After all, physical courage is a quality in which the most ignorant are the equals of the most intelligent, in which the brute excels human kind. "Brute" courage, it is sometimes not inappropriately called, a term exceedingly descriptive. Mr. Hardin's rare moral courage amply compensated for any real or supposed deficiency in the respect referred to. He had strong convictions, and unfalteringly clung to them in sun and storm. His public career, from the beginning to the end, was filled with illustrations of this trait. His part in the Old and New Court struggle, and his contest with Governor Owsley, evinced a moral courage and an intellectual fortitude rarely equaled.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

C

SOME THINGS OTHERS THOUGHT AND SAID OF MR. HARDIN.

HARACTER, or its manifestations, after all, is a matter resting much in the domain of public opinion. It is illuminated or discolored by the effect of partiality or prejudice on the lens through which it is discerned. An enemy and a friend are seen more or less truly, but on different sides, and in varied lights. Thus they seem antipodal in characteristics, yet, when beheld in like conditions, and from similar standpoints, are scarcely distinguishable. These observations but amplify the old saying: "No one is a hero to his valet." From the valet's point of observation, one does not so appear.

The witty and philosophic Doctor Holmes was not mistaken when he said, that when John and Thomas conversed, at least six persons of them were present. There were the real John and the real Thomas -two. There were John's ideal John, and Thomas' ideal Thomas— four. John's ideal Thomas, and Thomas' ideal John-six.* Two others, the discerning reader will perceive, are omitted in this estimate, assuming, as should be done, that John and Thomas were friends. The omitted two are by no means so comely as either of the other six. They are the respective John and Thomas as they appear to their enemies.

In estimating the character of one not personally known, the true mean will be found between the extreme opinions of friends and enemies. Instead of undertaking this formal estimate, a selection of expressed opinions, emanating from those who were friends and from those who disliked Mr. Hardin, are here gathered. Many of these were pub licly expressed, in his lifetime, and may serve other purposes than showing what others thought and said of him. They may throw light on some of his motives, and explain many of his actions. Some matters that might be alluded to in this connection, will be found elsewhere, in the estimate of his character as a lawyer and statesman.

During his lifetime, the newspapers teemed with notices of him at the bar, in Congress, on the stump, and in private life. His large and angular physical "make-up" indicated a massive intellectuality, jagged and projecting, with which the public were perpetually com

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, page 61.

ing in opposing contact. In this contact, the public always came off second best, and, to attract attention from its discomfiture, assailed him in some vulnerable part, or resorted, in default of other revenge, to simple vituperation.

In the brilliant, but erratic, Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, Mr. Hardin had ever a caustic and relentless critic. So unsparing were these criticisms as to clearly suggest a feeling of personal hostility. The origin of this is probably to be traced to a natural antipathy between two children of genius, rather than to any specific casus belli. He and Hardin had a debate in the State-house at Frankfort, in January, 1850, on the subject of the new constitution. The resources of wit sarcasm and invective were in large measure exhausted on either side. The antagonism of the disputants was thus intensified beyond all reconciliation. A slight idea of the temper of this encounter may be formed from Marshall's allusion to it: "We would prefer to hunt the lion, even though death were certain from his paw, to engaging with a skunk, whose weapons of offense, though not mortal, are such as to deprive the conflict of all dignity and honor." Marshall saw everything in the light of his passions, and the reader need not be admonished that his estimates of an adversary are little to be trusted. He thus undertakes a formal estimate of Mr. Hardin's character in the "Old Guard," of which he was editor:

He con

"Within a narrow and vicious circle, Ben Hardin is a good judge of bad men. A scoffer and a cynic, with no deep moral sense himself, with neither relish nor perception of the sublime and great, he has studied nature in its shameful parts, and thinks he knows the whole anatomy of man. A shrewd man he certainly is, but shrewdness is not wisdom. He thinks every man has his price, and can not conceive of the disinterested at all. ceives himself a statesman and a philosopher. He is about as much of either as he is of an orator or poet. He could not become the latter, for he has no imagination; nor the former, for he has no heart. He knows the names of the most celebrated nations of antiquity, and of the more remarkable men who flourished then, and has a smattering of modern history and geography. But of the great and steady movements of human society, and of the causes which have retarded or impelled them, of the real progress of the human understanding, of the political problems which have been, or which remain to be, solved, of the philosophy of history, or the science of government, he knows nothing."

