The labours thus recited, my brethren, in addi tion to what we know to have been performed at Nisi Prius, and in circuits through the state, enti tle this eminent judge to the praise of great indus try, a virtue which it is an offence against morality to call humble, in one who is the keeper both of his own talent, and not seldom of that of others also. It was, however, industry of the highest order—a constant action of the intellect practically applied.
All his opinions are remarkable for their admi rable common sense, and their adaptation to the common understanding. There is no reaching after what is recondite or abstruse,—no affectation of science. The language of the law, as he uses it, is vernacular, and his arguments are the most simple that the case will bear. They are not an intricate web, in which filaments separately weak obtain strength by their union, but a chain whose firm ness arises from the solidity of its links, and not from the artifice of their connexion.
But that quality which exalts his judgments the most in the estimation of the public, is the ardent love of justice which runs through them all. His appetite for it was keen and constant; and nothing could rouse his kind and courteous temper into re sentment, more than a deliberate effort to entangle justice in the meshes of chicane. The law was his master; he yielded implicit obedience to its behests. Justice was the object of his affections; he defended her with the devotion of a lover. It is the high praise of his administration, and of the profession too, that the occasions were rare in which his ef forts did not bring them into harmonious co-ope ration.
In the department of penal law he was relieved, by his office, from frequent labours, although he annually presided in a court of over and terminer for this county. His knowledge of this branch of the law was extensive and accurate; his judgment in it, as in every other, was admirable. His own exemption from moral infirmity, might be supposed to have made him severe in his reckonings with the guilty; but it is the quality of minds as pure as his to look with compassion upon those who have fallen from virtue. He could not but pronounce the sen tence of the law upon such as were condemned to hear it; but the calmness, the dignity, the impar tiality, with which he ordered their trials, the deep attention which he gave to such as involved life, and the touching manner or his last cffice to the convicted, demonstrated his sense of the peculiar responsibility which belonged to this part of his functions. In civil controversies, such excepted as by some feature of injustice demanded a notice of the parties, he reduced the issue pretty much to an abstract form, and solved it as if it had been an algebraic problem. But in criminal cases, there was a constant reference to the wretched persons whose fate was suspended before him; and in the very celerity with which he endeavoured to dispose of the accusation, he evinced his sympathy. It was his invariable effort, without regard to his own health, to finish a capital case at one sitting, if any portion of the night would suffice for the object; and one of his declared motives was to terminate, as soon as possible, that harrowing solicitude, worse even than the worst certainty, which a pro tracted trial brings to the unhappy prisoner. He
never pronounced the sentence of death without se vere pain ; in the first instance it was the occasion of anguish. In this, as in many other points, he bore a strong resemblance to Sir Matthew Hale. His awful reverence of the great Judge of all man kind, and the humility with which he habitually walked in that presence, made him uplift the sword of justice as if it scarcely belonged to man, himself a suppliant, to let it fall on the neck of his fellow man.
Upon the whole, his character as a judge was a combination of some of the finest elements that have been united in that office. Among those which may be regarded as primary or fundamental, were a reverential love of the common law and a fervent zeal for justice, as the end and intended fruit of all law.
His early education, it has been remarked, was excellent. He was an accomplished Latin scholar, but, to his own regret, had suffered his Greek to fall away by desuetude. The literature of the for mer language he kept constantly fresh in his mind. His memory was stored with beautiful Latin, which he has been heard to repeat, as it were, to himself, when the occasion recalled it, and his modesty did not care to pronounce it aloud. On all his circuits and journies into the districts of the supreme court, his companions were the Bible, a Latin author, and some recent treatise of distinction in the law. Upon the last that he ever made, he refreshed his recol lections of the Pharsalia. It is perhaps no idle fancy to suppose that he may have then read, with almost a personal application, the prophetic appeal of the spectre to the race of Pompey: Such a name and such an example, are of great efficacy in the inquiry concerning the fittest basis of liberal education. All the faculties of his mind were thoroughly developed,—he accumulated large stores of knowledge,—he brought them into daily use,—he reasoned accurately,—he conversed ele gantly,—his taste was refined,—the pleasures which it brought to him were pure,—his imagination was replete with the beautiful forms of ancient poetry,— he was adequate to the functions of one of the most exalted offices,—he knew little of the natural sci ences,—and his education was such as has been de scribed. It would be unjust to him, however, to say, that he undervalued knowledge of any kind, and least of all that knowledge which is opening every clay to the world, and to this part of the world especially, new sources of wealth, and new proofs of the wisdom and beneficence of Deity. On the con trary, with that diffusive liberality for which he was conspicuous, he gave his counsel and his money to every plan for increasing this species of knowledge; but it cannot be asserted of him, that he recom mended it, in any of its branches, as an instrument for unfolding the faculties of youth. Ile regarded these sciences as treasure for accumulation, after education had performed its office. For the great work of training the minds of young men to liberal pursuits, and to the learned professions, his opi nion was anchored upon the system, by which he had been reared himself,—the system of the Ameri can colleges.