THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 DAVIS 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 MARY LAURA 
 
 AND DONALD BEAN 
 
MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
MEMORIES 
 
 OF 
 
 KTJFTJS CHOATE 
 
 WITH SOME CONSIDERATION OF 
 
 HIS STUDIES, METHODS, AND OPINIONS, AND OF 
 HIS STYLE AS A SPEAKER AND WRITER 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH NEILSON 
 
 BOSTON 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 1884 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
Copyright, 1884, 
 BY JOSEPH NE1LSON. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Electrotype! and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
To 
 
 THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 
 
 ISAAC GRANT THOMPSON, 
 
 AT WHOSE SUGGESTION IT WAS UNDERTAKEN, 
 
 IS DEDICATED. 
 
CONTEIBUTOES. 
 
 JOSHUA M. VAN COTT. GEORGE H. NESMITH. 
 
 ALFRED P. PUTNAM, D. D. PROFESSOR SANBORN. 
 
 WILLIAM STRONG. EDWARD B. GILLETT. 
 
 RICHARD S. STORRS, D. D. NATHAN CROSBY. 
 
 MATT. H. CARPENTER. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D. 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS. EDWARD E. PRATT. 
 
 HENRY K. OLIVER. OTIS P. LORD. 
 
 W. C. BOYDEN. WILLIAM W. STORY. 
 
 PROFESSOR WASHBURN. GEORGE P. MARSH. 
 
 ENOCH L. FANCHER. JOHN WINSLOW. 
 
 AND OTHERS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN this series of articles, I have sought to re 
 vive somewhat the love and reverence due to 
 the memory of Rufus Choate. There was, in 
 deed, little hope of doing justice to his learning 
 and genius. That had been attempted by abler 
 hands. But I was led to believe that, with the 
 aid of others, his gifts and services, the devotion, 
 dignity, simplicity, and usefulness of his life might 
 be so recalled and illustrated as to be useful to my 
 professional brethren, and interesting to the gen 
 eral reader. It was also believed that facts and 
 incidents, resting in the silent memories of his 
 friends, might be called out and preserved ; and 
 herein lay the motive for taking up the subject. 
 
 With these views, I sought the cooperation of 
 gentlemen known to have been intimate with 
 him. The kindness with which my applications 
 were treated left me no reason to regret the 
 office which I had assumed. I received many 
 letters approving of my purpose. But some of 
 my correspondents, advanced in years and feeble 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 in health, were not equal to the labor proposed. 
 Their letters, written with tremulous hands, can 
 not be read without emotion. They refer to Mr. 
 Choate in affectionate terms, and some of them 
 express the hope now known to be delusive 
 that returning strength might enable them to 
 comply with my request. 
 
 The writers whose contributions are now pub 
 lished held various relations to Mr. Choate, 
 his associates in the college, his students in the 
 law office, his professional brethren, his friends, 
 those friends who were with him in hours of joy 
 and of sorrow, and those who saw and heard him 
 occasionally, and knew him in the supreme felicity 
 and attraction of his genius and character. 
 
 In respect to almost any other memory, those 
 writers might not have been inclined to turn aside 
 from their favorite studies or official labors to take 
 part in a commemoration. But, in this instance, a 
 loving spirit moved them, and presided over their 
 work. With the loyalty of disciples, and the faith 
 fulness due to a trust, they give delineations of 
 Mr. Choate. The poetical, the practical, the ear 
 nest, the loyal, the serious, the reverential traits 
 of his character, as revealed at home and abroad, 
 are set forth with freedom and fidelity. 
 
 Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, who had written of Mr. 
 Choate as early as 1847, was requested to take up 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 the subject again. After some time and prepara 
 tion, he wrote me that the materials having ac 
 cumulated on his hands to an extent not adapted 
 to my use he had concluded to send his paper 
 to the Harpers, and was pleased to say, " I have 
 taken great delight in your series of articles and 
 communications." His recollections were published 
 in the " Half-Hour Series." 
 
 Mr. Augustus Russ, of the Boston bar, had the 
 kindness to send me a list of all the cases the 
 titles, books, and pages given in the law re 
 ports, in which Mr. Choate had appeared as 
 counsel. I was much impressed by his courtesy, 
 as the clerical force in his office must have been 
 severely taxed in making that collection. 
 
 I take special pleasure in expressing my grate 
 ful sense of the kindness of Mr. Brown, President 
 of Hamilton College. In the Preface to the last 
 edition of his " Life of Kufus Choate," he makes 
 favorable mention of the papers which I furnished 
 to the "Law Journal" in 1877 and 1878, and ex 
 presses the hope that they " will be published in 
 a form easily accessible to the many who would 
 delight to read them." 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Edward Ellerton Pratt, 
 Mr. Choate's son-in-law, for special and valuable 
 information. 
 
 My thanks are due to Messrs. Little, Brown and 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 Company for allowing me to use, in my Appen 
 dix, Mr. Choate's Kemarks at the meeting of the 
 bar on the occasion of Mr. Webster's death. 
 
 Some of my articles were submitted to the late 
 Emory Washburn. In a letter received from him, 
 written a few days before his death, he said, " I 
 am glad that Mr. Choate is taking his true position 
 as the scholar, the orator, and the jurist, among 
 the men of genius and learning of our country. 
 I am glad that you have told the public, in cool 
 ness, candor, and discrimination, just what sort of 
 a man he was, and his true claims upon their ad 
 miration and respect." 
 
 It was gratifying to receive like suggestions 
 from gentlemen of distinction, residing in differ 
 ent States, to whom I had not applied for help. 
 I am induced to make an extract from one of 
 these letters, as readers will be desirous of know 
 ing the opinion which the late William Cullen 
 Bryant entertained of Mr. Choate. He says, 
 "The lives of distinguished lawyers and great 
 orators are peculiarly interesting; and in the 
 subject of your memoir you have a most remark 
 able man of that class, endowed with the gift of 
 persuasion to a degree of which there are very 
 few instances on record." 
 
 An application to the late William Adams, 
 D. D., LL.D., President of the Union Theological 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 Seminary, for his recollections of Mr. Choate, was 
 made at a time when the burden of work and duty 
 on his hands was too great for his strength. His 
 letter in reply contained the first information I 
 had of his declining health. To the sorrow which 
 the fact of his illness gave me was added the 
 regret that I had troubled him with such an ap 
 plication. But his letter was so genial and kind, 
 the tone and spirit of it so cheerful as if pres 
 ent troubles were chastened by hope and trust 
 that I almost ceased to regret my untimely inter 
 ference. As I valued highly the few words he 
 was able to write about Mr. Choate, I was grateful 
 for permission to use them as I might see fit. In 
 the last clause of his letter, he says : 
 
 " I feel a profound interest in everything per 
 taining to Mr. Choate, and sincerely regret my 
 inability to add anything to your own valuable 
 recollections. It was not my good fortune to hear 
 Mr. Choate in public assemblies, or at the bar, 
 very often. My acquaintance with him was per 
 sonal and domestic, and my admiration for him 
 unbounded. I heard his New England Society 
 oration in New York (December, 1843), being the 
 chaplain on that occasion, and remember well his 
 turning to me for an explanation of the extraor 
 dinary bursts of applause which prevented his ad 
 vance three several times, after he had uttered 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 what may have seemed to him very simple sen 
 tences. You will readily admit, my dear sir, the 
 reasonableness of what 1 have stated as excusing 
 me from a service which otherwise would have 
 been a pleasure and an honor. Thanking you 
 again for the enjoyment I have had, in hours of 
 illness, in reperusing the brilliant oratory of Mr. 
 Choate in the books you have so kindly sent me, 
 and in reading your contributions to his fame in 
 the ' Journal/ I remain/' etc. 
 
 When some of my articles, and of the letters 
 received, were sent to the "Law Journal/' this 
 form of publication had not been contemplated. 
 I have since rewritten parts of those articles, 
 omitted parts, and have taken up some additional 
 topics. As it was not my purpose to dwell upon 
 subjects which my correspondents had considered, 
 I have had no occasion to speak of Mr. Choate's 
 studies at Dartmouth College or at the Law School 
 in Cambridge, little occasion to speak of his genius 
 as an orator and advocate, of his learning as a 
 jurist, of the wit and wisdom which characterized 
 his conversation, or of the qualities which drew 
 others to him in love and sympathy. Even his 
 birthplace has been so described by one who made 
 a loving pilgrimage to it that the " Hill by the 
 Sea " seems as if visibly present. 
 
 The reader will also find it may be contrary 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 to expectation that, owing to the nature and 
 variety of Mr. Choate's gifts and peculiarities, 
 more than twenty correspondents have found 
 material for their narrations without repeating 
 each other. 
 
 Mr. Choate's use of language has excited so 
 much remark that I have deemed it proper to 
 give that subject special consideration. I have 
 caused his entire vocabulary, as found in print, 
 to be collected, and so classified as to show its 
 constituents. With a view especially to the rela 
 tive proportions of Anglo-Saxon and of classical 
 terms used, I have also taken twenty notable 
 papers, arguments, orations, essays, by minds 
 of the first order within the last hundred years, in 
 England and America, and have had them sub 
 jected to the same analysis. 
 
 The illustrations a likeness of Mr. Choate, 
 and views of his birthplace and of his grave 
 have been approved by friends of the family. 
 
 J. N. 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. HOME INFLUENCE. EARLY PROM 
 ISE. ADMISSION TO THE BAR. PRACTICE AT DANVERS 
 AND AT SALEM. CHOATE AND WEBSTER. CRIMINAL 
 CASES. POPULAR FALLACY. ERSKINE. COUNSEL IN 
 CRIMINAL CASES NECESSARY ; FAMILIAR INSTANCES. 
 OPINIONS OF PROFESSORS WASHBURN AND PARSONS. THE 
 CASE OF PROFESSOR WEBSTER. STATEMENTS OF MR. 
 PRATT AND JUDGE LORD. DUTY AND PRIVILEGE OF AN 
 ADVOCATE 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STUDY OF LAW. POWERS OF MEMORY. INFERENCE 
 OF UNKNOWN FACTS, AND AS TO THE CHARACTERS OF 
 JURORS AND WITNESSES. SILENT CONFERENCE WITH A 
 JURYMAN. OPINIONS OF PROFESSOR PARSONS, MR. LOR- 
 ING, MR. DANA, AND JUDGE SPRAGUE. THE NUMBER OF 
 MR. CHOATE'S CASES. His TREATMENT OF WITNESSES . 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EMINENT MEN MISUNDERSTOOD. THE ADVOCATE AND MIS 
 TAKEN CRITICS. As TO CREATING A TASTE FOR A PECUL 
 IAR STYLE. How READILY CHOATE WAS UNDERSTOOD. 
 ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS AND PROFESSOR SANBORN AS 
 TO CHOATE. THE BORN OR NATURAL ORATOR. THE 
 OFFICE OF THE ORATOR 44 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VACATIONS FOR READING. STUDIES WITH BOOKS AND WITH 
 OUT THEM. CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. PRATT AND MR. 
 CARPENTER. SOLICITUDE AS TO IMPROVEMENT. TASTE, 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF. FORMATION OF CHARACTER. COLO 
 NIAL EXPERIENCE 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CLASSICAL STUDIES. ANCIENT GREECE. THE SAXONS. 
 THE LATIN. ENGLISH IN INDIA. MACAULAY'S SERVICE. 
 As TO EQUIVALENTS IN SAXON FOR SOME OF OUR 
 WORDS , 79 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE STUDY OF WORDS. THE PERCENTAGE OF ANGLO- 
 SAXON, LATIN, AND GREEK USED BY MR. C HO ATE AND 
 OTHER EMINENT SCHOLARS. THE METHODS OF SHARON 
 TURNER AND GEORGE P. MARSH. TABLES AS TO DERIV 
 ATIVES , 96 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STYLE, VARIATIONS OF. LONG SENTENCES. THE METHO 
 DIST CHURCH CASE. HABITS OF REVISING SPEECHES. 
 A CONTRAST. THE IMPORTANCE OF RHETORICAL DEC 
 ORATIONS. THE FREEDOM OF DISCOURSE NECESSARY TO 
 AN ADVOCATE. LONG ARGUMENTS 112 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 REV. DR. HITCHCOCK'S VIEW OF MR. CHOATE. EXTRACTS 
 FROM JOURNAL. THE COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF LIV 
 ING IN THE OLD WORLD. Music. VINDICATION OF SIR 
 WALTER SCOTT. INTERVENTION ; KOSSUTH'S VISIT. 
 EULOGY OF WEBSTER . 128 
 
CONTENTS. x i x 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREPARATION FOR SERVICE IN CONGRESS. RANK AND AC 
 CEPTANCE. LOST SPEECHES. ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 
 THE TARIFF. HOME INDUSTRY AND THE MECHANICAL 
 ARTS; PROGRESS. CONCURRENT VIEWS OF OTHER STATES 
 MEN 157 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE INDICTMENT OF McLEOD. THE RULE OF IMMUNITY 
 
 SUGGESTED BY MR. FOX. THE COURSE PURSUED BY THE 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE. DEBATES IN CONGRESS. DE 
 FENSE OF MR. WEBSTER. TRIAL OF McLEOD. ACT AS 
 TO REMEDIAL JUSTICE. OTHER QUESTIONS BEFORE THE 
 SENATE. THE BANK. MR. CLAY'S INTERFERENCE IN 
 DEBATE . 173 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A SHORT TERM IN CONGRESS, A SACRIFICE. RESIGNS TO 
 RETURN TO THE PROFESSION. MODEST ESTIMATE OF HIS 
 OWN POWERS. THE REWARDS OF PROFESSIONAL WORK. 
 CONTINUED UNTIL HIS HEALTH FAILED. His LAST 
 CASE. CHEERFUL TO THE LAST. A SEA VOYAGE FOR 
 HEALTH TOO LATE. His DEATH. His LOVE OF THE 
 UNION. CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. PRATT. APPRE 
 HENDS CIVIL WAR. IN THAT WAR, AFTER HIS DEATH, 
 
 HE IS WELL REPRESENTED .... . 194 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 RUFUS CHOATE AND LORD MACAULAY : A CONTRAST . . 204 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 JOSHUA VAN COTT 229 
 
 A. P. PUTNAM, D. D 232 
 
 ENOCH L. FANCHER 255 
 
 GEORGE W. NESMITH 261 
 
 WILLIAM STRONG 270 
 
 R. S. STORRS, D. D 275 
 
 MATTHEW H. CARPENTER 293 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS 299 
 
 DR. BOYDEN 307 
 
 EMORY WASHBURN 312 
 
 E. D. SANBORN 327 
 
 EDWARD B. GILLETT 334 
 
 NATHAN CROSBY 340 
 
 HENRY K. OLIVER 352 
 
 WILLIAM W. STORY 362 
 
 GEORGE P. MARSH 375 
 
 JOHN WINSLOW 383 
 
 FROM CHOATE TO SUMNER 414 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 REMARKS BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT ON THE DEATH OF MR. 
 WEBSTER 433 
 
 INDEX . 453 
 
MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Ancestry and Birth. Home Influence. Early Promise. 
 Admission to the Bar. Practice at Danvers and at Salem. 
 Choate and Webster. Criminal Cases. Popular Fallacy. 
 
 Erskine. Counsel in Criminal Cases necessary ; Familiar 
 Instances. Opinions of Professors Washburn and Parsons. 
 
 The Case of Professor Webster. Statements of Mr. 
 Pratt and Judge Lord. Duty and Privilege of an Advo 
 cate. 
 
 KUFUS CHOATE came of Puritan ancestry. 
 John Choate, the first of the lineage who came 
 over from England, settled at Ipswich, now Essex, 
 in Massachusetts. Of some of his descendants in 
 the next four generations we have interesting 
 particulars. His son was for several years a mem 
 ber of the Colonial Legislature, and died in 1695. 
 Thomas Choate, born in 1671, upheld his pastor, 
 the Kev. John "Wise, in opposing the tyranny of 
 Governor Andros, and was so devoted to public 
 affairs that he was commonly called " Governor 
 Choate." Francis Choate, born in 1701, was a jus 
 tice of the peace for about thirty years, and was a 
 i 
 
2 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 writer and a speaker of some repute. William 
 Choate, born in 1730, followed the sea for several 
 years, and later in life was a teacher in the public 
 schools. One of his sons, David, was born on the 
 29th day of November, 1757. At the age of nine 
 teen, he went into the army under General Gates, 
 and afterward served in a Continental regiment 
 under Lafayette. After peace had been declared, 
 he made voyages to Southern ports and to Spain. 
 On the 15th of October, 1791, he married Mir 
 iam, a daughter of Aaron Foster ; and from that 
 time until his death, in 1808, he resided at Ips 
 wich, his native place. To them were born six 
 children, Mary, Hannah, David, Rufus, Wash 
 ington, and Job. 
 
 Euf us Choate was born at Ipswich, on the first 
 day of October, 1799. 1 Until fifteen years of age, 
 when he went for some months to the Academy in 
 Hampton, N. H., he remained at home. In this 
 he was fortunate. His father and mother were 
 persons of rare endowments. Intelligence, prin 
 ciple, cheerfulness, sound common sense, in each 
 of them, were wrought together in the integrity 
 of a complete character. The family training 
 gave the proper bias to his sentiments. In his 
 youth he was full of promise ; in a marked degree, 
 aspiring and intellectual. At an age when boys 
 
 1 See Dr. Putnam's description of his birthplace. 
 
HOME INFLUENCE. 6 
 
 are expected to care for none of these things, he 
 had a thirst for knowledge, a fondness for reading, 
 and a fine sense of the use of words. It appears 
 that when he was six years old he had " devoured 
 the Pilgrim's Progress," and used to surprise his 
 playmates by recitations from it ; and that, before 
 his tenth year, he had read most of the books in 
 the village library. Beneficent influences, acting 
 on a delicate, docile, susceptible, emotional nature, 
 a nature easily chilled, if not perverted, by 
 contact with the world, had been at work in 
 advance of the schools. Thus it was that, in due 
 time, the boy went out to those schools mature in 
 moral and intellectual strength, prepared to exer 
 cise the manly patience given to his riper studies. 
 He carried with him the devotion, the genial 
 spirit of his home life ; and the early love never 
 faded from his heart. 
 
 In his sixteenth year he entered Dartmouth 
 College, and, after his graduation there, remained 
 a year as tutor. He then went to the Law School 
 at Cambridge, and, after the usual course of study, 
 became a student in the office of Mr. Wirt, Attor 
 ney-General of the United States. Still later he 
 was a student in the law offices of Mr. Andrews 
 at Ipswich, and of Judge Cummins at Salem. He 
 was admitted to practice by the Court of Common 
 Pleas in 1823, and by the Supreme Court in 1825. 
 
4 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 He began practice at Danvers. The building 
 in which he had his office has been taken down. 
 While living there, he married Helen Olcott, an 
 alliance which gave grace and dignity to his social 
 life. He was chosen a member of the Legislature 
 and of the State Senate, and was thus brought 
 into near relations with the leading men of the 
 Commonwealth, some of whom became his life 
 long friends. In 1828 he moved to Salem. There 
 further political honors came to him. He was 
 elected to Congress, and, having served one term, 
 was reflected ; but, at the close of the first session, 
 he resigned, and soon after settled in Boston. 
 He had then acquired great repute as an advo 
 cate. But, although his knowledge of the law 
 and his command of all that gave power and 
 beauty to illustrations of it had been severely 
 tested at Salem, where there was a strong bar, he 
 may have had some misgivings as to the competi 
 tion that awaited him in his future labors. The 
 field chosen was occupied by lawyers who, in learn 
 ing, eloquence, experience, judgment, and dignity 
 of character, compared favorably with the mem 
 bers of the profession in any city of the world. 
 Among such men, by the studies and contentions 
 of a few years, he won his way to the highest 
 and best assured professional renown. The gifts 
 and acquisitions, the zeal, energy, and persever- 
 
WEBSTER AND CHOATE. 5 
 
 ance necessary to secure that distinction must 
 have been very great. The highest proofs of 
 merit are found in that achievement, and in the 
 fact that the members of the bar loved him ; as is 
 shown by brotherly attentions while he lived, and 
 by the eloquence of sorrow when he died. 
 
 From their first appearance at the bar, as op 
 posing counsel, comparisons were made between 
 Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate, as if their rela 
 tive merits as lawyers and advocates could be thus 
 determined. But these men were so unlike in 
 genius and in style that the comparison was futile ; 
 it was unjust. When Mr. Choate came to Boston, 
 Mr. Webster stood on vantage ground. It was 
 not merely that he had had great experience, and 
 was enjoying the fame of his triumph in the Dart 
 mouth College case before Mr. Choate took up the 
 study of law, but that, by a series of signal and 
 impressive services, ministering to the interests, 
 the pride, and the honor of the people, he had 
 won their love and confidence, and had become 
 invested with a degree of weight and authority 
 which no member of the bar, as such, could have 
 secured. The glamour of his greatness would im 
 press, if not mislead, the average juryman. In the 
 forensic tournament he was thus doubly armed, 
 whether his quarrel were just or not. Mr. Choate 
 had no such special claim to attention, had no ar- 
 
6 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 mor but such as industry, learning, and eloquence 
 could supply. He led no one to regard him as the 
 rival of Mr. Webster ; his taste would have been 
 offended at the suggestion of such rivalry. His 
 estimate of Mr. Webster's powers was too generous 
 to admit of such qualification. In the like spirit, 
 Mr. Webster often expressed his admiration of 
 Mr. Choate's learning and eloquence. Indeed, it 
 may be doubted whether he ever went into a trial 
 or an argument in opposition to Mr. Choate with 
 out being conscious that he was meeting an ath 
 lete whose dexterity and strength were equal to 
 his own. Enough is known of their causes to jus 
 tify the belief that none of them was lost or won 
 because either counsel had failed to make a proper 
 presentation of the facts to the jury, or of the 
 law to the Court, in whatever form or domain of 
 jurisprudence that law might have been discover 
 able. 
 
 Most young lawyers of shining parts have had 
 occasion to undertake the defense of criminal cases 
 as a source of income, or as the most direct ap 
 proach to popular notice and favor. As Mr. 
 Choate's relation to such cases has been freely 
 and, at times, unfavorably mentioned, some obser 
 vations on that subject may be proper. 
 
 While in practice at Danvers and at Salem, he 
 had often acted as counsel for persons accused of 
 
PRACTICE IN CRIMINAL CASES. 7 
 
 crime. It has been said that no one defended by 
 him was convicted. The like fortune, to a great 
 extent, attended his subsequent efforts. In im 
 portant cases, where the indications of guilt were 
 thought to be strong, his clients were acquitted. 
 Such instances gave rise to the popular notion 
 that his powers of persuasion could lead jurymen 
 to sympathize with and shield the guilty. Some 
 laymen were shocked on learning that shades of 
 mental disorder, with new names, had been dis 
 covered. Others as if one who, while walking 
 in his sleep, kills another, should be punished 
 objected to the defense of somnambulism inter 
 posed for the benefit of Tirrell. There were, I 
 may say in passing, two indictments against Tir 
 rell ; one for murder, the other for arson ; both 
 depending on circumstantial evidence. The ver 
 dicts were not obtained against the rulings or the 
 instructions of the Court. Indeed, in one of the 
 cases, Chief Justice Shaw, in his charge to the 
 jury, strongly discredited some of the witnesses 
 for the prosecution. These cases excited as much 
 effeminate criticism as any in which Mr. Choate 
 was supposed to have had undue influence with 
 the jury, but the general sense of the profession 
 was satisfied with the acquittal of Tirrell. 
 
 Mr. Choate was not less sought for, nor less 
 successful, in civil cases. But his brilliant de- 
 
8 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 fenses in the other department of the law had 
 excited more attention, and led to the imposition 
 of a title which represented the least important 
 part of his labors : that of " The Great Crim 
 inal Lawyer." To those familiar with legal and 
 forensic history this title implied no disparage 
 ment; none, certainly, not equally deserved by 
 advocates of historic renown, ever to be held in 
 reverence, who, after counsel could be heard for 
 the accused in State Trials in England, devoted 
 their skill and influence to the protection of life 
 and liberty. 
 
 There came a time, perhaps about midway in 
 his professional career, when the pressure of crim 
 inal cases was especially distasteful to Mr. Choate. 
 He may have been conscious that his sympathies 
 were not always under his control, and that in the 
 fervor of discussion he was liable to be carried be 
 yond the line of logical argument which his de 
 liberate judgment would have approved. It may 
 be believed, however, that he had no other or fur 
 ther cause for regret. No one has suggested that 
 he ever practiced any artifice or evasion to enable 
 the guilty to escape. It would seem, therefore, 
 that the eulogist of that other great criminal law 
 yer, Daniel O'Connell, could have had the assent 
 of few sensible persons when he referred to Rufus 
 Choate as the man " who made it safe to murder ; 
 
EARNESTNESS IN HIS PROFESSION. 9 
 
 and of whose health thieves asked before they be 
 gan to steal." 
 
 Mr. Wendell Phillips may have known little of 
 the matter implied in that aspersion, of the merits 
 of the cases in which Mr. Choate had been en 
 gaged, or of the spirit which led him to defend 
 the rights of persons charged with crimes of which 
 they may have been innocent. To no one was 
 the pure, inflexible, benign administration of the 
 law more dear than to Mr. Choate. His letters 
 and speeches prove that devotion. But to no one 
 could the feeble presentation of a case, half giving 
 it away, have been more offensive. This is shown 
 by his example. From first to last, he did his 
 work with all his might. It is further proved by 
 an entry in his Journal as to a trial which he had 
 witnessed at the Old Bailey : that of Pate, charged 
 with striking the Queen. Mr. Choate says, " The 
 prisoner's counsel, in my judgment, gave up his 
 case by conceding, ' he feared he should fail.' I 
 thought and believed he might have saved him." 
 It is apparent that he should have saved him, as 
 " All seemed to admit that the prisoner was so far 
 insane as to make whipping improper, yet that he 
 was not so insane as not to be guilty." No coun 
 sel could thus neglect the rights of the accused 
 without being guilty of a moral offense deserving 
 the severest reprobation. In such a case, it would 
 
10 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 be more just and humane to err, if at all, by excess 
 of zeal than by want of it. 
 
 The fact that, as occasion required, Mr. Choate 
 did defend criminal cases, is to be regarded with 
 grateful pride. It illustrates not merely a spirit 
 of self-sacrifice, the sympathy which led him to 
 consider those who were in sore, perhaps unde 
 served, distress, but also the sense he had of his 
 duty as an advocate. Still he does not seem to 
 have adopted the opinion of Cicero : that, where 
 life was at stake, it was more honorable to defend 
 than to prosecute. He had respect for the wants 
 of the State as well as for those of the citizen. In 
 one of the few cases in which Mr. Webster acted 
 for the people, that of Knapp, charged with aid 
 ing and abetting in the murder of White, Mr. 
 Choate, then too young at the bar to take a prom 
 inent part, was with him as associate counsel ; and, 
 twenty-three years later, when he could select 
 the work best suited to his taste, he accepted 
 office as Attorney-General of Massachusetts. 
 
 The popular fallacy which imputes want of 
 moral tone to lawyers who are willing to defend 
 those apparently guilty of crime has been exposed 
 by Dr. Johnson and other moralists. 1 Sydney 
 Smith's article on " Counsel for Prisoners " 2 bris- 
 
 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. iii., ch. ii. ; ib., ch. ix. ; vol. iv., ch. i. 
 
 2 Edinburgh Review, 1826. 
 
ERSKINE'S CLAIMS UPON US. H 
 
 ties with facts and arguments in favor of the 
 rights of the accused. Erskine, in terms and by 
 example, denies the right of counsel to withhold 
 their services. In his defense of Thomas Paine, 
 the author of the " Rights of Man/' in which he 
 utterly failed, Erskine went further in asserting 
 the duty of the advocate than, under like cir 
 cumstances, Choate might have done. But, in 
 resisting the importunity of his friends who 
 sought to prevent his undertaking that defense, 
 the question with Erskine became one of right or 
 privilege, rather than of duty. He was asserting 
 his independence as a member of the bar. Yet, in 
 a later case, one in every sense more inviting and 
 respectable, he speaks as though he had the right 
 to withdraw. Except in the case of Paine, he was 
 fortunate in the character of his professional work. 
 His name is dear to us, and will be to future gen 
 erations, because, in defending those who were 
 charged with offenses against the State, he had 
 occasion to expose the fallacy of constructive trea 
 son, and to assert the independence of the jury 
 and the liberty of the press. Therein lies his 
 claim to remembrance. 
 
 That the services of counsel are necessary in 
 criminal cases has been proved by bitter experi 
 ence. In England, able lawyers were called in to 
 represent the Crown, even when the accused was 
 
12 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 denied such aid. Thus Coke and Bacon served, 
 and in some cases to their lasting discredit. This 
 course largely contributed to the "judicial mur 
 ders " which darken the pages of history prior to 
 the reign of William and Mary, and which emi 
 nent English authors Hume, Mackintosh, Camp 
 bell, Macaulay have deplored. 
 
 Mr. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger, whose 
 experience at the bar had been great, was of opin 
 ion that, unless the prisoner had the benefit of 
 counsel, justice could not be safely administered. 
 He declared that he had often seen persons, whom 
 he thought innocent, convicted for want of acute 
 and intelligent counsel. Expressions of like im 
 port abound in debates in Parliament and in legal 
 biography. 
 
 In illustration of this view it may be well to re 
 fer to a few familiar cases at home. 
 
 In 1770 some British soldiers were to be tried 
 in Boston for murder. The circumstances were 
 such as to excite popular indignation and horror. 
 Josiah Quincy, Jr., then a young lawyer, came 
 forward to defend them. For a time he suffered 
 great reproach. But a letter of remonstrance 
 from his venerable father, evidently written in 
 great distress, must have given him deeper con 
 cern. He answered the letter in becoming terms, 
 stating the principle by which he was governed ; 
 
OPINIONS OF WASHBURN AND PARSONS. 13 
 
 and acting with John Adams and Sampson S. 
 Blowers, he went on in the discharge of his duty. 
 Some of the accused were acquitted ; others were 
 found guilty of manslaughter ; not one of them 
 was convicted of murder. 
 
 In a lecture on the " Study and Practice of the 
 Law," delivered in the Law School of Harvard 
 University, the late Professor Washburn refers, 
 with exultation, to the fact that the case was thus 
 defended, and says that it secured to the State 
 one of its " noblest moral triumphs." That distin 
 guished jurist, Theophilus Parsons, in an address 
 to the students of that Law School, in 1859, upon 
 the " Character and Services of Rufus Choate," 
 said, " There never was a case nor a criminal that 
 a lawyer should not defend, with the profound 
 conviction that, while he keeps the law with him, 
 he is safe in his reputation, safe in his standing in 
 the community and among his fellows." He re 
 fers with pride and satisfaction to the defense of 
 the British soldiers by Adams and Quincy. He 
 also refers with shame and sorrow to " the dark 
 and bloody page upon which are recorded the 
 trials of the witches in 1692," and says, " that 
 none of the protective forms or rules of justice 
 shielded those unfortunates, and that no lawyer 
 was permitted to act as their counsel." He adds, 
 " If a lawyer had defended them, and had applied 
 
14 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 the test of cross-examination to the wild and fran 
 tic stories of the witnesses, and a judge had been 
 there who could tell the jury what the law was, 
 and a jury had been there willing to learn the law 
 and to obey it, this black and ineffaceable spot had 
 not fallen upon the childhood of Massachusetts." 
 
 In 1741, what has been known as the "Negro 
 Plot," a supposed conspiracy to burn the city of 
 New York and to massacre its inhabitants, threw 
 the people into great excitement and alarm. The 
 accused, put on trial, had no counsel. The At 
 torney-General, assisted by several counsel, con 
 ducted the prosecution. Of the persons arrested 
 and tried, some were hanged, some burned, and 
 others transported. In his " Criminal Trials," 
 Chandler refers to the testimony as contradic 
 tory, and insufficient to prove the crime charged ; 
 and agrees with Bancroft that the pretended plot 
 " grew out of a mere delusion." That view has 
 been generally accepted. 
 
 In 1735, John Peter Zenger, against whom the 
 Attorney-General had filed an information charg 
 ing him with having published a malicious and se 
 ditious libel, was tried before the Supreme Court 
 in the city of New York. The counsel, who first 
 appeared for him, raised a question of jurisdic 
 tion, and were excluded from the bar. Zenger's 
 friends brought Andrew Hamilton, then about 
 
PROFESSOR WEBSTER'S CASE. 15 
 
 eighty years of age, from Philadelphia, and he 
 conducted the defense. He admitted the publica 
 tion, but sought to show the truth of the paper, 
 and claimed that the jury were to pass on the mo 
 tive and intent of the defendant, and so determine 
 the question of guilt or innocence. The jury 
 found the defendant not guilty, " in the teeth/' it 
 is said, " of the instructions of the Court." 
 
 These instances may suffice. Is it not reason 
 able to infer that some of the British soldiers 
 might have been found guilty of murder, and that 
 Zenger would have been condemned, if the aid of 
 counsel had been denied them, and that, with 
 such aid, the victims of the supposed " Negro 
 Plot " could have been saved ? 
 
 When Professor "Webster was charged with the 
 murder of Dr. Parkman, it came to be generally 
 understood in Boston that Mr. Choate was unwill 
 ing to act as his counsel. That he refused to un 
 dertake the defense was known only to his family 
 and to those who had a special interest in the fate 
 of the prisoner. Indeed, so reticent was Mr. 
 Choate that all his friend, Professor Brown, could 
 say, long afterwards, was that, for reasons which 
 he judged satisfactory, he had declined. This 
 statement excited, rather than satisfied, curiosity. 
 
 But, now that the occasion for such silence has 
 passed away, it seems proper, as due to Mr. 
 
16 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Choate's memory, that all doubt should be re 
 moved. Entertaining this view, Mr. Edward El- 
 lerton Pratt and the Hon. Otis P. Lord, Judge of 
 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, an intimate 
 personal and professional friend of Mr. Choate, 
 have kindly made to me the following state 
 ments. 
 
 Mr. Pratt says, "Mr. Franklin Dexter, one 
 of the leaders of the bar in New England, was 
 greatly interested in Professor Webster's case, 
 believed that he was innocent, and was persist 
 ently earnest that Mr. Choate should defend him 
 on that ground. The Hon. Charles Sumner, also 
 holding that view, urged Mr. Choate to undertake 
 the defense, as he expressed it, in the interest of 
 humanity, and was quite angry with him for 
 refusing. At that time the testimony taken be 
 fore the coroner was known ; that taken by the 
 grand jury, by whom the indictment had been 
 found, was not publicly known. The question of 
 the Professor's guilt or innocence was the absorb 
 ing topic, and the excitement in all classes of 
 society was intense. 
 
 " Mr. Dexter was determined to secure Mr. 
 Choate's services, and, after much study of the 
 case, called, by appointment, one evening to lay 
 before him what he called its merits. Mr. Choate 
 listened to him, as a juror might have done, for 
 
MR. DEXTER AND MR. CHOATE. 17 
 
 nearly three hours ; and, as he afterwards told 
 me, it was one of the most vigorous and per 
 suasive arguments he ever heard. That estimate 
 may well be accepted, when we remember Mr. 
 Dexter's ability, his friendship for Professor Web 
 ster, and his belief that, if Mr. Choate could be 
 secured as counsel, the accused might be saved. 
 
 " The argument having closed, Mr. Choate 
 walked up and down his library several times, 
 and then, pausing before Mr. Dexter, who was 
 keenly observing him, said, ' Brother Dexter, how 
 do you answer this question, and this ? ' I can 
 not now state the points thus presented, but my 
 general recollection of the account given me by 
 Mrs. Choate and Mr. Dexter is, that those ques 
 tions presented insuperable difficulties underly 
 ing the defense. Mr. Dexter, as if transfixed, sat 
 musing deeply, his head bent upon his hand, for 
 several minutes, and, finally, as if hopeless of find 
 ing an answer, and seeking relief, he arose sud 
 denly, and said, * Brother Choate, have you read 
 
 's book ? If not, do so, and you will find it 
 
 charming.' Mr. Choate accepted this changed 
 mood, parted from him soon after with kindly 
 expressions of interest, and the subject was never 
 again alluded to between them." 
 
 Judge Lord says, " I had a conversation with 
 
 Mr. Choate on this subject. It was more than 
 2 
 
18 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 twenty years ago, and, of course, it is impossible 
 to reproduce precisely his language, but the inter 
 view was substantially this. I said to Mr. Choate, 
 ' Is it true that you refused to defend Professor 
 Webster ? ' to which he replied, not in direct 
 terms, but by implication, that he did not ab 
 solutely refuse, but that they did not want him. 
 Pausing for a while, he added, ( There was but 
 one way to try that case. When the Attorney- 
 General was opening his case to the jury, and 
 came to the discussion of the identity of the 
 remains found in the furnace with those of Dr. 
 Parkman, the prisoner's counsel should have risen 
 and said, substantially, that, in a case of this im 
 portance, of course counsel had no right to con 
 cede any point, or make any admission, or fail to 
 require proof, and then have added, ' But we 
 desire the Attorney- General to understand, upon 
 the question of these remains, that the struggle 
 will not be there. But, assuming that Dr. Park 
 man came to his death within the laboratory on 
 that day, we desire the Government to show 
 whether it was by visitation of God, or whether, 
 in an attack made by the deceased upon the 
 prisoner, the act was done in self-defense, or 
 whether it was the result of a violent alterca 
 tion. Possibly the idea of murder may be sug 
 gested, but not with more reason than apoplexy, 
 
MR. CHOATE'S MODE OF DEFENSE. 19 
 
 or other form of sudden death. As the prisoner 
 himself cannot speak, the real controversy will 
 probably be narrowed to the alternative of justi 
 fiable homicide in self-defense, or of manslaughter 
 by reason of sudden altercation." 
 
 " Having said this, he added, ' But Professor 
 Webster would not listen to any such defense as 
 that/ accompanying that statement with language 
 tending to show that the proposed defense was re 
 jected, not only by the accused but by his friends 
 and advisers. 
 
 " He then said, ' The difficulty in that defense 
 was to explain the subsequent conduct of Professor 
 Webster,' and he proceeded with a remarkable 
 and subtle analysis of the motives of men, and the 
 influences that govern their conduct, to show that 
 the whole course of the accused, after the death, 
 could be explained by a single mistake as to the 
 expediency of instantly disclosing what had hap 
 pened; that hesitation or irresolution or the de 
 cision, ' I will not disclose this,' adhered to for a 
 brief half-hour, might, by the closing in of cir 
 cumstances around him, have led to all that fol 
 lowed. Having concealed the occurrence, he was 
 obliged to dispose of the remains, and would do 
 so in the manner suggested, and with the facilities 
 afforded by his professional position. He con 
 cluded, * It would have been impossible to convict 
 
20 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Professor Webster of murder with that admis 
 sion/ 
 
 " I suggested that the possession of the note by 
 Professor Webster, as paid, was an awkward fact. 
 He said, ' Yes, but it might seem to become a 
 necessity after his first, false step of concealment/ 
 He added, * Dr. Parkman was known to have been 
 at the hospital. When, and under what circum 
 stances, and to explain what statements made by 
 him, the Professor thought it expedient to say he 
 had paid the note, or to obtain possession of it, 
 would probably never appear. It was simply an 
 incident whose force could be parried, if he could 
 obtain credit for the position that the concealment 
 was a sudden and impulsive after-thought, which 
 took possession of and controlled him in his subse 
 quent conduct/ ' 
 
 We have, in these statements, the desired testi 
 mony as to Mr. Choate's relation to that case. 
 We have also an illustration of his view of the 
 duty and privilege of an advocate. It is apparent 
 that, while accepting the theory that, in a crim 
 inal case, a lawyer is not at liberty to withhold 
 his services absolutely, Mr. Choate did not think 
 him bound to go into court, contrary to his own 
 convictions, and assert what he did not believe to 
 be true, or take a line of defense which he con 
 sidered untenable. Thus, for instance, as he was 
 
RIGHTS OF CRIMINALS. 21 
 
 satisfied that, at the time and place alleged. Dr. 
 Parkman had died in Professor Webster's pres 
 ence, Mr. Choate was not willing to act on the 
 theory that Dr. Parkman was alive after that time, 
 and to call and examine witnesses to testify, as 
 they finally did, under a mistake as to identity, 
 that they had seen him day after day in the 
 streets of the city. That theory was set up on the 
 trial and failed, as Mr. Choate had foreseen that it 
 would fail. 
 
 In taking leave of this subject, and recalling 
 the fact that, in England, the right of the accused 
 to speak by counsel in State trials was secured, as 
 a national reform, long desired by the people and 
 by the best and wisest men in Parliament, we may 
 well be grateful that our system of criminal prac 
 tice was, at an early day, framed on just and hu 
 mane principles. With us, the right of the accused 
 to be defended by counsel has been respected, in 
 deed secured, by the Constitution ; and, if need 
 be, counsel is appointed for that purpose by the 
 Court. It is to be confessed, however, that, even 
 with our improved methods of discovering the 
 truth and our humane administration of the law, 
 mistakes have been committed. Instances have 
 occurred where skill and learning could not un 
 ravel complicated circumstances, and the innocent 
 have been condemned to die. So also, in the light 
 
22 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 of newly discovered evidence, it has been seen 
 that men have been unjustly consigned to the 
 state prison ; and after they may have suffered 
 the bitterness of death for years, we open the 
 doors with a humiliation scarcely less than that 
 inflicted on them. We are thus admonished to 
 improve our methods, to give the accused every 
 reasonable means of defense, and to accept cor 
 dially whatever aid can be properly rendered in 
 determining the guilt or innocence of those who 
 are tried as criminals. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Study of Law. Powers of Memory. Inference of Un 
 known Facts, and as to the Characters of Jurors and Wit 
 nesses. Silent Conference with a Juryman. Opinions 
 of Professor Parsons, Mr. Loring, Mr. Dana, and Judge 
 Sprague. The Number of Mr. Choate's Cases. His 
 Treatment of Witnesses. 
 
 ALTHOUGH endowed with great intellectual pow 
 ers, Mr. Choate was as careful, methodical, and 
 solicitous in regard to mental helps as any student 
 who might have been less conscious of innate 
 strength. He seems to have been mindful that 
 excellence was attainable not only by those who 
 could pass on swiftly and easily, but by those who, 
 less favored of nature, were superior in diligence. 
 Thus, regarding genius as the mere capacity to 
 acquire knowledge and to use it, he gave himself 
 up to habitual study. 
 
 Some perils attend students who possess great 
 intellectual gifts. From the time when such a 
 one perceives how receptive he is to suggestions 
 of truth and beauty, and how readily the barriers 
 which impede others yield to his touch, he may 
 become the victim of a delusive self-confidence, 
 
24 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 and be led to accept the notion that the fruitful- 
 ness of his life will be of spontaneous growth. As 
 he seems to apprehend intuitively the less occult 
 relations of things, he regards close and prolonged 
 study as unnecessary. So, content with some ap 
 pearance of culture, he falls into easy ways, and 
 goes through life as the lounger saunters through 
 the streets. He is like the slothful miner who 
 gathers up the bits of precious metal exposed to 
 view, without acting on the hint nature gives of 
 the wealth hidden beneath the surface. Another 
 student, of like gifts, moves on earnestly, acquires 
 knowledge, does some good work. Having found 
 that what he should learn is easily acquired, he 
 assumes that there need be no limit to his attain 
 ments. Like the student in " Faust," he confers 
 with the evil spirit and is encouraged to inquire 
 into mysteries too subtile for his comprehension. 
 He takes to such studies, and thenceforth swims 
 not with the current but against it. He is vain 
 and unstable in proportion as he evades the influ 
 ence of natural laws, the checks and hindrances 
 designed to hold him in restraint, and which are 
 as necessary for his safety as the wall built at the 
 side of the road by the river is for the protection 
 of travelers. He undertakes to inform the school 
 men in their specialties, and his speculations on 
 science and on the nature and relations of man 
 
MR. CHOATE'S LONG-HEADEDNESS. 25 
 
 partake of the artificial texture of his life. As he 
 has done some good work in certain departments, 
 his speculations secure respect and confidence. 
 Thus his best efforts may have an evil influence. 
 
 Eufus Choate escaped the perils which thus be 
 set students. He knew the need and the use of 
 study ; he knew also the limitations that were to 
 be respected. A conservative spirit held him in 
 restraint, and repressed longings to slake his. thirst 
 at fountains beyond his reach. In early life he 
 refused to follow a friend into the labyrinths of 
 German mysticism, or to explore the region which 
 Swedenborg had made his own. This reserve be 
 came him, not simply because he did not wish to 
 be " shocked, waked, or stunned " out of settled 
 convictions, but because the duties before him, 
 with the studies they involved, would consume 
 his time and strength. So he put aside as improv 
 ident whatever was remote from the purposes of 
 his life. He never lost his balance by reaching 
 out too far, nor, like one of old, walked into the 
 water while gazing at the stars. 
 
 The special and seemingly alien qualities of Mr. 
 Choate's nature were strongly marked. He was 
 gentle, yet exigent ; simple, yet subtile ; natural, 
 yet artistic ; poetic in conception and tone, yet 
 acute and logical. But his studies were so conso 
 nant to his wants, and his work so wisely chosen, 
 
26 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 that those qualities of mind, acting in harmony, 
 were moulded into perfect unity of character. In 
 the record he has left, we can clearly discern his 
 love of nature, and of all that is good and true 
 and beautiful ; the loyalty, sagacity, and prudence 
 that guided him in his public services, and the 
 tenderness and cheerfulness that made his home- 
 life as a perpetual summer. But, however we 
 may indulge in speculations as to his peculiar gen 
 ius, he should finally be accepted as his own inter 
 preter. 
 
 We owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Brown 
 for having collected the fragments that could be 
 found of Mr. Choate's Journal. A part of it, writ 
 ten when he was traveling abroad, he no doubt 
 intended for his family and friends. The other 
 part, especially that which relates to his studies, 
 may have been for the benefit of his son, then a 
 student. But the Journal having, as we may as 
 sume, served its purpose, shared the fate of much 
 else that he had written. How much of it was 
 lost is not known. The parts of it which we have 
 are rich in suggestion and instruction, the style 
 exquisite in its unstudied grace and beauty. 
 
 Mr. Choate's study of the law was extraordi 
 nary. I find in legal biography no instance of 
 equal devotion. In speaking of his early course, 
 he told Mr. Parker, the author of the " Reminis- 
 
HIS LEGAL ENTHUSIASM. 27 
 
 cences," that in studying law he gave his mind 
 wholly to it ; that his habit was to read until two 
 o'clock in the morning. After that early experi 
 ence, his legal studies became less exclusive, as he 
 was seeking a broader and more generous culture 
 than the law could give. But, even in his latest 
 years, he sought inspiration from Coke on Little 
 ton, lest his legal taste should decline. That he 
 might be in full communion with the spirit and 
 philosophy of our language and institutions, and 
 of our legal science, the law of the law, 
 he studied, almost daily, other languages and other 
 systems of jurisprudence and of government. 
 
 He was wont to accept judicial determinations 
 of important questions with jealous scrutiny. His 
 modes of inquiry, adhered to long after he had 
 attained great fame for his learning in the law, 
 were peculiar and characteristic. He was in the 
 habit of collecting the facts stated in cases reported 
 in the books, and of preparing arguments for or 
 against the decisions ; of criticising the authorities 
 cited, and finding others to confirm or to qualify 
 them ; and of seeking to discover how far a doc 
 trine, underlying a series of adjudications, might 
 be made to appear more or less just in the light 
 of history, of reason, and of scientific principles. 
 
 Equally special and exhaustive was his study of 
 the cases in which he was to appear as counsel, 
 
28 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Each case was tested and tortured until every con 
 ceivable phase of strength and of weakness was re 
 vealed. His son-in-law and partner, the late Mr. 
 Bell ; his student, the late Senator Matt. H. Car 
 penter ; and Judge Fancher, who was concerned in 
 a case with Mr. Choate, agree as to the thorough 
 ness of his preparation. He studied pen in hand. 
 The facts and qualifying circumstances were en 
 tered in a little book. Books of this kind, with 
 notes of decisions, were used by Erskine. Mr. Espi- 
 nasse says that, after great experience at the bar, 
 Erskine used to bring his little book into court and 
 read cases from it. On one occasion his opponent, 
 affecting to ridicule the habit, said that he wished 
 Erskine would lend him his book. Lord Mansfield 
 said, " It would do you no harm, Mr. Baldwin, to 
 take a leaf from that book, as you seem to want 
 it." Erskine thus used his book when he sought 
 to show that the impeachment of Warren Hastings 
 was at an end, owing to mere suspension on the 
 dissolution of Parliament. Edmund Burke, easily 
 excited by opposition of any kind in regard to 
 that impeachment, had a fling at " ideas that 
 never traveled beyond a nisi prim case," and a 
 sneer for the book. 1 Mr. Choate had little need 
 
 1 In this relation it is grateful to recall the fact that, a short time 
 before his death, Burke called on Erskine, and, holding out his hand, 
 said, " Come, Erskine, forget all. I shall soon quit this stage, and 
 wish to die at peace with everybody, especially with you.'* 
 
DAILY PRACTICES. 29 
 
 of his book in court, as what he had written was 
 deeply, if not indelibly, impressed upon his mem 
 ory. But the book of facts, thus useful in prepa 
 ration, would be further useful to be revised and 
 extended, should the case be put over to another 
 term. So, too, in the multitude of cases, it might 
 prevent confusion. It is said that Sugden once 
 got hold of the wrong brief and argued in support 
 of his opponent's side of the case, and that Dun 
 ning made a like blunder. No such mistake has 
 been reported of Erskine or of Choate. 
 
 In his Journal, Mr. Choate describes his studies ; 
 tells how the early hour was employed. He had a 
 few minutes with favorite authors, English, Greek, 
 Latin, French, often a lesson from each, and then 
 the genius of the law beckoned him away. , Thus, 
 for instance, he is in London, and after saying, 
 " Mr. Bates called and made some provision for 
 our amusement," he adds that he read the Bible, 
 the Prayer Book, a half dozen lines in Homer and 
 Virgil, and a page of Williams's " Law of Keal 
 Property." It was a rule with him to read at least 
 one page of some law book daily. All this to keep 
 the simple elements of the law fresh in mind ; a 
 purpose from which not even the delights of 
 travel, of new scenes and associations could wholly 
 divert him. Thus trained and strengthened, his 
 vision could take in, as from a tower of observa- 
 
30 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 tion, the domain of the law. It lay before him as 
 a familiar and inviting landscape. Hence it was 
 that when, on a trial or an argument, principles 
 apparently adverse or decisions not anticipated 
 were cited against him, the countervailing doc 
 trine, if there was any, was in his mind ready for 
 use. The study of law, thus pursued, leads to 
 logic, to ethics, to metaphysics ; in a word, to the 
 whole range of special sciences. Mr. Choate may 
 have accepted the Justinian definition, " Jurispru 
 dence is the knowledge of things divine and hu 
 man ; the science of what is just and unjust." If 
 so, that may suggest some of the reasons which 
 led him to adopt more liberal studies than are 
 usually thought necessary to professional success. 
 
 We all know that many men less studious and 
 learned than Mr. Choate become distinguished 
 and useful lawyers, and have great weight and in 
 fluence in public affairs. But it may be safely 
 said that only those who are endowed with spe 
 cial gifts, as if set apart and consecrated to the 
 service, can become great advocates. How some 
 of these special gifts waited upon Mr. Choate and 
 served him may be readily recalled. 
 
 His power of memory was so marvelous and so 
 useful that some further reference to it may be 
 proper. The "Law Reporter," 1 in describing the 
 
 1 Vol. vi, p. 385. 
 
NOTE ON THE PHCENIX BANK TRIAL. 31 
 
 trial of the Phoenix Bank cases (1844), in which 
 Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate were counsel for dif 
 ferent defendants, has the following note : 
 
 " In the course of the trial, and in a most excit 
 ing passage, when all the counsel appeared to be 
 intent upon the case and nothing else, Mr. Web 
 ster wrote on a slip of paper the favorite couplet 
 of Pope, and passed it to Mr. Choate : 
 
 * Lo, where Maeotis sleeps, and softly flows 
 The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.' 
 
 Mr. Choate wrote at the bottom ' wrong ' 
 
 * Lo, where Mseotis sleeps, and hardly flows 
 
 The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.' 
 
 Mr. Webster rejoined < right/ and offered a wager. 
 A messenger was dispatched for Pope, when it ap 
 peared that the present Senator (Choate) had the 
 advantage of his predecessor (Webster), and was 
 right. Mr. Webster gravely wrote on the copy 
 of Pope, ' Spurious edition ! ' and the subject was 
 dropped. All this while the spectators were in the 
 full belief that the learned counsel were in ear 
 nest consultation on some difficult point of law." 
 
 In his " Reminiscences of Daniel Webster " (p. 
 358), Mr. Peter Harvey gives what would seem to 
 be the same incident, though referring to another 
 author. The title of the case on trial is not stated, 
 nor are the lines of the poet. But it is said, " Mr. 
 Webster sent an extract from Cowper, which Mr. 
 
32 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Choate corrected and returned, intimating that 
 there had been a misquotation. Mr. Webster re 
 peated his first version and claimed that he was 
 right. A messenger was sent for Cowper's ' Task ; ' 
 the place was found, and Mr. Webster saw that 
 the sentiment was as Mr. Choate had corrected 
 it. He smiled, and wrote with a pencil upon the 
 margin of the page containing the disputed pas 
 sage, ' A spurious edition/ ' 
 
 Mr. Parker, in the "Reminiscences of Rufus 
 Choate " (p. 183), relates how, at a special gather 
 ing in Washington, in the winter of 1850, the con 
 versation having turned upon " Young America," 
 Mr. Webster referred to the lad in severe terms, but 
 Mr. Choate, claiming that he was no new thing in 
 the world's history, cited the following passage, as 
 proof of the antiquity of the character : " Statim 
 sapiunty statim sciunt omnia ; neminem verentur, 
 imitantur neminem, atque ipsi sibi exempla sunt." 
 Which may be translated, less liberally than by 
 Mr. Parker, At once they are wise, at once they 
 know all things ; they reverence no one, they imi 
 tate no one, and follow only their own example. 
 Mr. Benton thought that the quotation was too 
 happy to be genuine; and Mr. Choate referred 
 him to the younger Pliny, where it was found in 
 the twenty-third letter of the eighth book. 1 
 
 1 As felicitous as Swift's quotation from Virgil upon the injury of 
 
MR. CHOATE'S KEEN PENETRATION. 33 
 
 It is obvious that, with such power of memory, 
 Mr. Choate could readily recall the proofs peculiar 
 to a case on trial and apply them to instant use. 
 In special cases, he might not know, often could 
 not know, upon what proofs his adversaries relied. 
 But he could, by an intellectual and reflective 
 process, infer much that belonged to the other 
 side of a case. This power of reasoning from the 
 known to the unknown, of judging how men 
 would act, was possessed by him in a remarkable 
 degree. Of this an esteemed correspondent gives 
 an illustration. He says, " In my early experi 
 ence I had a complicated case of some importance, 
 in which Mr. Choate was retained as counsel. 
 There had been no consultation, and I was to pre 
 pare a full statement of the facts. With the aid 
 of my client, I arranged the points, more than 
 thirty in number, with the proofs as to each, in 
 their apparent order and relation. I then went 
 to Mr. Choate and read the paper to him. He 
 said, ' Please repeat numbers 26 and 27.' I did 
 so. He said, ' There is something wanting ; the 
 human mind does not work in that way. The case 
 drifts on naturally enough down to 26, but there a 
 peculiar complication comes up, and your state 
 ment does not meet it. At that juncture, the par- 
 
 a violin 'by fire communicated from a lady's garment hanging next 
 it: "Mantua, vce! miserce nimium vicina Cremona." 
 3 
 
34 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ties, influenced by business habits, by interest, or 
 by desire to overreach each other, had several 
 courses open to them ; ' and he proceeded to in 
 dicate each in his peculiar way. I resumed the 
 study of the case, had conferences with witnesses ; 
 my client found additional correspondence ; and it 
 finally appeared that Mr. Choate was right The 
 new matter under 26 presented a more full and 
 connected view of the case on its merits, quite in 
 harmony with one of Mr. Choate's illustrations, 
 and on the trial of the action had controlling in 
 fluence." 
 
 Mr. Choate was almost always able to fix upon 
 the theory on which his cases should be tried. 
 This called for the exercise of great judgment. 
 He seldom disclosed his theory until it was seen 
 that the proofs at large were consistent with it. 
 But, when the current of testimony set in against 
 it too strongly and baffled expectation, his theory 
 was abandoned and a new one devised. The transi 
 tion was made so adroitly that few could perceive 
 that he had been disappointed. 
 
 A correspondent, long a leader of the Boston 
 bar, in referring to Mr. Choate's perception and 
 sagacity as exceptional, says, " He could read the 
 mind and infer the character of a juryman or of a 
 witness with wonderful readiness and certainty. I 
 have sat by him in court when jurors were se- 
 
AN UNUSUAL CASE. 35 
 
 lected, and when witnesses, strangers to him, were 
 called, and been told what he thought of each of 
 them in turn, and I cannot remember an instance 
 in which he was mistaken. Nearly allied to that 
 was his ability to judge of circumstances in their 
 relation and bearing. I have been with him in 
 the trial of cases when the party and the attorney 
 for whom he acted had little conception of the 
 difficulties to be encountered, and have often 
 witnessed the ease and readiness with which he 
 met and unraveled complications which threatened 
 defeat. In this relation, an action I had brought 
 to recover the price of a cargo of goods which my 
 client had sold on credit may be worthy of notice. 
 The defense set up was fraud. The defendant 
 claimed that my client had represented the goods 
 to be sound and merchantable when he knew that 
 they were not ; that, relying on that representa 
 tion, he had purchased and shipped the goods to a 
 foreign market and had suffered great damage. 
 My client denounced the defense as a scheme to 
 put off the payment of an honest claim, and was 
 too indignant to confer about it. Accepting his 
 views, I assumed that there would be no attempt 
 to prove the defense, and on the day of trial at 
 tended with him and a witness to prove the ac 
 count. Brooks, the broker who had acted with us 
 in making the sale, had recently died. (I pause 
 
36 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CEO ATE. 
 
 a moment to state some facts of which we were 
 then ignorant. In the same month and before my 
 client's sale, the defendant had purchased of an 
 other person and shipped to the same market a 
 like cargo of goods, and had, it seems, been de 
 frauded as in his plea alleged. Brooks, the broker, 
 had also acted with that person in making the 
 sale.) At court, the defendant and his counsel 
 met us ready for trial ; my client still had his 
 6 Pshaw ! pshaw ! ' as to the defense. But I got 
 nervous, and sent for Choate to help me, and hap 
 pily he came. 
 
 " Our formal proofs were put in. The defend 
 ant's counsel then opened the defense, and pro 
 ceeded to prove it. My client was in great wrath. 
 Choate said to me, ' He is honest^ and we shall 
 find our way out of the scrape/ The last and 
 principal witness for the defense appeared to be a 
 sensible, substantial sort of person. He spoke to 
 the whole case, and explained how he knew that 
 .the goods were made of bad materials, not fit for 
 use. He was employed on the ship that had taken 
 the goods, and was the only witness to prove the 
 false representations alleged. I said to Mr. Choate, 
 ' He is inventing that/ He replied, ' No, he is 
 truthful, but mistaken ; ' and went on to cross- 
 examine. He and the witness were soon on the 
 most friendly terms. I never saw Mr. Choate 
 
A TRUTHFUL BUT FALSE WITNESS. 37 
 
 appear so simple and slow of apprehension. The 
 witness, not thinking that he was much of a law 
 yer, took to him kindly, and was anxious to have 
 him understand the whole matter. Mr. Choate, 
 seeming to admit that the representations had been 
 made and were false, was very solicitous about the 
 party making them. The witness was quite clear 
 that the name was that of the plaintiff, and was 
 disposed to argue the question on the ground that 
 Brooks, whom he had known, was with us, as we 
 had admitted. He described the seller of the 
 goods ; his size, complexion, whiskers, dress. When 
 all that had been fixed beyond recall, and my 
 client had come forward to be identified, Mr. 
 Choate, turning to the witness, with changed man 
 ner and terrible emphasis, said, < Can you, on your 
 oath, say that this is the man ? ' The likeness 
 which had been given was so unlike, so flagrant, as 
 to excite roars of laughter, in which the jury 
 joined. The witness answered, ' You know that 's 
 not the man ; what do you want to make fun of 
 me for ? ' Mr. Choate assured him that he was 
 not responsible for the blunder of charging fraud 
 on the wrong person, and said he would like to 
 have him repeat the name of the ship in which 
 the goods had been taken and state positively the 
 time of sailing. These facts having been given, 
 Mr. Choate said to the Court that he would prove 
 
38 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 more fully that our goods were sold two weeks 
 later, and were sent by a different vessel. On 
 that having been shown, the defendant's counsel 
 abandoned the defense. 
 
 " Without assuming to judge of the defendant's 
 integrity, I am satisfied that his counsel was no 
 party to the trick ; had not dreamed of the mis 
 take. But I can say that Mr. Choate was the first 
 to suspect that there had been some real transac 
 tion as to which the witness was speaking truly. 
 He discovered the blunder when we were blind to 
 it, and dealt with the witness accordingly. My 
 client was very grateful. Mr. Choate made light 
 of his services, and accepted only half of the fee 
 I brought him. My client refused to take the 
 other half back, and it was sent as a gift to Dr. 
 Adams's church." 
 
 Another correspondent says, " I went into court 
 to see Mr. Choate, and found him addressing a 
 jury. The proceedings having been suspended for 
 a few minutes, I said to him, < We want an inter 
 view in B.'s case ; how long will you be in closing 
 your argument ? ' He said, ' I don't know. That 
 red-headed juror on the back seat does not seem to 
 understand the case yet, and I must feel of him, 
 and put some points in a new light.' I went back 
 to my seat, and he remained looking at the jury, 
 without apparent concern. When the Chief Jus- 
 
PROFESSOR PARSONS 'S RECOLLECTIONS. 39 
 
 tice came on the bench again, Mr. Choate, rising, 
 said, ' If your Honor please, I detain you no longer. 
 Gentlemen of the jury, that is our case.' He had 
 a verdict. As we walked to his office, I told him 
 how amazed I had been, and asked why he had 
 changed his plan. He said, ' When you mentioned 
 B.'s case, I was conferring with my red-headed 
 juryman, and, after some further conference, I 
 saw I had him.' ' 
 
 In his address before the Law School of Harvard 
 University, to which I have already referred, Pro 
 fessor Parsons, after speaking of his long-continued 
 intimacy with Mr. Choate and of a trial in which 
 they had been opposing counsel twenty-four years 
 before, says, " I have the more right to make this 
 use of his memory, because he was one of us. It 
 was in this school that he laid the foundations 
 upon which he afterward built up his great knowl 
 edge of the law. And we have the right to say 
 that they were ample, deep, and strong, when we 
 remember the vast and beautiful structure which 
 rested upon them." He also says, "I have, in 
 deed, no hesitation in saying that he was one of 
 the most learned lawyers I have ever met with. 
 And his learning was excellent in its kind and 
 quality." 
 
 The proceedings of the Suffolk bar, on the oc 
 casion of Mr. Choate's death, fitly illustrate the 
 
40 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 estimation in which he was held as a scholar, as 
 an advocate, and as a citizen. It would be diffi 
 cult to find in modern biography anything more 
 touching and impressive. 
 
 In presenting the resolutions at the meeting of 
 the bar, as instructed by the committee, Mr. 
 Charles G. Loring, among other things, said, 
 " Having been, for more than twenty years after 
 Mr. Choate came to this bar, his antagonist in 
 forensic struggles, at the least, I believe, as fre 
 quently as any other member of it, I may well be 
 competent to bear witness to his peculiar abilities, 
 resources, and manners in professional services. 
 And having, in the varied experiences of nearly 
 forty years, not infrequently encountered some of 
 the giants of the law, whose lives and memories 
 have contributed to render this bar illustrious 
 throughout the land, among whom I may include 
 the honored names of Prescott, Mason, Hubbard, 
 Webster, Dexter, and others among the dead, and 
 those of others yet with us to share in the sorrows 
 of this hour, I do no injustice to the living or the 
 dead in saying that, for the peculiar powers desir 
 able for a lawyer and advocate, for combination of 
 accurate memory, logical acumen, vivid imagina 
 tion, profound learning in the law, exuberance of 
 literary knowledge, and command of language, 
 united with strategic skill, I should place him at 
 
VIEWS OF MR. DANA AND JUDGE SPRAGUE. 41 
 
 the head of all whom I have ever seen in the 
 management of a cause at the bar." 
 
 Mr. Richard H. Dana, Jr., other parts of whose 
 address have been often quoted, said, " The world 
 knows how he electrified vast audiences in his 
 more popular addresses; but, sir, the world has 
 not known, though it knows better now than it 
 did, and the testimony of those better compe 
 tent than I am will teach it, that his power here 
 rested not merely nor chiefly upon his eloquence, 
 but rested principally upon his philosophic and di 
 alectic power. He was the greatest master of 
 logic we had among us. No man detected a fal 
 lacy so quickly, or exposed it so felicitously as he, 
 whether in scientific terms to the bench, or popu 
 larly to a jury ; and who could play with a fallacy 
 as he could ? Ask those venerated men who com 
 pose our highest tribunal, with whom all mere 
 rhetoric is worse than wasted when their minds 
 are bent to the single purpose of arriving at the 
 true results of their science, ask them wherein 
 lay the greatest power of Rufus Choate, and they 
 will tell you it lay in his philosophy, his logic, and 
 his learning." 
 
 When the resolutions were presented at the 
 District Court of the United States, Mr. Justice 
 Sprague made some interesting remarks from 
 which I quote a few words. " Others have spoken 
 
42 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 fully and eloquently of his eminence and excel 
 lence in various departments. We may here at 
 least appropriately say something of him as a law 
 yer and an advocate. His life was mainly devoted 
 to the practice of his profession, and this court 
 was the scene of many of his greatest efforts and 
 highest achievements. I believe him to have been 
 the most accomplished advocate that this country 
 has produced." 
 
 Mr. Choate was, year by year, engaged in the 
 trial and argument of cases more continuously 
 than any other member of the bar whose name I 
 can recall. But the extent of his work cannot, at 
 this late day, be stated. Of the causes in which 
 he was counsel and argued questions of law and 
 equity, in the State and Federal Courts, three hun 
 dred and thirty-three have appeared in the regular 
 Reports, and are familiar to the profession. Many 
 of them were of grave importance, and called for 
 the application of principles in special and novel 
 relations. But, as other counsel were often con 
 cerned with Mr. Choate, it cannot be said how 
 much of the work should be ascribed to him. 
 
 The number of his trials before juries is not 
 known. Many of them were described in the 
 public prints, and parts of some of his arguments 
 were given. But, as the reporters had not the 
 skill men of tliat class now have, the reports were 
 
EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES. 43 
 
 imperfect. Owing to the same or a like defi 
 ciency, I cannot find a fair report of his cross-ex 
 amination of witnesses. A correct report would 
 be worth preserving as a model. His fairness in 
 the treatment of witnesses often secured their 
 favor and the good-will of the jury. If the wit 
 ness was timid, he was encouraged ; if nervous, 
 soothed ; if eager, repressed ; if honest, protected ; 
 if crafty and adverse, exposed. Witnesses who 
 wished to tell the truth found him patient, cour 
 teous, helpful, considerate. He knew that they 
 often err from want of memory, perhaps from ina 
 bility to distinguish what they know from what 
 they have heard. So, having the sanctity of an 
 oath in mind, he cared for the witness as he cared 
 for himself. Such witnesses often remembered 
 him with gratitude, while dishonest witnesses 
 learned to fear him. Herein Mr. Choate was the 
 friend of the Court. Judge Sprague must have 
 thought so when he said of him, " His skill in the 
 examination of witnesses was consummate. I have 
 never seen it equaled." What Mr. Choate said of 
 this kind of Daniel Webster's work may be fitly 
 applied. " His efforts in trials by jury compose a 
 more traditional and evanescent part of his pro 
 fessional reputation than his arguments at law; 
 but I almost think they were his mightiest pro 
 fessional displays, or displays of any kind, after 
 
 Ik" 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Eminent Men misunderstood. The Advocate and Mistaken 
 Critics. As to creating a Taste for a Peculiar Style. 
 How readily Choate was understood. Alexander H. Ste 
 phens and Professor Sanborn as to Choate. The Born or 
 Natural Orator. The Office of the Orator. 
 
 THE power of making good jokes and telling 
 good stories, if exercised in public by a man of 
 eminence, may detract from the proper estimate 
 of his character. Sydney Smith has won lasting 
 reputation as a wit ; and his wit was often used 
 in the interest of truth and right, but it stood 
 squarely in the way of his ecclesiastical prefer 
 ment. President Lincoln had a quaint humor that 
 relieved the terrible gloom of his darkest hours, 
 but he is credited with jokes and stories that never 
 fell from his lips. It was somewhat thus with Mr. 
 Choate. Those who had no personal intercourse 
 with him, and who formed hasty judgments from 
 his peculiarities, adopted erroneous views. To that 
 error he may have casually contributed. In legal 
 contentions, he was so happy in his retorts that an 
 adversary seldom gained anything by interrupting 
 his arguments. But the reports of those retorts 
 
A SHARP RETORT. 45 
 
 (and they were sure to be reported) wanted the 
 spirit and grace that had charmed his opponents. 
 I can recall but one instance in which his retort 
 gave offense. In answering a lawyer who had ad 
 dressed the Court in a loud tone, Mr. Choate play 
 fully referred to his "stentorian powers." To 
 his surprise, his opponent rose, and hotly replied 
 that nothing in his mode of address would justify 
 such a stricture. As he went on thus, his voice 
 rose again to a high key, and rang through the 
 court-house ; Mr. Choate half rose, and said, in the 
 blandest tones, " One word, may it please the 
 Court ; only one word, if my brother will allow. 
 I see my mistake. I beg leave to retract what I 
 said." The effect was irresistible; the court was 
 convulsed with laughter. 
 
 Mr. Choate's witticisms in court had their in 
 ception and growth at the moment, had strict re 
 lation to the exciting cause, and were generally 
 helpful and for practical purposes. But he used 
 occasionally an expression so whimsical as to create 
 great amusement. It was caught up and passed 
 from one person to another, as current coin. The 
 more grotesque the utterance, the better for the 
 gossips; but the more certain was it to give the 
 public a wrong conception of his method and style. 
 Yet it was well to expose a fallacy by some inci 
 sive word, some epithet or epigram. Time was 
 
46 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 thus saved, and the error made more apparent. 
 Thus, when a State line to which he objected was 
 of unstable character, it was pertinent to say, 
 " The Commissioners might as well have defined 
 it as starting at a bush, thence to a blue-jay, 
 thence to a hive of bees in swarming time, and 
 thence to five hundred foxes with fire-brands tied 
 to their tails." But the people remember that, 
 and repeat it still in various forms; while of the 
 argument made by him on that occasion, however 
 valuable or characteristic, they remember nothing. 
 
 It would seem that a knowledge of Mr. Choate's 
 quaint use of words has been treasured up in 
 gentle minds. I give extracts from the letters of 
 two correspondents, women of culture, who took 
 an interest in his peculiarities. One extract is 
 called " A Bit of Persiflage." 
 
 " When Mr. Choate was in Washington, the 
 ladies were anxious that Mrs. Choate should be 
 there, and often beset him about it. On one oc 
 casion, when they asked if he thought Mrs. Choate 
 would come, he answered, { Yes, I now think she 
 may; I have written her to come, and have of 
 fered to pay half the expenses.' ' 
 
 The other extract is entitled " A Rebuke," and 
 relates to the cross-examination of a new-light 
 preacher. 
 
 " Mr. Choate. What are you, sir ? 
 
SARCASM OF A WITNESS. 47 
 
 " Witness. A candle of the Lord. 
 
 " Chief Justice. A what, sir ? 
 
 " Mr. Choate. A dipped candle of the Lord, if 
 your Honor please." 
 
 My correspondent reminds me that " a dipped 
 candle is of the cheapest sort ; one that gives next 
 to no light at all," and says that " therein lies the 
 
 sarcasm." 
 
