those judicial coups de patte which are so lacerating to a thin skin, and add so much to the annoyance of a bad cause and an unreasonable client. They who knew him well could sometimes read in his face signs of weariness at the thrice-told repetitions of some prosing advocate, but no expression of impatience ever escaped his lips. Like all men of powerful abilities upon the bench, he sometimes incurred the charge of arguing a case to the jury instead of simply summing it up. In this we believe there was much that was unreasonable and exaggerated. In his charges to the jury he was always full and minute, and disposed of all the questions of law that had arisen in the course of the trial unreservedly and fearlessly; and in doing this it was hardly possible for him not to hold up to the jury, from his own point of view, those facts to which the principles of law were applied. There is also another consideration to be adverted to on this point. The advocate who closes for the plaintiff is very apt to introduce some new point, or some new modification of a point previously made; and when this was done, he felt himself at liberty to reply to it in his charge to the jury, and generally did so. In regard to his own relations to the causes that were tried before him, he was certainly not of the opinion of John Horne Tooke, who, when on trial for treason, said that the whole matter was between him and the jury-the judge and the crier having each their prescribed duties, neither of which were to affect his rights.

The life of Mr. Justice Story, from the time of his appointment to the bench till that of his removal to Cambridge and the commencement of a new sphere of activity, flowed on in a tranquil and uneventful course. It was a busy, an honorable and a happy life. His judicial duties afforded constant occupation to the highest faculties of his mind, and yet left him considerable time for study, for social satisfactions, and for the discharge of those various claims of society from which the highest are not exempt in our community. He was constantly adding to the stores of his legal learning, and his industrious habits and orderly disposition of time enabled him to keep pace with the current literature of the day. He was eminently happy in his domestic relations, though his affectionate nature was severely tried by the loss of many children-a bereavement which he bore as a Christian, though he felt as a man.

The simple and pure pleasures which clustered round his family hearth were more to his taste than all the gratifications which the world could minister to him. When he crossed his own threshold, all the care and weariness of life vanished from his heart and his brow; and the animation of his smile, and the cheerful vivacity of his tone and manner, showed that he always found there the air of peace. He was so much attached to his home that the only element in his lot which he could have wished to change, was the necessity of an annual separation from his family, required by his attendance upon the Supreme Court at Washington. He was happy, too, in a wide circle of loving and honoring friends, and in the respect and confidence which followed his steps wherever he moved. He always took a lively interest in the progress of the society in which he lived, and never stood coldly aloof when his talents and influence were required in a cause which he approved. His miscellaneous labors in this period of life would alone have redeemed a man from the charge of idleness. He pronounced, in 1813, a eulogy upon Capt. Lawrence, of the frigate Chesapeake. The elaborate memorial of the merchants of Salem against the Tariff, in 1820, was drawn up by him. In 1821, he delivered an address before the members of the Suffolk Bar, which was published in the American Jurist, in 1829, and has been republished in England in Clark's Cabinet Library of Scarce and Celebrated Tracts. In 1835, he pronounced the annual discourse before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University; a performance marked by a flowing and persuasive eloquence, and showing a familiar acquaintance with the best literature of the age. In 1828, he delivered the centennial address upon the two hundredth Anniversary of the town of Salem, a beautiful discourse, happy in the choice of topics and in the manner of treating them. The paragraph upon the fate of the Indians, in particular, we would specify as adorned by the best graces of poetry and eloquence. He wrote biographical sketches of Samuel Dexter, Mr. Justice Trimble, Mr. Justice Washington, Mr. Chief Justice Parker, William Pinckney, and Thomas A. Emmet. He contributed to the North American Review several elaborate papers on legal subjects. In the Encyclopædia Americana," the titles Congress, Contract, Courts of the United

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States, Criminal Law, Capital Punishment, Domicil, Equity, Jury, Lien, Law, Legislation and Codes, Natural Law, National Law, Prize, Usury, were furnished by him. To the above may be added his impressive charge to the Grand Jury at Portland, in 1821, on the horrors of the slave-trade.

No inconsiderable portion of his time and thoughts was given to the interests of his alma mater, the University in Cambridge, to which he was ever attached by the strong ties of filial love and reverence. In 1818, he was elected an overseer of the College, and in 1825, was chosen a Fellow of the Corporation. In January, 1825, while yet an overseer, he delivered, and afterwards published, an argument against the memorial of the professors and tutors claiming the exclusive right to be elected Fellows of the Corporation, full of curious and recondite learning, upon a subject which, we believe, was never before discussed in America.

