"This simple life," says Judge Davis, "Mr.Lincoln loved, preferring it to the practice of the law in the city.

In all the elements that constitute the great lawyer, he had few equals.

He seized the strong points of a cause, and presented them with clearness and great compactness.

He read law-books but little, except when the cause in hand made it necessary; yet he was unusually self-reliant, depending on his own resources, and rarely consulting his brother lawyers either on the management of his case or the legal questions involved.

He was the fairest and most accommodating of practitioners, granting all favors which he could do consistently with his duty to his client, and rarely availing himself of an unwary oversight of his adversary.