The Court sat till six o'clock and often far into the evening, and began at half-past eight or nine. So there was no chance for the country lawyers to go home at night. There was great fun at these old taverns in the evening and at meal times. They insisted generally, like Mrs. Battles in whist, on the rigor of the game, and the lawyer had to look sharp after his pleadings or he found himself tripped up. The parties could not be witnesses, nor could any person interested in the result of the trial. So many a good case, and many a good defence failed for want of the legal evidence to make it out. But the whole Bar and the public seemed to take an interest in important trials. People came in from the country round with their covered wagons, simply for the pleasure of attending Court and seeing the champions contend with each other. The lawyers who were not engaged in the case were always ready to help those who were with advice and suggestion. It used to be expected that members of the Bar would be in the court-house hearing the trials even if they were not engaged in them. That was always an excuse for being absent from the office, and their clients sought them at the court-house for consultation. I cannot but think that the listening to the trial and argument of causes by skilful advocates was a better law school than any we have now, and that our young men, especially in the large cities, fail to become good advocates and to learn the art of putting in a case, and of examining and cross-examining witnesses, for want of a constant and faithful attendance on the courts.

In those old times, our old lawyers, if Charles Lamb had known them and should paint them, would make a set of portraits as interesting as his old Benchers of the Inner Temple. Old Calvin Willard, many years sheriff of Worcester, would have delighted Elia. He did not keep the wig or the queue or the small-clothes of our great-grandfathers, but he had their formal and ceremonial manners in perfection. It was like a great State ceremonial to meet him and shake hands with him. He paused for a moment, surveyed you carefully to be sure of the person, took a little time for reflection to be sure there was nothing in the act to compromise his dignity, and then slowly held out his hand. But the grasp was a warm one, and the ceremony and the hand-shake conveyed his cordial respect and warmth of regard. He always reminded me of the Englishman in Crabbe's "Tales" who, I think, may have been his kinsman.

The wish that Roman necks in one were found That he who formed the wish might deal the wound, This man had never heard. But of the kind Is the desire which rises in his mind. He'd have all English hands, for further he Cannot conceive extends our charity, All but his own, in one right hand to grow; And then what hearty shake would he bestow.

Mr. Willard was once counsel before a magistrate in a case in which he took much interest. A rough, coarse country lawyer was on the other side. When Willard stated some legal proposition, his adversary said: "I will bet you five dollars that ain't law." "Sir," said Mr. Willard, drawing himself up to his full height, with the great solemnity of tone of which he was master: "Sir, I do not permit myself to make the laws of my country the subject of a bet."

Another of the old characters who came down to my time from the older generation was Samuel M. Burnside. He was a man of considerable wealth and lived in a generous fashion, dispensing an ample hospitality at his handsome mansion, still standing in Worcester. He was a good black-letter lawyer, though without much gift of influencing juries or arguing questions of law to the Court. He was a good Latin scholar, very fond of Horace and Virgil, and used to be on the committees to examine the students at Harvard, rather disturbing the boys with his somewhat pedantic questioning. He was very nearsighted, and, it is said, once seized the tail of a cow which passed near him in the street and hurried forward, supposing some woman had gone by and said, "Madam, you are dropping your tippet."

One of the most interesting characters among the elders of the Worcester Bar was old Rejoice Newton. He was a man of excellent judgment, wisdom, integrity and law learning enough to make him a safe guide to his clients in their important transactions. He was a most prosaic person, without sentiment, without much knowledge of literature, and absolutely without humor. He was born in Northfield near the banks of the Connecticut River and preserved to the time of his death his love of rural scenes and of farming. He had an excellent farm a mile or two out of town, where he spent all the time he could get from his professional duties. He was associated with Chief Justice Shaw in some important cases, and always thought that it was due to his recommendation that Governor Lincoln appointed the Chief Justice—a suggestion which Governor Lincoln used to repel with great indignation. The Governor was also a good farmer, especially proud of his cattle. Each of them liked to brag of their crops and especially of the produce of their respective dairies. Governor Lincoln was once discoursing to Devens and me, in our office, of a wonderful cow of his which, beside raising an enormous calf, had produced the cream for a great quantity of butter. Mr. Devens said: "Why, that beats Major Newton's cow, that gave for months at a time some fifteen or eighteen quarts at a milking." "If Brother Newton hears of my cow," said Governor Lincoln, "he will at once double the number of quarts." The old Major was quite fond of telling stories, of which the strong points were not apt to suffer in his narration. One Fourth of July, when he had got to be an old man, he came down street and met a brother member of the Bar, who took him up into the room of the Worcester Light Infantry, a Company of which the Major's deceased son had long ago been the Captain. The members of the Company were spending the Fourth with a bowl of punch and other refreshments. The Major was introduced and was received with great cordiality, and my friend left him there. The next day my friend was going down street and met the Captain of the Light Infantry, who said: "That was a very remarkable old gentleman you brought into our room yesterday. He stayed there all the forenoon, drinking punch and telling stories. He distinctly remembered General Washington. He went home to dinner, came back after dinner, drank some more punch, and remembered Christopher Columbus."

The old Major was once addressing the Supreme Court and maintained a doctrine which did not commend itself to Chief Justice Shaw. The Chief Justice interposed: "Brother Newton, what is the use of arguing that? We have held otherwise in such a case (citing it) and again and again since." The Major paused, drew his spectacles slowly off his nose, and said to the Court with great seriousness: "May it please your Honors, I have a great respect for the opinions of this Court, except in some very gross cases."

A man by the name of Lysander Spooner, whose misfortune it was to be a good deal in advance of his age, the author of a very clever pamphlet maintaining the unconstitutionality of slavery, also published some papers attacking the authenticity of Christian miracles. In these days of Bob Ingersoll such views would be met with entire toleration, but they shocked Major Newton exceedingly, as they did most persons of his time. Spooner studied for the Bar and applied to be admitted. He was able to pass an examination. But the Major, as amicus curiae, addressed the Court and insisted that Spooner was not a man of proper character, and affirmed in support of his assertion that he was the author of some blasphemous attacks on Christianity. The result was that Spooner's application was denied. The Court adjourned for dinner. It was the day of the calling of the docket, and just before the Judge came in in the afternoon, the whole Bar of Worcester County were assembled, filling the room. The Major sat in a seat near one of the doors. He had dined pretty heavily, the day was hot and the Major was sleepy. He tipped back a little in his chair, his head fell back between his shoulders and his mouth opened, with his nose pointed toward the zenith. Just then Spooner came in. As he passed by the Major, the temptation was irresistible. He seized the venerable nose of the old patriarch between his thumb and finger, and gave it a vigorous twist. The Major was awakened and sprang to his feet, and in a moment realized what had happened. He was, as may be well supposed, intensely indignant. No Major in the militia could submit to such an insult. He seized his chair and hurled it at the head of the offender, but missed, and the bystanders interposed before he was able to inflict the deserved punishment.

The Major lived to a good old age. His mental faculties became somewhat impaired before he died. He had great respect for his excellent son-in-law, Colonel Wetherell, who was on Governor Andrew's staff during the War, and thought that anything which ought to be accomplished could be accomplished by the influence of the Colonel. Somebody told him during the hardest part of the war that we ought to bend all our energies to the capture of Richmond. If Richmond were to fall the rebellion would be easily put down. "You are quite right, sir," said the Major. "It ought to be done, and I will speak to Colonel Wetherell about it." But everybody who knew the worthy Major, unless it were some offender against justice, or some person against whose wrong-doing he had been the shield and protector to a client, liked the kindly, honest and sturdy old man. He was District Attorney for the district which included Worcester County—an office then and ever since held by admirable lawyers. He prided himself on the fact that he never drew an indictment which was not sustained by the Court, if it were questioned. He liked to recite his old triumphs. He especially plumed himself on his sagacity in dealing with one case which came before him. A complaint was made of a book well known at that time, the memoirs of a dissolute woman, which was full of indecency, but in which there could not be found a single, separate indecent sentence or word. The Major was at a loss for some time what to do in indicting it. If he set forth the whole book, it would give it an immortality on the records of the court which perhaps would be worse for the public morals than the original publication. Finally he averred in the indictment that the defendant had published a book so indecent that it was unfit to be spread on the records of the court. The question went up to the Supreme Court and the indictment was held good. It was difficult for the Court or the jury to find that such a book was fit to be spread on the records of the Court, and the Major secured his victory and convicted his criminal.