In 1829, an important change took place in his life, materially adding to his duties and widening the sphere of his usefulness. In that year, the Hon. Nathan Dane, of Beverly, a name never to be mentioned without a sentiment of respect for his services and labors as a legislator and a jurist, proposed to give a new impulse to that study of sound law which he felt to be so important an element in the permanence of free states, by the foundation of a professorship of law in Harvard University. He made it a condition of the endowment, willingly acceded to by the authorities of the University, that he should nominate the first incumbent of the Chair, and Mr. Justice Story accordingly became the first Dane Professor of Law, and the head of the Law Department of the University. Mr. Dane had previously obtained his consent to the proposed arrangement; and indeed without it, the plan would never have been carried into effect. Mr. Justice Story accordingly, in that year, removed with his family to Cambridge, where he resided during the remainder of his life, actively engaged in the duties of the Professor's chair.

For this new trust he had singular qualifications, giving distinct assurance of the splendid success which soon followed the school, and amply justifying the prophetic sagacity of Mr. Dane. His reputation was widely diffused over the whole United States, and his name was a source of interest and attraction in its most re

mote borders. His unrivaled stores of learning extorted the admiration of all who were capable of measuring them. But neither his fame nor his learning, nor yet both combined, would have fitted him for a teacher of law. Without other qualifications, his wealth of learning might have been as useless to his pupils as the hoarded gold of the miser to the beggar at his gate. But so remarkable were his powers of teaching, that it is hardly extravagant to say that his learning was the least of the gifts which he brought to that office. It is related of Dugald Stewart, that when very young he taught a mathematical class with singular success, which he explained, by saying that he was only one lesson in advance of his pupils. In like manner, had Mr. Justice Story's legal attainments borne the same relation to those of his pupils, we have no doubt that he would have taught them faithfully and well. Every one who has had occasion to observe the relation between the teacher and the taught, knows that the most important requisite in a teacher-that which is absolutely indispensable-is an element not easily defined but instantly recognized, a mysterious power over the mind, depending, in a very considerable degree, upon natural organization, the want of which can never be supplied, though the faculty itself, like all others, is capable of improvement and cultivation. This quality he had in a preeminent degree. There was a magnetism in his manner which secured the fixed, untrembling attention of all who approached him. His temperament was active, cheerful and buoyant. He threw off the weight of official toil as a strong swimmer flings aside the invading wave. No amount of labor depressed his spirit, or hung heavy upon the natural beatings of his heart. His mind was ever salient, animated and vivacious. Like all men of simple character and habits, he preserved to the last the freshness of his tastes and his relish for the common pleasures of life. In his unoccupied moments, his spirits were ever those of a school-boy on a holiday. When to these gifts are added the purely physical recommendations of a countenance regular, flexible and expressive, beaming with intelligence and benevolence, an animated movement of person, the most cordial and winning of smiles, and a ready joyous and contagious laugh, his power and persuasiveness as a teacher of law may well be imagined.

of his labors in the chair was the publication of his "Commentaries on the Law of Bailments," which contains not only all the common law learning upon this subject, but all that is valuable and important in the writings of the civilians whose works he had studied with the unabated ardor of his earlier years. This work was followed, in 1833, by his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States," in three volumes, comprising a sketch of the charters, constitutional history and jurisprudence of the British American Colonies, a history and synopsis of the confederation of the States, a history of the adoption of the present Constitution, and a minute exposition of all its provisions a work of various and profound learning, full of the results of sound political wisdom and careful observation of the history of the country. In 1834, appeared the "Commentaries upon the Conflict of Laws," which we may venture to pronounce the most able, original and profound of his legal writings. It is a work of the highest order, and would alone entitle the author to a place in the first class of jurists. There was no similar work before it in the English language, and consequently no guiding landmarks to aid the writer in his extensive researches. His materials were to be gathered from a mass of conflicting decisions, and especially from a frowning array of foreign writers, whose learned treatises were not even known by name to nine-tenths of the English or American bar. The various, deep and rare learning of this work is not more admirable than its luminous arrangement, the natural suc. cession of its topics, and the fullness of its illustrations. From the character of the subject, this work has been more widely circulated than any of his legal treatises. It has had the unbiased and unqualified praise of the principal jurists of Europe, and was commended by a late eminent European judge, as a work that "no jurist can peruse without admiration of the industry, candor and learning with which it has been composed."

His next contribution to the literature of his profession, was a work on Equity Jurisprudence, in two volumes. It is not enough to say of this that it is the best work upon the subject in the language, as the previous treatises had not been of conspicuous excellence. It is one of the very best books that have ever been written in English, upon any legal subject. It pours new floods of light upon the ori

gin and essential character of equity jurisprudence, and shows the harmonious relation which exists between its leading doctrines and the principles of natural law and the rules of sound morality. It is alike satisfactory to the philosophical inquirer and to the practicing lawyer. The same substantial merit may be assigned to his subsequent work on Equity Pleading, in which a difficult and abstruse subject is treated with singular clearness and comprehensiveness. These works on Equity have succeeded, in a remarkable degree, in breaking down those barriers of exclusion which our Transatlantic brethren are too apt to rear against foreign juridical works. Their popularity in England is as great as in America, and none of the works of their own great lights of the law are more confidently resorted to for aid, or more frequently cited.

