He was averse to the labor of writing, and beyond an address before the Literary Societies of the University, the reports, by his own hand, of some of his speeches in Congress, and other pamphlets on subjects political or religious, has left few written performances. But he had the accuracy in thought and speech of a practiced writer.
In conversation he realized in the fullest sense Bacon's idea of readiness, and shone with a lustre rarely equaled. The activity and playfulness of his thoughts and the gayety of his disposition inclined him to paradox and repartee to such a degree that his conversation was oftentimes but amusing levity. But in a moment it rose to the profoundest reflection and most fascinating eloquence. His knowledge was ever at instantaneous command, as it was far more the result of his own meditations than of acquisition from others, and fancy lent her aid in giving a grandeur to his conceptions on all the subjects of his grave discourse. After all the public displays in which he enchained the attention of judges, jurors, senators, and promiscuous assemblies with equal admiration and delight, it is a matter for doubt, among those who knew him well, whether his brightest thoughts and most felicitous utterances, the versatility of his genius, and the vast range of his contemplations were not oftener witnessed in his boon and social hours, in the converse of friends, around his own hospitable board, or at the village inn, or on a public highway--all without pedantry or apparent effort, "as if he stooped to touch the loftiest thought"--than in these elaborate and studied exhibitions. He affected no mystery, and wore no mask, and stood ready in familiar colloquy to make good, by new and apt illustrations, any sentiment advanced in formal argument, or to abandon it as untenable if satisfied of error.
His reverence for truth, to which allusion has been already made in the course of these observations, was even above his intellectual powers, his most striking characteristic. He was accustomed to speak of it "as the most distinguished attribute of God himself, and the love of it as giving to one moral being an eminence above another." To its discovery he delighted to apply the powers of his remarkable intellect, to its influence he was ready to surrender his most cherished convictions whenever found to be erroneous.