 In a letter from the late Professor Washburn, he 
 objected to " the blazing, comet-like creation of 
 fact and fancy in which several writers had been 
 disposed to picture Mr. Choate." He may have 
 had in mind writers whose infelicitous inventions 
 had been taxed to fasten upon Mr. Choate jests 
 and gibes which he never uttered ; or those who, 
 not content with treating Mr. Choate as a man, 
 had sought to depict him as a magician. The 
 work of such a writer is before me. I turn the 
 leaves of the volume, and collect some interesting 
 reminiscences of Mr. Choate's special powers and 
 methods. Thus we have, as to his active brain, 
 " his head expanding with a thousand thoughts ; " 
 as to his rapid study and apprehension, that " he 
 grasped the thoughts of a book like lightning ; " 
 as to the impression he made upon a jury, that he 
 "dashed his view into their minds with all the 
 illuminating and exaggerating lightnings of his 
 portentous passion ; " as to his exhaustive argu- 
 
48 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 mentation, that lie " advanced with a diversified 
 but long array, which covered the heavens ; thun 
 der-bolts volleying, auroras playing, and sunlight, 
 starlight, and gaslight shooting across the scene in 
 meteoric radiance ; " and as to his power to excite 
 an audience, that " It was literally almost as if a 
 vast wave of the united feeling of the whole mul 
 titude surged up under every one's armpits." 
 
 These quotations may suffice ; and yet I am 
 strongly tempted to refer to other statements 
 equally worthy of respect ; and especially to no 
 tice how Mr. Choate would "hurl his argument 
 home in solid, intense mass that crushed upon 
 the ear ; " how he would " launch a fiery storm of 
 logical thunderbolts ; " and how, " If a witness lay 
 athwart his verdict, he was crushed down and 
 crushed up and marched over." 
 
 But that author is not always so complaisant. 
 He says that in 1855 Mr. Choate was injured by 
 a fall ; and that "After the consequent illness, his 
 oratory underwent a marked revolution; he no 
 longer tore a passion to tatters." 
 
 Somewhat akin to this, and equally unjust, is a 
 statement which the author quotes with approba 
 tion. " The jury advocate must, to a certain ex 
 tent, be a mountebank, if not a juggler and a trick 
 ster." A more miserable conceit was never ut 
 tered. Was Mr. Webster, while before a jury, a 
 
SPIRIT AND TONE OF AN ADVOCATE. 49 
 
 mountebank, a juggler, or a trickster ? Was Er- 
 skine, or Dexter, Pinkney, Parsons, or Curtis, Wil 
 liam Kent, Daniel Lord, or Marshall S. Bidwell ? 
 
 Uncharitable things have been said of many 
 great advocates ; but, as an illustration, one of the 
 worst things ever said of Mr. Choate was, that he 
 could play the artful dodger in reading a deposi 
 tion. This is a rude description of fine, forcible, 
 and effective reading ; reading which gives signifi 
 cance and character to vital passages, discloses 
 their latent sense and spirit, aids the apprehension, 
 and insures a certain and, it may be, a favorable 
 interpretation. Such a reader, natural, yet artis 
 tic, " tells the great greatly, the small subordi- 
 nately ; " and thus we have heard Macready play 
 the artful dodger ; thus Fanny Kemble Butler ; 
 thus the gentle Melancthon may have read ; thus 
 every pulpit orator, from Whitefield down. 
 
 A merely clever man, with no high aims or love 
 of truth; a wordy, sharp, false man, however 
 adroit and plausible ; the artful dodger, the moun 
 tebank, juggler, trickster, he who tears a passion 
 to tatters, can never be a jury advocate. With all 
 his gifts and acquisitions, the advocate must be a 
 high-toned, moral man, not a harlequin ; a vital 
 utterance, not a mere sham. Jurors are repre 
 sentative men and are practical, sensible, and 
 often sagacious men, as fond of fair dealing in 
 
 4 
 
50 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 counsel as in suitors. Hence, in cases involving 
 life, liberty, or character, an able advocate goes to 
 the jury in a spirit akin to that with which Esther 
 went in before the king to plead for her people. 
 At such an hour, he indulges in no mere fancies, 
 his style becomes a reflex of his own mind and 
 heart; if, as in Mr. Choate's or in Mr. Pinkney's 
 efforts, a flash of poetic thought or beauty gleams 
 forth, it is merely because the vision is in his 
 spirit, and reveals itself as naturally as the simplest 
 conception. He is not the less dealing with reali 
 ties after his fashion. 
 
 He would be adventurous indeed who should 
 attempt to correct or reconcile much that has been 
 written about Mr. Choate. Failing in such a pur 
 pose, he might be driven to adopt the plea of the 
 poor fellow under constraint, " I am not mad, but 
 numbers have prevailed against me." Yet I ven 
 ture upon some corrections. In the first place, it 
 may be said that attention has been diverted 
 from Mr. Choate's real character by some not 
 unfriendly writers. For this there was neither 
 necessity nor excuse. His views and principles, 
 his habits and manners, his daily life, were well 
 known; in effect he had lived as one with all 
 doors and windows open ; no disguise, no conceal 
 ment, no reservation. 
 
 But Mr. Choate was a genius, as they all de- 
 
SOME FORMAL CORRECTIONS. 51 
 
 clare, and that fact was sufficient to mislead, and 
 stimulate the invention of some critics. 
 
 They discovered that he was a man of words, 
 whereas he was a man of ideas fitly represented 
 by his words ; that his style is florid, whereas his 
 style is clear and unconstrained, effective in its 
 simplicity. Those who think that prose should 
 have no alliance with poetry, forget that a poetic 
 spirit enters into the growth of language, into the 
 prattle of children, and into the eloquence of sav 
 age tribes ; forget that the beauty which sparkles 
 and flashes over the natural world was intended to 
 give tone and color to the world of thought, the 
 outer glory to become an inner experience ; forget 
 that he who, uniting the wisdom of the past with 
 the sagacity of the present, absorbs the power and 
 grace of other languages into his own, gives to 
 old theories a modern aspect, and to later dis 
 coveries their best application, making the truth 
 appear more truthful, the beautiful more beauti 
 ful, becomes a benefactor to his age and people. 
 Those who doubt this, who do not perceive that a 
 spirit of poetry, of wit and humor, may be helpful 
 to culture in thought, language, and style, and 
 may be held in such subjection and mellow use 
 that we recognize the poet, though he build no 
 rhyme, the wit though he excites tears rather 
 than laughter, will consign Edmund Burke, Syd- 
 
52 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ney Smith, and Rufus Choate to the upper shelf. 
 Such spirits, though in a different guise, are, in 
 effect, near of kin to the Gradgrind school. In 
 inquiry and argument, they always profess to go 
 down to what they call the hard-pan. For aught 
 we know, the mole does that, and without being 
 the wiser for it. They insist upon the facts ; will 
 be content with nothing less. I commend Mr. 
 Choate to them, a very high-priest of their order, 
 a most relentless inquisitor after facts. He would 
 know the facts in history, what in fact had been 
 the rulings in the Year Books, and by judges of 
 later times ; the facts as to the policy, dates, and 
 modifications of statutes ; the facts stated in the 
 pleadings in a cause ; and, in a trial, he was so 
 pertinacious in his quest for the facts that wit 
 nesses who began to testify with certain mental 
 reservations were led, as by gentle compulsion, to 
 make full and circumstantial disclosures. It must 
 be confessed, however, that the facts as discovered 
 by the Gradgrinds may have been dry, inert, and 
 wanting in relation ; the facts as used by Mr. 
 Choate may have been essential to an exposition 
 of vital force, instinct with demonstration. 
 
 We have been told by one entitled to great 
 respect, that Mr. Choate created a taste for his 
 peculiar style. Was the impression made on his 
 first appearance before Chief Justice Shaw excep- 
 
MR. CHOATE IN CONGRESS. 53 
 
 tional ? We learn from Professor Brown that the 
 Chief Justice said, " I had an opportunity to see 
 Mr. Choate and witness his powers as an advocate, 
 very early, when he first opened his office in Dan- 
 vers; and when I had scarcely heard his name 
 mentioned." "As he was previously unknown to 
 us by reputation, and regarding him, as we did, as 
 a young lawyer just commencing practice in a 
 country town, we were much and very agreeably 
 surprised at the display of his powers. It appeared 
 to me that he then manifested much of that keen 
 legal discrimination ; of the acuteness, skill, and 
 comprehensive view of the requirements of his 
 case, in the examination of witnesses ; and that 
 clearness and force in presenting questions, both 
 of fact and -of law, by which he was so much dis 
 tinguished in his subsequent brilliant professional 
 
 career." 
 
 It further appears that the taste, which it is 
 said Mr. Choate created for his peculiar style, must 
 have been of sudden growth. His first juries un 
 derstood him, his early trials, triumphs ; and the 
 people, when he appeared before great assemblies, 
 a stranger, hung upon his lips with breathless in 
 terest. He was master of the pathetic in oral 
 discourse, and by that power the world has been 
 moved. He always adapted himself to the oc 
 casion, and went to the marrow of the business in 
 
54 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 hand. Professor Brown mentions the favor with 
 which his first speech in Congress was received. 
 Thus, Benjamin Hardin, member of Congress from 
 Kentucky, indisposed to hear others upon the side 
 of a question he intended to advocate, was about 
 to leave as Mr. Choate rose to speak, but having 
 lingered a moment, and noticed the tone of his 
 voice, was constrained to stay, and said, " I was 
 captivated by the power of his eloquence, and 
 found myself wholly unable to move until the 
 last word of his beautiful speech had been ut 
 tered." So, as Mr. Everett has it, a Western 
 member said, " He was the most persuasive speaker 
 I ever heard." After hearing Mr. Choate in the 
 Senate, James Buchanan, replying to him, said, 
 " It is the first appearance of the Senator in de 
 bate here, and, judging of others by myself, I 
 must say that those who have listened to him once 
 will be anxious to hear him again." 
 
 He was heard quite early before the Supreme 
 Court at Washington : Mr. Webster was with him ; 
 Eandolph and Whipple opposed. Mr. Choate's 
 argument is said to have made a strong impres 
 sion upon all the judges. Judge Catron said, " I 
 have heard the most eminent advocates, but he 
 surpasses them all." A member of the New York 
 bar, speaking of the address of which Mr. Van 
 Cott and Dr. Adams have written, said, " The peo- 
 
UNCONSCIOUS APPLAUSE. 55 
 
 pie could not keep their seats, but kept clapping 
 and applauding without being conscious of it" 
 
 Under date of March 1, 1852, Mr. Webster, 
 writing from New York to Mr. Havens, said, " Mr. 
 Choate must be here Friday evening. The idea 
 of hearing him is universally received with the 
 greatest enthusiasm. He must come ; do not fail 
 to persuade him to do so. If he should not, there 
 will be a disappointment not to be appeased." 
 
 Mr. Webster knew that Mr. Choate could speak 
 without special preparation ; that the people would 
 understand him; and that no one could fill the 
 place which had been assigned to him. 
 
 Before attempting to correct an error which 
 confronts us in book form, touching Mr. Choate's 
 natural gifts for oratory, as compared with the 
 gifts of some others, I cite the opinion of a compe 
 tent critic, Hon. Alexander H. Stephens. 
 
 In 1843, when Mr. Stephens was a member of 
 Congress, he heard Mr. Choate in the Senate for 
 the first time. He was speaking on the question 
 of terminating the joint occupancy of Oregon. 
 Mr. Stephens says, " Every one was enraptured 
 with his eloquence." He adds, " Ever after this 
 speech I never let an opportunity go by to hear 
 Mr. Choate. I consider him the most interesting 
 man for impassioned oratory I ever heard. He 
 had a faculty which few men possess, of never tir- 
 
56 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ing his hearers. Several years after, I heard him 
 in the Supreme Court argue the case of the boun 
 dary line between Rhode Island and Massachu 
 setts. It was as dull a case as any ordinary land- 
 ejectment suit. I was at a loss to understand how 
 Mr. Choate could interest an audience under such 
 circumstances. The court had been occupied five 
 days by some of the ablest lawyers. The room 
 was thronged to hear Mr. Choate's reply. From 
 the moment he commenced, he enchained the au 
 dience and enlivened the dull subject by apt his 
 torical allusions and pleasing illustrations. The 
 logical connection of his argument was excellent, 
 and so well-arranged that in two hours he had 
 finished a thorough argument which was inter 
 spersed throughout with sublime imagery. Every 
 paragraph was as the turning of a kaleidoscope, 
 where new and brilliant images are presented at 
 every turn. At the conclusion of that speech, I 
 was confirmed in the opinion that he was the 
 greatest orator I ever heard, in this respect 
 greater than Calhoun, Clay, or Webster." 
 
 A correspondent, long intimate with Mr. Choate, 
 and having the best means of forming opinions as 
 to his natural gifts, calls my attention to a work 
 with an auriferous title which I had overlooked. 1 
 
 1 In his letter, Professor Sanborn says, " Colonel Parker, in his 
 Golden Age of American Orators, a work much read by students, 
 
CHOATE'S RIVALS IN ORATORY. 57 
 
 On taking up the book, I learn that Mr. Choate 
 was " the first and foremost of made orators/' but 
 " was not a natural orator a born orator/' 
 though " Chatham and Patrick Henry were nat 
 ural orators of superior order, and Henry Clay 
 was of the same school." 
 
 The statement that Choate was not a natural 
 orator would disturb no one who could accept the 
 suggestion that Dr. Johnson was not a natural 
 critic, or Faraday a born chemist. The inference 
 would be that each of them had to " toil terribly " 
 
 attempts to prove that Mr. Choate was not * a natural orator,' like 
 Henry and Clay. I think that Mr. Choate's early history refutes 
 that theory. I learned from Professor Shurtleff, his teacher, some 
 thing of his eloquence in college. He then gives an extract from 
 Choate's Valedictory Address, which, so far as I can judge, indi 
 cates the freedom and range of thought and the felicity of expres 
 sion that might distinguish an orator ' to the manner born,' and 
 adds, ' In this brief paragraph are the key-notes of his life attach 
 ment to friends, love of learning, and admiration of nature. The 
 Professor also mentions two circumstances which illustrate the 
 character of the address and the effect of its delivery, from which it 
 might be inferred that, if nature ever "tried her prentice hand " in 
 fashioning a complete orator, she did so with young Choate. He 
 says that when Choate spoke, " His pathos drew tears from many 
 who were not used to the melting mood." Also that u One rustic 
 maiden was there from Norwich, Vt. She was all ears, eyes, and 
 heart ; she gazed and wept. On the following Monday, while bend 
 ing over the wash-tub, she said, * Mother, you can't think how 
 pretty that young man who had the valedictory, spoke. He was 
 so interesting that I cried ; and, law ! ' she added, holding up her 
 checkered apron to her eyes, ' I can't help crying now, only think 
 ing on V" 
 
58 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 in climbing up to the eminence attained. The 
 idea is as simple as that the tillage of the soil 
 makes possible the harvest. But we are disturbed 
 when told that some men Chatham, Henry, and 
 Clay were, as distinguished from Choate, nat 
 ural, or born orators. 
 
 English authors have paid due attention to the 
 preparatory studies of Lord Chatham and of his 
 son. Nature, prodigal in gifts, left to each the 
 common legacy of toil as the condition of his be 
 coming an orator. We are told that " The best 
 clew to Pitt's (Chatham's) own mental tasks, more 
 especially in the field of oratory, is afforded by 
 those which he enjoined to this favorite son." We 
 are also told, on the authority of Stanhope, that 
 " The son ascribed his lucid order of reasoning to 
 his early study of the Aristotelian logic, and his 
 ready choice of words to his father's practice in 
 making him every day, after reading over to him 
 self some paper on the classics, translate it aloud 
 and continuously into English prose." As to Pat 
 rick Henry, I would abate none of the praise that 
 can be bestowed upon him consistently with na 
 ture and with experience. But it may be observed 
 that, like many fluent speakers, he had acquired 
 great experience by talking " an infinite deal of 
 nothing " up to the hour when the vision of our 
 independence, to be achieved by war, opened be- 
 
VIEWS OF ISAAC GRANT THOMPSON. 59 
 
 fore him as an apocalypse, transformed his spirit, 
 and gave a prophetic tone to his utterances. As 
 to Henry Clay, I need only recall his efforts in 
 the debating society to cultivate a habit of speak 
 ing, and his confession, made long after, to a class 
 of students, that he owed his " success in life to 
 the habit, early formed and for some years con 
 tinued, of reading daily in a book of history or 
 science, and declaiming the substance of what he 
 had read in some solitary place." In this, Mr. Clay 
 was not peculiar. Wheaton, in his life of William 
 Pinkney, says that "He always continued to de 
 claim in private." 
 
 But in the chapter " On the Study of Forensic 
 Eloquence," which Mr. Isaac Grant Thompson has 
 inserted in his edition of " Warren's Law Studies " 
 
 perfecting the work by the scholarly treatment 
 of an important topic which Warren had neglected 
 
 illustrative instances are given. He regards 
 " the opinion that excellence in speaking is a gift 
 of nature, and not the result of patient and per 
 sistent labor and study," as mischievous ; and 
 happily enforces that view by referring .to the 
 studious efforts of Cicero, Chatham, and Fox, Cur- 
 ran, Choate, and others. Of Choate, he says, " Fo 
 rensic rhetoric was the great study of his life, and 
 he pursued it with a patience, a steadiness, a zeal, 
 equal to that of Chatham and Curran." He re- 
 
60 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 minds us that Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, 
 carried on the study of oratory with the utmost 
 zeal, and that a friend had caught him in " the 
 act of practicing before a glass, while Pope (the 
 poet) sat by to aid him, in the character of an in 
 structor," and adds, " Such are the arts by which 
 are produced those results that the uninitiated as 
 cribe to genius." 
 
 This matter is of present interest, as I would 
 not have the student adopt the notion that Mr. 
 Choate was goaded on in his studies by a sense of 
 want of which other great orators had not been 
 conscious. Nor should he regard the statement 
 that Chatham and others were natural orators as 
 signifying anything more than that they possessed 
 gifts favorable to the cultivation of eloquence. A 
 good memory and ready command of language, 
 fine and quick perception, delicate wit and fancy, 
 a fervid imagination, an exquisite sense of the 
 beautiful, a voice sweetly tormenting the hearer, 
 even in the remembrance of it, a graceful and im 
 pressive manner, all of which Mr. Choate had, 
 however important as prerequisites, do not 
 qualify the orator. It is his office to instruct, 
 persuade, and convince ; but without study there 
 can be no knowledge, without knowledge no ar 
 gument, without argument no real influence in 
 the discussion and disposition of public affairs. In 
 
CRITICAL AND EXACTING AUDIENCES. 61 
 
 the courts and in legislative and popular assem 
 blies, the question certain to arise is, whether the 
 speaker is master of his subject in its substance, 
 details, and relations. The persons addressed may 
 distinguish immature from ripe thought ; informa 
 tion from knowledge ; mere impressions from ex 
 perience. They know that, while the voice may 
 be trained for oral discourse, as it may be for 
 music, the mind should have a corresponding cul 
 ture. Many of them, pitiless as critics, would ac 
 cept the statement of Cicero that the orator must 
 possess a knowledge of many sciences, without 
 which a mere flow of words is vain ; and would 
 agree with Dr. Johnson, when he checked the 
 praise bestowed on a fine speaker, not often heard, 
 as having great resources, "You cannot know as 
 yet ; the pump works well, but how are we to 
 know whether it is supplied by a spring or a 
 reservoir ? " Mr. Choate's view of the studies 
 proper to the orator was most exacting. His ideal 
 of excellence in oratory, considering it as one of 
 the fine arts, may have been so high that he 
 never could have fully satisfied his own aspira 
 tions. But, in his lectures and addresses, his sen 
 timents are given in the spirit of an unfaltering 
 disciple ; his precepts have an electric touch 
 glow like stars in the firmament of thought. He 
 knew what he taught, in large measure, and in 
 
62 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 minute details. He fortified himself by appeals 
 to history, to experience, and to natural laws. 
 The moral element in his topics, however obscure, 
 never eludes his grasp ; the most rugged event 
 or feature he touches palpitates as with a spirit 
 of life and beauty. The philosophy of history is 
 taught suggestively, not by a tedious process, but 
 flashes upon the page as a revelation. His illus 
 trations have a logical flavor; his inferences the 
 certainty of mathematical deductions ; and his lan 
 guage, when rising to the utmost fervor, is tem 
 pered by earnest and constant attention to prac 
 tical affairs. The student may, therefore, follow 
 him with assured steps. Indeed, no student should 
 fail to study addresses like those on " The Colonial 
 Age of New England," on " The Power of a State 
 Developed by Mental Culture," on " The Conser 
 vative Force of the American Bar," and on " The 
 Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods." 
 
 He who has given his days and nights to De 
 mosthenes and Cicero, Thucydides and Tacitus, 
 will find his apprehensions quickened, and the 
 wealth he has garnered up in his mind enriched 
 by the spirit of Mr. Choate's expositions. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Vacations for Reading. Studies with Books and without 
 them. Conversations with Mr. Pratt and Mr. Carpenter. 
 Solicitude as to Improvement. Taste, Illustrations of. 
 Formation of Character. Colonial Experience. 
 
 IT has been considered strange that, with all 
 his work, Mr. Choate could find time for classical 
 study. The explanation may be found in his in 
 tellectual methods, and in his mental activity and 
 economy of time. 
 
 In his address at the dedication of the Peabody 
 Institute, he gave advice to those who were in 
 pursuit of knowledge under difficulties and re 
 straints, in which he seems to have drawn upon 
 his own experience. He reminded them that va 
 cations for the still air of delightful studies were 
 fragments of time, half -hours before the morn 
 ing or midday meal was ready, a rainy after 
 noon, the priceless evening, and that such were 
 the chances they could borrow or create for the 
 luxury of reading. Mr. Choate himself gave to 
 study the time he might well have given, the time 
 others gave, to repose. He could read some verses 
 
64 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 in the Greek Testament, a few lines in Virgil, in 
 Bacon, or in Burke, and go out to his walk repeat 
 ing these lessons in their order and turns. I do 
 not know that he ever advised others to adopt 
 this method, but it was wisely chosen for himself. 
 He could thus lessen the burden of study by so 
 changing its forms as to combine intellectual and 
 physical exercise, and, in passing from one form of 
 study to another, find relaxation. 
 
 Such may have been his habits when he was 
 young, and in practice at Salem. A correspond 
 ent of Mr. Parker says that, in Mr. Choate's long, 
 solitary walks in the pastures, his " full and 
 melodious voice was sometimes heard by other 
 strollers in those solitudes." In his " Recollections 
 of Mr. Choate," Mr. E. P. Whipple refers to this 
 habit of out-door study, and says that, when he 
 met Mr. Choate in one of his contemplative moods, 
 he made it a point of honor not to interrupt his 
 meditations. 
 
 In the last conversation I had with the late 
 Matt. H. Carpenter, Mr. Choate's special studies 
 with his books and without them were mentioned. 
 Among other things, Mr. Carpenter said, " It was 
 ,one of the efforts of Mr. Choate's professional life 
 to extend and perfect what he called a lawyer-like 
 memory. In his view, a mere every-day memory, 
 left to take care of itself, would not enable an 
 
CULTIVATION OF MEMORY. 65 
 
 advocate so to hold in mind as instantly to recall, 
 for use, the facts disclosed in a long trial before a 
 jury, and the name, appearance, and manner, the 
 speech, too ready or too reluctant, of each witness 
 examined." He also said, " Mr. Choate had found 
 that special kind of memory improved by reading 
 fragments of authors on divers disconnected sub 
 jects, and recalling and repeating them after his 
 books had been laid aside." 
 
 As Mr. Choate's faith in study was unqualified, 
 we can well believe that, to one who spoke of a 
 fine, intellectual performance as the result of acci 
 dent or inspiration, he said, " Nonsense ! you might 
 as well drop the Greek alphabet on the ground 
 and expect to pick up the ' Iliad.' " 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Edward Ellerton Pratt 
 for some interesting particulars. He says, " Mr. 
 Choate was the most untiring worker I ever met. 
 He was up by five o'clock in the morning, as a 
 rule, made a cup of tea for himself, worked a while 
 over his books, went out for a walk, came home 
 to breakfast, went to business at nine, worked all 
 day, and perhaps was before some legislative com 
 mittee for an argument in the evening; and I 
 have known him to be all that time without 
 taking any food. Indeed, I have seen a check 
 for half a dollar which he had given at the close 
 of such a day, when, having no money with him, 
 
 5 
 
66 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 he had pecome conscious of the need of refresh 
 ment. 
 
 " When the late James T. Fields was collecting 
 and editing Thomas De Quincey's works, he showed 
 Mr. Choate an article which had appeared in some 
 magazine, with no external evidence as to the au 
 thor. On looking over it, Mr. Choate said it was 
 written by De Quincey. Mr. Fields then wrote to 
 De Quincey, who answered that he had not written 
 the paper, had never thought of the subject-mat 
 ter of it. With some exultation, Mr. Fields showed 
 that letter to Mr. Choate, who said, ' Never you 
 mind ; let me have the article again, and I will go 
 over it more carefully/ He did so, and the next 
 day Mr. Choate wrote him, ' De Quincey did write 
 it, De Quincey to the contrary, notwithstanding/ 
 After a time, De Quincey sent to Mr. Fields the 
 original manuscript of the article, with a letter 
 stating that he had found it among old papers ; 
 and, as it was the work of his pen, he must confess 
 the authorship, though all recollection of it had 
 passed away. 
 
 " In his studies, Mr. Choate kept pace with the 
 colleges, and with modern thought as there illus 
 trated. He used to buy the text-books of Harvard 
 and Yale, beginning with the Freshman year, and, 
 in effect, graduating with the students. I once 
 asked him why he did this. He said, < I don't like 
 
MODE AND METHOD OF TRANSLATION. 67 
 
 to have those young fellows come out of college 
 crowing over me ; they fresh and bright, I dull 
 and rusty ; we must habitually go back to the 
 elements, first principles, and note new applica 
 tions of them by those whose special business it 
 is to teach." 
 
 In his zealous striving after higher culture, Mr. 
 Choate had a steadfast belief in the value of trans 
 lation as an intellectual discipline, and as a means 
 of testing the power and spirit of our words as 
 equivalents for the words of other languages. 
 Speaking of Mr. Choate's method in translating, 
 Professor Parsons says, "He would return day 
 after day to the same passage, until he had ex 
 hausted the resources of the language in giving to 
 the sentence exactness, strength, and elegance." 
 
 In the "Reminiscences," Mr. Parker reports 
 Mr. Choate as saying, " Translation should be pur 
 sued to bring to mind, and to employ, all the words 
 you already own, and to tax and torment invention 
 and discovery, and the very deepest memory for 
 additional, rich, and admirably expressive words. 
 In translating, the student should not put down 
 a word until he has thought of at least six syno 
 nyms, or varieties of expression, for the idea. I 
 would have him fastidious and eager enough to go, 
 not unfrequently, half round his library pulling 
 down books to hunt up a word the word." 
 
68 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 By this kind of work, Mr. Choate sought to per 
 fect his knowledge of things as well as of words. 
 Thus, he says, that, in translating Cicero's " Cati 
 line Orations," he had in view the matter and the 
 manner of a great master of speech, and a remark 
 able portion of history. So, also, he translated 
 Thucydides for the purpose of deducing lessons of 
 history and applying them to America. 
 
 In his Journal, Mr. Choate recalls with fidelity, 
 as if for his own encouragement or admonition, 
 his studies in various departments. At times he 
 seems hopeful, almost glad in view of what he 
 perceives he may attain ; at other times, he ap 
 pears sad, as if his studies had been partial and 
 inadequate. As an instance, after he had gar 
 nered up in his mind and heart such wealth of 
 learning as only one so devoted and receptive 
 could acquire, we find him saying : 
 
 " I have written only this translation of Quin- 
 tilian since Saturday ; professional engagements 
 have hindered me. But I have carefully read a 
 page or two in Johnson's Dryden and a scene or 
 two of ( Antony and Cleopatra ' every morning 
 marking any felicity or available peculiarity of 
 phrase have launched Ulysses from the Isle of 
 Calypso, and brought him in sight of Phseacia, 
 kept along in Tacitus, and am reading a pretty 
 paper in the ' Memoirs ' on the old men of Ho- 
 

 SPECIAL STUDIES. 69 
 
 mer. I read Homer more easily and with more 
 appreciation, though with no helps but Cowper 
 and Donnegan's Lexicon. Fox and Canning's 
 speeches are a more professional study, not use 
 less, not negligently pursued. Alas, alas ! there is 
 no time to realize the dilating and burning idea 
 of excellence and eloquence inspired by the great 
 gallery of the immortals in which I walk ! " 
 
 Again, he says, " How difficult it is to arrest 
 these moments, to aggregate them, to till them, 
 as it were, to make them day by day extend our 
 knowledge, refine our tastes, accomplish our whole 
 culture ! " 
 
 His solicitude as to the improvement of his 
 taste is freely confessed. Thus he says : 
 
 "I have been long in the practice of reading 
 daily some first-class English writer, chiefly for 
 the copia verborum, to avoid sinking into cheap 
 and bald fluency, to give elevation, energy, sono 
 rousness, and refinement to my vocabulary. Yet 
 with this object I would unite other and higher 
 objects, the acquisition of things, taste, criti 
 cism, facts of biography, images, sentiments." 
 
 In the same spirit, as to a contemplated course 
 of study, he says : 
 
 " The investigations it will exact ; the collec 
 tions of authorities ; the constant use of the pen, 
 the translations, the speculations, ought to consti- 
 
70 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 tute an admirable exercise in reasoning, in taste, 
 in rhetoric, as well as in history." 
 
 Again, noting some classical works he must 
 have and use on a journey, he says, " This, lest 
 taste should sleep and die, for which no compen 
 sations shall pay." 
 
 Referring to a course of reading considered too 
 desultory, he states the benefits thus : 
 
 " No doubt taste has been improved, sentiments 
 enlarged, language heightened, and many of the 
 effects, inevitable, insensible, and abiding, of lib 
 eral culture, impressed on the spirit." 
 
 Mr. Choate's taste was exacting and severe in 
 a sense not perhaps to the fancy of some senti 
 mental scholars ; of this a few words from Chief 
 Justice Chapman may be illustrative. He says of 
 Mr. Choate, " He was talking of Burke's speeches, 
 of which he was known to be a great admirer, and 
 remarked to a friend of mine who was extolling 
 Burke above all other men, that he thought on 
 the whole that the most eloquent and mellifluous 
 talk that was ever put together in the English 
 language was the speech of Mr. Standfast in the 
 river. I went home and read the speech soon 
 afterwards, and I confess I appreciated John Bun- 
 yan's eloquence as I never had done before." 
 
 In a plea for mental culture Mr. Choate refers 
 to John Quincy Adams, " the old man eloquent/' 
 
ADVICE TO A STUDENT. 71 
 
 and finds him using " the happiest word, the 
 aptest literary illustration, the exact detail, the 
 precise rhetorical instrument, the case demands." 
 Mr. Choate had a clear conception of the means 
 by which such powers of argument might possibly 
 be acquired. His theory of preparatory study was 
 as exacting as that of Hugh Miller, who thought 
 that an anatomical acquaintance with the bones 
 and muscles was necessary for the painter who 
 represents the human figure, and that he who 
 describes natural scenery should know the strata 
 and the science of the rocks. 
 
 In a letter of advice to a student, Eichard S. 
 Storrs, Jr., Mr. Choate says, " As immediately 
 preparatory to the study of the law, I should fol 
 low the usual suggestion, to review thoroughly 
 English history, constitutional history in Hallam 
 particularly, and American constitutional and civil 
 history in Pitkin and Story. Kutherford's In 
 stitutes, and the best course of moral philosophy 
 you can find, will be very valuable introductory 
 consolidating matter. Aristotle's Politics, and all 
 of Edmund Burke' s works, and all of Cicero's 
 works would form an admirable course of read 
 ing, ( a library of eloquence and reason/ to form 
 the sentiments and polish the tastes, and fertilize 
 and enlarge the mind of a young man aspiring to 
 be a lawyer and statesman. Cicero and Burke I 
 
72 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 would know by heart ; both superlatively great, 
 the latter the greatest, living in a later age, be 
 longing to the modern mind and genius, though 
 the former had more power over an audience, 
 both knew everything. 
 
 " I would read every day one page at least, 
 more if you can, in some fine English writer, 
 solely for elegant style and expression. William 
 Pinkney said to a friend of mine, ' He never read 
 a fine sentence in any author without committing 
 it to memory/ The result was decidedly the most 
 splendid and most powerful English spoken style I 
 ever heard." 
 
 A like result may be traced to Mr. Choate him 
 self. Perhaps no great orator ever owed less to 
 borrowed thoughts and forms of speech, or, in a 
 higher and better sense, more to the ministration 
 of other minds. But the benefits were absorbed by 
 a process as natural as that by which trees gather 
 nutriment from the sun, air, rain, and from a gen 
 erous soil. In reading him, we are reminded of 
 his favorite authors. As, in hearing a preacher 
 full of divine instruction, one may perceive indi 
 cations of his familiarity with the Scriptures, so 
 Mr. Choate reveals his intimate communion with 
 master minds* 
 
 It was perhaps well for him that some degree 
 of poverty fell to his early lot. I believe he 
 
FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 73 
 
 would have chosen such a lot, had the choice been 
 left \o him. He valued, as few men have valued, 
 the discipline and the strength which came as the 
 fruits of toil and study ; the faith and the con 
 stancy of those who, having sown the seed, could 
 wait patiently for the harvest. He appears to 
 have had a clear conception of the spiritual mean 
 ing which resides in material things, and of the 
 law of compensation that governs men in all their 
 relations, and makes or mars their fortunes. 
 
 To illustrate his views as to the formation of 
 character and the elements which may minister to 
 its strength, I quote a few detached passages from 
 one of his lectures. 
 
 After having referred to the planting of the 
 Colonies along our coast, in the seventeenth cen 
 tury, and to events which furnished the matter of 
 colonial history, he says, " I regard those events 
 altogether as forming a vast and various series of 
 influences, a long, austere, effective course of 
 discipline and instruction, by which the early 
 settlers and their children were slowly and pain 
 fully trained to achieve their independence, to 
 form their constitutions of State governments and 
 of Federal government, and to act usefully and 
 greatly their part as a separate political commu 
 nity in the high places of the world. 
 
 " It has been said that there was never a great 
 
74 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 character, never a truly strong, masculine, com 
 manding character, which was not made so by 
 successive struggles with great difficulties. Such 
 is the general rule of the moral world, undoubt 
 edly. All history, all biography, verify and illus 
 trate it, and none more remarkably than our own. 
 It has seemed to me probable that if the Puritans, 
 on their arrival here, had found a home like that 
 they left, and a social system made ready for them, 
 if they had found the forest felled, roads con 
 structed, rivers bridged, fields sown, houses built, 
 a rich soil, a bright sun, and a balmy air ; if Eng 
 land had covered over their infancy with her 
 mighty wing, spared charters, widened trade, and 
 knit child to mother by parental policy, it is 
 probable that that impulse of high mind, and that 
 unconquerable constancy of the first immigrants, 
 might have subsided before the epoch of the drama 
 of the Revolution. Their children might have 
 grown light, luxurious, vain, and the sacred fire 
 of liberty, cherished by the fathers in the times 
 of the Tudors and Stuarts, might have died away 
 in the hearts of a feeble posterity. 
 
 " Ours was a different destinj^. I do not mean 
 ta say that the whole colonial age was a scene of 
 universal and constant suffering and labor, and 
 that there was no repose. But in its general 
 course, it was a time of suffering and of privation, 
 
INFLUENCE OF LOVE FOR LIBERTY. 75 
 
 of poverty or mediocrity of fortune, of sleepless 
 nights, grave duties, serious aims ; and I say it 
 was a trial better fitted to train up a nation ' in 
 true wisdom, virtue, magnanimity, and the likeness 
 of God/ better fitted to form temperate habits, 
 strong character, resolute spirits, and all the radi 
 ant train of public and private virtues which stand 
 before the stars of the throne of liberty, than 
 any similar period in the history of any nation, or 
 of any but one, that ever existed. 
 
 " The necessaries of freedom, if I may say so, 
 its plainer food and homelier garments and 
 humbler habitations, were theirs. Its luxuries 
 and refinements, its festivals, its lettered and so 
 cial glory, its loftier port and prouder look and 
 richer graces, were the growth of a later day; 
 these came in with independence. Here was lib 
 erty enough to make them love it for itself, and 
 to fill them with those lofty and kindred senti 
 ments which are at once its fruit and its nutri 
 ment, and safeguard in the soul of man. But their 
 liberty was still incomplete, and it was constantly 
 in danger from England ; and these two circum 
 stances had a powerful effect in increasing that 
 love and confirming those sentiments. It was a 
 condition precisely adapted to keep liberty, as a 
 subject of thought and feeling and desire, every 
 moment in mind. Every moment they were com- 
 
76 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CEO ATE. 
 
 paring what they had possessed with what they 
 wanted and had a right to ; they were restive and 
 impatient and ill at ease ; a galling wakef ulness 
 possessed their faculties like a spell. Had they 
 been wholly slaves, they had lain still and slept. 
 Had they been wholly free, that eager hope, that 
 fond desire, that longing after a great, distant, 
 yet practical good would have given way to the 
 placidity and luxury and carelessness of complete 
 enjoyment ; and that energy and wholesome agi 
 tation of mind would have gone down like an 
 ebb-tide. As it was, the whole vast body of 
 waters all over its surface, down to its sunless, 
 utmost depths, was heaved and shaken and puri 
 fied by the spirit that moved above it and through 
 it, and gave it no rest, though the moon waned 
 and the winds were in their caves ; they were like 
 the disciples of the old and bitter philosophy of 
 Paganism, who had been initiated into one stage 
 of the greater mysteries, and who had come to 
 the door, closed and written over with strange 
 characters, which led up to another. They had 
 tasted the truth and they burned for a fuller 
 draught ; a partial revelation t>f that which shall 
 be hereafter had dawned ; and their hearts 
 throbbed eager, yet not without apprehension, to 
 look upon the glories of the perfect day. Some 
 of the mysteries of God, of Nature, of Man, of the 
 
TRIUMPH OF PATIENCE AND ENERGY. 77 
 
 Universe, had been unfolded ; might they, by 
 prayer, by abstinence, by virtue, by retirement, 
 by contemplation, entitle themselves to read an 
 other page in the clasped and awful volume ? 
 
 " How glorious a triumph of patience, energy, 
 perseverance, intelligence, and faith ! And then, 
 how powerfully, and in how many ways, must the 
 fatigues, privations, interruptions, and steady ad 
 vance, and ultimate completion of that long day's 
 work have reacted on the character and the mind 
 of those who performed it ! How could such a 
 people ever again, if ever they had been, be idle 
 or frivolous or giddy or luxurious ? "With what 
 a resistless accession of momentum must they turn 
 to every new, manly, honest, and worthy labor ! 
 How truly must they love the land for which they 
 have done so much ! How ardently must they 
 desire to see it covered over with the beauty of 
 holiness and the glory of freedom, as with a gar 
 ment ! With what a just and manly self -approba 
 tion must they look back on such labors and such 
 success ; and how great will such pride make any 
 people ! " 
 
 Thus it appears that this man, so delicate, re 
 fined, emotional, with a 'keen sense of what was 
 sweet and beautiful in life, sentiment, and study, 
 was not the less able to deal with stern and sober 
 subjects, to appreciate the trials and struggles of 
 
78 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 those who labored in obscurity with no embellish 
 ment to their lives, save such as came from the 
 performance of humble yet important duties. He 
 loved to dwell upon and illustrate such examples, 
 and may have found strength and encouragement 
 in the conviction that the toil and service which 
 conferred benefits upon others would most surely 
 enrich himself. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Classical Studies. Ancient Greece. The Saxons. The 
 Latin. English in India. Macaulay's Service. As to 
 Equivalents in Saxon for Some of our Words. 
 
 BY way of review, and as a solace in weary 
 hours, Mr. Choate's communion with the classics 
 was continued to the end of his life. He found 
 therein some of his chief delights and consola 
 tions ; and, in final token of his appreciation of 
 them, the " Iliad " and the " Georgics " were 
 among the books selected as companions in his 
 last voyage. 
 
 It may be thought that such studies were not 
 wisely chosen or pursued. Such, no doubt, is the 
 popular impression. Indeed, some authors of re 
 pute have declared that an acquaintance with 
 what is called the dead languages need not be 
 sought by those who wish to excel in the use of 
 English. In support of this opinion, reference is 
 made to instances of good, exceedingly good, 
 English, written by men without classical train 
 ing, Franklin, Erskine, Shakespeare, Bunyan, 
 and some others. 
 
80 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Of these authors, Bunyan alone is well cited. 
 He was, indeed, exceptional. In a divine frenzy, 
 he could look into his heart and write. 
 
 It is to be remembered that the style of Frank 
 lin was formed by the study of " The Spectator," 
 and that of Erskine by intense devotion to Mil 
 ton and Burke ; and that, in seeking to acquire 
 the spirit and diction of authors whose English 
 was the representative and outgrowth of classical 
 study, these men reaped the benefit at a single 
 remove. 
 
 The reference to Shakespeare, as an example, 
 is not fortunate. The saying of Ben Jonson's 
 that Shakespeare possessed " small Latin and less 
 Greek," may be taken as proof that he knew 
 something of those languages. Of his early youth 
 and studies, we know nothing; and, where much 
 is left to conjecture, one supposition is often as 
 good as another. In speaking of " Love's Labour 's 
 Lost," Coleridge refers to the strong presumption 
 which the diction and allusions of that play afford 
 of Shakespeare's scholarly habits, and Mr. Charles 
 Knight suggests that his happy employment of 
 ancient mythology lends countenance to the sup 
 position. As to the " Comedy of Errors," Knight 
 says, " The commentators have puzzled them 
 selves, after their usual fashion, with the evidence 
 this play undoubtedly presents of Shakespeare's 
 
SHAKESPEARE ASSISTED BY OTHERS. 81 
 
 ability to read Latin, and their dogged resolution 
 to maintain the opinion that, in an age of gram 
 mar-schools, our poet never could have attained 
 that common accomplishment." 
 
 In a loving and profound estimate of the ele 
 ments of greatness peculiar to Shakespeare, Em 
 erson notices the fact that, when he came from 
 Stratford to London, "A great body of stage- 
 plays, of all dates and writers, existed in manu 
 script," and that Shakespeare altered and made 
 them his own. He says, " In ' Henry VIII.,' I 
 think I see plainly the cropping out of the orig 
 inal rock on which his own finer stratum was laid. 
 The first play was written by a superior, thought 
 ful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, 
 and know well their cadence." Emerson accepts 
 Malone's laborious computations in regard to the 
 first, second, and third parts of " Henry VL," in 
 which " out of 6,043 lines, 1,771 were written by 
 some author preceding Shakespeare ; 2,373 by 
 him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors ; 
 and 1,899 were entirely his own." Thus, in 
 working upon materials, excellent in themselves, 
 the outcome of many other minds, the minds, 
 it may be, of students in history, in law, in medi 
 cine, and in the classics, Shakespeare adopted 
 parts of the plays which now bear his name. His 
 genius enabled him to make mellow music of what 
 
82 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 had been discordant. In the mass of preexisting 
 plays and tales from which he drew, there must 
 have been the work of some minds of classic lore, 
 so that if we were compelled to suppose that he 
 had none of it, yet his works, being eclectic, are 
 not fair specimens of the results attainable with 
 out the aid of classical studies. 
 
 The theory as to the value of such studies which 
 contrasts the practice of the ancient Greeks in the 
 use of their language with the treatment given to 
 the Saxon and the English need not here receive 
 much attention. It is said that the Greeks studied 
 no language but their own, and, regarding other 
 tongues as barbarous, did not borrow from them. 
 The inference sought to be drawn would seem to 
 be that a like course should have been pursued in 
 the culture and use of the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 It is to be remembered that, when Ancient 
 Greece became known to the modern world, her 
 language had been so perfected that aid from 
 other peoples was not needed; and that the 
 contributions and the culture which, in ante- 
 Homeric times, had given supernal grace and 
 beauty to her speech cannot be stated or defined. 
 It js also to be remembered that after the facts 
 and fables found in Homer had been considered, 
 after such scholars as Porson and Choate, in the 
 spirit of their studies, standing face to face with 
 
THE GREEKS OF DUAL ORIGIN. 83 
 
 the Greek, could make his felicities of speech 
 their own, an unappeasable curiosity as to the 
 early progress of the race remained, as it will 
 remain forever. 
 
 Much curious research and ingenious specula 
 tion have been displayed in the endeavor to trace 
 the early history of the Greeks, and to determine 
 their origin. All the tests afforded by philology, 
 ethnology, and geography have been applied. 
 On philological grounds mainly, Mr. Gladstone 
 ascribes a dual origin to the Greek people like 
 that of the English. The general belief of his 
 torians is, that a race known as Pelasgians, at a 
 period antecedent to written history, spread from 
 the south over Greece and Italy. They are de 
 scribed as a dark-eyed, dark-haired, swarthy, 
 heavily-built race, industrious, patient, excelling 
 in agriculture and architecture. These character 
 istics lend force to the supposition that they came 
 from Egypt; and that those of them who went 
 to Italy, more remote from the early centres of 
 population, developed the best capabilities of that 
 race, and, by their substantial qualities, laid the 
 foundation for Koman greatness. But, as to 
 Greece, another race, the Hellenic, was infused 
 among the Pelasgi, and grafted upon the stock. 
 They were tall, light-complexioned, light-haired, 
 blue-eyed, enthusiastic hunters and warriors, and 
 
84 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 came probably from a mountainous country, by 
 northward-lying paths, through Thrace and Mace 
 donia, into Northern Greece, forcing themselves 
 among the Pelasgi, and by their active and aggres 
 sive qualities becoming dominant in public affairs. 
 This infusion of new blood would seem to have 
 given rise to what, properly speaking, may be 
 called the Greek people, which thus arose from 
 the mingling of different tribes on Grecian soil. 
 To this admixture are to be ascribed the differ 
 ences which subsist between the Greek and the 
 Latin tongue, and the wide divergence of the 
 Greek from that earlier speech, the foundation 
 of both, of which the Sanskrit is believed to be 
 the nearest representative. The Greek would ap 
 pear to be a composite language. In later times, 
 fixed by custom or pride, it became intolerant of 
 foreign words. This was a departure from the 
 principle on which it was formed ; to say other 
 wise is to beg the question against both evidence 
 and probability. 
 
 Although it is impossible to trace the develop 
 ment of the Greek tongue, it must be assumed 
 that in its inception and growth it was governed 
 by universal laws. From a rude state it was car 
 ried forward to a more perfect condition by cen 
 turies of tasteful culture, and, during all that long 
 probation, the Greeks, as other aspiring people 
 
ACQUIRED WEALTH. 85 
 
 have done, profited by external and available 
 means of improvement. As the cultivation and 
 refinement of a people may be known by its lan 
 guage, laws, and works of art, it may be worth 
 noting that the early memorials of the Greek 
 race, as lately brought to light by the researches 
 of Schliemann and others, show a primitive, al 
 most barbarous, condition of the arts, which it 
 is fair to suppose was accompanied by a similar 
 condition of their speech. It is evident that the 
 growth from the rude conception and clumsy ex 
 ecution of early days to the exquisite grace, sym 
 metry, and freedom of later Greek art must have 
 consumed centuries, time for perfecting and 
 unifying the language, that most enduring token 
 of their civilization. 
 
 Mr. Choate had intended to write a history of 
 Greece, and to that end his special studies were 
 for a time directed. But, constrained by profes 
 sional and other duties, he abandoned that design. 
 How reluctantly he did so may be inferred from 
 the fascination which afterwards held him to the 
 study of the Greek genius and character. In his 
 Journal he makes significant suggestions as to the 
 origin and progress of that people, but he does 
 not seem to think that they had rejected foreign 
 aid until their language had risen to a higher de 
 gree of perfection than that of any other nation. 
 
86 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 The English - speaking people have not yet 
 reached such supremacy. Their only hope of ever 
 reaching it has been inspired by the use that could 
 be made of wealth derived from alien sources. 
 They have borrowed from almost every other peo 
 ple. The work of verbal adoption might have 
 been easy, if, as has been said, the Anglo-Saxon 
 tongue had had a craving appetite, had been ra 
 pacious of words. But it required many years of 
 preparatory training to create that appetite. The 
 influence came from without rather than from 
 within. Indeed, the natural characteristics of the 
 early people of Britain were not favorable to an 
 improvement of their accustomed speech. The 
 Saxons had no conceptions of beauty or grace, of 
 harmony in thought or in expression ; and, when 
 they could make their wants and wishes known, 
 had little aptitude to find and use other and bet 
 ter words. As an offshoot of the Teutonic lan 
 guage, the Saxon dialect inherited the rough, 
 hard, inflexible qualities of the parent stock. 
 
 Need we wonder that in working upon such 
 materials, in infusing life, variety, and refinement 
 into a semi-barbarous tongue, it was necessary to 
 sift out and cast away many rugged and fruitless 
 forms of speech, and to weave in words more 
 melodious and articulate ? Would it have been 
 well if all the uncouth terms that came from 
 
UNIVERSALITY OF LATIN. 87 
 
 Saxon lips had been retained ? What if words 
 expressive of our finer feelings and aspirations, of 
 our sense of grace, beauty, and harmony words 
 of progress, refinement, and civilization had not 
 been borrowed ! Those who regret that we are 
 largely indebted to the Greek, Latin, and French 
 must be conscious that the improvement of our 
 language has kept pace with the growing intelli 
 gence of the people, and that attempts to qualify 
 or dissolve that relation would be unwise and 
 fruitless. 
 
 The Latin, spoken of as a dead language, sur 
 vives in the speech of many nations, with whom 
 we and our mother-country have intimate com 
 mercial relations in the Old and in the New 
 "World. It has been justly said that in his travels 
 the Latin scholar would find few cities, however 
 strange and remote, where he could not make 
 himself understood by some of the inhabitants. 
 The variety and the fertility of the Latin in form 
 ing compounds are important, as this quality the 
 words retain when brought into other languages. 
 An idea of this may be formed by counting the de 
 rivatives from a few Latin words. Thus, the terms 
 derived from the verb nascor, in various forms, 
 are 17 in number ; from verto 22, from teneo 23, 
 tendo 29, cedo 21, duco 20, curro 18, specio 19, 
 video 14, lego 22, mitto 22, venio 17, rego 15, from 
 
88 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CEO ATE. 
 
 capio more than 27, and from sumo, which has 
 nearly the same meaning, 9 more: 15 roots 
 yielding 285 distinct terms by the use of prefixes 
 and suffixes. The aid to copiousness of expres 
 sion thus afforded is self-evident, and justifies Mr. 
 Choate and all others who have the taste, time, 
 and opportunity for the study of that language. 
 
 But the Saxon tongue, not thus fruitful, never 
 had, and of itself never could have had, widely 
 extended life and relations. Had it wholly sur 
 vived, working out its destiny in exclusive use, it 
 would have made England as insular as could the 
 sea itself. 
 
 When Macaulay was in tne public service in 
 India, he had occasion to consider what system of 
 national education should be adopted. Mr. Tre- 
 velyan, in his life of Macaulay, gives the particu 
 lars. The Committee of Public Instruction, com 
 posed of ten able men, were divided in opinion, 
 and for some time "All educational action had 
 been at a stand." " Half of the members were 
 for maintaining and extending the old scheme of 
 encouraging oriental learning by stipends paid 
 to students in Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, and 
 by liberal grants for the publication of works in 
 those languages. The other half were in favor of 
 teaching the elements of knowledge in the vernac 
 ular tongues, and the higher branches in English." 
 
ENGLISH FOR NATIONAL EDUCATION. 89 
 
 The advocates of both systems were heard before 
 the Supreme Council, of which Macaulay was a 
 member. In due time he laid his opinion before 
 the Council, and urged that the people should be 
 taught in the English language. Among other 
 things, he said, " Whoever knows that language 
 has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth 
 which all the wisest nations of the earth have 
 created and hoarded in the course of ninety gen 
 erations." " Had our ancestors acted as the Com 
 mittee of Public Instruction has hitherto acted; 
 had they neglected the language of Cicero and 
 Tacitus ; had they confined their attention to the 
 old dialects of our own island ; had they printed 
 nothing and taught nothing at the universities 
 but chronicles in Anglo-Saxon and romances in 
 Norman-French, would England have been what 
 she now is ? What the Greek and Latin were to 
 the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our 
 tongue is to the people of India." His views 
 prevailed. While in India, Macaulay, in a letter 
 to his father, said, " Our English schools are 
 flourishing wonderfully. We find it difficult 
 indeed, in some places, impossible to provide 
 instruction for all who want it. At the single 
 town of Hooghly, fourteen hundred boys are 
 learning English. The effect of this education 
 on the Hindoos is prodigious. No Hindoo who 
 
90 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 has received an English education ever remains 
 sincerely attached to his religion." 
 
 It was fortunate for England and for the people 
 of India that Macaulay could thus secure the adop 
 tion of that system of education. It was a more 
 important service than was the preparation of his 
 Code, in which Macaulay took great pride; more 
 important, indeed, than all his other work com 
 bined. 
 
 To include the study of Greek and Latin in that 
 scheme of national education would have been 
 premature and unwise, yet even that would have 
 been more wise, as tending to make an alliance 
 between the English and the Indian mind possible, 
 than would have been the study of the Sanskrit, 
 the Persian, and the Arabic. Mr. Macaulay knew 
 that the time might never come when those dusky 
 students of the East would wish to study Cicero 
 and Tacitus in the original, and that it would re 
 quire the culture of English in those schools for 
 centuries before such a question could arise. 
 
 It is to be confessed that even with us the study 
 of the ancient languages should be recommended 
 with reserve and discrimination, not simply be 
 cause the intellectual wealth mentioned by Macau- 
 lay is before us in translations, ministering to a 
 great degree of culture, but because, with many 
 students, such a study would be a sacrifice of time 
 
ADVICE AS TO THE CLASSICS. 91 
 
 and strength. Even some minds of great power 
 have suffered under such studies. It would be 
 hard to find stronger expressions of detestation 
 than Byron used with reference to Horace, or than 
 Gray, as noticed by Moore, applied to the enforced 
 duty of reading Yirgil. Lamartine, speaking of 
 his choice of authors, says, " Among the poets the 
 ones that I preferred were not the ancients, whose 
 classic pages had too early been bedewed with my 
 sweat and tears." But we need not seek for ex 
 amples. It is obviously unjust, it is bad economy, 
 to prescribe such tasks for a student without re 
 gard to his taste, or to the course of life he is to 
 pursue. Whatever his calling is to be, he must 
 study his own language closely, critically, pro 
 foundly, and be conversant with the best authors 
 in it. Especially must he study the Bible daily, 
 and cultivate a love for its words and style. He 
 may thus become a good English scholar. He 
 must master many subjects of practical importance 
 also, and in the history, life, and contentions of 
 the world be well informed. In all this he will be 
 following Mr. Choate's example. 
 
 There is no reason to fear that too much atten 
 tion will be given to classical study. From lack 
 of taste and inclination, of early training and 
 agreeable association, or by reason of the nature 
 and variety of studies soliciting his choice in the 
 
92 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 curricula of our higher schools, the student is 
 likely, rather, to undervalue the claims of Latin 
 and Greek. 
 
 But he who looks forward to a life of literary 
 leisure, and to the highest intellectual enjoyments 
 attainable, or aspires to one of the learned pro 
 fessions, must take up the ancient classics. Such 
 studies, however, are to be vigorously pursued. 
 In its early stages the work is difficult and full of 
 discouragements. Only after much devotion, after 
 he has passed the region of toil and pain, does the 
 student enter into the spirit of the language, and 
 take delight in the literature. Of that delight he 
 who abandons the study early feels and knows 
 nothing. It is as when two travelers attempt to 
 climb a mountain. In the morning mist they see 
 only the steep and stony path under their feet. 
 After much effort, one becomes weary and turns 
 back. The other pushes on and reaches the top. 
 The rising sun illumines the summit, chases the 
 shadows from the valleys, and gradually takes pos 
 session of the earth. He sits bathed in a flood 
 of glory never before conceived, never to be for 
 gotten. 
 
 We are reminded of the advice, " Soak your 
 mind with Cicero," advice often repeated by 
 Mr. Choate, and illustrated in his early life. 
 
 Classical study trains the memory, the inven- 
 
EFFECT OF CLASSICAL STUDY. 93 
 
 tion, the imagination, the judgment, taxing them 
 all in a high degree. It furnishes thoughts, which 
 yield themselves up to patient labor and ingenu 
 ity. But before they can be expressed in trans 
 lation they must be grasped and subdued. 
 
 The student thus becomes habituated to the 
 thoughts of great minds, in a sense makes them 
 his own, and acquires a power for profound inves 
 tigations. It cannot be denied that the ancient 
 classics, properly pursued, compel the highest dis 
 cipline of which the intellect is capable. In the 
 seminaries to which students from other institu 
 tions are admitted, some of whom have had classi 
 cal training, while others have not, it is found, 
 after years of difficult study, that the former show 
 a marked superiority. This has been proved in 
 the German schools, and the statistics are given in 
 the government reports. It has been proved in 
 schools of our own also. 
 
 A critical knowledge of Latin, not difficult to 
 attain, is the best preparation for the study of the 
 French and other modern languages. Equipped 
 with this, the acquisition of the other tongues be 
 comes easy. Latin and Greek are also great helps 
 in perfecting a knowledge of the English lan 
 guage. Nowhere else do we find reflected the 
 exquisite grace and beauty of the Greek mind; 
 and, when compared with the works of the great 
 
94 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 Greek and Latin authors, those of the French and 
 German appear crude and immature. 
 
 It would be lamentable indeed if the study of 
 the ancient classics in our higher schools were un 
 duly discouraged. It would, moreover, be illogi 
 cal to accept as proof that such studies are no 
 longer necessary, the fact that good English has 
 been written by men ignorant of Latin and Greek, 
 men to whom translations of classical productions 
 have given aid not easily estimated. Such men 
 may not owe much directly to the classic writers, 
 but who can compute their indirect indebtedness, 
 since their ideals have been writers whose style 
 has been formed upon the great models furnished 
 by Athens and by Rome ? 
 
 The reader may have noticed that some authors, 
 while objecting to the elements of Greek and 
 Latin in our language as excessive, habitually use 
 words of classic derivation, and praise Saxon words 
 for their brevity, simplicity, directness, manly 
 vigor, and moral purity as if these words had been 
 lost ; and claim that to relieve our poverty the stu 
 dent should go back to the days of Chaucer to find 
 them. Yet these and other like words, treasured 
 up" with a wise economy, are in actual use and have 
 intimate relations with the affairs of every-day life. 
 But they are wanting in scope and variety. It is to 
 be observed that scholars and critics, like Professor 
 
BORROWED TERMS. 95 
 
 Hunt, who agree with Sharon Turner in extolling 
 the extent and power of the Anglo-Saxon lan 
 guage, have not told us how to find therein equiv 
 alents for such familiar words as religion, line, 
 face, relation, common, animal, nature, page, and 
 for hundreds of other words. Nor have they 
 shown us why, now that we have such words, we 
 should not use them, rather than search in ancient 
 mounds for roots from which we might possibly 
 cultivate their equivalents. 
 
 "With a grateful appreciation of our language, 
 we believe that on the grounds of harmony, of ex 
 pressiveness, of variety, of convenience, the bor 
 rowing of terms from classic tongues was wise ; 
 and that English reduced to Saxon, if such a de 
 cline were possible, would not be a gain or a bless 
 ing, but an unspeakable calamity. Standing as 
 the English language does to-day, with its wealth 
 of derived words, its acquisition is made easier to 
 millions of our fellow-men, and its usefulness to 
 ourselves is thereby greatly increased. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Study of Words. The Percentage of Anglo-Saxon, 
 Latin, and Greek used by Mr. Choate and other Eminent 
 Scholars. The Methods of Sharon Turner and George P. 
 Marsh. Tables as to Derivatives. 
 
 MR. CHOATE'S solicitude as to the choice and 
 use of words was very great. Professor Parsons 
 says, " With all his variety and intensity of labor 
 there was nothing he cultivated with more care 
 than words." That he was not peculiar in this 
 branch of study appears from familiar instances. 
 Cicero had taught that the orator's style must 
 be formed by the choice of words and the skill 
 ful arrangement of them in sentences. That in 
 struction has been repeated by great teachers 
 from Quintilian down. Dr. Johnson and Dean 
 Swift refer to a perfect style as proper words 
 in proper places. When Gibbon wrote, several 
 times over, the first chapter of his history, and 
 Brougham the close of his speech in the Queen's 
 case, they were striving by choice words to im 
 prove the style. That Byron found it difficult 
 to satisfy himself is shown by notes to an ap- 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS, 97 
 
 proved edition of his poems. Many changes were 
 made. In one instance which I recall, he erased 
 a word and substituted another ; then rejected 
 the substitute and restored the original ; still in 
 doubt, he wrote below, "Ask Gifford." Emer 
 son regarded Montaigne's choice with favor, as 
 he says, " Cut these words and they would bleed ; 
 they are vascular and alive." Of some of Mil 
 ton's lines, Macaulay says, " Change the structure 
 of the sentence, substitute one synonym for an 
 other, and the whole effect is destroyed." Pitt 
 thought verbal study important when he went 
 twice through Bailey's Dictionary, carefully con 
 sidering every word. So also did Choate when 
 he formed the habit of reading the dictionary by 
 the page, and when he said to a student, " You 
 want a diction whose every word is full freighted 
 with suggestion and association, with beauty and 
 power." 
 
 To acquire such a diction was a work calling 
 for intense and continuous application. But to 
 master the words which Mr. Choate needed was a 
 preparatory study. The question as to their best 
 use remained, and appealed to a large and ripe 
 experience. Writers and speakers differ in that 
 use, as they differ in culture and taste, in percep 
 tion and judgment; but they would agree that 
 the grace, beauty, and power of the words used 
 
98 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 depend on the harmony of their relations to each 
 other and to the thoughts expressed. 
 
 Mr. Choate valued highly those synonyms which 
 are useful in denoting distinctions, however slight, 
 and in enabling a speaker to avoid a wearisome 
 sameness of expression. His use of adjectives is a 
 noticeable feature of his style. They were chosen 
 with especial reference to the effect desired, and 
 each furnishes a new outline. Used thus, adjec 
 tives are important for precision and definiteness. 
 It is by them chiefly (and by their cognates, the 
 adverbs) that qualification, so necessary to exact 
 statement, can be attained, Mr. Choate once said 
 to a friend of mine that the value of adjectives 
 could be learned by studying botany. On taking 
 up this study, one finds that the descriptive lan 
 guage in it is largely composed of adjectives ; and 
 that to outline each tint, form, and garniture of 
 leaf and flower is an admirable instance of what 
 can be done by the use of such words. 
 
 Mr. Choate was in full communion with the 
 spirit of our language. He knew how strong, yet 
 how flexible, the words are ; he knew their line 
 age and their history. He did not attempt to coin 
 new-words, or to reclaim those rejected because 
 violating the analogies of the language, or to re 
 vive those that had become obsolete. Nor did he, 
 when writing or speaking, pause or turn aside to 
 
THE USE OF WELL-ACCEPTED WORDS. 99 
 
 find or to avoid Saxon words or words of foreign 
 derivation. In a conservative spirit he accepted 
 our language as nourished and developed to its 
 present strength and maturity. Believing that 
 its wealth is as precious in the realms of thought 
 as coin and credit in the world of commerce, he 
 sought to evolve and quicken its power to express 
 with grace and precision every shade of sentiment 
 and doctrine, however delicate or abstruse. 
 
 No one who has considered the nature of lan 
 guage, or the poverty of which he is conscious 
 when some of his emotions cannot be described, 
 and yet believes that the development of lan 
 guage attends the growing refinement of the peo 
 ple, will doubt the wisdom that guided Mr. Choate 
 in his studies, even when he was seeking a perfec 
 tion not yet attainable. Much has been said in 
 vague and general terms as to the quality and 
 extent of his vocabulary. Some not unfriendly 
 critics have thought that he gave an undue pref 
 erence to words of foreign derivation ; and that 
 his classic studies had perverted his taste and 
 judgment in respect to our strong, homely, and 
 simple native words. Such suggestions have had 
 weight in confirming my wish to ascertain the rel 
 ative proportions of native and foreign words used 
 by Mr. Choate and by some other distinguished 
 scholars. 
 
100 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 In his history, Sharon Turner gave some atten 
 tion to such a question for the avowed purpose of 
 proving " the copiousness and power of the Anglo- 
 Saxon language ; " but his method, though sugges 
 tive, was partial and inadequate. He quoted a 
 few lines from fourteen authors, and marked the 
 Saxon words, marked some of them many times. 
 The particulars appear in the table at the end of 
 this chapter. 
 
 In his lectures on the English language, Mr. 
 George P. Marsh gave the subject more attention, 
 but his collections and estimates include repeated 
 words. Th'at distinguished philologist, Dr. Weisse, 
 followed a different method. 
 
 As the more weighty words, those upon which 
 the sense of an author largely depends, are of 
 classic derivation and not often repeated, and as 
 some of the small words, the Saxon, do recur 
 many times in every sentence, it is obvious that 
 to include the repeated words in an estimate un 
 duly augments the percentage that should be as 
 signed to the Anglo-Saxon. The vocabulary of 
 a speaker or writer cannot thus be determined. 
 When told that Milton used 8,000 words and 
 Shakespeare 15,000, one need not be told that in 
 these estimates repeated words are not counted. 
 
 In treating of Mr. Choate's vocabulary, I have 
 caused all his words found in print, found by dili- 
 
MR. CHOATE'S VOCABULARY. 101 
 
 gent search, to be written down, and classified ac 
 cording to their derivation, and the percentage of 
 the whole which each class furnishes ascertained. 
 But dates, proper names, and quotations have 
 been omitted, and repeated words avoided; the 
 question really being as to his total vocabulary, 
 and not as to the frequency with which any class 
 of words reappears in his writings. I find that 
 Mr. Choate used 11,693 unrepeated words. Of 
 these, 3,424 are Teutonic; 7,223 are Latin; 736 
 are Greek ; 123 are common or Indo-European ; 
 and 187 are scattering. The percentage of the 
 whole number which the Teutonic furnishes is, 
 therefore, .293; the Latin, .618; the Greek, .062; 
 the Indo-European, .011 ; and the scattering, .016. 
 A like test has been applied to twenty other au 
 thors, ten American and ten British ; the unre 
 peated words used by each of them in one paper 
 or more, on some subject or occasion of grave im 
 portance, have been classified and counted. That 
 these authors differ from each other and from Mr. 
 Choate in the percentage of Anglo-Saxon used 
 may be ascribed in some measure to the varied 
 nature of the subjects discussed by them, and to 
 the number of words considered. The subject 
 discussed in each instance, and the derivations of 
 the words used, are given in the tables at the close 
 of this chapter. These authors, I am persuaded, 
 
102 MEMORIES OF RUFUS . CHOA TE. 
 
 will be regarded as fit exponents of the English 
 language at its best estate. It is evident that, if 
 they could have expressed their views with equal 
 freedom, fidelity, precision, and force in Anglo- 
 Saxon and had done so, our independence of the 
 classic elements in our language would be gen 
 erally confessed. 
 
 My purpose, at first, was merely to learn the 
 percentage of Anglo-Saxon used by these authors 
 and by Mr. Choate. But, on further consideration, 
 it seemed proper to extend the inquiry to words 
 from other sources. In doing this, the words 
 seemed naturally to fall into these five classes : 
 
 First. The Teutonic. By this I mean princi 
 pally, and almost exclusively, Anglo-Saxon. But, 
 in all the writings examined, there is a slight 
 sprinkling (1) of Norse, or Scandinavian, words ; 
 (2) of old, middle, or modern High - German 
 words ; and (3) of Dutch words. These, too few 
 in number to justify separate classification, and 
 not strictly Anglo-Saxon words, though near of 
 kin to them, could properly be classed with such, 
 under the generic heading Teutonic, and so have 
 been. 
 
 Secondly. The Latin ; including, of course, the 
 words coming into the English through the 
 French, the Italian, the Spanish, and the Portu 
 guese. 
 
CLASSES OF DERIVATIVES. 103 
 
 Thirdly. The Greek. 
 
 Fourthly. The Indo-European. This class em 
 braces words which belong to most or to all of the 
 seven great members of our family of languages. 
 Belonging to most or to all, they could not be 
 classed with any one of them. 
 
 Fifthly. Scattering. Of the words of this class 
 by far the larger part are purely Celtic. But oc 
 casionally there was found a Hebrew or an Arabic 
 word, one distinctly Eussian, or Persian, or Indian, 
 or one from some other source, and a separate 
 classification of these in the tables was not called 
 for. 
 
 It should be said, further, that what was evi 
 dently the most essential part of any compound 
 determined the classification of the word. Where 
 there were prefixes or suffixes, or both, the root 
 settled the class to which the word was assigned. 
 Where the parts were still independent words, 
 that part modified in meaning or limited in scope 
 by the other part or the other parts was allowed 
 to determine the class. 1 
 
 In a letter from the late George P. Marsh, to be 
 found in another part of this work, he says that 
 
 1 The classification of the words, the determination of the per 
 centages, and the preparation of the tables are, with little of my 
 help, the work of my learned friend, Brainerd Kellogg, Professor 
 of English Language and Literature in the Collegiate and Poly 
 technic Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
104 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 he had thought Mr. Choate's vocabulary consisted 
 of more words than I have given. As some of my 
 readers may have a like impression, it is proper to 
 speak of the rigorous excision practiced by the 
 Professor, an excision by which great numbers 
 of words standing alphabetically in the columns 
 prepared for him were cut out. No word in' any 
 one author, occurring as a single part of speech, 
 was counted more than once, though used often 
 by him in the same form, or in different forms. 
 As, for instance, grow, grows, grew, growing, 
 grown, found many times in the same author, 
 were regarded as one word ; and taller or tallest 
 was not counted if tall had been ; nor was the 
 plural of any noun, if the singular had been. 
 
 Let me, however, illustrate a seeming exception 
 to this guiding rule stated and exemplified above. 
 Is, 'was, and been are parts of one verb. But 
 they are from different roots ; consequently, when 
 found in an author, they were called three differ 
 ent words. For the same reason, better and worse, 
 comparatives of the adjective good and the ad 
 verb badly, were counted, though the positives 
 had been. So were the forms, thus differently de 
 rived^ of all other parts of speech. 
 
 The number of Mr. Choate's words as first col 
 lected, 15,559, was thus reduced to 11,693. 
 
 With these explanations of the principles by 
 
COMPARATIVE PERCENTAGES. 105 
 
 which the learned Professor was governed in 
 the preparation of the tables, the lessons taught 
 may be readily understood. 
 
 As a summary of the less obvious teaching of 
 the tables. Professor Kellogg has had the kindness, 
 at my request, to write what follows. He says, 
 " It will be seen by a glance at the tables, that 
 eight of the twenty authors with whom Mr. 
 Choate is compared use a smaller percentage of 
 Teutonic words than he does; that two use the 
 same ; that the ten who exceed his percentage of 
 Teutonic exceed it about as much as the others 
 drop below it ; and that these relations would not 
 be essentially disturbed if the percentages marked 
 common (Indo-European, or Aryan) were added to 
 the Teutonic. It will be seen, also, that thirteen 
 of these twenty authors use a larger percentage of 
 Latin words than Mr. Choate does ; and that these 
 thirteen exceed his percentage much more than 
 the remaining seven fall below it. If, with some, 
 we add the Greek words to the Latin, and call the 
 resulting list classical, ten of the twenty would 
 exceed Mr. Choate's percentage of classical words ; 
 one would have the same ; and the remaining 
 nine would fall below his percentage much less 
 than the ten would stand above it." 
 
 Mr. Choate's vocabulary, the unrepeated words, 
 is not in any material degree disturbed by the 
 
106 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 fact that many of his speeches and arguments 
 were not published or preserved. He used in 
 them, no doubt, words not found in the papers 
 before me, but the number of unrepeated ad 
 ditional words would be much less than might 
 be supposed, while the percentage of Anglo- 
 Saxon, of Latin, and of Greek, would be substan 
 tially the same. 
 
SOME PARTICULARS OF SHARON TURNER'S WORKS. 
 
 Authors. 
 
 Number of 
 Words consid 
 ered. 
 
 Of which are 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Of which (An 
 glo-Saxon) are 
 Repetitions. 
 
 Repetition of 
 Words from 
 other Sources. 
 
 Shakespeare . . . 
 
 81 
 
 68 
 
 31 
 
 - 
 
 Milton 
 
 89 
 
 71 
 
 23 
 
 - 
 
 
 76 
 
 68 
 
 16 
 
 1 
 
 Thomson .... 
 