One of the bright young lawyers who came to the Bar a few years after I did, was Appleton Dadmun. He died of consumption after a brief but very successful career. He was the very type and embodiment of the Yankee countryman in his excellencies and his defects and in his fashion of speech and behavior. He was a graduate of Amherst College. The only evidence I ever discovered of his classical education was his habit of using the Greek double negative in ordinary English speech. He used to employ me almost always as senior when he had a case to argue to a jury, or an important law argument in Court. He would put off the engagement until just as the case was coming on. He used to intend to try his cases himself. But his heart, at the last moment, would fail him. He was as anxious about his clients' cases as if they were his own. He was exceedingly negligent about his pleadings and negligent in the matter of being prepared with the necessary formal proofs of facts which were really not doubtful but which were put in issue by the pleadings. When I was retained my first duty was to prepare an amendment of the declaration or the answer or plea, or, perhaps, to see whether he had got the attesting witness to prove some signature. But when we had got past all that I used to find that he had prepared his evidence with reference to what was the pinch of the case of what was likely to be finally the doubtful point in the mind of court or jury with infinite sagacity and skill. I have rarely known a better judge of the effect of evidence on the mind of ordinary juries. He took his clients into his affection as if they had been his own brethren or children, and seemed always to hate to be compelled to make any charge for his services, however successful.

He had a pleasant wit. On one occasion a member of the bar named Holbrook, who was not a bad fellow, but had, like the rest of the world, some peccadilloes to repent of, came into the Court-house one morning just as the Court was coming in where the lawyers were gathered. Much excited, he said he was riding into Worcester in a chaise from the neighboring town where he spent his nights in the summer. His horse had run away and tore at a terrible rate down Main Street, swinging the chaise from one side to the other as he ran, and breaking some part of the harness and perhaps one of the shafts. But at last he had contrived to crawl out through the window behind in the chaise top and hold on to the cross-bar. Letting himself down just as the chaise had got to the extremity of its sway from one side to another, he let go and escaped without injury. But, he said, it was a terrible five minutes. Every action of his life seemed to rush through his memory with the swiftness of a torrent. "You ought to have very heavy damages, sir," said Mr. Dadmun.

Another of the brightest of the young lawyers when I came to the Bar was H. He had, however, had rather an unfortunate introduction to life. His father, who was a very wealthy and prosperous manufacturer, sent him to Yale College and supplied him liberally with money, not only for his support, but for the indulgence of every extravagant taste. Beside spending what his father allowed him, he incurred a good many debts, expecting to find no difficulty in their payment. His father failed in business with a great crash about the end of his junior year and died suddenly. He kept on, however, on credit, until he graduated and then came out with a heavy load of debt, and no resources for studying his profession. He got thorough, however, by dint of plausible manners. He was a very honest fellow in other respects, but he got the habit of incurring debts which he could not pay. Then he took to drinking hard, and finally went to New York, and died after a career of dissipation. But everybody liked him. Drunk or sober, he was the best company in the world, full of anecdote flavored with a shrewd and not ill-natured wit. There was a manufacturer in a village near Worcester who had failed in business owing large debts all about. He was a man of enormous bulk, the fattest man in the whole region round-about, weighing considerably over three hundred. He left the State to avoid his creditors, and dwelt in New York, keeping himself out of their reach. At last it was discovered by a creditor that he used to come to Worcester in the train which arrived from New York on the Western Railroad shortly before midnight Saturday, go over to his old home, which was not far off, stay there Sunday, when he was exempt from arrest, and take the cars Sunday night at about the same hour for New York. Accordingly old Jonathan Day, a veteran deputy-sheriff, armed with an execution, lay in wait for him one dark and stormy Saturday night at the little old wooden depot of the Western Railroad, some hundred or two feet from Grafton Street. The train came in, and the debtor got out. The old General laid his hands on him, and told him he was his prisoner. He protested and demurred and begged, making all manner of promises to pay the debt if the officer would not take him to jail. But Day was inexorable. Meantime the train had gone on, and the keeper of the depot had put out the lights and gone off. There was nobody left in the darkness but the officer and the debtor. "Well," said the fellow, "if you are going to take me to jail you must carry me. I won't walk." So he sat himself down on the platform. Day tried to persuade him to walk, and then tugged and tugged at his collar, but without the slightest effect. He might as well have tried to move a mountain. He waited in a good deal of perplexity, and at last he heard the rattle of wheels on Grafton Street, and gave a loud yell for assistance. The owner of the wagon came to the scene. General Day demanded his help as one of the posse comitatus. But it was as hard to the two to move the obstruction as it had been for the old General alone. So the General put the debtor in charge of his new recruit, and went off up street to see what counsel he could get in the matter. All the lights in the lawyers' offices and places of business were out except a solitary gleam which came from the office of my friend H. He was sitting up alone, soaking himself with the contents of a bottle of brandy. General Day found him sitting there and stated his case. My friend heard it through, took it into consideration, and took down and consulted the Revised Statutes and the Digest. At last he shook his head with an air of drunken gravity and said: "I don't find any express provision anywhere for such a case. So I think we must be governed by the rule of law for the case nearest like it we can find. That seems to be the case of the attachment of personal property, such as lumber, which is too bulky to be removed. My advice to you is to put a placard on him saying he is attached, and go off and leave him till Monday morning."

When I was a young man, one summer a few years after my admission to the Bar, I took a journey on foot with Horace Gray through Berkshire County. We started from Greenfield and walked over the Hoosac Mountain to Adams and Williamstown, then over the old road to Pittsfield, then to Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and the summit of Mt. Washington, now better known as Mt. Everett or Taghsomi; thence to Bashpish Falls in New York, and to the Salisbury Lakes in Connecticut. We visited many interesting places and enjoyed what has always seemed to me the most beautiful scenery on earth.

There were one or two quite ludicrous adventures. I went alone to the top of Bald Mountain in Lenox one day. Gray had been there and preferred to visit a neighboring hilltop. As I approached the summit, which was a bare pasture, I came upon a powerful bull with a herd of cattle near him. He began to bellow and paw the ground and move toward me in angry fashion. There was no chance for any place of refuge which I could hope to gain. I looked around for some rock or instrument of defence. It was, I think, the most imminent danger to which I have ever been exposed. I was calculating my capacity for dodging the creature when suddenly a sound like a small clap of thunder was heard. The rest of the herd, which seemed quite wild, seeing the approach of a stranger, had taken alarm and started off down the hillside on a full run, their rushing and trampling causing the earth to reverberate beneath their tread and produce the sound of which I have just spoken. The old bull hearing the sound and seeing his companions departing concluded he would follow their example. He turned tail too, and retreated down the mountain side, much to my relief.

On our walk through Lanesboro we stopped at a plain country tavern to get lunch. There were several codgers such as in those days used to haunt country bar-rooms about eleven o'clock in the morning and four o'clock in the afternoon. Sitting in an old wooden chair tilted back against the wall of the room was one of them curled up with his knees sticking up higher than his head. He looked at Gray's stately proportions and called out: "How tall are you?" Gray, who was always rather careful of his dignity, made some brief answer not intended to encourage familiarity. But the fellow persisted: "I would like to measure with you." Gray concluded it was best to enter into the humor of the occasion. So he stood up against the wall. The other man proceeded to draw himself up out of the chair, and unroll, and unroll, and unroll until at last his gigantic stature reached up almost as high as Gray's. But he fell short a little. I learned, later, that it was a man named Shaw who afterward became famous as a writer and humorist under the pseudonym of Josh Billings. He was the son of Henry Shaw, formerly of Lanesboro; at that time a millionaire dwelling in New York, and known to fame as one of the two Massachusetts Representatives who voted for the Missouri Compromise in 1820. Henry Shaw was, I believe, a native of Lanesboro, and had represented the Berkshire district in Congress.

