crown and men of distinction, of whom were Sir John Randolph and, in succession, his sons, Peyton and John. Among the earliest lawyers of distinction was Edward Barradall, who practiced exten sively in the County and General Courts. He was a member of the Council and a Judge of the Admiralty Court. It was under his rigid examination that Edmund Pendleton was admitted to the bar. He married a daughter of William Fitzhugh, who vas also an eminent lawyer in the Northern Neck, and member of the Council. He died in 1743.' About the same time flourished John Halloway, who had a large practice and was some time Speaker of the House of Burgesses; also Edward Hopkins and others of fair ability. But the fullness of the time had not yet come when the bar of Virginia was to illume the world with that galaxy of resplendent men, whose genius it was to prepare a peo ple for self control, to create constitutions for free States, and reorganize government along the lines of popular sovereignty. Talent in men is most often latent until the oppor tunity arrives to exercise it, but great minds help to make the opportunity. The fires of American independence were smouldering half a century before they burst into the flame of 1776, and it was this latent sense of liberty that developed the men of Vir1 Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia. '
ginia, who appeared upon the stage of her history in the latter years of the colony and prepared it for the coming commonwealth. They were men whose minds had long revolved thoughts, the which to have ex pressed would have been treason; men who recognized it as an unreasonable condition that half a continent of Anglo Saxons, fully capable of self government, should continue the mere appendage of an insular monarchy, out of sympathy and touch with them, three thousand miles over sea. The first to give public expression. to the thought was Patrick Henry, the most eloquent member of the coloniel bar, of whom George Mason said : " While he is the most power ful speaker I ever heard, his eloquence is the least part of his merit. He is in my opioion the first man on the continent, as well in abilities as public virtues, and had he lived in Rome about the time of the First Punic War, when the Roman people had arrived at their meridian glory, and their virtue not tarnished, Mr. Henry's talents must have put him at the head of that Com monwealth." His contemporary, and more distinguished as a profound lawyer, was Ed mund Pendleton, whose career, commencing in comparative obscurity, by the force of his innate powers, led to the highest eminence of fame, national as well as colonial. At this time also, Paul Carrington, John Blair, Richard Bland and Robert Carter Nicholas adorned the bar, men of the high est order as statesmen and patriots, and abounding in private as well as public virtues. Of the latter, says Hugh Blair Griggsby : "He became a leading one of the leading counsel at the bar of the General Court, when that bar was radiant with the genius and eloquence of Peyton Randolph, Yythe, Pendleton, Thompson, Mason, Henry, and John Randolph, the Attorney General." Almost without an exception these men had been members of the Assembly, judges of courts, members of the Committee of Safety or the Committee of Correspondence,