 78 
 
 64 
 
 22 
 
 1 
 
 Addison .... 
 
 79 
 
 64 
 
 20 
 
 2 
 
 Spenser 
 
 72 
 
 58 
 
 18 
 
 6 
 
 Locke 
 
 95 
 
 75 
 
 28 
 
 3 
 
 Pope 
 
 84 
 
 56 
 
 17 
 
 1 
 
 Young .... 
 
 96 
 
 73 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Swift 
 
 87 
 
 77 
 
 26 
 
 1 
 
 Robertson .... 
 
 114 
 
 79 
 
 33 
 
 1 
 
 Hume 
 
 101 
 
 63 
 
 35 
 
 2 
 
 Gibbon 
 
 80 
 
 47 
 
 23 
 
 - 
 
 Johnson .... 
 
 87 
 
 60 
 
 23 
 
 3 
 
 
 1,219 
 
 923 
 
 333 
 
 22 
 
108 
 
 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
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 WILLIAM PINKNEY. 
 
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 DANIEL 
 
 peech on the Constitution and 
 
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 ration on the War System o 
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 REVERD 
 
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 29, 1851 
 
 CALEB 
 
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 WILLIAM M. 
 
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 AUTHORS AND THEIR S 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FR 
 
 pter 1 , Volume I. of his History of . 
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 RTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D. ( 
 
 Study of Greatness. The Hopes o 
 
 Rev. SYDNEY SMI 
 
 ech on the Reform Bill. Sermon 
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 THOMAS BABINGTON M 
 
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 Parliament, May 26, 1797; on His M 
 3 to Mutiny in the Fleet, June 2, 1797 
 Negotiation at Lisle, November 10, 1 
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 THOMAS ERSKINE. 
 
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CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Style, Variations of. Long Sentences. The Methodist 
 Church Case. Habits of Revising Speeches. A Con 
 trast. The Importance of Rhetorical Decorations. The 
 Freedom of Discourse necessary to an Advocate. Long 
 Arguments. 
 
 THE reader who believes, with Lord Kames, 
 that to have a specific style is to be poor of 
 speech, will appreciate Mr. Choate's varied meth 
 ods. As a speaker he was copious, reiterative, 
 and much given to illustrations useful in an ar 
 gument; as a writer he was more simple and 
 severe. 
 
 But, however widely his methods differed, the 
 same delicate and touching sensibility, the same 
 vivid and picturesque beauty, the same wealth of 
 thought and power of expression appeared in what 
 was spoken and in what was written. In neither 
 was his brilliant imagery used as a mere embel 
 lishment ; the visions of beauty in his mind be 
 came articulate without effort; the musical flow 
 and rhythm as inimitable as the melody of the 
 murmuring brook. He evidently believed that 
 from the harmony that could exist between a sub- 
 
LONG SENTENCES. 113 
 
 ject and the tone of its discussion might arise a 
 sense of ideal and emotional beauty, pleasing to 
 the mind ; that a brilliant style was consistent with 
 directness of thought and simplicity of speech ; 
 and that rhetorical and illustrative imagery, em 
 ployed with taste and judgment, pictures to the 
 eye and to the mind, might add to the spirit 
 and force of an argument. 
 
 Mr. Choate wrote with great freedom, and often 
 spoke with vehemence and rapidity; the words 
 waiting instantly and submissively on the thoughts. 
 When the subject moved him strongly and was to 
 be compressed within the limits of a single dis 
 course, he sometimes rushed through one of those 
 long sentences thought to be peculiar to him. 
 However easy it may have been for him, and 
 it appeared to be easy, the work in its nature 
 was unique and difficult. To one not having a 
 powerful memory, great command of language, 
 and discrimination in the use of words, the achieve 
 ment would have been impossible. A long train 
 of thought and the related parts of the discourse 
 were to be held in mind, and the particulars so ad 
 justed as to be in harmony with each other and 
 with the argument. Mr. Choate thus gave, in 
 compact form, extended views of the matter in 
 hand, without prolixity, confusion, or ambiguity. 
 The longest sentence he is known to have used was 
 
114 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 in his eulogy of Webster. In that instance and in 
 other instances of the kind, he was heard with 
 such unbounded delight that no one would have 
 thought of suggesting the common objection that 
 long sentences tend to weary and perplex the 
 hearer and the reader. In reading those sen 
 tences, as in reading the sovereign examples of 
 Demosthenes, Cicero, and Milton, the student has 
 a vivid conception of the argument. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Brazer, referring to a work 
 on Logic, Mr. Webster accepts what is said of 
 " argumentative repetition/' and of " the effect 
 of particularization," and says, " The skillful, and 
 apparently natural, enumeration of particulars is 
 certainly, in its proper place, one of the best 
 modes of producing impressions. All the stand 
 ard works are full of instances of this sort of 
 composition." In closing his letter, Mr. Webster 
 adds, "'-After all/ says Cobbett, 'he is a man of 
 talent that can make things move ; ' and after 
 all, say I, he is an orator that can make me 
 think as he thinks, and feel as he feels." 
 
 Was not Mr. Choate such an orator ? From one 
 of my correspondents I cite a few words relating 
 to an occasion when Choate was speaking upon a 
 familiar topic, "As Choate approached the climax, 
 Webster's emotions became uncontrollable; the 
 great eyes were filled with tears, the great frame 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE PATHETIC. 115 
 
 shook ; he bowed his head to conceal his face in 
 his hat, and I almost seemed to hear him sob." 
 Was not Mr. Choate's a style that could make 
 Webster think as he thought, and feel as he felt ? 
 When, in listening to any other orator, speaking 
 in whatever style, was Webster so moved ? Those 
 tears, that emotion, prove and illustrate his judg 
 ment, and blot out forever some of the loose and 
 casual chat about Choate's style which Mr. Harvey 
 reports in his " Reminiscences." If Webster ever 
 did find fault with Choate's style, it would be in 
 teresting to know in what mood he was. If he 
 talked of Choate's pile of flowers, and praised his 
 logic rather than his style, Webster must have 
 forgotten the care and patience with which he had 
 cultivated his own flowers of speech, and the in 
 terest which they gave to some of his discourses. 
 But he really differed from Choate, in the use of 
 such forms of expression, less than may be com 
 monly supposed. In his popular addresses, Web 
 ster employed them more freely than when speak 
 ing to legislative bodies or in the courts. He used 
 them, however, in each kind of service, when 
 moved by passion, or when anxious to awaken or 
 quicken the attention of his hearers. Yet, in re 
 vising his speeches for publication, he plucked 
 away the flowers whose bloom and fragrance then 
 pleased him less than when they had been adopted. 
 
116 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 But Mr. Choate's flowers of speech, of spontaneous 
 growth and use, were left with his other words, in 
 their original relations. 
 
 In his essay, introductory to his selections from 
 Mr. Webster's speeches, Mr. Whipple takes special 
 and favorable notice of several figurative expres 
 sions which had been retained. They have great 
 merit. I refer to one of them, illustrative some 
 what of the deliberation with which such embel 
 lishments were sought. Mr. Whipple gives the 
 history. When Webster was once on the heights 
 of Quebec, at an early hour of a summer morning, 
 he heard the drum-beat calling the garrison to 
 duty. It flashed upon him that England's morn 
 ing drum would go on beating elsewhere to the 
 hour when it would again sound in Quebec. In 
 his speech in the Senate, on the " Presidential Pro 
 test," after noticing the fact that our Revolution 
 ary fathers went to war in respect to mere taxa 
 tion, Webster said, " On this question of principle, 
 while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised 
 their flag against a power, to which, for the pur 
 pose of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, 
 in the height of her glory, is not to be compared ; 
 a power which has dotted over the surface of the 
 whole globe with her possessions and military 
 posts; whose morning drum-beat, following the 
 sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles 
 
THE REVISION OF ARGUMENTS. 117 
 
 the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain 
 of the martial airs of England." 
 
 As indicating the attention which that rhetor 
 ical illustration excited, Mr. Whipple notices the 
 report that, at the conclusion of this speech, John 
 Sergeant of Philadelphia came up to the orator, 
 and eagerly asked, " Where, Webster, did you get 
 that idea of the morning drum-beat ? " 
 
 Mr. Webster evidently believed that the idea of 
 an unbroken circle of power, extending round the 
 globe, originated with him and at Quebec. Mr. 
 Whipple, however, refers to a passage in Goethe's 
 " Faust" for the same idea, but says that Webster 
 never read " Faust." He could also have referred 
 to the "Odyssey," which Webster had read in the 
 original and as translated, for a passage equally 
 suggestive : 
 
 " Hear me, Neptune ! thou whose arms are hurled 
 From shore to shore and gird the solid world." 
 
 The idea was old. Mr. Webster gave it a new 
 form and office. 
 
 In respect to the final improvement of their 
 speeches, the difference between the habits of 
 Webster and those of Choate is not less striking 
 and significant. As a consequence, it may be said 
 that he who would know these orators from their 
 printed pages should remember that while one of 
 them appears as in state-dress, every part care- 
 
118 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 fully arranged, the other appears in the unstudied 
 dress of every-day life. 
 
 An interesting statement, by the Hon. Enoch 
 L. Fancher, as to Mr. Choate's relation to the 
 Methodist Church case, appears in another part 
 of this work. I am indebted to Judge Fancher 
 for a copy of the report of that case which con 
 tains the arguments of counsel. I turn the pages 
 of the book with conflicting emotions, pleasure, 
 in recalling what interested and impressed me 
 many years ago ; sadness, in remembering what 
 the country and the profession have since lost. 
 On that trial, Judges Nelson and Betts presided, 
 and Kufus Choate, Daniel Lord, George Wood, 
 and Keverdy Johnson were of counsel, not one of 
 whom is now living. 
 
 The reader will learn, from Judge Fancher's 
 paper, that he sought in vain to have Mr. Choate 
 revise his argument for publication. The refusal 
 was in keeping with Mr. Choate's habit. The 
 work in hand having been performed, he turned 
 to other labors or to his favorite studies, free from 
 the ambition of appearing well in print. He al 
 ways sought to master his subject before under 
 taking its discussion. In this he was unsparing. 
 But, in speaking, he could use appropriate terms, 
 and be content to leave his words as they fell 
 from his lips. It would, I think, be admitted by 
 
A CONTRAST. 119 
 
 those who have often heard him and have studied 
 him closely, that, owing to the character and ex 
 tent of his studies and the influence of his natural 
 gifts, memory, taste, judgment, the words that 
 would best express and illustrate his views were 
 present to him as they were wanted, even when 
 he was in the free and rapid current of discourse. 
 Professor Parsons was sensible of this when he 
 said that Choate "was never at a loss for the 
 word." 
 
 In contrast with such command of words and 
 such indisposition to revise what had been said on 
 a trial or in an argument, the reader will find in 
 Mr. Whipple's essay, to which I have referred, a 
 circumstantial account of the manner in which, by 
 changing words, definitions, and illustrations, Mr. 
 "Webster " tormented reporters, proof-readers, and 
 the printers who had the misfortune to be en 
 gaged in putting one of his performances into 
 type, not because this or that word was or was 
 not Saxon or Latin, but because it was inadequate 
 to convey perfectly his meaning." 
 
 Mr. Whipple mentions, also, Mr. Webster's re 
 vision of discourses which had been deliberately 
 prepared. Thus he says, " On the morning after 
 he had delivered his Eulogy on Adams and Jeffer 
 son, he entered his office with the manuscript in 
 his hand, and threw it down on the desk of a 
 
120 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 young student at law, whom he greatly esteemed, 
 with the request, ' There, Tom, please take that 
 discourse and weed out all the Latin words.' " 
 
 The publication, in pamphlet form, of Mr. Web 
 ster's Plymouth oration of 1820 was delayed for 
 about a year. Mr. Whipple says, " It is probable 
 that the Plymouth oration, as we possess it in 
 print, is a better oration, in respect to composi 
 tion, than that which was heard by the applaud 
 ing crowd before which it was originally deliv 
 ered." 
 
 Mr. Webster's taste was so exacting and severe 
 that he was not easily satisfied with his own work. 
 In that he was fortunate. He was fortunate also 
 in his close communion with the great masters of 
 speech. In the Eulogy, Mr. Choate refers to sev 
 eral writers from whom Mr. Webster had sought 
 inspiration, and says, " To the study and compari 
 son, but not to the copying, of authors such as 
 these ; to habits of writing and speaking and con 
 versing on the capital theory of always doing 
 his best ; thus, somewhat, I think, was acquired 
 that remarkable production, 'the last work of 
 combined study and genius,' his rich, clear, cor 
 rect, harmonious, and weighty style of prose." 
 
 Mr. Richard Grant White has like views upon 
 such an acquisition. After suggesting that style 
 cannot be taught, and that the student will derive 
 
CONVERSATION WITH MACKINTOSH. 121 
 
 little benefit from mere rhetoric, he says, " It is 
 general culture above all, it is the constant sub 
 mission of a teachable, apprehensive mind to the 
 influence of minds of the highest class, in daily 
 life and in books, that bring out upon language 
 its daintiest bloom and its richest fruitage." 
 
 In using picturesque figures of speech and ar 
 gumentative illustrations, Mr. Webster and Mr. 
 Choate were following the examples of great mas 
 ters of speech from Cicero down to their own 
 times. But some critics, not able to conform to 
 these standards, commend plainness of style, and 
 object to rhetorical embellishments. Those who 
 condemn what they cannot emulate deserve little 
 attention. But it would seem that views occasion 
 ally ascribed to distinguished authors may have 
 given such critics some encouragement. I make 
 special mention of one instance. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh is reported to have said, 
 in a conversation with Alexander H. Everett, 
 " Eloquence is the power of gaining your purpose 
 by words. All the labored definitions of it to be 
 found in the different rhetorical works amount in 
 substance to this. It does not, therefore, require 
 or admit the strained and false ornaments that 
 are taken for it by some. I hate those artificial 
 flowers without fragrance or fitness. Nobody ever 
 succeeded in this way but Burke. Fox used to 
 
122 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 say, 'I cannot bear this thing in anybody but 
 Burke, and he cannot help it, it is his natural 
 manner/ Mr. Wilberforce's voice is beautiful ; 
 his manner mild and perfectly natural. He has 
 no artificial ornament, but an easy, natural image 
 occasionally springs up in the mind that pleases 
 very much." l 
 
 In some respects, the contrast between Wilber- 
 force and Burke was very great. Yet there is no 
 reason to suppose that images sprang up in the 
 mind of one of them more naturally than in the 
 mind of the other. Mackintosh cites Fox with ap 
 probation, and could do so properly, as Fox knew 
 Burke by heart. But when Fox, speaking of the 
 abundant and gorgeous imagery of Burke, says 
 that he could not help it, it was his natural man 
 ner, he recognizes Burke's genius, and, in effect, 
 denies that he employed strained and false orna 
 ments or artificial flowers. 
 
 In his definition of eloquence, Mackintosh could 
 have said that the speaker who seeks to gain his 
 purpose by words must be true to his nature, and 
 that to check or to stimulate his powers by limit 
 ing himself to the use of a plain style, or by striv 
 ing after ornamentation, would betray great weak 
 ness. How far he would have tolerated Choate's 
 and Webster's flowers of speech it would be haz- 
 
 1 North American Review, 1832. 
 
RULE FOR THE FORENSIC SPEAKER. 123 
 
 ardous to surmise. But he could not think it 
 more feasible or just to apply a law of repression 
 to the luxurious diction of a man of genius than it 
 would be to add " lead and ballast to the under 
 standing " to bring it down to the level of common 
 minds. Either course would be as reasonable as 
 to clip the wings of eagles, formed by nature to 
 cleave the upper air. It is obvious that he who 
 would by words secure the assent of others must 
 be allowed to speak as the spirit moves him, with 
 no other sense of restraint than his culture, taste, 
 and judgment, the character of his hearers, and 
 the nature of his subject may impose. Such free 
 dom is most essential to the advocate. 
 
 It has been suggested as the rule for the foren 
 sic speaker that he should pass over inferior mat 
 ters, and concentrate his efforts upon the more 
 material points in a case ; whereas, it was charac 
 teristic of Mr. Choate that he did, in some sense, 
 just the opposite. It is to be remembered, how 
 ever, that with great freedom of suggestion, of 
 illustration, of argument, his discourse was tem 
 pered by a keen and steady watchfulness of the 
 effect he was producing. He peered, as it were, 
 into the very souls of the jury to read the stage 
 of conviction to which they had been brought. 
 He knew that the less important points of a case 
 may give the jury trouble, may even prevent 
 
124 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 their agreeing upon a verdict. Then, too, mat 
 ters which, as first considered, appear to be of 
 little moment, may in combination, or in their re 
 lation to unexpected developments on a trial, be 
 come important. It would, indeed, be interesting 
 to know by what prevision, in cases like those of 
 Tirrell, where a life was at stake, and of Dalton, 
 where a woman's honor was in peril, counsel could 
 sift out what might be passed over in silence as 
 immaterial. 
 
 It has been suggested, also, that Mr. Choate's 
 arguments before juries were long, with the im 
 plication that they were too long. The objection 
 might be reasonable if it had been observed that 
 in any case he did not keep the attention of the 
 jury to the end of the discussion. We can recall 
 no instance of such failure. He often tried ques 
 tions of fact with the brevity for which Sir James 
 Scarlett and Judge Curtis have been commended. 
 But in desperate cases, the testimony conflicting 
 and doubtful, such economy of time and strength 
 would not have been proper. In his Recollections 
 of Mr. Choate, from which I have permission to 
 quote, Mr. Whipple says, " On one occasion I hap 
 pened to be a witness in a case where a trader 
 was prosecuted for obtaining goods under false 
 pretenses. Mr. Choate took the ground that the 
 seeming knavery of the accused was due to the 
 
ARGUMENT IN A TRYING CASE. 125 
 
 circumstance that he had a deficient business in 
 telligence in short, that he unconsciously rated 
 all his geese as swans. He (Choate) was right in 
 his view. The foreman of the jury, however, was 
 a hard-headed, practical man, a model of business 
 intellect and integrity, but with an incapacity of 
 understanding any intellect or conscience radically 
 differing from his own. 'Mr. Choate's argument, 
 as far as the facts and the law were concerned, 
 was through in an hour. Still he went on speak 
 ing. Hour after hour passed, and yet he con 
 tinued to speak with constantly increasing elo 
 quence, repeating and recapitulating, without any 
 seeming reason, facts which he had already stated 
 and arguments which he had already urged. The 
 truth was, as I gradually learned, that he was en 
 gaged in a hand-to-hand or rather in a brain- 
 to-brain and a heart-to-heart contest with the 
 foreman, whose resistance he was determined to 
 break dow r n, but who confronted him for three 
 hours with defiance observable in every rigid line 
 of his honest countenance. * You fool ! ' was the 
 burden of the advocate's ingenious argument ; 
 ' you rascal ! ' was the phrase legibly printed on 
 the foreman's incredulous face. But at last the 
 features of the foreman began to relax, and at the 
 end the stern lines melted into acquiescence with 
 the opinion of the advocate, who had been storm- 
 
126 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 ing at the defenses of his mind, his heart, and his 
 conscience for five hours, and had now entered as 
 victor. He compelled the foreman to admit the 
 unpleasant fact that there were existing human 
 beings whose mental and moral constitution dif 
 fered from his own, and who were yet as honest 
 in intention as he was, but lacked his clear per 
 ception and sound judgment. The verdict was, 
 6 Not guilty.' It was a just verdict, but it was 
 mercilessly assailed by merchants who had lost 
 money by the prisoner and who were hounding 
 him down as an enemy to the human race, as an 
 other instance of Choate's lack of mental and 
 moral honesty in the defense of persons accused 
 of crime. The fact that the foreman of the jury 
 that returned the verdict belonged to the class 
 that most vehemently attacked Choate was suf 
 ficient of itself to disprove such allegations. As I 
 listened to Choate's argument in this case, I felt 
 assured that he would go on speaking until he 
 dropped dead on the floor rather than have relin 
 quished his clutch on the soul of the one man on 
 the jury who he knew would control the opinion 
 of the others." 
 
 I may be allowed to say that the stubborn juror 
 could not have been persuaded to adopt Mr. 
 Choate's views by the mere repetition of facts and 
 arguments, or by a determination to break him 
 
LONG ARGUMENTS. 127 
 
 down. His peculiarities were to be consulted, 
 and his self-respect encouraged by making him 
 feel that he represented the higher intelligence of 
 the jury. To his sense and apprehension there 
 were or should have been no bald and verbal 
 repetitions ; these would have offended his pride 
 and been fruitless; would have involved a tau 
 tology which Mr. Choate abhorred. In the course 
 of that discussion, no doubt varied relations were 
 recalled, recognized difficulties qualified, points 
 which had been stated put in new lights, and a 
 sense of novelty and interest excited. On the last 
 occasion when I heard Mr. Choate, he dealt with 
 the jury after that fashion. I was reminded of 
 what Stanhope says of Fox's repetitions that 
 one argument stated in five different forms may 
 be equal to five different arguments. 
 
 The critic who thinks that Mr. Choate's argu 
 ments were long would do well to recall the suc 
 cess that often crowned his efforts ; also that one 
 of Erskine's speeches occupied seven hours ; that, 
 with us, counsel, sensible of the value of time, 
 have been known to speak to the purpose in a 
 case and entertain a jury for a week ; and that in 
 the Star Route trial the arguments of two of the 
 counsel consumed, each, seven days. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Hitchcock's View of Mr. Choate. Extracts from 
 Journal. The Comparative Advantages of living in the 
 Old World. Music. Vindication of Sir Walter Scott. 
 Intervention. Kossuth's Visit. Eulogy of Webster. 
 
 MR. CHOATE'S study of the great masters of 
 speech in several languages left him in the use 
 of a style that was best suited to his taste and 
 genius. Hence it is that a wholesome relation 
 appears between the sympathetic power of his 
 early and of his later speeches. Such was the 
 opinion of Chief Justice Perley, who entered col 
 lege when young Choate was there, and knew him 
 up to the close of his life. In speaking of his 
 early studies, the Chief Justice says, " He was 
 already remarkable for the same brilliant qualities 
 which distinguished him in his subsequent career. 
 To those who knew him then, and watched his 
 onward course, little change was observable in his 
 style of writing or in his manner of speaking, 
 except such as would naturally be required by 
 subjects of a wider range, and by more exacting 
 
 occasions." 
 
REV. DR. HITCHCOCK ON CHOATE. 129 
 
 I am indebted to the Kev. Eoswell D. Hitch 
 cock, D. D., President of the Union Theological 
 Seminary, New York, for the following : "Between 
 the years 1845 and 1852, when I was living in 
 Exeter, N. H., and was often in Boston, I used 
 to see Mr. Choate in Burnham's antiquarian book 
 store, on Cornhill. I had no speaking acquaint 
 ance with him, but more than once he gave a sort 
 of gracious half-recognition, which seemed to me 
 the very perfection of courtesy and kindliness. As 
 he moved about among the old books, finding now 
 and then something that pleased him, there was 
 no mistaking the rare quality of the man. That 
 fine face, so deeply furrowed, the keen, but genial, 
 glance of the eye, the whole air so self-respecting 
 and yet so sweetly deferential to others, always 
 thrilled me at the time, and haunted my memory 
 long afterwards." 
 
 Of Mr. Choate's style and its effect, Dr. Hitch 
 cock says, " Certainly he seldom failed to carry 
 his point with any jury, or any popular assembly. 
 He caught men up and swept them along, as the 
 wind sweeps leaves and dust. Whoever seeks to 
 know the secret of this will find it preeminently 
 in the innermost, essential character of the man. 
 He was pure, and just, and true, and tender, so 
 that whatever he said commended, and still com 
 mends, itself to what is best and highest in our 
 
130 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 common nature. He was not only thoroughly 
 good, but his goodness was fine and chivalric. 
 The fascination was moral. The heart was cap 
 tured first, and after that the imagination. His 
 marvelous fertility of invention, wealth of allu 
 sion, and swift succession of inimitable felicities 
 of thought and diction never seemed like devices 
 to blind and betray the judgment, but came as 
 naturally as the bloom of fruit-trees, or the foam 
 of crested waves. His voice was one of a thou 
 sand, of ten thousand rather, now like a flute for 
 softness, and now like a clarion." 
 
 Mr. Choate could say what he would, in what 
 ever style he would, with ease and certainty. He 
 writes and speaks as one thoughtless of mere 
 style, and there seems to be almost no limit to 
 the variety of tone and expression. 
 
 I give some extracts, mere fragments, from his 
 Journal, 1 showing briefly some of his impressions 
 in 1850, when he was traveling abroad. 
 
 "Monday, August 5, Lucerne. This, then, is 
 Switzerland. It is a sweet, burning midsummer's 
 morning at Lucerne. Under one of my windows 
 is a little garden in which I see currants, cabbages, 
 pear-trees, vines, healthfully growing. Before 
 me, from the other, I see the lake of Lucerne, 
 beyond it, in farthest east, I see the snowy peaks 
 
 1 Brown's Memoirs, vol. i. 
 
FRAGMENTS OF THE JOURNAL. 131 
 
 of Alps. I count some dozen distinct summits on 
 which the snow is lying, composing a range of 
 many miles. On my extreme right ascends Mount 
 Pilate, splintered, bare granite, and, on the 
 other, Bighi, high and bold, yet wooded nearly to 
 the top. It is a scene of great beauty and inter 
 est, where all ' save the spirit of man ' may seem 
 divine. We left Basle at nine on Saturday morn 
 ing, and got to Zurich that evening at six. This 
 ride opened no remarkable beauty or grandeur, 
 yet possessed great interest. It was performed 
 in a diligence, the old, continental stage-coach. 
 And the impression made through the whole day, 
 or until we approached Zurich, was exactly that 
 of a ride in the coach from Hanover to the White 
 Hills. I ascribe this to the obvious circumstances 
 that we were already far above the sea, were 
 ascending along the bank of a river, the Ehine, 
 and then a branch which met us, rushing full and 
 fast from its mountain sources that we were ap 
 proaching the base of mountains of the first class 
 in a high northern latitude. The agricultural 
 productions (except the exotic vine), the grass, 
 weeds moderate ; wheat clover whiteweed 
 the construction of the valley the occasional 
 bends and intervals all seem that of New Eng 
 land. There was less beauty than at Newbury 
 and Bath, and, I think, not a richer soil, cer- 
 
132 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 tainly a poorer people. They assiduously accu 
 mulate manure, and women of all ages were reap 
 ing in the fields. 
 
 " Zurich is beautiful. The lake extends beau 
 tifully to the south before it. Pleasant gardens 
 and orchards and heights lie down to it and ad 
 joining it. And here first we saw the Alps a 
 vast chain. The glaciers, ranging from east to 
 west, closing the view to the south their peaks, 
 covered with snow, lay along as battlements, un 
 supported beneath, of a city of the sky out of 
 sight. 
 
 "All things in Zurich announce Protestantism, 
 activity of mind, the university, the books, the 
 learned men, the new buildings, the prosperity. 
 
 " I shall never forget the sweet sensations with 
 which I rode the first five or ten miles from Zurich 
 yesterday. It was Sunday. The bells of Zurich 
 were ringing, including that honored by the 
 preaching of Zwingle, and men, women, and 
 children were dressed, and with books were going 
 to meeting. Our way lay for some time along 
 the shores of the lake, through gardens, orchards, 
 and fields, to the water's edge, many of them of 
 the highest beauty. Then it left the lake to 
 ascend the Albis. This is an excellent road, but, 
 to overcome the mountain, its course is zigzag, and 
 is practicable only for a walk of the horses. I got 
 
ZURICH LUCERNE. 133 
 
 out, and ascended on foot, crossing from one ter 
 race of road to another, by paths through pleasant 
 woods. As I ascended, the whole valley of Zurich, 
 the city, the lake, in its whole length, the 
 amphitheatre of country inclosing it, the glorious 
 Alps, and, at last, Eighi and Pilate, standing like 
 the speaker's place in a lyceum, with an audience 
 of mountains vastly higher, rising into the peculiar 
 pinnacle of the Alps, covered with snow, ascend 
 ing before them, successively evolved itself. I 
 saw over half of Switzerland. Spread on it all 
 was the sweet, not oppressive, unclouded, sum 
 mer's sunlight. A pure, clear air enfolded it, 
 the Sunday of the pastoral, sheltered, and happy 
 world. In some such scenes the foundations of 
 the Puritan mind and polity were laid, scenes, 
 beautiful by the side of Tempe and Arcady, fit 
 as they to nurse and shelter all the kinds of 
 liberty. 
 
 " We descended to Zug and its lake, and then 
 coasted it to Lucerne. Last evening we visited 
 the emblematical lion and sailed on the lake. 
 To-day I go to the chapel of Tell. The first view 
 of the peculiar sharp points of Alps was just from 
 the very top of Albis, on the southwest brow. 
 There rose Righi and Pilate, and east apart 
 and above a sort of range, or city, of the tents 
 of an encampment in the sky. They rested on 
 
134 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 nothing, and seemed architecture of heaven pa 
 vilions the tents of a cavalcade traveling above 
 the earth. 
 
 " Berne, Wednesday, 7th. We left Lucerne at 
 seven, in our own hired voiture, and with one 
 change of horses, treating ourselves to two long 
 pauses, arrived here at eight o'clock the last 
 two hours through a thunder-shower. The way 
 gave me much of the common and average life of 
 Switzerland, lying through two of its great can 
 tons. What I saw of Lucerne disappointed me. 
 The soil, I should think, cold and ungrateful, and 
 the mind of the laborer not open. Crucifixes 
 everywhere, and all over everything, weeds in 
 corn and grass. Once in Berne all changes. Man 
 does his duty. Excellent stone bridges; good 
 fences; fewer weeds; more wheat and grass; 
 more look of labor; better buildings; better, 
 newer, larger houses and barns; no crucifixes; 
 express the change. Throughout I find a small 
 ish, homely race, and pursue the dream of Swiss 
 life in vain. Yet in these valleys, on the sides of- 
 these hills, in these farm-houses, scattered far and 
 near, though all is cut off from the great arterial 
 and venous system of the world of trade and in 
 fluence, though the great pulse of business and 
 politics beats not though life might seem to 
 stagnate, is happiness and goodness too. Some- 
 
BERNE. 135 
 
 times a high Swiss mind emerges, and, speaking 
 a foreign or dead tongue, or migrating, asserts 
 itself. Berne is full of liveliness and recency, as 
 well as eld. I have run over it before breakfast, 
 and shall again before we go. 
 
 " I saw at Berne the place of the state bears, 
 and two of the pensioners, the high terraced 
 ground of view, the residence of the patricians, 
 and the Cathedral, containing, among other things, 
 tablets to the memory of those who fell in 1798, 
 enumerating them ; and the painted windows of 
 Protestant satire. Our journey to Vevay had 
 little interest, a grim horizon of cloud and a con 
 stant fall of rain wholly obscured the Alps. Frei 
 burg is striking, its suspended bridge sublime, and 
 it holds one of the best organs of the world. We 
 arrived here ( Yevay) at ten, and I have this morn 
 ing looked out on the whole beauty of this part 
 of the lake, from Haute ville, and from a point 
 on the shore above it, and towards the direction 
 of Chillon, and admitted its supreme interest, 
 and its various physical and associated beauty. 
 The day is clear and warm and still. The slight 
 est breeze stirs the surface of the lake ; light 
 clouds curl half-way up the steep shores, float, 
 vanish, and are succeeded by others ; a summer's 
 sun bathes a long shore and inland rising from the 
 shore, clad thick with vines ; yonder, looking to 
 
136 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 the southeast upon the water, in that valley, 
 sheltered by the mountain, nestling among those 
 trees, embraced and held still in the arms of uni 
 versal love, is Clarens, fit, unpolluted asylum 
 of love and philosophy ; before it, on its left, is 
 the castle of Chillon, more directly before it the 
 mouth of the Rhone, here resting a space in his 
 long flight from his glacier-source ; far-off, west, 
 stretched the Lake of Geneva, at peace, here and 
 there a white sail, the home, the worship, the 
 inspiration of Rousseau and De Stael ; the shelter 
 of liberty ; the cradle of free-thinking ; the scene 
 in which the character and fortune of Puritanism 
 were shaped and made possible; the true birth 
 place of the civil and religious order of the north 
 ern New World. 
 
 " Geneva, 9th August, Friday. The lake was 
 smooth and bright, and our voyage of five hours 
 pleasant and prosperous ; and we had the extraor 
 dinary fortune to witness what we are assured was 
 the best sunset on Mont Blanc for years. Long 
 after the sun had sunk below our earth, the whole 
 range of the mountain was in a blaze with the 
 descending glory. At first it was a mere reflec 
 tion, from a long and high surface, of the sun's 
 rays. Gradually this passed into a golden and 
 rosy hue, then all darkened except the supreme 
 summit itself, from which the gold light flashed, 
 
MONT BLANC. 137 
 
 beamed, some time longer; one bright turret of 
 the building not made with hands, kindled from 
 within, self -poised, or held by an unseen hand. 
 Under our feet ran the Rhone, leaping, joyful, 
 full, blue, to his bed in the Mediterranean. Be 
 fore us is the city of thought, liberty, power, in 
 fluence, the beautiful and famous Geneva. More 
 than all in interest was the house of the father of 
 Madame de Stael, and the home of the studies of 
 Gibbon. 
 
 " I went on Saturday, August 10, to the nearer 
 contemplation of Mont Blanc, at Chamouny. Most 
 of that journey lies through Savoy, of the kingdom 
 of Sardinia, even as far as St. Martin, and beyond 
 somewhat, a well-constructed royal road. Within 
 the first third, I should think, of the day's ride 
 out from Geneva, and long before Mont Blanc 
 again reveals himself (for you lose sight of him 
 wholly in a mile or two out of the city), you enter 
 a country of much such scenery as the Notch of 
 the White Mountains. An excellent road ascends 
 by the side of the Arve, itself a mad, eager stream, 
 leaping from the mer de glace, and running head 
 long, of the color of milk mixed with clay, to the 
 Rhone, below Geneva, on each side of which rise, 
 one after another, a succession of vast heights, 
 some a half mile to a mile above you, all steep, 
 more than even perpendicular, and even hanging 
 
138 MEMORIES OF ItUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 over you, as projecting beyond their base. These 
 are so near, and our view so unobstructed, and 
 they are all of a height so comprehensible and 
 appreciable, so to speak, so little is lost by an un 
 availing elevation, that they make more impres 
 sion than a mountain five times as high. It is 
 exactly as in the Notch, where the grandeur, in 
 stead of being enthroned remote, dim, and resting 
 in measurement, and demanding comparisons and 
 thoughts, is near, palpable, and exacting. Down 
 many of these streamed rivulets of water, sil 
 ver threads of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, 
 of feet long from source to base of cliff, often 
 totally floating off from the side of the hill, and 
 the bed in which they had begun to run, in a 
 mere mist, which fell like rain, and farther down, 
 and to the right or left of the original flow, were 
 condensed again into mere streams. These have 
 no character of waterfall as you ride along, but 
 discharge a great deal of water in a very pictur 
 esque, holiday, and wanton fashion. This kind 
 of scenery grows bolder and wilder, and at last, 
 and suddenly, at St. Martin, we saw again, above 
 it, and beyond it all, the range of Mont Blanc, 
 covered with snow, and at first, its summit covered 
 too with clouds. Thenceforth this was ever in 
 view, and some hours before sunset the clouds 
 lifted themselves and vanished, and we looked till 
 
COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES. 139 
 
 all was dark upon the unveiled summit itself. 
 Again we had a beautiful evening sky; again, 
 but this time directly at the foot of the mountain, 
 we stood and watched the surviving, diminishing 
 glory, and just as that faded from the loftiest 
 peak, and it was night, I turned and saw the new 
 moon opposite, within an hour of setting in the 
 west. From all this glory, and at this elevation, 
 my heart turned homeward, and I only wished 
 that since dear friends could not share this here, 
 I could be by their side, and Mont Blanc a morn 
 ing's imagination only.'' 
 
 His impressions as to the contrast between the 
 advantages of living in the Old and in the New 
 World are of special interest. 
 
 "The higher charm of Europe is attributable 
 only to her bearing on her bosom here and there 
 some memorials of a civilization about seven or 
 eight hundred years old. Of any visible traces 
 of anything earlier there is nothing. All earlier 
 is of the ancient life, is in books, and may be ap 
 propriated by us, as well as by her, under God, 
 and by proper helps. The gathering of that eight 
 hundred years, however, collected and held here, 
 libraries, art, famous places, educational spec 
 tacles of architecture, picture, statue, gardening, 
 fountains, are rich, rich, and some of them we 
 can never have nor use. 
 
140 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 " On how many European minds, in a genera 
 tion, is felt educationally the influence of that 
 large body of spectacles specifically European, and 
 which can never be transferred ? Eecollect, first, 
 that all her books we can have among us perma 
 nently. All her history we can read and know, 
 therefore, and all things printed. What remains ? 
 What that can never be transferred ? Picture, 
 statue, building, grounds; beyond and above, a 
 spirit of the place ; whatsoever and all which 
 comes from living in and visiting memorable 
 places. How many in Europe are influenced, and 
 how, by this last ? The recorded history affects 
 us as it does them. In which hemisphere would 
 an imaginative and speculative mind most enjoy 
 itself? In America, land of hope! liberty, 
 Utopia sobered, realized, to be fitted according to 
 an idea, with occasional visits to this picture- 
 gallery and museum, occasional studies here of 
 the objects we can't have ; or here, under an in 
 flexible realization, inequalities of condition, rank, 
 force, property, tribute to the Past, the Past ! ! ! 
 
 "Looking to classes: 1st. The vast mass is 
 happier and better in America, is worth more, 
 rises higher, is freer ; its standard of culture and 
 life higher. 2. Property -holders are as scarce. 3. 
 The class of wealth, taste, social refinement, and 
 genius, how with them ? 
 
OUR ADVANTAGES THE GREATEST. 141 
 
 " Mem. The enjoyment of an American of re 
 fined tastes and a spirit of love of man is as high 
 as that of a European of the same class. He has 
 all but what visits will give him, and he has what 
 no visits can give the other. 
 
 " What one human being, not of a privileged 
 class, is better off in Europe than he would be 
 in America ? Possibly a mere scholar, or student 
 of art, seeking learning or taste for itself, to ac 
 complish himself. But the question is, if in any 
 case, high and low, the same rate of mind, and 
 the same kind of mind, may not be as happy in 
 America as in Europe. It must modify its aims 
 and sources somewhat, live out of itself, seek to 
 do good, educate others. It may acquire less, 
 teach more; suck into its veins less nutriment, 
 less essence, less perception of beauty, less relish 
 of it (this I doubt), but diffuse it more. 
 
 " What is it worth to live among all that I have 
 seen ? I think access to the books and works of 
 art is all. There is no natural beauty thus far 
 beyond ours, and a storied country, storied of 
 battles and blood, is that an educational influ 
 ence ? " 
 
 Those who have thought that Mr. Choate had 
 little taste for music may wish that they had 
 stood by him in the Cathedral of Strasburg, 
 "where mass was performing, and a glorious 
 
142 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 organ was filling that unbounded interior with 
 the grandest and the sweetest of music, through 
 whose pauses you heard the muttered voice of 
 the priest, and the chanting of a choir wholly out 
 of sight." Or, at St. Denis, where " The organ 
 was played just enough to show what oceans and 
 firmaments full of harmony are there accumu 
 lated. Some drops, some rivulets, some grandest 
 peals we heard, identifying it, and creating long 
 ings for more." 
 
 Mr. Choate had a fervent admiration for Sir 
 Walter Scott. In his lecture on our " Obliga 
 tions to the British Poets," delivered in 1856, 
 he defends Scott and his novels against one of 
 the detractors. The following will illustrate the 
 moderate tone which was peculiar to Mr. Choate 
 when indulging in controversy. He says, " It has 
 pleased Mr. Thomas Carlyle to record of these 
 novels, ' The sick heart will find no healing 
 here, the darkly struggling heart no guidance, 
 the heroic that is in all men no divine, awakening 
 voice/ These be sonorous words assuredly. In 
 one sense I am afraid that is true of any and all 
 mere romantic literature. As disparagement of 
 Scott, Jt is a simple absurdity of injustice. In any 
 adequate sense of these expressions, Homer and 
 Shakespeare must answer, ' These are not mine 
 to give.' To heal that sickness, to pour that light 
 
GENTLE TONE IN CONTROVERSY. 143 
 
 on that gloom, to awaken that sleep of greatness 
 in the soul in the highest sense, far other pro 
 vision is demanded, and is given. In the old, old 
 time, Hebrew, Pagan, some found it in the 
 very voice of God ; some in the visits of the 
 angel ; some in a pilgrimage to the beautiful 
 Jerusalem; some in the message of the prophet, 
 till that succession had its close ; some sought it 
 rather than found it, like Socrates, like Plato, like 
 Cicero, like Cato, in the thoughts of their own 
 and other mighty minds turned to the direct 
 search of truth, in the philosophy of speculation, 
 in the philosophy of duty, in the practice of public 
 life. To us only, and at last, is given the true 
 light. For us only is the great Physician pro 
 vided. In our ears, in theirs whose testimony we 
 assuredly believe, the divine, awakening voice has 
 been articulately and first spoken. In this sense, 
 what he says would be true of Homer, Shake 
 speare, Dante, Milton, but no more true of Scott 
 than of Goethe or Schiller. Neither is, or gives, 
 religion to the soul, if it is that of which he 
 speaks. But if this is not his meaning, and I 
 suppose, it is not, if he means to say that by the 
 same general treatment, by the same form of suf 
 fering humanity by which Homer, Yirgil, Dante, 
 Shakespeare heal the sick heart, give light to the 
 darkened eye, and guidance to blundering feet, 
 
144 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 and kindle the heroic in man to life, if he 
 means to say that as they have done it he has 
 not in kind, in supreme degree, let the millions 
 whose hours of unrest, anguish, and fear he has 
 charmed away, to the darkness of whose despond 
 ing he has given light, to whose sentiments of 
 honor, duty, courage, truth, manliness, he has 
 given help, let them gather around the capitol 
 and answer for themselves and him. I am afraid 
 that that Delphic and glorious Madame de Stael 
 knew sickness of the heart in a sense and with a 
 depth too true only ; and she had, with other con 
 solation, the fisherman's funeral, in the ' Anti 
 quary,' read to her on her death-bed ; as Charles 
 Fox had the kindred but unequal sketches of 
 Crabbe's ' Village ' read on his. 
 
 " And so of this complaint, that the heroic in 
 man finds here no divine, awakening voice. If 
 by this heroic in man he means what assuming 
 religious traits out of the question we who 
 speak the tongue of England and hold the ethics 
 of Plato, of Cicero, of Jeremy Taylor, and Ed 
 mund Burke should understand, religion now 
 out of the question that sense of obligation, 
 pursuing us ever, omnipresent like the Deity, ever 
 proclaiming that the duties of life are more than 
 life, that principle of honor that feels a stain 
 like a wound, that courage that fears God and 
 
APPEALS TO HEROIC SPIRITS. 145 
 
 knows no other fear, that dares do all that may 
 become a man, truth on the lips and in the 
 inward parts, that love of our own native 
 land, comprehensive and full love, the absence of 
 which makes even the superb art-world of Goethe 
 dreamy and epicurean, manliness, equal to all 
 offices of war or peace, above jealousy, above in 
 justice if this is the heroic, and if by the divine 
 awakening voice he meant that artistic and lit 
 erary culture fitted to develop and train this 
 quality, that voice is Scott's. 
 
 " I will not compare him with Carlyle's Goethe 
 or even Schiller, or any other idol on the Olym 
 pus of his worship ; that were flippant and indec 
 orous, nor within my competence. But who and 
 where, in any literature, in any walk of genius, 
 has sketched a character, imagined a situation, 
 conceived an austerity of glorified suffering, bet 
 ter adapted to awaken all of the heroic in man 
 or woman that it is fit to awaken, than Rebecca 
 in act to leap from the dizzy verge of the parapet 
 of the castle to escape the Templar, or awaiting 
 the bitterness of death in the list of Templestowe 
 and rejecting the championship of her admirer ? 
 or than Jeanie Deans refusing an untruth to save 
 her innocent sister's life and then walking to Lon 
 don to plead for her before the Queen, and so 
 pleading ? than Macbriar in that group of Cov- 
 10 
 
146 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 enanters in " Old Mortality " in presence of the 
 Privy Council confessing for himself, whom terror, 
 whom torture could not move to the betrayal of an 
 other; accepting sentence of death, after anguish 
 unimaginable, his face radiant with joy ; a trial of 
 manhood and trust, a sublimity of trial, a mani 
 festation of the heroic to which the self-sacrifice 
 of a Leonidas and his three hundred was but a 
 wild and glad revelry, a march to the ' Dorian 
 music of flutes and soft recorders/ a crowning, 
 after the holiday contention of the games, with 
 all of glory a Greek could covet or conceive ? " 
 
 In an address on the " Intervention of the New 
 World in the Affairs of the Old," delivered in 
 1852, Mr. Choate thus speaks of Kossuth. I cite 
 this passage as illustrative of his style ; also be 
 cause Kossuth's visit to us is of interest as matter 
 of history, and is nowhere else so fitly given. 
 
 " On the fifth day of the last December, there 
 came to this land a man of alien blood, of foreign 
 and unfamiliar habit, costume, and accent ; yet 
 the most eloquent of speech according to his 
 mode, the most eloquent by his history and 
 circumstances, the most eloquent by his mission 
 and topics, whom the world has, for many ages ? 
 seen ; and began, among us a brief sojourn, 
 began, say rather, a brief and strange, eventful 
 pilgrimage, which is just now concluded. Imper- 
 
KOSSUTH'S VISIT. 147 
 
 feet in his mastery of our tongue, he took his 
 first lessons in the little room over the barrack- 
 gate of Buda, a few months before, his only 
 practice in it had been a few speeches to quite 
 uncritical audiences in Southampton, in Birming 
 ham, Manchester, and Guildhall ; bred in a school 
 of taste and general culture with which our An 
 glo-Saxon training has little affinity and little 
 sympathy ; the representative and impersonation, 
 though not, I believe, the native child, of a race 
 from the East, planted some centuries ago in Eu 
 rope, but Oriental still as ever, in all but its Chris 
 tianity ; the pleader of a cause in which we might 
 seem to be as little concerned as in the story of 
 the lone Pelops or that of Troy divine, coming 
 before us even such that silver voice, that sad, 
 abstracted eye, before which one image seemed 
 alone to hover, one procession to be passing, the 
 fallen Hungary the ' unnamed demigods/ her 
 thousands of devoted sons ; that earnest and full 
 soul, laboring with one emotion, has held thou 
 sands and thousands of all degrees of suscepti 
 bility ; the coldness and self-control of the East, 
 the more spontaneous sympathies of the West, 
 the masses in numbers without number, women, 
 scholars, our greatest names in civil places, by the 
 seashore, in banquet halls, in halls of legislation, 
 among the memories of Bunker Hill, every- 
 
148 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 where he has held all, with a charm as absolute 
 as that with which the Ancient Mariner kept back 
 the bridal guest after the music of the marriage 
 feast had begun. 
 
 " The tribute of tears and applaudings ; the 
 tribute of sympathy and of thoughts too deep for 
 applaudings, too deep for tears, have attested his 
 sway. For the first time since the transcendent 
 genius of Demosthenes strove with the downward 
 age of Greece ; or since the prophets of Israel an 
 nounced each tone of the hymn grander, sad 
 der, than before the successive footfalls of the 
 approaching Assyrian beneath whose spear the 
 Law should cease and the vision be seen no more ; 
 our ears, our hearts, have drunk the sweetest, 
 most mournful, most awful of the words which 
 man may ever utter, or may ever hear the elo 
 quence of an expiring nation. 
 
 " For of all this tide of speech, flowing without 
 ebb, there was one source only. To one note only 
 was the harp of this enchantment strung. It was 
 an appeal not to the interests, not to the reason, 
 not to the prudence, not to the justice, not to the 
 instructed conscience of America and England ; 
 but to the mere emotion of sympathy for a single 
 family of man oppressed by another contending 
 to be free, cloven down on the field, yet again 
 erect ; her body dead, her spirit incapable to die ; 
 
THE SYMPATHY KOSSUTH AWAKENED. 149 
 
 the victim of treachery ; the victim of power ; the 
 victim of intervention ; yet breathing, singing, 
 lingering, dying, hoping, through all the pain, the 
 bliss of an agony of glory I For this perishing 
 nation not one inhabitant of which we ever 
 saw ; on whose territory we had never set a foot ; 
 whose books we had never read ; to whose ports 
 we never traded ; not belonging in an exact sense 
 to the circle of independent states ; a province, 
 rather, of an empire which alone is known to 
 international law and to our own diplomacy ; for 
 this nation he sought pity, the intervention, the 
 armed intervention, the material aid of pity ; and 
 if his audiences could have had their will, he 
 would have obtained it, without mixture or meas 
 ure, to his heart's content. 
 
 " When shall we be quite certain again that the 
 lyre of Orpheus did not kindle the savage na 
 ture to a transient discourse of reason, did not 
 suspend the labors and charm the pains of the 
 damned, did not lay the keeper of the grave 
 asleep, and win back Eurydice from the world 
 beyond the river, to the warm upper air ? 
 
 "And now that this pilgrimage of romance is 
 ended, the harp hushed, the minstrel gone, let us 
 pause a moment and attend to the lessons and 
 gather up the uses of the unaccustomed perform 
 
 ance. " 
 
150 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 A few pages, taken from Mr. Choate's eulogy 
 of Daniel Webster, happily illustrate the best and 
 most endearing elements of his nature. In no 
 other relation, no other phase or feature of his 
 life and character, however brilliant and imposing, 
 not even as depicted by Mr. Choate, does 
 Webster appear more worthy of remembrance. 
 Yet, how clear, simple, compact, with what wealth 
 of thought and economy of words, with what 
 freedom from rhetorical ornament, is the revela 
 tion made ! 
 
 " There must be added next, the element of an 
 impressive character, inspiring regard, trust, and 
 admiration, not unmingled with love. It had, I 
 think, intrinsically a charm such as belongs only 
 to a good, noble, and beautiful nature. In its 
 combination with so much fame, so much force of 
 will, and so much intellect, it filled and fascinated 
 the imagination and heart. It was affectionate in 
 childhood and youth, and it was more than ever 
 so in the few last months of his long life. It 
 is the universal testimony that he gave to his 
 parents, in largest measure, honor, love, obe 
 dience ; that he eagerly appropriated the first 
 means which he could command to relieve the 
 father from the debts contracted to educate his 
 brother and himself; that he selected his first 
 place of professional practice that he might soothe 
 
EULOGY OF WEBSTER. 151 
 
 the coming on of his old age ; that all through 
 life he neglected no occasion sometimes when 
 leaning on the arm of a friend, alone, with falter 
 ing voice, sometimes in the presence of great as 
 semblies, where the tide of general emotion made 
 it graceful to express his < affectionate venera 
 tion of him who reared and defended the log 
 cabin in which his elder brothers and sisters were 
 born, against savage violence and destruction, 
 cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its 
 roof, and, through the fire and blood of some 
 years of Revolutionary War, shrank from no dan 
 ger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and 
 to raise his children to a condition better than his 
 own.' 
 
 " Equally beautiful was his love of all his kin 
 dred and of all his friends. When I hear him ac 
 cused of selfishness, and a cold, bad nature, I re 
 call him lying sleepless all night, not without 
 tears of boyhood, conferring with Ezekiel how the 
 darling desire of both hearts should be compassed, 
 and he, too, admitted to the precious privileges 
 of education ; courageously pleading the cause of 
 both brothers in the morning ; prevailing by the 
 wise and discerning affection of the mother ; sus 
 pending his studies of the law, and registering 
 deeds and teaching school to earn the means, for 
 both, of availing themselves of the opportunity 
 
152 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 which the parental self-sacrifice had placed within 
 their reach ; loving him through life, mourning 
 him when dead, with a love, and a sorrow very 
 wonderful, passing the sorrow of woman ; I recall 
 the husband, the father of the living and of the 
 early departed, the friend, the counselor of many 
 years, and my heart grows too full and liquid for 
 the refutation of words. 
 
 " His affectionate nature, craving ever friend 
 ship as well as the presence of kindred blood, dif 
 fused itself through all his private life, gave sin 
 cerity to all his hospitalities, kindness to his eye, 
 warmth to the pressure of his hand ; made his 
 greatness and genius unbend themsevles to the 
 playfulness of childhood, flowed out in graceful 
 memories indulged of the past of the dead, of in 
 cidents when life was young and promised to be 
 happy, gave generous sketches of his rivals, 
 the high contention now hidden by the handful of 
 earth, hours passed fifty years ago with great 
 authors, recalled for the vernal emotions which 
 then they made to live and revel in the soul. 
 And from these conversations of friendship, no 
 man no man, old or young, went away to re 
 member one word of profaneness, one allusion of 
 indelicacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving 
 suggestion ; one doubt cast on the reality of vir 
 tue, of patriotism, of enthusiasm, of the progress 
 
EULOGY OF WEBSTER. 153 
 
 of man, one doubt cast on the righteousness, 
 or temperance, or judgment to come. 
 
 " Every one of his tastes and recreations an 
 nounced the same type of character. His love of 
 agriculture, of sports in the open air, of the out 
 ward world in starlight and storms, and sea and 
 boundless wilderness, partly a result of the in 
 fluences of the first fourteen years of his life, per 
 petuated like its other affections and its other les 
 sons of a mother's love, the Psalms, the Bible, 
 the stories of the wars, partly the return of an 
 unsophisticated and healthful nature, tiring, for 
 a space, of the idle business of political life, its 
 distinctions, its artificialities, to employments, to 
 sensations which interest without agitating the 
 universal race alike, as God has framed it, in 
 which one feels himself only a man, fashioned 
 from the earth, set to till it, appointed to return 
 to it, yet made in the image of his Maker, and 
 with a spirit that shall not die, all displayed a 
 man whom the most various intercourse with the 
 world, the longest career of strife and honors, the 
 consciousness of intellectual supremacy, the com 
 ing in of a wide fame, constantly enlarging, left, 
 as he was at first, natural, simple, manly, genial, 
 kind. 
 
 "I have learned by evidence, the most direct 
 and satisfactory, that in the last months of his life. 
 
154 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 the whole affectionateness of his nature, his con 
 sideration of others, his gentleness, his desire to 
 make them happy and to see them happy, seemed 
 to come out in more and more beautiful and habit 
 ual expression than ever* before. The long day's 
 public tasks were felt to be done ; the cares, the 
 uncertainties, the mental conflicts of high places 
 were ended ; and he came home to recover him 
 self for the few years which he might still expect 
 would be his before he should go hence to be here 
 no more. And there, I am assured and fully be 
 lieve, no unbecoming regrets pursued him ; no dis 
 content, as for injustice suffered or expectations 
 unfulfilled ; no self-reproach for anything done or 
 anything omitted by himself; no irritation, no 
 peevishness unworthy of his noble nature ; but in 
 stead, love and hope for his country, when she 
 became the subject of conversation, and for all 
 around him, the dearest and most indifferent, for 
 all breathing things about him, the overflow of 
 the kindest heart growing in gentleness and be 
 nevolence ; paternal, patriarchal affections seem 
 ing to become more natural, warm, and commu 
 nicative every hour. Softer and yet brighter 
 grew the tints on the sky of parting day ; and the 
 last lingering rays, more even than the glories 
 of noon, announced how divine was the source 
 from which they proceeded ; how incapable to 
 
A CHARACTER TO BE LOVED. 155 
 
 be quenched; how certain to rise on a morning 
 which no night should follow. 
 
 " Such a character was made to be loved. It 
 was loved. Those who knew and saw it in its 
 hour of calm those who could repose on that 
 soft green loved him. His plain neighbors 
 loved him ; and one said, when he was laid in his 
 grave, ' How lonesome the world seems ! ' Edu 
 cated young men loved him. The ministers of 
 the gospel, the general intelligence of the coun 
 try, the masses afar off loved him. True, they 
 had not found in his speeches, read by millions, 
 so much adulation of the people ; so much of the 
 music which robs the public reason of itself ; so 
 many phrases of humanity and philanthropy ; and 
 some had told them he was lofty and cold, 
 solitary in his greatness; but every year they 
 came nearer and nearer to him, and, as they came 
 nearer, they loved him better; they heard how 
 tender the son had been, the husband, the brother, 
 the father, the friend, and neighbor ; that he was 
 plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable, the 
 heart larger than the brain ; that he loved little 
 children and reverenced God, the Scriptures, the 
 Sabbath day, the Constitution, and the law, and 
 their hearts clave unto him. More truly of him 
 than even of the great naval darling of England 
 might it be said, that ( His presence would set the 
 
156 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 church-bells ringing, and give school-boys a holi 
 day, would bring children from school and old 
 men from the chimney-corner to gaze on him ere 
 he died/ The great and unavailing lamentation 
 first revealed the deep place he had in the hearts 
 of his countrymen." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Preparation for Service in Congress. Rank and Acceptance. 
 Lost Speeches. Annexation of Texas. The Tariff. 
 Home Industry and the Mechanical Arts. Progress. 
 Concurrent Views of Other Statesmen. 
 
 THE minuteness of investigation shown in Mr. 
 Choate's professional and classical studies entered 
 into his preparatory work as a statesman. On his 
 election to the lower House of Congress in 1830, 
 and to the Senate in 1841, he took up critically 
 the great questions which it was expected might 
 require legislative attention. Few members, cer 
 tainly no new members, could have trusted more 
 safely to the information already possessed, and 
 to the inspirations of the hour in debate. But a 
 conscientious regard for the duties to be dis 
 charged, and a cultivated indisposition to take 
 that for granted which could be proved, led him 
 to an extended course of study, and to its faithful 
 continuance as other questions afterwards arose. 
 
 The services of Mr. Choate in the Senate would 
 seem to have been more important than those 
 rendered in the House of Kepresentatives. This 
 may be owing, in part, to the nature of the sub- 
 
158 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 jects considered, and, in part, to the better pres 
 ervation of his later speeches. But many of his 
 arguments were not preserved. The reiterated re 
 quest in the " Globe," that members would write 
 out their speeches, had little effect on him. The 
 Hon. Alexander H. Stephens recently wrote out 
 from memory the concluding part of one of Mr. 
 Choate's speeches which had not appeared in the 
 " Globe." Professor Brown, always exact in his 
 statements, says, " Those who heard Mr. Choate's 
 speech in favor of the confirmation of Mr. Ever 
 ett as Minister to England considered it one of 
 the most brilliant ever delivered within the Sen 
 ate chamber." So, too, one of the regents of 
 the Smithsonian Institution said that Mr. Choate's 
 speech before the Board against a departure from 
 the library-plan " was the most beautiful that 
 ever fell from human lips." Yet we have noth 
 ing of these speeches, nothing of some other 
 speeches equally commended. 
 
 We may well treasure up what remains. His 
 contributions to the discussion of questions, then 
 of grave public concern, are so rich and generous, 
 rise so far " above the penury of mere debate," 
 that they may be read with interest by those 
 whose preconceived notions differ from his views, 
 and with gratitude by those who find their cher 
 ished opinions illustrated and confirmed. 
 
THE QUALITIES OF A STATESMAN. 159 
 
 I have to confess that my early estimate of Mr. 
 Choate as a statesman has kindled into admiration 
 with the occasional reading of the debates in which 
 he took part. It was not merely, or mainly, that 
 from the day he was first heard in either House 
 he was regarded as worthy of a place in the front 
 rank of the distinguished men with whom he 
 served ; that no imperious member of either party 
 saw in him the mere lawyer, indulging in a style 
 peculiar to another forum, and so, after the man 
 ner of Pitt towards Erskine, disdained to reply ; 
 that, under his mode of treatment, subjects worn 
 out in debate awakened new interest ; or that his 
 views were presented with such zeal and power 
 as to encourage his friends, with such grace and 
 courtesy as almost to persuade his opponents ; but, 
 also and especially, that he possessed and exempli 
 fied the sagacity, prudence, judgment, and conti 
 nence proper to the statesman, and the devotion 
 which proved the strength and the purity of his 
 patriotism. 
 
 He went into the Senate with reluctance ; he 
 withdrew from it as soon as he could do so con 
 sistently. But, during his short term of service, 
 questions of special difficulty and importance came 
 up for consideration. Without undertaking to 
 follow him throughout his labors, the reports 
 before me forbid that, and many of the subjects 
 
160 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 have long been at rest, I propose to notice his 
 attitude in respect to some of the topics to which 
 he gave special attention. 
 
 It may be observed that those who think that 
 Mr. Choate erred in opposing the annexation of 
 Texas should consider his position at the time, 
 and seek to distinguish what might possibly have 
 been foreseen from what could be learned only by 
 a later experience. If he erred, it is proper to 
 remember that Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, 
 and Silas Wright erred with him. His views were 
 clouded and his zeal inflamed by no personal con 
 siderations. He sought no promotion, could suffer 
 no loss but such as the country might also suffer. 
 Mr. Yan Buren failed to receive a nomination for 
 the presidential office and Mr. Clay lost his chance 
 of an election to it by opposing that annexation. 
 Mr. Wright was constrained to decline a nomina 
 tion for the office of vice-president, as its accept 
 ance would have implied a difference of opinion 
 between his friend, Mr. Van Buren, and himself 
 on that subject. In his " Thirty Years' View," Mr. 
 Benton attempts to show that, by the manage 
 ment of the friends of annexation, Mr. Webster 
 was forced to retire from the cabinet of President 
 Tyler, as his presence there was a hindrance to 
 the negotiation. That those statesmen had con 
 sidered the question with great solicitude none 
 
DISCRIMINATION TO PROTECT LABOR, 161 
 
 can doubt. To finite apprehension, the evils to 
 flow from that scheme, war with Mexico, and 
 a larger voluntary surrender to slavery, were 
 imminent and certain ; the benefits, Texas and 
 California, free and contributing to the wealth 
 and stability of the Republic, were remote and 
 uncertain. 
 
 An equal degree of respect, and perhaps on 
 more specific grounds, is due to Mr. Choate's po 
 sition on the question of protecting American la 
 bor. The expedient of providing the means nec 
 essary to defray the expenses of the government 
 by imposing duties on imports, a mode of indirect 
 taxation, having been adopted at an early day, 
 questions as to the rates of duties to be fixed 
 with regard to the wants of the government, act 
 ual and prospective, and to the encouragement or 
 protection of our manufacturers, vexed the na 
 tional councils under. almost every administration. 
 That was due to the fact that, for either purpose, 
 the rate of duties fluctuated with the change of 
 circumstances, and,, to the further fact that many 
 able and judicious men regarded legislation de 
 signed to stimulate special branches of industry 
 into artificial activity as neither politic nor wise. 
 
 In March, 1842, Mr. Choate addressed an argu 
 ment to the Senate to show that, in assessing the 
 duties which were to yield the desired income, 
 11 
 
162 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Congress could discriminate for the protection of 
 labor. He faithfully collated the proofs drawn 
 from many sources, and built up and fortified an 
 argument, legal and historical, which those who 
 agree with him can find little occasion to extend 
 or modify. But, going beyond the mere question 
 of power, he sought, by subtile and delicate in 
 ferences and suggestions, to reconcile his hearers 
 to the policy of protection. He appealed to the 
 past, to the maxims of statesmen, and gracefully 
 referred to the opinion of Mr. Madison. 
 
 It is not to be denied that our commerce with 
 foreign nations may be regulated by imposing 
 such restraints upon the products of foreign labor 
 brought here as may promote our interests. That 
 power has often been exercised. All that re 
 mained, after Mr. Choate's exposition, was the in 
 quiry whether the policy which had led to the 
 exertion of that power for the encouragement of 
 our manufacturers should be continued, and, if so, 
 to what extent. 
 
 Mr. Choate took up that question, in some of 
 its aspects, in April, 1844, when opposing a bill 
 hostile to the theory of protection. 1 As a friend 
 of that theory, he was on the defensive ; and it 
 must be"" assumed that he spoke from his knowl 
 edge of our manufacturing interests, and of the 
 
 1 Globe, Appendix, p. 641. 
 
HOSTILITY TO THE THEORY OF PROTECTION. 163 
 
 consequences which might flow from a sudden 
 withdrawal of the protection given them. He 
 opened his argument by claiming that the mat 
 ter of protection was not an open question except 
 as to the details, the rates of duties to be im 
 posed ; declaring, however, that " When the lights 
 of a full and fair experience prescribe the change 
 of a duty, it is to be changed." He says, "And 
 why not open ? Because, Sir, I find such a sys 
 tem of protection in operation dejure and de facto 
 to-day ; because I know perfectly well, or all our 
 annals are a dream and a lie, that the American 
 people established the Constitution and the Union 
 very much to insure the maintenance of such a 
 system ; because it has been slowly maturing for 
 years ; because so large a concurrence of patriot 
 ism, intelligence, and experience has helped to 
 build it up ; because, whether it was wise or un 
 wise to introduce such a system by direct legisla 
 tion at first, it would be supreme madness now, 
 now when the first stages are past, when the evil, 
 if any there ever was, is all done, and the com 
 pensations of good are just fairly commencing, 
 when capital has taken this direction, Ttfhen prices 
 are brought down, skill learned, habits formed, 
 machinery accumulated, and the whole scheme of 
 things accommodated to it, when its propitious in 
 fluence is felt palpably upon agriculture, upon the 
 
164 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 comfort and the standing of labor, upon domestic 
 and foreign trade, upon defense, upon independ 
 ence, it would be supreme madness, worthy 
 only of a government nodding to its fall, now to 
 overturn it ; because, finally, it is the daily labor 
 and the daily bread of men, women, and children, 
 our countrymen and countrywomen, whom we 
 reckon by millions." 
 
 He then goes into particulars, and amplifies the 
 proofs, the inference, the illustrations, but only to 
 establish the thesis laid down at the opening of 
 his speech. A few specific references may suffice 
 to show how, by appeals to the rise and progress 
 of our manufactures, and to the history of our 
 legislation, he seeks to defeat the bill in ques 
 tion. 
 
 After having shown that the people, from the 
 first, had sought to be relieved from competition 
 with foreign labor, that the early acts of Congress 
 granted that protection, according to the condition 
 of our manufacturing interests, he says, "And 
 now we are prepared to compare or to contrast 
 with this the second system the existing system 
 that which began in 1816 and was matured in 
 1824 and 1828. Sir, it is exactly the system of 
 1789, accommodated to the altered circumstances 
 of the nation and the world. The statesmen of 
 the last period followed in the very footsteps of 
 
PROGRESS OF MECHANIC ARTS. 165 
 
 their fathers. The Congress of 1789 found many 
 manfacturing and mechanical arts starting to life, 
 and soliciting to be protected. The Congress of 
 1816 and that of 1824 found families and groups 
 and classes of manufacturing and mechanical arts, 
 far more numerous, far more valuable, far more 
 sensible also, and with more urgent claims, so 
 liciting protection. In the interval between 1789 
 and 1816, this whole enterprise had not only im 
 mensely enhanced its value but had totally changed 
 its nature. Instead of a few plain, hardy, coarse, 
 simple, household employments, it had become a 
 various, refined, sensitive industry demanding 
 associated capital, skill long and highly trained, 
 costly and improving machinery more precious, 
 but presenting a far broader mark to the slings 
 and arrows of fortune, to hostility, to change, to 
 the hotter foreign competitions which its growth 
 is sure to provoke. Now you all praise the hus 
 bandry of 1789, which so carefully guarded the 
 few blades just timidly peeping forth in the rain 
 and sunshine of that April day, hardly worth the 
 treading down ; will you depreciate the husbandry 
 of 1824, which, with the same solicitude, but at 
 the expense of a higher wall, guarded the grain, 
 then half-grown, and evincing what the harvest 
 was to be ? " 
 
 By way of showing the influence of the pro- 
 
166 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 tective policy, and how, gradually thus fostered, 
 our manufactures had crept into existence, he 
 states some interesting facts drawn from the high 
 est authority. Thus, that in 1789 there was not 
 a cotton spindle in the United States ; that in 
 1805 and 1806 there were only 5,000 ; in 1810, 
 80,000 ; that the first cotton mill was erected in 
 Rhode Island in 1791, another in 1795, .and two 
 more in Massachusetts in 1803-04 ; and that dur 
 ing the next three years ten more were erected 
 or commenced in Rhode Island, and one in Con 
 necticut. 
 
 In his desire to elevate his subject above the 
 mere counting of factories and spindles, he says, 
 " The real truth is, Sir, that manufacturing and 
 mechanical and commercial industry is ' the pro 
 lific source of democratic feeling.' Of the two 
 great elements which must be combined in all 
 greatness of national character and national des 
 tiny permanence and progression these em 
 ployments stimulate the latter; agriculture con 
 tributes to the former. They are of those acting 
 and counteracting, opposing yet not discordant, 
 powers, from whose reciprocal struggle is drawn 
 out the harmony of the universe." 
 
 He invokes the prudence of the Senate thus : 
 " Sir, let me respectfully recommend cautious and 
 delicate handling of these interests. Vast, vari- 
 
INFLUENCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 167 
 
 cms, prosperous as they are, a breath can unmake 
 them as a breath has made. This bill strikes a 
 blow, the extent, degree, and nature of whose 
 injurious effects no man can foresee or limit or 
 cure. That which you certainly do mean to do 
 involves consequences which you certainly do not 
 mean. You begin by saying profits are too high. 
 Then you propose to reduce profits. You begin 
 by saying more foreign manufactures must be 
 imported, because you propose to increase reve 
 nue by reducing duties. This demands, of course, 
 enlarged importation. To that extent, to a new 
 and undefined extent, you displace, disturb, di 
 minish the domestic market of your own manu 
 factures. But can you really strike down the 
 general profits and break up the actual market of 
 American labor and yet leave it prosperous, re 
 warded, and contented ? " 
 
 I have thought that, if called upon to consider 
 the policy of such legislation when first proposed, 
 Mr. Choate would not have favored the theory 
 of protection. The conservative character of his 
 mind, his respect for principles, for system, as 
 contrasted with mere expedients, might have held 
 him in restraint. But his relation to the matter 
 came later and in quite another form. As he 
 looked back, he saw that the legislation which 
 began and continued that policy had been favored 
 
168 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 by statesmen whose wisdom and fidelity he had 
 always held in reverence. As he looked round 
 him he saw that the growth of the mechanic arts 
 was the life of New England, that rough and 
 barren places and lonely waterfalls had been made 
 profitable, and that the inventive genius of the 
 people had been urged forward to countless im 
 provements. So it was that, in representing his 
 State and in studying the interests of other States, 
 he had been brought to believe that the arts, 
 thus nursed into life, should be preserved. He 
 accepted the reasons for protecting them given by 
 statesmen of 1816 and 1824, and declared that, 
 " after the evil is done and the good is beginning," 
 it would be unwise to let them die. 
 
 He finds consolation in the fact that his own 
 State had not helped to adopt protection. Thus 
 he says to Senators, " Consider that Massachusetts 
 never made a protective tariff ; that she took no 
 leading or influential part in 1816 ; that she op 
 posed that of 1824 with almost her entire vote, 
 and with great zeal and ability ; that she voted 
 against that of 1828 ; that she has done nothing 
 but just to stay where you placed her." Then, as 
 a few passages may show, he clings with pride, to 
 the further credit due to his State. "Certainly, 
 Sir, we are very much in these employments. 
 You may thank yourselves for that. And is it not 
 
A THEORY ARTIFICIAL AND UNSTABLE. 169 
 
 an excellent thing for you that we are ? Are we 
 not a very much more useful member of the part 
 nership, more useful to the other partners, than 
 we could be without ? Is it not a good, honest, 
 genial, social, ' live and let live ' sort of business 
 you have driven us into?" "Is it nothing that we 
 take and consume, within that single State, an an 
 nual amount of more than forty millions of dollars 
 of your productions ? " " Is it not a truly national 
 business which we pursue ; national in the surface 
 it spreads over ; national in the good it does ; na 
 tional in the affections it generates? " " Yes, Sir ! 
 Manufacturers and mechanics are unionists by pro 
 fession ; unionists by necessity ; unionists always. 
 Learn to know your friends. The time may come 
 when you will need them." 
 
