Thomas Addis Emmet, Judge Story, Williams, and others of that calibre, when to maintain one's position in the forensic arena was no child's play. And he occupied the bench too at a time when it was the reward of deep study and great ability, not as now, often obtained as the result of successful political chicanery.

His brother, Charles Fenno Hoffman, has occupied in the literary world, both as a brilliant poet (he has written some of the sweetest things in our language), and as a novelist, a position of enviable notoriety. But to return to Ogden, the subject of our present sketch. Who, among the inhabitants of New York, does not recollect the sensation that occurred in the minds of the people in the good old days of Andrew Jackson and old-fashioned democracy, when the news was spread abroad that Ogden Hoffman and Dudley Selden, members of Congress from this city, had refused "to go the whole hog," but had come out flat-footed, uncompromising whigs! Deep was the chagrin of the b'hoys, and as great the transport of their opponents. And to this day, wherever there is a whig gathering, and the masses are to be stirred up with soulbreathing eloquence, there will be heard the trumpet voice of Hoffman, urging them to do their duty as men, and to vote as becomes freemen.

The great power of Hoffman is before a jury. There is a sweetness, a pleasantness about his eloquence that is very difficult to withstand, and when excited his powerful voice will ring like a clarion, and at one moment he will draw tears from your eyes for the sorrows of his client, and at another

convulse you with indignation for the wrongs he has suffered. The famous Richard P. Robinson, in the Helen Jewett case, no doubt owed his acquittal to his matchless eloquence.

Mr. Hoffman we should judge to be about fifty years of age, of medium height, rather inclining to be stout. He has a noble forehead and finely-formed head, from which (from too much mental application probably), the hair is worn off on the back part. He has fine, expressive eyes, and a countenance generally denoting kindness and benevolence of heart. He is a gentleman in every sense of the word, urbane in his manners, and polite in his address, and has drank deep at the fountains of both law and general literature. No man in this part of the country is more deservedly popular. He now holds the responsible office of Attorney-General of the State of New York.

It is truly refreshing to find a man whose solid learning, sound sense, and professional ability have been appreciated, while so many shams and pettifoggers are angling in every petty quarrel or political puddle for the fish which has the tribute money.

E. L. SNOW.

THE HON. E. L. SNOW, who has won an enduring reputation as a consistent and conscientious temperance man, was born in Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, where he was educated and honored with various positions of public trust. He represented one of the wealthiest wards in the Puritan