Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 18.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[46] stands among men in towering and barbaric grandeur; in all the hardihood and rudeness of perfect originality; independent of the polish and beyond the reach of art. His vast outline and grand, but mild and undefined, proportions, liken him to a huge mass of granite, torn, in some convulsion of nature, from a mountain's side, which any effort of the chisel would only disfigure, and which no instrument in the sculptor's studio could grasp or comprehend.

In 1855, during the rage of Know-Nothingism, he declared his opposition to the ‘American Party,’ and stated the grounds of his objection, at Versailles, in one of his most forcible speeches. In 1856 he removed to Chicago. He complained that ‘there was not room in Kentucky’—that he ‘had always been crowded.’ He determined to fix his home by the bright waters of the lake, in the young and rising city of the West. But his stay was not long. He returned to Kentucky in August of the same year that he had left it, in order to manage a law-suit of great importance. While in Lexington his friends, understanding that he was opposed to the election of Buchanan to the presidency, literally forced him to take the stump for the Whig ticket. Again he canvassed the State, spoke day and night, and got to Versailles the very day of the election. His exertions and exposure during the most imclement weather broke down his health. He was attacked by a violent fit of pneumonia, cough, spitting blood, etc., and was confined to his bed in Frankfort during the whole of the ensuing winter.

One of Mr. Marshall's most finished orations was the eulogy on the life and character of Richard H. Menefee, delivered in Lexington, April 12, 1841, before the members of the Law Society of Transylvania University. Richard H. Menefee was a young lawyer and statesman of rare ability and much promise. His untimely death at the age of thirty-one was universally regretted. Mr. Marshall poured forth the eloquent sorrow of the State in a stream rich and full and strong. The annals of eulogy and panegyric may be sought in vain for a more splendid piece of composition.

For some years before his death Mr. M. was engaged in delivering what he called ‘Discourses on History.’ Invitations poured in upon him from all parts of the country—villages, towns and cities. People everywhere sat fascinated under the spell of his wondrous speech. He would stand for three hours, without note, memorandum or a scrap of paper before him, and the eloquence would stream from his lips like moonlight upon a marble statue. But the sands in the hour-glass of his life were fast running out. In spite of repeated