The person whom the Worcester lawyers of this time like best to remember was Peter C. Bacon. He was the Dominie Sampson of the Worcester Bar. I suppose he was the most learned man we ever had in Worcester, and probably, in Massachusetts. He was simple and guileless as a child; of a most inflexible honesty, devoted to the interest of his clients, and an enthusiastic lover of the science of the law. When, in rare cases, he thoroughly believed in the righteousness of his case, he was irresistible. But in general he was full of doubts and hesitation. He was, until he was compelled to make his arguments more compact by the rules of court limiting the time of arguments, rather tedious. He liked to go out into side-paths and to discourse of matters not material to the issue but suggested to him as he went along. He had a curious fashion of using the ancient nomenclature of the Common law where it had passed out of the knowledge even of most lawyers and the comprehension of common men. He would begin his appeal to the jury in some case where a fraud had been attempted on his client, by saying, "Gentlemen, the law abhorreth covin." He was a lawyer everywhere. His world was the Court-house and his office. I met him in the street, of a Sunday noon, one summer and said to him, "Why, Brother Bacon, you must have had a long sermon to-day."

"Oh," Mr. Bacon said, "I stayed to the Sunday-school. I have a class of young girls. It's very interesting. I've got 'em as far as the Roman Civil Law."

Mr. Bacon could seldom be made angry by any incivility to himself. But he resented any attempt to deprive a client, however much of a n'er-do-well he might be, of all the rights and forms of a legal trial. He was also much disturbed if any lawyer opposed to him misstated a principle of law, who ought, in his judgment, to know better. I was once trying a case against him and his partner, Judge Aldrich, where General Devens was my associate. Devens was summing up the case, and complaining of the conduct of some parties interested in the estate of a deceased person. One of them was a son of a deceased niece. There being no children, under our law, the nephews and nieces inherit, but not the children of deceased nephews or nieces, when there are living nephews or nieces. General Devens, not having in his mind the legal provision at the moment, said to the jury: "The sound of the earth on the coffin of the old lady had scarcely ceased when one of these heirs hurried to the probate office to get administration." Mr. Bacon rose and interrupted him with great emotion. "He is not an heir."

"I said," Mr. Devens repeated, "one of these heirs, Mr. A. F."

Bacon burst into tears and said again, with a broken voice: "He is not an heir, I say, he is not an heir."

I saw the point and whispered to Devens: "An assumed heir."

"Very well," Devens said, "an assumed heir, if my friend likes it better." Bacon replied with a "Humph" of contentment and satisfaction, and the matter subsided. As I was walking home from the court-house with Mr. Bacon afterward I expressed my regret at the occurrence and told him that General Devens had the greatest respect for him. Mr. Bacon replied: "He had no business to say it. Aldrich told me to tell him he had not read the 'Revised Statutes.' But I would not say such a thing as that, sir, about any man."

But Brother Bacon had the kindliest of hearts. It was impossible for him to bear malice or retain resentment against anybody. When I was a youngster I was once in a case where Bacon was on the other side. Charles Allen was my associate. It was a case which excited great public feeling. There were throngs of witnesses. It was tried in the middle of the terrific heats of one of the hottest summers ever known in Worcester. Allen, who had a power of stinging sarcasm which he much delighted to use, kept Bacon nervous and angry through the whole trial. At last, one afternoon, Bacon lost his patience. When the Court adjourned, he stood up on a little flight of steps on the outside of the Court-house and addressed the crowd, who were going out. He said: "Charles Allen has abused me all through this trial. He is always abusing me. He has abused me ever since I came to this Bar. I have said it before and I will say it again—he is a curious kind of a man." This utterance relieved Brother Bacon's wounded feelings and he never probably thought of the matter again.

One of the great events in Bacon's life was his receiving the degree of Doctor of Laws from Brown University, where he was graduated. This gave infinite satisfaction to his brethren of the Bar, who were all very fond of him. It was at once proposed, after the old Yankee fashion in the country when a man got a new hat or a new suit of clothes, that we should all go down to T.'s to "wet" it. T. was the proprietor of a house a few miles from Worcester, famous for cooking game and trout in the season, and not famous for a strict observance of the laws against the sale of liquor. There was a good deal of feeling about that among the temperance people of the town, although it was a most excellent, properly kept house in all other respects. But the prejudice against it of the strict teetotalers had occasioned some entirely unfounded scandal about its management in other matters. Mr. Bacon, when invited by the Bar to go as a guest, accepted the invitation, but stipulated that he should have provided for him a pint bottle of English ale. He said he was opposed, on principle, to drinking intoxicating liquors, but his doctors had ordered that he should drink a pint of ale every day with his dinner. That was provided. The Bar sat down to dinner at an early hour and the fun and frolic were kept up far into the small hours of the night. Brother Bacon was the subject of every speech and of every toast. He seemed to think it was necessary for him to reply to every speaker and toast. So he was kept on his legs a great part of the night. As he sipped his modest tumbler of ale, Brother Dewey, who sat next to him, would replenish it, when Mr. Bacon was not looking, from a bottle of champagne. So at least two quart bottles of champagne were passed into the unsuspecting Brother Bacon through that single pint of beer. When we broke up, the host came to ask us how we had enjoyed ourselves, and Mr. Bacon told him he would like to know where he got his English ale, which he thought was the best he had ever tasted in his life. It is the only instance that I know of in modern times of the repetition of the miracle of the widow's cruse.

Judge Thomas, then holding the Supreme Court at Worcester, wanted very much indeed to go down with the Bar, but he thought it would not quite do. The next morning, Mr. Bacon had to try a libel for adultery between two parties living in the town where the Bar had had their supper. He had had no chance to see his witnesses, who got into town just as the Court opened. So he had to put them on and examine them at a venture. The first one he called was a grave-looking citizen. Mr. Bacon asked him a good many questions, but could get no answer which tended to help his case, and at last he said, with some impatience: "Mr. Witness, can you tell me any single fact which tends to show that his man has committed adultery?"

"Well, all I know about it, Squire Bacon," replied the witness, "is that he's been seen at Charlie T.'s"—the inn where Bacon had had his supper the night before. There was an immense roar of laughter from the Bar, led by Judge Thomas, the ring of whose laugh could have been heard half way across the square.

Brother Bacon, though a modest and most kindly man, used to think he had a monopoly of the abstruser knowledge in regard to real property and real actions. It used sometimes to provoke him when he found a competent antagonist in cases involving such questions. There was a suit in which Bacon was for the demandant where a creditor had undertaken to levy an execution of property standing in a wife's name but claimed to have been conveyed to her in trust for the husband on consideration paid by him. In such cases, under the Massachusetts law, the land may be levied upon as the property of the debtor, notwithstanding the ostensible title is in another. The wife contested the facts. But after the bringing of the suit, the wife died, and the husband by her death became tenant by the courtesy. Of course his title as tenant by the courtesy was unaffected by the previous levy, and his wife's right to contest the demand devolved upon him. The husband and wife had both been made parties defendant to the suit under the Massachusetts practice. It would not do to let the creditor get judgment. Under the advice of Mr. Nelson, afterward Judge, one of the most learned and careful lawyers, the defendant pleaded a special non-tenure, and the case was reported to the full bench of the Supreme Court, where Mr. Bacon was employed for the plaintiff. The report inaccurately said that the defendant filed a disclaimer. Mr. Bacon made a very learned argument to show that upon the facts the disclaimer could not be supported, and was going on swimmingly, under full sail. Mr. Bacon said in his argument: "If he had pleaded non-tenure, I admit, your Honors, he would have been pretty well off." Whereupon Judge Hoar sent for the original papers, and looking at them read the plea, and said: "Isn't that a plea of non-tenure?" Mr. Bacon was obliged to admit that it was. The Chief Justice said: "Well, then, the tenant is in the condition which you describe as being pretty well off, isn't he, Brother Bacon?" Bacon answered with an angry and impatient "Humph." The Chief Justice said: "Are there any other objections to the plea, Brother Bacon?" "More than forty, your Honor," replied Bacon indignantly, "which I should state to you at a proper time." The Chief Justice said that that seemed to be the proper time. But Mr. Bacon sat down in high dudgeon, without further remark.