 In resisting the reduction of duties in so far as 
 the changes might have brought swift and certain 
 ruin to manufacturers who had been making large 
 investments on the faith of what seemed to be the 
 policy of our government, Mr. Choate was invok 
 ing the spirit of deliberation which should attend 
 legislative reforms. It seems to me that many of 
 those who could not accept his views as to the in 
 fluence of such protection upon American labor, 
 or as to the inherent merit of such an expedient, 
 would have regarded his argument with respect 
 if not with favor. But in practice, such protection 
 
170 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 admits of neither stability, uniformity, nor repose. 
 It is one of those artificial devices which, in varied 
 forms, return to plague the inventors. When Mr. 
 Choate claimed that the existing duties should be 
 continued, the manufacturers may have needed 
 that protection. They have little need of it now. 
 What they need is a market for their commodities. 
 The transition from one want to the other is the 
 natural result of a policy which gave an artificial 
 stimulus to home industry, but discouraged the 
 exchange of the fruits of our labor for foreign 
 products. It is quite obvious that no tariff 
 has benefited the Southern States or helped our 
 agricultural or commerical interests. When Mr. 
 Choate spoke of New York as " a city which with 
 one hand grasps the golden harvests of the West, 
 and with the other, like Venice, espouses the ever 
 lasting sea," he indicates how necessary a liberal 
 foreign commerce was to her prosperity. But it 
 is well to remember that Mr. Choate was not 
 peculiar in his views upon this subject. Under 
 claims less urgent than those of his constituents, 
 other distinguished statesmen have thought and 
 voted as he did. In instances, not to be briefly 
 enumerated, protection of specific articles has been 
 claimed by those not friendly to the theory in its 
 extended application. Thus, for example, Silas 
 Wright wished the duties increased on coarse 
 
MR. MURPHY ON LEGISLATIVE REFORMS. 171 
 
 wool, Thomas H. Benton on lead and indigo. In 
 1842, Mr. Wright voted for a protective tariff, 
 after having sought to amend the bill, that be 
 ing the only mode in which the government could 
 raise the needful revenue. Mr. Benton voted for 
 the protective tariffs of 1824, 1828, and 1832, and 
 in the debates in 1844 declared himself willing to 
 give protection to manufacturers. In the Con 
 gress of 1844, Henry C. Murphy gave an exposi 
 tion of the principles which, as he thought, should 
 be respected in framing a tariff. 1 He believed in 
 a tariff for revenue, with such incidental protec 
 tion as could be given alike to all sections of the 
 country, his conception of free trade, and by 
 a strong array of facts and illustrations sought to 
 show that the existing tariff imposed higher du 
 ties on some articles used by the poor than on 
 those used by the rich, and in several respects 
 was sectional and oppressive. 
 
 Mr. Murphy and Mr. Choate had like views as 
 to the spirit which should govern legislative re 
 forms. Mr. Murphy, who was, in the usual ac 
 ceptation, an anti-tariff man, says, " Onerous and 
 unjust as the present tariff is, partial and oppres 
 sive as its operation is, I am not for breaking 
 down, at a blow, those establishments which have 
 been brought into existence and kept up by it; 
 
 1 Globe, Appendix, p. 414. 
 
172 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 for extreme change in laws affecting the industry 
 of the country I hold to be frequently as unjust, 
 both to labor and to capital, as a bad law which is 
 stable, for they may be accommodated to it. We 
 should, therefore, proceed in this, as in other meas 
 ures of reform, gradually, and with a due regard 
 to the interests which we have nurtured." 
 
 The imposition of duties on imports to the ex 
 tent necessary to defray the expenses of the gov 
 ernment gives protection to the manufacturers. 
 It may, as an incident, benefit labor skilled in the 
 mechanic arts. But the benefits do not reach the 
 laborers who clear the forest and till the soil, who 
 dig the canals, make the roads and bridges, open 
 the quarries and build our cities. Such limitations 
 must exist. But, if we have a tariff, we can say, 
 with Mr. Choate, that when the lights of a full 
 and fair experience prescribe the change of a 
 duty, it is to be changed. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Indictment of McLeod. The Rule of Immunity suggested 
 by Mr. Fox. The Course pursued by the Secretary of 
 State. Debates in Congress,. Defense of Mr. Webster. 
 Trial of McLeod. Act as to Remedial Justice. Other 
 Questions before the Senate. The Bank. Mr. Clay's In 
 terference in Debate. 
 
 after Mr. Choate took his seat in the Sen 
 ate, he had occasion to defend the policy of Presi 
 dent Tyler's administration in a matter of national 
 concern. In December, 1837, during the disturb 
 ance in Upper Canada commonly called the Mac 
 kenzie Rebellion, the provincial authorities sent 
 over into the State of New York a band of armed 
 men, by whom the steamer Caroline was de 
 stroyed, and our government claimed that Great 
 Britain should make reparation. In 1841, Alex 
 ander McLeod, a British subject, was indicted in 
 the Court of Sessions of Niagara County for the 
 murder of Amos Durfee, and was held for trial. 
 Great Britain demanded his liberation. Mr. Fox, 
 the British Minister, in his notes to Mr. Forsyth, 
 the Secretary of State in President Van Buren's 
 administration, and to Mr. Webster, as such Sec- 
 
174 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 retary under President Tyler, assuming that Mc- 
 Leod had been thus indicted and held as one of 
 those engaged in the destruction of the Caro 
 line, claimed that, as that was the public act of 
 persons obeying the order of their superior au 
 thorities, it could not be the ground of legal pro 
 ceedings against one of them; a theory rejected 
 by Mr. Forsyth, but accepted by Mr. Webster. 
 
 Great attention had been, and continued to be, 
 given to the affair of the Caroline and to the Mc- 
 Leod case, in both Houses of Congress. In adopt 
 ing the rule of personal immunity suggested by 
 Mr. Fox, and by his letter instructing the Attor 
 ney-General of the United States to attend the 
 trial of McLeod in New York, and confer with and 
 advise his counsel, Mr. Webster drew down upon 
 himself severe and prolonged criticism. Some 
 able lawyers were of opinion that he had erred in 
 seeking to apply that rule to one in McLeod's 
 situation. Mr. Calhoun deliberately stated his 
 objections to Mr. Webster's course ; Mr. Benton 
 fervently criticised and denounced it; and Mr. 
 Buchanan took an early and impressive part in 
 the discussion. It was in answer to Mr. Buchan 
 an's first argument on the subject that Mr. Choate 
 addressed the Senate on the llth of June, 1841. 1 
 
 After some preliminary observations, Mr. Choate 
 
 1 Globe, Appendix, p. 417. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY FOR NATIONAL CRIMES. 175 
 
 stated with precision the ground on which, and on 
 which alone, Mr. Webster had recognized the rule 
 in question. Thus he said, " What is the conces 
 sion of the Secretary of State ? Why, only and 
 exactly this : that a soldier or sailor, de facto 
 such, actually engaged in a military or naval 
 enterprise of force, under the authority, in obe 
 dience to the command of his government, and 
 keeping himself within the scope of that author 
 ity, is not guilty, as the law of nations is adminis 
 tered to-day, of a crime against the municipal 
 code of the country upon which he thus helps to 
 carry on war; that he is not punishable as for 
 such crime by that country ; and that the respon 
 sibility rests upon his own government alone to 
 answer, as nations answer for their crimes to their 
 equals. That is the concession. He does not deal 
 at all with the case of a soldier straggling away 
 from his colors to commit a solitary and sep 
 arate murder. He does not deal with the case 
 of alleged excess of authority. He supposes him 
 to obey the precise directions of his government, 
 and, so doing, he declares him clothed with the 
 personal immunity." " If you turn to the fourth 
 page of his letter, you may see that the murder 
 for which he supposes McLeod indicted ' was a 
 murder alleged to have been committed in the 
 attack,' forming an inseparable, very painful part 
 
176 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 of the entire military violence exerted to capture 
 and destroy the vessel, and not succeeding it. For 
 the purpose of the concession, he takes as true the 
 express declaration of Mr. Fox, ' that the transac 
 tion on account of which Mr. McLeod has been 
 arrested and is to be put on his trial,' including 
 the homicide as an unavoidable incident in it, < was 
 a public transaction conducted by Her Majesty's 
 government.' Such is the concession. I have the 
 honor to submit, first, that the concession is right 
 in point of international law, and then that it was 
 the duty of the Secretary of State to make it, and 
 of the government to act upon it, exactly as it 
 was made and acted upon." 
 
 Mr. Choate characterized this transaction as an 
 act of war, informal, insolemn hostility, and, 
 illustrating his subject freely, he proceeded to an 
 swer some points of special difficulty which had 
 been presented by Mr. Buchanan. To show that 
 no war need be preceded by a declaration, and 
 that the rule of personal exemption from liability 
 as for crime extends to actors in wars of the im 
 perfect sort, reprisals or other acts of hostility, he 
 cited Rutherforth. That the injustice of the hos 
 tile attack does not affect the soldier's right to im 
 munity, and that no distinction is made between 
 regular soldiers and volunteers, he referred to 
 Rutherforth and to Vattel. 
 
THE MCLEOD DEBATE. 177 
 
 Regarding Rutherforth as an authority in re 
 spect to the more modern theory, and wishing to 
 qualify some differences between him and an older 
 author, Mr. Choate said, " Grotius, admirable for 
 his genius, his studies, his most enlarged and ex 
 cellent spirit, lived too early to witness the full 
 development of his own grand principles, and the 
 accomplishment of his own philanthropic wishes. 
 The existing law of nations has been slowly built 
 up since his time, and to learn it we must have 
 recourse to writers far his inferiors in capacity 
 and learning, but fortunate in being able to re 
 cord the ameliorated theory and practice of a bet 
 ter day." 
 
 In defending his friend, the Secretary of State, 
 Mr. Choate was performing a delicate service. 
 With what prudence, grace, and dignity he per 
 formed it, his principal opponent in debate ap 
 pears to have been conscious. In his reply, Mr. 
 Buchanan said, " I desire to pay a deserved com 
 pliment both to the argument of the Senator from 
 Massachusetts, Mr. Choate, and to the feeling dis 
 played by him throughout his remarks." 
 
 Having thus called attention to Mr. Choate's 
 relation to the case of McLeod, I would willingly 
 refrain from further reference to it. But as some 
 professional interest, not perhaps well-defined, still 
 attaches to that case, it may be well to state the 
 12 
 
178 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ground on which, as I conceive, it should have 
 been placed and regarded throughout. 
 
 At the time Mr. Webster wrote his note to Mr. 
 Fox, and his instructions to the Attorney-General, 
 this troublesome affair was before the country in 
 two aspects ; one, as to the breach of the ami 
 cable relations existing between the two govern 
 ments, a fit subject for diplomatic discussion ; the 
 other, as to the guilt of McLeod, charged with an 
 offense against the laws of the State of New York, 
 a question of which the courts of that State had 
 taken cognizance. It was possible that these two 
 offenses, apparently so unlike, might prove to be 
 one and the same ; that charged against the 
 prisoner merged in and inseparable from the other. 
 But no presumption to that effect could arise. All 
 the facts that Mr. Fox, .Sir Francis Bond Head, 
 and Colonel McNabb could lay before Mr. Webster 
 were to the effect that the destruction of the Car 
 oline was deemed necessary in self-defense, and 
 was therefore within the scope of the provincial 
 authority; that the armed men by whom the 
 vessel was destroyed had been sent over on that 
 service ; and that the act had been approved by 
 the home government. But whether, apart from 
 that service, McLeod had perpetrated the crime 
 charged, neither Mr. Fox, Governor Head, nor 
 Colonel McNabb could say anything. Indeed, 
 
s 
 
 ERRONEOUS INFORMATION. 179 
 
 the note in which Mr. Fox told Mr. Webster that 
 McLeod had been charged with having been en 
 gaged in the capture and destruction of the Caro 
 line the death of Durfee a mere incident in the 
 attack began with the words, "I am informed." 
 But while the indictment against McLeod, a copy 
 of which is before me, has counts for murder and 
 arson, the first counts charged him with having 
 killed Durfee "feloniously, wilfully, with malice 
 aforethought, and with premeditated design." In 
 each of the first counts, it is charged that the 
 crime was committed by him in the Town and 
 County of Niagara ; in neither of them is any ref 
 erence made to the Caroline affair. It is obvious, 
 therefore, that the information which Mr. Fox 
 had received, and on which he stated to Mr. Web 
 ster the charge supposed to have been made against 
 McLeod, was not correct. This error may have 
 arisen from the fact that neither Mr. Fox nor any 
 of those with whom he had conferred had ever 
 read the indictment. In his correspondence, Mr. 
 Webster had not noticed the question whether Mc 
 Leod might not be guilty, quite apart from the 
 capture of the vessel, nor had that question been 
 suggested in the case that was laid before him. 
 Moreover, there is reason to suppose that Webster 
 himself had never seen that indictment. A mem 
 ber of Congress, a distinguished jurist and states- 
 
180 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 man, while defending Mr. Webster as warmly as 
 Mr. Choate had done, declared that the case might 
 become proper for a jury. Thus Mr. Caleb Gush 
 ing said, " It may be, for instance, that McLeod, if 
 he killed Durfee, did so from private malice, and, 
 if so, he is clearly responsible to the laws of New 
 York for the act ; and, if he did so, I cannot but 
 think that the English government, instead of un 
 dertaking to protect him, would be glad to see 
 him punished, and the rather if he should have 
 sought purposes of private malice under the cover 
 of simulated obedience to the orders of his gov 
 ernment. It may be that these orders did not 
 cover this fact. 1 
 
 The case having been moved into the Supreme 
 Court of the State of New York, and a habeas 
 corpus granted by Mr. Justice Cowen, an applica 
 tion for the discharge of McLeod absolutely, or on 
 his own recognizance, or by a nolle prosequi, was 
 heard and denied. In his opinion, Judge Cowen 
 considered the law of nations quite at large ; and, 
 as the two governments were at peace, no decla 
 ration of war having been made, he came to the 
 conclusion that no rule growing out of the usages 
 of nations could be applied to the relief of the 
 prisoner. It must be conceded that this part of 
 the opinion was not necessary to the decision. 
 
 1 Globe, 1841, Appendix, p. 422. 
 
VIEWS OF HON. JOHN W. EDMUNDS. 181 
 
 But, if the rule suggested by Mr. Fox had been 
 accepted by Justice Cowen, McLeod must still 
 have been held for trial. In no possible view of 
 the case could the application have been granted. 
 
 The idea that McLeod should be discharged or 
 be allowed to go on his recognizance could not 
 have been seriously entertained, 
 
 As the indictment was for murder, the regular 
 practice was not even to accept bail. That is the 
 rule now, and I trust ever will be. The instances 
 in which bail has been taken after such indict 
 ments are exceptional, clearly distinguished by 
 qualifying circumstances from the case of Mc 
 Leod. As the Governor of the State, Mr. Sew- 
 ard, an able lawyer, had refused to interfere, and 
 as the District Attorney of Niagara County and 
 the Attorney- General of the State were before 
 the court claiming that McLeod should be tried 
 by a jury, a nolle prosequi could not have been 
 entered. The power and the duty of the court 
 on the habeas corpus were well stated in The 
 People vs. Martin, 1 Park. Cr. C. 191, by the 
 Hon. John W. Edmunds, a judge of great learn 
 ing and experience. In speaking of the Mc 
 Leod case, that learned judge said, " The question 
 raised there was, whether, after indictment, the 
 court, on habeas corpus, would entertain the 
 question of guilt or innocence, and on that ques- 
 
182 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 tion the authorities had been very uniform that it 
 would not; and for the very plain and simple 
 reason that, as the testimony before the grand 
 jury would not be written, and could not be looked 
 into, the court or officer on the habeas corpus could 
 not ascertain on what evidence the grand jury 
 had acted, and could not entertain the question 
 without receiving precisely the same testimony 
 which the jury would be obliged to -receive on 
 the trial, and thus in fact usurping the province of 
 the jury. Hence it has been the practice of the 
 English courts and our own, which was followed 
 in the McLeod case, not to look into the question 
 of guilt or innocence on habeas corpus after in 
 dictment." 
 
 I have never believed that Mr. Webster wished 
 to have McLeod liberated without a formal trial. 
 He could not have properly moved a step in that 
 direction without an investigation. When, on in 
 quiry, he had learned what the terms of the in 
 dictment were, and that, as shown before Judge 
 Cowen, Durfee had been killed when he was at 
 some distance from the Caroline, and, possibly, 
 without his having been engaged in resisting the 
 attack on the vessel, Mr. Webster would have 
 favored a "formal trial, or, what would have been 
 most becoming, declined to interfere. His friends, 
 while approving his views on the narrow basis 
 
END OF THE MCLEOD DIFFICULTIES. 183 
 
 stated, would have admitted that a formal investi 
 gation was necessary. That question did not arise 
 in the debate in which Mr. Choate took part, save 
 that, in defending Mr. Webster, he lays stress, as 
 we have seen, upon the fact that he does not deal 
 " with the case of a soldier straggling away from 
 his colors to commit a solitary and separate mur 
 der." But, if any argument and admonition were 
 necessary, the observations I have cited from Mr. 
 Cushing's speech would have been sufficient. 
 
 It is grateful to remember how happily this 
 affair, in both of its aspects, was disposed of by 
 the general government and by the Supreme 
 Court of New York, each acting in its Appro 
 priate sphere, without undue and factitious in 
 terference. A few gentle words by Ashburton, 
 in the tone of national regret, were accepted in 
 satisfaction for the forcible intrusion upon our 
 territory ; and, the venue in the McLeod case 
 having been changed to Oneida County, he was 
 tried before Judge Gridley and a jury, and was 
 acquitted. 
 
 The testimony against him was as to his silly 
 and repeated boast that he had helped to destroy 
 the Caroline, and " had finished Durfee." But it 
 appeared that McLeod was not one of the party 
 sent over to capture the vessel, and that he was 
 not in the State of New York at the time Durfee 
 
184 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 was killed. The proof to establish the alibi was 
 clear and conclusive. 
 
 After the excitement caused by that case had 
 subsided, the power of the United States court 
 was extended by the Remedial Justice Bill, passed 
 July 7, 1842. The purpose was to authorize the 
 removal from the state courts, at an early stage 
 of an accusation, cases like that of McLeod, and 
 to give to the federal courts power to inquire 
 into contentions likely to create international com 
 plications. The measure was just and wise. Mr. 
 Choate gave it his earnest support. He thus 
 stated the practice under the bill : " The national 
 tribunals interpose so far only as to determine 
 whether the laws of nations entitle the prisoner 
 to his discharge. If they do, he is discharged; 
 if not, whatever the evidence or the deficiency of 
 evidence against him, he is remanded to the court 
 of the State for general trial." 
 
 It may be observed that had this law and prac 
 tice been in full force before the charge against 
 McLeod was made, and had the first counts of the 
 indictment, to which I have referred, been omit 
 ted, and it had appeared that McLeod was one of 
 the party ordered over by the provincial author 
 ity, and that the death of Durfee occurred as an 
 unavoidable incident in the capture of the Caro 
 line, the prisoner might have been released ; but, 
 
OTHER SUBJECTS OF IMPORTANCE. 185 
 
 with the case as it actually existed, McLeod could 
 have had no relief under the Remedial Bill. 
 
 Other subjects of importance engaged Mr. 
 Choate's attention while he remained in the Sen 
 ate. In the discussion of some of them, he took 
 a leading part. Of his three speeches relating 
 to the Oregon Territory, one only has been pre 
 served. It is conciliatory in spirit and of com 
 manding ability. He contributed largely to the 
 confirmation of the treaty between this govern 
 ment and Great Britain, which had been nego 
 tiated by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton ; a 
 treaty by which important claims, long held in 
 suspense, were adjusted, and causes of offense, 
 which threatened to disturb the amicable relations 
 of the two governments, were removed. 
 
 In common with the leading members of the 
 Whig party, Mr. Choate was in favor of creat 
 ing a national bank. It seems probable that if 
 the President, Mr. Harrison, had survived, such 
 an institution would have been established. But 
 upon his death on the 4th of April, 1841, Mr. 
 Tyler became President. When he was chosen 
 Vice-President, it was known that, on constitu 
 tional grounds, he was opposed to such a bank. 
 As might have been expected, he held to that 
 opinion. 
 
 In the special session of 1841, efforts were 
 
186 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 made to create such a bank a Fiscal Agency 
 and notably upon a plan which had been reported 
 by the Secretary of the Treasury. To the bill, 
 founded on that plan, an amendment was pro 
 posed to the effect that the assent of a State 
 should be obtained before establishing branches 
 of the bank therein. Mr. Choate supported the 
 amendment in a speech 1 from which I take some 
 extracts. He says, " I do not vote for the bill 
 from any doubt of the constitutional power of 
 Congress to establish branches all over the States, 
 possessing the discounting function, directly and 
 adversely against their united assent. I differ, 
 in this particular, wholly from the Senator who 
 moves the amendment. I have no more doubt 
 of your power to make such a bank and such 
 branches anywhere than of your power to build 
 a post-office or a custom-house anywhere. This 
 question for me is settled, and settled rightly. I 
 have the honor and happiness to concur on it with 
 all, or almost all, of our greatest names ; with our 
 national judicial tribunal, and with both the two 
 great, original, political parties ; with Washing 
 ton, Hamilton, Marshall, Story, Madison, Monroe, 
 Crawford, and with the entire Republican admin 
 istration and organization of 1816 and 1817. 
 " But it does not follow, because we possess this 
 
 1 Globe, Appendix, p. 355. 
 
CHOATE SUPPORTS THE AMENDMENT. 187 
 
 or any other power, that it is wise or needful, in 
 any given case, to attempt to exert it. We may 
 find ourselves so situated that we cannot do it if 
 we would, for want of the concurrence of other 
 judgments ; and therefore a struggle might be as 
 unavailing as it would be mischievous and un 
 seemly. We may find ourselves so situated that 
 we ought not to do it if we could. All things 
 which are lawful are not convenient, are not prac 
 ticable, are not wise, are not safe, are not kind. 
 A sound and healing discretion, therefore, the 
 moral coercion of irresistible circumstances, may 
 fitly temper, and even wholly restrain, the exer 
 cise of the clearest power ever belonging to hu 
 man government. 
 
 " By uniting here on this amendment, you put 
 an effective bank in operation, to some useful and 
 substantial extent, by the first of January. Turn 
 now to the other alternative. Sir, if you adhere 
 to the bill reported by the committee, I fully be 
 lieve you pass no bank charter this session. I 
 doubt whether you carry it through Congress. If 
 you can, I do not believe you can make it a law. 
 I have no doubt you will fail to do so. I do not 
 enter on the reasons of my belief. The rules of 
 orderly proceedings here, decorum, pride, regret 
 would all prevent my doing it. I have no per 
 sonal or private grounds for the conviction which 
 
188 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 holds me fast ; but I judge on notorious and, to 
 my mind, decisive indications ; and I know that it 
 is my duty to act on my belief, whether well or 
 ill-founded, and however conjecturally derived. 
 
 " Let me say, Sir, that to administer the con 
 tested powers of the Constitution is, for those of 
 you who believe that they exist, at all times a 
 trust of difficulty and delicacy. I do not know 
 that I should not venture to suggest this general 
 direction for the performance of that grave duty. 
 Steadily and strongly assert their existence ; do 
 not surrender them ; retain them with a provi 
 dent forecast, for the time may come when you 
 will need to enforce them by the whole moral and 
 physical strength of the Union ; but do not exert 
 them at all so long as you can, by other, less of 
 fensive expedients of wisdom, effectually secure 
 to the people all the practical benefits which you 
 believe they were inserted into the Constitution 
 to secure. Thus will the Union last longest, and 
 do most good. To exercise a contested power 
 without necessity, on the notion of keeping up 
 the tone of government, is not much better than 
 tyranny, and very improvident and impolitic tyr 
 anny, too. It is turning ' extreme medicine into 
 daily bread.' , It forgets that the final end of gov 
 ernment is not to exert restraint but to do good. 
 
 "Within this general view of the true mode 
 
CONTESTED CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS. 189 
 
 of administering contested powers, I think the 
 measure we propose is as wise as it is concilia 
 tory ; wise, because it is conciliatory ; wise, be 
 cause it reconciles a strong theory of the Consti 
 tution with a discreet and kind administration of 
 it. I desire to give the country a bank. Well, 
 here is a mode in which I can do it. Shall I re 
 fuse to do it in that mode because I cannot at the 
 same time and by the same operation gain a vic 
 tory over the settled constitutional opinions, and 
 show my contempt for the ancient and unappeas 
 able jealousy and prejudices of not far from half 
 of the American people ? Shall I refuse to do it 
 in that mode because I cannot at the same time 
 and by the same operation win a triumph of con 
 stitutional law over political associates who agree 
 with me on nine in ten of all the questions which 
 divide the parties of the country ; whose energies 
 and eloquence, under many an October and many 
 an August sun, have contributed so much to the 
 transcendent reformation which has brought you 
 into power ? 
 
 " There is one consideration more which has 
 had some influence in determining my vote. I 
 confess that I think that a bank established in the 
 manner contemplated by this amendment stands, 
 in the actual circumstances of our time, a chance 
 to lead a quieter and more secure life, so to speak, 
 
190 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 than a bank established by the bill. I think it 
 worth our while to try to make, what never yet 
 was seen, a popular national bank. Judging from 
 the past and the present, from the last years of 
 the last bank and the manner in which its exist 
 ence was terminated, from the tone of debate 
 and of the press, and the general indications of 
 public opinion, I acknowledge an apprehension 
 that such an institution, created by a direct exer 
 tion of your power, throwing off its branches 
 without regard to the wishes or wants of the 
 States, as judged of by themselves, and without 
 any attempt to engage their auxiliary coopera 
 tion, diminishing the business and reducing the 
 profits of the local banks, and exempted from 
 their burdens, that such an institution may not 
 find so quiet and safe a field of operation as is de 
 sirable for usefulness and profit. I do not wish to 
 see it standing like a fortified post on a foreign 
 border, never wholly at peace, always assailed, 
 always belligerent ; not falling perhaps, but never 
 safe, the nurse and the prize of unappeasable hos 
 tility. No, Sir. Even such an institution, under 
 conceivable circumstances, it might be our duty 
 to establish and maintain in the face of all oppo 
 sition and to- the last gasp. But so much evil at 
 tends such a state of things, so much insecurity, 
 so much excitement ; it would be exposed to the 
 
INTERRUPTION OF DEBATE. 191 
 
 pelting of such a pitiless storm of the press and 
 public speech ; so many demagogues would get 
 good livings by railing at it so many honest men 
 would really regard it as unconstitutional, and as 
 dangerous to business and liberty, that it is worth 
 an exertion to avoid it. ... Sir, I desire to see 
 the bank of the United States become a cherished 
 domestic institution, reposing in the bosom of our 
 law and of our attachments. Established by the 
 concurrent action or on the application of the 
 States, such might be its character. There will 
 be a struggle on the question of admitting the 
 discount power into the States ; much good sense 
 and much nonsense will be spoken and written ; 
 but such a struggle will be harmless and brief ; 
 and, when that is over, all is over. The States 
 which exclude it will hardly exasperate them 
 selves farther about it. Those which admit it will 
 soothe themselves with the consideration that the 
 act is their own, and that the existence of this 
 power of the branch is a perpetual recognition of 
 their sovereignty. Thus might it sooner cease 
 to wear the alien, aggressive, and privileged as 
 pect which has rendered it offensive, and become 
 sooner blended with the mass of domestic inter 
 ests, cherished by the same regards, protected by 
 the same and by a higher law." 
 
 At the close of this speech, Mr. Choate was 
 
192 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 interrupted by Mr. Clay, and an altercation, 
 questions and answers, followed. The Washing 
 ton " Globe " had a full and correct report of the 
 affair. Professor Brown gives a like account. 
 But, in his " Eecollections of Rufus Choate," Mr. 
 Whipple has a different version. As he was not 
 present to witness the occurrence, what is said 
 in his " Recollections " to the prejudice of Mr. 
 Choate may be allowed to pass without correction. 
 In stating his belief that the bill, as reported, 
 would not become a law, Mr. Choate had in view 
 the well-known opinion of President Tyler. That 
 is obvious. He could not with propriety refer 
 directly to that opinion, and says, " Decorum, 
 pride, regret, would all prevent my doing it." 
 Regret for what? Regret for the fact that the 
 President was, as everybody knew, opposed to a 
 national bank. So he judges on what he calls no 
 torious indications. What Mr. Choate said would 
 not support the opinion that he had conferred 
 with the President or the Secretary of State on 
 the subject. He stated his own convictions, his 
 right to act upon them, " however conjecturally 
 derived.' 7 There was, therefore, nothing to jus 
 tify the imputation implied in the questions put 
 by Mr. Clay. That Mr. Choate did not lose his 
 temper or self-possession is evident from his last 
 replies to Mr. Clay's demands : 
 
AN APOLOGY. 193 
 
 (1.) " Sir, I insist on my right to explain what 
 I did say, in my own words ; " and (2.) " He will 
 have to take the answer as I choose to give it." 
 That Mr. Clay was utterly wrong appears from 
 the fact that the next morning, in the Senate 
 chamber, he made an explanation in the nature of 
 an apology. 
 
 Mr. Choate's argument in support of the amend 
 ment to the bill was wise and conciliatory. A 
 bank thus created would have been, in a sense, a 
 state institution, its character utterly unlike that 
 of the old United States Bank. His argument, so 
 moderate in tone, so persuasive, would almost lead 
 us to think well of such an agency; to think as 
 well of it as we can of our present national banks. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 A Short Term in Congress a Sacrifice. Resigns to return to 
 the Profession. Modest Estimate of his own Powers. 
 The Rewards of Professional Work. Continued until his 
 Health failed. His Last Case. Cheerful to the Last. 
 A Sea Voyage for Health too late. His Death. His 
 Love of the Union. Conversations with Mr. Pratt. Ap 
 prehends Civil War. In that War, after his Death, he is 
 well represented. 
 
 A FEW words of explanation may be due to the 
 reader who regrets that a more minute delinea 
 tion of Mr. Choate's career as statesman has not 
 been given. Many of the subjects in the discus 
 sion of which he took part in the lower House, 
 and in the Senate, have lost their significance, or 
 have become familiar in history. Many of his 
 speeches have not been preserved, and we can 
 not, from mere hearsay, outline or estimate the 
 arguments which gave weight and attraction to 
 them. His published efforts are widely read, 
 and he who reads them carefully, catching their 
 spirit and tone, may claim to know him better 
 than he who is familiar with the mere acts and 
 incidents of his life. It has, therefore, seemed 
 
A SHORT TERM IN CONGRESS. 195 
 
 to be sufficient for the present purpose to refer 
 in general terms to the course pursued by him 
 in Congress, and to call attention to his treatment 
 of some subjects of importance. 
 
 In view of Mr. Choate's usefulness in his pro 
 fession, and of his love of home-life and quiet 
 study, some may regret that he was ever called 
 into the legislative councils. His term in both 
 Houses of Congress, little more than six years, 
 was long enough to impose great sacrifices, but 
 not long enough to secure the highest rewards. 
 No doubt there were some compensations. New 
 channels for exertion were opened to him, and 
 he had the satisfaction of discussing some of the 
 vexed questions of the day before deliberative 
 bodies composed of men of great political sagac 
 ity and experience. He must have highly valued 
 the new friends who were thus drawn to him, 
 some of whom ever held him in close and loving 
 remembrance. But to enable a member of either 
 House, whatever be his gifts and attainments, to 
 achieve national fame, and become a vital pres 
 ence in the memory of the people, he must re 
 main in the service long enough to assume special 
 relations to a great variety of measures of public 
 interest. The mention of such measures would 
 thereafter recall the name of the member, the 
 mention of the name recall the subjects with 
 
196 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 which he was identified. Such has been the in 
 heritance of Clay, of Webster, of Summer, of Ben- 
 ton, whose terms ranged from fourteen to thirty 
 years. 
 
 It may be inferred that such honors sat lightly 
 on Mr. Choate, inasmuch as he retired from the 
 Senate before the term for which he had been 
 elected had expired, that he might resume with 
 greater freedom his practice in the courts. In 
 deed, honors and distinctions which he could 
 have gracefully accepted, but which would have 
 changed his relations to the law, were not desired 
 by him. Thus it was that his friends sought in 
 vain to induce him to accept the position, in 
 formally tendered, of professor in the Cambridge 
 Law School, a place made illustrious by the ser 
 vices of Judge Story. So, also, he declined the 
 office of judge of the Supreme Court of Massa 
 chusetts, offered him by Governor Briggs; and 
 the yet higher distinction of justice of the Su 
 preme Court of the nation, as successor of Judge 
 Woodbury. 
 
 I have thought that Mr. Choate had a modest 
 estimate of his own powers. In the trial and 
 argument of causes, he had had no occasion to 
 doubt his ability to perform his whole duty. But 
 he may not have been satisfied that he could in 
 equal degree discharge his duties as judge. The 
 
MODEST ESTIMATE OF HIS OWN POWERS. 197 
 
 notion prevailed in the profession, and perhaps 
 was credited by him, that, wanting the judicial 
 temperament, the greatest advocate, whose modes 
 of thought and of reasoning peculiar to the bar 
 could not be easily qualified, might not be a great 
 judge. He must have regarded the late Benjamin 
 R. Curtis as an exception to that theory, since he 
 favored his appointment as justice of the Supreme 
 Court, the place Mr. Choate himself might have 
 accepted. He seldom erred in estimating the 
 qualities of other minds, and did not err in this 
 instance ; the great advocate became preeminent 
 as a judge. 
 
 But there were serious objections to Mr. Choate's 
 acceptance of judicial office. By years of study, 
 devotion, and work suited to his taste and genius, 
 he had secured a position and an income that 
 might have satisfied the ambition of almost any 
 man. It would have required a great effort to 
 cast aside the robes he had with honor worn so 
 long. In that service, without being hard or ex 
 acting, without wronging any man, he had se 
 cured the means necessary to support his family 
 in a manner suited to his position, to educate his 
 children, to collect the books he loved, to pro 
 mote the interests of schools and of moral and 
 literary associations, and, in a generous spirit, to 
 relieve the wants of others, even of those who 
 
198 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 had no claims upon him. But it remained for 
 him to lay up more securely a competence for his 
 family. To that end he must continue his profes 
 sional work. He did so until his desires would 
 seem to have been fulfilled. 
 
 The qualities of Mr. Choate's nature, his habits, 
 the incentives which moved him, and the prin 
 ciples which he cherished have been illustrated 
 by my correspondents. From first to last he ap 
 pears to have been true to his own nature. Early 
 in life he saw his vocation, and, without faltering 
 or repining, accepted it, the representative of 
 those who, being dumb, need an advocate. Had 
 he been proud, austere, or imperious in tone and 
 manner, no one would have wondered ; but he 
 was neither. In his courtesy to his brethren at 
 the bar, in his kindness to his juniors, too sov 
 ereign to seem like condescension, in his fidelity 
 to his clients, in his genial spirit and sweetness of 
 temper, in his freedom from egotism, and in his 
 love of study and submission to labor, he gave 
 grace and dignity to a weary and a useful life. 
 What more could he do to perfect a character 
 which the student may regard as an example ? 
 What more to inspire us with love and grati 
 tude ? 
 
 Mr. Choate continued his professional work after 
 his physical strength had begun to fail. He was 
 
HIS DEATH. 199 
 
 before the Supreme Court, in Gage vs. Tudor, in 
 March, 1859. The next month he attended at 
 chambers on a mere motion. Later in the month, 
 and at Salem, he took part in a contention as to 
 the validity of a will, but was not able to remain 
 in court until the case had been fully heard. 1 We 
 are told that he never went to his office again. 
 
 I have few words to add. I put aside letters, 
 in which friends have given many particulars as 
 to his sufferings for some weeks after he had left 
 the court for the last time. As I am not writing 
 the life of Mr. Choate in detail, I spare myself 
 and the reader the pain of such recitals. It is 
 grateful, however, to learn that, to the last, his 
 mind was clear and active ; that the cheerfulness 
 which had been a sovereign trait of his charac 
 ter remained ; and that the lessons fragments 
 of favorite authors which his daughters and 
 his son read to him, were heard with a lively in 
 terest, the old interest, and were soothing to his 
 spirit. 
 
 After much consideration, and upon medical 
 advice, he undertook a voyage to Europe to im 
 prove his health. But, alas ! it was too late. He 
 left Boston on the Europa, on the 29th of June. 
 Not being able to continue the voyage, he landed 
 
 1 My friend, Benjamin E. Valentine, Esq., having examined the 
 records, assures me that this was Mr. Choate's last case. 
 
200 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 at Halifax, where, on the 13th of July, 1859, he 
 died. 
 
 From his studies and convictions, Kufus Choate 
 was conservative. He had a profound regard for 
 our organic laws. To him the Constitution was 
 sacred, to be observed, or to be amended in the 
 orderly methods appointed. He saw that slavery 
 was a state institution, under the control of, and 
 to be abolished by, the States where it existed ; 
 and that Congress had no power to touch the 
 question whether it should be continued or not. 
 He deprecated our feverish and fruitless discus 
 sions as to the duties of the Southern States, 
 our attempts to regulate, as a matter of sentiment, 
 an evil which we could not cure or even modify. 
 This drew down upon him the reproach of a party 
 which claimed to represent the spirit of higher 
 and more humane laws than those which had been, 
 or by our instrumentality could be, enacted. Yet 
 it cannot well be suggested that the man who is 
 now loyal to the Constitution and to our laws is 
 entitled to more respect than was Mr. Choate, who 
 ever cherished such a spirit. 
 
 Mr. Choate sought to inspire the people with 
 such love for the Constitution and the Union as 
 might make secession impossible. Had he lived, 
 he would doubtless have continued that instruction, 
 in the hope that free men, acting faithfully and 
 
CONVERSATION WITH MR. PRATT. 201 
 
 with patience, might devise means for the cure of 
 all the evils of the body politic. I believe that, 
 had the sentiment of the North and of the South 
 been ripe for it, his plan would have been to pur 
 chase the freedom of the slaves. But there was 
 no hour in his life when such a scheme could have 
 been suggested. He foresaw the trouble which 
 at last came, and with an anxious heart, solicitous 
 for the preservation of the Union, gave no uncer 
 tain indication of what he would do, should he live 
 until the day of wrath and conflict. 
 
 Edward Ellerton Pratt, Esq., gives me the 
 substance of a conversation which he had with Mr. 
 Choate in the summer of 1856. They were sit 
 ting on the rocks at Marblehead, and looking over 
 the waters in which the frigate Constitution was 
 chased by British cruisers in the war of 1812-14. 
 Mr. Pratt says, " In speaking of that war, the 
 question arose as to the next struggle in which 
 this country might be engaged. Mr. Choate said, 
 ' I shall not probably live to see it, but I fear there 
 will ere long be a civil war between the North and 
 the South/ I expressed my horror at such an 
 idea, and asked how that could be possible. Said 
 he, i It is a very easy thing to get up such a con 
 flict when one large section of the country, in 
 flamed by interest, pride, and resentment, is hos 
 tile and united. We at the North, if we wished, 
 
202 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 could bring it about ; so could they at the South ; 
 and the adverse feeling is getting so bitter that 
 one side or the other may provoke the issue. If 
 the Democrats, now about to elect Buchanan, have 
 prudence and good temper, they can tide the 
 trouble over for a while, perhaps until there may 
 come a better understanding and more friendly 
 feeling. But I fear they will not show such mod 
 eration and prudence.' Mr. Choate appeared to 
 think it probable that within ten years a civil war 
 would break out, and told me that it would be my 
 duty, the duty of all, to do what was possible to 
 maintain the Union whether war could or could 
 not be averted." 
 
 The war came, and, when the sound of the 
 guns at Fort Sumter awakened the North, Rufus 
 Choate, Jr., then a young lawyer in Boston, and 
 Joseph M. Bell, a lawyer of large reading and 
 experience, who had married Mr. Choate's eldest 
 daughter, entered the service ; in a sense they 
 gave their lives for the suppression of the Rebel 
 lion. 
 
 Rufus Choate, Jr., served in the war with great 
 distinction. He was in several engagements ; and, 
 though ill at the time, took part in the battle of 
 Cedar Mountain. His exposures brought on the 
 neuralgia, and he was compelled to resign his 
 commission as captain, and return home. After 
 
REPRESENTED IN THE WAR. 203 
 
 a long illness, he died on the 15th of January, 
 1866. 
 
 Major Bell was a member of General Butler's 
 staff at New Orleans, and acted as provost judge 
 with great acceptance. After returning to Vir 
 ginia, he was stricken with paralysis while presid 
 ing over an important trial at Norfolk. After a 
 time he was brought home. He remained an in 
 valid until his death on the 10th of September, 
 1868. 
 
 By a merciful dispensation, it was thus given 
 to those loyal and devoted men to die in the pres 
 ence of loving friends. Thus also it was given to 
 Rufus Choate himself, who had in the spirit of 
 his life fought for the Union, to be represented 
 in the final struggle for its preservation. Had he 
 been alive, what more could he have done, what 
 other sacrifice could he have offered up, for that 
 Union and the Constitution ? 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Rufus Choate and Lord Macaulay : a Contrast. 1 
 
 THE double relation which distinguished men 
 have held to other men often excites curiosity and 
 regret. Their public life and service may be well 
 known, their private life and character, however 
 worthy, may remain unknown. The information 
 is generally sought for in biographies. But the 
 veil which separates those conditions, or states of 
 being, may intervene even between friends, and 
 limit or qualify the most faithful revelations. "We 
 may well be grateful, however, for delineations by 
 writers of taste and judgment, who knew, as well 
 as could be known, the men whose genius and 
 character they have earnestly and lovingly sought 
 to commemorate. Thus could Professor Brown 
 write of Rufus Choate, and Mr. Trevelyan of Lord 
 Macaulay. 
 
 The work by Trevelyan was necessary. It was 
 well that something more definite and personal 
 than had been learned from Carlisle, Arnold, and 
 
 1 This paper was written before the previous chapters and for sep 
 arate use. 
 
MACAULATS SELF-ESTIMATE. 205 
 
 Cockburn should be known of Macaulay. Beyond 
 casual references, some sketches, and a few anec 
 dotes, grown so familiar that no prudent diner-out 
 would venture to repeat them, we knew him from 
 his speeches and course in Parliament, his Essays 
 and Keviews, his services in India, and from the 
 History. But the inferences to be drawn were 
 general ; the veil behind which lay his private life 
 remained undisturbed. As an author, he came to 
 us after elaborate preparation, as if in state dress, 
 and took the reading public by storm. His writ 
 ings had a fascination strong enough to divert stu 
 dents from their lessons, the readers of romantic 
 tales from their dissipations. At the time when 
 he was expressing to Mr. Everett his surprise that 
 any but " a few highly educated men " in this 
 country were interested in his History, our 
 wives and daughters were reading it. It seems 
 incredible that he could have thought his work 
 too profound or " insular in spirit " for general 
 readers; a history which, though dealing with 
 principles in large relations, appealed strongly 
 to the imagination, gave the romantic side of 
 events, and, in highly wrought and felicitous de 
 scriptions, called, from the depths of the past, 
 forms regal in their adornment and beauty. But 
 in calmer hours, Mr. Macaulay may have had a 
 just estimate of his labors. He must have known 
 
206 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 that his services in Parliament had been of less 
 value and importance than those of Brougham ; 
 that he had lacked the almost prophetic appre 
 hension, the logical precision, the harmony of 
 thought and expression of Edmund Burke ; and 
 that his Essays, rich in poetic sentiment and illus 
 tration, his criticisms, more acrid to the taste than 
 the invectives of Junius, could not take deep root 
 in firm soil. But, in the retrospect, he was, no 
 doubt, satisfied with the policy which had led him 
 to seek relation with the names of some of the 
 men who had helped to shape history, as well as 
 with an interesting period of the national life of 
 England. In that he was wise, as the conserva 
 tive element, respected by time, lies in the na 
 ture of the subject rather than in an author's 
 mode of treatment. Macaulay's verses will be 
 read, as they are the " Lays of Ancient Rome ; " 
 his History will be known when most of his other 
 writings are forgotten. In the coming genera 
 tions, none will care whether Croker was a bad 
 fellow, and ignorant of Greek ; whether Bare' re, 
 when he ceased to write trifles, began to write 
 lies ; whether Robert Montgomery was a poet or 
 not. 
 
 But Macaulay's ^strongest claim to remembrance 
 rests on his services in India. He thus won a 
 place in legal history. But for that service, we 
 
CLOSE RELATION OF NATURAL GIFTS. 207 
 
 should have no pride in the fact that he was a 
 lawyer, and be less ready, perhaps, to recognize 
 the resemblances and the contrasts which existed 
 between some of his characteristics and those of 
 Rufus Choate. Not that they had anything in 
 common, as lawyers, save in their mastery of 
 legal principles applied by the one in his labors 
 in India, illustrated by the other in the labors of 
 his life. Mr. Choate never had occasion to frame 
 a code for a peculiar people. Mr. Macaulay, hav 
 ing been called to the English bar, held a short 
 and silent flirtation with his mistress, the law, and, 
 finding her coy and cold, gave her up. He had, 
 indeed, one case in court and but one. There 
 was, therefore, nothing like professional brother 
 hood between him and Mr. Choate. The likeness 
 and unlikeness, material to our purpose, are to be 
 found elsewhere. 
 
 They were fortunate in their lineage ; each 
 came of good stock. They had admirable train 
 ing at home, cherished great love for those related 
 to them by family ties, and were blessed in the 
 return of that love. With a poetic temperament, 
 exquisite sensibility, and a fondness for the ro 
 mantic, were united loyalty to the truth, and 
 aversion to everything like duplicity, or artifice 
 in life and conduct. They also had great indus 
 try, devotion to study, and desire to excel. But 
 
208 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 nature, as if to perfect her work, and set these, 
 her favorite children, quite apart from others, 
 gave to each of them great, indeed marvelous, 
 powers of memory. In their boyhood they be 
 came so familiar with Bunyan's Pilgrim that they 
 could recite most of it. Later in life, they appre-* 
 hended and retained the sense of what they had 
 rapidly or casually read, and could recall the dates 
 and the relations of events. Instances illustrative 
 of such powers, when suddenly called into exercise, 
 have been given by their biographers. In speak 
 ing of his knowledge of certain books, Mr. Macau- 
 lay said that if, by some miracle of Vandalism, 
 they were destroyed off the face of the earth, he 
 could, from memory, reproduce them. It is quite 
 possible that Mr. Choate could have made a like 
 boast, if he had allowed himself to speak of the 
 extent of his own acquisitions. It appears that 
 what he had read, and considered worthy of atten 
 tion, he remembered to a remarkable extent, and 
 could use with precision, ease, and celerity. That 
 is clearly shown in some of his speeches delivered 
 in the heat and pressure of debate. The powers 
 of memory possessed by Choate and Macaulay 
 challenge our admiration, however, not simply be 
 cause they were marvelous in sudden and signal 
 display but because of their healthy origin and 
 growth ; they were held to the last in perfect co- 
 
COMPARISON OF THEIR WORK. 209 
 
 ordination with their other powers. Both were ar 
 dently devoted to classical studies, had an intimate 
 acquaintance with the Latin and the Greek, and 
 knew something of some other languages. They 
 did not take up the German early in life ; Mr. 
 Choate studied it with his daughter, Mr. Macaulay 
 on his return voyage from India, and after his 
 method of beginning with the Bible, which he 
 could read without a dictionary. In some respects 
 he was more fortunate than Mr. Choate. He had 
 more leisure, a larger acquaintance with learned 
 men and with society, and should have attained 
 a higher and broader culture. He had access to 
 many books which could not be found in this coun 
 try, but was a mere reader of some works of im 
 portance, which Mr. Choate studied, and in parts 
 translated. He wrote out his speeches, and revised 
 them for the press, and with care treasured up his 
 thoughts and words. Mr. Choate let his thoughts 
 and words many speeches and arguments which 
 had excited unbounded enthusiasm in learned men 
 and severe judges go to the winds as uttered. 
 That economy and the want of it bore their ap 
 propriate fruits. Mr. Macaulay's name became fa 
 miliar in every household. Mr Choate's merits, if 
 not his name, would have passed out of mind, but 
 for the zeal of his friend and biographer, who illus- 
 
 14 
 
210 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 trated his virtues, and collected mere fragments of 
 his works. 
 
 But, now that Mr. Trevelyan gives us the let 
 ters, diary, and journal of Macaulay, as Professor 
 Brown had given us those of Choate the same 
 forms of literary labor, representing more truly 
 than other forms the habits of thought, and modes 
 of expression peculiar to each of them the 
 reader may consider their relative merits. After 
 lingering over and seeking to compare their work, 
 our conviction is that in the simplicity and un 
 studied grace of his letters, in the earnest purpose 
 and profound study disclosed in his diary, in the 
 descriptions, criticisms, and suggestions recorded 
 in his Journal, in tone and spirit, in the use of 
 clear, compact, nervous, beautiful, yet simple Eng 
 lish, Mr. Choate appears to greater advantage 
 than Mr. Macaulay. 
 
 Mr. Choate's suggestion, that one who would 
 write well should write slowly, had respect to the 
 example of some great authors Sallust, Virgil, 
 Tacitus as well as to the instructions of Cicero 
 and of Quintilian. The virtue of such delibera 
 tion was recognized by Mr. Macaulay. When the 
 materials for his History had been collected and 
 arranged, his task was to write two pages daily ; 
 and, in one instance, after having been engaged 
 nineteen days on thirty pages, he was not satisfied 
 
USE OF FOREIGN TERMS. 211 
 
 with the character of his work. The habits of 
 Burke, Bossuet, Gibbon, and others, in correcting 
 their compositions, are well known. Macaulay 
 bettered the instruction. He was constantly re 
 vising his work. Having stated in his diary the 
 time by which the third volume of his History 
 might be written " rough-hewn " he adds, 
 " Of course the polishing and retouching will be 
 an immense labor." Of that care and industry, 
 great certainly, and worthy of commendation, Mr. 
 Thackeray, with characteristic extravagance, said, 
 " He reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he 
 travels a hundred miles to make a line of descrip 
 tion." 
 
 By his example, Mr. Macaulay has happily put 
 in a protest against the free use, by English writ 
 ers, of words and phrases from other languages. 
 With reasonable success, he resisted the tempta 
 tion to indulge in such quotations. That was no 
 slight victory as, with his well-stored and active 
 memory, such words and phrases, often laden with 
 a delicacy and fragrance not to be retained in any 
 translation, must have frequently occurred to him. 
 Mr. Choate had not, in equal degree, that power 
 of resistance. In pages of his Journal, and in 
 some of his arguments, we do not find him using 
 foreign words, nor need he ever have used them. 
 But, when he did so, it was the well-accepted 
 
212 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 aphorism, the ripe fruit of ancient experience, to 
 which he stood related as an heir, that he wished 
 to appropriate. The maxim or precept pressing 
 upon his mind had been so familiar that he was 
 led to take it in its old attire, as an imperial hand 
 might accept tribute in a foreign coin. But he 
 applied freely, and in simple English, the teach 
 ings of the old masters. The foreign word or 
 phrase, when used, was a mere adjunct, an ad 
 ditional rap of the hammer after the nail had 
 been driven, the argument complete without it, 
 the terms luminous, the sense transparent. He 
 was, therefore, always understood even by those 
 who knew nothing of Latin or Greek. It may 
 be inferred from the directness and ease with 
 which he continually expressed in English the 
 most subtile thoughts and distinctions that he 
 never could have been conscious of anything 
 like poverty in our language. It served him in 
 a spirit of entire obedience. He illustrated its 
 strength, contributed to its wealth and dignity. 
 His pride in it would seem to have been intense, 
 his faith in its mission unfaltering, his ideal of it 
 akin to that perfection which Cicero may have 
 had in view, when he extolled the discourse of an 
 old philosopher as a river of flowing gold. Mr. 
 Choate has left us some of the best specimens of 
 modern English. But he had not, like Macaulay 
 
METHODS OF WORK. 213 
 
 or Virgil, the leisure to give a day to the writing 
 of two pages, or of two verses, or even to revise 
 and polish much that he had written. Some of 
 his best lectures and arguments were prepared in 
 the short intervals of professional toil. The wise 
 counsel, the profound deduction, the brilliant 
 thought and illustration, the exceeding grace and 
 beauty of expression, " skiey sentences, aerolites, 
 which seem to have fallen out of Heaven," were 
 conceived while the pen was doing its rapid work, 
 or in the excitement of the moment when he was 
 speaking. A friend found him in the night sit 
 ting up in bed, writing. 1 He could only thus make 
 up for delay which other duties had imposed. He 
 was preparing the eulogy of Daniel Webster, to 
 be delivered at Dartmouth College. When, some 
 days later, before an audience representing the 
 highest culture known among us, he had set forth 
 the life and character of Mr. Webster, according 
 to his conception of them the profound study 
 and discernment, the long, patient, patriotic ser 
 vice, the great example, the loss "incapable of 
 repair," the love and reverence due to his memory 
 then and evermore, the audience drawn into 
 profound sympathy with the subject, strong men 
 in tears, Mr. Choate, as if the fervent thoughts 
 that possessed him demanded more free utterance 
 
 1 Edward Ellerton Pratt. 
 
214 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 from the heart, cast aside his notes, and gave his 
 peroration without them. 
 
 Some significant words as to the relation of our 
 language to the Bible deserve attention. After a 
 conversation with Lady Holland, in which she had 
 condemned the use of such words as " constitu 
 ency," " talented," " gentlemanly," Mr. Macaulay 
 says, " I did not tell her, though I might have 
 done so, that a person who professes to be a critic 
 in the delicacies of the English language ought to 
 have the Bible at his fingers' ends." Speaking of 
 the Bible in schools, Mr. Choate says, " I would 
 have it read not only for its authoritative revela 
 tions and its commands and exactions, obligatory 
 yesterday, to-day, and forever, but for its English, 
 for its literature, for its pathos, for its dim im 
 agery, its sayings of consolation and wisdom and 
 universal truth." l He read it daily. Something 
 of the spirit of it pervades his speeches sugges 
 tively, giving tone and an air of authority to the 
 argument. That is especially so in those speeches 
 in which he illustrated the character of our Pil 
 grim Fathers, their faith and endurance, the bless 
 ings of peace, of education, and of the law. In 
 his references to favorite authors, his admira 
 tion great, if not amounting to hero-worship, he 
 
 1 See Dr. Spear's Religion and the State, as to the Bible in our 
 public schools. 
 
PARADISE REGAINED. 215 
 
 yet assigns them a subordinate place. Thus, in 
 noting in his Journal his morning's study, he 
 refers to Milton. " I read, besides my lessons, 
 the temptation in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in 
 the Greek ; and then that grand and grave poem 
 which Milton has built upon those few and awful 
 verses ' Paradise Regained.' I recognize and 
 profoundly venerate the vast poetical luminary 
 ' in this more pleasing light, shadowy.' Epic sub 
 limity the subject excludes ; the anxious and 
 changeful interests of the drama are not there. 
 It suggests an occasional recollection of the book 
 of Job, but how far short of its pathos, its agen 
 cies, its voices of human sorrow and doubt and cu 
 riosity, and its occasional, unapproachable grand 
 eur ! Yet it is of the most sustained elegance of 
 expression. It is strewn and burning with the 
 pearl and gold of the richest and loftiest and best 
 instructed of human imaginations." 
 
 Mr. Choate had faith in the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures and in the scheme of redemption. He 
 had a profound reverence for " the foolishness of 
 preaching." He attended faithfully, for years, 
 the church of the Rev. Dr. Adams in Boston. On 
 the hearing of the last case in which he appeared 
 as counsel at New York, Mr. Choate was ill, and 
 the court adjourned over from Friday morning to 
 Monday, when he proceeded with his argument. 
 
216 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 t 
 
 But on the intervening Sunday, I met him at the 
 old Brick Church ; where, though nervous and 
 suffering, he listened devoutly to a plain sermon 
 by the Eev. Gardiner Spring. If Mr. Macaulay 
 had like faith, he had not like reverence. He re 
 garded ecclesiastical matters " exclusively from 
 the standpoint of the state ; " a sermon as an 
 intellectual performance. If the discourse was 
 learned and fine, it was well to be in church. 
 He leaves a record of two occasions when he was 
 there the one on a day appointed for national 
 humiliation and prayer and he says, " Nothing 
 could be more solemn and earnest than the as 
 pect of the congregation, which was numerous. 
 The sermon was detestable ; ignorance, stupidity, 
 bigotry. If the maxims of this fool," etc. On 
 the other occasion, the preacher was dull, and 
 Macaulay says, " I withdrew my attention and 
 read the Epistle to the Romans. I was much 
 struck by the eloquence and force of some pas 
 sages." " I know of few things finer than the end 
 of the first chapter and the 6 Who shall separate 
 us from the love of Christ ? ' : We do not pause 
 to inquire when and where he knew the finer 
 things, however few, being in turn much struck 
 by the deference he so loftily pays to " the elo 
 quence and force of some passages." We recall 
 nothing so exquisitely complaisant in Hume or 
 
AN IRRITATING QUESTION. 217 
 
 Gibbon, and confess that no such generous criti 
 cism could have been conceived or perpetrated by 
 Kufus Choate. 
 
 A sensible man always respects the delicacy of 
 the situation in which he may be placed, quiets a 
 difficulty, and smoothes over an impertinence. Mr. 
 Choate was so fortunate in observing the "due 
 temperance " that his life never rose to the dig 
 nity of a single quarrel ; yet his patience was often 
 severely tried in the courts, in the Senate, and in 
 popular assemblies. But it may be well to observe 
 how easily Macaulay could get up trouble by evad 
 ing or answering a simple question. At a public 
 meeting, an elector in the crowd asked what his 
 religious creed was. Macaulay cried out, " Let 
 that man stand up where I can see him." It was 
 a Methodist preacher. They hoisted him up on a 
 form, and Macaulay, inveighing against bigotry, 
 poured out a torrent of reproaches, and finally 
 declared, " Gentlemen, I am a Christian." The 
 poor preacher, about to be roughly handled by 
 the fellows near him, slid down and crept away. 
 The crowd cheered, perhaps because of Macau- 
 lay's virtuous indignation, perhaps because of the 
 vital discovery that had been made. "We think 
 Mr. Choate would have answered such a question 
 without heat or irritation. 
 
 At an early day, Macaulay was admonished to 
 
218 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 improve his temper. Later, Disraeli said, " He 
 must get rid of his rabidity." Sydney Smith told 
 him that his " great danger was that of taking a 
 tone of too much asperity and contempt in contro 
 versy." As we are contrasting him with one who 
 never needed such advice, who never had a re 
 venge to gratify or an enemy to pursue, the flower 
 and fruit of that rabidity, asperity, and contempt, 
 as shown in Macaulay's treatment of others, de 
 serve notice. We do not pause to ask whether 
 the studied denunciation of Mr. Croker or of Eob- 
 ert Montgomery, running through a dozen pages 
 or so, had or had not some justice to qualify the 
 apparent malignity. All that could be allowed to 
 pass as belonging to, even if not dignifying, criti 
 cism. But not until Mr. Trevelyan had unrolled 
 the record for inspection, did we know that Ma- 
 caulay could go so far beyond the office of the 
 critic as to treasure up bitter personal animosities, 
 and that, writing in quiet hours, he could illus 
 trate that evil temper by unbecoming words. He 
 calls Croker, then in Parliament, a "varlet;" and 
 says, " I detest him more than cold boiled veal." 
 We also learn that Montgomery, finding the ar 
 ticle denouncing him republished and hawked 
 about, the bitter cup ever held to his lips, was in 
 great distress, and wrote again and again to Ma- 
 caulay and his publisher, asking " to be let out of 
 
A TRIVIAL SPITE. 219 
 
 the pillory/' and that Macaulay put on the record, 
 " Never with my consent." While we turn with 
 repugnance from much that he wrote of Lord 
 Brougham, we quote a few words. Macaulay says 
 of him, " He has outlived his power to injure." 
 Again, " Strange fellow ! his powers gone ; his spite 
 immortal ; a dead nettle." The grounds of his 
 hatred of that great man were trivial, such as most 
 persons would have passed over in silence. We are 
 told by Macaulay that Lord Brougham thought 
 that the seat given to him in Parliament should 
 have been given to another ; that Brougham pro 
 fessed not to have read the " Essays ; " had not 
 complimented him on his speeches when others 
 had done so ; and that he aspired to too much con 
 trol over the " Edinburgh Eeview." Thus Macau- 
 lay states his grievances, distempered dreams, and 
 rejoices over Brougham's supposed mental as well 
 as political decline, although Brougham had been 
 the friend of Macaulay's father, and had favored 
 his projects. How much more graceful and be 
 coming if Macaulay had been silent, or had treated 
 Brougham with something of the respect Choate 
 always manifested for Daniel Webster ! 
 
 In speaking of Kufus Choate, Mr. Charles G. 
 Loring said, " He rarely permitted himself t.o in 
 dulge in personalities, and never in those of an of 
 fensive and degrading nature." Mr. Richard H. 
 
220 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Dana, Jr., asks, " Who ever heard from him an un 
 kind word ? " And Professor Brown says, " He 
 never spoke ill of the absent, nor would suffer 
 others to do so in his presence." We contrast 
 with such concurrent testimony what Macaulay 
 deliberately wrote of other members of Parlia 
 ment. In a letter to Ellis, as to the close vote on 
 a reform bill, he says, " And the jaw of Peel fell ; 
 and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned 
 soul ; and Herries looked like Judas taking his 
 necktie off for the last operation." 
 
 Since Lord Coke announced that two leaks 
 would drown any ship, we have learned that the 
 principle admits of extended application ; that a 
 single flaw will spoil a mirror, too much alloy the 
 largest coin in the realm, and that a spirit of rab 
 idity and asperity being cherished in the heart, 
 other evil spirits will enter in and take possession. 
 We must confess, however, that we always re 
 garded Macaulay gratefully until we began to read 
 his letters, diary, and journal, and that from 
 thenceforth we have felt great concern as to his 
 taste, style, and manners. 
 
 In a letter to his sister, Macaulay mentions his 
 introduction to Lady Holland, and her gracious 
 invitation to Holland House. In other letters, he 
 refers to his visits there after this fashion : " I 
 dined yesterday at Holland House ; all lords ex- 
 
AN UNGRATEFUL GUEST. 221 
 
 cept myself." He met there many distinguished 
 persons ; for the first time heard Talleyrand, then 
 famous, talk, and tell stories. The reader of the 
 " Life of Sydney Smith," by his daughter, will re 
 call his estimate of the honor conferred upon him 
 when, young and poor, he was received into that 
 society, and of the kindness shown him by Lord 
 and Lady Holland, a grateful and beautiful pic 
 ture. As the doors of Holland House were thrown 
 wide open to Macaulay, and as he was treated by 
 Lord and Lady Holland as a son might have been, 
 that sovereign courtesy should have been suffi 
 cient to inspire in one fit to be introduced a grate 
 ful respect, a decent degree of reticence. But 
 what record does Macaulay leave ? The little 
 household flurries are depicted; the unguarded 
 chat and prattle of the most gracious hostess that 
 ever smiled a welcome to her guests are given; 
 her freaks, fears, superstitions, lamentations, and 
 " her tantrums " are described, even to the extent 
 of saying that she was hysterical about Macaulay's 
 going to India, and had to be soothed by Lord 
 Holland. No zealous attorney was ever more 
 faithful in getting up a bill of particulars. 
 
 Macaulay's sorrow for the dead and dying dig 
 nifies a pathetic letter to his sister. Thus he 
 writes : " Poor Scott is gone, and I cannot be 
 sorry for it. A powerful mind in ruins is the 
 
222 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 most heart-breaking thing which it is possible 
 to conceive. Ferdinand of Spain is gone, too; 
 and I fear old Mr. Stephen is going fast. I am 
 safe for Leeds. Poor Hyde Villiers is very ill." 
 
 How considerate the transition from the want 
 of hope for others to his own flushing hope in the 
 coming election ! Through the dark shadows, the 
 light breaks in so naturally, " Don't fret, sister, 
 I am safe for Leeds." 
 
 Mr. Choate read with discrimination the authors 
 of his day. Mr. Trevelyan says, " Macaulay had 
 a very slight acquaintance with the works of some 
 among the best writers of his own generation." 
 But his reading seems to have been incessant, 
 fragmentary, and capricious. He says, " I walked 
 the heath in glorious weather, and read ' The 
 Mysteries of Paris/ Sue has quite put poor 
 Plato's nose out of joint." Again, he says, 
 " Read ' Northanger Abbey ' ; worth all Dickens 
 and Pliny together. Yet it was the work of a 
 girl. She was certainly not more than twenty- 
 six. Wonderful creature ! Finished Pliny. Cap 
 ital fellow, Trajan, and deserving of a better 
 panegyric." Most scholars have been satisfied 
 with the picture drawn of the Emperor. Choate 
 commended Pliny as " one who seldom colored 
 too highly." 
 
 Mr. Choate was never severe as a critic ; his 
 
A SEVERE CRITIC. 223 
 
 dissatisfaction was always expressed in becoming 
 terms. Mr. Macaulay's criticisms, as we now have 
 them, were often crude, mere freaks of fancy, 
 rashly and rudely stated. Thus he says, " Looked 
 in the < Life of Hugh Blair/ a stupid book, by 
 a stupid man, about a stupid man." Blair was 
 not a great man, but he was always, and espe 
 cially in his style, respectable. His first volume 
 of " Sermons " was published on the advice of 
 Doctor Johnson. Macaulay refers to two of Gib 
 bon's critics thus : " That stupid beast, Joseph 
 Milner." " But Whitaker was as dirty a cur as 
 I remember." This may excite surprise, as Ma 
 caulay remembered so many curs. He puts down 
 some men as beasts, several as asses, others as 
 curs. The association brings to mind what Cole 
 ridge said of Burke, in his public character, to 
 wit, " That he found himself, as it were, in 
 Noah's ark, with a very few men and a great 
 many beasts." But neither of those critics was 
 stupid. Mr. Choate thought well of Milner, and 
 we turn poor Whitaker over to Mr. Charles But 
 ler, a lawyer, a great controversialist, one who 
 always wrote as became a gentleman. He says, 
 "Dr. Whitaker's criticism of his (Gibbon's) his 
 tory is rough, but powerful." 
 
 We do not pause to illustrate Macaulay's ego 
 tism and vanity ; the proofs cropping out in many 
 
224 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 pages of his letters and diary would be burden 
 some. As compared with Macaulay's self-lauda 
 tions, from the " My speech has set me in the 
 front rank," on down to the " How white poor 
 Peel looked while I was speaking/' and to the two 
 damsels who, having paid their shilling to see the 
 hippopotamus, abandoned the show to get a look 
 at Macaulay, Mr. Choate's record would seem to 
 be poor indeed. Not a shade of egotism or vanity 
 was ever imputed to him. Nor need we, after our 
 quotations from Macaulay, enforce our conviction 
 that his style, unlike the style of Mr. Choate, had 
 caught no grace from Grecian studies, no strength 
 from biblical reading. 
 
 The spirit of grace and courtesy which indi 
 cates social and literary refinement in a man not 
 morbidly selfish shines forth in his words, spoken 
 or written, and in his enforced intercourse with 
 decent strangers. Mr. Macaulay has given us 
 some evidence of the amenity of his manners, 
 when he was approached respectfully by persons 
 wishing to do him honor. He says, " What odd 
 things happen ! Two gentlemen, or at least two 
 men in good coats and hats, overtook me as I was 
 strolling through one of the meadows close by the 
 river. One of them stared at me, touched his hat, 
 and said, ' Mr. Macaulay, I believe.' I admitted 
 the truth of the imputation. So the fellow went 
 
USES OF BIOGRAPHY. 225 
 
 on, 6 1 suppose, sir/ " etc. But he soon got rid 
 of the fellow. Macaulay was at Eome, and says, 
 " Yesterday as I was looking at some superb por 
 traits by Raphael and Titian, a Yankee clergyman 
 introduced himself to me ; told me that he had 
 heard who I was ; that he begged to thank me for 
 my writings in the name of bis countrymen. I 
 bowed, thanked him, and stole away, leaving the 
 Grand Duke's picture a great deal sooner than I 
 had intended." In contrast with these exhibi 
 tions, the statement of the Eev. Dr. Adams may 
 be cited. He said that Mr. Choate " Treated 
 every man as though he were a gentleman ; and 
 he treated every gentleman almost as he would 
 a lady." 
 
 The poverty which often attaches to biogra 
 phies qualifies, in some aspects, these works of 
 Professor Brown and Mr. Trevelyan. This was 
 unavoidable. It is quite apparent that no one 
 could fathom the mystery of Mr. Choate's genius, 
 or state its precise character. His friends could 
 only wonder and admire, seek to measure its 
 power in the intellectual performance. Mr. Ma 
 caulay had, from first to last, been so silent in 
 respect to a matter of the most vital concern, as 
 to the life that now is and that which is to come, 
 that his nearest friends could make no discovery, 
 his biographer no revelation. 
 
 15 
 
226 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 But no one who had considered Macaulay in 
 his works previously published, and who now con 
 siders him in his other writings, will doubt the 
 uses of biography. If one who is supposed to 
 give tone to society has an artificial voice full of 
 melody when abroad, a natural voice full of dis 
 cord when at home, that should be known. If an 
 author, who has beguiled us into a high estimate 
 of his merits, appeared as a poet in prose as well 
 as in verse, his words and sentences polished and 
 full of measured sweetness, "a burnished fly in 
 the pride of May," was, in reality, weak in tone 
 and sentiment, bitter and unforgiving, ungrateful 
 for social service and distinction, often rude in 
 manners, and as a writer, and in his natural, 
 every-day style, was diffuse and ungraceful, if 
 not rough, all that should also be known. If such 
 a character appears in its true light when con 
 trasted with one whose life, open as the day, was 
 a perpetual benediction, full of beneficent influ 
 ences, inciting to everything that was just, loyal, 
 noble in sentiment, beautiful in speech, uniform 
 and exemplary in conduct, we may well be thank 
 ful that biographies could be written. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
LETTER FROM JOSHUA M. VAN COTT. 
 
 MR. JOSHUA M. VAN COTT, having, in casual 
 conversation, mentioned an interesting occasion 
 when he heard Mr. Choate, had the kindness, at 
 my request, to send me this note he calls it " a 
 scrap." 
 
 In December, 1843, the New Englanders in 
 New York celebrated the anniversary of the land 
 ing of the Pilgrims, Rufus Choate being the ora 
 tor, and his theme, " The Age of the Pilgrims, 
 our Heroic Period." l The oration was delivered 
 in the old Broadway Tabernacle, then the largest 
 auditorium in the city. The great building was 
 crowded to hear the famous speaker. Mr. Web 
 ster and other distinguished public men were on 
 the platform. Mr. Choate was then in his prime, 
 and his presence was hardly less striking than 
 that of the great expounder. He was tall, thin ; 
 his complexion a rich olive ; his eyes large, liq- 
 
 1 See the oration in vol. i. of Brown's Life and Writings of 
 Choate. 
 
230 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 uid, glowing; the face oriental, rather than that 
 of an American, and generally rather sad than 
 eager and passionate. His voice was a rich bari 
 tone, sonorous, majestic, finely modulated, and in 
 imitable in the expression of pathos. He philo 
 sophically developed the rise of Puritanism and 
 the causes of the Pilgrim emigration, and came 
 down to the Mayflower, to Miles and Rose Stan- 
 dish, to the landing at Plymouth, the severity of 
 the winter, the famine and the sickness, and the 
 many deaths fifty out of a hundred, including 
 that of the beautiful Kose Standish. Pausing, 
 with a sad, far-off look in his eyes, as if the vision 
 had suddenly risen upon his memory, and with a 
 voice inexpressibly sweet and pathetic, he said, 
 " In a late visit to Plymouth I sought the spot 
 where these earlier dead were buried. It was on 
 a bank somewhat elevated, near, fronting and 
 looking upon the waves, symbol of what life 
 had been to them, ascending inland behind and 
 above the Rock, symbol also of that Rock of Ages 
 on which the dying had rested in that final hour." 
 I have never seen an audience more moved. 
 The orator had skillfully led up to this passage, 
 and then, with a voice surcharged with emotion, he 
 thus symbolized the stormy and tumultuous life, 
 the sudden and sad end, and the heroic faith with 
 which, resting upon the "Rock of Ages, they had 
 
A SYMPATHETIC AUDIENCE. 231 
 
 lain down on the shore of the Eternal Sea. As 
 Choate approached the climax, Webster's emotion 
 became uncontrollable ; the great eyes were filled 
 with tears, the great frame shook he bowed his 
 head to conceal his face in his hat, and I almost 
 seemed to hear his sob. The audience was flooded 
 with tears, a handkerchief at every face, and sighs 
 and sobs soughed through the house like the wind 
 in the tree-tops. The genius of the orator had 
 transferred us to the spot, and we saw the rocky 
 shore, and, with him, mourned the early dead. 
 
