any solid legal attainments. His disposition was too much of a social character, and he was too fond of the pleasantries of society to submit to the restraints of close application, and his spirits too exuberant to bear the jealous monotony of professional routine. He was more the political than the legal advocate, and had few superiors on the stump. He was a Whig in politics, and a warm admirer of General Harrison.

It is related that, during the presidential campaign of 1840, some Democrat in one of the piney woods counties of Mississippi had among other things accused General Harrison of cowardice at the battle of Tippecanoe, where he claimed to have been present and to have witnessed his misconduct; and it happened that while Mr. Mitchell was making a speech at a large gathering in that county in the interest of his favorite, he espied the individual who had made this assertion, and calling his name, asked :

"Did you say that you were at the battle of Tippecanoe, and that you saw General Harrison display evidences of cowardice?" Answer. "I did."

Judge Mitchell. "Did you see me there, sir?"

A. "I do not remember seeing you."

Judge M. "Yet, sir, I was there, and was constantly by General Harrison's side, and if you had been there, you would have seen me." Then turning to the audience, he exclaimed, See, fellow-citizens, how easily a lie can be refuted.”

A short time before his death he was a candidate in Hinds County for a seat in the Legislature, and it is said that in a joint discussion before a large assemblage of the people of the county, Judge Mitchell, summoning his remarkable powers of ridicule, assailed his opponent with such a torrent of derision that the latter, losing all patience, exclaimed: "Judge Mitchell, when you descend from that stand I will whip you." "That you may do," said the judge, "but it will not elect you; for I remember that when I was a boy my father owned a bull that could whip all the other bulls in the neighborhood; yet I never heard it urged that his bullyism fitted him for the Legislature."

Judge Mitchell died at his home in Hinds County in 1843.

CHAPTER X.

THE BENCH-EMINENT JURISTS-1850-1880.

WILLIAM YERGER-WILLIAM L. HARRIS-EPHRAIM S. FISHER-EPHRAIM G. PEYTON-COLLIN S. TARPLEY.

THIS chapter closes the dead list of the eminent gentlemen who occupied seats upon the bench of the High Court of Errors and Appeals of Mississippi. Many of their contemporaries and some of their associates upon the bench are still living, and it is hoped that they may long live to enjoy that high station in the respect, love, and veneration, of their fellow-citizens, which their great abilities, model characters, and illustrious services have so justly merited; and that they may long look with pride upon the full fruition of peace, happiness, and prosperity, under that reign of justice to, the establishment of which their precepts and examples have so greatly conduced; and that by reason of length of days, they may, if possible, achieve even more good than did their distinguished compatriots who have preceded them to that court of competent awards where the meed of virtue is found in the approving smiles of Omnipo

tence.

WILLIAM YERGER.

This great and good man was born in Lebanon, Tennessee, on the 22d of November, 1816. The family of Mr. Yerger was of Dutch origin. His parents were prosperous and highly respected. His early educational advantages were good, and he was graduated from the University of Nashville, where he also studied law, before he was twenty-one years of age, and was immediately admitted to the bar.

In 1837 he removed to Mississippi, and settled in the town of Jackson, where he at once began that splendid career which culminated in the most brilliant reputation, and most lucrative practice at the bar of Mississippi. The politics of Mr. Yerger, which were those of the Whig party, precluded him from the political preferments to which the versatility of his genius and his ambition might have aspired; but so stern and uncompromising was his integrity that no glitter of prospect could induce him to swerve from the strict line of his principles. Indeed, so fixed and rectified were his conscientious resolves, that neither the frown of tyranny nor the applause of flattery, the smiles of fortune nor the whirlwinds of adversity, could shake them from the firm base of his convictions; but if the shattered heavens had fallen upon his head, the ruins would have buried him clad in the robes of conscious rectitude.

But, notwithstanding his politics, and known hostility to some of the popular measures of the day, which were likely to become of judicial cognizance, so great was his ability as a lawyer and his worth as a man, that they finally wrenched the tribute of even partisan recognition, and in 1850 he was elected by the popular vote to a seat upon the High Bench of Errors and Appeals. During the civil war he was a member of the Legislature, and in the convention of 1865 and throughout the dark days of reconstruction he was active and strenuous in his efforts for the restoration of the State government and the amelioration of the condition of his people.

In contemplating the character of Judge Yerger we are dazzled by the uniformity and constancy of its glow. There are no jetting traits to serve as landmarks to the analysis. There are no conspicuous planets or brilliant constellations to arrest our gaze. No glaring meteors flash along the sky. No auroras or milky ways usurp broad tracks in the firmament, but the whole canopy, from the zenith to the horizon, blazes with one common, uniform light, such as flows from the full round orb of day. The qualities of his head and heart were in constant equipoise, so that it is difficult to judge which was the most vigorous of his virtues--whether his main springs of action vibrated most from the touch of judgment or benevolence, patriotism or philanthropy, piety or pity.

On his first appearance at the bar of Mississippi, where he immediately came in contact with some of the most eminent legal minds of the country, though scarcely past the threshold. of manhood, he exhibited a depth of learning, a penetration of judgment, and a knowledge of human affairs, unsurpassed by the precocious intellect of Lord Chatham. Sedate, dignified and respectful in his bearing, he was utterly free from the frivolities and indiscretions that frequently attend one of his age and conscious powers. His conduct and conversation were apparently impressed with the mould of experience, and were so striking as to require no aid of ostentation to give them prominence.

His perception was quick and penetrating. His language expressive and chaste; and he came into court with success and reputation stamped upon his brow. Certainty followed in the train of his virtues, and step by step, in rapid succession and with the unbroken continuity of time, Judge Yerger climbed to the proud eminence of his fame.

As a lawyer he had few superiors on this continent. He had studied deeply every department of jurisprudence, was profound in all the branches of the profession, and the great principles of law had become identified with his own judg

ment.

Nature seemed to have bestowed upon him every qualification in her power for the eminent sphere in which he moved, and