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opponents with whom Mr. Hoffman had often met in the collisions of party strife, is one of the most beautiful commentaries upon his life and character which could be offered or produced.

In person, Mr. Hoffman was slightly above the medium hight, full proportioned and erect. Two years before his death, an article descriptive of his personal appearance appeared in one of the New York papers.

"Who is that merry-faced, laughing-eyed, slouchy looking elderly gentleman, with thin whitish hair, for whom everybody in the crowd makes way about the City Hall steps, and who pause in their conversation to look at and bow to? Who is it? A pretty question to ask about one of the most beloved of men-one of the most popular, and who for this year, and one to come, will occupy the next highest position in the United States to the Cabinet Attorney-General. You only whisper the question, for not to know him will unquestionably argue yourself unknown.

"He has been in the legislature, he has been District-Attorney in two counties, he has been United States District-Attorney and member of Congress, before occupying his present office, which was never so well adorned. He has a future, too, of promise, for he has already been named for Governor and VicePresident.

"He is the best orator in the State by all odds. He speaks with great ease and fluency, in choice language, in well-rounded sentences, and with a grace of gesture and dignity of manner. He can be gay, witty and pathetic, but chiefly excels in the latter. Few who heard his defense of Richard P. Robinson, can forget his 'My poor boy.'"

It may well be said of Mr. Hoffman, that he was "not of great property, but rich in integrity." He never aspired to riches, he saw around him, on every side, too much of vulgar wealth, too many instances

of plowmen turned lords, too much tawdry display in those whom fortune relieved of poverty, while she left to them their reeking vulgarity, to desire that kind of distinction.

How many there are in the great metropolis who have bartered happiness, soul, body, manhood, everything, to become wealthy, and who count their wealth by millions, yet cannot purchase with it all, two simple lines that record the fame of Ogden Hoffman.

Mr. Hoffman continued to wear the armor of the bar-to be a contestant in that arena to which he was drawn by his youthful ambition, and where he made his name memorable and historic, until, like a gallant veteran, he fell on the field of his glory.

He died suddenly on the second day of May, 1856, in the sixty-third year of his age.

The general demonstration of public and private sorrow that followed the announcement of his death, attested the estimation in which he was held.

A large meeting of the New York City bar was immediately convened at the City Hall. All the courts in session in the city immediately adjourned, and in many parts of the city business was suspended.

A committee consisting of Ambrose L. Jordon, Joseph Blunt, J. W. Edmonds, Charles O'Conor, Francis B. Cutting and Daniel Lord, were appointed to draft resolutions expressive of the high respect which his surviving brethren of the bar entertained for his memory, and their grief at his loss.

Since that period, the chairman of that committee and several of its members have followed him to the bar of that dread Being to whom the distinctions of earth are nothing, at whose right hand are eternal pleasures and glories.

The demonstration at Mr. Hoffman's funeral has never been equaled in the city, since Hamilton went to his grave.

Mr. Hoffman left one son, who is the present Judge

Ogden Hoffman of the United States District Court for California-a son worthy of his honored father.

The character of Ogden Hoffman, whether as the lawyer, legislator, orator, or the private citizen the husband-the father-the Christian gentleman, is certainly one to be studied-to be admired-to be imitated.

GEORGE P. BARKER.

His Character.-Parentage.-Dr. Payson.-Enters Amherst College.-Interesting Incident, nearly resulting in his Expulsion.-His Able and Successful Defense.— Is Transferred to Union College.-Gains the Friendship of Dr. Nott.-Thrown on his own Resources.-Commences the Study of Law while in College.-Alonzo C. Page.-Tries Law Suits in Schenectady.-Incident.-Graduates.--Removes to Buffalo.-Millard Fillmore.-Barker is Admitted to the Bar.-Commences Practice at Buffalo.-Becomes Singularly Engaged in an Important Criminal Trial at Albany.-Touching Incident.-Edward Livingston.-Gratirying Results of the Trial.-Appointed District-Attorney.-Elected to the Legislature.-His Political and Professional Career.-Contest for Mayor.-Election of 1840.-Appointed Attorney-General.-Action of the Buffalo Bar.-Election of 1844.-Re-appointed District-Attorney.-His Health.-Case of Pollock.-Interesting Incident.-Syracuse Convention.-His Last Political Speech.-His Death.-Proceedings of the Bar in Relation to his Death.-Conclusion.

DISTINGUISHED as George P. Barker was in his profession, yet such was his versatility, that the lineaments of his mind and character appear with as much advantage in the politician and legislator, as they do in the lawyer. His early participation in the political contests of the State rendered his intellect active, sagacious, and inventive, without extinguishing and paralyzing sentiment and truth-without creating that insatiable ambition for power and place, which so often ends in cold selfishness, a degraded submission to the corrupting details of party drill, and in a dislike for all the private avocations of life.

Mr. Barker's unswerving devotion to the Democratic party was, with him, the offspring of disinterested patriotism. Fearless in attacking its enemies, dexterous in defense, maintaining its principles with rare intellectual resources, he united his name with those great politicians who have rendered that party

formidable and enduring through so many years, and who, whatever may have been their real or supposed political errors, have sustained the democracy, "with poetry, eloquence, and learning; with the graces of wit, the glow of imagination, the power of philosophy, the strength of reason and logic." In the earnestness of debate, in the struggles of the forum, though often opposed by the most distinguished talents, he had few superiors; while as a private citizen, in the social walks of life, he commanded that respect which his abilities secured him at the bar, or in legislative halls. At times, however, his character, public as well as private, was assailed with singular malignity and pertinacity, by those recriminations of party abuse, which unfortunately are so inseparable from political contests, and which to those who are not utterly callous are almost beyond endurance, and in which no term of reproach is too severe, no vituperation too excessive; so that, as has been well said, the history of most politicians can be written in three sentences: They were born-they quarreled-they died.

There was, in the character of Mr. Barker, a frankness which unveiled his faults; thus rendering him vulnerable to the attack of his enemies. But to the keen and quick susceptibilities of his nature, there was allied an independence, which turned the edge of detraction, causing the malevolence of envy, which snarls at all above it, to pass harmlessly by him.

To say that his character was above reproach would simply be saying that he was not human; but to say that he possessed many virtues, many qualities that redeemed his faults, that among the eloquent, the gifted, and the refined, he was always an equal and a favorite-to say that his faults are in oblivion, is no overdrawn panegyric-it is but a truthful appeal to the adorner and beautifier of the deadthe gathering of those pearls which were the rich earnings of his life, for a votive offering to his memory.

George Payson Barker was the only child of pa