 We have had but one Ruf us Choate ; alas ! we 
 shall never have another. We have had powerful 
 dialecticians, such as Hamilton and Pinkney and 
 Webster; we have had great stump speakers, 
 such as Senator Corwin and Sergeant S. Prentiss, 
 but none who could sway the soul like the great 
 lawyer, scholar, statesman, and orator of New 
 England. 
 
 *' So on the tip of his subduing tongue 
 All kinds of arguments and question deep, 
 All replication prompt, and reason strong 
 For his advantage still did wake and sleep: 
 To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep, 
 He had the dialect and different skill, 
 Catching all passions in his craft of will." 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S Lover's Complaint. 
 
LETTER FROM REV. A. P. PUTNAM, D. D. 
 
 the Rev. A. P. Putnam, D. D. ? was about 
 leaving Brooklyn for his summer vacation, know 
 ing that he was a native of Danvers, and that he 
 proposed to remain for some time in the vicinity 
 of Mr. Choate's early dwelling-place, I asked him 
 to keep in mind the subject to which these arti 
 cles 'have been devoted, and to favor me, at his 
 convenience, with such impressions as occurred to 
 him and such facts as he might learn. I grate 
 fully acknowledge the kindly and generous spirit 
 in which he has complied with the request. 
 
 MY DEAK JUDGE, I beg you to accept my 
 thanks for the copies which you have kindly sent 
 of " The Albany Law Journal/ ' containing your 
 exceedingly interesting and timely articles illus 
 trative of the life and character of Mr. Choate. 
 I rejoice that your efforts to rescue so much valu 
 able testimony to his worth and so many facts 
 concerning his habits and history, before those 
 who from their personal friendship or acquaint- 
 
VISIT TO MR. CHOATE. 233 
 
 ance are best qualified to furnish such material 
 have quite passed off the stage, are so widely and 
 gratefully appreciated. Though a native of Dan- 
 vers, where he began the practice of the law, yet, 
 while he was there, I was too young to see and 
 hear him as many of the older residents were 
 wont to do. But I recall how frequently he was 
 a favorite theme of conversation with my father, 
 who was associated with him not a little in politi 
 cal and town affairs, and who had the greatest re 
 spect and admiration for his talents and virtues. 
 After he removed from Salem to Boston, the 
 charm of the man and of his eloquence lingered 
 long in the minds of all classes of people in Essex 
 County, and stories of his early successes at the 
 bar and predictions of his brilliant future contin 
 ued to be rife in and about the scenes of his open 
 ing professional career. I well remember how, on 
 one occasion, when, thirty or forty years ago, he 
 came from Boston to Danvers to try a case of 
 local interest, a most eager desire to see him was 
 manifested by the villagers, who assembled about 
 the hotel to witness his arrival, and then crowded 
 into the hall to listen to his argument. I was 
 myself but a boy in the thronged apartment, and 
 have no very distinct recollection of what he said 
 at the time ; but I shall never lose the impression 
 which his look, manner, and voice made upon me. 
 
234 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 In form, feature, and expression he was then the 
 perfection of manly beauty, while he had already 
 won an enviable fame as an orator and advocate. 
 Long afterward it fell to me to go to the city to 
 engage him for a lecture. I found him at home, 
 seated in a soft, comfortable arm-chair, and suffer 
 ing severely from neuralgic pains in his head. 
 The brief interview is precious to me in memory, 
 as well because it was the only opportunity that 
 was ever permitted me to exchange words with 
 him as because he seized the moment to pay a 
 tender tribute of esteem and affection to one who 
 had recently died, and who was yet dearer to me 
 than to himself. I always, however, sought to 
 hear him whenever it was announced that he 
 would speak in public, and whenever it was pos 
 sible for me to be present. Some of his later po 
 litical speeches found no response in one of my 
 anti-slavery convictions ; but there was magic in 
 his spell, and there was also truth in the man. 
 For, however questionable his reasoning may now 
 seem, in view especially of all that has since oc 
 curred in our national history, who can for a mo 
 ment doubt that a soul so sensitive and conserva- 
 
 * 
 
 tive, yet so patriotic and unselfish as his, must 
 have been deeply in earnest, as he foresaw and 
 dreaded the conflict that was near at hand, and 
 did all that he could to stay the storm. One of 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 235 
 
 the ablest utterances I ever heard from him was, 
 I think, his speech on the judiciary question, July 
 14, 1853, in the Massachusetts convention, held 
 during that year in Boston, for revising and 
 amending the state Constitution. It was an ex 
 ceedingly powerful argument, and it was as capti 
 vating in style and delivery as it was sound and 
 irresistible in its logic. The hall of the House of 
 Representatives was crowded in floor and in gal 
 lery, and the attention of all was riveted to the 
 end. The peroration was a splendid tribute to 
 the people of Massachusetts, and ended thus : 
 " They have nothing timorous in them as touch 
 ing the largest liberty. They rather like the 
 exhilaration of crowding sail on the noble old 
 ship, and giving her to scud away before a four- 
 teen-knot breeze; but they know, too, if the 
 storm comes on to blow and the masts go over 
 board, and the gun deck is rolled under water, 
 and the lee shore, edged with foam, thunders un 
 der her stern, that the sheet anchor and best 
 bower then are everything ! Give them good 
 ground tackle, and they will carry her round the 
 world and back again till there shall be no more 
 sea." The effect of such a speech, with these 
 concluding words, may be better imagined than 
 described. Immediately as he finished it, he put 
 on his wraps, even though it was summer, and 
 
236 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 like some mysterious personage walked out of the 
 assembly, followed by the gaze of the impressed 
 and admiring multitude. 
 
 His judgment respecting one of the notable 
 men of the convention is interesting. The towns 
 and cities of the Commonwealth seemed to have 
 vied with each other in electing as members their 
 leading statesmen, politicians, lawyers, jurists, 
 scholars, authors, editors, teachers, reformers, 
 clergymen, merchants, or farmers. It was a very 
 remarkable body of men, and among them were 
 Rufus Choate, Charles Sumner, R. H. Dana, Jr., 
 Marcus Morton, Otis P. Lord, Henry Wilson, 
 Charles W. Upham, Benjamin F. Butler, William 
 Appleton, J. Thomas Stevenson, John C. Gray, 
 Sidney Bartlett, N. P. Banks, Anson Burlingame, 
 Charles Allen, Samuel A. Elliot, George N. Briggs, 
 George S. Boutwell, Henry L. Dawes, F. B. Crown- 
 inshield, George S. Hillard, and many others of 
 state, if not of national, reputation. But Mr. 
 Choate told a friend of mine, who was a member 
 from Roxbury, that the man who was the ruling 
 genius of the body, most powerfully controlling 
 its deliberations and shaping its proceedings, hav 
 ing the most thorough knowledge of all his asso 
 ciates, and most fertile of methods in adapting 
 means to ends, always carrying the whole busi 
 ness of the Convention in his mind, ever watching 
 
HIS BIRTHPLACE. 237 
 
 his opportunity, and never failing to accomplish 
 his purpose, was Henry Wilson. Such testimony 
 from such authority, with regard to the " Natick 
 Cobbler/' giving him so proud a preeminence 
 amidst the assembled wisdom of the State, was a 
 tribute indeed. 
 
 While spending my summer vacation at Bev 
 erly a few months ago, I took the cars one day 
 for Essex, in order to visit the spot where the 
 great advocate was born. On reaching the vil 
 lage, I went with a friend to the head of the 
 creek where the ship-builders launch their barks, 
 and there joining two of Mr. Choate's nephews, 
 Ruf us and William, we rowed together down the 
 winding stream for about two miles, until we 
 came to the small bay whose waters inclose the 
 island on which he first saw the light, and which 
 is itself shut in by the enfolding arms of the white 
 sand beaches that project from, or lie along, the 
 shore. The land on either side, as we proceeded 
 on our way, was mostly level and marshy, but 
 about midway, on our left, it rose into a gentle 
 swell, and was largely shaded by a noble growth 
 of walnut trees, presenting a lovely site for a sum 
 mer residence. It was long a cherished dream of 
 Mr. Choate's to which his biographer makes a 
 passing allusion that he should one day build 
 himself a house here, where he might each year 
 
238 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 come and rest a while from his arduous profes 
 sional toils, and refresh himself with the cool sea 
 airs and the old familiar scenes of his infancy and 
 youth. Yet it was too lonely a spot for the 
 younger members of the family, and the project 
 was never realized. Also at the left, and within 
 the little bay, is what is known as Dean's Island. 
 It is a small extent of land, covered with trees 
 and entirely uninhabited. One could easily be 
 lieve concerning it that it was never the abode 
 of any living creature. Mr. Choate was one day 
 gliding past it, in company with the nephew who 
 bears his name, and was hearing the latter tell 
 how he had visited the silent and unfrequented 
 spot. It was at a time when the cholera was 
 raging in various parts of the country, and was 
 the subject of general and anxious remark, and 
 the uncle, affecting a great horror of the scourge, 
 asked with a touch of his subdued yet delicious 
 humor, "And Eufus, did you find any cholera 
 there ? " 
 
 The island on which Mr. Choate was born is 
 just opposite the mouth of the creek, and is sep 
 arated from the mainland by a wide channel of 
 water at high tide, but may with some difficulty 
 be reached with a horse and wagon when the tide 
 is out. Its surface consists of about three hundred 
 acres, and the whole rises into a well-rounded em- 
 
CHOATE ISLAND. 239 
 
 inence, whose summit must be about two hundred 
 feet above the level of the water. Its bald, naked 
 aspect is quite unrelieved by trees or vegetation, 
 except as the more southern slopes are brought 
 under some degree of cultivation by those who oc 
 cupy the. three farm-houses situated there. In one 
 of these houses Euf us Choate was born ; but when 
 he was only six months old the family removed to 
 the village where he grew up to early manhood. 
 The house is painted white, and has latterly re 
 ceived a piazza on the front, which faces the south. 
 The larger part of the island has been in the pos 
 session of the Choate family for seven genera 
 tions. Its proper name is " Choate Island/' a 
 name to which the facts of its original and contin 
 ued proprietorship well entitled it, and which is 
 actually given it in the maps of the Coast Survey. 
 A considerable portion of the land is now owned 
 by the nephew, Rufus. His illustrious uncle al 
 ways turned to his birthplace with fond affection, 
 and was wont to go thither in the summer for a 
 time, taking with him some books and friends. It 
 is reasonable to suppose that the spot and its sur 
 roundings must have exercised more influence 
 upon his mind and character than those who have 
 written about him have been wont to trace. Who 
 can tell how much of the marvelous beauty of his 
 lost lecture on "The Romance of the Sea/' or 
 
240 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 how much of the pathos or witchery or eloquence 
 of many another of his productions must have 
 been due to what, in youth, as in maturer life, he 
 thus often saw and felt there at his " native isle." 
 From the brow of the hill, he could discern, in 
 clear weather, far away at the north, the moun 
 tains of Maine and New Hampshire. Beyond the 
 marshes and the village that lay immediately at 
 the west, he could see not a few of the t&wns and 
 villages of Essex County, numbering many a glit 
 tering spire, and delight himself with a richly di 
 versified and most pleasing landscape. Just at 
 the southeast, the great cape extended its lofty 
 ridge far out toward the sea, while close along the 
 nearer shore lay various larger or smaller islands 
 or sand-bars, with their white cliffs apd shining 
 levels, washed on the one side by the waters of 
 several rivers that poured down their currents 
 from the interior, and on the other by the waves 
 of the ocean, whose vast expanse, broadening to 
 the view, specked with sails, and fascinating with 
 its ever-changing hues, completed the circuit of the 
 range. In all this scenery there was a breadth 
 and a variety, a certain lonely grandeur and per 
 petual revelation, which, for one who was such an 
 ardent lover of nature, and who was so susceptible 
 and imaginative as Mr. Choate, could not have 
 failed to possess an indescribable charm. 
 
EARLY LETTERS. 241 
 
 We drank at the well from the " old oaken 
 bucket, the iron-bound bucket/' whose water was 
 as cool and reviving as that which at Salisbury, 
 N. H., once evoked from Mr. Webster, in his old 
 age, the fervent ejaculation, " This water of my 
 father's well, it is sweeter than the nectar of the 
 gods." And then we entered the house, saw the 
 room where the infant Rufus made his advent, and 
 the other apartments which have been so familiar 
 to successive generations of his name, listening to 
 many an interesting story of the lives of those who 
 have there had their home. A fresh breeze had 
 sprung up as we returned to our boat, and we 
 were borne gayly up the stream down which we 
 had been rowed. We took tea with the family of 
 the late David Choate, at the homestead to which 
 Rufus was taken when an infant, and which was 
 from that time his abode until he went forth into 
 the wider world. It was pleasant to talk with 
 such of the nearest relatives of the departed as are 
 still living in Essex, hear them speak of one of 
 whom they are so justly proud, and see the memo 
 rials and keepsakes that tell of their love for him. 
 
 Some of the early letters of Mr. Choate have 
 come to light since Professor Brown published his 
 " Memoirs." These, in view of the fact that they 
 were written, chiefly, in his school-day life, and in 
 consideration of the paucity of such materials as 
 
 16 
 
242 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 are illustrative of his history, may be regarded as 
 of some interest and importance, though there is 
 nothing in them of very remarkable significance. 
 I was permitted to take them for a time and make 
 such use of them as I might see fit. A few ex 
 tracts from them may prove welcome to the read 
 ers of these pages as showing more fully his hab 
 its of study, his tastes and predilections, and his 
 peculiarities of mind in that formative period of 
 his life. It is possible that one or more of these 
 letters may have been partly given in some form 
 to the public before, but I am not aware that such 
 has really been the case, and I am told by his 
 nephew that, as a whole, they are quite unknown 
 beyond the immediate circle of his friends or rela 
 tives. Some of them abound in fun and absurd 
 ities. Others are thoughtful and sad. Nearly all 
 of them indicate an original cast of mind, an ear 
 nest love of knowledge, and a strong determina 
 tion to conquer, with a tender and ardent affection 
 for his home and the dear ones who were there. 
 
 The first is dated June 17, 1815, and was 
 written to his brother David from Hampton, N. 
 H. ? where he was fitting himself at an academy 
 to enter college. He refers at the outset to a 
 charge which he had received from the " com 
 bined powers," or " the folks," at home, that he 
 should write immediately "a long, solid letter." 
 
EARLY LETTERS. 243 
 
 Then he proceeded thus: "Did you ever see a 
 definition of the word solid ? If not, I will give 
 you one from Bailey's Dictionary. ' Solid (F. 
 solide, L. solidus), massive, hard, firm, strong, 
 real, substantial, sound, lasting/ How," he asks, 
 " can I build a ' solid letter/ then, with such ma 
 terials as these ; viz., thin paper, no bigger than 
 a four and a half penny, shallow brain, and no life 
 at all ? " Instantly he dashes off into a strain of 
 bombast, interspersed with quotations about the 
 storms and desolations of winter and the sunshine 
 and loveliness of the season that had succeeded, 
 suggesting that it may all serve to " fill up " what 
 he evidently means as a sort of burlesque of the 
 thing his family have asked for. Toward the end 
 of the letter, he writes that he has begun the 
 " De Oratore," and hopes soon to be " fit." But 
 he depends much on spending a month or two 
 at home " before the Dartmouth ' Scrape ' comes 
 on." He is now in the sixteenth year of his age. 
 
 Then there is another of these letters from 
 Hampton, dated July 20th of the same year, 
 and addressed also to his brother David, in which 
 he debates the question, in lawyer-like fashion, 
 whether he shall go home before the end of the 
 quarter, the disputants being " Rufus & I" The 
 reasons for his going prevail. " The die is cast." 
 He says, " I want some time for relaxation and 
 
244 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 delivery from purgatory previous to besetting 
 Dartmouth College." 
 
 He entered college in the summer of 1815, and 
 in a letter written from Hanover and dated De 
 cember 5, 1815, he gives an account of his ex 
 penses, which certainly were small enough, and 
 arranges with his brother for a visit home early 
 in January. He adds, " Only about ten or twelve 
 of my class remain. The rest have taken schools. 
 How thankful ought I to be that I am not obliged 
 to resort to this for assistance. We who remain 
 have a chance to improve in the languages par 
 ticularly." 
 
 Early in the following March he had returned 
 to Dartmouth, and he writes to David, " Should I 
 have my health, my acquirements ought to be 
 great. Whether the measles are hanging about 
 me or not is uncertain. I feel rather unwell, but 
 a few days will decide. Eespecting the affairs of 
 the college, everything is at present in dread un 
 certainty. A storm seems to be gathering, the 
 sky lowers, and ere long may burst on the present 
 government of the college. What the event may 
 be time will discover. If the State (and there is 
 no doubt of it) be Democratic, a revolution will 
 take place. Probably President Brown will be 
 dismissed. In that case the college will fall. 
 However, say nothing all may yet be well, and 
 
AT DARTMOUTH. 245 
 
 if not, we are not to blame." ..." The class is 
 ambitious; and to be among the first, in one 
 which is pronounced the best in college, will be 
 an arduous undertaking. Good health will be ab 
 solutely necessary for a candidate." 
 
 " These hints about health may make you un 
 easy, but you must not mind it. I sincerely hope 
 to be able to study hard, but shall never injure 
 myself in that way. I suppose Washington 1 is 
 getting through with the "Reader." He must 
 attend closely to Latin and Greek. Two years 
 would make a thorough scholar out of anything, 
 and if this college should fail, the more he must 
 study to enter at Cambridge." He says he has 
 paid Mrs. D. for his board, has " discharged all 
 debts " and has " some left ; " but as certain nec 
 essary expenses will soon absorb what little money 
 remains to him, he half sportively adds, " I don't 
 know what more to write, but suppose in about a 
 month you send me a little money." And again, 
 " I will now close, requesting you to write imme 
 diately and pay the postage." 
 
 On November 3, 1816, he again writes from 
 Hanover to David, who had evidently been very 
 sick, " My dear brother, my feelings, on receiv 
 ing another letter from you, I shall not pretend or 
 
 1 A younger brother who was born January 17, 1803, and died 
 during his senior year at college. 
 
246 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 attempt to describe. You can conceive with what 
 anxiety I was waiting news from home and the 
 joy I must have felt in recognizing your well- 
 known hand the hand indeed of one, as you 
 observe, ' almost literally raised from the dead/ 
 How grateful ought we both to feel. And, if I 
 know anything of myself, I do feel so. These 
 gloomy forebodings that distracted my waking 
 hours, and the dreams that haunted my sleep 
 have now left me, and I can think of home with 
 out its appearing dreary and melancholy ; but I 
 will only add, my heart's desire is that the cure 
 may be perfected. Kespecting my own situation, 
 I would tell you that it is in the highest degree 
 pleasant. My room is good, and room-mate agree 
 able, and our fellow students in the house, seven 
 in number, mostly seniors, friendly and familiar. 
 Compared with last term, my eyes are well, 
 though I do not attempt studying evenings, this 
 circumstance rendering application in the day 
 time necessary. I have too much neglected exer 
 cise, and my head suffers for it. Since convers 
 ing, however, with Dr. Mussey, I have altered my 
 habits and regularly exercise once a day. The 
 instruction we enjoy is most excellent. President 
 Brown hears us in Horace, and Professor Shurtleff 
 in Algebra ; and it is our own fault if we do not 
 make suitable advances. By abridging hours of 
 
LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE. 247 
 
 recreation, I have made myself master of the 
 French grammar, and read, without a translation, 
 one or two pages in the original of Telemachus as 
 an exercise every morning. We have a task as 
 signed the class, of rather a singular nature, and 
 such a one as will with difficulty be well per 
 formed it is the rendering into English poetry 
 one of the Odes of Horace, and this, with two or 
 three other exercises which fall upon us, will I 
 fear oblige me to hurt my eyes by application in 
 the evening. I forgot to observe, when speaking 
 of instruction, that Professor Adams corrects our 
 compositions." 
 
 Yet again, he writes from Hanover to David, 
 under date of December 16, 1816, " I have been 
 unavoidably prevented, till this moment, from 
 answering your last, and expressing my joy at its 
 contents. You will be sorry to hear what I have 
 to tell you respecting affairs of the college. In 
 telligence has just reached us, that another act 
 has passed both branches of the Legislature, and 
 become a law, authorizing nine of the new trus 
 tees only to do business, a number which, it is 
 supposed, can very easily at any time be assembled. 
 That this body will convene immediately, perhaps 
 before the end of the term, and remove the whole 
 of the present government of the college, and 
 supply their places with men of their own party, 
 
248 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 is what the best amongst us confidently expect. 
 The situation of the institution is, you perceive, 
 critical in the extreme ; ' Consternation turns 
 the good man pale/ You may judge better of 
 the singular state of the college, and of the con 
 fusion which prevails, from the following circum 
 stance. It is customary for the sophomore class 
 to take on itself the business of getting the cata 
 logue of officers and students annually printed. 
 It was, as usual, done by my class this fall, with 
 the introduction, if I may so express it, ' Cata 
 logue of the Officers and Students of Dartmouth 
 College.' The few Democrats and fellows of ' the 
 baser sort ' amongst us immediately employed our 
 Hanover Democratic printer to strike off an edi 
 tion in this form : ( Catalogue of the Officers and 
 Students of Dartmouth University, together with 
 the Trustees (old and new) and Overseers of the 
 same ! ' So much for affairs of college. ... I 
 have been exceedingly troubled with headache, 
 and my eyes have become somewhat weak. I, 
 therefore, look with impatience for the close of 
 the term. I would, however, observe that, if my 
 health is continued, I shall employ the coming 
 vacation in diligent and profitable study ; and, 
 excepting the Londonderry visit, which I heartily 
 dread, I shall shut myself up. I have secured 
 6 Smith's Botany ' and a ' Telemaque ' of Dr. 
 
A TEACHER AT WASHINGTON. 249 
 
 Mussey, to which my attention will this winter 
 be devoted." 
 
 The last of these letters which I have in hand 
 was written to Mr. Choate's sister Hannah, while 
 he was studying law under Mr. Wirt at Washing 
 ton, and is dated September 29, 1821. It begins 
 thus : " We sent you such a storm of letters two 
 or three weeks since that somehow we hardly 
 thought to be turned off with but one in answer, 
 however full and excellent it might be, and so 
 have waited and waited, unreasonably, you will 
 say, in daily expectation of another or two. But 
 I have taken hold at last, and a letter you shall 
 have, with nothing in it though, but very much 
 love to you all, very much joy at David's so grati 
 fying recovery, and the word ' all 's well.' ' A 
 little farther on he writes, " M. and E. went to 
 Mount Yernon yesterday, and have brought back 
 leaves, acorns, etc., plucked from the grave that 
 hallows that place and makes it a spot so dear to 
 the heart of every American. Sister S. and I 
 hope to go down next Saturday." Besides his 
 regular study of the law, he tells us that he is 
 " engaged every other day in the week, three 
 hours, in a school of young ladies, as a portant, 
 all for cash, of which the Doctor does not manage 
 to have any very great abundance, or for which 
 I do not choose to ask him." He continues, " I 
 
250 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CIIOATE. 
 
 have some trifling debts which it is my determina 
 tion you at home never shall pay ; and, seriously 
 as I regret the inroad on my hours of study, I 
 cheerfully resign from 11 to 2. You can hardly 
 imagine how much I long to go back to you, and 
 look around once more on our family circle, and 
 on the hills, dales, and waters of our much-loved 
 birthplace. Sometimes I almost determine to re 
 turn this fall, but then what shall I do for money, 
 and how shall I dispose of my professional studies ? 
 So, on the whole, I must stand by, I think, till 
 June, 1822. In the mean time, as soon at least 
 as the session begins, we must contrive to hear 
 from each other of tener, and when D., who I hope 
 is nearly well enough already, has so recovered as 
 to write, once a week must be the word. I like 
 this city very little, and hope and believe I never 
 shall make up my mind to stay here for life. That 
 question as to the place of my future residence 
 begins at last to be a very serious one, and I think 
 of it daily and nightly. Still there are more than 
 two years to me yet before I need decide, and all 
 I ought to wish to do is to improve them to the 
 very utmost." Again, as often in the course of 
 these letters, his fond affection for his brother 
 David finds its wonted expression. " You don't 
 know how it delights me to hear of D.'s recovery, 
 and how we want to see it under his own hand 
 and seal." 
 
HIS HANDWRITING. 251 
 
 This David, who died about five years ago, at 
 the age of seventy-six, was, I scarcely need add, 
 a man of much prominence and great usefulness. 
 He possessed, in no small degree, many of the 
 extraordinary natural gifts that distinguished his 
 more celebrated brother ; and, though he had had 
 less favorable opportunities for early culture, he 
 nobly justified the bright hopes that clustered 
 about his promising youth by the solid and lasting 
 service which he rendered, through all his man 
 hood, in the interests of education, law, and re 
 ligion. 
 
 Among several scraps which I have in Mr. 
 Choate's handwriting, is a letter which he wrote 
 from Washington, when he was no longer a law 
 student there, but about twelve years later, Feb 
 ruary 4, 1833, while he was a member of Con 
 gress. A short extract affords us a glimpse of 
 what some of the national representatives were 
 thinking about and doing. " Things stand pretty 
 dubiously yet. However, the Union is well enough. 
 The tariff we may save by a bargain." The last 
 law case wilich Mr. Choate was ever engaged in 
 has been referred to in a previous communication. 
 A brief, written at the time with his own hand, is 
 also in my possession, and is a curiosity in its way. 
 Its chirography makes quite credible the story, 
 which, however, comes to me from very good au- 
 
252 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 thority, that a now deceased member of the 
 Middlesex bar once received from him a letter 
 respecting a suit in which the two were associated ; 
 and, being unable to read it, or to find any one 
 else who could do so, he took it back to the writer, 
 who was actually unable to decipher its strange 
 characters himself. And were the latter to re 
 appear amongst us, after this lapse of years, I 
 fear he would be equally unsuccessful in making 
 out the brief I have mentioned. 
 
 I have often heard Massachusetts lawyers speak 
 of the strong prejudice which Mr. Choate soon en 
 countered from the older and more conspicuous 
 members of the profession after his advent at the 
 Boston bar. The way he had of gaining victories 
 by his brilliant style, his captivating eloquence, 
 his wonderful power over juries, and his new and 
 novel methods of procedure, was deemed an im 
 pertinent departure from the long-established rule 
 and routine. Few could understand his tactics, 
 and more than a few persistently disparaged his 
 talents and attainments, ridiculed his efforts and 
 peculiarities, and sought to annoy and perplex 
 him in court by unusual rudeness. On one occa 
 sion, when he had borne patiently many an un 
 friendly interruption and bitter taunt, some one 
 who was near asked him why he endured such 
 treatment, and why he did not retort. " I shall 
 
AN UNSELFISH MIND, 253 
 
 retort/' he said, " by getting the case." And he 
 got it. 
 
 Others fitted for the task have^ already, perhaps, 
 given us a satisfactory analysis of Mr. Choate's 
 mind and character. It is not for me to attempt 
 it, and my letter is even now too long. But I 
 cannot forbear adding a word about what has al 
 ways seemed to me one of the very finest of his 
 traits. During my summer sojourn at Beverly, I 
 was a near neighbor of the venerable Dr. Boyden, 
 whose testimony, as that of the only surviving 
 college classmate of the great lawyer, you gave to 
 the public in connection with your last article. In 
 several interviews I had with him, he dwelt much 
 upon the many rare virtues and excellences of his 
 distinguished and life-long friend, and touched 
 particularly upon his generous appreciation of 
 whatever was good in others, and his absolute 
 freedom from all envy and jealousy. Kufus 
 Choate always wished and aimed to excel, but he 
 was glad to see his companions and competitors 
 excel also, and was ever ready to help them in 
 their struggles and toils. He coveted no preemi 
 nence that must be purchased at the cost of those 
 who were striving with him for fame and glory. 
 He had no habit of disparaging his associates or 
 rivals at school, at the bar, in legislative hall, or 
 in the political arena. I can think of only one in- 
 
254 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 stance by way of exception. When Charles Fran 
 cis Adams, during the early years of the Free Soil 
 movement, was pointing the people to the one 
 straight path of duty and safety, Mr. Choate, 
 whose honest views and sympathies and actions 
 took a very different direction, indulged in the 
 sarcasm of referring to John Quincy Adams as the 
 " last of the Adamses." He did not live to see, to 
 the full extent, how unfortunate was the word. 
 For, when the awful conflict came which no ora 
 torical gifts or skillful compromises could avert, 
 and the peerless magician of the courts and of 
 popular assemblies had himself forever quit the 
 stage, it was that same son of the " old man elo 
 quent " who, through long and perilous years, 
 rendered his country a service abroad which his 
 tory will claim as scarcely inferior, in measure 
 and value, to any that was performed by the 
 wisest and best of our statesmen at home. 
 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 A. P. PUTNAM. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. ENOCH L. FANCHER. 
 
 THE following was received from the Hon. 
 Enoch L. Fancher : 
 
 MR. CHOATE AND THE METHODIST CHURCH CASE. 
 
 One of the most important cases of my early 
 practice was the so-called Methodist Church case. 
 It was brought by Henry M. Bascom and others, 
 as commissioners and representatives of the M. E. 
 Church South, against the commissioners of the 
 M. E. Church and the agents of its Book Concern 
 in the city of New York. 
 
 The suit was tried at New York, in the United 
 States Circuit Court, before Judges Nelson and 
 Betts, in May, 1851. 
 
 Previous to the trial, I went to Boston to en 
 gage Mr. Choate as counsel for the defendants, 
 and to acquaint him with the facts and questions 
 involved in the case. After a brief interview at 
 his office, an appointment was made by Mr. 
 Choate, according to which the Rev. Dr. George 
 Peck, one of the defendants, and myself were to 
 
256 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 meet him at his residence at four o'clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Dr. Peck and myself were punctual to the en 
 gagement, and Mr. Choate received us in his li 
 brary, which comprises the entire second story of 
 his residence, shelved to the ceiling, with trans 
 verse cases, all filled with books, through which 
 you wound as in a labyrinth. There were all the 
 Greek authors, most of the Latin, a large collec 
 tion of law books, and a well-selected collection of 
 miscellaneous works of every description. 
 
 In one of the passages between the cases stood 
 a high desk, at which Mr. Choate stationed him 
 self, drawing his hand and arm, as he wrote, as 
 high as the shoulder. On a lounge, near by, my 
 companion and myself were seated, and from four 
 till ten o'clock, deducting an interval of about 
 thirty minutes for tea, we were plied with ques 
 tions from Mr. Choate, while he scrawled in quaint 
 hieroglyphics what we supposed he intended as 
 answers to the queries propounded. His eye di 
 lated, his voice grew tremulous, his lips quivered, 
 and his great frame seemed to shake with the 
 thoughts whose symbols were so strangely re 
 corded. He would at times cry out, " Stop there," 
 holding up his left hand till he had written what 
 he desired ; then, dropping the hand, would say in 
 tones as musical as a flute, " Go right on, give me 
 
THE METHODIST CHURCH CASE. 257 
 
 all of that view." Occasionally pausing, he would 
 add, " This is the greatest case I ever studied ; I 
 want you to leave with me every scrap of brief 
 you have made." I left him with no doubt that 
 he fully understood the whole case, and had en 
 listed in it strange enthusiasm. 
 
 Subsequently he visited me at my residence in 
 New York, when he reviewed, with masterly abil 
 ity, the general features of the great controversy 
 between the Church South and the M. E. Church ; 
 and asked further questions concerning the case, 
 which seemed to arouse his ardent energies. 
 
 During the long trial of the case he became 
 ill ; and one day was obliged to leave the court 
 room and go to his hotel. He charged me to 
 take down every word of Mr. Lord's argument, 
 and to bring to him the notes of it in the even 
 ing. I found him in bed with a physician present, 
 who told him he should prescribe calomel. " How 
 large a dose have you been accustomed to ? " 
 asked the physician. "I don't know," replied 
 Mr. Choate, " but give me the largest dose you 
 ever gave a man in your life ! " 
 
 On account of his illness, the court was ad 
 journed from Friday to Monday; and, on the 
 morning of the latter day, Mr. Choate came into 
 court looking wan and showing signs of his indis 
 position. He began to speak, evidently in wea- 
 
 17 
 
258 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 riness, but growing stronger as he continued ; 
 and, thenceforward, all that day and for the most 
 of the next day he poured forth strains of elo 
 quence and argumentative power that I have 
 never heard rivaled. His brief was a mass of 
 loose letter sheets, on which, in his peculiar chi- 
 rography, he had jotted down in dashes, trammels, 
 hooks, quavers, and quail-tracks, such memoranda 
 of the case as seemed, from his argument, to cover 
 the whole controversy. The rain fell from his 
 bushy locks ; his voice (I never heard such a 
 voice) kept tone to the rhythm of his eloquence 
 and power of his argument. No man living could 
 have excelled him in that speech. 
 
 In his opening remarks, full of pathos and 
 beauty, he deprecated the events of " sad and 
 singular interest " that had led to the dismem 
 berment of the great Methodist Church, and ven 
 tured the expression of the hope that if the steps 
 the plaintiff had taken should turn out to be " un 
 profitable as well as devious," it would be easier 
 to retrace them. " Many times," said he, " I re 
 member the historian tells us, many times, the 
 alienating states of Greece had all but made up 
 their minds to discontinue the common consulta 
 tion of the Oracle of Delphi, and seek for the will 
 of Jove in divers local temples ; and they would 
 have done so had not the impracticability of par- 
 
THE METHODIST CHURCH CASE. 259 
 
 titioning the treasures which the piety of so 
 many generations had gathered on the charmed, 
 neutral ground necessitated a salutary delay." 
 
 His whole argument was one of triumphant 
 vigor ; and had it been made thirty years later, 
 when the sentiments that ruled courts and judges 
 on the Southern question had come to a sounder 
 basis, it would have been successful. No judge, 
 with his eye on the presidency, could, at that day, 
 be convinced by the eloquence of a Choate or the 
 logic of a Plato, if that conviction resulted in a 
 judgment against the South. The great North 
 was, however, right that day, though the Court 
 gave the palm of victory to the South. 
 
 After the stenographer had written out the 
 speech of Mr. Choate, I mailed it, directed to him 
 at Boston, with the request that he would correct 
 and return it, as it was intended to preserve a full 
 history of the case and of the arguments as well. 
 He returned it without the correction of a word, 
 writing me a humorous and interesting letter. A 
 filibuster, named Lopez, had, just before, set sail 
 with an expedition against Cuba. Mr. Choate 
 wrote that he had not found time to correct the 
 speech, and probably would not find time to do 
 so, " until Lopez hoisted his piratical flag over 
 Havana ! " 
 
 When the question of what should be the char- 
 
260 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 acter of the Smithsonian Institution was under 
 discussion in the Senate of the United States, Mr. 
 Choate, who had been lately made a senator for 
 Massachusetts in place of Mr. Webster, promoted 
 to the cabinet, took part in the debate. He 
 made, as I was told by the late Dr. Bishop, who 
 was present, the great speech of the occasion. 
 He ranged over the field of literature, and por 
 trayed the beneficent influence of literary institu 
 tions, and claimed for the Smithsonian a founda 
 tion of broad character. Senators crowded around 
 him to listen to the new wonder ; and, as he re 
 sumed his seat, Calhoun, who stood near, leaning 
 on the back of a chair, exclaimed to some sena 
 tors, " Massachusetts sent us a Webster, but, in 
 the name of heaven, whom have they sent us 
 now ? " 
 
 I do not shrink from recording my deliberate 
 opinion that Rufus Choate was the greatest law 
 yer and the most eloquent orator of his time. 
 Probably, as a belles lettres scholar he had no 
 superior ; while the vast range of his rich and 
 copious vocabulary was equaled only by the vocal 
 music that charmed it, and that wonderful play 
 of thought that set both in motion. Under his 
 magic wand, 
 
 " A brighter emerald^ twinkled in the grass, 
 A deeper sapphire melted in the sea." 
 
LETTER FROM HON. GEORGE W. NESMITH. 
 
 THE Honorable George W. Nesmith, late one of 
 the justices of the Supreme Court of New Hamp 
 shire, who was in college with Mr. Choate and 
 was his confidential friend afterwards, has had the 
 kindness to send me this paper : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I confess it would be a hope 
 less task for me to delineate the character of Ru- 
 fus Choate. You have given, in your own fin 
 ished style, a concise, yet comprehensive, view of 
 what he was and did, and you have been aided by 
 those who saw and heard him more frequently 
 than myself. Yet I will place my memory at 
 your service. 
 
 I knew him well while at college. Our ac 
 quaintance commenced in 1816. He was one 
 year in advance of me in collegiate standing and 
 in age. I belonged to the same literary society 
 with him for three years, and remember with 
 pleasure his leadership there. During my last 
 year at college he was a tutor. 
 
262 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 After graduation we lived a hundred miles 
 apart. I frequently saw him when I visited Bos 
 ton, had interviews with him, and occasionally 
 heard him in courts of justice. I was with him 
 in the Whig presidential conventions at the nomi 
 nations of General Taylor, at Philadelphia, and of 
 General Scott, at Baltimore. At both conven 
 tions we supported Mr. Webster as a candidate. 
 I afterwards heard his famous eulogy upon Mr. 
 Webster. A short time before his death, I had 
 an interesting conversation with him, in which he 
 announced the unwelcome intelligence that his 
 physicians had notified him to quit all labor and 
 to take a sea voyage, as this offered the only 
 hope of recruiting his feeble bodily frame. 
 
 The only reminiscence of his college life which 
 occurs to me as not already narrated by your cor 
 respondents was an amusing practical joke perpe 
 trated by him and some other students. They 
 exchanged potatoes for apples in the sole remain 
 ing sack of a farmer of the name of Johnson, 
 from Norwich, and then induced Johnson to offer 
 the contents of the sack for sale at the college. 
 A purchase was made by the students who had 
 been notified of his approach, and then, upon 
 opening the sack, an outcry was raised against 
 Johnson for attempted imposition. Protestations 
 of innocence were met with ridicule, and sug- 
 
EARLY EXHORTATION. 263 
 
 gestions of the interference of the Evil One. 
 Choate, standing in front of Johnson, amused at 
 the perplexity depicted upon his countenance, 
 exclaimed, " Would that Hogarth were here ! " 
 Johnson caught at the name with suspicion, and 
 afterward offered to reward us if we would tell 
 where Hogarth was to be found. 
 
 One of Choate's most eloquent and effective 
 speeches was delivered in his senior year at col 
 lege, in the autumn of 1818, while acting as presi- ' 
 dent of our literary society. It was upon the 
 occasion of the introduction of many members 
 from the Freshman class. The custom of presi 
 dents of the association had been to make a brief 
 formal speech, setting forth the objects of the so 
 ciety and the duties of its members, and that was 
 all we expected. We were surprised by a well 
 prepared and eloquent address of considerable 
 length. At that time he was in vigorous health 
 and full of energy. The silvery tones of his voice, 
 resounding through our little hall, kept the as 
 sembly spell-bound while he discoursed upon those 
 elements of character essential to the formation of 
 the ripe scholar and the useful citizen. The late 
 Chief Justice Perley was one of the young men 
 then made members of the society of " Social 
 Friends." In after-life I often heard him allude, 
 in terms of high commendation, to that perform- 
 
264 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ance. On the following day I undertook to note 
 down in a little scrap-book some of the thoughts 
 to which Choate had given utterance, although 
 I could not reproduce the brilliant language in 
 which they were expressed. I give some of those 
 memoranda : 
 
 " To make the successful scholar, patient, con 
 stant, well-directed labor is an absolute requisite." 
 " He must aim at reaching the highest standard 
 of excellence of character. Good mental endow 
 ments must be allied to conscience, truthfulness, 
 manliness. In the affairs of life, brains are essen 
 tial, but truth, or heart, more so." " Not genius 
 so much as sound principles, regulated by good 
 discretion, commands success. We often see men 
 exercise an amount of influence out of all pro 
 portion to their intellectual capacities, because, 
 by their steadfast honesty and probity, they 
 command the respect of those who know them. 
 George Herbert says, ' A handful of good life is 
 worth a bushel of learning.' Burns' father's ad 
 vice to his son was good, 
 
 1 He bade me act the manly part, 
 Though I had ne'er a farthing, 
 For, without an honest, manly heart, 
 No man was worth regarding.' 
 
 "A critic said of Kichard Brinsley Sheridan, 
 that, if he- had possessed reliableness of character, 
 
MORAL FIRMNESS. 265 
 
 he might have ruled the world ; but, for want of 
 it, his splendid gifts were comparatively useless. 
 Burke was a man of transcendent gifts, but the 
 defect in his character was want of moral firmness 
 and good temper. To succeed in life we must not 
 only be conscientious, we must have also energy 
 of will, a strong determination to do manly 
 work for ourselves and others. The strong man 
 channels his own path, and easily persuades others 
 to walk in it." " When "Washington took com 
 mand of the American army, the country felt as 
 if its forces had been doubled. So, when Chat 
 ham was appointed Prime Minister in England, 
 great confidence was created in the government." 
 "After General Greene had been driven out of 
 South Carolina by Cornwallis, having fought the 
 battle of Guilford Court House, he exclaimed, ' I 
 will now recover South Carolina, or die in the at 
 tempt.' It was this stern mental resolve that en 
 abled him to succeed." " Every student should 
 improve his opportunities to cultivate his powers. 
 He owes this duty to his friends, his instructors, 
 and his country. Our learned men are the hope 
 and strength of the nation. ' They stamp the 
 epochs of national life with their own greatness/ 
 They give character to our laws and shape our in 
 stitutions, found new industries, carve out new 
 careers for the commerce and labor f)f society; 
 
266 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 they are, in fact, the salt of the earth, in life as 
 well as in death. Constituting, as they do, the 
 vital force of a nation and its very life-blood, 
 their example becomes a continual stimulant and 
 encouragement, to every young man who has aspi 
 rations for a higher station or the higher honors 
 of society. Now, my brethren and young friends, 
 we beseech you to strive earnestly to excel in this 
 honorable race for just fame and true glory, and 
 in your efforts to mount up upon the fabled lad 
 der do not be found, in the spirit of envy, pulling 
 any above you down, but rather, in the exercise 
 of a more liberal spirit, holding out a helping hand 
 to a worthy brother who may be struggling below 
 you. Be assured you exalt yourselves in propor 
 tion as you raise up the humbler ones." 
 
 The second part of his discourse was specially 
 devoted to the pleasure and rewards derived from 
 an intimate acquaintance with classical learning. 
 His suggestions were valuable and impressive, and 
 urged home upon our attention with great rhe 
 torical force. If this speech had been published, 
 it would have furnished the young student with a 
 profitable guide in his pursuit of knowledge. 
 
 Mr. Choate has been rightly described to you 
 as an original nondescript. He was like no other 
 person in his style of writing, or in his oratory. 
 He perceived quickly and acquired rapidly. He 
 
FASHIONED FOR A POET. 267 
 
 possessed a retentive memory, appropriating to 
 himself readily the thoughts of others. To his 
 able reasoning powers he united an imagina 
 tion " richly perfumed from Carmel's flowery top," 
 powerful, soaring, unbounded. He seemed to 
 have been fashioned for a poet. He remarked to 
 me one day that he loved poetry, but poetry did 
 not love him. 
 
 As to temper, he was always indulgent and 
 kind, speaking evil of none. In his daily inter 
 course with others, he was courteous and liberal 
 to a fault. He was naturally gentle ; but, when 
 pressed hard, was capable of inflicting blows that 
 left an impression. I once heard him deal with a 
 bad witness in court. He did not call him hard 
 names, but covered him over with an oily sar 
 casm so deep that the jury did not care to look 
 after him. In other words, the witness was slain 
 politely, and laid out to dry. 
 
 Not far from the year 1845, the Hon. Levi 
 Woodbury was invited by the literary societies of 
 Dartmouth College to deliver an oration at the an 
 nual Commencement in July. Going thither, I 
 had a seat in the stage coach with Mr. Webster, 
 Mr. Woodbury, and Mr. Choate. A good oppor 
 tunity was presented of witnessing their conversa 
 tional powers. Mr. Webster and Judge Woodbury 
 had for many years resided in Portsmouth, N. H., 
 
268 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 and topics relative to men and scenes there were 
 much discussed by them. Of course I could not 
 but be an interested listener. The early history 
 of our State, the character of the settlers, their 
 leaders, their privations and sufferings by reason 
 of Indian warfare, the character of our early gov 
 ernors, and the growth of the State, with historical 
 reminiscences and anecdotes, were introduced. I 
 was surprised to find that Mr. Choate was so fa 
 miliar with our early history as to give dates and 
 events with accuracy. By easy transitions they 
 passed to the judiciary of the State and the mem 
 bers of the bar, discussing their respective merits. 
 On these local subjects the New Hampshire men, 
 of course, had the vantage ground. Wishing to 
 give new direction, therefore, to the conversation, 
 I asked Mr. Choate as to his later reading. He 
 answered that he had recently been occupied in 
 the perusal of Milton's prose and poetry. Mr. 
 Webster said to him, " As you are so recently out 
 of Paradise, will you tell me something about the 
 talk that Adam and Eve had before and after the 
 fall ? " Mr. Choate asked, Do you intend that as 
 a challenge to me ? " Webster answered, " Yes, I 
 do." Choate hereupon recited promptly portions 
 of the addresses of Adam to Eve, and Eve to 
 Adam, much to the edification of his audience. 
 Webster rejoined with the description of the con- 
 
ESTIMATE OF HUMAN GLORY. 269 
 
 flict between Gabriel and Satan, from the sixth 
 book of " Paradise Lost." His recitation was re 
 ceived with applause. John Milton himself, had 
 he been present, would have been satisfied with 
 the performers on that occasion. We had seen 
 celebrated actors on the stage, but none before 
 like those in the stage. 
 
 At my last interview with Mr. Choate in Boston, 
 after alluding to his incessant and severe labor at 
 the bar for many years, he said he was literally 
 worn out, and added, in a melancholy way, " I 
 have cared much more for others than for my 
 self ; I have spent my strength for naught." I re 
 minded him that he had gained high reputation 
 in his profession, and also as a scholar, and that 
 this was his reward. He said, " We used to read 
 that this kind of fame was but an empty bubble ; 
 now I know it is nothing else." Such was Mr. 
 Choate's estimate of human glory when con 
 sciously near the termination of his eventful and 
 honored life. He added, " My light here is soon 
 to be extinguished. I think often of the grave. 
 I am animated by the hope of that glorious im 
 mortality to be enjoyed in a kingdom where sin 
 and sorrow cannot come." 
 
 I remain, very respectfully, etc., 
 
 GEO. W. NESMITH. 
 To HON. Jos. NEILSON. 
 
LETTERS FROM HON. WILLIAM STRONG. 
 
 ALTHOUGH not written for publication, I am per 
 mitted, upon my special request, to give the fol 
 lowing portions of letters received from the Hon. 
 William Strong, Associate Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTER OF JANUARY 30, 1877. 
 
 " I read twice, carefully, Trevelyan's < Life of 
 Macaulay ' immediately after its publication in 
 this country. I had previously read Mr. Brown's 
 charming biography of Mr. Choate, and read it, I 
 believe, more than once. Until your article in the 
 ' Albany Law Journal ' appeared, it had not oc 
 curred to me to compare the two men, and even 
 now I find it difficult to compare them. In my 
 judgment, they were very unlike. Undoubtedly 
 there were some particulars in which they resem 
 bled each other. Both had remarkable powers 
 of memory, but Macaulay 's was rather the mem 
 ory of words, while Choate's was that of ideas 
 as well as of words. Each of them had a large 
 
A SPARING GIVER. 271 
 
 element of the dramatic. Each was a natural 
 poet. Each was a man of great industry and of 
 brilliant accomplishments. But here the resem 
 blance seems to me to cease. Considering that 
 Macaulay was free from the cares and pressures of 
 a profession, and, indeed, from any demands that 
 interfered with his entire devotion to any subject 
 that interested him, he gave comparatively little 
 to society and to the world. He made a few 
 speeches (not many) in the House of Commons. 
 He wrote a few reviews and essays. He wrote 
 some pretty poetry, and he wrote his ' History of 
 England.' He prepared also (with much help) his 
 Indian Code. All these things were well done ; 
 most of them were brilliant. They were, and they 
 will long continue to be r very readable. But 
 every one of them was the product of long and 
 uninterrupted labor ; written and re-written again 
 and again, and never permitted to go from him 
 until he had expended upon it his best culture and 
 his highest power. We see, therefore, in Trevel- 
 yan's Life, Macaulay at his best, and only on the 
 very apices of his powers. Choate never had time 
 for such expenditure of labor, and he was less 
 careful of his posthumous reputation. Yet he was 
 at least equally brilliant, more versatile, and far 
 more logical. His style, undressed, is as beautiful 
 as that of Macaulay arrayed in its best costume, 
 
272 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 and his oratorical powers seem to me to have been 
 much higher. His ability to influence and sway 
 other minds has never been surpassed. But I 
 have no time to go into an analysis of Macaulay's 
 and Choate's mental powers, acquisitions, and cul 
 ture." 
 
 " In moral traits the two men are not to be 
 compared. Though Macaulay was tender and lov 
 ing to his mother and sisters, perhaps also to Ellis, 
 he loved himself supremely. Beyond this narrow 
 circle there can hardly be said to have been any 
 who had a place in his heart. He was conspicu 
 ously vain, envious, jealous, and lastingly malig 
 nant. Yet he was a great and brilliant man. But 
 how unlike the great and brilliant American ! " 
 
 " I shall wait for the completion of your articles 
 with much interest, and perhaps I should not have 
 thrown out the crude observations I have made. 
 Yet I will add one remark. Perhaps the mellow 
 ing influence of a cordial acceptance of Christian 
 ity will account for the superior loveliness of Mr. 
 Choate's character over that of Macaulay. Can 
 there be anything more touching than the former's 
 conduct at the baptism of his dying daughter ? " 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTER OF JUNE 16, 1877. 
 
 " I have read with great interest all you have 
 said of Mr. Choate in the 6 Albany Law Journal/ 
 
MUCH TO ADMIRE. 273 
 
 You certainly have no reason to regret the work 
 you have done in bringing before the thought of 
 the country the most remarkable man (in some 
 particulars) who in modern times has appeared in 
 the legal profession. I have admired your analy 
 sis of his character and endowments. You have 
 done a work I should have feared to attempt. 
 There was so much to admire in Mr. Choate, from 
 whatever stand-point one looked at him, that it is 
 difficult to speak the truth of him without expos 
 ure to the charge of exaggeration. His affection 
 and his domestic life how charming ! His sense 
 of honor how keen ! His subjection to the control 
 of high moral principles how complete and con 
 stant ! His imagination how brilliant and chaste ! 
 His logical power how masterly ! His memory 
 how tenacious, and his industry how untiring ! 
 He seems to have united in himself the highest 
 excellences that are generally considered inconsist 
 ent with each other ; for illustration, the power of 
 exact reasoning and of sharp discrimination, with 
 the most playful fancy ; and a devotion to his 
 professional engagements, apparently disdainful of 
 rest, with a ceaseless and demonstrative outflow 
 of the best affections of the heart. He proved 
 that these virtues are not necessarily incongruous. 
 And then where could he have found time for so 
 much classical reading ? Macaulay had no profes- 
 
 18 
 
274 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 sion to which he was tied. His business was to be 
 a reader and a general student. Mr. Choate had 
 enough for a life's work which demanded his first 
 attention, and that work was always done." 
 
LETTER FROM REV. R. S. STORRS, D. D. 
 
 IN this paper the Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D. D., 
 LL. D., pays a becoming tribute to the genius 
 and personality of Mr. Choate. With a profound 
 sense of the harmony that exists between the 
 written and the suggested eulogy, I may be al 
 lowed to say that, while I have often heard old 
 friends of Mr. Choate speak of the magnetic at 
 traction of his voice and manner, of the fascina 
 tion with which others were drawn to him as by 
 some spell not to resisted or forgotten, I never 
 before had so clear a conception of the power of 
 such sovereign qualities. By this paper we are 
 led to think of Mr. Choate as in his old manner ; 
 and, through the mazes of life, study, and service, 
 catch glimpses of him everywhere. We are also 
 reminded that, beyond the skill which may be 
 taught and learned, more natural, vivid, subtile, 
 and enduring ; richer, higher, and holier far than 
 mere outward manifestation, was the 'influence 
 which Mr. Choate exerted in forming the taste 
 and style, strengthening the loyalty, faith, devo- 
 
276 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 tion, and judgment of those who were brought 
 into communion with him. It may also be under 
 stood how one thus favored and impressed can 
 write as if the voice of his long-lost friend could 
 still be heard, as if the clouds and shadows of the 
 intervening time were swept aside, and what is 
 told had occurred but yesterday. 
 
 MY DEAR JUDGE NEILSON, I wish that it were 
 in my power to send you such reminiscences of 
 Mr. Choate as would be worthy to be associated 
 with your excellent articles, and with the interest 
 ing and valuable letters which you are gathering 
 from others. But so many years have passed 
 since I had frequent occasion to meet him, and my 
 thoughts in the long interval have been so closely 
 occupied with the incessant duties of a different 
 profession, that I could hardly hope to furnish 
 anything of incident which other pens have not 
 anticipated, or to add a needed line or tint to your 
 careful picture. It is a pleasure to me, however, 
 and the impulse of a sincere gratitude to one who 
 was kind to me in my youth, and whose genius 
 and spirit were full to me then of a fine inspira 
 tion, to record my sense of the extraordinary gifts 
 of the man, and of his beautiful and unselfish tem 
 per. It will hardly be worth while to print what 
 I write. If it shall give you any suggestion as to 
 
AN IMPRESSION. 277 
 
 how he appeared from my point of view, it will 
 have fully served its purpose. 
 
 I saw Mr. Choate for the first time at Amherst, 
 nearly forty years ago/ I think in 1838, 
 when he tried a case there before referees, his 
 opponent being Hon. Isaac C. Bates, then of 
 Northampton. Mr. Bates wa;s a man of great 
 personal dignity and grace, as well as of com 
 manding ability, whom it was always delightful 
 to see and to hear ; but one of the faculty of the 
 college had incidentally said to me that this Mr. 
 Choate was a man who should have been a Greek 
 professor, but who somehow had wandered into 
 the law, and my curiosity was keenly excited to 
 see one who read Plato or Demosthenes "with 
 his feet on the fender," and who still conde 
 scended to argue questions of contracts, usury, 
 and the title to lands. The details of his argu 
 ment have long since passed from my recollection ; 
 but I remember, as if it had been yesterday, the 
 power which he showed in the cross-examination 
 of some specially shrewd and stubborn witnesses, 
 the vigor and rapidity of his argumentation, the 
 force of his invective, and the exceeding beauty 
 of two or three swift touches of description with 
 which he fairly illuminated the landscape, with 
 some of whose crooked boundary-lines his argu- 
 
 1 Written in 1877. 
 
278 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ment was concerned. Tones of his voice which I 
 then heard are still in my ear; and the unique 
 and mysterious enchantment of his presence his 
 curling locks, dark as the raven's wing ; his weird, 
 sad, unworldly eyes; a certain remote and solitary 
 air which seemed to invest him stirred my im 
 agination, fastened to him my wondering thought. 
 I was reminded of the personal effect then pro 
 duced on me, when standing, many years after, in 
 the Florentine chapel, before the darkening mar 
 ble of the famous statue of Duke Lorenzo, whose 
 face 
 
 " Is lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, 
 It fascinates, and is intolerable." 
 
 Mr. Choate's appearance, at that time in his 
 life, was potent as a spell over young imagina 
 tions. It chained the eye, and haunted the mem 
 ory. One longed, yet almost feared, to know him. 
 He appeared to my fancy a sort of Oriental emir, 
 hardly at home in our strange land, who would 
 have spoken with more abundant natural freedom 
 in one of the great Semitic dialects, and among 
 whose treasures there must be no end of jewels, 
 spiceries, and inestimable mails. 
 
 I afterwards heard him many times : in his 
 eulogy on President Harrison, for example, in 
 Faneuil Hall, in 1841 ; in several of his political 
 speeches, at one of which> in Boston, I remem- 
 
A STUDENT AT LAW. 279 
 
 ber still his glancing description of the recent 
 nomination of Briggs and Keed for governor and 
 lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, as fitly rep 
 resenting the State in its completeness, " Berk 
 shire and Cape Cod, the mighty backbone and the 
 strong right-arm of the old Commonwealth." I 
 heard him on one Fourth of July at Concord, 
 when he followed Webster, Berrien, and others, 
 in an address of extraordinary force and splendor, 
 which fairly whirled upon its feet one of the most 
 exacting assemblies that I remember to have seen. 
 I not infrequently heard him in court, though not, 
 as it happened, in any one of the causes celdbres 
 with which his public fame is conspicuously con 
 nected. I heard his magnificent eulogy on Web 
 ster, at Hanover, in 1853 ; and I met him for the 
 last time, I think, at Salem, in 1856, when his 
 genius, wit, and kindly courtesy were as abound 
 ing and delightful as ever, though the shadows on 
 his face and the unfathomed pathos of his eye 
 were as impressive as anything ever seen on coun 
 tenance or canvas. 
 
 In the autumn of 1840, 1 was received by Mr. 
 Choate as a student in his office, though circum 
 stances forbade, at the time, my residence in Bos 
 ton. Early in 1841, he was elected to the na 
 tional Senate, as the successor of Mr. Webster; 
 and I thenceforth saw him only occasionally, 
 
280 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 though for the following year and a half I was all 
 the time pursuing my studies under his direction, 
 and at intervals reporting my progress to him. I 
 really knew him better, I think, after this tran 
 sient connection with his office had ceased than 
 while it continued ; and the thought has been a 
 pleasant one to ine that the church of which I 
 have long been the pastor took an impulse to its 
 formation from that transcendent address of his 
 in New York, in 1843, of which Mr. Van Cott has 
 eloquently written. 
 
 The instant and eager boyish admiration with 
 which I at first regarded Mr. Choate gave place, 
 as I knew him, and as my own mind advanced to 
 ward maturity, to a more discriminating yet more 
 profound sense of his varied and prodigal intel 
 lectual gifts. I can but repeat what others have 
 said. My only excuse for repeating it at all is 
 that you have asked me, and that my impression 
 is not copied from others, but was individual and 
 received at first-hand. 
 
 He was a scholar by instinct and by the deter 
 mining force of his nature. All forms of high 
 intellectual activity had charm and reward for his 
 sympathetic and splendid intelligence. He espe 
 cially delighted, however, in history, philosophy, 
 eloquence, and tlfe immense riches of the ancient 
 literature. His library was peopled to him with 
 
HIS RELISH FOR STUDY. 281 
 
 living minds. The critical and august procedures 
 in history were as evident to him as processions in 
 the streets. No inspiring and majestic voice had 
 spoken from Athenian bema, in Roman forum, in 
 English Parliament whose vital words, even whose 
 tones, did not still echo in his ear. He would 
 have made a Greek professor, elegant in scholar 
 ship, rich in acquisition, energetic and liberal in 
 instruction. I am not aware that he ever made 
 special study of theology. He simply took it up, 
 I think, with a literary interest, when its great 
 discussions came in his way ; yet Professor Park 
 once said of him, after a half day's conversation, 
 that " If he had not been the first lawyer of his 
 time, he might have been its most eminent theo 
 logian." (It is only fair to add that Mr. Choate, 
 knowing nothing of this remark, said to the same 
 gentleman Mr. Lawrence, then of Andover, 
 that " If Professor Park had not been the great 
 theologian that he was, he would have surpassed 
 any man whom he knew at the American bar.") 
 
 His relish for thought, and for the powerful ex 
 pression of thought in the most fit and admirable 
 words was only matured by his life-long habit. 
 From the crowd in the court-room, the pressure 
 of cases, the pursuit of clients, and all the ele 
 ments and the incidents of suits, still quivering 
 with the excitement which had searched every 
 
282 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 nerve in his throbbing frame, he retreated to the 
 authors, ancient and modern, in whom he de 
 lighted; and it was as if he had changed the 
 noisy world for another, more serene and exalt 
 ing. There were the bloom and the music that 
 he loved, the clearer lights on statelier shores, the 
 spirits that touched his to expand and renew it. 
 He could not go to the White Mountains, on a 
 four-days' journey, without taking with him a 
 trunkful of books. He was simply true to his 
 consciousness in saying that, if he were to go to 
 Newport for pleasure without his books, he should 
 hang himself before evening. 
 
 Yet, with his instinctive delight in learning, and 
 in the commerce with illustrious minds to which it 
 introduced him, with the accumulating acquisitions 
 with which it enriched him, and the constant im 
 pressions upon his own intellect which came from 
 eminent orators and thinkers, he retained, abso 
 lutely, the native peculiarities of a genius as gen 
 uine, and certainly as striking, as has anywhere 
 appeared among American public men. You 
 have contrasted him with Macaulay. But in one 
 respect they were certainly alike. Both " carried 
 lightly their load of learning." His mental eye 
 was as fine as a microscope for almost impercep 
 tible distinctions. He penetrated instantly, with 
 affirmative insight, to the secret of entangled and 
 
HIS IMAGINATION. 283 
 
 complex matters. His logical faculty was as keen 
 and expert as if he had never done anything else 
 but state and argue questions of law in the courts. 
 His memory had a grasp, which was utterly re 
 lentless, on any principle, fact, or phrase ; while 
 his judgment was as prompt, within its limits as 
 sagacious, as if he had never heard of Greek par 
 ticles and never had read a Latin page. But the 
 imagination was certainly supreme in him ; while 
 his fancy was also as sparkling and exuberant as 
 if no argument had ever been wrought by him in 
 its constraining and infrangible links. This made 
 his mind not only stimulating but startling, abun 
 dant in surprises, suddenly radiant on far themes. 
 He said nothing in a commonplace way. A flash 
 of unfamiliar beauty and power was in his slight 
 and casual remarks. The reports of some of them 
 are still, I suspect, as current in court-rooms as 
 when he lived ; while, on the larger historical or 
 philosophical subjects, his sentences, now and 
 then, were as literal sunbursts, enlightening half 
 a continent with their gleam. He said as little, 
 I should think, as any man who ever lived, of 
 like culture and equal eminence, on the supreme 
 matters of God, destiny, immortality ; but I can 
 easily understand, what I used to be told, that, 
 when in rare and preeminent moods he touched 
 these topics, among intimate friends, his words 
 
284 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 were to the usual words of men on similar sub 
 jects as superb, tropical passion-flowers among the 
 duller, common growths, purple and golden in 
 their hues, while inclosing at their heart memorial 
 signs of the Divine sadness. 
 
 With this sensitive, vigorous, and various gen 
 ius, and these large acquisitions, Mr. Choate 
 threw himself, with all the energy of his strenuous 
 will, into his chosen profession of the law. He 
 loved it, and he idealized it. He was proud of 
 its history ; he exulted in its great names. The 
 law was to him the expression of the highest jus 
 tice of the state, enlightened and directed by its 
 instructed and intuitive reason. It essentially con 
 cerned, therefore, the moral life of communities 
 and of centuries. It had immense historical re 
 lations. As obtaining among us, for example, it 
 was the impalpable, vital presence which con 
 nected our recent, fragmentary history, our cir 
 cumscribed American life, with the great life of 
 England, and with its renowned and crowded an 
 nals, back to the time of Edward the Confessor 
 and " the common folk-right of the realm ; " back, 
 indeed, to the days of King Alfred. He meant 
 to be master of it, by the most exact, profound, 
 indefatigable study of statutes, cases, and the prin 
 ciples they involved. I perfectly remember how 
 this sovereign and far-reaching view of the law 
 
LOVE FOR THE LAW. 285 
 
 impressed my thought, and stirred my enthusiasm, 
 when I first talked with him; how fundamental 
 it was in the scheme of study which he outlined 
 before me ; how incessantly it reappeared, when 
 ever I met him. He was at one time, certainly, a 
 most searching and systematic student of the vast 
 Roman law ; and no novel ever fastened the eyes 
 of its readers as did any book which illustrated 
 the principles, the practice, or the history of the 
 law, the eyes and mind of Mr. Choate. He loved 
 to regard it as radically grounded, with whatever 
 imperfections, in the enduring cosmical equities, 
 deriving from them its virtue and validity. The 
 country had to him historical importance as the 
 home of a matured and ubiquitous law, guarding 
 the weak, avenging the humble, restraining while 
 protecting the wealthiest and highest. The colo 
 nization of the country was impressive to him, not 
 so much for its picturesque incidents as because it 
 had brought hither this great inheritance of rights 
 and of rules, acquired through ages. The magis 
 trates of the law were venerable to him, however 
 plainly inferior to himself in ability and learning. 
 The courts were temples of order and justice. He 
 spoke only the feeling of his life when he said 
 before the legislative committee, " I never read, 
 without a thrill of sublime emotion, the conclud 
 ing words of the Bill of Rights, < to the end 
 
286 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 that this may be a government of law, and not 
 of men/ " 
 
 The application of the law to cases requiring 
 careful adjudication was, therefore, to him a mat 
 ter of real and serious importance. In connection 
 with it he recoiled from no labor, and was impa 
 tient of no details. The most trivial incidents 
 became critical and grave when they furnished 
 occasions for declaring and administering those 
 permanent rules of social order which had been 
 elaborated through centuries of years, for which 
 brave men had fought and suffered, and which 
 had their fruit in the peace of the state, as they 
 had their life in the supreme ethical harmonies. 
 
 I do not at all mean to imply that he was not 
 intensely ambitious of success, in whatever cause 
 he undertook. Certainly he was ; and the fervid 
 passion grew with his growth, was more eager 
 after each victory, became most intense when 
 his famous successes had prejudiced juries, made 
 judges wary if not hostile, and rendered future 
 similar victories almost impossible. Indeed, his 
 normal rule of practice distinctly was, that each 
 party should present his case in its fullest strength, 
 with whatsoever could make it persuasive ; so 
 that out of the sharpest possible collisions of argu 
 ment and of testimony the final result might be 
 deduced. He thought of his client, and of no- 
 
THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW. 287 
 
 body else, when he stood for him before a tribu 
 nal. Everything that could possibly serve that 
 client commanded, thereby, his zealous approval. 
 Everything that threatened him was somehow 
 or other to be overcome. If the floor of the 
 court-room had fallen beneath him, unless it ad 
 stunned him, I am sure that it would not have 
 beaten from his mind the thought of his case for 
 more than a minute. But in spite of this he had, 
 when I knew him, an ideal sense of the majesty 
 of the law, of its moral dignity, and its historical 
 office, which gave an undertone, delicate and 
 grand, to all his common professional work. He 
 could not have labored with that intensity which 
 was constant with him, except for this inspiriting 
 force ; yet I have no idea that he ever knowingly 
 misrepresented a principle of the law to serve the 
 client, who was to him, for the passing moment, as 
 his own life. Governor Bullock once mentioned to 
 me an incident which came under his notice when 
 Webster and Choate were antagonists before the 
 court. Mr. Choate had lucidly, with great em 
 phasis, stated the law. Mr. Webster than whom 
 a greater master of attitude, gesture, and facial 
 expression never lived turned on him the gaze 
 of his great eye, as if in mournful, despairing re 
 monstrance against such a sad and strange per 
 version. " That is the law, may it please your 
 
288 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Honor/' thundered Mr. Choate, catching the 
 glance, advancing a step, and looking full in Web 
 ster's face, " That is the law, in spite of the ad 
 monishing, the somewhat paternal look in the eye 
 of my illustrious friend." * And it was the law, 
 as affirmed by the court. 
 
 The fervent enthusiasm with which Mr. Choate 
 devoted himself to the trial of his cases could 
 only be understood by those who recognized the 
 genius of the man, craving exercise and excite 
 ment, his culture supplying him with unmeasured 
 resources, and the admiration which he felt for the 
 law, with its magistrates and tribunals. It had 
 little to do with fees or with applause. It was 
 sometimes shown in the unnoticed case, in the 
 small back-office of some referee, with no audience 
 present, as fully as in the echoing court-room, on 
 a grand field-day. I never heard of a mind of 
 such compass as his, so energetic and so affluent, 
 which heated so quickly. It was like a superb 
 Corliss engine, driven for days with a bushel of 
 coal. The mere attrition of any case, where the 
 
 1 Such dainty and humorous use of words was constant with him. 
 " When I had been two days on the Ehine," he said to me at Han 
 over, " I knew "the whole river perfectly; couldn't have known it 
 better if I 'd been drowned in it." A reputation which had been 
 damaged in the courts was, "to make the best of it, sadly tene- 
 brious." His "overworked participle," his description of the wit 
 ness testifying, in a case where a tailor was concerned, " with an eye 
 to pantaloons in the distance," etc., are well-known. 
 
HIS ENTHUSIASM. 289 
 
 facts were in doubt and the principles obscure, 
 was enough to set his whole force in activity. 
 And the enthusiasm, so easily enkindled, was as 
 enduring as it was instantaneous. It almost liter 
 ally knew no limit. It saw every difficulty, faced 
 every juridical danger, snatched every instrument 
 of impression, watched the face of every juror, 
 took instant suggestion from the eye or even 
 the attitude of the judge, felt the subtile force 
 of the general feeling pervading the court-room, 
 kept all the facts and all the principles incessantly 
 in mind, transfigured them all in the radiance of 
 genius,, and shot his vivid interpretation of all 
 upon the jury, in the most plausible, deferential, 
 captivating, commanding utterance which even 
 lips so skilled and practiced could attain. Weak 
 ness, languor, sickness itself vanished before this 
 invincible spirit. Haggard, wan, after a night of 
 sleepless suffering, his throat sore, his head throb 
 bing, swathed in flannels, buried under overcoats, 
 with wrappings around his neck, a bandage on his 
 knee, a blister on his chest, when he rose for his 
 argument all facts reported by witnesses in the 
 case, all the related and governing precedents, all 
 legal principles bearing upon it, all passages of 
 history, letters, life, that might illustrate his argu 
 ment or confound his antagonists seemed visibly 
 present to his mind. He thought of nothing but 
 
 19 
 
290 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 jury and verdict. His eloquence was then as 
 completely independent of technical rule as are 
 screams of passion, or the shouts of a mob. He 
 was after a favorable decision of the case, as if 
 his own life depended on it. Short, sharp, shat 
 tering words rattled like volleys before and after 
 resounding sentences. Language heaped on his 
 lips. Images, delicate, homely, startling, blazed 
 upon his pictured words. The common court 
 room became a scene of the most astonishing 
 intellectual action. Judge Shaw looked at him 
 as he might have looked at the firm-set heavens, 
 glittering with meteors. The farmers, mechanics, 
 traders, on the jury, were seized, swept forward, 
 stormed upon, with an utterance so unbounded in 
 variety and energy, sometimes so pathetic, some 
 times so quaint, sometimes so grotesque, always so 
 controlling and impellent, as only his hearers ever 
 had heard. The velocity of his speech was almost 
 unparalleled, yet the poise of his mind was as 
 undisturbed as that of the planet ; and each vague 
 doubt, in either mind, was recognized and com 
 bated, unconscious prejudices were delicately con 
 ciliated, each tendency toward his view of the 
 case was encouraged and confirmed, each leaning 
 toward his opponent was found out and fought, 
 with a skill which other men toiled after in vain, 
 which seemed in him a strange inspiration. 
 
HIS COURTESY. 291 
 
 No wonder that he sometimes wrenched the 
 verdict from unwilling hands, in cases which 
 looked to outsiders as desperate as Bonaparte's 
 charge upon the bridge of Arcola ! No wonder 
 that his profession loved and admired him with a 
 fervor of feeling which twenty years have not 
 diminished, and that " grace and renown " were 
 felt to have departed from darkened court-rooms 
 when his incomparable mind and mien were no 
 more present ! No wonder that Mr. R. H. Dana 
 said, in substance, at the meeting of the bar after 
 his death, "The great Conqueror, unseen and 
 irresistible, has broken into our temple, and has 
 carried off the vessels of gold, the vessels of sil 
 ver, the precious stones, and the ivory, and we 
 must content ourselves hereafter with vessels of 
 wood and stone and iron ! " 
 
 I have spoken, my dear Judge, simply of Mr. 
 Choate's intellectual endowments, and of his rare 
 mental equipment, as these impressed me more 
 than thirty years ago. Of the sweet courtesy 
 of his feeling and manner in social life, of his 
 constancy to his friends, his generosity toward 
 his juniors, his unfeigned deference toward the 
 bench, of his unresentful spirit toward assailants, 
 his utter want of political ambition or pecuniary 
 greed, his chivalrous devotion to what he esteemed 
 the best public policy, though it severed him from 
 
292 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 friends and added new shadows to his last years, 
 of his blamelessness of life, especially of his habit 
 ual respect for the Divine Kevelation, and for the 
 house and the ordinances of worship, of these 
 I retain such happy recollections as all those must 
 who chanced then, even slightly, to know him. 
 