Four other treatises on legal subjects were also prepared and published by him in the last six years of his life, on the Law of Agency, the Law of Partnership, the Law of Bills of Exchange, and the Law of Promissory Notes, all marked by the fullness of learning and the flowing style which had characterized his previous publications. Thus, within the space of fourteen years, twelve large octavo volumes were added to the permanent literature of jurisprudence, by a man engaged in arduous judicial duties, and constantly occupied, except when at Washington, in the labors of the professor's chair. What more honorable trophies of industry has the world to show than these? What encouragements, and what rebukes, may be drawn from such a life! Nor were these toils sufficient to exhaust his unbounded capacity for labor. Within this period belong his inaugural discourse, as professor-an admirable exposition of the spirit and principles of law; his feeling and appropriate eulogy upon his lamented associate, Professor Ashmun, who was cut off in the bloom of his early promise, young in years, but ripe in legal attainments; his beautiful address at the consecration of the cemetery of Mt. Auburn; his lectures before the Boston Mechanics' Institute, the American Institute of Instruction, and a Lyceum in the town of Cambridge; and his discourse before the Alumni of Harvard University. In 1835, at the request of the members of the Suffolk bar, he pronounced a discourse commemorative of the life and services of Chief Justice Marshall-a feeling and

beautiful tribute to the memory of an intimate and dear friend, whose person he loved, whose genius he admired, and whose character he reverenced. He had previously contributed a biographical sketch of the same illustrious magistrate to the pages of the National Portrait Gallery. With all these accumulated toils, he never seemed hurried or oppressed, so perfect was his command' over his powers, and so orderly was his disposition of time. No one who had the slightest claims upon him was ever turned away from his presence; and the stranger who casually saw him in his leisure moments might have supposed him some retired gentleman, who had nothing to do but to stroll from his drawing-room to his library, so free were his conversation and deportment from that nervous anxiety and restless impatience into which very busy men are apt to fall. He still continued a member of the corporation of the University, was a punctual attendant upon their frequent meetings, and was ever ready to assume his fair proportion of their labors. He also took a lively interest in the cemetery of Mt. Auburn, whose hallowed precincts are now made more sacred as the resting-place of his own remains. He was for many years the President of the Corporation, spent much time in the discharge of the duties of the trust, and prepared many elaborate reports. He also found time for the claims of society, and for the gratification of his own kindly and social nature. He was frequently found, an honored guest, in the cultivated and intelligent circles of Boston and Cambridge, instructing his hearers by his genial wisdom and the stores of his capacious memory, and charming them by his good humor, his simplicity and his ready sympathy, rivaling the young in light-hearted gayety, and proving to the old that the lapse of time need have no power over the heart and the mind.

We are now approaching the close of the life of this eminent jurist and excel lent man. His health had generally been good, as the vast amount of his labors sufficiently proves, though his constitution was never robust, and occasional fits of illness, especially of late years, had warned him that even his amazing capacity for intellectual toil might be overtasked. The latter years of his judicial life were among the most laborious. The eastern land speculations, especially,

and the ruin and bankruptcy consequent upon the bursting of that portentous bubble, led to some of the most arduous and exhausting trials ever witnessed in a court of justice, and imposed upon him the necessity of examining the most difficult questions in law and equity, and applying them to a long series of transactions of the most complicated and intricate character, perplexed with monstrous contradictions in testimony utterly inconsistent with the veracity of all the witnesses. Warned at length by the lengthening shadows of life, and the occasional admonitions of illness, he had determined to resign his seat upon the bench, to pass the remainder of his days in the home he so much loved, occupied with the duties of the professor's chair and the preparation of new works in jurisprudence. Though his relations with his brethren upon the bench were of the most harmonious kind, it is not improbable that another element which led to this determination was a consciousness of the change which had come over the spirit of the court. In the school of constitutional law he had sat with filial reverence at the feet of Marshall, and now a new generation had arisen, which saw with other eyes and understood with other understanding than his. He had before him the forlorn alternative of perpetual dissent from the majority of the bench, or of giving the negative countenance of his silence to the removal of the old landmarks; and in the sadness of his heart he lent a more ready ear to the warnings of age and the counsels of friendship.

To the interval of repose between the bench and the grave, he looked forward with singular satisfaction. Few men ever entered the vale of declining years, attended by more good angels than he. He had the honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," which should accompany old age. His fame was extended to every country in which justice is administered by established laws. He formed one of the most prominent attractions of the community in which he lived, and no stranger of any distinction ever visited Boston, who did not look forward to the gratification of seeing him as one of his chief pleasures in anticipation, and no one ever left his presence without a new sense of his greatness and his goodness. The beautiful language of the patriarch might, without the least alloy of extravagance, be applied to him: "When the