Ichabod Bartlett.

heard his name in the House or out of it. At the close of his remarks Mr. Clay inti mated plainly that some other mode might be resorted to in order to adjust the differ ence that had arisen. After the adjournment, Mr. Clay set about ascertaining what sort of a man Mr. Bartlett was. He asked Governor Plumer if he thought Bartlett would fight. Plumer replied that he knew how he could find out. Mr. Clay enquired, How? Plumer answered, "Ask him!"' Some one approached Mr. Bartlett to sound him on the subject, and received as a reply: "Tell him if he wants to fight, it shall be across a four-foot table, — I have no crying children to leave behind me." * Fortunately the affair was soon amic ably arranged. Bartlett's spirited conduct gave him a great prestige both in Con gress and with his constituents at home. After three terms of service, declining a renomination, he was pressed into service, in 183 1, as the anti-Jackson candidate for Governor. The campaign was most excit ing, but he was defeated by Samuel Dinsmoor. He was the Adams candidate also, the succeeding year, when Governor Dinsmoor was re-elected. Mr. Bartlett never was married. He lived for the greater part of his life at a hotel. Always of a social disposition, there grew upon him in later years an inclination to conviviality, as he gradually withdrew from 1 Judge Ira Perley used to say that this reply was the smartest thing that Governor Plumer ever uttered. 2 George Wallis Haven, of Portsmouth, writes to me : "I think in 1892, I received a letter from Mr. Arthur Livermore. living in England, in which he alluded to Mr. Bartlett's first term in Congress, when Mr. Clay with his wonted proclivity sought to fasten a quarrel upon him, but Mr. Bartlett retorted so very successfully that Mr. Clay felt that if a challenge was to pass between them, he must be the one to send it. Therefore, with becoming though unexpected prudence, he called upon Judge Livermore to inquire into the heroic status, or otherwise, of the new member from New Hampshire; and the judge assured him that he was a man to fight to the last gasp of his life. In the session of the next day, Mr. Clay offered most conciliat ing remarks to Mr. Bartlett, and they were ever after excellent friends. This statement Mr. Livermore had from his father."

11 1

active practice. It was not possible for hirh however wholly to decline serving the pub lic. In 1850 he was sent to Concord as a member of the Convention for revising the Constitution, and he was chosen temporary chairman of that body. His intimate friend Franklin Pierce became the permanent pre siding officer. ' Mr. Bartlett died at the Rockingham House, Portsmouth, on the 9th of October, 1853, at the age of sixty-seven. The funeral was from Rev. Dr. Peabody's South (Uni tarian) Church. Portsmouth paid an official tribute to his distinction as her most honored citizen. His fellow-members of the Bar evinced their appreciation of his ability and talent in resolutions and speeches of an unusual degree of merit. Perhaps the most remarkable of Mr. Bart lett's many gifts was that of a certain felicity of expression. In ordinary conversation he employed the choicest and fittest words, and convinced his hearers by the apt way in which he put forward what he had to say. 2 Anecdotes and incidents in a lawyer's practice gathered from tradition are easily ' The two were warm friends. Woodward Emery, of the Boston Bar, has a gold-headed cane that came into the possession of his father, the late James W. Emery. It had been given by Pierce to Bartlett, and bears the inscription, "From Frank to Ick." 2The late Charles H. Bell, in his admirable Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, published after this article had been put in type, says of Mr. Bartlett : " In his public speeches he had a fashion, when he wished to lay particular emphasis upon a word, of pausing an instant before pro nouncing it. One of the elders of the Bar described this process as "poising his word before he launched it." It seemed as if he were hesitating in the choice of his expres sion, and that he always picked out the fittest. But in fact the man never hesitated. His powers were always on the alert. If he had had hours for deliberation he could not have done or said the right thing at the right moment more uniformly than he did without a moment's forethought " . (p. 176). No man was better qualified to write of New Hampshire lawyers than Governor Bell; nor can too much praise be bestowed upon the justice and discrimination that marks this invaluable collection of biographical sketches. It is fortunate that the work has been seasonably done by one who could do it so well. Fortunate too will be any other State where legal annals shall be preserved to pos terity by a labor so thorough, a judgment so sagacious, and a power of expression so apt and so enlivening.