ear heard him, then it blessed him; and when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him." Time had not severed those domestic ties from which so large a part of his satisfactions were drawn. The wife of his early manhood still sat by his hearth, the constant sharer of his happiness and his cares. He had the pleasure of seeing his two surviving children-a son and a daughter-dwelling in happy homes of their own, so near to him that the pang of separation was hardly felt. He had, too, the great gratification of reading an excellent treatise on the law of Contracts, by his son, W. W. Story, Esq., and of witnessing its flattering reception by the legal profession. The law school was to him an object of ever-increasing interest and attachment. He looked forward with keen desire to the time when he might devote to it the entire measure of his time and thoughts. To impart to the ingenuous young men who, year after year, should come up to attend upon his teachings, the principles of that science which he comprehended so thoroughly and loved so well; to hold up to their imitation his own standard of public and professional morality; to animate them with his own high-toned patriotism; and thus, to diffuse through an ever-widening circle the influence of his own mind and character, and make their unworn energies the perpetual guardians and protectors of the institutions which he so much valued, gladdening the winter of his own life with the vernal promise of the virtues and capacities which he had helped to rear and train this was an object of interest to him sufficient to arouse all his powers, and fill the measure of his life with satisfaction and content. Of honor and distinction he had had enough-far more than he had ventured to hope in the wildest dreams of his youth. His pulse no longer bounded to the call of ambition; but the sea is not more swayed by the attraction of the moon than was his spirit moved and stirred, in all its depths, by the great idea of duty.

But the Supreme Disposer of human events, to whose decrees he always bowed with filial submission, did not permit these fond anticipations to be realized. He was desirous, before leaving the bench, to dispose of every case which had been argued before him; and for this purpose, he labored with self-forgetting assiduity during the exhausting heats of the last summer. In this enfeebled state

of his system, a slight cold was the precursor of an acute attack of chronic disorder, which soon baffled the skill of his physicians; and after a few days of great suffering, the powers of nature gradually gave way; and after some hours of apparent unconsciousness, he tranquilly breathed his last on the evening of the tenth of September last.

The intelligence of his death threw a deep gloom over the community of which he had been so long the ornament and the pride. His funeral, though strictly private, was attended by a large number of the most distinguished men in Boston, and its vicinity. An impressive eulogy was pronounced at Cambridge, on the Wednesday after his death, by Professor Greenleaf, at the request of the college faculty and the law students, which was listened to with deep interest by a numerous and most intelligent audience. At a meeting of the members of the Boston bar, appropriate resolutions were offered by Mr. Webster, who accompanied them with some observations, remarkable even among the productions of his mind for their weight of sentiment and serene beauty of style; and it is understood that this distinguished gentleman has in preparation an elaborate discourse upon the life and services of the deceased, which he was requested to pronounce by a vote of the same meeting. Judge Davis, the late district judge of the district of Massachusetts, and Judge Sprague, the present incumbent, also spoke on this occasion. The feeling and tremulous tones in which the former gentleman, venerable for his years, his character and his services, bore his tribute to the virtues and attainments of one who had so long been associated with him in judicial labors, will never be forgotten by those who were present. Similar testimonials of respect were offered by the members of the legal profession in Portland, Providence, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

Such is an imperfect sketch of the life and services of this great man. We have dwelt upon his conspicuous excellence in three several departments: as a judge, a writer of legal treatises, and a teacher of law. He who, in any one of these, had reached his eminence, would have been deemed a fortunate man; how enviable is the lot of him who was so admirable in them all. To dwell further upon his claims and merits as a jurist; to compare him with the other great names in this

