recollected that at that time there were no voluminous treatises upon
the mere routine of practice to be committed to memory, without adding
a single legal principle or useful idea to the mind, and which only
teach the law student, as has been said of the art of the rhetorician,
'how to name his tools.' Burr, fortunately for his future professional
eminence, was not destined to graze upon this barren moor. He spent
his clerkship in reading and abstracting, with pen in hand, Coke and
the elementary writers, instead of Sellon and Tidd; and learnt law as
a science, and not as a mechanical art."

On the other hand, it has been said "that Colonel Burr was not a
deep-read lawyer; that he showed himself abundantly conversant with
the general knowledge of the profession, and that he was skilful in
suggesting doubts and questions; but that he exhibited no indications
of a fondness for the science, nor of researches into its abstruse
doctrines; that he seemed, indeed, to hold it and its administration
in slight estimation. The best definition of law, he said, was
'_whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained_.' This sarcasm
was intended full as much for the courts as for the law administered
by them."

If Colonel Burr may have been surpassed in legal erudition, he
possessed other qualifications for successful practice at the bar
which were seldom equalled. He prepared his trials with an industry
and forethought that were most surprising. He spared no labour or
expense in attaining every piece of evidence that would be useful in
his attacks, or guard him against his antagonist. He was absolutely
indefatigable in the conduct of his suits. "He pursued (says a legal
friend) the opposite party with notices, and motions, and
applications, and appeals, and rearguments, never despairing himself,