He was transferred from the House to the Senate, and left it with a reputation for integrity and talent—the one as brilliant as the other unstained—which falls to the lot of few who are so long in public life as he was. Unlike most politicians whose career has been through exciting political struggles, the blight of slander was never breathed upon his name, and it descended to his children, as he received it from his ancestry, without spot or blemish.
Toward the close of his life, he was elected by the Legislature of the State to the Bench of the Superior Court, then the highest judicial tribunal of the State. This was the last public station he filled. Here he sustained his high character as a lawyer and honest man; carrying to the tomb the same characteristics of simplicity and sincerity, of affability and social familiarity, which had ever distinguished him in every position, public or private. He assumed none of that mock dignity or ascetic reserve in his intercourse with the Bar and the people, so characteristic of little minds in elevated positions: conscious of rectitude in all things, he never feared this familiarity would give cause for the charge of improper bias in his decisions from the bench or his influence with the jury.
Mr. Cobb died at the age of fifty, in the prime of his manhood and usefulness. In person, he was a model for a sculptor—six feet in height, straight, and admirably proportioned. His head and face were Grecian; his forehead ample; his nose beautifully chiselled; gray eyes, with sparkling, playful expression, round, and very beautiful; his head round, large, and admirably set on; the expression of his features, variant as April weather, but always intellectual, they invited approach, and the fascination of his conversation chained to his presence all who approached him. In fine, he was a type in manner and character of the people among whom he was born and reared; and I scarcely know if this is the greater compliment to him or them.
With few exceptions, this peculiar population of Middle Georgia has furnished all of her distinguished sons, and to the traits which make them remarkable is she to-day mainly indebted for her exalted prominence among her sister States of the South. The peculiar training of her sons, the practical education and social equality which pervades, and ever has, her society, acquaints every one with the wants of every other; at the same time it affords the facility for union in any public enterprise which promises the public good. All alike are infused with the same State pride, and the equality of fortunes prevents the obtrusion of arrogant wealth, demanding control, from purely selfish motives, in any public measure.
This community of interests superinduces unity of feeling, and unity of action; and the same homogeneous education secures a healthy public opinion, which, at last, is the great controlling law of human action. Thus the soil is one, the cultivation is one, the growth is one, and the fruit is the same. Nowhere in the South have these been so prominent as in Middle Georgia, and no other portion of the South is so distinguished for progress, talent, and high moral cultivation. There is, perhaps, wanting that polish of manners, that ease and grace of movement, and that quiet delicacy of suppressed emotion, so peculiar to her citizens of the seaboard, which the world calls refinement; which seems taught to conceal the natural under the artistic, and which so frequently refines away the nobler and more generous emotions of the heart. I doubt, however, if the habit of open and unrestrained expression of the feelings of our nature is not a more enduring basis of strong character and vigorous thought and action, than the cold polish of refined society. Whatever is most natural is most enduring. The person unrestrained by dress grows into noble and beautiful proportions; the muscles uncramped, develop not only into beauty, but strength and healthfulness. So with the mind untrammelled by forms and ceremonies; and so with the soul unfettered by the superstition of vague and ridiculous dogmas. The freedom of action and familiarity of language, where there are few social restraints to prevent universal intercourse, familiarizes every class of the community with the peculiarities of each, and forms an outlet for the wit and humor of the whole. This was the stimulant to mirth and hilarity, for which no people are so much distinguished as the Georgians of the middle country. At the especial period of which I now write, her humorists were innumerable. Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Longstreet, Bacon (the Ned Brace of Longstreet's Georgia Scenes), and many others of lesser note, will long be remembered in the traditions of the people. These were all men of, eminence, and in their time filled the first offices of the State. The quiet, quaint humor of Prince is to be seen in his Militia Muster, in the Georgia Scenes; and there too the inimitable burlesque of Bacon, in Ned Brace.
CHAPTER VII.
WITS AND FIRE-EATERS.
Judge Dooly—Lawyers and Blacksmiths—John Forsyth—How Juries Were Drawn—Gum-Tree vs. Wooden-Leg—Preacher-Politicians—Colonel Cumming—George McDuffie.
John M. Dooly was a native of Lincoln County, Georgia, where he continued to reside until his death, and where he now lies in an undistinguished grave. He was the son of a distinguished Revolutionary soldier, whose name, in consideration of his services in that struggle, has been given to a county in the State. In early life he united himself to the Federal party, and from honest convictions continued a Federalist in principle through life. But for his political principles, his name in the nation to-day would have been a household word, familiar as the proudest upon her scroll of fame. In very early life he gave evidence of extraordinary powers of mind. With a limited education, he commenced the study of the law when quite young. But despite this serious defect, which was coupled with poverty and many other disadvantages incident to a new country impoverished by war, and wanting in almost everything to aid the enterprise of talent in a learned profession, soon after his admission to the Bar he attracted the attention of the community, and especially the older members of the Bar, as a man of extraordinary capacity, and already trained in the law. So tenacious was his memory of all that he read or heard, that he not only retained the law, but the author and page where it was to be found. His mind was eminently logical and delighted in analytical investigation. In truth, the law suited the idiosyncrasy of his mind, and it was most fortunate for his future life, that he adopted it as a lifetime pursuit. Nature, it seems, gives to every mind a peculiar proclivity, as to every individual a peculiar mind: to pursue this proclivity is a pleasure; it makes work a delight, and this secures success. Hence it is fortunate to learn this peculiarity, and to cultivate it from the beginning. When the mind is strong and vigorous, this peculiar proclivity is generally well-marked to the inquiring observer in very early life.
It is related of Benjamin West, the great painter, that at five years of age he was continually soiling the floor of his good and sensible mother with charcoal sketches of the faces of the different members of the family; and of Napoleon, that in early childhood his favorite amusement was to build forts and array his playmates into column, and charge these, and assault and enter them. Stevenson, the great engineer, spent all his idle time, when a boy, in attempts at constructing machinery and bridges.
In these great minds this natural trait was so strongly marked, and so controlling in its influence, as to defy and overleap every obstacle, and develop its wonderful energy and capacity