He was the kindliest of men, both to man and beast. I once was at a country tavern where Bacon and I were to dine. It was about the time of the session of the Supreme Court. I was sitting on the veranda of the hotel waiting for dinner to be ready, in the summer afternoon. Mr. Bacon took a little walk, and as he came along and was passing the porch, a puppy ran after him, came up behind, and seized his pantaloons in his teeth, making quite a rent in them. Bacon looked round and saw the mischief, and shook his finger at the poor dog. I am sure he had no idea that anybody of the human species was within hearing. The animal crouched down in great terror, expecting a beating. Mr. Bacon paused a moment with his uplifted finger, and addressed the cur. "Why do you try to bite me? Why do you tear my pantaloons? Do you think I can go through the Supreme Court without pantaloons?" With that he left the poor dog to the reproaches of his own conscience and took no further notice of the transaction.

I ought perhaps, as I have told this story at Brother Bacon's expense, to tell one at my own where he came out decidedly ahead. We were opposed in a real estate case where the other evidence of the title was pretty strong Bacon's way, but the ancient bounds seemed to agree with my client's theory. I addressed the jury with all the earnestness in my power in favor of the importance of maintaining the ancient landmarks, quoting the curse of the Scripture on him that removed them, and endeavored to make them see how much of the safety and security of property depended on sticking to them in spite of any amount of fallible human testimony. I thought I had made a good impression. When Brother Bacon came to reply, he told the jury about the Roman god Terminus who watched over boundaries, and after quite an eloquent description, he told the jury: "Brother Hoar always seems to me when he makes this argument, which I have heard a good many times before, to think he is the god Terminus, and that the protection of all our modern landmarks is in his exclusive province." The jury were very much amused. I have forgotten how the case was decided. But I should doubtless remember if it had been decided in my favor.

Quite late in life some of Mr. Bacon's clients, seeing that he was out of health, and grateful for his long, faithful and poorly paid service, made an arrangement to send him on a journey to Europe. He was gone a little more than a year, visiting England, France, Italy and Spain, and returning with new vigor for another ten years of hard work. His interest in Europe had come chiefly from the literature which he had read in his younger days. He was not very familiar with much English prose or poetry later than the time of Addison. In one of his first letters in London he announced with great satisfaction, "I have a room not far from the celebrated Westminster Abbey mentioned in the Spectator."

But Brother Bacon ought not to be remembered alone, or chiefly, for his eccentricities. He was a profound, accurate and able jurist. The great interests of clients were safe with him. To him the profession of the lawyer was a sacred office. I never think of him without recalling Cicero's beautiful description in the "De Oratore" of the old age of the great lawyer:

Quit est enim praeclarius quam honoribus et republicae muneribus perfunctum senem posee suo jure dicere id quot apud Enium dicit ille Pythias Apollo, se esse eum, unde sibi, si no populi et reges, at onmnes sui cives consilium expetant;

suarum rerum incerti quos ego ope mea ex incertis certos compotesque consili dimitto ut ne res temere tractent turbidas.

Est enim sine dubio domus jurisconsulti totius oraculum civitatis.

Mr. Bacon lived to celebrate his golden wedding, and ended a stainless and honored life in a ripe old age, mourned by the whole community, of which he had been a pillar and an ornament. His portrait hangs in the Court House where he would have loved best to be remembered.

In my early days at the Worcester Bar there were a good many bright men, young and old, who had their offices in the country towns, but who tried a good many cases before juries. All the courts for the county in those days were held in Worcester. Among these country lawyers was old Nat Wood of Fitchburg, now a fine city; then a thriving country town. Mr. Wood had a great gift of story-telling, and he understood very well the character and ways of country farmers. He used to come down from Fitchburg at the beginning of the week, stop at the old Sykes Tavern where the jurymen and witnesses put up, spend the evening in the bar-room getting acquainted with the jurymen and telling them stories. So when he had a case to try, he was apt to have a very friendly tribunal. His enemies used to say that he always contrived to sleep with one juryman himself, and have his client sleep with another, when he had a case coming on. He was quite irritable and hasty, and would sometimes break out with great indignation at some fancied impropriety of the other side, without fully understanding what was going on. I was once examining a witness who had led rather a roving and vagabond life. I asked him where he had lived and he named seven different towns in each of which he had dwelt within a very short time. I observed: "Seven mighty cities claimed great Homer dead." Wood instantly sprang to his feet with great indignation. "Brother Hoar, I wish you would not put words into the witness's mouth."

Wood was a native of Stirling, a thinly settled country town near the foot of Mount Wachusett. The people of that town were nearly equally divided between the Unitarian and Universalist congregations. Each had its meeting house fronting on the public common or Green, as it was called. In the summer the farmers would come to meeting from distant parts of the town, bringing luncheon with them; have a short intermission after the morning service, and then have a second service in the afternoon. During the recess, in pleasant summer weather, the men of the two congregations would gather together on the Green, discussing the news of the town, and very often getting into theological controversies. In the winter, they gathered in the tavern or post-office in the same way. There was one Universalist champion who told the gathering that he would make any man admit the truth of Universalism in five minutes. He was a well known and doughty champion, and the Unitarians were rather loth to tackle him. But, one Sunday, Lawyer Wood came home to spend the day at his birthplace, and the Unitarians thought it was a good chance to encounter the Universalist champion. So they accepted his challenge and put Wood forward to meet him.

The Universalist theologian began: "You'll admit there is a God?"

"No, I'll be damned if I do," replied Wood.

The fellow was completely non-plussed. He had got to take up his five minutes in compelling Wood to admit the existence of a Creator. So he was obliged to retire from the field discomfited.

Another of our leaders at the Bar was Henry Chapin. He had made his way from a rather humble place in life to be one of the leaders of a very able Bar, Mayor of Worcester, and to hold a place of large influence in the various business, social, charitable and religious activities of the community. He was not specially learned, specially profound or specially eloquent. But he had a rare gift of seizing upon the thought which was uppermost in the minds of excellent and sensible men, country farmers, skilled workmen in the shops, business men, expressing it in a clear and vigorous way, always agreeing with the best sentiment of the people. This, with an unfailing courtesy and pleasant humor and integrity of character and life gave him great popularity. He was exceedingly happy in short speeches at dinners or at political meetings. He had a fund of entertaining anecdote which never seemed to fail. He was very careful not to seem dogmatic, or to assert himself too strongly. He would put forward his opinion with saying, "It strikes my mind," or "It has occurred to me," or "I thought perhaps it was possible," or "It is my impression." I remember once protesting before old Judge Byington against some objection which the counsel on the other side had made to a witness testifying to his impressions. I told the Judge that Brother Chapin never in his life stated anything more strongly. If you asked him if he were married, he would say it was his impression he was. The Judge said: "Well, we have a lawyer in Berkshire County who has the same habit. Only if you ask him if he is married it is his impression he isn't."

It is said that when he went to see the Siamese Twins, he observed to the exhibitor, "Brothers, I suppose." But I believe that story had been told before of one of the Royal Dukes.

Mr. Chapin was nominated by the Republicans for Congress and accepted and would have had a useful and distinguished public life. But he became alarmed by the opposition of the Know- Nothings and withdrew from the canvass much to the dissatisfaction of his political friends. That ended his political aspirations. But he was soon after appointed to the more congenial office of Judge of Probate, which he discharged to great public satisfaction until his lamented death.

CHAPTER XXXVIII SOME JUDGES I HAVE KNOWN

Unquestionably the most important character in the legal history of Massachusetts is Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw. He was a great lawyer before he came to the Bench. He had written one or two very able articles for the North American Review, one of them a vigorous statement of the opinion of Massachusetts upon slavery. He was the author of a petition signed by many of the leading men of Massachusetts in opposition to the high tariff of 1828. No more powerful statement of the argument against high protection can be found. I have been surprised that the modern free-traders have not long ago discovered it, and brought it to light. He was one of the managers of the impeachment of Judge Prescott, securing a conviction against a powerful array of counsel for the defendant, which included Daniel Webster. He was consulted in difficult and important matters by eminent counsel in other counties than Suffolk.