department, living or dead; and to show wherein they equaled, and wherein they fell short of him-for we acknowledge no superior-would be giving to this communication a professional character hardly suitable for a journal devoted to miscellaneous literature and general politics. We have spoken, too, of his most striking qualities as a man. To paint him as he was, crowned with so many claims to love, honor, esteem and admiration to delineate that image which dwells in the memory of his friends-we cannot hope to do. We believe it is Johnson who compares great men to great cities, which show so fairly at a distance, with their spires and palaces glittering in the sun, but which, when nearly approached, offend the eye with narrow and crooked lanes, uncouth structures, and the wretched hovels of pov erty. The comparison is just, as applied to many, perhaps most, great men; but he, of whom we are writing, was a striking exception. The fine gold of his gifts and his virtues was dimmed with as little of alloy as the lot of humanity will permit. There was nothing in him for friendship to conceal, or envy to proclaim. He was not only a great judge, jurist and teacher, but a thoroughly and consistently good man. He was a kind neighbor, a faithful friend, and tender and affectionate son, brother, husband and father. He was born to be loved, as well as honored and esteemed. They alone, who saw him in his intimate relations, could appreciate the simplicity of his character and the warmth of his heart. He had none of the affectations of greatness, and none of its selfishness. He did not affect to conceal what he was, nor pretend to be what he was not. He did not repel men by an owlish gravity of deportment, still less by the chilling haughtiness of his manner. In conversing with him, it was not merely the mind which was instructed and aroused by his vivid intellectual power, and the wonderful variety and extent of his knowledge, but the heart was expanded by the sweetness of his temper and his genial sympathy. The visitor left his presence with a lighter step, and an erected brow of confidence. The kind ness of such a man had enhanced his own claims to self-respect. He had no cold and fastidious disdain of the common duties and interests of life. He did not feel himself entitled, because of his greatness, to put aside all that was ex

He took his part

He

acted of common men. in the general lot of humanity, and whatever of work came in his way was done by him faithfully and conscientiously, without reference to its tendency to add to his consideration or extend his fame. Indeed, his readiness to forget all that separated him from common men, and to remember all that he shared with them, was one of the most touching and beautiful traits in his character. He was tolerant of mediocrity. He bore with equanimity the constant interruptions to which his valuable time was exposed. In his treatment of men of inferior condition, he had none of the insolence of disdain, or of the insolence of condescension. met them on the level of a common humanity. It was said of Scott by a daylaborer, that he spoke to every man as if he had been a blood-relation; and the spirit of the remark might also be applied to Story. In his last illness, some touching proofs were exhibited of the general attachment which his uniform kindness of manner had inspired. Some of the humblest of his neighbors, whose monotony of daily toil had perhaps been gilded by his cordial greeting, beaming smile or friendly inquiry, came and asked of his household if there was nothing which they could do for him or the members of his family-no small service which they could render to the great man, who had never come within their lowly sphere without lifting them for a moment out of it. During his illness, his condition, with its alternations of hope and fear, was the engrossing subject of interest and conversation in the town of Cambridge. Every face wore the same expression of anxious solicitude; and the tidings of his death filled every household with the gloom of a personal bereavement.

His character had the crowning excellence which flows from a deep principle of religious faith. He had studied the evidences of Christianity with the ardor and application of mind demanded by the importance of the subject, and he rested with calm satisfaction upon the conviction of its divine origin. He often spoke of a purpose which he had in prospect, of writing a work in which the rules of legal evidence should be applied to the events of the gospel narrative, in which the question of the divine origin of Christianity should be argued as before a jury in a court of justice. The value of such a work from such a mind may well be

imagined. His religion was an active principle in his life. He not only knew but felt, that his destiny was in the hands of a God of wisdom, justice and benevolence. He was grateful to Him for the influence and consideration which he enjoyed for the various blessings with which his life had been crowned. He submitted without a murmur to the parental discipline of his Heavenly Father. The loss of his children had deeply tried his fortitude, and filled his bosom with anguish, but this could only be inferred by the warm sympathy which gushed from his heart, when any of his friends was called to drink the same bit

ter cup.

Our task is thus brought to a close. In reviewing what we have written, we are painfully struck with its inadequacy to give to those who knew him not a proper estimate of what he was. The writer was, for many years, honored by

his friendship and his confidence, and, in laying this humble offering upon his grave, he feels how unworthy it is of him whose dust reposes beneath. He traces these lines with suffused eyes and a trembling hand, for a part of the daily light of his life has now vanished from his path. His heart swells as he recalls that countenance which for so many years was never turned towards him but with an expression of interest and affection. That weil-remembered voice is again borne to the ear by the breeze from the land of spirits. The present fades from the eye and the thoughts, and the past returns; and the beautiful words of Shenstone seem the only adequate expression of the feeling with which he takes leave of the subject:

"Eheu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse.”