 But I have immensely outrun already the in 
 tended limits of my letter, and other pens must 
 delineate these. I have said enough, I am sure, 
 to show you why I am grateful for his influence 
 upon me, which was far greater than he knew, 
 and why though I see the limitations of his 
 mind, and was never in sympathy with some of 
 his opinions I retain his image with a fond 
 ness and a regret that never will cease. I cannot 
 think of him to-day without being braced against 
 any temptation to languor in study or remissness 
 in work ; without feeling afresh the vastness and 
 the charm of that world of thought and of elegant 
 letters in which his spirit rejoiced to expatiate; 
 without being consciously grateful to God that, 
 at the age when I took impressions most readily 
 from others, I was brought for a time into con 
 tact with a mind so remarkable as his, so rich in 
 knowledge and so replete with every force, with 
 a temper so engaging, with an intellectual en 
 thusiasm so incessant and inspiring. 
 
 Ever, my dear Judge, faithfully yours, 
 
 K. s. STORKS. 
 
LETTER FROM MATTHEW H. CARPENTER. 
 
 THIS letter from the late Matthew H. Carpen 
 ter, formerly United States Senator from Wiscon 
 sin, is important not only by reason of his high 
 character as a lawyer, but because he had been a 
 student under Mr. Choate. 
 
 DEAE SIR, Returning from Washington, I have 
 just found yours of the 18th. I have read your 
 two articles in the " Law Journal " on Rufus 
 Choate. Your articles are an excellent and truth 
 ful generalization of his character, professional and 
 political. 
 
 He was more than a father to me, and I loved 
 him next to idolatry. I studied law with him 
 in 1847 and 1848. The most striking of all his 
 characteristics was his regard for the feelings of 
 others. Whatever he might say in the excite 
 ment of a trial in regard to the opposite party, or 
 even of witnesses whom he disbelieved, he was, in 
 his office, and in all professional and social inter 
 course, most considerate of the feelings of others. 
 
294 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 I never heard him speak an impatient or angry 
 word in my life. Especially to young men did he 
 show this tender consideration. Webster's pres 
 ence overawed a young man; Choate impressed 
 the young man with his greatness, but he did so 
 by lifting him for the time up to his own level. 
 His genius seemed to be an inspiration to every 
 young man who entered his presence ; and those 
 who had the honor of his acquaintance regarded 
 him with an admiration akin to hero-worship. 
 Even the old man who tended the fire in the of 
 fice never entered Mr. Choate's room without re 
 ceiving some kindly salutation. His name was 
 John John what I never knew. But Mr. Choate 
 always called him Johannes, with a tone of ten 
 derness and affection which delighted him, and 
 which lingers in my ear to this day. 
 
 One of Mr. Choate's characteristics was to 
 idealize everything. His perception of subtile 
 analogies tinged his mind, and appears in his 
 utterances; in his mental atmosphere all things, 
 however common or even unclean, became trans 
 formed, beautiful. 
 
 Another feature was his charity. From those 
 who would borrow he turned not away. I re 
 member an occasion when he was exceedingly 
 driven in the preparation of a brief that had to 
 be printed for use the next morning. He was ex- 
 
IN AWE OF WEBSTER. 295 
 
 amining the authorities, and dictating to me as 
 his amanuensis. By some inadvertence, his door 
 was not locked, as it usually was, and a squalid 
 beggar made his way into Mr. Choate's presence. 
 He had all day refused to see lawyers, doctors, 
 authors, and others. But, seeing the old man, 
 he turned to me and said, " My boy, charity is a 
 privileged subject, always in order. Let us hear 
 what the old man has to say." After listening for 
 a while, he determined to give him three dollars, 
 and made faithful search through his pockets 
 without finding the amount. He then borrowed 
 the money of me, and gave it to the old man ; 
 and the next morning, when he came into the 
 office with three or four overcoats on, he had 
 three dollars in his hand, which he threw down 
 on my table saying, " There is nothing quite so 
 mean as borrowing a small sum of money and 
 forgetting to pay it." 
 
 He always stood in awe of Webster, and spent 
 nights in preparation when about to contend with 
 him at the bar. This I never could understand ; 
 as a mere lawyer, I think Choate as much the 
 superior of Webster as Webster was the superior 
 of lawyers generally. His knowledge of the law, 
 his readiness in using all his resources, legal, liter 
 ary, historical, or poetical, his power of advocacy, 
 the magnetism of his presence and the absolute 
 
296 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 enchantment in which he wrapt both court and 
 jury never were equaled in any other man, I 
 believe. I remember an instance of one of 
 Choate's clients coming into his office in great 
 glee, and informing Mr. Choate that he had just 
 met his antagonist, who had said he expected to 
 be beaten in the case, because he had nobody but 
 Mr. Webster, who would pay no attention to the 
 case until it was called for trial, while Mr. Choate 
 would be thoroughly prepared on every point. 
 Mr. Choate seemed to be rather displeased than 
 flattered, and, turning to his client in a solemn, 
 almost tragic, manner, he said, " Beware of any 
 hope that rests upon undervaluation of Mr. Web 
 ster. He will be there on the morning of the 
 trial with one case from the Term Reports exactly 
 in point; and, if we escape with our lives, so 
 much the better for us/' 
 
 I think he had formed the resolution that no 
 man should leave his office except in a pleasant 
 mood, if not in a roar of laughter. I remember 
 that on one occasion a clergyman came to consult 
 him about a matter full of sorrow. During the 
 consultation, Mr. Choate was very much affected, 
 and I knew from his tremulous tone, without look 
 ing at him, that his eyes were filled with tears. I 
 thought at that time that the old clergyman 
 would be an exception, but I was mistaken. Mr. 
 
BADINAGE AND REVERENCE. 297 
 
 Choate followed him to the door and opened it 
 and made some remark which I did not hear, but 
 which literally convulsed the old clergyman. 
 
 Mr. Choate's wit and humor were all the more 
 effective from the fact that God never put upon 
 a man, except perhaps Lincoln, so sad a face. 
 
 During all the time I was with him, his health 
 was more or less disturbed, and his face was elo 
 quently expressive of constant anguish. Many a 
 time I have seen him come into the office from 
 the court-room, the personification of weariness 
 and sorrow, so much so that often merely looking 
 in his face has forced the moisture to my eyes. 
 But the tear never reached my cheek before he 
 would set me laughing with some quaint remark. 
 I remember his coming into the office and telling 
 me that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts had 
 just decided an important cause against him, evi 
 dently to his great surprise. He threw down 
 some books and papers on his desk, and after tell 
 ing me of the decision, added in a half-serious, 
 half-playful way, " Every judge on that bench 
 seems to be more stupid than every other one; 
 and if I were not afraid of losing the good opinion 
 of the Court I would impeach the whole batch of 
 them." Yet, notwithstanding such badinage, his 
 reverence for the Court, and especially for Chief 
 Justice Shaw, was unbounded. As a further in- 
 
298 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 stance of such pleasantry, Stevenson, the sculptor, 
 told me that he was once engaged in carving a 
 lion of exaggerated size ; that, while he was en 
 gaged on the head and mane, Mr. Choate took the 
 liveliest interest in the work, calling every morn 
 ing as he came down, and every evening on his 
 way home, to mark its progress. Stevenson, be 
 ing curious, asked Mr. Choate why that work in 
 terested him so much. " Why," said Mr. Choate, 
 " that is the best likeness of Chief Justice Shaw 
 that I ever saw." 
 
 His complete mastery over the melancholy, the 
 gloomy emotions of human nature, has reconciled 
 me to Shakespeare's representation of Richard the 
 Third's making love to Anne in the funeral pro 
 cession of her husband. Had Mr. Choate thus 
 met her, he could have lifted the shadows from 
 her heart. 
 
 I could go on much longer without being weary 
 of the subject; and, although this has been dic 
 tated in haste, it may be some confirmation of the 
 view of Mr. Choate's character which you have so 
 admirably set forth. Yours truly, 
 
 MATT. H. CARPENTER. 
 To HON. J. NEILSON. 
 
LETTER FEOM JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 IT was fortunate that the late James T. Fields 
 was able to leave this record of his love and ad 
 miration of Mr. Choate : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I thank you for those numbers 
 of the "Albany Law Journal" containing your 
 interesting papers on Mr. Choate. Everything 
 with reference to that great man is most attrac 
 tive to me, and I could not resist the impulse of 
 writing a lecture not long ago on his brilliant 
 career, that I might say something to young stu 
 dents, inadequate though it might be, that would 
 perhaps incite them, by his example of untiring 
 industry, to a more enthusiastic pursuit of knowl 
 edge, and a more earnest study of the art of elo 
 quence. That lecture has already been delivered 
 in various colleges and law schools, and I hope 
 has led some of my listeners to read Professor 
 Brown's memoir of our great advocate, your own 
 papers in the "Law Journal," and the reminis 
 cences of Dr. Storrs, Mr. Carpenter, and others, 
 who knew and appreciated him. 
 
300 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 I wish I had the opportunity to comply more 
 closely with your kind request, and send a better 
 response to your invitation. I can only, before 
 getting off for the summer, send you this fragmen 
 tary epistle. 
 
 Mr. Choate is now, to employ Landor's signifi 
 cant line, 
 
 " Beyond the arrows, shouts, and views of men," 
 
 and his supreme qualities are only beginning to be 
 apparent in their grander aspects. As a lawyer, 
 ranking among the highest ; as an eloquent advo 
 cate, second not even to Lord Erskine, whom he 
 far surpassed in scholarship ; as a patriot, devoted 
 to public duty solely ; he is now taking his place 
 without a rival and without a cavil. Years ago I 
 hung up his portrait in the little room we called 
 " our library," for a constant reminder of the long- 
 continued enjoyment it was my own good fortune 
 to have derived from the kind-hearted Mentor and 
 friend. To have had the privilege of living in the 
 same city with him for so many years, of hearing 
 the sound of his voice in public and in private for 
 a quarter of a century, was indeed of itself an ed 
 ucation. To the young men of my time, who 
 lived so much under the spell of his eloquence, he 
 was an inspirer, an initiator ; for he taught us by 
 his example to reverence and seek whatever was 
 best in learning, and excellent in thought and 
 
INFLUENCE ON YOUNG MEN. 301 
 
 character. As young students of literature, eager 
 to listen and acquire if we could, we found a new 
 power created within us by contact even with such 
 a teacher and guide. To follow him, to wait upon 
 his footsteps through the courts of law, the Senate, 
 or the lecture-room, was in a certain sense to be 
 
 " From unreflecting ignorance preserved." 
 
 His own great acquirements taught us to nurse 
 that noble self-discontent which points and leads 
 to a loftier region of culture, and impelled us to 
 aspirations we had never dreamed of until his af 
 fluent genius led the way. Like Charles Fox, he 
 was born with the oratorical temperament, and so 
 he magnetized all the younger men who flocked 
 about him eager to be instructed. I do not believe 
 the " high-placed personage " ever lived in any 
 community who had more affection and reverence 
 from the youth of his time than Mr. Choate. 
 There were about him habitually that diffusive 
 love and tenderness which make idolatry possible 
 even among one's contemporaries. While he elec 
 trified us, he called us by our Christian names ; 
 and when he beckoned us to come, we dared and 
 delighted to stand by his side and listen. His will 
 ing and endearing helpfulness made him beloved 
 by his inferiors as few men of his conspicuous em 
 inence ever were before, and one could not ap 
 proach him and remain unmoved or only partially 
 
302 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 attracted. You could not meet him on the street, 
 even, without having a fresh impulse given to 
 your circulation. During the period when he took 
 early morning walks, some of us, mere boys at 
 that time, loving the sight of the man and the 
 music of his voice, used to be on his track, watch 
 ing for him on his matutinal rounds. As he came 
 sailing into view 
 
 " On broad, imperial wings," 
 
 with that superb and natural gait so easily recog 
 nized by those who knew him, 
 
 " Far off his coming shone." 
 
 As he swung himself past, he would drop into 
 our greedy ears some healthy, exhilarating quota 
 tion, fresh from the fount of song ; some golden 
 sentence suited to the day and hour ; something 
 ample and suggestive that would linger in our 
 memories and haunt our young imaginations years 
 afterward, influencing perhaps our whole lives 
 onward. 
 
 Happy the youth who was occasionally privi 
 leged to walk with him on such occasions, 
 
 " Under the opening eyelids of the morn," 
 
 for then he would discuss, perhaps in his deep and 
 never-to-be-forgotten tones of admiration, the lofty 
 Homeric poems ; quote the divine, and to him fa 
 miliar, words of Plato ; dilate with a kindred rap 
 ture over some memorable passage of Plutarch ; 
 
PARTY STRIFE DISTASTEFUL TO HIM. 303 
 
 or hold up for counsel and admonition some of the 
 sublimest inspirations of the Bible. Well might a 
 young man, thus enchanted, exclaim with Comus, 
 
 " Oh, such a sacred and home-felt delight, 
 Such sober certainty of waking bliss 
 I never heard till now! " 
 
 He seemed ever on the alert to quicken and in 
 spire thought in the heart and understanding of 
 the young. I remember, on the eve of sailing on 
 my first brief visit to Europe, he passed me on the 
 stairs at a crowded reception, and whispered as he 
 went by, " Don't fail, my young friend, if you go 
 near it in your travels, to pause at the grave of 
 Erasmus for me." 
 
 It was dangerous for any young man, not a stu 
 dent at law, to hear him discourse of the profession 
 as he fully and solemnly believed in it, accepting 
 as he did the splendid metaphor of Hooker, 
 " Her seat the bosom of God ; her voice the har 
 mony of the world; all things in heaven and 
 earth doing her homage ; the very least as feel 
 ing her care, and the greatest as not exempted 
 from her power." One of Choate's former office 
 students once said to him, " The more I get into 
 practice the more I like the law." " Like it ! " 
 said Choate, " of course you do. There is noth 
 ing else for any man of intellect to like." This 
 was said in that fine frenzy of exaggeration which 
 
304 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 he sometimes delighted in, but no young man 
 could hear him discourse of jurisprudence and not 
 wish to join the ranks. Law was the banner of 
 his pride ; the flux and reflux of party strife were 
 distasteful to every fibre of his intellect ; and he 
 always gave us to understand that he considered 
 his profession worthy of all the hope of ambition, 
 and all the aspirations for excellence. At the 
 bar Mr. Choate towered superior to every kind 
 of jealousy, of suspicion, of malevolence, to every 
 narrow and sordid motive, to all the meaner 
 trepidations of mortality. He was by nature a 
 gentleman, and he had no petty vanities, either 
 public or private. He was indeed an inspired ora 
 tor. What power, what tenderness, what magnet 
 ism pervaded his utterances ! His voice vibrated 
 with every sentiment, every impulse of beauty 
 and wisdom. He ran over the whole gamut of 
 expression at will. When he spoke of flowers, his 
 words seemed to have the very perfume of flowers 
 in them ; and when he painted the ocean, which 
 he loved so fondly, his tone was as the scent of 
 the sea when the wind blows the foam in our faces. 
 As Churchill said of Garrick, he also had indeed 
 
 " Strange powers that lie 
 Within the magic circle of his eye.'* 
 
 If he habitually composed for the ear more than 
 for the eye, it was because his victories were to 
 
BEN JONSON AND LORD BACON. 305 
 
 be won face to face with his fellow-men. I have 
 heard him argue a hundred cases, perhaps, large 
 and small, and he always seemed alike invincible, 
 as if no mortal power could take his verdict from 
 him. His manner to the opposing counsel was 
 full of courtesy and conciliation ; but if that coun 
 sel became arrogant and insulting he would slay 
 him with a sentence so full of suavity and keen 
 ness that the unmannerly victim never knew what 
 killed him. 
 
 There were uninstructed and unsympathetic lis 
 teners, of course, who described Mr. Choate as 
 declamatory, and accused him of being over- 
 worded and over-colored, " driving a substan 
 tive and six," as they called it, but those same 
 platitudinous dwellers in the twilight of the mind 
 would no doubt quarrel with the tints in Milton's 
 "L' Allegro," and find Collins's "Ode to the Pas 
 sions " highly improper. Mr. Choate was no 
 doubt rich and exuberant in his style, but who 
 would not prefer the leap of the torrent to the 
 stagnation of the swamp ? It was truly said by 
 Mr. Everett, in Faneuil Hall, at the sad hour of 
 our sharp bereavement in 1859, that with such 
 endowments as Mr. Choate possessed he could fill 
 no second place. Thinking of the magic orator, 
 the profound lawyer, logician, and scholar, I recall 
 
 Ben Jonson's memorable words on the wonderful 
 20 
 
306 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 power of Lord Bacon, for they are all applicable 
 to Mr. Choate, " There happened in my time 
 one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his 
 speaking. His language (where he could spare 
 or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man 
 ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more 
 weightily, or suffered less idleness in what he ut 
 tered. No member of his speech but consisted of 
 his own graces. His hearer could not cough or 
 look aside from him without loss. He commanded 
 where he spoke, and had his judges angry and 
 pleased at his devotion. No man had their affec 
 tions more in his power. The fear of every one 
 that heard him was lest he should make an end." 
 And that was just the fear we all had when Choate 
 was speaking, lest he should stop, lest the sound 
 of his perfect voice should cease, lest he too 
 should make an end. I cannot but lament that 
 those who have more recently put on the legal 
 robes, and whose steps are yet on the threshold of 
 life, can have no chance of ever hearing those 
 magic tones which so thrilled the young students 
 of my time, and realized to us that sovereign gen 
 ius which unites the faculty of reasoning with the 
 faculty of imagination. 
 
 My letter is already too long. Pardon my pro 
 lixity, and believe me, dear sir, most cordially 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 To JUDGE NEILSON. 
 
LETTER FROM DR. BOYDEN. 
 
 DR. BOYDEN, of Beverly, Mass., an intimate 
 friend of Mr. Choate's, had the kindness to send 
 me the following : 
 
 We entered college together in 1815. He was 
 between fifteen and sixteen years of age, very 
 youthful and engaging in appearance, modest and 
 unpretentious in manner. He had been fitted for 
 college in a rather desultory way, his preliminary 
 studies with the minister, the doctor, and the 
 schoolmaster having been interrupted by seasons 
 of work on his father's farm. He had spent a 
 short time at Hampton Academy just before com 
 ing to Dartmouth. Several students, fresh from 
 Andover, entered at the same time. They were 
 more fully prepared than he, and, at the start, 
 showed to better advantage in their recitations. 
 But by and by some of these began to fall from 
 their first estate, and it was remarked about the 
 same time, that " That young Choate in the cor 
 ner recited remarkably well." Before the end of 
 
308 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 the first term he was the acknowledged leader of 
 the class, and he maintained that position until 
 graduation, without apparent difficulty. No one 
 pretended to rival him, nor did he invite compari 
 son. He paid little attention to the proficiency 
 of his fellow-students. His talk was of eminent 
 scholars of other countries and of former times, 
 and they seemed the objects of his emulation. 
 One European scholar being mentioned as hav 
 ing committed to memory the Greek primitives, 
 Choate seems to have accepted the suggestion as 
 a valuable one. A few weeks afterward I was in 
 his room, and he asked me to hear him recite. I 
 took a book and heard him repeat page after 
 page of Greek primitives, without ostentation, but 
 merely, to all appearance, to test himself. 
 
 He did not limit his studies to the curriculum. 
 After the first year he read a great deal beyond 
 the prescribed course, especially in Cicero, of 
 whose works he thus went over several, and took 
 up, besides, some of the Greek authors. 
 
 He neglected athletic exercises almost entirely. 
 His chief relaxations from study were of a so 
 cial character. He would get half a dozen of the 
 students into his room, and, refreshments being 
 obtained, would give himself up with them to 
 having a " good time." 
 
 In the public exercises of the college he at- 
 
AN OLD LAWYER SURPRISED. 309 
 
 tracted much attention. If he had an oration to 
 deliver, the audience was always eager to hear it, 
 and generally was rewarded by a masterly effort. 
 
 As we adopted different professions, he the law, 
 and I medicine, I had, much to my regret, few 
 opportunities of witnessing the displays of his 
 maturer powers. But our personal intimacy was 
 very great, and continued through life. 
 
 I had, from the first, no doubt that he would 
 strive for, and attain, the foremost rank in his 
 profession. When he commenced practice in Sa 
 lem, we had two or three old lawyers, of whom 
 Mr. Thorndyke was one. I said to him, "Mr. 
 Choate is not in the Superior Court yet (his time 
 not having expired in the Common Pleas) ; but I 
 know him very well, and he will be at the head of 
 the Essex bar as soon as he can get there." The 
 old lawyer looked at me with surprise and incre 
 dulity ; but I had the pleasure of hearing him, 
 before many years had elapsed, admit the fulfill 
 ment of my prophecy. 
 
 During the earlier years of his practice, he 
 sometimes spoke to me of his aspirations, one of 
 which was to be one of our chief justices. He 
 was offered a judgeship afterward, but never 
 could afford to accept. 
 
 His professional income he spent lavishly. He 
 gave away a great deal, and neglected, in many 
 
310 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 instances, to collect or to charge for his services. 
 He was careless in payment, too, but never to the 
 point of injustice. Having borrowed a sum of 
 money when a young man, he retained it for 
 many years, always paying interest, though it is 
 certain he could have repaid the principal many 
 times over if it had been necessary. Finally I, as 
 the representative of one of the heirs of the 
 lender, had occasion to ask for the money, and it 
 was paid at once. When paying the interest, he 
 said to me on one occasion, " You have had some 
 trouble about this, I will give you your law ; " 
 and he did, both advice and service, when needed. 
 I had occasion to know much of his benefactions, 
 as I was sometimes his almoner. Some instances 
 of his generosity I communicated to Mr. Brown, 
 when he was preparing his book. 
 
 His love of study lasted through life, and he 
 accounted it as one of his chief blessings. In 
 speaking to me of his son one day, he held up his 
 hand and said, "I would give that finger if it 
 would make him love study as I do." 
 
 The humorous side of his character has been, 
 to so great an extent, that on which the public 
 attention has been hitherto fixed that it needs 
 no illustration. But the evenness of his temper 
 is worth remarking. He was always agreeable, 
 genial, companionable, playful even, toward those 
 
NOT LIKE OTHER MEN. 311 
 
 with whom he was intimate. I could never be 
 long in his company without hearing some en 
 livening pleasantry. 
 
 I do not think Mr. Choate was fitted to be a 
 leader in politics. He was constitutionally timid 
 and conservative. Given a leader, like Webster, 
 he was a useful and zealous supporter. Let him 
 have a question to argue, and, if he felt that the 
 country was his client, he waxed eloquent and 
 sought eagerly for victory. During Webster's 
 lifetime he initiated no policy. The latter, on his 
 death-bed, told Choate, " You have a great future 
 before you if you go with the party and direct 
 them." Choate could go with the party he 
 could even go against it ; but the instinct of lead 
 ership was weak in him ; to control the party was 
 work to which he was not fitted, an up-hill labor. 
 
 It is exceedingly difficult to describe or to char 
 acterize such a man. He was unlike any other I 
 have known. Webster seemed to be a good deal 
 like other folks, only there was more of him. 
 But Choate was peculiar; a strange, beautiful 
 product of our time, not to be measured by refer 
 ence to ordinary men. 
 
LETTER FROM EMORY WASHBURN. 
 
 THE late Emory Washburn sent me this tribute 
 to the memory of Rufus Choate : 
 
 DEAR SIR, It is with much hesitation and 
 misgiving that I enter upon the attempt to com 
 ply with your flattering request to give you some 
 of my recollections of Mr. Choate. Aside from 
 the difficulty in describing a man of such varied 
 and peculiar characteristics and qualities, it is to 
 be borne in mind that it is already seventeen 
 years since his death, and that, during that time, 
 impressions originally strong have been growing 
 fainter, and the incidents and events of his life 
 becoming less distinctly defined, and that many 
 things which were worthy of notice at the time 
 they occurred have lost their interest for want of 
 surrounding circumstances. All I shall attempt 
 will be to recall general impressions rather than 
 distinct incidents. 
 
 While I have no right to claim any special in 
 timacy with Mr. Choate, I met him too often, 
 
HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 313 
 
 after our first meeting in the Legislature of 1825, 
 in private and social life, as well as at the bar and 
 in the courts and in public assemblies, not to re 
 ceive and retain pretty decided impressions of the 
 power and qualities for which he became so widely 
 known and admired. He was about four months 
 my senior in age. 
 
 In stature Mr. Choate was nearly, if not quite, 
 six feet in height, strong and muscular, without 
 being in the least gross. His head was finely 
 formed, and covered with a profusion of very 
 dark, curly hair. His complexion was dark, his 
 features regular, his lips thin, and, when his coun 
 tenance was at rest, were generally closely shut, 
 giving his mouth an expression of contemplation 
 rather than firmness. His eye was dark, was 
 mildly piercing, and, at times, had a pensive cast, 
 which was in harmony with his whole expression 
 when by himself. His movements, without being 
 awkward or abrupt, indicated nervous energy 
 rather than muscular power. When in company 
 with others, his face assumed as many shades of 
 expression as he had changing moods of thought. 
 From the quiet rest of deep contemplation it would 
 light up by a sudden flash of playful humor, or an 
 expression of intense interest, when he gave utter 
 ance to some new or inspiring thought. But al 
 though a ready humor, thus modified, was perhaps 
 
314 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 one of the most characteristic marks of the ami 
 able temperament for which he was distinguished, 
 it never degenerated into boisterous mirth nor 
 broke out into laughter. I doubt if any one ever 
 heard him laugh aloud, though no one ever had a 
 keener sense of the ridiculous, or loved fun more 
 heartily. 
 
 While such was the general temperament of 
 the man, as he appeared to others in the ordi 
 nary intercourse of society or business, to his 
 more intimate friends, as often as leisure or op 
 portunity offered, this playful habit of thought 
 and fancy manifested itself in a great variety of 
 forms. When in such a mood, it was delightful to 
 see him unbend, and give conversation free play. 
 He would indulge in such extravagant forms of 
 expression, such exaggerated statements, such ab 
 surd opinions, and conclusions so utterly at vari 
 ance with his well-known sentiments, half gravely 
 uttered, and yet understood by all, that it was an 
 occasion of constant merriment ; in which, with 
 out even descending to drollery, he was often 
 carrying on graver discussions, or attacking some 
 popular whim or error, mingling wit with logic, 
 and fun with graver realities of life. 1 There 
 would be no end to the anecdotes illustrative of 
 
 1 It was thus, perhaps in more extravagant forms, with Sydney 
 Smith. J. N. 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE SHAW. 315 
 
 this phase of his mind, if any one had taken the 
 pains to preserve them. One has been often re 
 peated, of his opinion of Chief Justice Shaw, for 
 whom, by the way, he had a profound veneration 
 for his qualities as a judge, and between whom 
 and Mr. Choate there was a mutual admiration 
 and respect. No man had a kinder nature than 
 the Chief Justice, and no man would have sooner 
 shrunk from saying or doing anything which 
 could wound the sensibilities of another; and as 
 for conscious partiality in favor of any one, be 
 cause of his rank or position in society, no man 
 even suspected it. But, unfortunately, he had a 
 way of expressing his disapproval of what seemed 
 to him a fallacy in an argument, or a questionable 
 mode of proceeding in a cause, which sounded 
 very like reproof, and often gave pain to the 
 subject of it, from the manner in which it was 
 done. Nor did Mr. Choate escape. On one 
 occasion, after listening with respect to one of 
 those rebukes, as he did to everything which fell 
 from the Court, Mr. Choate turned to two or 
 three of his brethren who had heard it, and 
 quietly remarked, with that expression upon his 
 countenance which always told the mood he was 
 in, " I do not suppose that any one ever thought 
 the Chief Justice was much of a lawyer, but 
 nobody can deny that he is a man of pleasant 
 
316 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 manners." On one occasion he was engaged in a 
 very important case in a remote county, when it 
 fell to me to hold the term of the court. He 
 gave up two days to the preparation before the 
 commencement of the term, but found one suf 
 ficient, so that the other day was lost in waiting. 
 To one who could not tolerate an idle hour this 
 was inexpressibly irksome. I arrived in town in 
 due time, and met Mr. Choate at the door of the 
 hotel, and was greeted with " I am glad you have 
 come at last, for I have been waiting for you just 
 fifty thousand years ; " which, considering his im 
 patience in losing time, was hardly an exagger 
 ated expression of his estimate of it. 
 
 In the composition of Mr. Choate V nature, the 
 prevailing element was sweetness. Bitterness was 
 entirely left out. His spirit, like the action of 
 his mind, was quick and easily aroused ; but he 
 could not carry anger, nor keep alive a feeling 
 of resentment. He had no false pride of opinion, 
 and could laugh at his own mistakes as readily as 
 others. After witnessing in court, one day, with 
 two or three others, the queer rulings of a certain 
 judge, who had made himself somewhat conspic 
 uous in his mode of conducting trials, one of them 
 turned to him and said, " Let us see, did you not 
 join in a petition to have this man appointed ? " 
 " Headed it," said Mr. Choate, with the quietest 
 
SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 317 
 
 possible humor, and went on with his conversa 
 tion. 
 
 In his family no one could be more delightful, 
 ministering to the happiness of the circle of which 
 he was the special centre, and in which his con 
 versation was full of pleasant humor and profit 
 able instruction. So, in his intercourse with his 
 friends, though free from everything like re 
 straint, he never talked without some purpose or 
 aim, or without saying something that might be 
 remembered. His voice was pleasant and well 
 modulated; and, though clear and resonant, never 
 loud or harsh, even when excited before a popu 
 lar audience. His command of language was lit 
 erally wonderful. No man had a richer vocabu 
 lary of choice and apt words. He was never at 
 a loss for the right form of expression, nor did 
 he obscure a vigorous thought by the beautiful 
 drapery in which he clothed it. 
 
 In his manner of addressing an audience, es 
 pecially a jury, he made use of a great deal of 
 action, but without rant or violent gesticulation. 
 He grew animated by the very effort of speaking ; 
 every muscle seemed to be brought into play, and 
 his whole person gave signs of emotion. The 
 perspiration would fall in large drops from his 
 hair and run down his face ; which, at times, grew 
 pale and haggard while he poured out, in one 
 
318 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 unbroken current, language full of thought, emo 
 tion, or rare illustrations, of which his public ad 
 dresses largely partook. But, though a casual 
 listener might be dazzled by the brilliancy of his 
 rhetoric and the charm of his eloquence, no one 
 who followed his train of thought, when desiring 
 to convince his audience of some interesting truth, 
 could be more impressed by the beauty of his 
 oratory than by the clear statement and logical 
 arrangement of his argument, which carried with 
 them the conviction of his hearers. One pecul 
 iarity marked his style, whether oral or written, 
 and that was the continuous and unbroken train 
 of thought upon which he sometimes entered ; 
 which, instead of being exhausted by being pur 
 sued to any given extent, seemed to gather new 
 exposition and illustration as he proceeded, until 
 there seemed no place left at which to arrest it. 
 If some important idea or proposition presented 
 itself to his mind, it seemed to call up so many 
 kindred and associated ideas, and one thought 
 came crowding so closely upon another, that there 
 was left him no place for pause or suspension, and 
 he would go on through an entire page without a 
 space for a punctuation mark, beyond an occa 
 sional dash to hold its parts together. 
 
 Whenever he spoke, he played upon his au 
 dience as a master with the tones or harmonies of 
 
BUSINESS HABITS. 319 
 
 an organ, at one moment delighting them with 
 his humor, at another moving them to indignation 
 at some unmerited wrong, and touching at an 
 other a shade of delicate sensibility, leading them, 
 it might be by a train of profound thought and 
 subtile reasoning, to the conclusion which he was 
 aiming to reach. And it was not easy, at times, 
 to say in which of these exhibitions of moral and 
 intellectual power he was most to be admired. 
 
 And yet, when one recalled the grave or even 
 sad cast of his countenance when at rest, and re 
 membered the change that came over it as it 
 lighted up almost to inspiration when he was deal 
 ing with reasons and the passions of his fellow-men, 
 in masses, and saw how he moulded and gave 
 form to the opinions of others by the mere force 
 of his powers of persuasion, he could not fail to 
 perceive that his true strength lay in the region 
 of sober dialectics rather than in that of brilliant 
 oratory. 
 
 In the management of his own affairs, Mr. 
 Choate was careless in charging or collecting 
 moneys, while he was generous, almost to a fault, 
 in his contributions to the necessities of others. 
 But in no way was this readiness to bestow the 
 fruits of the labors, by which he earned his liveli 
 hood, more marked than in the frequent devo 
 tion of his time to the preparation or delivery of 
 
320 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 orations, lectures, and addresses on occasions of 
 literary, patriotic, political, and commemorative 
 gatherings, for which he could expect no other 
 compensation than the consciousness of its being 
 a means of directing and controlling the thoughts 
 and opinions of others. This constant strain upon 
 his mental and physical energies, in connection 
 with a frequent recurrence of severe headaches, 
 began, at last, to tell upon his constitution as well 
 as upon his looks. The lines and furrows of his 
 face grew deeper and more visible ; his counte 
 nance began to bear a worried and haggard look, 
 except when animated in debate ; and age, while 
 it spared the lustre of hair, gave signs of prema 
 ture progress. But whatever he lost of muscular 
 activity seemed to be more than made up by an 
 added supply of nervous and intellectual energy, 
 till both gave way before the approach of the dis 
 ease which terminated his life. His sweetness 
 and kindness of manner, however, remained with 
 him till the last. 
 
 I can speak of his qualities as a senator only 
 from the published accounts of the day. Nor 
 would I venture to speak of his scholarship with 
 confidence, except from the testimony of others. 
 No one, however, could be with him any length 
 of time without perceiving his familiarity with 
 classic authors and their literature. In his pub- 
 
NATURAL BENT OR INCLINATION. 321 
 
 lie addresses, and even in his arguments be 
 fore juries, he not infrequently resorted to quota 
 tions from these authors, when he wished to give 
 some happy thought an epigrammatic force. And 
 those best capable of judging were unqualified in 
 their high appreciation of the extent and accuracy 
 of his attainments in classic learning. I remem 
 ber his showing me at his own house, with a kind 
 of affectionate pride, a beautiful copy of Cicero, 
 and remarking with considerable emphasis that he 
 never suffered a day to pass by in which he did 
 not read one or more pages in that volume. I 
 have no doubt that, if his memory had rested upon 
 his attainments as a classical scholar, it would 
 have associated his name with some of the first in 
 the land ; yet he did not limit himself to the lit 
 erature of the ancients, but was equally thorough 
 in that of his own language. 
 
 But the sphere in which Mr. Choate was most 
 ambitious to excel, and in which he achieved his 
 most signal success, was that of the bar. To that 
 he gave his best energies, and in its service he 
 wore out the physical powers of a vigorous con 
 stitution. He cultivated the law as a broad and 
 liberal science, while, in applying it to the prac 
 tical questions cognizable by the courts, he spared 
 neither time nor labor to make it serve the pur 
 pose of equal justice. To this end he applied great 
 21 
 
322 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 quickness of apprehension, patience in research, a 
 generous pride in his profession, and an aptitude 
 for labor which shrunk from no degree of dili 
 gence or requisite amount of exhaustion. Nor 
 were these qualities displayed occasionally only. 
 Whether his case was small or large, whether his 
 cause was upon the civil or the criminal side Ox 
 the court, whether his client was rich or poor, or 
 his fee was a large or a small one, he went into it 
 thoroughly prepared, and ready at all points; 
 and, when in, he gave to it his whole energy, and 
 spared nothing which could insure success. Nor 
 were his arguments confined to the details of the 
 more technical points of his case ; he made free 
 use, at will, of that store of learning and illustra 
 tion which his memory was at all times ready to 
 supply. I heard him, on one occasion, address the 
 court, when I presided, upon a motion to dismiss 
 an indictment, charging embezzlement upon an 
 officer of a bank, on the ground that the statute 
 prescribing the form of stating the charge, and 
 under which the indictment had been drawn, was 
 ex post facto, it having been passed subsequently 
 to the alleged act of embezzlement. It was purely 
 a constitutional argument, and the point lay with 
 in a narrow compass. But, for beauty of diction, 
 aptness of illustration, and force of reasoning, it 
 was one of his best efforts; He dwelt, among 
 
HIS METHODS. 323 
 
 other things, upon the history of our Constitution, 
 and showed how its provisions, many of them at 
 least, had their origin in the events of English 
 history. He spoke of the Star Chamber, the bills 
 of attainder, the progress of English liberty dur 
 ing the Commonwealth and at the Eevolution, 
 and of the last struggle of prerogative with the 
 free spirit of the Constitution in the attainder and 
 execution of Sir John Fenwick, and brought these 
 all to bear upon the danger, as a precedent, of 
 holding a man to answer for a crime under an act 
 of legislation passed subsequently to the commis 
 sion of the deed, especially where, as in this case, a 
 popular odium had been awakened against him as 
 a public officer. 
 
 Nor was his skill in conducting the trial of a 
 cause less remarkable than the ability with which 
 he presented it, in the end, to the court and jury. 
 In the cross-examination of witnesses, he seemed 
 to know intuitively how far to pursue it and 
 where to stop. He never aroused opposition on 
 the part of the witness by attacking him, but dis 
 armed him by the quiet and courteous manner in 
 which he pursued his examination. He was quite 
 sure, before giving him up, to expose the weak 
 parts of his testimony, or the bias, if any, which 
 detracted from the confidence to be given it. On 
 the other hand, he never allowed himself to ap- 
 
324 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 pear surprised or disconcerted by anything in the 
 way of evidence or argument which might come 
 out in the course of a trial, however damaging it 
 might seem to the case. To the jury it seemed to 
 come as a matter of course, and nothing on his 
 part served to give it any special importance. 
 Anecdotes of this character were often told of 
 him, one of which I give, as it was told to me, 
 to illustrate his coolness and self-possession, as 
 well as his adroitness in warding off what he 
 could not meet. In giving his testimony, a wit 
 ness for his antagonist let fall, with no particular 
 emphasis, a statement of a most important fact, 
 from which he saw that inferences greatly dam 
 aging to his client's cause might be drawn, if 
 skillfully used. He suffered the witness to go 
 through his statement ; and then, as if he saw in 
 it something of great value to himself, requested 
 him to repeat it carefully, that he might take it 
 down correctly. He as carefully avoided cross- 
 examining the witness, and in his argument made 
 not the least allusion to his testimony. When the 
 opposing counsel, in his close, came to that part 
 of his case in his argument, he was so impressed 
 with the idea that Mr. Choate had discovered that 
 there was something in that testimony which 
 made in his favor, although he could not see how, 
 that he contented himself with merely remarking 
 
MANNER IN COURT. 325 
 
 that, though Mr. Choate had seemed to think that 
 the testimony bore in favor of his client, it seemed 
 to him that it went to sustain the opposite side, 
 and then he went on with the other parts of his 
 case. 
 
 In the trial of his cases, Mr. Choate took full 
 notes of the testimony, to which he often seemed 
 to refer, though to one who looked on it was dif 
 ficult to see anything there that was legible or 
 could be deciphered. His handwriting, at best, 
 was a puzzle, little better than hieroglyphics. 
 His minutes of testimony were far worse, being 
 made up of words and symbols and, now and then, 
 a spiral curve longer than the rest, which he 
 seemed to be able to read and interpret, though 
 no one else would think of attempting it. 
 
 In his manner to the Court, he was always def 
 erential and respectful, even when the judge was 
 his junior in years or his inferior in learning or 
 ability. Indeed, courtesy, a kindness of manner, 
 was a part of his nature, which he uniformly ex 
 hibited in his intercourse with the bar as well as 
 with others. 
 
 When he died, therefore, he left no wounds for 
 tijne to heal ; no resentments for injuries un- 
 atoned for ; and when, with what he might have 
 regarded as still many years of brilliant success 
 before him, he died at the age of fifty-nine, every 
 
326 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 one felt there was a void, which no one could fill, 
 within the circle in which he had moved ; while to 
 such as knew him in the more intimate relations 
 of private life it was the loss of a companion, a 
 friend endeared by the qualities which men love 
 and admire. 
 
 I stop here, not because I have exhausted the 
 subject, but because I have found it is not within 
 my power to treat it as it ought to be. But you 
 asked me " to recall facts, incidents, and events, 
 personal, professional, and domestic," and I hope 
 you will accept this as an earnest of good inten 
 tions. Yours truly, etc., 
 
 EMORY WASHBURN. 
 JUDGE J. NEILSON. 
 
LETTER FROM E. D. SANBORN. 
 
 MR. E. D. SANBORN, professor in Dartmouth Col 
 lege, sends me the following reminiscence of Mr. 
 Choate : 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. Choate began as 
 early as 1831, when I was a student in college. 
 He was warmly attached to Hanover, where the 
 happiest days of his life were spent in study and 
 in teaching. Here, too, he found his wife ; and 
 the old home, where the young tutor and the 
 beautiful girl who won his heart met to enjoy the 
 passing hours and make their plans for coming 
 years, was peculiarly dear to him. The late 
 Cyrus P. Smith, at the commencement dinner 
 of 1875, recited a little incident in the history 
 of Mr. Choate's tutorial life. The students knew 
 that their teacher often passed some of the small 
 hours of the night in Mr. Olcott's parlor. Mr. 
 Smith and a few of his associates used to sere 
 nade the young couple occasionally. One night 
 they took their stand on the deck of the steeple 
 
328 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 near the house, whence the whole village could 
 hear. In their song they substituted the names 
 of the parties for classic names, and made the 
 refrain loud and long. In the morning Mr. 
 Choate sent for Mr. Smith, whose voice he had 
 recognized, and admonished him to select a hum 
 bler stand, and a more seasonable hour for his 
 musical exhibitions. Thus ended the farce. 
 
 My first introduction to Mr. Choate was in the 
 library of "The United Fraternity." His con 
 versation was of books. He called my attention 
 to some good authors for a young man to read. 
 Among others he took from its shelf an old folio, 
 much worn and defaced, and said that he had 
 found great benefit from the careful reading of 
 that work. It was Dr. William Chillingworth's 
 work, entitled " The Religion of Protestants a 
 Safe Way to Salvation." Hallam says, "This 
 celebrated work, which gained its author the epi 
 thet of immortal, is now, I suspect, little studied, 
 even by the clergy." Mr. Choate pronounced the 
 author the greatest reasoner, in that age of giants, 
 in logic. He said he knew no work to be com 
 pared with it, except "Edwards on the Will." 
 He had read Chillingworth with great profit, and 
 advised all young men to study it who desired to 
 become good logicians. From that time to the 
 day of his death, I never met Mr. Choate without 
 
A MIDNIGHT RECREATION. 329 
 
 gaining instruction from his conversation. His 
 discourse was always of lofty themes. 
 
 I once had an opportunity to spend a few hours 
 in his library by his invitation. His books were 
 the latest and best editions of standard authors. I 
 was then interested in the classics. That depart 
 ment of his library I carefully examined. I found 
 there the most recent and most approved editions 
 of Greek and of Latin authors. I took the books 
 from their shelves, one by one, to learn, if pos 
 sible, what use the owner had made of them. In 
 some of them I found traces of his study through 
 the entire work, in others the leaves had been 
 cut, and marginal notes made in one third or 
 one half of the work. I happened then to be 
 staying at a house opposite that of Mr. Choate. 
 I woke about midnight and saw, across the street, 
 Mr. Choate standing at a high desk by the win 
 dow, evidently employed in reading. So, after 
 the fatigues of the day, he refreshed his mind 
 with good books at night. 
 
 Once I was invited to meet his pastor, Rev. Dr. 
 Adams, and a few other friends, at dinner. It was 
 at the time when Dr. Adams was so severely cen 
 sured for his book called " The Southside View," 
 in which he ventured to recite his personal recol 
 lections of some good men at the South. The 
 friends of Dr. Adams had held a public meeting 
 
330 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 to express their confidence and affection for the 
 author of that famous book. Mr. Choate made a 
 speech, commending his pastor for preaching the 
 gospel instead of politics, and remarked that, af 
 ter spending six days in controversy at the bar 
 and on the platform, he was rejoiced to have his 
 attention called to religion on the seventh. This 
 speech gave birth to a new party cry, " The Gospel 
 according to Choate," which was as widely printed 
 and commented upon as his famous phrase, " glit 
 tering generalities," applied to the Declaration of 
 Independence. At the dinner-table, Mr. Choate, 
 in a quiet, confiding, deferential tone, called out 
 his guests on their own specialties. His twinkling 
 eye, pleasant smile, and genial comments made 
 the occasion one long to be remembered. 
 
 At the funeral of Daniel Webster, I walked 
 with Mr. Choate to the cemetery. He made 
 many considerate and thoughtful remarks on Mr. 
 Webster's life. He spoke of him with filial sad 
 ness and reverence. Mr. Webster was " his guide, 
 counselor, and friend." I felt almost abashed at 
 his appeals to me for my opinions, as though I 
 could possibly know anything of the great orator 
 which he did not know ; but that was his mental 
 habit. He made those with whom he conversed 
 feel that he regarded them as equals, to whom 
 he could often show deference. 
 
A MOST APPRECIATIVE TRIBUTE. 331 
 
 After multitudes of orators had eulogized the 
 deceased statesman, Mr. Choate came to his old 
 haunts in Hanover, and in the old church uttered 
 his memorable eulogy, perhaps the most brill 
 iant and appreciative tribute to departed worth 
 ever made by mortal man. If any one can 
 name a greater, let him " speak, for him have 
 I offended." 
 
 Mr. Choate prepared a speech for the Webster 
 dinner at Boston, a short time after Mr. Webster's 
 death. He was too ill to deliver it ; it was never 
 published. Fletcher Webster was permitted to 
 read it. One paragraph he copied, and sent to 
 me. It was as follows : " Sometimes Mr. Webster 
 incurred the lot of all the great, and was traduced 
 and misrepresented. Sometimes he was pursued, 
 as all central figures in great triumphal proces 
 sions are pursued, as all glory is pursued, by cal 
 umny ; as Demosthenes, the patriotic statesman ; 
 as Cicero, the father of his country ; as Grotius, 
 the creator of public law ; as Somers and Sidney, 
 as Burke, as Grattan, as Hamilton, were traduced. 
 Even when he was recently dead, the tears and 
 prayers of the whole country did not completely 
 silence one robed and reverend backbiter." The 
 shade of Theodore Parker, it is hoped, will receive 
 with such candor as marked the living man, this 
 honest tribute to his ministerial labors. 
 
332 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Mr. Abbott Lawrence once said to me, at his 
 house, that, when he was Minister at the Court of 
 St. James, he frequently met eminent lawyers 
 who were very desirous of learning everything 
 they could about Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate, 
 especially their personal appearance, habits, and 
 opinions. They questioned him respecting their 
 interpretations of great questions of law. Mr. 
 Lawrence ventured to propose several of their 
 questions to Mr. Choate, and his replies were re 
 ceived with great respect by English lawyers. 
 
 Mr. Choate was religiously educated, and the 
 instructions of his parents modified and controlled 
 his whole life. Mr. James W. Paige, of Boston, 
 informed me that Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate 
 often met at his house, where they sometimes 
 discoursed of " high and holy themes." One 
 evening allusion was made by one of them to 
 the custom of committing to memory devotional 
 poetry in childhood. Mr. Webster challenged 
 Mr. Choate to recite Watts's psalms and hymns 
 from memory, to ascertain which could hold out 
 longest. They continued the exercise for a full 
 hour, till the ladies cried " Hold ! enough ! " be 
 cause they desired to hear these gentlemen talk 
 on other subjects. 
 
 Mr. Choate was once walking, on Commence 
 ment Day, in Hanover, when a lady attempted to 
 
INCIDENTS. 333 
 
 pass him in the crowd, wearing one of those ele 
 gant shawls whose knotted fringe always catches 
 the button of the pew door of country churches, 
 when suddenly he found himself caught by the 
 button of his coat. He turned and said, " Madam, 
 I beg pardon; I should be delighted to go with 
 you, but I have an engagement in the opposite 
 direction." I remember an amusing incident re 
 cited to me by one of the students, showing how 
 much he was absorbed in a case he was studying, 
 " totus in illis." A client was consulting him 
 whose name was Stoughton. At that time a pop 
 ular nostrum, called " Stoughton's Bitters," was 
 everywhere advertised. Mr. Choate had seen the 
 advertisements, and, during all the interview, he 
 addressed his client as " Mr. Bitters." 
 Yours truly, 
 
 E. D. SANBORN. 
 
LETTEK FROM EDWARD B. GILLETT. 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED member of the Massachusetts 
 bar, residing at Westfield, who was much at the 
 bar with Mr. Choate, writes me : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I take pleasure in trying to 
 comply with your request to furnish some per 
 sonal reminiscences of Mr. Choate. Perhaps, by 
 way of illustrative notes to your articles, you may 
 utilize some of them. 
 
 I called upon Mr. Choate when he was confined 
 to his house by a lame knee. He was always in 
 his library, surrounded by his five or six thousand 
 silent friends, covering the walls of the second 
 story of his dwelling on Franklin Street. 
 
 On one occasion I found him before xhis table 
 turning the leaves of Macaulay's History. I in 
 quired if he was revising the judgments recently 
 expressed in his lecture upon that subject. He 
 replied, No, that he was reading Cowley's poems, 
 which always greatly interested him ; that he had 
 just discovered in the volume an expression simi- 
 
COWLEY AND MILTON. 335 
 
 lar to that found in the first book of "Paradise 
 Lost/' " The height of this great argument/' 
 which he thought a fine and extraordinary phrase. 
 He had thereupon begged his wife, the gracious 
 purveyor to his infirmities, to hand down Macau- 
 lay to him that he might detect whether Milton 
 had " hooked " from Cowley, or Cowley from Mil 
 ton. " But/' said he, " Cowley has got him. It 
 is, however, only the equitable thing. Milton had 
 a right to forage the whole intellectual world in 
 the way of reprisal, for his disjecta membra are 
 scattered thick through all literature." 
 
 I have in my possession his copy of Cowley's 
 works. The pencil marks along the margins of 
 pages suggest the remark he once made to me, 
 that he " often found a single ' winged word ' as 
 suggestive as the most germinant thought." This 
 may explain what is said to have been his habit of 
 frequent reading and study of the dictionary " by 
 the page." 
 
 Upon a mantel in his library, as I now some 
 what indistinctly remember, were placed, at one 
 end, a bronze bust or statuette of Demosthenes ; 
 at the other end, a similar one of Cicero. Over 
 Demosthenes was suspended a small engraving of 
 Daniel Webster ; over Cicero an engraving of Ed 
 ward Everett. Upon my speaking of the appro 
 priateness of the juxtapositions, he drew some par- 
 
336 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 allels and contrasts between the great orators, and 
 in a few minutes said more memorable things, by 
 way of characterization, than I have ever heard 
 compacted into the same number of sentences. I 
 remember that he pronounced Cicero to be " the 
 greatest master of speech who had ever lived." 
 
 I was associated -with Mr. Choate in the trial of 
 a railroad case before a committee of the Massa 
 chusetts Legislature. He was then preparing an 
 address upon Macaulay's " History of England," 
 to be delivered before the Mercantile Library As 
 sociation in Boston. On the morning of the day 
 he was to give his address, he said that it was not 
 nearly written. I suggested that he would be 
 compelled to extemporize a portion of it. He re 
 plied that he would " cut out " from the hearing 
 and go into an adjoining lobby and write while 
 the witnesses were being examined in chief, if I 
 would call him so that he could be present at the 
 cross-examination. This arrangement was carried 
 out, and it was wonderful to note how intuitively 
 and instantly he gathered the scope of the direct 
 testimony given in his absence. On one occasion, 
 I followed him almost instantly from the commit 
 tee room to the lobby, and found him already 
 writing at the top of his speed. He said that his 
 only way of making preparation for such occasions 
 was to postpone it until the last possible moment, 
 
WOMEN AS WITNESSES. 337 
 
 and then work totis viribus ; that he had been al 
 ready writing since three and a half o'clock that 
 morning. 
 
 Mr. Choate, on one occasion, came into the court 
 room of the District Court in Boston, while I was 
 trying a case before a jury. He was accompanied 
 by Mr. B. R. Curtis, their object being to discuss 
 before Judge Sprague, then presiding, some inter 
 locutory motion during the recess. Mr. Choate 
 drew his chair to my side, and placed his hand on 
 my shoulder in that magnetic way of friendly 
 confidence which did so much to endear him to 
 younger members of the profession. He then in 
 quired with a sort of comical eagerness, " Pray tell 
 me whose witnesses are all these women ? " I an 
 swered, " Part are mine and part are the plain 
 tiff's." Then he said, " Pray tell me which side 
 has the majority ? " I said that I had. He replied, 
 " I will give you my word the case is yours. But 
 now," said he with humorous solemnity, " let me 
 give you my dying advice, never cross-examine 
 a woman. It is of no use. They cannot disinte 
 grate the story they have once told ; they cannot 
 eliminate the part that is for you from that which 
 is against you. They can neither combine nor 
 shade nor qualify. They go for the whole thing, 
 and the moment you begin to cross-examine one 
 of them, instead of being bitten by a single rattle- 
 22 
 
338 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 snake, you are bitten by a whole barrel full. I 
 never, excepting in a case absolutely desperate, 
 dare to cross-examine a woman." 
 
 His library was especially rich in ancient clas 
 sics. He pointed out that department to me with 
 evident satisfaction ; one shelf was filled by dif 
 ferent editions of the Greek Testament, some in 
 elegant modern binding, and others in " old vel 
 lum." I alluded to this. He then said, " You re 
 call a visit I once received in my room from Mr. 
 Webster, when I was Senator at Washington, en 
 deavoring to impose upon the people of this Com 
 monwealth the delusion that I was an eminent 
 statesman. I saw Mr. Webster's wonderful black 
 eyes peering over my books, as if in search, and 
 asked him what he would please to have. He 
 turned to me with one of his smiles, such as never 
 transfigured the face of any other man or of any 
 woman, and said, "I observe, brother Choate, 
 that you are true to your instincts in Washington, 
 as at home, seven editions of the Greek Testa 
 ment, but not a copy of the Constitution." 
 
 You cannot, my dear sir, fail to see that I 
 have written very hurriedly; but, as you have 
 the choice both of excision and exclusion, I do 
 not hesitate to send you my meagre materials. 
 I beg leave to thank you that you are willing 
 to freshen our memory of that wonderful man, 
 
PROFITABLE COMPANY. 339 
 
 whose profound and precise learning as a lawyer 
 was hardly surpassed by his marvelous genius for 
 advocacy, but who was nowhere more delightful 
 or amusing than in private conversation. Carlyle 
 is right when he tells us that " Great men, taken 
 in any way, are profitable company." 
 
 With very great respect, 
 
 EDWARD B. GILLETT. 
 To JUDGE NEILSON. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. NATHAN CROSBY. 
 
 THE Hon. Nathan Crosby, one of Mr. Choate 's 
 early friends, who has been for more than thirty 
 years in judicial service, writes the following let 
 ter. The reader will think it natural, as well as 
 fortunate, that old college friends, in writing 
 about Mr. Choate, should recur to those early 
 days. 
 
 A short time before the death of the Rev. Jo 
 seph Tracy, D. D., he had written an article on 
 the religious character of Mr. Choate, intended 
 for publication in some religious magazine. But 
 the article was not given to the public. Judge 
 Crosby has been kind enough to obtain it from 
 the family or representatives of the writer 'and 
 send it to me. 
 
 After stating the fact that much had been writ 
 ten about Mr. Choate, and suggesting that much 
 yet remained to be written, Dr. Tracy asks, " But 
 what have the orthodox reviewers to do with 
 Rufus Choate ? " and answers, " Much, on many 
 accounts. In all the religious or ecclesiastical re- 
 
IN COLLEGE WITH CHOATE. 341 
 
 lations which he sustained, he was one of us. He 
 was educated from his earliest infancy in our 
 faith. He studied it, understood it, was convinced 
 of its truth, avowed and defended it on what he 
 deemed proper occasions, public or private, to the 
 end of his life." 
 
 He proceeds to illustrate that view by refer 
 ences to Mr. Choate's example, opinions, and ad 
 dresses, making special use of his remarks on the 
 occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dr. 
 Adams's pastorate of the Essex Street Church, in 
 which the last public address ever made by Mr. 
 Choate he avowed his faith in the doctrines 
 there taught. 
 
 MY DEAR JUDGE, Mr. Choate was one year 
 before me in college. When I entered, he had 
 already acquired the reputation of leader of his 
 class. My earliest personal knowledge of him was 
 obtained through two of his rivaling classmates, 
 Heydock and Tracy, who had been with me in 
 Salisbury Academy. Mr. Choate came to Han 
 over at an opportune period, as, in fact, we all 
 did. The college difficulties had just divided the 
 old residents into two partisan, though quite un 
 equal, bodies, both of which changed the former 
 limited courtesies extended to students into open 
 blandishments and friendly alliances. President 
 
342 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Brown was young and enthusiastic, and desirous 
 not only that the students should acquit them 
 selves well as scholars, but that they should be 
 kindly received and should make friends for them 
 selves and the institution in the village, and so 
 carry with them to their homes good accounts of 
 the college and the people. Mr. Choate found 
 an old and valuable friend in Dr. Mussey, the 
 head of the medical school. Dr. Mussey had 
 practiced in Essex during the childhood of Mr. 
 Choate, and had boarded in his father's family. 
 Upon being appointed to a professorship, he had 
 given up his practice to Dr. Sewall, who after 
 ward married Mr. Choate's sister, and first taught 
 Latin to Rufus. 
 
 He was fortunate, therefore, in his surround 
 ings at Hanover, but more fortunate in his eager 
 ness to learn and his aptitude for study. His 
 ambition, which we saw in his acts and habits, ap 
 pears now, by confession, as it were, in the letters 
 of his college life, recently furnished by your cor 
 respondent, the Eev. Dr. Putnam. The amenities 
 of the people and the absence of rowdyism on the 
 part of the students were alike notable during 
 President Brown's administration ; and many who 
 were there at this period, besides Mr. Choate, owe 
 much to the graceful influences of the cultured 
 ladies of their early acquaintance. 
 
HIS HABITS. 343 
 
 Mr. Choate was sociable as well as studious, but 
 did not care for play. He found exercise in walks 
 over the hills around the college, and up and 
 down his room while pursuing his studies. His 
 most frequent out-door companion was his class 
 mate Tenney, who furnished a ready laugh to 
 Choate's equally ready wit. Tenney was a jolly, 
 light-hearted youth, well suited to clear the cob 
 webs from an overworked brain, and as such, 
 doubtless, he ministered, perhaps unconsciously, 
 but none the less beneficially, to his friend. 
 Choate's room was of ready access to his mates, 
 and was a sort of centre of mirth and wit; but 
 when sport was over he turned to his studies 
 with avidity. He possessed a wonderful power of 
 concentration, and studied with great intensity. 
 I roomed near him for a year, and could appreci 
 ate this somewhat, as he studied very much aloud, 
 making his voice and ear and his gestures, too, 
 probably contribute each its power of impression 
 upon the memory. He dropped into study read 
 ily as a habit, and thus, at brief intervals, doubt 
 less, through life, added much to his stores of 
 knowledge. We boarded together for a while at 
 Professor Adams's ; and when in the dining-room, 
 before the bell called us to take our seats at the 
 table, Mr. Choate would stand at the sideboard, 
 where lay a large reference Bible, and turn over 
 
344 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 the leaves from place to place, as if tracing out 
 some chain of theological inquiry. 
 
 Mr. Choate by ardent, if frequently interrupted, 
 labor became the ideal scholar and the pride of 
 the college. No one had ever more completely 
 won the admiration of the faculty, of his fellow- 
 students, and of the people of Hanover. Not a 
 lisp of irregularity, of incivility, or neglect was 
 heard against him from any quarter. But toward 
 the close of his college life he became an invalid, 
 was emaciated, walked feebly, his place in the 
 recitation-room was often vacant, his condition a 
 source of anxiety and alarm. Dr. Mussey took 
 him to his house, and watched over him by day 
 and by night. At length the appointments for 
 Commencement were made, and Mr. Choate was 
 set down for the valedictory. Great fears were 
 entertained that he might be unable to participate 
 in the exercises. As the day drew near, the lead 
 ing topic of inquiry and discussion was his condi 
 tion, the last report from his chamber the most 
 important news ; and old graduates, as they 
 arrived from day to day to participate in the 
 proceedings, came to share in the anxiety, and 
 feared that they might not hear him whom they 
 perceived to be so universally admired and be 
 loved. The day came at length, and with it un 
 certain reports intensifying the anxiety, and cast- 
 
HIS VALEDICTORY. 345 
 
 ing doubt not only on the probability of his ap 
 pearance on the platform, but as to the duration 
 of his life. The procession was formed without 
 him, and moved to the church, amid general 
 gloom, for the public exercises. The place was 
 crowded; the graduating class responded to the 
 orders of the day down to the valedictory. Then 
 a few moments of hushed suspense, and Mr. 
 Choate was called. He advanced slowly and fee 
 bly, as if struggling to live and to perform this as 
 a last scholarly duty. Tall and emaciated, closely 
 wrapped in his black gown, with his black, curly 
 hair overshadowing his sallow features, he trem 
 blingly saluted the trustees and officers of the col 
 lege, and proceeded in tremulous and subdued 
 tones with his address, which was full of beautiful 
 thoughts, couched in chaste and elegant language. 
 When he came to say the words of parting to his 
 classmates, his heart poured forth treasures of 
 affectionate remembrance, closing with swelling 
 fervor and inimitable power as he exhorted them 
 not to slacken or misapply their intellectual ener 
 gies and tastes, but to press on to the highest 
 attainments in the domain of learning. " The 
 world from this day and place opens wide before 
 you. You are here and now to drop the power 
 and aid of the association and emulation of our 
 happy days, and strike, single-handed and alone, 
 
346 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 into the manly struggles of life. You may sow 
 and reap in whatever field or realm you choose, 
 and gather the glorious rewards of intellectual 
 culture of pure minds and diligent hands. Go, go 
 forward, my classmates, with all your honors and 
 all your hopes. You will leave me behind, lin 
 gering or cut short in my way ; but I shall carry 
 to my grave, however, wherever, whenever I shall 
 be called hence, the delightful remembrance of 
 our joys and of our love." I can only give a faint 
 and imperfect impression of his loving words ; but 
 my memory of the scene is fresh and vivid. The 
 great congregation, from admiration, excitement, 
 and grief, found relief in a flood of tears. 
 
 Mr. Choate remained in Hanover one year as 
 tutor, and was the central figure of a set of lin 
 guists then connected with the college. James 
 Marsh and George Bush, distinguished scholars, 
 just before him ; George P. Marsh and Folsom, of 
 my class ; and Washington Choate, brother of Ru- 
 fus, Perley, and Williston, two classes next after 
 mine, gave an impulse to the study and love of 
 classical literature unknown before or since in 
 that college. Friendly emulation and student 
 pride led to the daily canvassing of books pub 
 lished, authors read, and works studied. Folsom, 
 W. Choate, and Williston died early; the other 
 scholars named became eminent men. Washing- 
 
COMPETITION IN SCHOLARSHIP. 347 
 
 ton Choate was regarded as equal to his brother 
 in scholarship, and was eminent for his piety. I 
 allude to this era of classical study as an exhibi 
 tion of Mr. Choate's literary influence 
 
 Mr. Choate had great respect and love for his 
 Alma Mater, and contributed from his early pro 
 fessional income toward her support, as well as 
 to influence her advancing curriculum ; but was 
 greatly disquieted, and even vexed, when declared 
 rank in scholarship was abolished. He believed 
 in laudable ambition and honorable competition. 
 The old Puritan school-house system of rising from 
 the foot to the head of the class stirred the little 
 scholar with an ambition which grew with his 
 years, and which he thought should not be ignored 
 or repudiated in higher fields of study. He held 
 that a great principle of human action was in 
 vaded by neglecting to rank scholarship ; that life 
 is largely made up of struggles for superiority in 
 mental and physical efforts ; that its rewards are 
 won by merit ; that the diligent, exact scholar 
 should receive his merited honors; and that the 
 idle or stupid should not be protected from the 
 exposure of misspent time and opportunity. His 
 own life was spent in incessant, honorable compe 
 tition and legitimate reward. 
 
 For several years from 1826 I practiced law in 
 Essex County at the same courts with Mr. Choate ; 
 
348 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 and from 1838 for a few years I lived in Boston, 
 kept up my acquaintance with him, and knew 
 quite well his habits. He died daily, retiring to 
 bed exhausted, under great nervous prostration, 
 with headache. Yet he would rise early, often 
 long before daylight, and take a literary breakfast 
 before his family or business claimed his atten 
 tion. His clients, the courts, and classics com 
 pelled long days and short nights. I called upon 
 him once in the afternoon, and asked him how 
 early the next morning I could confer with him 
 upon a matter I wished to investigate during the 
 evening. " As early as you please, sir ; I shall 
 be up." " Do you mean before breakfast, Mr. 
 Choate ? " " Before light if you wish." I called 
 at the earliest dawn, and found him at his stand 
 ing table, with a shade over his eyes, under a brill 
 iant light, pressing forward some treatise upon 
 Greek literature, which he said he hoped to live 
 long enough to give to the public. The night 
 had restored his wearied powers ; he was elastic, 
 as cheery and brilliant as the stars I had left 
 shining above us. 
 
 Seeing and hearing Mr. Choate in the trial of 
 causes was a perpetual surprise and pleasure. It 
 seemed to make little difference with him whether 
 his cause was of great or small importance; he 
 tried to win it if possible, and ceased not to con- 
 
DECLINES JUDICIAL HONORS. 349 
 
 test it until every consideration favorable to his 
 own side and every one inimical to his adversary 
 had been presented. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that Mr. Choate 
 was offered a seat upon the bench of the Supreme 
 Court of Massachusetts, but declined. It may be 
 proper for me to add that in view of his health, 
 and the arduous nature of his professional exer 
 tions, I pressed him to seek the higher honor of 
 a seat upon the bench of the United States Su 
 preme Court, and so escape the waste of his pow 
 ers in the excitements of the advocate, and attain 
 the more quiet and dignified life of the bench. 
 Judge Woodbury's seat was at the time vacant, 
 and I believed he could secure the appointment. 
 He was then fifty years of age, and in the highest 
 sense eligible. " But/' said he, " I am too poor. 
 I must remain as I am, live or die. I know my 
 power and reputation in my profession, and I love 
 it, but I do not know what the change would 
 bring upon me, or whether I should like it. I 
 cannot leave my profession." He survived only 
 eight years. 
 
 He spent his money well for his family and his 
 library, gave freely to the necessitous, and gave 
 liberally of his well-earned fees when full pay 
 ment might have embarrassed his client. On one 
 occasion, I was in his office when a client asked for 
 
350 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 his bill for a written opinion upon a question of 
 importance. Said Mr. Choate, " Hand me one 
 hundred dollars, and I will give you a receipt in 
 full ; if you go to my partner in the other room, 
 who keeps the books, he will make you pay one 
 hundred and fifty, sure." 
 
 Mr. Choate, like Webster and Everett, was an 
 old Whig politically, and " to the manner born ; " 
 but toward the close of his life party lines under 
 went rapid changes, and men were very uncere 
 moniously laid upon the shelf who were not 
 thought to keep up with the " march of improve 
 ment." Mr. Webster lost the nomination for the 
 presidency, and soon after died at Marshfield; 
 and, although the nation honored his obsequies 
 with every token of mourning, Mr. Choate could 
 not smother his indignation toward the rising ele 
 ments of power. The great expounder and states 
 man had been rejected through unworthy combi 
 nations. His chief, worthy of all homage and 
 confidence, leader of the Whig party, and the 
 supporter of its glory for twenty years, had been 
 slaughtered in the house of his friends. 
 
 Mr. Choate's horror of new combinations and 
 platforms drove him to Buchanan. " I can go no 
 where else/' said he to me, when I had a long in 
 terview with him in regard to his purpose. " But, 
 Mr. Choate, what becomes of your long cherished 
 
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES. 351 
 
 Whig principles ? " " Whig principles ! I go to 
 the Democrats to find them. They have assumed 
 our principles, one after another, till there is little 
 difference between us." Here he traced them one 
 after another as they had found adoption. " And 
 what becomes of your Whig anti-slavery opin 
 ions ? " "I have settled that matter," said he, " I 
 am bound to seek the greatest amount of moral 
 good for the human race. I am to take things as 
 I find them, and work according to my best judg 
 ment for the greatest good of the greatest num 
 ber, and I do not believe it is the greatest good 
 to the slave or the free that four million of slaves 
 should be turned loose in all their ignorance, pov 
 erty, and degradation, to trust to luck for a home 
 and a living." He amplified somewhat this state 
 ment, but the above represents fairly the conclu 
 sions of his argument. Mr. Choate's problem, 
 how to accomplish the greatest good for the great 
 est number, has been worked out on a different 
 plan from that which he wished to see adopted. 
 The war, the death lists, pollution of morals, de 
 struction of prosperity, national debt, present con 
 dition and future destiny of the colored race, and 
 sectional discords are present elements in the 
 scales testing Mr. Choate's sagacity. Happy for 
 us if we can find advantages to counterbalance 
 them. Yours truly, 
 
 NATHAN CROSBY. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. HENRY K. OLIVER. 
 
 THE Hon. Henry K. Oliver, a student at Dart 
 mouth College when young Choate was there, 
 writes as follows : 
 
 MAYOR'S OFFICE, CITY OF SALEM, MASS., 
 
 August 24, 1877. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Your favor of the 26th of July 
 brings vividly to my mind's eye 
 
 The face, the form, the man so true, - 
 
 of my beloved college friend, the late Rufus 
 Choate. Your note so quickened my mind's eye 
 that it again sees his manly and attractive figure 
 and strangely winning face ; and my mind's ear 
 that it again hears his deeply-resonant, sweet- 
 toned, and impressive voice, wakening in me 
 many a reminiscence of his gentleness of temper 
 and disposition, his warm sympathies, his innate 
 sense of right, his refined courtesy, his love of all 
 that was beautiful in life, his attractiveness of 
 person and manner, his memory, his thoroughness 
 as a scholar, and his excellence in all that makes 
 a good and great man. 
 
FROM HARVARD TO DARTMOUTH. 353 
 
 My first acquaintance with him dates from the 
 month of August, 1816, when, he then beginning 
 his Sophomore year, I joined the Junior class at 
 Dartmouth College. I had passed my first two 
 years at Harvard, entering in 1814, a youngling 
 not quite fourteen years of age ; when my father, 
 a Calvinist of the severer type, becoming uneasy 
 at the alleged tendency of Harvard toward Unita- 
 rianism, and probably feeling the pressure of the 
 greater expense thereat, transferred me to Han 
 over. I relinquished my old associations at Har 
 vard with deepest regret, but the transplanted 
 roots after a while found genial soil, and began to 
 feed from the new earth. A few weeks domiciled 
 me among my new associates, while the excite 
 ment attending the existence at Hanover, at one 
 and the same time, of a " Dartmouth College " 
 with its corps of teachers and some one hundred 
 and forty students, and a "Dartmouth Univer 
 sity " with its duet of teachers and its corporal's 
 guard of students, helped me to think less of 
 home and more of surroundings and duty, and I 
 gradually settled down to my work. 
 
 Of those whose active kindness helped to lift 
 me out of my slough of despond, I recall none 
 with more earnest gratitude than him of whom I 
 write, at whose room, in the house of Professor 
 Ebenezer Adams, I was a frequent visitor. 
 
 23 
 
354 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 He was about a year older than myself, but of 
 an almost incredible maturity of mind. Being 
 from my own State and county, he encouraged 
 me by considerate and timely sympathy, and stim 
 ulated me, as he did all of us, by his pertinac 
 ity in study and success in his work. Yet such 
 was the simplicity of his character, his freedom of 
 intercourse with us all, his genial outflow in com 
 panionship, " medicines that he gave us to make 
 us love him," that each of us, delighted with 
 him as a man, and charmed by him as a scholar, 
 was at all times ready to exclaim, like the shep 
 herd in Virgil's Eclogue, 
 
 " Non equidem invideo, miror magis!" 
 