But all these titles to distinction have been forgotten in his great service as Chief Justice of Massachusetts for thirty years. No other judicial fame in the country can rival his, with the single exception of Marshall. He was induced to undertake the office of Chief Justice very reluctantly, by the strong personal urgency of Mr. Webster. Mr. Webster used to give a humorous account of the difficulty he had in overcoming the morbid scruples of the great simple-hearted intellectual giant. He found Mr. Shaw in his office in a cloud of tobacco-smoke. Mr. Webster did not himself smoke, and was at some disadvantage during the interview for that reason.

Mr. Shaw was rather short in stature and, in the latter part of his life, somewhat corpulent. He had a massive head, a low forehead, and strong and rather coarse features. He reminded you of the statues of Gog and Magog in the Guildhall in London. His hair came down over his forehead, and when he had been away from home for a week or two, so that his head got no combing but his own, it was in a sadly tangled mass. His eye was dull, except when it kindled in discussion, or when he was stirred to some utterance of grave displeasure.

There is an anecdote of Mr. Choate which occasionally goes the rounds of the papers, and which is often repeated quite inaccurately. The true version is this. I heard it within a few hours after it happened, and have heard it at first hand more than once since.

Mr. Choate was sitting next to Judge Hoar in the bar when the Chief Justice was presiding, and the Suffolk docket was being called. The Chief Justice said something which led Mr. Choate to make a half-humorous and half-displeased remark about Shaw's roughness of look and manner, to which Judge Hoar replied: "After all, I feel a reverence for the old Chief Justice."

"A reverence for him, my dear fellow?" said Choate. "So do I. I bow down to him as the wild Indian does before his wooden idol. I know he's ugly; but I bow to a superior intelligence."

Judge Shaw's mind moved very slowly. When a case was argued, it took him a good while to get the statement of facts into his mind. It was hard for him to deal readily with unimportant matters, or with things which, to other people, were matters of course. If the simplest motion were made, he had to unlimber the heavy artillery of his mind, go down to the roots of the question, consider the matter in all possible relations, and deal with it as if he were besieging a fortress. When he was intent upon a subject, he was exceedingly impatient of anything that interrupted the current of his thought. So he was a hard person for young advocates, or for any other unless he were strong, self-possessed, and had the respect of the Judge. My old friend and partner, Judge Washburn, once told me that he dreaded the Law term of the Court as it approached, and sometimes felt that he would rather lay his head down on the rail, and let a train of cars pass over it, than argue a case before Shaw. The old man was probably unconscious of this failing. He had the kindest heart in the world, was extremely fond of little children and beautiful young women, and especially desirous to care for the rights of persons who were feeble and defenceless.

I was myself counsel before him in a case where the question was whether a heifer calf, worth six or seven dollars, the offspring of the one cow which our law reserves to a poor debtor against attachment, was also exempt. My opponent undertook to make some merriment about the question, and there was some laughter at the Bar. The old Chief Justice interposed with great emotion: "Gentlemen, remember that this is a matter of great interest to a great many poor families." There was no laughter after that, and that heifer calf did duty in many a trial afterward, when the young advocates at the Worcester Bar had some poor client to defend.

The Chief Justice had not the slightest sense of humor. When old Judge Wilde, the great real property Judge, died after an illustrious judicial service of thirty-five years, somebody showed Chief Justice Shaw a register published in Boston which recorded his death, "Died in Boston, the Honorable Samuel S. Wilde, aged eighty, many years Justice of the Peace." It was passed up to the Bench. The old Chief Justice looked at it, read it over again, and said "What publication is this?"

In the old days, when the lawyers and Judges spent the evenings of Court week at the taverns on the Circuit, the Chief Justice liked to get a company of lawyers about him and discourse to them. He was very well informed, indeed, on a great variety of matters, and his talk was very interesting and full of instruction. But there was no fun in it. One evening he was discoursing in his ponderous way about the vitality of seed. He said: "I understand that they found some seed of wheat in one of the pyramids of Egypt, wrapped up in a mummy- case, where it had been probably some four thousand years at least, carried it over to England last year and planted it, and it came up and they had a very good crop."

"Of mummies, sir?" inquired old Josiah Adams, a waggish member of the Bar.

"No, Mr. Adams," replied the Chief Justice, with a tone of reproof, and with great seriousness. "No, Mr. Adams, not mummies—wheat."

Adams retired from the circle in great discomfiture. He inquired of one of the other lawyers, afterward, if he supposed that the Chief Justice really believed that he thought the seed had produced mummies, and was told by his friend that he did not think there was the slightest doubt of it.

Chief Justice Shaw, though very rough in his manner was exceedingly considerate of the rights of poor and friendless persons. Sometimes persons unacquainted with the ways of the world would desire to make their own arguments, or would in some way interrupt the business of the court. The Chief Justice commonly treated them with great consideration. One amusing incident happened quite late in his life. A rather dissipated lawyer who had a case approaching on the docket, one day told his office-boy to "Go over to the Supreme Court and see what in hell they are doing." The Court were hearing a very important case in which Mr. Choate was on one side and Mr. Curtis on the other. The Bar and the Court-Room were crowded with listeners. As Mr. Curtis was in the midst of his argument, the eye of the Chief Justice caught sight of a young urchin, ten or eleven years old, with yellow trousers stuffed into his boots, and with his cap on one side of his head, gazing intently up at him. He said, "Stop a moment, Mr. Curtis." Mr. Curtis stopped, and there was a profound silence as the audience saw the audacious little fellow standing entirely unconcerned. "What do you want, my boy?" said the Chief Justice. "Mr. P. told me to come over here and see what in hell you was up to," was the reply. There was a dive at the unhappy youth by three or four of the deputies in attendance, and a roar of laughter from the audience. The boy was ejected. But the gravity of the old Chief Justice was not disturbed.

He had a curiously awkward motion, especially in moving about a parlor in social gatherings, or walking in the street. I once pointed out to a friend a ludicrous resemblance between his countenance and expression and that of one of the tortoises in the illustrations of one of Agassiz's works on natural history. To which my friend replied: "It is the tortoise on which the elephant stands that bears up the foundations of the world," alluding to the Hindoo mythology.

Chief Justice Shaw's opinions, as we have them in the reports, are exceedingly diffuse. That practice would not answer for a generation which has to consult the reports of forty-five States and of the Supreme Court and nine judicial circuits of the United States, besides the reports of the decisions of some of the District Judges, and in most cases the English decisions. But it would be a great public loss if any of Chief Justice Shaw's utterances were omitted. His impulse, when a question was argued before him, was to write a treatise on the subject. So his decisions in cases where the questions raised are narrow and unimportant are often most valuable contributions to jurisprudence. He seldom passed over any point or suggestion without remark. He went to the bottom of the case with great patience and incredible industry. The counsel who lost his case felt not only that he had had the opinion of a great and just magistrate, but that every consideration he could urge for his client was respectfully treated and either yielded to or answered. Some of his ablest and most far-reaching decisions were written after he was eighty years old.

He possessed, beyond any other American Judge, save Marshall, what may be termed the statesmanship of jurisprudence. He never undertook to make law upon the Bench, but he perceived with a far-sighted vision what rule of law was likely to operate beneficially or hurtfully to the Republic. He was watchful to lay down no doctrine which would not stand this test. His great judgments stand among our great securities, like the provisions of the Bill of Rights.

The Chief Justice was a tower of strength to the Massachusetts judiciary. But for him it is not unlikely that the State would have adopted an elective judiciary or a tenure limited to a term of years. But the whole people felt that his great integrity and wisdom gave an added security to every man's life, liberty, and property. So the proposition to limit the judicial tenure, although espoused by the two parties who together made up a large majority of the people of the State, was defeated when it was submitted to a popular vote. It is, however, a little remarkable that in the neighboring State of Vermont, for many years the Judges of the Supreme Court were annually elected by the Legislature, a system which, I believe, has worked on the whole to their satisfaction. They have had an able judiciary. It is said that old Chief Justice Shaw was one evening discoursing at a meeting of the Boston Law Club to an eminent Vermont Judge, who was a guest. He said, "With your brief judicial tenure, sir—" The Vermonter interrupted him and said, "Why, our tenure of office is longer than yours." "What do you mean?" said the Chief Justice. "I do not understand you." "Why," was the reply, "our Judges are elected for a year, and you are appointed as long as you behave yourselves."