LETTERS from Washington, on which we rely, render it probable that Mr. SLIDELL, our newly appointed minister to Mexico, goes clothed with power to treat with that government for the cession of California to the United States. The intelligence is vague, but we trust it is true, and that the negotiation may prove successful. The natural progress of events will undoubtedly give us that province just as it gave us Texas. Already American emigrants thither are to be numbered by thousands, and we may, at almost any moment, look for a declaration, which shall dissolve the slight bonds that now link the province to Mexico, and prepare the way for its ultimate annexation to the United States.

Regarding, therefore, the accession of California as an event which present tendencies, if not checked or counteracted, must render inevitable, we should prefer to see it accomplished by an agency, at once more direct and less questionable in point of national morality. It cannot be disguised that we stand open to the charge of having colonized Texas, and recognized her independence, for the express

purpose of seizing her soil-that we wrested her territory from Mexico, peacefully and by a gradual process, to be sure, but as really and as wrongfully as if we had conquered her by arms in the field of battle. It cannot but be, at least, suspected that the grounds of the revolution which made Texas independent of the central state, lacked those essential elements which alone redeem rebellion from crime, and justify the disruption of those political bonds which constitute a statethat no overwhelming necessity for such a step existed-and that the reasons assigned, where not palpably false, were unsound and frivolous. We were not slow to recognize this independence-nor to avail ourselves of it, to transfer to ourselves that sovereignty which had thus been annulled.

It will be impossible, under all the circumstances of this transaction, to persuade the world that these events had no connection with each other, either in fact or in the intentions of our government which, directly or indirectly, gave vigor and success to them all. Until the memory of this achievement shall have some

what faded, we do not desire to see the experiment renewed. If we are to have a further accession of territory, we hope to see it effected by an open purchase and a voluntary cession. Thus did we come in possession of Florida, including the Oregon dispute, and on terms which the country, we believe, thus far at least, does not deem extravagant. Texas, it seems not at all unlikely, may yet cost us more than would in the beginning have bought it outright; and California, it may fairly be presumed, may now be purchased, at least nemine contradicente, for a sum which the country will deem small for so valuable an acquisition.

For, certainly, we do regard it as extremely desirable that California-a part, at least, of the province known by that name-should become the property, and remain forever under the exclusive jurisdiction, of the United States. Lower California, as it is called, embracing the long, narrow peninsula between the Gulf and the Pacific, stretching from the 21st to the 33d degree of latitude, a distance of above eight hundred miles, with an average breadth of about sixty, is universally represented by travelers as sterile and hopelessly desolate. It consists, indeed, of a chain of volcanic, treeless, barren mountains of rock, broken only by still more dreary plains of sand, destitute of streams, swept by fierce tornadoes, and of necessity abandoned almost entirely to sterility and desolation. Scattered spots now and then occur, where the torrents of rain have not washed away the soil, or where, being surrounded by rocks on every side, it has been protected from those influences which have made the peninsula, on the whole, the most uninhabitable region of the northern temperate zone. These, however, are neither frequent enough nor large enough to redeem, or relieve, the general character of the country; and Lower California must always remain an undesirable possession for any country, except one that sways a barren sceptre and to which extent, not fertility, of territory seems attractive. It may well, therefore, be left to Mexico.

With Upper California the case is different. The southern and eastern portions indeed nearly the whole province except that part bordering on the Pacificis scarcely more valuable than the lower province. Through the eastern section extends the chain of the Rocky Mountains, broken into fragments, and con

verting a wide space of the country, through its entire length, into a waste perfectly uninhabitable, producing very little vegetation, and through which the traveler, with danger and difficulty, finds a casual and precarious path. West of this chain lies a vast, sandy plain, nearly seven hundred miles in length, with a width of one hundred miles at its southern, and two hundred at its northern, extremity. The whole valley of the Colorado is utterly barren, and is described by an American traveler as a great burial-place of former fertility, which can never return. Like its branches the river is not navigable. The Gila, which forms the southeastern boundary of the province, is a rapid stream, and its upper portion flows through rich and beautiful valleys, capable of supporting a numerous population. In the centre of the northern section of Upper California lies the Timpanigos desert, between four and five hundred miles square, and pro bably the most utterly desolate region of so great an extent upon the western continent. On its northwest border Mary's river takes its rise, and flows southwestwardly about one hundred and sixty miles, into its own lake, which is about sixty miles in length, and half as wide. The valley of the stream has a rich soil, which, were not the atmosphere too dry, would be well adapted to agricultural purposes, and contains many fine groves of aspen and pine, that shelter deer, elk and other game.