 A passage describing Cicero has often come 
 to my mind when I have thought of Choate, 
 " Quum eas artes disceret, quibus cetas puerilis so- 
 let ad humanitatem informari, ingenium ejus ita il- 
 luxit, ut eum cequales e schold redeuntes, medium, 
 tanquam regem circumstantes, domum deducerent ; 
 imo, eorum parentes pueri fama commoti in ludum 
 litterarium ventitabant ut eum viserent" We looked 
 upon him as facile princeps, no man in any of 
 the classes being even, named with him in point 
 of scholarship. In fact we did not count him at 
 all in rating scholarship, but set him apart and 
 above us all, " himself his only parallel." 
 
 His method of study seemed to the rest of us to 
 
APPEARANCE AT STUDY. 355 
 
 have crystallized into an abiding habit, definite in 
 manner and determinate in purpose. I have often 
 seen him in the act of delving at his books. His 
 large and well-shaped head usually rested upon 
 his hands, his elbows upon the table, his fingers 
 running through the profuse growth of his dark, 
 curly hair. His eyes also were dark, with a 
 mild yet penetrating look, always suggestive of 
 sadness, as were the features of his expressive 
 face, which enchained one's attention by its very 
 pensiveness, in marked contrast, not seldom, with 
 many a playful utterance, which flashed out with 
 no effervescence of laughter, or uproar of bois 
 terous merriment. 
 
 There was a custom, in our day, of assigning, 
 on each alternate Wednesday, subjects to two or 
 three members of the Senior and Junior classes, 
 the essays on which were to be read in chapel on 
 the next Wednesday fortnight. These readings 
 were open to the public, and ordinarily there was 
 plenty of room. But when it was Choate's turn 
 to read, the chapel was crowded, the gentlemen, 
 ladies, and even the youth of the village flocking 
 to hear the brilliant essayist, led thither by his 
 grasp of the subject, his eloquent diction, and 
 his beautiful imagery. At times, and always at 
 the appropriate time, his sense of humor, uncon 
 sciously operative, perhaps, lighted up his features 
 
356 MEMORIES OF EUFUS CEO ATE. 
 
 with an infectious smile as he set forth some ab 
 surdity in a manner so luminous and palpable that 
 the air of the chapel would undulate with the soft 
 murmuring of restrained merriment. And yet no 
 man was more tender in feeling, or had in him 
 less of the spirit of ridicule, or more of charity 
 and good-will to all mankind. If the phrase be 
 permissible, his humor was characterized by a 
 stately dignity, which, while fitting the occasion, 
 most felicitously illustrated his intent, and had 
 nothing in it of harshness. It lacerated no one's 
 feelings, provoked no fretful retort. He was 
 wholly free from any self-complacent conscious 
 ness of superiority in talent or acquirement over 
 his college mates, so free that I doubt whether 
 he himself thought any such superiority existed, 
 manifest though it was to all the rest of us. But 
 neither in college nor in after-life, so far as I 
 know, did he give token of any such cognition. 
 To us, his companionship was a constant benedic 
 tion, and we sought his society as we would seek 
 a haven of repose and comfort. 
 
 His influence, both personal and as a scholar, 
 was operative with every member of the seven 
 classes that enjoyed college life with him, an 
 influence that, feeble in his earlier college life, 
 assumed, before the end of the first year, a power 
 and a reach far beyond that of any other mem- 
 
INFLUENCE IN COLLEGE. 357 
 
 ber of the college. His preparation had been a 
 little imperfect, and he did not, therefore, give us 
 at first the real impress of what he was. But hav 
 ing once taken root, and feeling the power and 
 strength of the wider instruction, he grew with 
 marvelous rapidity. His facility at concentrating 
 his mind upon any given subject, and acquiring 
 all that was to be learned about it, was without 
 parallel, and in every department of study rap 
 idly put him far in advance of his fellows. The 
 general standard of scholarship among us received 
 from him a positive and most noticeable elevation. 
 This influence was felt among officials and under 
 graduates, and it began to be realized that the 
 old rule of the arithmetics, that " more required 
 more," was making men work harder and with 
 more will, and that a decidedly new departure 
 had been taken, never to be retraced. And yet 
 the hindrances that in our time impeded both 
 teachers and taught were most perplexing and 
 discouraging. President Wheelock and the board 
 of trustees had got by the ears, the issue of the 
 contest bringing him to grief and to deposition 
 from office. A new president, Rev. Francis Brown, 
 was elected, and time was required for him to get 
 well into harness, and to make the college feel the 
 healthful influence which he afterwards so admi 
 rably and efficiently exerted. Never was college 
 
358 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 official more beloved and revered. The . rival in 
 stitution, created by the State legislature, had 
 been duly inaugurated, had been put into pos 
 session of the college seal, and the college library 
 was its only building and chapel. We lads had 
 looked out for the two libraries of the college 
 societies, the " Fraternity " and the " Social 
 Friends," and had safely removed them from 
 the college buildings to private quarters ; so that 
 when Professors Dean and Carter of the uni 
 versity, with a horde of village roughs, knowing 
 nothing of such removal, broke into the library 
 room of the " Social Friends," the members of 
 the " Fraternity," then in session, hearing the 
 crash of axes and crowbars, rushed to the rescue, 
 and made prisoners of the whole crowd, sending 
 home the ignobile vulgus, but imprisoning Dean 
 and Carter until they pledged their honor that 
 they would " never do so again." They were 
 then escorted to their homes, each by a trio of 
 collegians. Neither name of these professors, nor 
 that of Allen, president of the new university, will 
 be found in the " Triennial Government Catalogue 
 of Dartmouth," they being unrecognized inter 
 lopers. In fact, the whole creation of the uni 
 versity was a political fraud, " a thing of shreds 
 and patches," which, at the bidding of the Su 
 preme Court of the United States, after Webster's 
 
DISTURBING ELEMENTS. 359 
 
 great argument, like an " insubstantial pageant 
 faded/' leaving " not a wrack behind." But it 
 was a disturbing element for a time, and could 
 not but occupy our thoughts and conversation, 
 and unfavorably affect our study. 
 
 I remember well the poverty of our illustrative 
 apparatus, and the ingenious devices to which Pro 
 fessor Adams was compelled to resort to supple 
 ment it. Not seldom was he constrained to leave 
 to our imagination the practical demonstration 
 of some principle in natural philosophy. So, too, 
 were we without the college library, which, though 
 then small, had, nevertheless, many valuable books 
 of reference that would greatly have helped us 
 through many a difficult passage in our classics. 
 As for recitation-rooms and a chapel, we got them 
 in the village wherever we could. The whole 
 situation was a tangle of embarrassments ; and if 
 there ever was an actual " pursuit of knowledge 
 under difficulties," it was at Dartmouth College, 
 1815-1818, when Choate was an undergrad 
 uate. 
 
 But the extraordinary state of affairs itself, 
 the sympathy of the college instructors with the 
 struggling and loyal students, and the sympathy 
 of the students with the faithful and self-sacri 
 ficing teachers generated a spirit of earnest and 
 successful industry; and I have always believed 
 
360 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 that the good order, the thoughtful fidelity to 
 work, and the unbroken friendship between the 
 teachers and the taught, supplemented by the 
 strong religious influence which then pervaded 
 the institution, were all ministrations which 
 helped to turn evil into good for us all. Our 
 successors at the college can never realize the 
 weight of the troubles that embarrassed us, or 
 the joy we felt when those troubles passed away. 
 May they, in her prosperity, be as faithful to her 
 as were we in her deep adversity. 
 
 But to return : I graduated in 1818, leaving 
 Choate behind me. He graduated in 1819, with 
 the valedictory, an address which exhibited to 
 the full his eminent scholarship, his profound 
 thought, the breadth and extent of his reading, 
 his comprehensive grasp of fact and power of 
 statement, and the magnetism of his oratory. 
 
 He served afterward a single year as tutor, and 
 then commenced a course of study at the Law 
 School at Cambridge, continuing it in the office, 
 at Washington, of Mr. Wirt, Attorney-General of 
 the United States. His fidelity in study, and his 
 purity of life, when an undergraduate, character 
 ized him while preparing for his profession. I 
 lost sight of him mainly during these years, hav 
 ing myself entered upon the work of a teacher 
 in the public Latin School of this city. He, how- 
 
FAITHFUL IN SMALL THINGS. 361 
 
 ever, reappeared in our neighborhood, opening 
 his office in Danvers, that portion of the town 
 now called Peabody, practically a suburb of 
 Salem. Here he laid the foundation of his fu 
 ture success, by a faithfulness in small things 
 which proved his fitness to be intrusted with 
 the conduct of greater. I met him but occa 
 sionally, yet always received from him the same 
 genial recognition that had so often made me 
 happy in college ; and I have always considered 
 it, and shall continue to consider it, as one of 
 the highest happinesses of a not short life, that 
 I was permitted for so many years to enjoy the 
 friendship of so good, so pure, so noble a man as 
 Rufus Choate. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 HENRY K. OLIVER. 
 
LETTER FROM WILLIAM W. STORY, LL. D. 
 
 I AM indebted to William W. Story, LL. D., ju 
 rist, author, and now sculptor at Rome, for the 
 following letter : 
 
 o 
 
 Mr DEAR SIR, I beg you to accept my thanks 
 for the two volumes, one containing the orations 
 and addresses of Mr. Choate, and the other his life 
 by Mr. Brown. These, as well as the articles in 
 the " Albany Law Journal," which you were so 
 kind as to send me, I have read with great inter 
 est and pleasure. 
 
 I wish it were in my power, as it certainly is in 
 my good will, to furnish you, as you request, with 
 any reminiscences of Mr. Choate which could be 
 of interest either to his family and friends or 
 to the public. But, unfortunately, I was never 
 brought into any intimate relation with him ; and 
 such was the difference of our ages and positions 
 during the period that I had the pleasure of 
 knowing him, that I had few opportunities of 
 coming into close personal contact with him, and, 
 
HUMOR AND CONVERSATION. 363 
 
 for the most part, only surveyed him at a dis 
 tance, as one darkly groping his way on the out 
 skirts of the profession of the law looks up to a 
 great and dazzling reputation already in its zenith, 
 and drawing to it the eyes of all. 
 
 My first personal acquaintance with him was 
 while I was studying law in the office of Mr. 
 Charles Sumner and Mr. George Stillman Hillard. 
 His office was in the same building, and occasion 
 ally he would come in either to consult upon 
 some professional question, or, what was more fre 
 quent, to relax his mind in wide excursions with 
 them in the varied fields of literature, to wander 
 into classic regions, to discuss critical questions, to 
 dissect characters, persons, or authors, and, in a 
 word, to talk " de omnibus rebus et quibusdam 
 aliis." At these interviews I played the part of a 
 listener, and better talk it would have been diffi 
 cult to hear. His conversation, stimulated, as it 
 was, by such companions as Hillard and Sumner, 
 who were always ready to turn aside from the 
 arid paths of the law into any " primrose path of 
 dalliance," and who were both capable and willing 
 to explore with him the wide regions of universal 
 literature, was eminently interesting, and, hand 
 passibus cequis, I followed as they led, drawn by 
 a special charrn. His conversation was sometimes 
 grave and critical, with many an allusion and 
 
364 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 quotation from classic authors; sometimes philo 
 sophical, with discussions of theories and doctrines 
 of politics, life, and thought ; sometimes grimly 
 humorous, with trenchant strokes of characteriza 
 tion and finesse of anatomizing. His humor was 
 very peculiar, and often consisted of a new, orig 
 inal, and quite unexpected epithet; as, for in 
 stance, when he spoke of a likeness as being 
 "flagrant; " or of a sly, sudden, and complete re 
 versal of what he had previously seemed gravely 
 to assert. As an instance of this latter peculiar 
 ity, I remember that once, when the conversation 
 happened to turn upon a person whose manners 
 and bearing were peculiarly distasteful, he gravely 
 said, as if in deprecation of the criticism of oth 
 ers, " He is a person whom I myself should have 
 no objection to meet" and then, after a slight 
 pause, added "in a procession." 
 
 His love of epithets was remarkable, and the 
 richness of his vocabulary so great that often it 
 might be said of him, as it was of Shakespeare, 
 that he needed somewhat to be restrained. But 
 many as were the adjectives that he habitually 
 used, they were never idly strung together with 
 out definiteness and distinction of meaning. As 
 he added one to another, each seemed a new and 
 calculated stroke to the characterization, and, as it 
 were, a compressed sentence in itself. He had 
 
ALLITERATIVE STYLE. 365 
 
 carefully studied the English language in its best 
 authors, and was a master of its finer distinctions 
 of expression ; and overwhelming at times as were 
 his adjectives, they were never hurriedly snatched 
 at to fill a gap, but, on the contrary, were care 
 fully selected, and with a purpose to strengthen, 
 enlarge, or make precise his full meaning, culmi 
 nating often in one of peculiar significance. On 
 public occasions, as he uttered them, one after 
 another, slowly and distinctly, and weighing on 
 each, he lifted himself higher and higher, rising 
 on tiptoe, his voice also rising with ever stronger 
 and higher emphasis, until he came to the last 
 word, and then he suddenly settled down upon 
 his heels with a downward sway of the body, and, 
 dropping his voice to a low inflection, flung it, as 
 it were, almost carelessly down. It was like a 
 wave that gathers and accumulates and heaves 
 upward to its fullness of height and then bursts 
 and falls exhausted on the beach. 
 
 In illustration of his highly, alliterative style 
 and fondness for piling epithets one upon another, 
 may be instanced the question he addressed to the 
 jury in his well-known defense of Albert Tirrell 
 against the charge of murder. If not absolutely 
 true in fact, it is at least eminently character 
 istic of his manner "What," he cried out, 
 " must at such a moment have been the feelings 
 
366 MEMORIES 0$ RUFUS CHOATE.* 
 
 of this fond, foolish, fickle-fated, and infatuated 
 Albert, when," etc. Possibly this sentence was, 
 to some extent, invented or enlarged afterwards ; 
 but it was evidently founded on fact. Nothing 
 could be more characteristic than that, after the 
 first word " fond/' he should immediately have 
 added " foolish," as if he remembered the old 
 meaning of the word, and translated it into mod 
 ern English. Each word is intensified beyond its 
 predecessor, and each illustrates the view of Tir- 
 rell's mind which he desired to impress upon the 
 
 jury- 
 In this connection may be told the mot of Mr. 
 
 Justice Wilde, which, as far as I know, has not 
 been recorded in print. This acute and able 
 judge was somewhat dry and precise in his style 
 and manner, and, in most respects, the complete 
 opposite of Mr. Choate. On one occasion, just 
 before the opening of the court, when Mr. Choate 
 was to argue a case, a member of the bar asked 
 the Judge if he had heard that Mr. Worcester had 
 just published a new edition of his dictionary, 
 with a great number of additional words. " No," 
 he answered, " I have not heard of it. But for 
 God's sake don't tell Choate." 
 
 No one would have relished this joke more than 
 Mr. Choate himself, and I think he would have 
 admitted that Judge Wilde had made a good 
 
FULLNESS OF MIND. 367 
 
 point, where he was vulnerable. But, after all, 
 it was not in the mind of the learned Judge, or 
 of any other person, to desire to retrench that 
 wonderful richness of language which the great 
 advocate used with such masterly ability and elo 
 quence. It was the fullness of his mind, the fine 
 ness of his fastidiousness, the extent of his culture 
 that begot the peculiarities of his utterance. In 
 his speeches, as in his writings, this double desire 
 of limitation and exposition, combined with his 
 large range of active and imaginative thought, 
 led him often to overflow his banks with a prodi 
 gal stream which disdained the boundaries of sim 
 ple periods. His sentences refuse to come to a 
 conclusion. A new illustration or variation or de 
 velopment, limitation or side light strikes him 
 before he can come to a pause, and carries him 
 away with it; and, with parenthetical involve 
 ments, excursions beyond the direct line, inclu 
 sions of suspected objections which he is eager to 
 anticipate, or imaginative illustrations and memo 
 ries that will not be refused, he sweeps an undu 
 lating train of lengthening clauses along, ana 
 conda-like in its movement, yet strong of grasp 
 as are the anaconda's folds, until his sentence has 
 grown into a paragraph. But, despite this singu 
 lar involvement of style, there is no want of clear 
 ness either of thought or of expression ; each part 
 
368 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 is knotted to the rest by vertebral articulation. 
 They are all portions of one whole living thing. 
 
 His wonderful power over a jury was not the 
 result of his eloquence, impetuous and often over 
 whelming as it was, so much as of his subtlety of 
 logic, his acuteness of analysis, his eminent faculty 
 of marshalling facts and incidents in a new and 
 unexpected sequence and relation, so as to cast a 
 doubt on what seemed clear before, or to throw 
 a new light on what was previously obscure, his 
 finesse at forcing, so to speak, his view, his imag 
 inative elucidations by hypothetical suppositions 
 and ingenious explanations of apparently simple 
 events, and his penetration of character which en 
 abled him to seize the weak points of witnesses and 
 parties, and to draw into his confidence the jury. 
 
 He was in the habit of treating the jury with 
 assumed deference and politeness, and often se 
 lected one among them to appeal to significantly, 
 as if he were the sagacious person who really saw 
 and appreciated the point he was enforcing. At 
 times he would stop in full career, and say some 
 thing to this effect, " But it is useless to urge this 
 further. I see by the intelligent eye of the fore 
 man that he has thoroughly comprehended the 
 extreme force of this view." Then, again, he had 
 great readiness of parry as well as of assault, and 
 never was surprised so as to lose his guard or at- 
 
METHODS AT THE BAR. 369 
 
 tack, or to be unready for a replique. He was also 
 wary and acute in the examination of witnesses, 
 and so bland in his manner as to hide the point of 
 his question. He never lost his temper, was uni 
 formly courteous and urbane to his opponents and 
 to the Bench, though he often concealed beneath 
 this urbanity the keenest irony of criticism and 
 argument. While submitting to the ruling of the 
 Bench, he had the art to elude its consequences 
 and diminish its importance. He was never head 
 strong, single- vie wed, or obstinate to one absolute 
 course. If he could not make a breach on one 
 side, he changed his tactics and made an assault 
 on another. But, besides and beyond all this, he 
 entered into the facts of a case in an imaginative 
 spirit, creating new possibilities of explanation, 
 new theories of action, throwing subordinate inci 
 dents into strong light and color, giving positive 
 value to what was negative, and casting promi 
 nent incidents into shade, treading with sure and 
 balanced step along a line of attack or defense as 
 narrow as " the unsteadfast footing of a spear." 
 
 His extraordinary defense of Tirrell will, I 
 think, fully justify, in itself, all that I have said 
 of him as an advocate before a jury. 
 
 In his arguments of law to the Court, where 
 the arts he used in jury cases were of little avail, 
 he showed himself to be a master of close logical 
 
 24 
 
370 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 reasoning, of acute powers of comparison and dis 
 crimination, as well as of clear and persuasive ar 
 gument. His guard was close, his rapidity and 
 subtlety of fence remarkable, his points keen and 
 well directed. 
 
 His personal appearance was remarkable. I 
 think no one could come into his presence with 
 out being impressed by it. His broad, massive 
 forehead was crowned with a dark mass of richly 
 curling, fine, and almost turbulent hair, through 
 which he constantly passed his hand, and beneath 
 his overhanging brow were dark, deeply-sunken, 
 and somewhat weary eyes of serious intent and 
 expression, framed in dark circles. His nose was 
 rather large, his upper lip short; and his under 
 lip, projecting somewhat beyond, he constantly 
 thrust out as if to grasp and hold it firm ; while a 
 strong jaw closed and locked up, as it were, the 
 whole face with purpose and power. His cheeks 
 were gaunt and hollow, as if worn by study. In 
 deed, the whole face was that of a thinker and 
 student, which long hours of labor by day and 
 night had made haggard. There was seriousness, 
 gravity, and a certain pathos of character and 
 sadness of experience in its repose. In its lighter 
 moods, it was illumined by genial gleams of humor 
 and the summer lightning of feeling, and in mo 
 ments of excitement it glowed and radiated with 
 
ABSTRACTED BEARING. 371 
 
 inward fire like a forge when the bellows are in 
 blast. His frame was large, well knit, and ner 
 vous. His ordinary gait in walking, as I remem 
 ber him, was inclined to be slouching, as of a 
 person engaged in introverted thought; and, in 
 sitting, it was sunken and overweighed, as it were, 
 into itself. When speaking in public, he was full 
 of action and nervous gesticulation. He swayed 
 backward and forward, advancing and retreating, 
 emphasized by coming sharply down on his heels, 
 now bending down, and now lifting himself to his 
 full and commanding height, and enforcing his 
 utterance with a sharp, impulsive, upward ges 
 ture. 
 
 I had a great admiration for him, not only on 
 account of his power as an advocate, of his emi 
 nence as a public man, of his genial nature, hu 
 mor, sensibility, and accomplishment in letters, 
 but, beyond all this, for a certain somewhat, mys 
 terious and poetic, which always seemed to me to 
 haunt him, and which lay below all his outer show 
 of character. There was something in his silent 
 eyes, in his often abstracted and involved bear 
 ing, in the gloom and wan expression of his face, 
 which seemed to hide an inner life, fed from secret 
 springs, and given to far aspirations and longings 
 outside the public and ordinary routine of the life 
 he seemed to lead. This may have been all vision- 
 
372 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 ary on my part, but I cannot refrain from stat 
 ing this singular impression which he gave me. 
 What he had missed, what he wanted, I cannot 
 say ; nor can I say that he had missed or wanted 
 anything, except as we all miss and want some 
 thing which is denied us, indefinite, unexplained, 
 perhaps, but not the less desired. Still, it always 
 seemed to me, from what I saw of him nearly, 
 that he had another life, behind and beneath this 
 that we knew, " of purer ether, of diviner air," 
 perhaps of disappointment around which a mys 
 tery hovered. I give my impression for what it is 
 worth. It is quite possible that it is but a mere 
 unsubstantial fabric built by my own imagination 
 in dreamland. 
 
 But to return to facts. He brought scholarship 
 into his profession, and this gave a certain grace, 
 refinement, and happiness to all intercourse with 
 him. Sternly as he trod the dusty and thorny 
 path of the law, he snatched many an interval to 
 wander into the fields of Arcadia and there make 
 friends with the spirits of old, and drink of the 
 ancient springs of philosophy, poetry, history, and 
 ethics, as well as of the more modern " wells of 
 English undefiled." The fine edge of his intellect 
 was sharpened by constant attrition with the great 
 minds of the past, and the secret sources of feeling 
 kept fresh by their poetic and enlarging influ- 
 
HIS CONVERSATION. 373 
 
 ences. His conversation was enriched with allu 
 sion and quotation from many an author; and 
 many a flower, gathered in their gardens, gave 
 fragrance and color to dry legal argument. You 
 knew where he had been by the odor which ever 
 clung to his commonest daily life. He was not a 
 mere lawyer, nor did he deem it necessary to con 
 fine himself exclusively to the tread-mill of profes 
 sional business. He was capable of severe and 
 prolonged work, and few men have ever labored 
 with more earnest zeal. The Law is a jealous 
 mistress, and makes heavy demands on all who 
 would win her prizes as he did. But she is apt to 
 suck the blood of her too assiduous devotees, and 
 leave them at last dry, rigid, and sapless. Ear 
 nest as Mr. Choate was in his duty to her, he did 
 not forget that there are other fields of study be 
 yond hers, to which she did not deny him en 
 trance, and from which he brought back many a 
 fragrant flower to wreathe about her careworn 
 brow and enliven her dusty courts. 
 
 But it is time for me to stop. I did not mean 
 to write an essay on Mr. Choate's genius, and 
 you see that I can add little to what has already 
 been said by others, and nothing that is worthy 
 of publication. I regret extremely that I can 
 find in my memory only these vague general im 
 pressions, and these few straws and chips of per- 
 
374 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 sonal reminiscence, which are of no value save as 
 a record of my admiration for one of the greatest 
 advocates that ever adorned our own or any other 
 country. I have the honor to be, 
 
 Yours most faithfully, 
 
 W. W. STORY. 
 HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE NEILSON. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. GEORGE P. MARSH. 
 
 GEORGE P. MARSH, the distingished phi 
 lologist, author of works upon the English lan 
 guage, and for many years United States Minister 
 to Italy, had the courtesy to send me the follow 
 ing. It was mailed at Rome a few weeks before 
 his death. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, The advent of the usual crowd 
 of strangers and the business demands of the com 
 mencement of another year have occupied me so 
 constantly that I have not found time to thank 
 you for your very interesting letter and for Mr. 
 Brown's life of Choate, which I had, indeed, seen 
 but had never had an opportunity of perusing. 
 
 I first knew Mr. Choate as a member of the 
 Sophomore class at Dartmouth College in the au 
 tumn of 1816, when he already towered far above 
 all our co-disciples, and held the same preeminence 
 over those who came in contact with him which 
 he retained through the changes of his after life. 
 At that time scholarship, not power or influence, 
 
376 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 was his aim, and it was not until some years later 
 that he thought of the bar as a desirable career. 
 He was then engaged in reading Cicero's works, 
 which, with such editions and such critical helps 
 (e. g. the dictionaries ef Schrevelius and Ains- 
 worth) as most American scholars could then com 
 mand, was a Herculean task, and I think the study 
 of Cicero's orations taught him the value of am 
 plification, or of abundant collateral illustrations, 
 in oratory. This was a feature of his eloquence 
 in which he excelled all other men, though I 
 think his picturesque allusions were of tener poetic 
 reminiscences than fruits of the actual observation 
 of nature. As I was then fresh from the woods, 
 where my boyish hours were chiefly spent, I 
 observed his want of sympathy with trees and 
 shrubs and rivers and rocks and mountains and 
 plains, as quasi living and sentient beings, and 
 this was the only defect I could discover in his 
 mental organization. Having been born and bred 
 in the interior of what was then popularly called 
 The New State, I had enjoyed but a single mo 
 mentary glimpse of the sea, and I did not at first 
 perceive that the ocean occupied with Choate the 
 place which the solid earth, with its thousand 
 forms and myriad products, organic and inorganic, 
 held with me; but with Mr. Dana, the distin 
 guished author of " Two Years before the Mast," 
 
CRITICISMS OF CONTEMPORARIES. 377 
 
 he was more expansive on this subject, and, as I 
 learn from that gentleman, showed the greatest 
 interest in nautical matters and in naval history. 
 When I was in Congress (1843-49), I often 
 talked with him about these things, but I found 
 little response to my enthusiasm for Nature, and 
 little interest in her material laws. 
 
 Choate habitually spoke freely of his profes 
 sional allies and opponents, but his criticisms on 
 them were generally favorable. Of Mr. Webster, 
 whose method was in some respects the opposite 
 of his own, he always spoke with the profoundest 
 admiration, and I remember to have heard him 
 mention Webster's astonishing power of concen 
 trating his argument on a single point, to the sup 
 port of which the many points which would have 
 been taken by other lawyers were made subser 
 vient and auxiliary, not independent. He had a 
 very exalted opinion of Jeremiah Mason, whose 
 manner was equally opposite to his own, but in 
 quite another direction, and he more than once 
 said to me that he did not believe that any man 
 ever practiced the English law more ably than 
 Mason. Speaking of a celebrated lawyer who 
 was censured for the excessive severity of his 
 cross-examination, Choate said, " He defends him 
 self by saying that he is never hard upon a wit 
 ness unless he believes the witness to be lying. I 
 
378 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 think/' added Choate, " that is true; but he has 
 a way of making the witness lie by his very man 
 ner of examining him." Webster often consulted 
 Choate in the preparation of his Congressional 
 speeches, and particularly with reference to the 
 quotations which he wished to introduce into 
 them ; and Mr. Choate sometimes did me the 
 honor to confer with me on these points. On one 
 occasion, I remember he asked me if I could fur 
 nish him with the original source of an expression 
 which in a later age became proverbial : Spar tarn 
 quam habes hanc orna. Being myself at a loss, I 
 referred him to Mr. John Pennington of Philadel 
 phia, who helped us out. 
 
 I was much interested in your remarks on 
 Choate's vocabulary. His study of the English 
 language was unceasing, and I think he spoke no 
 other, sacrificing foreign languages to his mother 
 tongue, although he read some Continental lan 
 guages with sufficient facility for ordinary literary 
 purposes. I should, from general recollection, 
 have estimated his wealth of words higher than 
 you find it. It interested me particularly from 
 some shallow and ignorant criticisms on my lec 
 tures on the English language by a speaker who 
 said he had made a careful estimate of his own 
 habitual vocabulary, and found it to reach 30,000 
 words ; and yet the critic did not know the philo- 
 
VOCABULARY. 379 
 
 logical meaning of the term word and confounded 
 derivations from a root with inflections of a stem. 
 I never met any other man with such a knowl 
 edge and command of all the resources of English 
 as had Mr. Choate, and he had the rare gift of 
 using words so that each made those with which 
 it was connected bring out the best, or at least 
 some special^ meaning. He told me that he habit 
 ually read the dictionary, and, speaking of his 
 translation of a part of Thucydides and other 
 classics, he said he undertook the work for the 
 sake of the English, not for Greek. Though Mr. 
 Choate read Greek and Latin with facility and 
 pleasure, and had a fair acquaintance with the 
 literature of more than one Continental nation, 
 yet he did not share in the fashionable American 
 craze about the pursuit of foreign languages, and 
 held that for an English-speaking person the Eng 
 lish tongue was worth all others. I remember 
 that he once found me reading Scarron, and in 
 quired sharply how I found time for reading such 
 trash. I answered that I had only a very indif 
 ferent French dictionary, and that I was studying 
 Scarron for the sake of the vocabulary. " You 
 may find old words enough," he replied, " in 
 French authors fit to be read." 
 
 The critical adage, " Manner is matter," was 
 never more forcibly exemplified than by Choate, 
 
380 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 who would give wonderful effect both to the 
 grave and the gay, by mere manner. He would 
 use, sparingly indeed, but most effectively, popu 
 lar cant words and phrases. For example, in a 
 conversation on the subject of New York politics, 
 he spoke of a conspicuous editor as having sgua- 
 boshed ; and of another, who had absconded, as 
 having swartwouted. The first of these occurs in 
 a letter printed by Mr. Brown. Such words, how 
 ever, he seldom used except in jocular conversa 
 tion. On the contrary, in his public addresses to 
 popular audiences he was very choice in his lan 
 guage, and often even stunned the jury by words 
 of " learned length and thundering sound." In 
 defending an action for crim. con., referring to 
 some testimony of a character very damaging to 
 his clients, he said, " Well, suppose they did in 
 dulge in some innocent toying, by way of miti 
 gating the asperities of hay-making ! " This was 
 said in a tone of perfect seriousness, and did not 
 startle, but rather confounded, the jury he was ad 
 dressing. Webster said of this rhetorical move 
 ment, " Choate is the only man in the world who 
 could have thus said that." He sometimes took 
 great liberties with the jury. On one occasion, 
 observing by the manner of a juryman that he 
 was hostile to his client, he caught the man's eye, 
 and, pointing directly towards him, said, " I will 
 
A CHRISTIAN. 381 
 
 make this point plain I will make it plain even 
 to you, sir." The juryman quailed, and finally 
 agreed to the verdict desired by Mr. Choate. I 
 once heard him say to a lady, in introducing her 
 to a new member of Congress, " He is the most 
 learned man in the House I mean of his age 
 1 am two years older." This was not much to 
 say, but the manner was altogether irresistible. 
 
 Mr. Choate was from boyhood a serious thinker, 
 and a believer in the truth of Christianity, though 
 I do not know that he ever became a member of 
 any particular church. But the extreme sensi 
 tiveness, so characteristic of him, often led him to 
 parry playfully any attempt on the part of the 
 over-zealous to draw him into conversation on re 
 ligious subjects. A prominent Christian gentle 
 man was once making an earnest effort in that 
 way, and he prefaced his remarks by referring to 
 a recent instance of gross depravity, adding, " Ah ! 
 Mr. Choate, this is a very sinful world ! " " Yes, 
 it is," replied Mr. Choate, " and they say it will 
 all burn up some day what do you think ? " 
 accompanying his answer with an irresistibly lu 
 dicrous expression of countenance ; the conversa 
 tion ending with a hearty laugh on both sides. 
 
 I should say that one of Choate's most remark 
 able traits of character was his unresting, unflag 
 ging industry, coupled with a readiness to make 
 
382 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 any and every sacrifice of his own likings or en 
 joyment to the one great object of securing the 
 highest position in his profession. This was with 
 him no vulgar ambition, but simply a love of, and 
 a desire for, perfection. I am not able to add 
 more at this time. 
 
 I am, my dear sir, very truly yours, 
 
 GEO. P. MARSH. 
 To CH. J. NEILSON. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. JOHN WINSLOW. 
 
 "!T is a mistake to suppose that the man of genius is ever a 
 fountain of self-generating energy ; whosoever expends much in 
 productive activity must take in much by appropriation ; whence 
 comes what of truth is in the observation that genius is a genius 
 for industry." MAUDSLEY. 
 
 MY opportunities for observing Rufus Choate 
 were chiefly when residing, in early life, in the 
 vicinity of Boston. I saw and heard him on vari 
 ous public occasions in my youth, early manhood, 
 and when a student at Cambridge Law School. 
 
 So much has been well said in estimation of 
 Choate's genius and attainments that I do not 
 feel like adding a word in that direction, except 
 to say that his efforts on political and forensic 
 occasions profoundly impressed me with a sense 
 of his masterly attainments, his extraordinary 
 powers, and wonderful genius. To speak of his 
 genius as wonderful may, to one who never 
 saw the man, appear extravagant ; but it always 
 seemed to me that his genius, as seen through his 
 public efforts, was wonderful in a very special 
 
384 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 sense. Besides his liberal attainments as a scholar 
 and a lawyer, and his great natural abilities, he 
 seemed to have an added quality which few have, 
 which stimulated his faculties to most vigorous 
 and effective action. Sometimes this stimulating 
 quality is called electricity, which, in our day of 
 scientific progress, is a word implying, more than 
 ever, large force, and, in a measure, unrevealed 
 power and possibilities. In referring to Choate, 
 one writer says, " When addressing a jury, his 
 whole frame was charged with electricity, and lit 
 erally quivered with emotion." Another speaks of 
 " his electric bursts of humor." 
 
 A cool-headed lawyer, who heard Choate's fa 
 mous address before the New England Society of 
 New York, in 1843, says, " It came upon the au 
 dience like a series of electric shocks." Another 
 well-known writer speaks of Choate's "magnetic 
 individuality." We thus find Choate reminding 
 observers of electricity, electric bursts, electric 
 shocks, and magnetic batteries generally. 
 
 We are beginning to feel that it is not easy to 
 limit what may be done with electricity. When 
 Franklin drew it from the sky on a kite-string, it 
 was thought marvelous. Since that day we have 
 seen it guided in the storm, used in medicine, and 
 become the obedient servant of man, who sends 
 his message by means of it around the world. 
 
SCIENCE IN DISGUISE. 385 
 
 In later time it comes as a means of brilliant 
 light, and has been proposed, though not suc 
 cessfully, as a means, through nice adjustments, 
 to relieve, as was hoped, an afflicted nation, by 
 informing it of the locus of the dreaded bullet in 
 the body of our late beloved President. Edison 
 and kindred spirits are at work developing the 
 capacities of the telephone by the phonograph; 
 and an Electrical Congress was lately in session in 
 Paris, where, among many wonders, was exhibited 
 an electric railway and a microtasimeter, which is 
 so delicate that it will measure the calorific rays 
 emitted by the fixed stars. What will come of 
 these things who can tell ? 
 
 We hear accounts of the late discovery by M. 
 Faure, who has invented an accumulator of elec 
 tricity, a sort of storage arrangement, the possible 
 uses of which may not be limited to medicine and 
 to the arts, but may touch some new and impor 
 tant problems. 
 
 So, in the case of Mr. Choate, I feel like insist 
 ing that in some mysterious way he anticipated 
 M. Faure, and was, in fact, an accumulator and 
 storehouse of that subtile force or source of en 
 ergy we call electricity, which surcharged his 
 brain and every nerve to an extraordinary de 
 gree, and so helped him, with striking effect, to 
 display his masterly genius. 
 
 25 
 
386 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Some have claimed that the "eager and nip 
 ping air" of New England, especially in the re 
 gion of Boston, has unusual vitalizing power in 
 stimulating nerve and brain. However this may 
 be, or to what extent the sensitive temperament 
 of Choate may have been affected by it, must be 
 left to conjecture. 
 
 To see Choate in one of his imaginative flights, 
 or when making an impassioned appeal in his best 
 strength for client or party, was a privilege to be 
 long and gratefully remembered. 
 
 When referring to criticisms by lawyers and 
 others of Choate's elocution and style, Mr. Web 
 ster said, " There is no man in the world besides 
 Choate who could succeed with that style. It is 
 his own. It is peculiar to him. It is as natural 
 to him as any constitutional trait about him. No 
 body can imitate him. He imitates nobody, and 
 his style is most effective." 
 
 Choate was a diligent student. Great and brill 
 iant as were his talents, his success was largely 
 due to his profound and constant studies. Some 
 one has said his genius was mainly " science in 
 disguise." If by this is meant that his culture 
 was large, unremitting, and generous, from which 
 he drew effectively in his forensic and other 
 public performances, it is true. 
 
 My first remembrance of Choate in politics was 
 
POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS. 387 
 
 in the memorable campaign of 1840, when the 
 prevailing cry was " Tippecanoe and Tyler too." 
 The canvass was very spirited, and, as the result 
 showed, quite one-sided. A notable Whig meet 
 ing, showing the temper and spirit of the cam 
 paign, was held at Bunker Hill, in September. 
 The gathering of people was tremendous, and 
 their enthusiasm immense. There was a proces 
 sion four miles long, in which were large delega 
 tions from various States, with many banners. I 
 remember one delegation of several hundred men 
 from Louisiana. This delegation, on its march 
 in the afternoon back to Boston, encountered a 
 drenching rain-storm, and one of the men, per 
 haps a printer, extemporized a banner to suit 
 the occasion, upon which were quickly printed 
 the words, "Any rain but the reign of Matty 
 Yan Buren." There were on the rostrum at 
 Bunker Hill many leading men, and Webster, 
 who was the principal orator, spoke in ponder 
 ous majesty. Choate spoke in the evening in 
 Boston, and was received with great favor and 
 applause. He was all aglow, full of fire and 
 action such as no other man did or could ex 
 hibit. Catching the spirit of the occasion, as he 
 stood there addressing the people with a mind 
 freighted with serious thought, and occasionally 
 making some apt reference to Bunker Hill and its 
 
388 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 patriotic associations, it was evident that Choate 
 was then and there the favorite orator, at least of 
 New England, if not of the whole country. 
 
 Eeferring to another political occasion, I re 
 member to have heard Choate at Concord, in 1844, 
 on the fourth day of July, when there was a large 
 gathering brought together to espouse the elec 
 tion of Henry Clay. Webster and Berrien and 
 Winthrop and Greeley and Lawrence were there. 
 Choate was in good condition, and hopeful of 
 victory. He referred to South Carolina, with 
 tremulous gesture, as the " Palmetto State," and, 
 with regretful feeling, alluded to her career as a 
 nullifier of the tariff laws in Jackson's term. He 
 advocated a protective tariff, and wanted to know, 
 in his effective manner, whether the Free Traders 
 would carry their doctrine so far as to make us de 
 pendent upon foreign nations for the gunpowder 
 we might have to use in our defense against for 
 eign aggression. Among other speakers, Horace 
 Greeley followed Choate, under the big tent. I 
 remember Greeley's white pants, somewhat col 
 ored by green grass, also his peculiar voice and 
 intonation, and manner generally. He com 
 menced and continued in a quiet, thoughtful 
 way, but as one who had something worth say 
 ing to the people. He was listened to atten 
 tively, as he deserved to be. 
 
TOWN GOVERNMENT. 389 
 
 Probably no two speakers could be more unlike 
 in style, manner, and action, than Horace Greeley 
 and Rufus Choate. 
 
 I heard Choate again on an occasion not politi 
 cal. It was when he delivered his famous lecture 
 on the Sea, before a literary association in a large 
 hall. He seemed full of his wild subject, and 
 swayed the audience with eloquence, as the storm 
 sways the sea. The impression left upon me by 
 this performance is as if I had listened to a breezy, 
 reverent poem, descriptive of the mighty power of 
 the sea, and what may be encountered there in 
 calm or in storm. His manner was very impres 
 sive. The tone of the discourse was in the main 
 serious, and in the spirit of Bryant, who says, 
 
 " The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways 
 His restless billows." 
 
 All regret that the manuscript of this thrilling lec 
 ture was lost. 
 
 I heard Choate again on a winter evening in 
 1851, on a very quiet and undemonstrative occa 
 sion. The place was the Massachusetts Senate 
 Chamber, and his audience a Senate committee 
 and a few others. The special topic was a pro 
 posed separation of West Roxbury from Roxbury, 
 which would create a new town government. 
 Choate was retained to support the measure, and, 
 small in number as was the audience, he found in 
 
390 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 his topic enough to arouse his enthusiasm. He 
 made an eloquent plea for towns and town gov 
 ernments, and the usefulness and glory thereof. 
 He insisted that they are important factors in ed 
 ucational growth, especially in what pertains to 
 state and national interests, and that their contin 
 uance was essential to the welfare of the country. 
 In this argument, Choate, as was his habit, treated 
 his subject as thoroughly and eloquently as if ad 
 dressing a large audience. 
 
 In the year 1847, when the breach was more 
 apparent than before in Massachusetts between 
 the Conscience and the Cotton Whigs, the for 
 mer had hopes . that both Choate and Webster 
 would soon become identified with them. In this 
 chapter of political history, there was a memorable 
 day in Faneuil Hall, in September, when I was 
 present as a spectator, and which may properly be 
 referred to here, as illustrative of the political at 
 mosphere of the period. The Whig State Conven 
 tion was in session, and many leading men of both 
 sides were there. The contest was, as to the plat 
 form, whether it should be conservative or of an 
 anti-slavery type. Before it was reported, Sum- 
 ner made a speech of great power and eloquence 
 in favor of aggressive action against the usurpa 
 tion of the slave power. In his speech he made 
 a graceful and forcible appeal to Mr. Webster, and 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 391 
 
 said, " Dedicate, sir, the golden years of experi 
 ence which are yet in store for you to removing 
 from your country its greatest evil. In this 
 cause you shall find inspirations to eloquence 
 higher than any you have yet confessed." Win- 
 throp was then called out, and made an able reply. 
 There were two reports on the platform, as was 
 expected. Speeches were made by Stevenson, 
 Stephen C. Phillips, Linus Child, Charles Francis 
 Adams, and Charles Allen. The debate was able, 
 attended by much excitement, and lasted until 
 night. The conservatives became alarmed, and 
 decided to send for Webster. Abbott Lawrence, 
 who was a member of the convention, soon ap 
 peared, with Webster upon his arm, amid tremen 
 dous applause. Both Conscience and Cotton 
 joined in manifestations of respect. As Webster 
 reached the rostrum, the applause was renewed 
 with great vigor, and the whole scene was grand 
 and inspiring. Webster took his seat, and listened 
 to Charles Allen, one of the ablest of the Con 
 science men, who resumed and finished a stern 
 and inflexible speech. Webster then arose, the 
 convention rising with him, and in a short ad 
 dress made a plea of great power for harmony. 
 A friend tells rne that Sumner said he knew, when 
 he saw " Black Dan " coming, it was all up with 
 his side that year. It was in this speech that 
 
392 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Webster's famous words were uttered which have 
 been so widely quoted. He had been speaking of 
 his warm attachment to the Whig party, and how 
 he loved to inhale its " odor of liberty." Then 
 followed the memorable words spoken in his 
 grandest and most impressive manner. " Others," 
 he said, " rely on other foundations and other 
 hopes for the welfare of the country ; but, for my 
 part, in the dark and troubled night that is on us, 
 I see no star above the horizon promising light to 
 guide us, but the intelligent, patriotic, united 
 Whig party of the United States." At this mo 
 ment every look and gesture of the orator were in 
 harmony with his thought. He seemed to speak 
 as if standing in a dark background, his lustrous 
 eyes looking above the horizon for the star that 
 should give the promised light to guide the con 
 vention and the people. The power of the speech 
 and the spectacle was seen and felt in the fact 
 that a convention of turbulent men, at once sub 
 dued, were ready for adjournment without fur 
 ther strife. 
 
 I heard Choate on several political occasions in 
 Faneuil Hall, some of which are memorable. It 
 will be remembered that Webster delivered his 
 famous, and, according to his opponents of that 
 day, infamous, 7th of March speech in the Senate, 
 in 1850, the tone of which was compromise with 
 
FANEUIL HALL REFUSED. 393 
 
 the South for the sake of peace and the Union. 
 Choate was in full sympathy with Webster, as 
 may be seen in his political speeches of that pe 
 riod. In April, 1851, Webster, who was on a short 
 visit to Marshfield, was invited by many citizens 
 of Boston to a public reception in Faneuil Hall. 
 Mr. Choate was to address him for the citizens. 
 Great indignation was aroused by the refusal of 
 the mayor and aldermen to allow the use of the 
 hall for the proposed meeting. The reason given 
 was that Wendell Phillips and the Abolitionists 
 having been refused the use of the hall for fear 
 of a riot, they could not consistently grant the 
 hall to any one else. Webster and his friends, 
 particularly Choate, were very indignant. A good 
 many things were said and done to set the matter 
 right. Choate was very active, and wished Mr. 
 Webster to know that the action of the city au 
 thorities did not represent the citizens or the best 
 sentiment of Boston. Choate sent friends to 
 Marshfield to so assure Mr. Webster, among whom 
 were Peter Harvey and Fletcher Webster, the lat 
 ter taking a letter from Choate. Webster said 
 sadly to Harvey, " Fletcher came down and mere 
 ly told me the bald fact that the city government 
 had refused the hall, and brought me a note from 
 Choate which I could not read. By the way, tell 
 Mr. Choate to write better ; his handwriting is 
 
394 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 barbarous. I could not read a single word. 
 There is the letter ; just look at it ; tell Choate to 
 go to a writing-school, and take a quarter's les 
 sons." Webster finally wrote a letter, which was 
 much admired by his friends, to the committee 
 who invited him, in which he said, " I shall defer 
 my visit to Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American 
 liberty, until its doors shall fly open on golden 
 hinges to lovers of UNION as well as lovers of 
 LIBEKTY." 
 
 In the next year, on a spring afternoon, " When 
 the May sun sheds an amber light," Webster ap 
 peared in Faneuil Hall at a kindly reception ten 
 dered him by citizens of both parties. This was 
 soon after his carriage accident. He was quite 
 unwell, and much affected by the exhibition of 
 general kindness and respect. How well I re 
 member his appearance when he thundered, " This 
 is Faneuil Hall Open." 
 
 In the year 1850, and soon after, many large 
 union meetings, so-called, were held in various 
 parts of the country in support of the compromise 
 measures of 1850. There were several held in 
 Faneuil Hall, where such men as Webster, Choate, 
 Curtis, Winthrop, and Ashman addressed the peo 
 ple. I was present at one in November of 1851, 
 I think, when Hon. B. K. Curtis, then an emi 
 nent member of the Boston bar, and afterwards 
 
ARGYLL'S THEORY. 395 
 
 Judge of the United States Supreme Court, and 
 Choate spoke. The hall was closely packed by 
 intelligent men standing, and there was much 
 excitement. Curtis, who presided, led off in a 
 calm, logical speech, and Choate followed. I shall 
 attempt no statement of what he said. It was a 
 fervent appeal to the country, especially to the 
 North, to stand by the Union in the spirit of sac 
 rifice and concession. In the course of his ar 
 gument, the views of men like Charles Francis 
 Adams, Henry Wilson, and Charles Sumner, who 
 were then at the front of the anti-slavery hosts, 
 got some hard knocks. I was sitting very near 
 Choate, on the side of the famous rostrum, and 
 shall not forget one of his gestures. He had 
 reached in high heat the climax of his speech, 
 when, under great excitement, almost frenzy, 
 upon emphasizing his final point, he quickly bent 
 forward and downward so that his curling hair 
 nearly touched the floor. In an instant he was 
 erect again, his whole appearance intensely ner 
 vous and magnetic, and drew from the vast au 
 dience round after round of applause, and cheers. 
 
 The Duke of Argyll, in his treatise on " The 
 Eeign of Law," presents a view which may in 
 some measure explain Mr. Choate in action as an 
 orator : 
 
 "When, through the motor nerves, the will 
 
396 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 orders the muscles into action, that order is en 
 forced by a discharge of the electric force, and 
 upon this discharge, the contractile force is set 
 free to act, and does accordingly produce the con 
 traction which is desired. Such is, at least, one 
 suggestion as to the means employed to place 
 human action under the control of the human 
 will, in that material frame which is so wonder 
 fully and fearfully made. And whether this hy 
 pothesis be accurate or not, it is certain that some 
 such adjustment of Force to Mechanism is in 
 volved in every bodily movement which is subject 
 to the will." Whether all or any of this is applic 
 able to, or accounts for, the appearance of Mr. 
 Choate in action, in court, or on the rostrum, is 
 the question submitted. 
 
 If " every bodily movement " of the great bra- 
 tor, " subject to the will," can thus be explained, 
 he at least was probably innocent of all knowl 
 edge of the law that " through the motor nerves 
 the will orders the muscles into action," " by a 
 discharge of the electric force," in the manner 
 stated. 
 
 In July of 1851, Choate delivered an oration 
 before the Story Association of Cambridge Law 
 School, of whose graduating class I was a member. 
 A procession was formed, which marched to the 
 church where the address was delivered. My 
 
OPIUM AGAINST ELECTRICITY. 397 
 
 place in the procession happened to be next to the 
 orator. As showing of what flimsy stuff history is 
 sometimes made, I may in this connection give an 
 incident. There was more or less vague hinting 
 that the great orator was occasionally addicted to 
 the use of opium. Some were inclined to explain 
 his nervous action and great excitement, when 
 speaking, by the opium theory. As the proces 
 sion was waiting for its march, Choate took from 
 his vest pocket some small particle and put it into 
 his mouth. "Do you see that," whispered a by 
 stander, " Choate is getting ready for his speech ; 
 he has just taken some opium." As a matter 
 of fact, the remark of the wiseacre would have 
 been as just if made of the Rev. Obadiah Smith, 
 or some other solemn personage who by chance 
 might have attracted attention in a similar way. 
 Rather than encourage the opium scandal, I pre 
 ferred to rest my theory upon electricity, or Bos 
 ton east wind, as the motive power that inspired 
 the great orator as no other man of the time was 
 inspired. 
 
 The topic of the oration in the church was obe 
 dience and respect for law as essential for the 
 maintenance of the Union, which is to be preferred 
 beyond and above all things else as a means of 
 political salvation for the country. He made an 
 elaborate and eloquent appeal to the young men 
 
398 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 of the Law School to throw their personal and po 
 litical influence for the conservative side of the 
 great conflict which he seemed to feel, almost as 
 a prophet, was imminent. His appeal, like Web 
 ster's, was " to lovers of Union as well as to lovers 
 of Liberty." 
 
 It was my good fortune to see Choate in court 
 engaged in trials on various occasions. It is not 
 worth while, perhaps, to state in detail what I 
 saw and heard on such occasions. In every case 
 he seemed to be absorbed for his client's cause. 
 There was no case in his hands, especially before 
 a jury, that he did not make a thing of life, and 
 of profound interest. 
 
 Many anecdotes and incidents of Choate as a 
 lawyer in the courts have been given, some of 
 which, I trust, will find a place in this book. I 
 happened in court one Saturday, in Boston, when 
 Choate had charge of a case that involved some 
 improvement in the handling of cotton. In the 
 course of a very spirited argument to the jury, 
 he took occasion to discuss our agricultural and 
 manufacturing resources as cooperative in develop 
 ing the country and promoting general prosperity. 
 He made a masterly and interesting statement of 
 his view, which was in itself broad statesmanship. 
 
 When he brought forward somnambulism as a 
 defense in part for his client, Tirrell, who was in- 
 
ANECDOTES. 399 
 
 dieted for murder, there were many good women 
 and children, not to speak of " the rest of man 
 kind/' who thought the defense very absurd, if 
 not very wicked. The jury, however, thought 
 otherwise. 
 
 I am indebted to a prominent citizen of Brook 
 lyn, a native of Salem, where Choate studied law, 
 for the following. Leverett Saltonstall, who was 
 an able and noted Massachusetts Federalist, was 
 not an admirer of the irrepressible Caleb Gushing, 
 then a rising man in his region. Gushing, though 
 a younger man than Saltonstall, was considered 
 his rival, and rumor was afloat to the effect that 
 Cushing's wife had written and published in a 
 newspaper a very eulogistic article about her hus 
 band, which rumor Saltonstall was willing to be 
 lieve. Choate at this time was a young lawyer in 
 Saltonstall's office in Salem. One morning while 
 at his desk, S. rushed in excitedly and exclaimed, 
 " Cushing is dead and buried, dead and buried." 
 " Dead ! " said Choate " and buried ! When ? 
 where ? " " Dead and buried ! " cried Saltonstall. 
 " Well," said Choate, " you don't tell me when he 
 died or where he is buried ; but I '11 venture he is 
 not buried so deep but what he '11 sprout." 
 
 I am also indebted to a gentleman, now of 
 Brooklyn, formerly of Boston, who was a client of 
 Choate's, for the following : The client had been 
 
400 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 consulting Choate in litigations concerning some 
 vessels about to arrive at New York. One day 
 the client said, " Mr. Choate, the vessels will soon 
 arrive in New York, and I am going there to re 
 side. Now, what lawyer do you think of that you 
 would advise me to consult in this matter ? " 
 " Let me see," said Choate. Then turning to his 
 partner, he said, " Crowninshield, what is the 
 name of that young lawyer in New York, who did 
 so well in defending Monroe Edwards, and had a 
 counterfeit $1,000 bill put on him for his fee ?" 
 " His name is Evarts," said Crowninshield. " Yes," 
 said Choate, " Evarts, he is the man for you. Em 
 ploy him." 
 
 Is not this an instance, in re Evarts, of coming 
 events casting their shadows before ? Choate 
 must have felt the coming greatness of New 
 York's distinguished lawyer. 
 
 A few days previous to Choate's oration before 
 the Story Association at Cambridge, to which 
 I have referred, Choate was under discussion at 
 the Law Library among a group of a dozen stu 
 dents. The conversation turned chiefly upon the 
 comparative merits of Choate and Brougham, as 
 lawyers and orators. I remember how ardently 
 one of the students, of rather mature years, 
 from the Southwest, insisted that Choate was 
 the greater lawyer and orator, and referred to 
 
INCIDENTS. 401 
 
 cases and occasions in the career of each to 
 prove his position. There was a disposition to ac 
 quiesce in the view that Choate was the supe 
 rior. While this circumstance is not decisive, it is 
 useful as showing how deep an impression Choate 
 was then making upon appreciative minds. 
 
 The late Mr. Somerby was a distinguished mem 
 ber of the Boston bar, and was frequently asso 
 ciated with Choate in the trial of causes. He was 
 an enthusiastic admirer of Choate, and one day, 
 while riding with a friend through Mount Auburn 
 Cemetery, took off his hat at a certain spot with 
 so reverent an air that his companion asked him 
 the reason. Mr. Somerby pointed to a grave 
 near by, and said, " There is the grave of Rufus 
 Choate. The man who goes by that grave with 
 out taking off his hat is not fit to live on earth.' ' 
 
 In his intercourse with the bar, Mr. Choate, 
 though resolute, was disposed to be kind and 
 courteous. One day I saw him engaged in court, 
 in Boston, in a jury trial involving some question 
 of patent right in a rifle. One of his adversaries 
 was a well-known lawyer of the New York bar, 
 who seemed to be very earnest and pronounced 
 in his ways and methods. He was quite an ex 
 pert in his knowledge of fire-arms, and handled 
 the rifle as if familiar with its use. He would 
 hold and aim it as if about to fire in the court- 
 
 2G 
 
402 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 room. Choate did not shine in that way. In 
 the course of the trial, his New York adversary 
 made some abrupt and impolite remark to Choate 
 as to the adrnissibility of certain evidence. In 
 reply, Choate, who was evidently not pleased with 
 the remark, noticed it by referring, in a sombre 
 way, to the learned counsel from New York, 
 whom he could not call his brother. 
 
 A Plymouth friend sends me the following : 
 A gentleman was in his study one day, and Mr. 
 Choate, who had a closet in which he kept bottles 
 and glasses and ice-water, had taken out his de 
 canter, and was enjoying a social glass (a thing, 
 by the way, which he did very rarely, and with 
 great moderation), when he heard some one com 
 ing up the stairs, and, expecting the Rev. Dr. 
 Adams, he suddenly and hastily gathered all the 
 implements, thrust them into the closet, and shut 
 it, when his library door opened, and, instead of 
 Dr. Adams, there appeared before him his friend, 
 Mr. Peter Harvey. " Why, Harvey ! is that you ? 
 I thought it was a Presbyterian foot-fall." And 
 he immediately replaced the paraphernalia so 
 suddenly hidden from sight. 
 
 A Boston gentleman says, " On one evening, 
 when Mr. Brough and others gave a concert in 
 Boston, my informant was one of the last comers 
 of a crowded audience, and consequently had to 
 
ANECDOTES. 403 
 
 take his seat near the door, and as far as the 
 dimensions of the hall would permit from the 
 singers' platform. He was happy to find himself 
 seated next to Mr. Choate. At a late period of 
 the performance, Mr. Brongh came upon the stage, 
 and comported himself so oddly that my friend 
 said to Mr. Choate, 'I think the man must be 
 drunk.' * I smelled his breath the moment he 
 came upon the stage/ replied Choate." 
 
 He once passed the night at the once famous 
 inn of Mrs. Nicholson, in Plymouth, a some 
 what rambling house, in which the only room 
 not necessarily used as a passage-way to other 
 rooms was occupied by Justice Wilde of the 
 Supreme Court. Most of the members of the 
 Plymouth bar, inmates of the house, including 
 Eddy, Coffin, Baylies, Packard, and Young, were 
 playing cards until a late hour. At breakfast, 
 Justice Wilde, whose Puritanical manner was not 
 unmixed with humor, knowing well the situa 
 tion of things, said, " Well, Mr. Choate, I sup 
 pose you slept well ? " " Admirably, your Honor, 
 except that I slept in the highway," replied Mr. 
 Choate. 
 
 I remember hearing Mr. Choate defend the 
 master of the schooner Sally Ann, tried in the 
 United States Court, in Boston, on a charge of 
 casting away his vessel, in defraud of the under- 
 
404 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 writers, on the coast of St. Domingo. The jury 
 had disagreed in a former trial, conducted by 
 District Attorney Kobert Kantoul, Jr. George 
 Lunt, appointed his successor, had secured ad 
 ditional testimony, with, as he thought, a cer 
 tainty of conviction. The testimony on both 
 sides was closed ; and, during a short recess taken 
 before the arguments, Mr. Choate, in passing 
 through the entry, accidentally overheard the 
 colored cook of the vessel, who had been called 
 as a government witness, but not used, speak of 
 the captain's crying when he left his vessel and 
 took to his boat. Choate hurried into court, 
 and, with great impressiveness, asked permission 
 to put in an important piece of testimony, which 
 had only at that moment come to his knowledge. 
 With the permission of the judge, the cook was 
 called ; and, in reply to the question of Mr. Choate 
 as to the deportment of the master on leaving his 
 vessel, said, " He cried like a child." " That is 
 all," said Mr. Choate ; and, with this single straw 
 of sentiment to save his case, his appeals to the 
 jury were so pathetic that a verdict of acquittal 
 followed, wrung out of the chords in the human 
 heart, which he knew so well how to touch, and 
 which resented the idea that a man could cry over 
 the loss of his dear Sally Ann if he were guilty of 
 her destruction. 
 
INCIDENT IN COURT. 405 
 
 I am indebted to a venerable and learned mem 
 ber of the Boston bar for the following : 
 
 One day, at the close of the testimony in an 
 important trial in a civil action, in which Mr. 
 Choate was engaged before the Supreme Court, 
 at Dedham, Judge Shaw said he did not think 
 there was any question of fact to submit to the 
 jury, and the better course would be to take a 
 verdict pro forma, and reserve the law questions 
 for the full bench. Then, turning to Mr. Choate, 
 the judge said, " Mr. Choate, upon the view sug 
 gested, if agreeable to you, I will order a verdict 
 against your client." Choate stepped forward, 
 and, bowing in his fine -manner, gravely replied : 
 " If your Honor please, as to whether the course 
 you propose will be agreeable to me, I desire to 
 say that I do not remember any case ever in my 
 charge wherein I would not have found it agree 
 able to have a verdict in favor of my client." 
 The reply and Choate 's inimitable manner caused 
 much merriment among the lawyers and spec 
 tators. 
 
 The late Vice-President "Wilson a name likely 
 to grow in importance in American political his 
 tory was, I think, a warm admirer of the genius 
 and eloquence of Eufus Choate, though not of his 
 entire political course. I remember meeting Mr. 
 Wilson (whom I knew as a life-long friend) soon 
 
406 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 after the Whig National Convention that nomi 
 nated General Scott, in 1852, at Baltimore. 
 Choate was there, strenuously advocating the 
 nomination of Mr. Webster. In speaking of the 
 convention, Wilson said that Choate made an 
 ingenious and brilliant speech for Webster, upon 
 the basis of accepting the compromise measure 
 of 1850 as a finality, and that there was no 
 orator in the convention that equaled Choate. 
 
 In his work entitled " Rise and Fall of the Slave 
 Power in America," Mr. Wilson, in referring to 
 the resolutions introduced by Mr. Ashman, which 
 were believed to be in harmony with Mr. Web 
 ster's views, speaks of " the impassioned and brill 
 iant speech which Mr. Choate made on their re 
 ception and in their behalf." Again, he states 
 in the same work, that, " In answer to vociferous 
 calls, Mr. Choate addressed the convention in a 
 speech of great forensic brilliancy and force, in 
 which, however, was far more apparent the spe 
 cial pleading of the advocate than the calm con 
 sideration of the statesman." 
 
 In the same work, the author refers, in a kindly 
 way, to the part taken by Mr. Choate as counsel 
 for the Commonwealth, in 1836, when the Supreme 
 Court decided, in the case of the slave child Med, 
 brought to that State by its owner, "that an 
 owner of a slave in another State where slavery is 
 
THE ASHBURTON TREATY. 407 
 
 warranted by law, voluntarily bringing such slave 
 into this State, has no authority to retain him 
 against his will, or carry him out of the State 
 against his consent, for the purpose of being held 
 in slavery." This important opinion, which was so 
 much quoted in subsequent controversies, was de 
 livered by Chief Justice Shaw. Again, on the 9th 
 of August, 1842, the Ashburton Treaty was signed 
 at Washington. It was largely aimed at the 
 suppression of the slave trade, and required the 
 United States to cooperate with an armed force 
 on the coast of Africa. The treaty was bitterly 
 assailed in the Senate by Mr. Benton of Missouri, 
 Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Conrad of Louisiana, and oth 
 ers. The latter said, " If ratified, Great Britain 
 will unfurl the banner of abolition still more con 
 spicuously before your slaves. She will accustom 
 them to consider her as their benefactor, the cham 
 pion of their rights, the avenger of their wrongs." 
 Referring to the hot debate in the Senate, and 
 characterizing the motives of the men and news 
 papers that opposed the treaty (which was rati 
 fied), Mr. Wilson, in his work, says that " Many 
 saw their true spirit, but none more fitly described 
 them than Rufus Choate, then in the Senate, who 
 spoke of them as c restless, selfish, reckless, the 
 cankers of a calm world and a long peace, pining 
 with thirst of notoriety, slaves to their hatred of 
 
408 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 England, to whom the treaty is distasteful, to 
 whom any treaty and all things but the glare and 
 clamor, the vain pomp and hollow circumstance, 
 the toil and agony and inadequate results of war, 
 all but those would be distasteful and dreary.' ' 
 
 Again, in the same work, Mr. Wilson refers 
 to Mr. Choate's opposition to the joint resolution 
 for the annexation of Texas in 1844, and says, 
 " Rufus Choate, of Massachusetts, made a brilliant 
 and eloquent speech in opposition, both on the 
 ground of power and expediency. ' We could 
 not/ he contended, ' admit Texas by the joint 
 resolution of the House, if it would insure a thou 
 sand years of liberty to the Union. If, like the 
 fabled garden of old, its rivers should run pearls, 
 and its trees bear imperial fruit of gold, yet 
 even we could not admit her, because it would 
 be a sin against the Constitution.' ' 
 
 In their earlier private and public life, Sumner 
 and Choate were warm friends, though differing 
 widely on political questions in later years. Mr. 
 Pierce, author of Memoirs, etc., of Sumner, men 
 tions several incidents that show this. As early 
 as 1834, Sumner was brought into personal rela 
 tions with Choate when he was in Washington, a 
 member of the House, and Sumner was there on 
 a professional errand. 
 
 In 1834, and for several years after, No. 4 
 
NO. 4 COURT STREET. 409 
 
 Court Street, Boston, must have been an attract 
 ive place. There were gathered there, at this pe 
 riod, several lawyers, since well known, some of 
 whom have achieved permanent fame. On the 
 same floor with Sumner and Hillard were Theoph- 
 ilus Parsons, Rufus Choate, the two Chandlers, 
 and John A. Andrew, afterwards governor. On a 
 floor above was Horace Mann, who in after years 
 displayed great ability as a member of Congress, 
 and when in charge of important educational in 
 terests. Here also were Edward G. Loring and 
 Luther S. Gushing. When Hillard left the build 
 ing in 1856, he wrote in verse a graceful " Fare 
 well to Number Four," which called forth some 
 happy rejoinders. Judge Story, Greenleaf, Fel- 
 ton, Park Benjamin, and George Bancroft were 
 frequent callers at No. 4, which was thus closely 
 identified with the daily life of Mr. Choate. Hil 
 lard, writing to Sumner from New York, in 1836, 
 recalls, in contrast with the law offices of that 
 city, " our cool and pleasant office, and the quiet 
 and cultivated friends who drop in." 
 
 In 1834-35 we find Sumner and Choate with 
 Edward Everett, Hillard, and others, announced 
 in a course of lectures before the Boston Lyceum 
 at Boylston Hall. In a letter to Longfellow in 
 August, 1837, Sumner refers to Choate in terms 
 of mutual friendship. Mr. Pierce says that Sum- 
 
410 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 ner "much enjoyed his friendly relations with 
 Kufus Choate, whose office was at No. 4 Court 
 Street. They talked of politics and literature, 
 particularly of Burke, for whom Mr. Choate had 
 an extravagant admiration. When the latter was 
 in the United States Senate, 1841-42, they treated 
 of the same themes in correspondence. Later 
 they were associated professionally in the boun 
 dary dispute between Massachusetts and Khode 
 Island." In June, 1841, Sumner wrote Dr. Lie- 
 ber, " Choate will be glad to renew his acquaint 
 ance with you ; his speech on McLeod's case is 
 masterly." In 1842, Sumner wrote two articles 
 maintaining the qualified right of search, which 
 attracted much attention. Choate, while in the 
 Senate, worked with Sumner, approving the posi 
 tion taken. In February, 1842, in a letter to 
 Dr. Lieber, Sumner wrote, " I am glad you like 
 Choate so well. His position here is very firm. 
 He is the leader of our bar, with an overwhelm 
 ing superfluity of business, with a strong taste for 
 books and learned men, with great amiableness of 
 character, with uncommon eloquence and untir 
 ing industry." Again, in a letter to Lord Mor- 
 peth, September 6, 1842, touching the Ashburton 
 Treaty, Sumner refers to what Choate thinks in 
 fluenced the British authorities in the matter. In 
 a letter to Dr. Lieber, September, 1843, Sumner 
 
USE OF ADJECTIVES. 411 
 
 writes, " Choate is entirely uncommitted on the 
 subject of international copyright. He has never 
 looked at it ; and, if he sees his way clear to be its 
 advocate, he will enter into it. He asked me to 
 state to him in a few words the argument on both 
 sides. I thought of Madame de Stael and Fiehte, 
 " ' Donnez moi vos idees en dix mots.' I did it, 
 and he muses still." 
 
 In 1844, Perkins edited the American edition of 
 " Brown's Chancery Reports," and dedicated it to 
 Mr. Choate. Sumner wrote to Perkins, " Your 
 dedication cannot fail to give great pleasure to 
 Mr. Choate. It is a beautiful, and, I think, a well 
 deserved, tribute from a former pupil. It is with 
 hesitation that I venture to touch rudely what is 
 chiseled so carefully. But, as a general rule, it 
 seems to me that one cannot be too abstemious of 
 adjectives in an inscription which should be close 
 and lapidary in its character." While Sumner's 
 view is doubtless correct, it may be that " adjec 
 tives," even in an inscription, did not worry 
 Choate, who knew how to marshal them in long 
 array ; as, for instance, the following, when he 
 spoke of a harness as " a safe, sound, substantial, 
 suitable, second-rate, second-hand harness," or 
 spoke of the Greek mind as " subtle, mysterious, 
 plastic, apprehensive, comprehensive, available." 
 
 Mr. Choate felt a proper reverence for the 
 
412 MEMORIES OF RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 things that belong to religion. Whether he be 
 lieved in a creed, in a technical, Calvinistic sense, 
 is doubtful. But that he had a deep religious 
 nature, which found expression in various ways, 
 there can be no doubt. 
 
 My cousin, the late Rev. Hubbard Winslow, 
 who for several years was pastor of the Bowdoin 
 Street Church, in Boston, was an admiring and 
 warm friend of both Webster and Choate, and 
 received from them many tokens of reciprocal 
 regard. I visited Marshfield, in 1862, with Dr. 
 Winslow, at the Webster mansion, when I saw, in 
 the kind welcome extended to him, and expres 
 sions of friendship at dinner, ample evidence of 
 mutual respect and esteem. Dr. Winslow once 
 gave me a touching account of his baptism of 
 one of Mr. Choate's children, Caroline, the 
 youngest, and deeply beloved, who was sick, and 
 near death. Having received a note from Mr. 
 Choate, requesting his kind offices in the baptism 
 of his child, Dr. Winslow went to the residence, 
 and there met the family in great affliction. In 
 his account of what occurred, and his description 
 of the scene, with Mr. Choate as a central figure, 
 and heart-stricken father, Dr. Winslow left a clear 
 impression upon my mind that he thought Choate 
 a sincere and profound believer. I will not here 
 repeat the story of the baptism scene, as related 
 
BURKE ON A GREAT NAME. 413 
 
 to me by the minister; it was an experience 
 which brought out impressively, in the presence 
 of death, the affectionate and reverent side of Mr. 
 Choate's character. 
 
 Hon. E. L. Pierce and the late Professor Long 
 fellow were appointed literary executors by Sum- 
 ner's will. I am permitted, by the kindness of 
 Mr. Pierce, to subjoin several interesting letters 
 of Choate's to his friend Sumner, which further 
 illustrate his views and character. 
 
 In closing this contribution thus made in com 
 pliance with the polite request of Judge Neilson, 
 my regret is that I did not see and know more of 
 the patriotic, scholarly lawyer, of whom it may 
 be justly said he was primus inter pares. 
 
 Burke, whom Choate admired so much, said of 
 Lord Chatham, " A great and celebrated name ; 
 a name that keeps the name of this country re 
 spectable in every other on the globe." So, for 
 his own country, the name of Ruf us Choate, as an 
 accomplished jurist, shall fulfill a like office. 
 
 JOHN WINSLOW. 
 
LETTEES BY CHOATE TO SUMNER. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Saturday, May 29, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAK SIR, I found the inclosed, addressed 
 to me here, and have great pleasure in giving it a 
 chance to pass under your critical, and yet benev 
 olent, eye. I have hardly done more than wash 
 off the " variation of each " dust accumulated, all 
 the way from Boston, on my pen, ink, and paper, 
 more commonly in this country, and more 
 conveniently, called stationery, since it included 
 wafers, wax candles, penknives, and the like, 
 and settle myself in an airy third-story. Yet I 
 see and feel in green peas, ripe cherries, mown 
 grass, roses, and a thermometer at 80 the new 
 climate I have come to. 
 
 The President is in high spirits making a 
 good impression. He will stand by Mr. Webster, 
 and the talk of an unfriendly conservative action 
 is true, but not terrifying. Gushing will not be 
 Speaker, and White, I should think, will, of 
 Kentucky, a Clay nomination. But, I forget 
 
APPOINTMENT OF EVERETT. 415 
 
 the worthlessness of this gossip, and leave you 
 to your studies, business, ladies, and claret 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 MY DEAR SUMNER, I have just received the 
 memorandum, and will turn it nocturna et di- 
 urna manu, to quote obscure and unusual 
 Latin words. I hope it will do your friend's 
 business, and the Pope's, and England's, and the 
 lone Imperial mother's, as you say. 
 
