Judge S——— was a noble specimen of a gentleman of the old school—of the most transparent simplicity, thorough honesty in deed and word, and unswerving independence. I remember well the first time of meeting him. His quaint old carriage drove up to the door of our lodgings, and the vehicle and the occupant looked like specimens of the good old days gone by. It was worth a thousand miles' travel to receive such a shake of the hand, and such an invitation to visit him at his plantation. His eye had an almost feminine mildness, yet in its affectionate expression there was a latent manliness is in the mild blue sky, above whose transparent depths the Sun-God has his throne, and can thence at will launch his arrows at their mark. It was quite a new phase of life that the days spent on his plantation disclosed. Never have I seen more affection between the various members of a family; never a more earnest purpose to be just and kind in every social relation. The Judge was no admirer of slavery, and if the counsels of such men as he had prevailed, the curse of bondage would, ere this, have been erased from the statute-book of Kentucky. He aimed, so far as the laws allowed him, to abolish slavery in his own domain, by exchanging servitude for service, and treating his dependents as servants to be protected. They looked upon him with great affection, and could honestly pray that he might live a thousand years. When an absent son returned, it was a rare sight to see the welcome of him by the slaves the morning after his arrival. They seemed all to claim kindred with him, and their cordial greeting to Master Josh was a better commentary than any antiquarian notes upon the redeeming features of the old patriarchal times. In becoming acquainted with the slaves, one marks quite as wide differences of character as among their prouder lords. I found in the two who took charge of the horses, genuine representatives of characters that have stamped their mark upon the world's history. The coachman was a thorough-going mystic, a believer in visions and trances, which he interpreted to auditors, who listened with open ears and distended eyes. He was a preacher, as he and his admirers thought, of heaven's own ordaining; and, although occasionally somewhat given to excessive potations, his hearers, with an acuteness equal to that of many pious white people under similar circumstances, carefully distin-
