Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/202

466 by their disinterestedness. In the meantime, Mr. Moncreiff held onward perseveringly in his course, and the first distinguished token of his growing success occurred on the 7th of February, 1807, when he was appointed sheriff of the united counties of Clackmannan and Kinross. This fortunate rise, by which his income was doubled, and a fresh starting-point attained, occurred during the short-lived administration of Lord Grenville. In the following year (1808) he married Ann, daughter of Captain George Robertson, of the royal navy.

The career of an advocate at the bar is not an eventful one: it is simply a history of pleadings and their results, with which none but the parties concerned can be expected to feel any interest. On this account it is enough to state that every year increased Mr. MoncreifFs professional reputation; and at a period when the most illustrious of our Scottish pleaders were at the full height of their fame (Jeffrey, Cranstoun, Cockburn, Clerk), he held a rank inferior to none. Some of them, indeed, might excel him in ready or persuasive eloquence; but this inferiority was more than counterbalanced by the depth and accuracy of his legal knowledge, and his power of turning it to the best account. In this way his professional character is thus summed up by one of that illustrious confraternity who knew, and could well appreciate his merits: "Though a good thinker, not quick, but sound, he was a still better arguer. His reasoning powers, especially as they were chiefly seen concentrated on law, were of the very highest order. These, and his great legal knowledge, made him the best working counsel in court. The intensity of his energy arose from that of his conscientiousness. Everything was a matter of duty with him, and therefore he gave his whole soul to it. Jeffrey called him the whole duty of man. Simple, indifferent, and passive when unyoked, give him anything professional or public to perform, and he fell upon it with a fervour which made his enemies tremble, and his friends doubt if it was the same man. One of his cures for a headache was to sit down and clear up a deep legal question. With none, originally, of the faculties of speaking which seem a part of some men's nature, zeal, practice, and the constant possession of good matter, gave him all the oratory that he required. He could in words unravel any argument, however abstruse, or disentangle any facts, however complicated, or impress any audience with the simple and serious emotions with which he dealt. And for this purpose his style, both written and spoken, was excellent plain, clear, condensed, and nervous." In another sketch, by a different writer, we have a view of all these intellectual equipments in full vigorous action, at the time when Moncreiff was in the prime of his manhood, as well as professional reputation: "He has a countenance full of the expression of quick-sightedness and logical power, and his voice and manner of delivering himself are such as to add much to this, the natural language of his countenance. He speaks in a firm, harsh tone; and his phraseology aspires to no merit beyond that of closeness and precision. And yet, although entirely without display of imagination, and though apparently scornful to excess of every merely ornamental part of the rhetorical art, it is singular that Mr. Moncreiff should be not only a fervid and animated speaker, but infinitely more keen and fervid throughout the whole tenor of his discourse, and more given to assist his words by violence of gesture, than any of the more imaginative speakers whom I have already endeavoured to describe. When he addresses a jury, he does not seem ever to think of attacking their feelings; but he is determined and resolved that he will omit no exertion which