The remaining part of Upper California-that which lies nearest the Pacific coast-is not only by far the best portion of the province, but one of the most beautiful regions on the face of the earth. It embraces the whole country drained by the waters which empty into the Bay of San Francisco. These are, first, beginning at the south, the San Joaquin, which rises in a lake called Bonavista, in latitude 36°, and about three hundred miles northwest of the mouth of the Colorado; it runs thence, northwest some six hundred miles, with a deep and tranquil current, navigable for two hundred and fifty miles above its mouth, and through a valley six hundred miles in length, and from forty to one hundred in width; bounded on every side by mountains, which thus inclose a prairie surface, covered with trees which skirt the streams, of above 40,000 square miles in superficial extent. Among the highlands which inclose this valley, are vast for

ests filled with the loftiest and finest celars and pines in the world, with every variety of soil, fresh water lakes, and every element of unbounded agricultural wealth, except a propitious climate. From November to March the whole valley is flooded by heavy and incessant rains; and from April until Autumn an intolerable heat converts this vast fen of stagnant waters into a valley of the Shadow of Death. This evil, however, it is confidently asserted, is susceptible of an easy remedy by draining these accumulated waters into the river.

From the north flows another and much larger river, the Sacramento, which, rising among the mountains that skirt the lower border of Oregon, flows for nearly three hundred miles through an open, level country, naturally fertile, and annually overflowed by the waters of the river, which thus, like the Nile, enriches and adorns the region through which it runs ; cut on the east side by numerous tributary streams skirted with timber, and striped upon the west by groves, and lakes, and great savannas, and presenting one of the richest and most beautiful regions on the face of the earth. In the wet season this river is navigable to steamers of three hundred tons for nearly two hundred miles above its mouth; and even in the dryest season, small boats without difficulty make their way for over one hundred miles to what is called the Forks, where the Sacramento receives its great western branch, named upon the map of Capt. Wilkes, Destruction river, which rises in the Sierra Nevada, and flows for about two hundred miles with a rapid current, through a fertile region, into its principal stream. The Jesus Maria rises amid the heights of the Snowy Mountains, directly South of Cape Mendocino; and, flowing south at an average distance of twenty miles from the ocean, through a region of hills and rolling plains, heavily covered with forests of most valuable timber, falls into the Bay of San Francisco.

The valuable part of Upper California is thus seen to embrace that region of the province drained by the waters that discharge themselves, at San Franciso, into the Pacific sea. Its superficial extent cannot be estimated at less than 40,000 square miles, nearly as much as that of the State of New York, and twothirds that of the British Islands. Of its

beauty and fertility, all travelers agree in giving most glowing and enthusiastic descriptions. Perouse, one of the earliest of its visitants, says, that its "climate differs a little from that of the southern provinces of France; at least, the cold is never so piercing there, but the heat of summer is much more moderate, owing to the continual fogs which reign there, and which procure for the land a humidity very favorable to vegetation." Immediately upon the coast it has been represented that the sea-winds and fogs blast the foliage of trees in exposed situations; but on leaving the ocean nothing of the kind is witnessed, and all are alike enchanted with the boundless fertility and unequaled beauty of the inland regions. The English voyager, Vancouver, who traversed this country at an early day, after speaking of the mountains, "the sides and summits of which exhibited a high degree of luxuriant fertility," says:

entered a country I little expected to find

"We had not proceeded far, when we

in these regions. For about twenty miles, it could only be compared to a park, which had originally been planted with the true old English oak; the underwood, that had probably attained its early growth, had the appearance of having been cleared away, and had left the stately lords of the forest in complete possession of the soil, which was covered with luxuriant herbage, and beautifully diversified with pleasing eminences and valleys; which, with the lofty range of mountains that bounded the prospect, required only to be adorned with the neat habitations of an industrious people, to produce a scene not inferior to the most studied effect of taste in the disposal of grounds."

The same traveler was struck with its excellent productions, not only in"the quality, quantity and variety of digenous to the country, but appertaining to the temperate, as well as torrid zone;" and he makes the remark, that "not one species had been sown planted that had not flourished and yielded its fruits in abundance, and of excellent quality." Equally explicit, and of still more authority, is the statement of Humboldt:

or