Chief Justice Shaw is said to have been a very dull child. The earliest indication of his gift of the masterly and unerring judgment which discerned the truth and reason of things was, however, noticed when he was a very small boy. His mother one day had a company at tea. Some hot buttered toast was on the table. When it was passed to little Lemuel he pulled out the bottom slice, which was kept hot by the hot plate beneath and the pile of toast above. His mother reproached him quite sharply. "You must not do that, Lemuel. Suppose everybody were to do that?" "Then everybody would get a bottom slice," answered the wise urchin.

Judge Shaw had the sturdy spirit and temper of the old seafaring people of Cape Cod, among whom he was born and bred. He was fond of stories of the sea and of ships. He liked to hear of bold and adventurous voyages. Judge Gray used to tell the story of the old Chief's standing with his back to the fire, with his coat-tails under his arm, in the Judges' room at the Suffolk Court-House, one cold winter morning, when the news of the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition or the story of some other Arctic tragedy had just reached Boston and was in the morning papers.

"I hope, sir," said Judge Bigelow, "that there will be no more of these voyages to discover the North Pole."

"I want 'em to find that open Polar sea, sir," said Shaw.

"But don't you think," said Judge Bigelow, "that it is too bad to risk so many human lives, and to compel the sailors to encounter the terrible suffering and danger of these Arctic voyages?"

"I think they'll find it yet, sir," was all the reply Bigelow could get.

Judge Shaw, in his latter days, was reverenced by the people of Massachusetts as if he were a demi-god. But in his native county of Barnstaple he was reverenced as a God. One winter, when the Supreme Court held a special session at Barnstaple for the trial of a capital case, Judge Merrick, who was one of the Judges, came out of the Court-house just at nightfall, when the whole surface of the earth was covered with ice and slush, slipped and fell heavily, breaking three of his ribs. He was taken up and carried to his room at the hotel, and lay on the sofa waiting for the doctor to come. While the Judge lay, groaning and in agony, the old janitor of the court- house, who had helped pick him up, wiped off the wet from his clothes and said to him, "Judge Merrick, how thankful you must be it was not the Chief Justice!" Poor Merrick could not help laughing, though his broken ribs were lacerating his flesh.

Next to Chief Justice Shaw in public esteem, when I came to the Bar in December, 1849, was Mr. Justice Wilde. He was nearly eighty years old, and began to show some signs of failing powers. But those signs do not appear in his recorded opinions. He was a type of the old common-lawyer in appearance and manner and character. He would have been a fit associate for Lord Coke, and would never have given way to him. I suppose he was never excelled as a real-property lawyer in this country. He had the antiquated pronunciation of the last century, a venerable gray head and wrinkled countenance, with heavy gray eyebrows. He seemed to the general public to be nothing but a walking abridgment. Still, he was a very well-informed man, and had represented a district of what is now the State of Maine in Congress with great distinction. A friend of mine went rather late to church at King's Chapel one Sunday when the congregation had got some way in the service, and was shown into the pew immediately in front of old Judge Wilde. The Judge was just uttering in a distinct, clear tone, "Lord, teach me Thy statoots." It was the only petition he needed to have granted to make him a complete Judge. Of the Lord's common law he was a thorough master.

He was no respecter of persons. He delivered his judgments with an unmoved air, as if he had footed up a column of figures and were announcing the result. When I was in the Law School, Mr. Webster was retained to argue an important real estate case before Judge Wilde in Suffolk County. Mr. Webster was making what would have been a powerful argument on a question of land-title but for a statute passed since the days of his constant practice, which had not come to his knowledge. There was a great audience, and when Mr. Webster had got his point fairly stated, he was interrupted by Wilde. "Pooh, pooh, Mr. Webster." The Judge pointed out that Webster had overlooked one link in the chain of his antagonist's title.

"But," said Mr. Webster in reply, "the descent tolls the entry."

"That rule is abolished by the statoot, sir."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" said Webster angrily to his junior.

Another of our great old Judges was Judge Fletcher. He had had a great practice as an advocate in Boston, especially as a commercial lawyer. He had a great power of clear statement. He brought out his utterances in a queer, jerking fashion, protruding his lips a little as he hesitated at the beginning of his sentences. But he knew how to convey his meaning to the apprehension of Courts and juries. He left the Bench less than two years after I came to the Bar. I never had but one important case before him. He was a bachelor. He was very interesting in conversation, liked the company of young men, who never left him without carrying away some delightful anecdote or shrewd and pithy observation.

A lawyer from the country told me one day that he had just been in Fletcher's office to get his opinion. While he was in the office, old Ebenezer Francis, a man said to be worth $8,000,000, then the richest man in New England, came to consult him about a small claim against some neighbor. Fletcher interrupted his consultation with my friend and listened to Mr. Francis's story. In those days, parties could not be witnesses in their own cases. Fletcher advised his client that although he had an excellent case, the evidence at his command was not sufficient to prove it, and advised against bringing an action. Francis, who was quite avaricious, left the office with a heavy heart. When he had gone, Fletcher turned to my friend and said: "Isn't it pitiful, sir, to see an old critter, wandering about our streets, destitute of proof?"

But the most interesting and racy character among our old Judges was Theron Metcalf. He used to say of himself—a saying that did him great injustice—that he was taken to fill a gap in the Court as people take an old hat to stop a broken window. He undervalued his own capacity. He was not a good Judge to preside at jury trials. He had queer and eccentric notions of what the case was all about, and while he would state a principle of law with extraordinary precision and accuracy he had not the gift of making practical application of the law to existing facts. So a great many of his rulings were set aside, and it did not seem, when he had held a long term of Court, that a great deal had been accomplished. But he was a very learned common-lawyer. His memory was a complete digest of the decisions down to his time. He comprehended with marvellous clearness the precise extent to which any adjudged case went, and would state its doctrine with mathematical precision.

He hated statutes. He was specially indignant at the abolition of special pleading. He sent word to me, when I was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Massachusetts Senate, asking to have a provision enacted for simplifying the process of bringing before the full Bench for revision the proceedings in habeas corpus, or mandamus, or certiorari, or some other special writ, I forget now what. I called upon him at once, and pointed out to him that exactly what he wanted was accomplished by the Practice Act of 1852. This was the statute under which all our legal proceedings in cases affecting personal property were had. Metcalf said, with great disgust: "I have said, sir, that if they did not repeal that thing I would not read it."

He used to enliven his judgments with remarks showing a good deal of shrewd wisdom. In one case a man was indicted for advertising a show without a license. The defendant insisted that the indictment was insufficient because it set out merely what the show purported to be, and not what it really was. On which the Judge remarked: "The indictment sets out all that is necessary, and, indeed, all that is safe. The show often falls short of the promise in the show-bill."

There was once a case before him for a field-driver who had impounded cattle under the old Massachusetts law. The case took a good many days to try, and innumerable subtle questions were raised. The Judge began his charge to the jury: "Gentlemen of the jury, a man who takes up a cow straying in a highway is a fool."

Another time there was a contest as to the value of some personal property which had been sold at auction. One side claimed that the auction-sale was a fair test of the value. The other claimed that property that was sold at auction was generally sold at a sacrifice. Metcalf said to the jury: "According to my observation, things generally bring at auction all they are worth, except carpets."