On one occasion in the constitutional convention of 1849, Mr. Hardin had ridiculed James Guthrie, the president of that body, for

mispronouncing the word tyrannical-Hardin imitating him in repeating it—"terinical;" thus afforded Marshall an opportunity for assailing Hardin for pedantry and deficient scholarship-an opportunity which he thus improved:

For a

"We do not criticise Mr. Hardin's ignorance, but his pedantry. man who notices (and cackles over his discovery), the smallest imperfection in other men's speech, to be guilty of blunders in his most elaborate discourses that would disgrace a stable-boy, might provoke a castigation from persons less amiable than we are. Mr. Hardin has fallen in, evidently

late in life, with Pope's translation of Homer, and Tooke's Pantheon, or some other smaller work on the heathen mythology, and he is everlastingly, in his talks, boring his unfortunate auditors about Gods and Goddesses, Heroes and Heroines. Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Venus, Hector and Andromache, Paris and Helen, Achilles and Briseis, Ulysses and Penelope, rumble along his discourse like badly-imitated thunder among the wretchedlydaubed scenery of some provincial theater.

"The only one of Homer's heroes he seems to have selected for his model is Thersites. Of all the Gods, good or bad, the only one between whom and himself we detect the faintest resemblance is Saturn-that monstrous deity who is said to have feasted on his own family, and have devoured his own offspring. This is the only chance for an apotheosis; the only means left by which he is to be deified."

It seems quite possible that Mr. Marshall, while berating Hardin for supposed literary sins, was himself offending quite as seriously. The above criticism is so very suggestive of Caleb Cushing's attack in Congress, in 1835, as to create a strong suspicion of plagiarism. Mr. Cushing, referring to Mr. Hardin's habit of quoting to the House from Homer, begged "leave to refer to that celebrated author for an illustration apropos to the occasion." He regretted "to observe upon the floor a disputant who, with neither the courage of Achilles for the combat, nor the wisdom of Ulysses for the council, yet with the gray hairs of Nestor on his head, condescending to perpetually play the part of the snarling Thersites." *

The next criticism of Mr. Hardin is taken from a very readable and graphic "Biographical Sketch of Lazarus W. Powell," a former governor of the State, published under the auspices of the General Assembly. Its author, Hon. Ben J. Webb, knew Mr. Hardin long and well; has himself served the Commonwealth in honorable stations, and by his graceful pen done signal service to the literature of the State. He admits, privately, that on one occasion he felt ill

· Living Representative Men, by John Savage, page 147. See notes to page 278, ante.

used by Mr. Hardin. While it would be unfair to say the following reference was resentful, yet it is but just to say it did not emanate from an admirer of his character:

"The honorable Ben Hardin, or "Old Kitchen Knife," by which soubriquet he was afterward known in the Congress of the United States, was undoubtedly one of the shrewdest advocates that was ever intrusted with a client's interest in any court of the Commonwealth. He affected a simplicity in dress that approached slovenliness. He was lank in person, slightly stooping from middle age, and exceedingly restless in manner. * * * He possessed in an eminent degree the faculty of adapting himself to all classes of men. At one time he would appear to be as deeply interested in the result of a foot-race, or a wrestling-match, as the most ignorant boor on the grounds; and at other times he would discuss agriculture with the farmers, domestic matters with their wives, science with the learned, and politics with everybody. With talents so diversified, it is not to be wondered at that he should have acquired, in the course of time, a reputation for sincerity that was not particularly enviable."

Said this writer afterward:

"I can not say that Mr. Hardin was regarded with strong affection by any one. Neither can I say that he had any persistent enemies. The regard in which he was held was solely due to the public recognition of his great talents."

The next expression as to Mr. Hardin is by a lawyer who has long stood at the head of the bar where he practices. He knew Mr. Hardin, and had begun to rise in the profession only as Mr. Hardin was departing. He pretends no partiality for him, but his well-known sense of justice gives great weight to his slightest word. Said he: “Mr. Hardin was highly endowed with the best of all the senses— He knew mankind, was a sound lawyer, and a keen

common sense.

politician."*

The following description is by a Kentuckian, a lawyer, long a resident of another State, who may well be supposed to express his impartial impression:

"My memory does not go back to a time when the name of Ben Hardin was not as familiar as a household word in all circles to which I was admitted. I left Kentucky, however, at an early age without ever having seen him. *** Some seventeen years afterward, I met him at Jackson, Miss. He came to argue the great case, then pending in the Supreme Court, between S. S. Prentiss and the heirs of Vick, involving the title to valuable property in Vicksburg.

*Hon. Jesse W. Kincheloe.