not find it difficult to make his way among them. His practice was, indeed, at first mostly in criminal cases, and many are the stories told of the marvelous effects produced by his eloquence upon the simple-minded Kentucky jurymen, and of the culprits saved by him from a well-merited fate. In one of those cases, — that of a Mrs. Phelps, a respectable farmer's wife, who in a fit of angry passion had killed her sister-in-law with a musket, — he used “temporary delirium” as a ground of defense, and thus became, if not the inventor, at least one of the earliest advocates, of that theory of emotional insanity which has served so much to confuse people's notions about the responsibility of criminals. But in the case of Mrs. Phelps the jury, with characteristic confusion of judgment, found that the accused was just insane enough not to be hung, but not insane enough to be let off without a term in jail.
There is one very curious exploit on record, exhibiting in a strong light Clay's remarkable power, not only as a speaker, but as an actor. A man named Willis was tried for a murder of peculiar atrocity. In the very teeth of the evidence, which seemed to be absolutely conclusive, Clay, defending him, succeeded in dividing the jury as to the nature of the crime committed. The jurors having been unable to agree, the public prosecutor moved for a new trial, which motion Clay did not oppose. But when, at the new trial, his turn came to address the jury, he argued that, whatever opinion the