I once tried a case before him against the Norwich Railroad for setting fire to the house of a farmer by a spark from a locomotive. It was a warm summer afternoon when the house was burnt up. There was no fire in the house except a few coals among the ashes in a cooking stove where the dinner had been cooked some hours before. The railroad was very near the house. There was a steep up-grade, so that the engineers were tempted to open the bonnet of their smokestacks for a better draught. We called as a witness a sturdy, round-faced, fat old woman, who testified that she was sitting at her window, knitting, in a house some little distance away, when the train went by. She put in a mark to see, as she expressed it, "how many times round" she could knit before supper. A few minutes after, she heard a cry of fire, and looked out and saw a blaze on the roof of her neighbor's house, just kindling, close to the eaves on the side where the engine had passed. She threw down the stocking and went to help. The stocking was found after the fire with the mark just as she left it. So we claimed that we could tell pretty well how long the time had been between the passing of the train and the breaking out of the fire. Judge Metcalf, who was always fussy and interfering, said: "How can we tell anything by that, unless we know how large the stocking was?" The old lady, with a most bland smile, turned to the Judge as if she were soothing an infant, lifted up the hem of her petticoats, and exhibited a very sturdy ankle and calf, and said, "Just the size I wear, your Honor." There was a roar of laughter in the court-house. The incident was published in the morning paper the next day, much to the Judge's indignation. He addressed the audience when he came into Court in the morning, and said: "I see the Worcester Spy has been trying to put a fool's cap on my head."

Judge Metcalf told me this story about Chief Justice Parsons. The Chief Justice's manner to the Bar, as is well-known, was exceedingly rough. He was no respecter of persons, and treated the old and eminent lawyers quite as harshly as the youngsters. The Bar used to call him Ursa Major. The Chief Justice used to look over the pleadings carefully before the trials began. It was in the time when special pleading often brought the issue to be decided into a narrow compass. Soon after the case was begun, the Judge would take the case out of the hands of the counsel and examine the witnesses himself, and give an opinion which was likely to be implicitly followed by the jury. Jabez Upham, of Brookfield, in Worcester County, Mr. Justice Gray's grandfather, once sent his office-boy to Court with a green bag containing his papers, thinking there was no use in going himself. At last the leading members of the Bar in Boston got very angry, and four or five of them agreed together to teach the old Chief a lesson. So they sat down to a trial in the Supreme Court where Parsons was presiding. Pretty soon he interfered with the lawyer who was putting in the case for the plaintiff, in his rough way. The lawyer rose and said: "I cannot take care of my client's rights where my own are not respected," or something to that effect. "I will ask Brother Sullivan to take my place." Sullivan, who was possessed of the case, took the place. The trial went on a little while, when something happened which offended Sullivan. He rose and said he could not go on with the case after his Honor's remark, and would ask Brother So-and-So, perhaps Otis, to take his place. This happened three or four times in succession. The Chief Justice saw the point and adjourned the Court very early for the noon recess, and went to the house of his colleague, Judge Sewall, who lived out somewhere on the Neck, called him out and said: "You must go down and hold that Court. There is a conspireacy sir." Parsons never held a nisi-prius term in Suffolk again.

Chief Justice Shaw used to tell with great indignation the story of his first appearance before Parsons, when a young man. There was a very interesting question of the law of real property, and Samuel Dexter, then the head of the Bar, was on the other side. Parsons was interested in the question as soon as it was stated, and entered into a discussion with Dexter in which they both got earnestly engaged. The Chief Justice intimated his opinion very strongly and was just deciding it in Dexter's favor, when the existence of the young man on the other side occurred to him. He looked over the bar at Shaw and said: "Well, young man, do you think you can aid the Court any in this matter?" "I think I can, sir," said Shaw with spirit. Parsons listened to him, but, I believe, remained of his first opinion.

Judge Metcalf in the time when he was upon the Bench had the credit, I do not know how well deserved it was, of not being much given to hospitality. He was never covetous, and he was very fond of society and conversation. But I fancy he had some fashions of his own in housekeeping which he thought were not quite up to the ways of modern life. At any rate, he was, so far as I know, never known to invite any of his brethren upon the Bench or of the Bar to visit him at his house, with one exception. One of the Judges told me that after a hard day's work in court the Judges sat in consultation till between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, and he walked away from the Court-House with Judge Metcalf. The Judge went along with him past the Tremont House, where my informant was staying. As they walked up School Street, he said: "Why, Judge Metcalf, I didn't know you went this way. I thought you lived out on the Neck somewhere." "No, sir," said Judge Metcalf, "I live at number so-and-so Charles Street, and I will say to you what I heard a man say the first night I moved into my present house. I heard a great noise in the street after midnight, and got up and put my head out of the window. There was a man lying down on the sidewalk struggling, and another man, who seemed to be a policeman, was on top of him holding him down. The fellow with his back to the ground said: 'Let me get up, —- d—- you,' The policeman answered: 'I sha'n't let you get up till you tell me what your name is and where you live.' The fellow answered, 'My name is Jerry Mahoney, —- d—- you, and I live at No. 54 Cambridge Street, —- d—- you, where I'd be happy to see you, —- d—- you, if you dare to call." That was the only instance known to his judicial brothers of Judge Metcalf's inviting a friend to visit him.

Judge Metcalf's legal opinions will read, I think, in the future, as well as those of any Judge of his time. They are brief, compact, written in excellent English, and precisely fit the case before him without any extraneous or superfluous matter. He would have been a very great Judge, indeed, if his capacity for the conduct of jury trials and dealing with nisi-prius business in general had equalled his ability to write opinions on abstract questions.

John Davis was never a Judge. But a few words about him may well find a place here. He had long since withdrawn from the practice of law when I came to Worcester. He remained in the Senate of the United States until March 4, 1853. But the traditions of his great power with juries remained. I was once or twice a guest in his house, and once or twice heard him make political speeches.

My father, who had encountered all the great advocates of his time in New England—Webster, Choate, Jeremiah Mason, Dexter— used to say that John Davis was the toughest antagonist he ever encountered. Mr. Davis had no graces of oratory or person. He was not without a certain awkward dignity. His head was covered with thick and rather coarse white hair. He reminded you a little, in look and movement, of a great white bear. But he had a gift of driving his point home to the apprehension of juries and of the people which was rarely equalled. He was a man of few words and infrequent speech, without wit or imagination. He thoroughly mastered the subjects with which he dealt. When he had inserted his wedge, he drove it home with a few sledge-hammer blows. It was commonly impossible for anybody to extract it. It was only the great weight of his authority, and the importance of the matters with which he dealt, which kept him from seeming exceedingly tedious. I remember thinking when I heard him make a speech in behalf of General Scott in the City Hall, in the autumn of 1852, that if any man but John Davis were talking the audience could not be kept awake. He spoke very slowly, with the tone and manner of an ordinary conversation. "The Whigs, fellow- citizens, have presented for your suffrages this year, for the office of President of the United States, the name of Major-General Winfield Scott. I know General Scott. I have had good opportunity to acquaint myself with his character and public service. I think you may give him your confidence, gentlemen." That was pretty much the whole speech. At any rate, there was nothing more exciting in it. But it was John Davis that said it, and it had great effect upon his audience.

Mr. Davis supported General Taylor for President in 1848, thereby, on the one hand, offending Mr. Webster, with whom his relations had for some time been exceedingly strained, and the anti-slavery men in Massachusetts on the other. It was understood also that he had displeased Governor Lincoln at the time of his election to the Senate, Governor Lincoln thinking that Mr. Davis had taken an undue advantage of his official influence as Governor to promote his own selection. But the two united in the support of General Taylor, which led Charles Allen to quote a verse which has been more than once applied in the same way since, "And in that day Pilate and Herod were made friends together."

Mr. Davis was a careful and prudent manager of money matters, and left what was, for his time, a considerable estate, considering the fact that so much of his life had been passed in the public service. His success in public life was, doubtless, in large measure, increased by his accomplished and admirable wife, the sister of George Bancroft. She was a lady of simple dignity, great intelligence, great benevolence and kindness of heart. Her conversation was always most delightful, especially in her old age, when her mind was full of the treasures of her long experience and companionship with famous persons. Mr. Davis left five sons, all of them men of ability. The eldest has been Minister to Berlin, Assistant Secretary of State, Secretary of Legation in London, Judge of the Court of Claims, and Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Another son, Horace, has been a member of Congress, eminent in the public life of California, and, I believe, president of the University of California.

John Davis won great distinction by a very powerful speech on the tariff question in reply to James Buchanan. Buchanan was one of the most powerful Democratic leaders in the Senate, but Davis was thought by the Whigs to have got much the better of him in the debate. It was generally expected that he would be the Whig candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 1840. But another arrangement was made, for reasons which may be as well told here. The Whig Convention to nominate a President was held at Harrisburg, Pa., in December 4, 1839, nearly a year before the election. The delegates from the different States were asked to consult together and agree upon their first choice. Then they were asked to say whom they thought next to the person they selected would be the strongest candidate. When the result was ascertained, it was discovered that William Henry Harrison was thought by a very large majority of the Convention to be the strongest candidate they could find. He was accordingly selected as the Whig standard-bearer. A committee of one person from each State was then chosen to propose to the Convention a candidate for Vice-President. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, of Virginia, was a strong supporter of Henry Clay, a man of great personal worth, highly esteemed throughout the country. The Convention adjourned, and came in after the adjournment to hear the report of the committee. Mr. Leigh accosted the Chairman of the committee and stood with him in a conspicuous place as the delegates filed in. He inquired of the Chairman what conclusion they had come to as to a candidate for Vice-President. To which the Chairman replied: "You will be informed in due time." When the Convention was called to order, one of the delegates from Massachusetts made a speech in which he set forth the high qualities that were desired in a candidate for this important office, and, after giving a sketch of exalted character and great capacity for the public service, he ended by declaring that such a man was Mr. Leigh, of Virginia, and proposing his name as the unanimous recommendation of the committee. Mr. Leigh was taken aback. He had been a zealous supporter of Mr. Clay. He addressed the chair, saying he was much gratified by what had been said by his friend from Massachusetts, and he hoped he might live in some humble measure to deserve the tribute which had been paid to him. But he thought that having been a zealous supporter of Mr. Clay, and having had, in some sense, the charge of his candidacy, he could not himself accept a nomination in connection with another person without exposing himself to the suspicion that he had in some way benefitted by the defeat of his own candidate and leader. It was said that his embarrassment was increased by the fact that he had been seen conversing with the Chairman of the committee by the members of the Convention. How that is I do not know. The result was the nomination of Mr. Tyler, his election, his succession to the Presidency after the death of Harrison, which resulted in such disastrous consequences to the Whigs.

John Davis was a Federalist and a Whig. His sons were Whigs and Republicans always on the conservative side of public questions. His nephew, Colonel Isaac Davis, was in that respect a contrast to his uncle.

It has been charged that John Davis, by taking up the time at the close of the session of Congress by an indiscreet speech, was the means of defeating the Wilmot Proviso, which had come from the House inserted in a bill for the incorporation of Oregon as a Territory. This statement has received general circulation. It is made in Pierce's "Life of Sumner," and in Von Holst's "Constitutional History." There is no truth in it. I investigated the matter very carefully, and have left on record a conclusive refutation of the whole story in a paper published by the American Antiquarian Society.

Mr. Davis's popularity, however, enabled him to render an important service to his party at home. The Democrats in 1839 had elected their governor, Marcus Morton, by a majority of one vote by reason of the unpopularity of the law to prevent liquor-selling, known as the Fifteen-Gallon Law, which had been passed in January, 1838. They were anxious to redeem the State, and summoned John Davis, their strongest and most popular man, to lead their forces. He accordingly resigned his seat in the Senate, was chosen Governor by a large majority, and was reelected to the Senate again the next year.

Sketches like these, made by a man who was young when the men he is talking about were old, are apt to give prominence to trifles, to little follies and eccentricities. Let nobody think that there was anything trifling or ludicrous about John Davis. He was a great, strong, wise man, a champion and tower of strength. He not only respected, but embodied the great traditions and opinions of Massachusetts in the great days, after the generation of the Revolution had left the state when she earned for herself the name of the "Model Commonwealth," and her people were building the structure of the Commonwealth on the sure foundations which the master- workmen of the Colonial and Revolutionary days had laid. The majestic presence of Webster, the classic eloquence of Everett, the lofty zeal of Sumner have made them more conspicuous figures in the public eye, and it is likely will preserve their memeory longer in the public heart. But the figure of John Davis deserves to stand by the side of these great men in imperishable memory as one of the foremost men of the State he loved so well and served so faithfully and wisely.

The Bar of Worcester County in 1850 and the years following was a very able one, indeed. It had many men of high reputation in the Commonwealth and some of wide national fame. The principal citizen of Worcester and the most distinguished member of the Bar was Governor Levi Lincoln. Although he had long since left practice, he used always to come into the court once at each term of the Supreme Court, bow respectfully to the Bench, and invite the Judges to dinner at his house, and withdraw. He filled a very large place in the history of Massachusetts from the time of his graduation at Harvard in 1802 until the close of the War in 1865. There is, so far as I know, no memoir of him in existence, except one or two brief sketches which appear in the proceedings of some local societies of which he was a member.

His father, Levi Lincoln the elder, was an intimate friend and correspondent of Mr. Jefferson, and Attorney-General in his Cabinet. He was nominated Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States by Mr. Madison and confirmed by the Senate and actually appointed, but was unable to take the office because of failing sight. He did more, probably, than any other man to organize and bring to success the political revolution in New England which followed Jefferson's accession to the Presidency in 1801. Many letters to him are found in Mr. Jefferson's published works, and there are many letters from him to Mr. Jefferson in the Jefferson papers in the archives at Washington. Some of the correspondence on both sides is enough to make the hair of the civil service reformer stand on end. The son adopted his father's political opinions and was an enthusiastic supporter of Jefferson in his youth. Jefferson wrote a letter, which I think is now in existence, praising very highly some of young Mr. Lincoln's early performances. He delivered an address at Worcester, March 4, 1803, a few months after he left college, in which he proposed that the Fourth of March, the day of Mr. Jefferson's accession to the Presidency, should be celebrated thereafter instead of the Fourth of July. He says: "Republicans no longer can hail the day as exclusively theirs. Federalism has profaned it. She has formed to herself an idol in the union of Church and State, and this is the time chosen to offer its sacrifice." He sets forth "the long train of monstrous aggressions of the Federalists" under Washington and Adams; declares that they "propose a hereditary executive and a Senatorial nobility for life," and says that the "hand would tremble in recording, and the tongue falter in reciting, the long tale of monstrous aggression. But on the Fourth of March was announced from the Capitol the triumph of principle. Swifter than Jove on his imperial eagle did the glad tiding of its victory pervade the Union. As vanish the mists of the morning before the rays of a sunbeam, so error withdrew from the inquiries of the understanding. The reign of terror had passed," etc., etc. But there never was a better example of Emerson's maxim that "a Conservative is a Democrat grown old and gone to seed." As the young man grew in reputation and influence he became more moderate in his opinions. He was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court; then was elected Governor by a union of all parties in what was called "the era of good feeling"; held the office nine years; then represented the Worcester district in Congress, and withdrew to a dignified and honorable retirement from which he emerged to hold the office of Mayor of Worcester the first year of the life of the city. He was, as I remember him, the very embodiment of dignity and aristocracy. He had a diffuse and rather inflated style, both in public speaking and in private conversation. His dignity had a bare suspicion of pomposity in it. He looked with great disdain upon the simplicity of behavior of some of his successors, and their familiarity with all classes of the people. He came into my office one morning full of an intense disgust with something Governor Briggs had been doing. He said: "In my time, sir, the office of Governor of the Commonwealth was an office of dignity. The arrival of the Chief Magistrate in any town was an event of some importance. He travelled in his carriage, with suitable attendants. He appeared in public only on great occasions. But now you see hand-bills about the street giving notice that there is to be a Temperance tea-party to-morrow afternoon, in some vestry or small hall. Music by the Peak family. His Excellency George N. Briggs will address the meeting. Admission, ten cents."

He accepted his position at the head of the social life of Worcester as a matter of course. I remember one night, when a party was breaking up, I said to the person next to me, in some jesting fashion: "I am sorry to see the decay of the old aristocracy." The Governor, who was getting his coat at the other end of the room, overheard the remark, and called out: "Who is lamenting our decay?"

The Governor looked with great disgust upon the formation of the Free Soil Party and the Anti-Slavery movement. But when the war came he remained thoroughly loyal. He encouraged enlistment in every way, and measures for the support of the Government had all the weight of his influence. He was a Presidential elector, and voted for Abraham Lincoln at the time of his second election.