 Mr. Webster is so much excited (and con 
 fidentially gratified) with the squaboshment of 
 the Whigs 1 that he will talk of nothing else. 
 He thinks he can Seal better with Sir Robert 
 Peel et id genus. Can he ? Your acquaintance 
 was made with so whiggish a set that I suppose 
 you mourn as for the flight of liberty. But, 
 mark you, how much more peaceably, purely, 
 intellectually, did this roaring democracy of ours 
 change its whole government and whole policy, 
 last fall, than England has done it now. 
 
 Yes, Everett's is a good appointment. Ask 
 me, when I get home, if we did not come near 
 losing him in the Senate, from abolitionism, 
 entre nous, if we do, the Union goes to pieces 
 
 1 Lord Melbourne's Ministry. 
 
416 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 like a potter's vessel. But as Ercles' vein is not 
 lightly nor often to be indulged in (nee Deus 
 inter sit nisi, et cet). 
 
 I give love to Hillard, salute you, and am 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 R. C. 
 "We shall have a veto after all, ut timeo. 
 
 DEAB SUMNEK, I have this moment received 
 the inclosed, with a civil note from our friend 
 of Waterloo and the Encyclopedia. I hope you 
 and he are plotting nothing against Christianity, 
 though I doubt about you both grievously. He 
 expects you to answer through me, and I beg you 
 
 would. In a line to , yesterday, I adverted 
 
 to the cases of Dr. Howe and Mrs. Bayard, quod 
 vide. Neither goes as we would wish, alas for 
 the wishes of friendship and the dreams of love. 
 
 We shall this morning, probably, it is near 8 
 A. M., and our committee meets at 10, report a 
 more erect and self-sustaining and respected char 
 ter than Mr. Swing's. 
 
 The debauched state of public opinion exceeds 
 belief. Pejor actus. Write me a long letter. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 K. CHOATE. 
 21 June, 1841. 
 
APPLICATIONS DOUBTFUL. 417 
 
 (PRIVATE.) 
 
 September 12th, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAK SUMNEK, I am indignant at such 
 indolent and careless discourtesy but hang, 
 shoot, and drown me if I can help it. I have 
 spoken to him a hundred times and although I 
 do not think he takes strongly to the application 
 indeed there is no vacancy I did suppose 
 he had written. 
 
 Just now, a real crisis harassed distract 
 arranging cabinets etc., etc. he is impenetra 
 ble to these duties of kindness, propriety I read 
 him your letter in a voice loud enough for 
 Faneuil Hall. He surely will write, at least. 
 
 (Private.) 
 
 We spent yesterday all day on Everett. Al 
 though I say, as I should not say it, I am inno 
 cent of the man's blood. After five hours, we 
 found by sounding round the Chamber we should 
 be 24 X 24 so we adjourned, and I have great 
 hopes we shall carry it to-morrow. 
 
 The session ends to-morrow, but I shall stay 
 three or four days. " God bless you." 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 27 
 
418 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 WASHINGTON, December 9, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have just got yours, shall 
 have great pleasure in expressing myself in Mr. 
 T.'s behalf. The " all powerful words " are few, 
 nay, rather lost but just and friendly ones all 
 may speak. 
 
 Yes, I ought to have composed that strife as I 
 ought to have done much other good Pulcher 
 et multa minans, vero nee recti nee suaviter. 
 
 But not to diffuse myself in any more philoso 
 phy all thrown away on young chaps, 
 I abruptly declare myself, truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have received and trans 
 mitted your papers for Lieber ; and read the 
 D. A. with edification and assent. We are wrong. 
 
 Lieber sent me a strong paper on this same 
 subject. He is the most fertile, indomitable, un 
 sleeping, combative, and propagandizing person of 
 his race. I have bought " Longfellow," and am 
 glad to hear of his run. 
 
 Politics are unpromising but better than last 
 session. The juste milieu will vindicate itself. 
 With much love to G. S. H., 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 7 January, 1842. 
 
 C. SUMNER, ESQ. 
 
INVOCATION AS TO THE CREOLE. 419 
 WASHINGTON, January 24th, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I cry your pardon in the mat 
 ter of your letter. It was all just right, and 
 showed me well enough that you were quite 
 enough in earnest but was an uncommon docu 
 ment for Boards of Commissioners. However, I 
 sent it, with high praise of you and the Doctor. 
 
 You are clearly right in the Search question. 
 I never was more gratified than to have been 
 asked by a spoon, though if I did not write it. 
 
 Discuss the Creole as quick and as well as 
 you possibly can. 
 
 Lord Morpeth is just come, and pleases univer 
 sally. He attends our atrocious spectacles in 
 H. H., with professional relish. 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 R. c. 
 
 MY DEAR SUMNER, I hoped to write before 
 now to tell you what can be done for the elegant 
 and tuneful Professor. 
 
 No certain thing do I get yet, but I trust soon 
 to have. It is the age of patronage of genius you 
 see. Regnat Apollo, as one may say. . . . 
 
 That was a most rich speech of Hillard's, as is 
 all his speaking, whether to listening crowds or to 
 appreciating circles of you and me. We hear 
 that one Mrs. Dickens called on him and Mrs. 
 
420 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Hillard with a significant and expressive civility 
 and respect. In his heart, I have no doubt the 
 Secretary of State agrees with you. But think of 
 this : Shall we not give E. a right by treaty to 
 search for enough to find the American character, 
 on condition that by treaty she agrees to assist 
 our slave ships in distress in the W. I. ? To get 
 such treaties, must we not begin by denying all her 
 claims to search ? How cheerful, genial, and fra 
 grant, as it were, are our politics ! What serried 
 files of armed men, shoulder to shoulder, keeping 
 time to the music of duty and glory, animated by 
 a single soul, are the Whigs ! But this delicious 
 winter bears us swiftly through it all, and the sun 
 of to-day lights up the Potomac ; and burns with 
 the flush and glory of June. Dexter says this city 
 reminds one of Rome. I suppose he meant in its 
 spaces solitudes, quiet, vices, and so forth 
 though the surrounding country is undoubtedly 
 beautiful. Love to Hillard. Lieber writes in 
 Latin. I mean to answer him in any tongue 
 whatever he chooses to speak, and for that pur 
 pose must break off and go at him. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 K. CHOATE. 
 
 19 February, 1842. 
 
ASHBURTON TREATY. 421 
 
 WASHINGTON, 10 p. M. 
 
 DEAR SUMNER AND HILLARD, I have ad 
 dressed myself with tears of entreaty to the Sec 
 retary; and. if no hidden snag or planter lies 
 under the muddy flood, we shall scull the Doctor 
 into port. There, as Dr. Watts says, he may 
 
 " Sit and sing himself away," 
 
 or exclaim, 
 
 *' Spes et fortuna, valete inveni nunc portum, 
 Lusistis me satis ludite nunc alios " 
 
 which is from the Greek, you know, in Dalzell's 
 " Grsec. Major a," vol. 2d, and closes some edi 
 tions of Gil Bias ! 
 
 The voting on the Ashburton Treaty at nine at 
 night seats full lights lighted, hall as still 
 as death was not without grandness. But why 
 speak of this to the procurantes of that denational 
 ized Boston and Massachusetts ? 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I did not get your letter till 10 
 o'clock p. M., yesterday, Saturday, and it comes 
 unaccompanied by that more sober and more busi 
 ness-like memorandum to which it refers. Where 
 is that ? I had previously written letters for a 
 Mr. Beal and a Mr. Kittredge and sent them 
 by the ears to the Board. Your letter is so full 
 
422 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 of rhetoric, poetry and a certain fashionable un- 
 concernedness that I dare not send that. Dr. 
 Sewall has received nothing. This is Sunday, 
 and I think to-night I shall get the other papers, 
 and to-morrow the Board shall have them. 
 
 I hope the race will not be so far to the swift 
 that we shall catch and outrun these mortal men. 
 I have a notion Kittredge is thorough and honest, 
 but I suspect his price is high. 
 
 I will retain this letter till evening. 
 
 Sunday evening, 9 o'clock. I get nothing more 
 from you, so that all I have is your note. In 
 this predicament, I think I will address a note to 
 the Board, stating that the Doctor will apply, and 
 suggesting, generally, the ground of his equity. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 17 January, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I mourn that I cannot get 
 you yet a copy of the opinions, otherwise called 
 Old Fields. I am in collusion with Tims ; and if 
 man can do it, Tims is he. I have never got one 
 for myself, or I would send that. I send you 
 my speech, so that if you do not get Anne Page, 
 you, however, have the great lubberly boy. 
 
 Never reading Buckingham, 1 1 only guess, from 
 
 1 Editor of Boston paper. 
 
HE ABUSETH ME. 423 
 
 your kind hint, that he abuse th me. The tariff 
 speech, I assure you, I sent him. 
 
 Lord Ashburton is a most interesting man, 
 quick, cheerful, graceful-minded, keen, and pru 
 dent. The three young men are also clever; 
 young rather ; one a Whig, all lovers of Lord 
 Morpeth. Maine comes in with such exacting 
 purposes, that, between us, I doubt. 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 2 June. 
 
 MY DEAR SUMNER, Ten thousand thanks for 
 your seasonable kindness. I won't quit till I beat 
 both those speeches out and out. 
 
 Read not a word of what is called my Oregon 
 speech till I send one. 
 
 I shall return all the papers by W. F. Hillard, 
 Esq. Doubtless originals should be kept at home 
 safe. But nothing is lost or mutilated. 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 25 February, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SUMNER, I thank you for the docu 
 ments. The case is assigned for the 20th, and 
 being, as Mr. Justice Catron expressly declared, 
 a case of " Sovereign States," it has, before this 
 tribunal of strict constructionists, a terrified and 
 implicit precedence. 
 
424 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Great swelling words of prescription ought to 
 be spoken. For the rest, I see no great fertility 
 or heights in it. 
 
 Most hurriedly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 Saturday, 5 p. M. 
 
 Saturday, February 17, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, To my horror and annoyance, 
 the court has just continued our cause to the next 
 term. 
 
 The counsel of Rhode Island moved it yester 
 day, assigning for cause that the court was not 
 full; that the Chief Justice could not sit, by 
 reason of ill health ; Mr. Justice Story did not 
 sit, and there was a vacancy on the bench. The 
 court was, therefore, reduced to six judges. We 
 opposed the motion. 
 
 To-day, Mr. Justice McLean said that, on inter 
 changing views, they found that three of the six, 
 who would try it, have formerly, on the argument 
 of the plea, come to an opinion in favor of Massa 
 chusetts, and that, therefore, they thought it not 
 proper to proceed. If Rhode Island should fail, 
 he suggested, she might have cause of dissatisfac 
 tion. 
 
 I regret this result, on all accounts, and espe 
 cially that the constant preparatory labors of a 
 
THE BOUNDARY DISPUTE. 425 
 
 month are, for the present, wholly lost. I had 
 actually withdrawn from the Senate Chamber to 
 make up this argument, which may now never be 
 of any use to anybody. (Private.) Shall I ask 
 you, as a confidential and special act of friendship, 
 to make this matter known to the public through 
 any of our papers, in such manner, inter alia, as 
 to convey the fact that counsel of Massachusetts 
 have somewhat engrossingly prepared briefs in 
 the cause ? 
 
 It explains : Silence elsewhere is true and right 
 and kind. The honest truth is, I have spent a 
 full month, day and night, on the thing. Please, 
 in this, state your general labors in procuring the 
 local proofs. 
 
 There is one quite important piece of evidence 
 to be at once looked up. We ran the line be 
 tween us and Plymouth in 1664. 
 
 It is of great consequence to show that, in so 
 doing, we asserted our present construction of 
 the charter, and that the "Angle-tree" is far 
 south of Balfry's Station. It is important to 
 show that, in 1670 and 1671, we ran a line 
 towards the west, from the "Angle-tree" south 
 of the present line. 
 
 Mr. Mitchell will know in regard to the mode 
 of proving these matters. 
 
 We ought to have our connections and rela- 
 
426 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 tions, too, up to 1713, since her acquiescence is 
 as high circumstantial evidence as Rhode Island's. 
 Excuse all this. Yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 MY DEAR SUMMER, The book itself is come 
 at last, looking as much as to say, " Quos ego 
 sed magnos pro est et componere fluctus." So 
 has Mr. Packenham come, for did he not sit an 
 hour last evening at the birth-night ball, with 
 Mrs. Bayard ? Henceforth no peace with Eng 
 land. Nay, her very ambassadors should be cast 
 into wells. Truly yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 February 23, 1844. 
 
 May I ask you to assure Dr. Palfrey that his 
 book is here, and to tell me how you denominate 
 him, quo nomine quadit, Dr. Esq., arma or 
 toga? 
 
 These transitions play the devil with classifica 
 tions. 
 
 February, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR STIMNER, All the papers came safe, 
 except, as yet, the whole volume, which is to come 
 by Harnden. 
 
 I shall print the useful, keep all safely, with 
 the entire file. Some of them are very good. 
 
 The continuance of the cause rendered it par- 
 
CONTINUANCE OF THE CAUSE. 427 
 
 tially to be regretted that so much trouble was 
 given. But it is better to close the printing at 
 once. 
 
 Please thank Dr. Palfrey, and dry his and Mr. 
 Felt's tears. I knew it would be like defending a 
 city by holding up upon the walls, against darts 
 and catapults, little children, images of gods, 
 cats, dogs, onions, and all other Egyptian the- 
 agonies, but better so than to be taken. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 MY DEAK SUMNER, I have written, by this 
 mail, to Mr. Palfrey, Secretary of State, to send 
 me instantly certain papers for Massachusetts vs. 
 Khode Island. May I entreat you to go, as soon 
 as possible, to the State House, see my letter, and 
 aid and urge its objects. You will know the what 
 and where, and a mail saved is all one, as it 
 were, a kingdom for a horse. 
 
 I thank you for your views, excellent and 
 seasonable. I will speak them to the Court so 
 they shall never know anything else again as 
 long as they live. Please be most prompt. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 15th February. The case is for the 20th ! ! 
 
428 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 DEAR SUMMER, I have just had your letter 
 read to me, on a half-sick bed, and got up, red 
 olent of magnesia and roasted apples, to embrace 
 you for your Burkeism generally, and for your 
 extracts and references. It is odd that I have, on 
 my last year's brief, a passage or two from him 
 on that very topic which he appreciates so pro 
 foundly, but am most happy to add yours. By 
 the way, I always admired that very letter in 
 Prior, if it is the same. 
 
 I hope you review Burke in the " North Amer 
 ican Review," though I have not got it, and you 
 do not say so. Mind that he is the fourth Eng 
 lishman, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Burke. 
 I hope you take one hundred pages for the 
 article. Compare, contrast with Cicero, both 
 knowing all things, but God knows where to 
 end on Burke. No Englishman, or countryman 
 of ours has the least appreciation of Burke. The 
 Whigs never forgave the last eight or ten years 
 of that life of glory, and the Tories never for 
 gave what preceded ; and we, poor unidealized, 
 Tom Pinified democrats, do not understand his 
 marvelous English, universal wisdom, illuminated, 
 omniscient mind, and are afraid of his principles. 
 What coxcombical rascal is it that thinks Boling- 
 broke a better writer ? Take, page by page, the 
 illusions, the felicities, the immortalities of truth, 
 
ESTIMATE OF BURKE. 429 
 
 variety, reason, height, depth, everything, Boling- 
 broke is a voluble prater to Burke. 
 
 Amplify on his letter in reply to the Duke of 
 Bedford. How mournful, melodious, Cassandra- 
 like ! Out of Burke might be cut 50 Mackin 
 toshes, 175 Macaulays, 40 Jeffreys, and 250 Sir 
 Robert Peels, and leave him greater than Pitt 
 and Fox together. 
 
 I seem to suppose your article is not written, as 
 I hope it is. God bless you. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 R. CHOATE. 
 
 Mr. Gorden shall be shown all that we have, 
 certainly. 
 
 BOSTON, December 21, 1851. 
 
 MY DEAR ME. SUMNER, I thank you for the 
 copy of your beautiful speech, and for the making 
 of it. All men say it is a successful one, parlia- 
 mentarily expressing it, and I am sure it is sound, 
 safe, steering between cold-shoulderism and inhos- 
 pitality, on the one side, and the splendid folly 
 and wickedness of cooperation, on the other. 
 Cover the Magyar with flowers, lave him with 
 perfume, serenade him with eloquence, and let 
 him go home alone if he will not live here. Such 
 is all that is permitted to wise states aspiring to 
 " true grandeur." I wish to Heaven you would 
 
430 MEMORIES OF RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 write me de rebus congressus. How does the 
 Senate strike you ? The best place this day on 
 earth for reasoned, thoughtful, yet stimulant 
 public speech. Think of that. 
 
 Most truly yours, in the union, 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 REMARKS BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT ON 
 THE DEATH OF MR. WEBSTER. 
 
 [MR. WEBSTER died on Sunday morning, October 24, 1852. 
 The members of the Suffolk Bar met on Monday morning, and 
 appointed a committee to report a series of resolutions. These 
 were read and adopted at an adjourned meeting, Thursday, Octo 
 ber 28th, and immediately presented to the Circuit Court of the 
 United States for the District of Massachusetts, CURTIS and 
 SPRAGUE, Justices, on the bench. They were read by the Hon. 
 George S. Hillard, after which Mr. Choate made the following 
 remarks.] 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUE HONOES, I have been re 
 quested by the members of the Bar of this Court to 
 add a few words to the resolutions just read, in which 
 they have embodied, as they were able, their sorrow 
 for the death of their beloved and illustrious member 
 and countryman, Mr. Webster; their estimation of his 
 character, life, and genius; their sense of the bereave 
 ment, to the country as to his friends, incapable 
 of repair ; the pride, the fondness, the filial and the 
 patriotic pride and fondness, with which they cherish, 
 and would consign to history to cherish, the memory of 
 a great and good man. 
 28 
 
434 APPENDIX. 
 
 And yet I could earnestly have desired to be ex 
 cused from this duty. He must have known Mr. 
 Webster less, and loved him less, than your Honors, or 
 than I have known and loved him, who can quite yet, 
 quite yet, before we can comprehend that we 
 have lost him forever, before the first paleness with 
 which the news of his death overspread our cheeks has 
 passed away, before we have been down to lay him 
 in the Pilgrim soil he loved so well, till the heavens 
 be no more, he must have known and loved him 
 less than we have done who can come here quite yet, 
 to recount the series of his service, to display with 
 psychological exactness the traits of his nature and 
 mind, to ponder and speculate on the secrets on the 
 marvelous secrets and source of that vast power, 
 which we shall see no more in action, nor aught in 
 any degree resembling it, among men. These first 
 moments should be given to grief. It may employ, it 
 may promote a calmer mood, to construct a more 
 elaborate and less unworthy memorial. 
 
 For the purposes of this moment and place, indeed, 
 no more is needed. What is there for this Court or 
 for this Bar to learn from me, here and now, of him? 
 The year and the day of his birth ; that birthplace on 
 the frontier, yet bleak and waste; the well, of which 
 his childhood drank, dug by that father of whom he 
 has said, that " Through the fire and blood of seven 
 years of revolutionary war he shrank from no danger, 
 no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise 
 his children to a condition better than his own ; " the 
 elm-tree that father planted, fallen now, as father and 
 
APPENDIX. 435 
 
 son have fallen ; that training of the giant infancy on 
 catechism and Bible, and Watts's version of the Psalms, 
 and the traditions of Plymouth, and Fort William 
 Henry, and the Revolution, and the age of Washing 
 ton and Franklin, on the banks of the Merrimack, 
 flowing sometimes in flood and anger from its secret 
 springs in the crystal hills ; the two district school 
 masters, Chase and Tappan ; the village library ; the 
 dawning of the love and ambition of letters ; the few 
 months at Exeter and Boscawen; the life of college; 
 the probationary season of school-teaching ; the clerk 
 ship in the Fryeburg Registry of Deeds ; his admis 
 sion to the bar, presided over by judges like Smith, 
 illustrated by practicers such as Mason, where, by the 
 studies, in the contentions of nine years, he laid the 
 foundation of the professional mind ; his irresistible 
 attraction to public life ; the oration on commerce ; 
 the Rockingham resolutions ; his first term of four 
 years' service in Congress, when, by one bound, he 
 sprang to his place by the side of the foremost of the 
 rising American statesmen ; his removal to this State ; 
 and then the double and parallel current in which his 
 life, studies, thoughts, cares have since flowed, bearing 
 him to the leadership of the bar by universal acclaim, 
 bearing him to the leadership of public life, last of 
 that surpassing triumvirate, shall we say the greatest, 
 the most widely known and admired ? all these 
 things, to their minutest details, are known and re 
 hearsed familiarly. Happier than the younger Pliny, 
 happier than Cicero, he has found his historian, un 
 solicited, in his lifetime, and his countrymen have him 
 all by heart I 
 
436 APPENDIX. 
 
 There is, then, nothing to tell you, nothing to 
 bring to mind. And then, if I may borrow the lan 
 guage of one of his historians and friends, one of 
 those through whose beautiful pathos the common 
 sorrow uttered itself yesterday, in Faneuil Hall, "I 
 dare not come here and dismiss in a few summary 
 paragraphs the character of one who has filled such a 
 space in the history, one who holds such a place in 
 the heart, of his country. It would be a disrespectful 
 familiarity to a man of his lofty spirit, his great soul, 
 his rich endowments, his long and honorable life, to 
 endeavor thus to weigh and estimate them," a half- 
 hour of words, a handful of earth, for fifty years of 
 great deeds, on high places ! 
 
 But, although the time does not require anything 
 elaborated and adequate, forbids it, rather, some 
 broken sentences of veneration and love may be in 
 dulged to the sorrow which oppresses us. 
 
 There presents itself, on the first and to any obser 
 vation of Mr. Webster's life and character, a twofold 
 eminence, eminence of the very highest rank, in 
 a twofold field of intellectual and public display, 
 the profession of the law and the profession of states 
 manship, of which it would not be easy to recall 
 any parallel in the biography of illustrious men. 
 
 Without seeking for parallels, and without asserting 
 that they do not exist, consider that he was, by uni 
 versal designation, the leader of the general American 
 bar ; and that he was, also, by an equally universal 
 designation, foremost of her statesmen living at his 
 death ; inferior to not one who has lived and acted 
 
APPENDIX. 437 
 
 since the opening of his own public life. Look at 
 these aspects of his greatness separately, and from op 
 posite sides of the surpassing elevation. Consider that 
 his single career at the bar may seem to have been 
 enough to employ the largest faculties, without repose, 
 for a lifetime ; and that, if then and thus the " infin- 
 itus forensium rerum labor " should have conducted 
 him to a mere professional reward, a bench of chan 
 cery or law, the crown of the first of advocates, juris- 
 peritorum eloquentissimus, to the pure and mere 
 honors of a great magistrate, that that would be as 
 much as is allotted to the ablest in the distribution of 
 fame. Even that half, if I may say so, of his illustri 
 ous reputation, how long the labor to win it, how 
 worthy of all that labor ! He was bred first in the 
 severest school of the common law, in which its doc 
 trines were expounded by Smith, and its administra 
 tion shaped and directed by Mason, and its foundation 
 principles, its historical sources and illustrations, its 
 connection with the parallel series of statutory enact 
 ments, its modes of reasoning, and the evidence of its 
 truths, he grasped easily and completely; and I have 
 myself heard him say, that for many years, while still 
 at the bar, he tried more causes, and argued more 
 questions of fact to the jury than perhaps any other 
 member of the profession anywhere. I have heard 
 from others how, even then, he exemplified the same, 
 direct, clear, and forcible exhibition of proofs, and the 
 reasonings appropriate to proofs, as well as the same 
 marvelous power of discerning instantly what we call 
 the decisive points of the cause in law and fact, by 
 
438 APPENDIX. 
 
 4 
 
 which he was later more widely celebrated. This was 
 the first epoch in his professional training. 
 
 With the commencement of his public life, or with 
 his later removal to this State, began the second epoch 
 of his professional training, conducting him through 
 the gradation of the national tribunals to the study 
 and practice of the more flexible, elegant, and scientific 
 jurisprudence of commerce and of chancery, and to 
 the grander and less fettered investigations of inter 
 national, prize, and constitutional law, and giving him 
 to breathe the air of a more famous forum, in a more 
 public presence, with more variety of competition, al 
 though he never met abler men, as I have heard him 
 say, than some of those who initiated him in the rug 
 ged discipline of the courts of New Hampshire ; and 
 thus, at length, by these studies, these labors, this con 
 tention, continued without repose, he came, now many 
 years ago, to stand omnium assensu at the summit of 
 the American bar. 
 
 It is common, and it is easy, in the case of all in 
 such position, to point out other lawyers, here and 
 there, as possessing some special qualification or attain 
 ment more remarkably, perhaps, because more exclu 
 sively, to say of one that he has more cases in his 
 recollection at any given moment, or that he was ear 
 lier grounded in equity, or has gathered more black 
 letter or civil law, or knowledge of Spanish or of 
 Western titles, and these comparisons were some 
 times made with him. But when you sought a coun 
 sel of the first rate for the great cause, who would 
 most surely discern, and most powerfully expound, the 
 
APPENDIX. 439 
 
 exact law, required by the controversy, in season for 
 use; who could most skillfully encounter the opposing 
 law; under whose powers of analysis, persuasion, and 
 display, the asserted right would assume the most 
 probable aspect before the intelligence of the judge ; 
 who, if the inquiry became blended with or resolved 
 into facts, could most completely develop and most 
 irresistibly expose them ; one " the law's whole thunder 
 born to wield," when you sought such a counsel, and 
 could have the choice, I think the universal profession 
 would have turned to him. And this would be so in 
 nearly every description of cause, in any department. 
 Some able men wield civil inquiries with a peculiar 
 ability ; some criminal. How lucidly and how deeply 
 he elucidated a question of property, you all know. 
 But then, with what address, feeling, pathos, and pru 
 dence he defended, with what dignity and crushing 
 power, accusatorio spiritu, he prosecuted the accused of 
 crime, whom he believed to have been guilty, few have 
 seen ; but none who have seen can ever forget it. 
 
 Some scenes there are, some Alpine eminences rising 
 above the high table-land of such a professional life, 
 to which, in the briefest tribute, we should love to fol 
 low him. We recall that day, for an instance, when he 
 first announced, with decisive display, what manner of < 
 man he was, to the Supreme Court of the nation. It 
 was in 1818, and it was in the argument of the case 
 of Dartmouth College. William Pinkney was recruit 
 ing his great faculties, and replenishing that reservoir 
 of professional and elegant acquisition, in Europe. 
 Samuel Dexter, "the honorable man, and the coun- 
 
440 APPENDIX. 
 
 selor, and the eloquent orator," was in his grave. The 
 boundless old-school learning of Luther Martin ; the sil 
 ver voice and infinite analytical ingenuity and resources 
 of Jones ; the fervid genius of Emmett pouring itself 
 along immenso ore; the ripe and beautiful culture of 
 Wirt and Hopkinson, the steel point, unseen, not un- 
 felt, beneath the foliage ; Harper himself, statesman as 
 well as lawyer, these, and such as these, were left of 
 that noble bar. That day Mr. Webster opened the 
 cause of Dartmouth College to a tribunal unsurpassed 
 on earth in all that gives illustration to a bench of law, 
 not one of whom any longer survives. 
 
 One would love to linger on the scene, when, after 
 a masterly argument of the law, carrying, as we may 
 now know, conviction to the general mind of the court, 
 and vindicating and settling for his lifetime his place 
 in that forum, he paused to enter, with an altered feel 
 ing, tone, and manner, with these words, on his perora 
 tion: "I have brought my Alma Mater to this pres 
 ence, that, if she must fall, she may fall in her robes, 
 and with dignity ; " and then broke forth in that strain 
 of sublime and pathetic eloquence, of which we know 
 not much more than that, in its progress, Marshall, 
 the intellectual, the self-controlled, the unemotional, 
 announced, visibly, the presence of -the unaccustomed 
 enchantment. 
 
 Other forensic triumphs crowd on us, in other com 
 petition, with other issues. But I must commit them 
 to the historian of constitutional jurisprudence. 
 
 And now, if this transcendent professional reputa 
 tion were all of Mr. Webster, it might be practicable, 
 
APPENDIX. 441 
 
 though not easy, to find its parallel elsewhere in our 
 own, or in European or classical biography. 
 
 But, when you consider that, side by side with this, 
 there was growing up that other reputation, that of 
 the first American statesman ; that, for thirty-three 
 years, and those embracing his most Herculean works 
 at the bar, he was engaged as a member of either 
 House, or in the highest of the executive departments, 
 in the conduct of the largest national affairs, in the 
 treatment of the largest national questions, in debate 
 with the highest abilities of American public life, con 
 ducting diplomatic intercourse in delicate relations with 
 all manner of foreign powers, investigating whole classes 
 of truths, totally unlike the truths of the law, and rest 
 ing on principles totally distinct, and that here, too, 
 he was wise, safe, controlling, trusted, the foremost 
 man ; that Europe had come to see in his life a guar 
 anty for justice, for peace, for the best hopes of civil 
 ization, and America to feel surer of her glory and her 
 safety as his great arm enfolded her, you see how 
 rare, how solitary, almost, was the actual greatness ! 
 Who, anywhere, has won, as he had, the double fame, 
 and worn the double wreath of Murray and Chatham, 
 of Dunning and Fox, of Erskine and Pitt, of William 
 Pinkney and Rufus King, in one blended and tran 
 scendent superiority? 
 
 I cannot attempt to grasp and sum up the aggre 
 gate of the service of his public life at such a moment 
 as this ; and it is needless. That life comprised a 
 term of more than thirty-three years. It produced a 
 body of performance, of which I may say, generally, 
 
442 APPENDIX. 
 
 it was all which the first abilities of the country and 
 time, employed with unexampled toil, stimulated by 
 the noblest patriotism, in the highest places of the 
 state, in the fear of God, in the presence of nations, 
 could possibly compass. 
 
 He came into Congress after the war of 1812 had 
 begun; and, though probably deeming it unnecessary, 
 according to the highest standards of public necessity, 
 in his private character, and objecting, in his public 
 character, to some of the details of the policy by which 
 it was prosecuted, and standing by party ties in gen 
 eral opposition to the administration, he never breathed 
 a sentiment calculated to depress the tone of the public 
 mind, to aid or comfort the enemy, to check or chill 
 the stirrings of that new, passionate, unquenchable spirit 
 of nationality, which then was revealed, or kindled to 
 burn till we go down to the tombs of states. 
 
 With the peace of 1815 his more cherished public 
 labors began ; and thenceforward he devoted himself 
 the ardor of his civil youth, the energies of his 
 maturest manhood, the autumnal wisdom of the ri 
 pened year to the offices of legislation and diplo 
 macy; of preserving the peace, keeping the honor, 
 establishing the boundaries, and vindicating the neutral 
 rights of his country ; restoring a sound currency, and 
 laying its foundation sure and deep ; in upholding 
 public credit; in promoting foreign commerce and do 
 mestic industry ; in developing our uncounted material 
 resources, giving the lake and the river to trade, 
 and vindicating and interpreting the Constitution and 
 the law. On all these subjects, on all measures 
 
APPENDIX. 443 
 
 practically in any degree affecting them, he has in 
 scribed his opinions and left the traces of his hand. 
 Everywhere the philosophical and patriot statesman 
 and thinker will find that he has been before him, 
 lighting the way, sounding the abyss. His weighty 
 language, his sagacious warnings, his great maxims of 
 empire will be raised to view, and live to be deci 
 phered when the final catastrophe shall lift the granite 
 foundation in fragments from its bed. 
 
 In this connection, I cannot but remark to how ex 
 traordinary an extent had Mr. Webster, by his acts, 
 words, thoughts, or the events of his life, associated 
 himself forever in the memory of all of us with every 
 historical incident, or, at least, with every historical 
 epoch, with every policy, with every glory, with every 
 great name and fundamental institution, and grand or 
 beautiful image, which are peculiarly and properly 
 American. Look backwards to the planting of Plym 
 outh and Jamestown ; to the various scenes of colo 
 nial life in peace and war; to the opening and march 
 and close of the revolutionary drama; to the age of 
 the Constitution ; to Washington and Franklin and 
 Adams and Jefferson ; to the whole train of causes, 
 from the Reformation downwards, which prepared us 
 to be republicans ; to that other train of causes which 
 led us to be unionists, look round on field, work 
 shop, and deck, and hear the music of labor rewarded, 
 fed, and protected ; look on the bright sisterhood of 
 the States, each singing as a seraph in her motion, 
 yet blending in a common harmony, and there is 
 nothing which does not bring him by some tie to the 
 
444 APPENDIX? 
 
 memory of America. We seem to see his form and 
 hear his deep, grave speech everywhere. By some 
 felicity of his personal life; by some wise, deep, or 
 beautiful word, spoken or written; by some service of 
 his own, or some commemoration of the services of 
 others, it has come to pass that "our granite hills, 
 our inland seas, and prairies, and fresh, unbounded? 
 magnificent wilderness," our encircling ocean, the Rock 
 of the Pilgrims, our new-born sister of the Pacific, our 
 popular assemblies, our free schools, all our cherished 
 doctrines of education, and of the influence of religion, 
 and material policy, and the law, and the Constitution, 
 give us back his name. What American landscape 
 will you look on, what subject of American interest 
 will you study, what source of hope or of anxiety, as 
 an American, will you acknowledge, that does not re 
 call him? 
 
 I shall not venture, in this rapid and general recol 
 lection of Mr. Webster, to attempt to analyze that intel 
 lectual power which all admit to have been so extraor 
 dinary, or to compare or contrast it with the mental 
 greatness of others, in variety or degree, of the living 
 or the dead ; or even to attempt to appreciate, exactly, 
 and in reference to canons of art, his single attribute of 
 eloquence. Consider, however, the remarkable phenom 
 enon of excellence in three unkindred, one might have 
 thought, incompatible forms of public speech, that of 
 the forum, with its double audience of bench and jury, 
 of the halls of legislation, and of the most thronged 
 and tumultuous assemblies of the people. 
 
 Consider, further, that this multiform eloquence, ex- 
 
APPENDIX. 445 
 
 actly as his words fell, became at once so much acces 
 sion to permanent literature, in the strictest sense, 
 solid, attractive, and rich, and ask how often in the 
 history of public life such a thing has been exemplified. 
 Recall what pervaded all these forms of display, and 
 every effort in every form, that union of naked intel 
 lect, in its largest measure, which penetrates to the 
 exact truth of the matter in hand, by intuition or by 
 inference, and discerns everything which may make it 
 intelligible, probable, or credible to another, with an 
 emotional and moral nature profound, passionate, and 
 ready to kindle, and with an imagination enough to 
 supply a hundred-fold more of illustration and ag 
 grandizement than his taste suffered him to accept ; 
 that union of greatness of soul with depth of heart, 
 which made his speaking almost more an exhibition of 
 character than of mere genius; the style, not merely 
 pure, clear Saxon, but so constructed, so numerous as 
 far as becomes prose, so forcible, so abounding in un 
 labored felicities ; the words so choice ; the epithet so 
 pictured ; the matter absolute truth, or the most exact 
 and specious resemblance the human wit can devise ; 
 the treatment of the subject, if you have regard to 
 the kind of truth he had to handle, political, ethical, 
 legal, as deep, as complete as Paley's, or Locke's, 
 or Butler's, or Alexander Hamilton's, of their subjects; 
 yet that depth and that completeness of sense, made 
 transparent as through crystal waters, all embodied in 
 harmonious or well-composed periods, raised on winged 
 language, vivified, fused, and poured along in a tide of 
 emotion, fervid, and incapable to be withstood ; recall 
 
446 APPENDIX. 
 
 the form, the eye, the brow, the tone of voice, the 
 presence of the intellectual king of men, recall him 
 thus, and, in the language of Mr. Justice Story, com 
 memorating Samuel Dexter, we may well " rejoice that 
 we have lived in the same age, that we have listened 
 to his eloquence, and been instructed by his wisdom." 
 
 I cannot leave the subject of his eloquence without 
 returning to a thought I have advanced already. All 
 that he has left, or the larger portion of all, is the 
 record of spoken words. His works, as already col 
 lected, extend to many volumes, a library of reason 
 and eloquence, as Gibbon has said of Cicero's, but 
 they are volumes of speeches only, or mainly ; and yet 
 who does not rank him as a great American author ? 
 an author as truly expounding, and as characteristically 
 exemplifying, in a pure, genuine, and harmonious Eng 
 lish style, the mind, thought, point of view of objects, 
 and essential nationality of his country as any other of 
 our authors, professedly so denominated? Against the 
 maxim of Mr. Fox, his speeches read well, and yet 
 were good speeches great speeches in the delivery. 
 For so grave were they, so thoughtful and true, so 
 much the eloquence of reason at last, so strikingly al 
 ways they contrived to link the immediate topic with 
 other and broader principles, ascending easily to widest 
 generalizations, so happy was the reconciliation of the 
 qualities which engage the attention of hearers, yet re 
 ward the perusal of students, so critically did they 
 keep the right side of the line which parts eloquence 
 from rhetoric, and so far do they rise above the penury 
 of mere debate, that the general reason of the country 
 
APPENDIX. 447 
 
 has enshrined them at once, and forever, among our 
 classics. 
 
 It is a common belief that Mr. Webster was a vari 
 ous reader; and I think it is true, even to a greater 
 degree than has been believed. In his profession of 
 politics, nothing, I think, worthy of attention had es 
 caped him ; nothing of the ancient or modern pru 
 dence; nothing which Greek or Roman or European 
 speculation in that walk had explored, or Greek or Ro 
 man or European or universal history or public biogra 
 phy exemplified. I shall not soon forget with what 
 admiration he spoke, at an interview to which he admit 
 ted me, while in the Law School at Cambridge, of the 
 politics and ethics of Aristotle, and of the mighty mind 
 which, as he said, seemed to have " thought through " 
 so many of the great problems which form the dis 
 cipline of social man. American history and American 
 political literature he had by heart, the long series 
 of influences which trained us for representative and 
 free government ; that other series of influences which 
 moulded us into a united government ; the colonial era ; 
 the age of controversy before the revolution ; every 
 scene and every person in that great tragic action ; 
 every question which has successively engaged our poli 
 tics, and every name which has figured in them, the 
 whole stream of our time was open, clear, and present 
 ever to his eye. 
 
 Beyond his profession of politics, so to call it, he 
 had been a diligent and choice reader, as his extraor 
 dinary style in part reveals ; and I think the love of 
 reading would have gone with him to a later and riper 
 
448 APPENDIX. 
 
 age, if to sucli an age it had been the will of God to 
 preserve him. This is no place or time to appreciate 
 this branch of his acquisitions ; but there is an interest 
 inexpressible in knowing who were any of the chosen 
 from among the great dead in the library of such a man. 
 Others may correct me, but I should say of that interior 
 and narrower circle were Cicero, Virgil, Shakespeare, 
 whom he knew as familiarly as the Constitution, 
 Bacon, Milton, Burke, Johnson, to whom I hope it 
 is not pedantic nor fanciful to say, I often thought his 
 nature presented some resemblance; the same abun 
 dance of the general propositions, required for explain 
 ing a difficulty and refuting a sophism, copiously and 
 promptly occurring to him ; the same kindness of heart 
 and wealth of sensibility, under a manner, of course, 
 more courteous and gracious, yet more sovereign; the 
 same sufficient, yet not predominant, imagination, stoop 
 ing ever to truth, and giving affluence, vivacity, and 
 attraction to a powerful, correct, and weighty style of 
 prose. 
 
 I cannot leave this life and character without select 
 ing and dwelling a moment on one or two of his 
 traits, or virtues, or felicities, a little longer. There 
 is a collective impression made by the whole of an 
 eminent person's life, beyond and other than, and apart 
 from, that which the mere general biographer would 
 afford the means of explaining. There is an influence 
 of a great man derived from things indescribable, 
 almost, or incapable of enumeration, or singly insuf 
 ficient to account for it, but through which his spirit 
 transpires, and his individuality goes forth on the con- 
 
APPENDIX. 449 
 
 temporary generation. And thus, I should say, one 
 grand tendency of his life and character was to elevate 
 the whole tone of the public mind. He did this, in 
 deed, not merely by example. He did it by dealing, 
 as he thought, truly and in manly fashion, with that 
 public mind. He evinced his love of the people, not 
 so much by honeyed phrases as by good counsels and 
 useful service, vera pro gratis. He showed how he ap 
 preciated them by submitting sound arguments to their 
 understandings, and right motives to their free will. He 
 came before them, less with flattery than with instruc 
 tion ; less with a vocabulary larded with the words hu 
 manity and philanthropy, and progress and brotherhood, 
 than with a scheme of politics, an educational, social, 
 and governmental system, which would have made them 
 prosperous, happy, and great. 
 
 What the greatest of the Greek historians said of 
 Pericles, we all feel might be said of him, "He did 
 not so much follow as lead the people, because he 
 framed not his words to please them, like one who is 
 gaining power by unworthy means, but was able and 
 dared, on the strength of his high character, even to 
 brave their anger by contradicting their will." 
 
 I should indicate it, as another influence of his life, 
 acts, and opinions, that it was, in an extraordinary 
 degree, uniformly and liberally conservative. He saw 
 with vision as of a prophet, that if our system of united 
 government can be maintained till a nationality shall 
 be generated, of due intensity and due comprehension, 
 a glory indeed millennial, a progress without end, a 
 triumph of humanity hitherto unseen, were ours ; and, 
 
450 APPENDIX. 
 
 therefore, he addressed himself to maintain that united 
 government. 
 
 Standing on the Rock of Plymouth, he bade distant 
 generations hail, and saw them rising, " demanding life, 
 impatient for the skies," from what then were " fresh, 
 unbounded, magnificent wildernesses ; " from the shore 
 of the great, tranquil sea, not yet become ours. But 
 observe to what he welcomes them ; by what he would 
 bless them. " It is to good government." It is to 
 "treasures of science and delights of learning." It is 
 to the " sweets of domestic life, the immeasurable good 
 of rational existence, the immortal hopes of Christian 
 ity, the light of everlasting truth." 
 
 It will be happy, if the wisdom and temper of his ad 
 ministration of our foreign affairs shall preside in the 
 time which is at hand. Sobered, instructed by the ex 
 amples and warnings of all the past, he yet gathered, 
 from the study and comparison of all the eras, that 
 there is a silent progress of the race, without pause, 
 without haste, without return, to which the counsel- 
 ings of history are to be accommodated by a wise phi 
 losophy. More than, or as much as, that of any of our 
 public characters, his statesmanship was one which rec 
 ognized a Europe, an old world, but yet grasped the 
 capital idea of the American position, and deduced from 
 it the whole fashion and color of its policy ; which dis 
 cerned that we are to play a high part in human 
 affairs, but discerned, also, what part it is, peculiar, 
 distant, distinct, and grand as our hemisphere ; an in 
 fluence, not a contact, the stage, the drama, the ca 
 tastrophe, all but the audience, all our own, and if 
 
APPENDIX. 451 
 
 ever he felt himself at a loss, he consulted, reverently, 
 the genius of Washington. 
 
 In bringing these memories to a conclusion, for I 
 omit many things because I dare not trust myself to 
 speak of them, I shall not be misunderstood, or give 
 offense, if I hope that one other trait in his public 
 character, one doctrine, rather, of his political creed, 
 may be remembered and be appreciated. It is one of 
 the two fundamental precepts in which Plato, as ex 
 pounded by the great master of Latin eloquence and 
 reason and morals, comprehends the duty of those who 
 share in the conduct of the State, " ut qucecunque 
 agunt, TOTUM corpus reipublicce curent, nedum partem 
 aliquam tuentur, reliquas deserant ; " that they comprise 
 in their care the whole body of the Republic, nor keep 
 one part and desert another. He gives the reason, 
 one reason, of the precept, "qui autem parti civium 
 consulunt, partem negligunt^ rem perniciosissimam in 
 civitatem inducunt, seditionem atque discordiam" The 
 patriotism which embraces less than the whole induces 
 sedition and discord, the last evil of the state. 
 
 How profoundly he had comprehended this truth ; 
 with what persistency, with what passion, from the 
 first hour he became a public man to the last beat of 
 the great heart, he cherished it ; how little he ac- ' 
 counted the good, the praise, the blame of this locality 
 or that, in comparison of the larger good and the 
 general and thoughtful approval of his own, and our, 
 whole America, she this day feels and announces. 
 Wheresoever a drop of her blood flows in the veins 
 of men, this trait is felt and appreciated. The hunter 
 
452 APPENDIX. 
 
 beyond Superior ; the fisherman on the deck of the 
 nigh night-foundered skiff; the sailor on the uttermost 
 sea, will feel, as he hears these tidings, that the 
 protection of a sleepless, all-embracing, parental care 
 is withdrawn from him for a space, and that his path 
 way henceforward is more solitary and less safe than 
 before. 
 
 But I cannot pursue these thoughts. Among the 
 eulogists who have just uttered the eloquent sorrow of 
 England at the death of the great Duke, one has em 
 ployed an image and an idea which I venture to 
 modify and appropriate. 
 
 " The Northmen's image of death is finer than that 
 of other climes ; no skeleton, but a gigantic figure that 
 envelops men within the massive folds of its dark gar 
 ment." Webster seems so enshrouded from us, as the 
 last of the mighty three, themselves following a mighty 
 series, the greatest closing the procession. The robe 
 draws round him, and the era is past. 
 
 Yet how much there is which that all-ample fold 
 shall not hide, the recorded wisdom, the great ex 
 ample, the assured immortality. 
 
 They speak of monuments ! 
 
 " Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven ; 
 No pyramids set off his memories 
 But the eternal substance of his greatness; 
 To which I leave him." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABINGER, Lord. See Scarlett, Sir 
 James. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 254, 391, 395. 
 
 Adams, Ebenezer, professor at Dart 
 mouth, 247, 343, 353, 359. 
 
 Adams, John, defense of British sol 
 diers, 13. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, his mental cul 
 ture, 70; classification of words used 
 by, 108; "the last of the Ad 
 amses," 254. 
 
 Adams, Rev. Dr., Choate's pastor, 215, 
 329; on Choate's treatment of others, 
 225; censured for writing "The 
 Southside View," 329; commended 
 for preaching the gospel, 330. 
 
 Adjectives, value of, learned by study 
 ing botany, 98; did not worry 
 Choate, 401. 
 
 Advocate, duty and privilege of, 20; 
 the jury, described, 49. 
 
 "Age of the Pilgrims," the, 229-231. 
 
 Allen, Charles, 236, 391. 
 
 America, advantages of life in, con 
 trasted with those of Europe, 140, 
 141. 
 
 Andrew, John A., 409. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon language, not adapted to 
 higher forms of expression, 86 ; prob 
 able effect of its exclusive use, 88; 
 English reduced to, an unspeakable 
 calamity, 95; Anglo-Saxon words 
 used by distinguished scholars, 101, 
 107-111. 
 
 Appleton, William, 236. 
 Argyll, Duke of, suggestion as to hu 
 man action, 395, 396. 
 
 Ashburton, Lord, action in the Caro 
 line affair, 183 ; with Webster, nego 
 tiates the Oregon treaty, 185; ap 
 pearance, 423. 
 
 Ashburton treaty, 185, 407, 415, 421. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, Ben Jonson's tribute to, 
 306. 
 
 Bancroft, George, 409. 
 
 Banks, N. P., 236. 
 
 Bartlett, Sidney, 236. 
 
 Bates, Isaac C., 277. 
 
 Bell, Joseph M., enters the army, 202; 
 death, 203. 
 
 Benjamin, Park, 409. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., denounces Web 
 ster's course in the McLeod case, 
 174. 
 
 Bible, importance of study of, 91 ; in 
 schools, 214. 
 
 Biography, uses of, 226. 
 
 Blair, Hugh, respectable in his style, 
 223. 
 
 Blowers, Sampson S., assists in the de 
 fense of British soldiers, 13. 
 
 Boundary dispute between Massachu 
 setts and Rhode Island, 56, 410, 424. 
 
 Boutwell, George S., 236. 
 
 Boyden, Dr., letter from, 307-311; in 
 college with Choate, 307; a prophecy 
 and its fulfillment, 309; estimate of 
 Choate, 311. 
 
 Briggs, George N., 236. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, revision of speech in 
 the Queen's case, 96; classification 
 of words used by, 110; Macaulay's 
 spite for, 219. 
 
454 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Brown, Rev. Francis, president of 
 
 Dartmouth College, 246, 357. 
 Brown, Professor, 26, 53, 54, 158, 192, 
 
 204, 210, 220, 241. 
 Buchanan, James, compliments Choate 
 
 54, 177; part in the McLeod debate, 
 
 174. 
 Bunyan, John, eloquence of, 70; not a 
 
 classical scholar, 79; an exceptional 
 
 writer of English, 80. 
 Burke, Edmund, and Erkskine, 28; 
 
 classification of words used by, 111; 
 
 style in speaking, 121, 122; Choate's 
 
 opinion of, 428. 
 Burlingame, Anson, 236. 
 Burns, Robert, his father's advice, 
 
 264. 
 
 Bush, George, 346. 
 Butler, Benjamin F., 236. 
 Butler, Charles, 223. 
 Byron, Lord, fastidious taste of, 97. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., surprise at Choate's 
 eloquence, 260. 
 
 Campbell, Lord John, classification of 
 words used by, 111. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, a detractor of Scott's 
 novels, 142. 
 
 Caroline, affair of the, 173-176, 179, 
 182-184. 
 
 Carpenter, Matt. H., as to Choate's ef 
 forts to perfect his memory, 64 ; 
 letter from, 293-298; studies law 
 with Choate, 293 ; Choate the supe 
 rior of Webster. 295; anecdotes, 295- 
 298. 
 
 Catron, Judge, quoted, 54, 420. 
 
 Chapman, Chief Justice, on Bunyan's 
 eloquence, 70. 
 
 Character, formation of, 73. 
 
 Charity, a privileged subject, 295. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, a clew to his mental 
 tasks, 58 ; "a great and celebrated 
 name," 413. 
 
 Child, Linus, 391. 
 
 Choate, David, father of Rufus, 2. 
 
 Choate, David, 2; letters to, 241-252. 
 
 Choate, Francis, 1. 
 
 " Choate Island," Rufus Choate's birth 
 place, 238. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, ancestry, 1; birth, 2; 
 boyhood, 2; college life, 3, 241-252, 
 262-266, 307, 308, 341-346, 351-360; 
 a law student, 3, 360; admitted to 
 practice, 3; begins practice at Dan- 
 vers, 4; marriage, 4; moves to Salem, 
 4; member of legislature and state 
 Senator, 4; elected to Congress, 4; 
 settles in Boston, 4 ; early compari 
 son with Webster, 5 ; practice in 
 criminal cases, 7, 8; legal enthusi 
 asm, 9, 26; habits of study, 29; 
 poA\ r er of memory, 30-32 ; keen pen 
 etration, 33-38; interviewing a jury 
 man, 38 ; number of his arguments, 
 42; manner of examining Avitnesses, 
 43, 44, 47; unjust criticisms, 47, 252; 
 a man of ideas, 51 ; a most relentless 
 inquisitor after facts, 52; early ef 
 forts at the bar, 53 ; a master of the 
 pathetic, 53; first speech in Congress, 
 54; effect of his pathos, 57; forensic 
 rhetoric his great study, 59 ; habits 
 of reading, 63, 64; efforts to improve 
 his memory, 64; faith in study, 65; 
 an untiring worker, 65 ; discovers an 
 article by De Quincey, 66; special 
 studies, 68; on improvement, 69-71; 
 adAdce to a student, 71, 72; on the 
 formation of character, 73-78 ; clas 
 sical studies, 79; solicitude as to 
 choice and use of words, 96; study 
 of words, 97-99; vocabulary, 100- 
 106, 378, 379; classification of words 
 used by, 102, 103 ; variations of style, 
 112 ; long sentences, 113, 367, effects 
 of his eloquence, 115, 231; "flow 
 ers of speech," 115; indisposition to 
 revise his arguments, 118, 119, 259 ; 
 long arguments, 124 ; a trying case, 
 125-127; style in speaking, and its 
 effect, 128-130; travels in Europe 
 extracts from his journal, 130-139; 
 taste for music, 141; defends Scott 
 and his novels, 142; on Kossuth, 
 146-149; eulogy of Webster, 150- 
 156 ; preparation for service in Con 
 gress, 157 ; lost speeches, 158 ; rank 
 as a statesman, 159 ; opposes annex 
 ation of Texas, 160, 408; advocates 
 
INDEX. 
 
 455 
 
 a protective tariff, 161-172; defends 
 Webster's course in the McLeod case, 
 175-177; Buchanan's compliment, 
 177; supports the Remediable Jus 
 tice Bill, 184 ; urges the confirmation 
 of the Ashburton treaty, 185, 407; 
 favors a national bank, 185-191 ; his 
 speech interrupted by Mr. Clay, 
 192; his replies, 192; character of 
 his argument, 193; retires from the 
 Senate, 196; returns to the profes 
 sion, 196 ; declines a professorship in 
 Cambridge Law School, 196; de 
 clines judicial honors, 196, 309, 349 ; 
 objections to his acceptance of ju 
 dicial office, 197, 349 ; character as 
 a lawyer, 198; his last case, 199; 
 death," 200; love of the Union, 200; 
 fears a civil war, 201; represented 
 in the war of the Rebellion, 202, 203 ; 
 contrasted with Macaulay, 204 ; use 
 of foreign terms, 211, 212; methods 
 of work, 213; on the Bible in schools, 
 214; a morning's lesson, 215; tem 
 per in debate, 217, 219 ; as a critic, 
 222, 223 ; treatment of others, 225, 
 293, 294; oration, "The Age of the 
 Pilgrims," 229-231; in Massachu 
 setts Convention to revise the Consti 
 tution, 235; " Did you find any chol 
 era there? " 238; early letters, 241- 
 250 ; a teacher at Washington, 249 ; 
 handwriting, 251, 252, 325, 393 ; un 
 selfishness, 253 ; argument in the 
 Methodist Church case, 257-259; 
 speech in the Senate, 260 ; Calhoun's 
 surprise at his eloquence, 260 ; a col 
 lege joke, 262 ; a college speech, 263- 
 266 ; treatment of a bad witness, 267 ; 
 estimate of human glory, 269 ; ought 
 to have been a Greek professor, 277; 
 a scholar by instinct, 280 ; as a theo 
 logian, 281; relish for study, 281, 
 282 ; peculiarities of his genius, 282, ' 
 283; love for the law, 284-286; d-- | 
 votion to his clients, 287, 288, 322, 
 398; anecdotes, 287, 288; enthusi 
 asm, 289, 290; charity, 294; awe of 
 Webster, 295, pleasantries, 296-298, 
 314-316; mastery over the melan 
 
 choly, 298; influence on young men, 
 300/301, 303; not a party leader, 
 311; unlike other men, 311; personal 
 appearance, 313, 370, 371; in social 
 intercourse, 317 ; manner of address 
 ing a jury, 317, 318; scholarship, 
 320, 321 ; methods of practice, 322- 
 325 ; the students' serenade, 327, 
 328; opinion of Chillingworth, 328; 
 midnight recreation, 329 ; " The Gos 
 pel according to Choate," 330; at 
 Webster's funeral, 330; respect of 
 English lawyers for, 332 ; anecdotes, 
 332-338; his library, 334, 336; the 
 ideal scholar, 344; an early riser, 
 348; political principles, 350, 351; 
 views as to abolition of slavery, 351 ; 
 in scholarship, himself his only par 
 allel, 354; his conversation, 363, 373; 
 love of epithets, 364; use of adjec 
 tives, 365, 366, 401; development of 
 his argument, 367; power over a jury, 
 368; manner at the bar, 369, 380; a 
 master of close logical reasoning, 
 370; abstracted bearing, 371; criti 
 cisms of contemporaries, 377; a be 
 liever in Christianity, 381; Webster's 
 tribute to his style, 386 ; campaign 
 speech at Bunker Hill in 1840, 387; 
 speech at Concord in 1844, 388; lec 
 ture on the Sea, 389 ; plea for town 
 governments, 389, 390; in the Whig 
 State Convention in 1847, 390, 391; 
 supports compromise measures of 
 1850, 395; opium vs. electricity, 397; 
 anecdotes, 398-405; in the Whig 
 National Convention of 1852, 406; 
 case of the slave child Med, 406, 
 407; letters to Summer, 414-430; re 
 marks before the Circuit Court on 
 death of Webster, 433-452. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, Jr., in the war of the 
 Rebellion, 202; death, 203. 
 
 Choate, Thomas, 1. 
 
 Choate, Washington, 346. 
 
 Choate, William, 2. 
 
 Cicero, the defense of criminals, 10; 
 the orator's knowledge, Gl ; a great 
 master of speech, 68 ; the orator's 
 style, 96; Choate' s opinion of, 336. 
 
456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Classical study, effect of, 93. 
 
 Classics, study of, 79-95 ; necessity of, 
 92. 
 
 Clay, Henry, efforts to cultivate a habit 
 of speaking, 59 ; opposes annexation 
 of Texas, 160 ; interrupts Mr. Choate, 
 192 ; his apology, 193. 
 
 Congress, a short term in, a sacrifice, 
 195. 
 
 Conscience and Cotton Whigs, 390, 391. 
 
 Constitution of the United States, con 
 tested powers of, 188. 
 
 Counsel necessary in criminal cases, 11. 
 
 Court Street, No. 4, 409. 
 
 Cowley and Milton, 335. 
 
 Creole, The, case of, 419. 
 
 Criminals, rights of, 21, 22. 
 
 Croker, J. W., and Macaulay, 218. 
 
 Crosby, Nathan, letter from, 340-351; 
 in college with Choate, 341; an early 
 interview, 348. 
 
 Crowinshield, F. B., 236. 
 
 Curtis, Benjamin R., Judge of Massa 
 chusetts Supreme Court, 197; pre 
 sides at a compromise meeting in 
 1850, 394. 
 
 Gushing, Caleb, classification of words 
 used by, 109 ; speech in the McLeod 
 case, 180. 
 
 Gushing, Luther S., 409. 
 
 Dana, Richard H., Jr., on the source 
 of Choate's power, 41; in Massachu 
 setts Convention, 236. 
 
 Dartmouth College, and the legislative 
 controversy, 353; deposition of Pres 
 ident Wheelock, 357 ; the new presi 
 dent, 357; attack on the societies' 
 libraries, 358 ; repulse, 358 ; the 
 " university " a political fraud, 358; 
 its collapse, 358; pursuit of knowl 
 edge under difficulties, 359 ; loyalty 
 of the students, 359. 
 
 Dawes, Henry L., 236. 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, denies the author 
 ship of an essay, 66; afterwards finds 
 the manuscript, 66. 
 
 Derivatives, classes of, 102, 103. 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, remark on Macau- 
 lay's temper, 218. 
 
 Dexter, Franklin, urges Choate to de 
 fend Professor Webster, 16. 
 
 Edmunds, John W., comment on the 
 McLeod case, 181, 182. 
 
 Electricity, uses and possibilities of, 
 384, 385 ; the sources of bodily move 
 ment, 396; vs. opium, 397. 
 
 Elliot, Samuel A., 236. 
 
 Eloquence, Mackintosh's definition of, 
 121. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., analysis of "Henry 
 VIII.," 81; Montaigne's choice of 
 words, 97. 
 
 Eminent men misunderstood, 44. 
 
 English reduced to Saxon a calamity, 
 95. 
 
 Erskine, Lord, on the duty of the ad 
 vocate, 11 ; defense of Tom Paine, a 
 question of right, 11 ; his claim to 
 remembrance, 11; his note -book, 
 28; and Burke, 28; his style formed 
 by studying Milton and Burke, 80; 
 classification of words used by, 111; 
 length of his speeches, 127. 
 
 Europe, comparative advantages of liv 
 ing in, 139, 140. 
 
 Evarts, William M., classification of 
 words used by, 109 ; anecdote of, 400. 
 
 Everett, Edward, opinion of Choate's 
 persuasive powers, 54; classification 
 of words used by, 108; appointed 
 minister to England, 415, 417. 
 
 Fancher, Enoch L., letter from, 255- 
 260; engages Choate in the Metho 
 dist Church case, 259 ; asks him to 
 revise his argument, 259; his reply, 
 259; opinion of Choate as a lawyer 
 and orator, 260. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, refused for a Webster 
 reception, 391; "Faneuil Hall 
 Open," 394. 
 
 Fields, James T., letter from, 299-306. 
 
 Forensic speaker, rule for, 123. 
 
 Fox, Mr., British minister, 173; sug 
 gests rule of personal immunity in 
 the McLeod case, 174, 175; misin 
 formed in regard to the McLeod case, 
 179. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 457 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, a writer of good 
 English, 79; his style formed by a 
 study of "The Spectator," 80. 
 
 Froude, James Anthony, classification 
 of words used by, 110. 
 
 Genius is a genius for industry, 383. 
 Gillett, Edward B., anecdotes by, 334- 
 
 339. 
 Gladstone, W. E., classification of 
 
 words used by, 111; ascribes a dual 
 
 origin to the Greeks, 83. 
 Gray, John C., 236. 
 Greek art, development of, 85. 
 Greek language, a composite language, 
 
 84; intolerant of foreign words, 84; 
 
 development of, 84; use of Greek 
 
 words by distinguished authors, 108. 
 Greeks, ancient, studied no language 
 
 but their own, 82 ; of dual origin, 83 ; 
 
 primitive condition of the arts 
 
 among, 85. 
 Greeley, Horace, appearance and 
 
 speech at Concord in 1844, 388. 
 Greene, General Nathanael, quoted, 
 
 265. 
 
 Hamilton, Andrew, defense of Zenger, 
 14. 
 
 Hardin, Benjamin, effect of Choate's 
 eloquence, 54. 
 
 Harrison, President, 185. 
 
 Harvey, Peter, 393. 
 
 Hellenic race, 83. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, study of oratory, 58. 
 
 Herbert, George, worth of a good life, 
 264. 
 
 Hillard, George S., 236, 363, 409, 416. 
 
 Hitchcock, Rev. Roswell D., impressions 
 of Choate, 129, 130. 
 
 Holland, Lady, invites Macaulay to 
 visit Holland House, 220; Macau- 
 lay's criticism of, 221. 
 
 Holland, Lord, 221. 
 
 India, success of English schools in, 
 89 ; importance of Macaulay's serv 
 ice for, 90. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., criticism of a fine 
 
 speaker, 61 ; what is a perfect style, 
 
 96. 
 Johnson, Reverdy, classification of 
 
 words used by, 109. 
 Jonsou, Ben, quoted, 80, 305. 
 Jurisprudence, the Justinian definition, 
 
 30. 
 
 Kellogg, Brainerd, classification of 
 words used by leading authors, 103, 
 105, 108-111. 
 
 Knight, Charles, opinion of Shake 
 speare's learning, 80. 
 
 Kossuth, Louis, visit to America, 146 ; 
 eloquence, 146-149; the sympathy 
 he awakened, 148, 149. 
 
 Lamartine's choice of authors, 91. 
 
 Latin language, universality of, 87; 
 variety and fertility of, 87 ; its use 
 in the study of modern languages, 
 93; use of Latin words by leading 
 authors, 108-111. 
 
 Law, the study of, 23; Choate's love 
 for, 284, 285, 304 ; the expression of 
 the highest justice of the State, 284; 
 the connecting link, 284; the Roman 
 law, 285 ; its application, 286; its 
 majesty, 287 ; Hooker's metaphor, 
 303. 
 
 Lawrence, Abbott, minister to Eng 
 land, 332; in Whig State Conven 
 tion, 391. 
 
 Learned men, the hope and strength of 
 the nation, 265. 
 
 Lord, Judge, conversation on Profes 
 sor Webster's case, 17; in Massa 
 chusetts Convention, 236. 
 
 Loring, Charles G., 219. 
 
 Loring, Edward G., 409. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, secures system of 
 English education for India, 89, 90 ; 
 on the structure of Milton's lines, 
 97; classification of words used by, 
 110; contrasted with Choate, 204; 
 his self-esteem, 205, 206 ; his strong 
 est claim to remembrance, 206 ; a 
 short practice at the bar, 207; a slow 
 [ writer, 210 ; protests against the use 
 
458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of foreign terms, 211; on the study 
 of the Bible, 214; want of reverence, 
 216 ; and the Methodist preacher, 
 217; temper, 219, 220; visits to Hol 
 land House, 220, 231; want of feel 
 ing for others, 221, 222; his reading, 
 222 ; a severe critic, 223 ; self-lauda 
 tions, 224 ; treatment of admirers, 
 224, 225; compared with Choate, 
 270-274. 
 
 Mackenzie Rebellion, the, 173. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, definition of 
 eloquence, 121. 
 
 McLeod, Alexander, case of, 173; his 
 liberation demanded by Great Brit 
 ain, 173-184; debate on, in Con 
 gress, 174 ; course pursued by Web 
 ster in, 174, 178-180; trial and ac 
 quittal, 183. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 409. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, retort, 28; study of 
 oratory, 60. 
 
 Marsh, George P., 100, 103 ; letter 
 from, 375-382. 
 
 Marsh, James, 346. 
 
 Marshall, Chief Justice, classification 
 of words used by, 108. 
 
 Mason, Jeremiah, Choate's estimate of, 
 377. 
 
 Massachusetts Convention to revise the 
 Constitution, 235-237. 
 
 Massachusetts vs. Rhode Island, 56, 
 410, 424. 
 
 Mechanic arts, progress of, 164-166. 
 
 Methodist Church case, Choate's rela 
 tion to, 118; his study of the case, 
 256; his brief, 258; his argument, 
 257-259. 
 
 Milton's use of words, 100. 
 
 Montgomery, Robert, persecuted by 
 Macaulay, 218. 
 
 Moral firmness, essential to success, 
 265. 
 
 Morton, Marcus, 236. 
 
 Murphy, Henry C., conception of free 
 trade, 171. 
 
 National crimes, responsibility for, 175. 
 
 "Negro Plot," the, 14. 
 
 Nesmith, George W., letter from, 261- 
 
 239; a college joke, 262; journey to 
 Hanover with Webster, Choate, and 
 Woodbury, 267; their conversation, 
 268; stage-coach recitations, 268; 
 last interview with Choate, 269. 
 
 Oliver, Henry K., letter from, 352-361 ; 
 transferred from Harvard to Dart 
 mouth, 353; first acquaintance with 
 Choate, 353; passage describing Ci 
 cero, applied to Choate, 354 ; life at 
 Dartmouth, 357-360. 
 
 Orator, natural, or born, 58 ; office of, 60. 
 
 Paige, James A., anecdote of Choate 
 and Webster, 332. 
 
 Park, Professor, would have made a 
 great lawyer, 281. 
 
 Parker, E. G., a hunt for a word, 67. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 331. 
 
 Parsons, Theophilus, the defense of the 
 criminal, 13 ; foundations of Choate's 
 knowledge of the law, 39. 
 
 Pate's case, duty of counsel in, 9. 
 
 Pathetic, influence of the, 115. 
 
 Peck, Rev. George, defendant in Meth 
 odist Church case, 225. 
 
 Pelasgians, the, 83. 
 
 Perkins, J. C., tribute from, 411. 
 
 Perley, Chief Justice, opinion of 
 Choate's style in speaking, 128. 
 
 Persiflage, a bit of, 46. 
 
 Phillips, Stephen C., 391. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 8, 9. 
 
 Phoenix Bank trial, incident of, 31. 
 
 Pinkney, William, declaimed in pri 
 vate, 59; habit of memorizing, 72; 
 classification of words used by, 108. 
 
 Pitt, William, preparatory studies in 
 oratory, 58 ; study of words, 97 ; 
 classification of words used by, 111. 
 
 Poetry and prose, their alliance, 51. 
 
 Pratt, Edward Ellerton, anecdotes, 65 ; 
 Choate's fears of a civil war, 201. 
 
 Puritans, their trials and triumphs, 74- 
 77. 
 
 Putnam, Rev. A. P., impressions of 
 Choate, 232 - 254 ; interview with 
 Choate, 234 ; visits Choate's birth 
 place, 237. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459 
 
 Quincy, Josiah, Jr., defense of British 
 soldiers, 12. 
 
 Reading, vacations for, 63. 
 Remediable Justice Bill, 184. 
 Rhetorical decoration, importance of, 
 122. 
 
 Saltonstall, Leverett, anecdote of, 399. 
 
 Sanborn, E. D., recollections, 327-333 ; 
 early acquaintance with Choate, 327; 
 advised to read Chillingworth, 328; 
 visits Choate, 329; at Webster's fu 
 neral, 330; anecdotes, 332, 333. 
 
 Saxon language. See Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Saxons, the, 86. 
 
 Scarlett, Sir James, advocates counsel 
 for prisoners, 12. 
 
 Scholarship, competition in, 347. 
 
 Scholar, the successful, 264. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, disparaged by Car- 
 lyle, 142; defended by Choate", 142- 
 146. 
 
 Shakespeare, William, a classical 
 scholar, 80; Ben Jonson's saying, 
 80; Coleridge's opinion, 80; Charles 
 Knight's opinion, 80 ; Emerson's 
 analysis of "Henry VIII.," 81; au 
 thorship of "Henry VI.," 81; 
 adopted the work older authors, 82; 
 use of words, 100. 
 
 Shaw, Chief Justice, charge in Tirrell's 
 case, 7 ; early impressions of Choate, 
 53; Choate' s reverence for, 315; his 
 way of expressing disapproval, 315; 
 Choate's remark, 315; an "agree 
 able" verdict, 405; opinion in the 
 case of the slave child Med, 407. 
 
 Sheridan, R. B., needed reliableness of 
 character, 264. 
 
 Smith, Cyrus P., a college serenade, 
 327. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, on counsel for prison 
 ers, 10; classification of words used 
 by, 110; advice to Macaulay, 218. 
 
 "Social Friends," society at Dart 
 mouth, Choate's address before, 263. 
 
 Somerbv, G. A., at Choate's grave, 
 431. " 
 
 Spring, Rev. Gardiner, 216. 
 
 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, classification 
 of words used by, 110. 
 
 Star Route trial, long arguments in, 
 127. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., opinion of 
 Choate's eloquence, 55; rescues a 
 lost speech, 158. 
 
 Stevenson, J. Thomas, 236. 
 
 Storrs, Rev. Richards S., classification 
 of words used by, 109; letter from, 
 275 - 292 ; first impressions of Mr. 
 Choate, 277, 278; student in his of 
 fice, 279. 
 
 Story, William W., letter from, 362- 
 374. 
 
 Strong, William, the comparison of 
 Choate and Macaulay, 270-272. 
 
 Suffolk Bar, proceedings on death of 
 Choate, 39-42; on death of Webster, 
 433. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, interest in Professor 
 Webster's case, 16; classification of 
 words used by, 109 ; early acquaint 
 ance with Choate, 408; at No. 4 
 Court Street, 410; advocates quali 
 fied right of search, 410; on the use 
 of adjectives, 411; letters to, from 
 Choate, 414. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, describes a perfect 
 style, 96. 
 
 Tariff, protective, 161-172. 
 
 Taste, improvement of, 69, 70. 
 
 Teutonic language, 401 ; percentage of 
 words used by leading authors, 108- 
 111. 
 
 Texas, annexation of, 150. 
 
 Thompson, Isaac Grant, on the study 
 of forensic eloquence, 59. 
 
 Tirrell's case, 7, 365, 366, 398, 399. 
 
 Tracy, Rev. Joseph, on Choate's re 
 ligious character, 340. 
 
 Translation as an intellectual discipline, 
 67. 
 
 Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, 88, 204- 
 222, 270, 271. 
 
 Turner, Sharon, the power and copious 
 ness of the Anglo-Saxon language, 
 100, 107. 
 
 Tyler, President, 185. 
 
460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Upham, Charles W., 236. 
 
 Valentine, Benjamin E., 199. 
 Van Buren, Martin, 160. 
 Van Cott, Joshua M., description of 
 Choate's oration, 229-231. 
 
 Washburn, Emory, necessity of coun 
 sel in criminal cases, 13; objection to 
 fanciful descriptions, 47; recollec 
 tions of Choate, 312-326. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, early comparison with 
 Choate, 5 ; admiration of Choate, 6 ; 
 counsel in the White murder case, 
 10 ; episode in the Phoenix Bank 
 trial, 31; pleadings before juries his 
 mightiest efforts, 43 ; classification of 
 words used by, 109 ; describes an ora 
 tor, 114 ; effect of Choate's eloquence 
 on, 114, 115; "flowers of speech," 
 115; at Quebec, 116; "England's 
 morning drum," 116, 117; revision 
 of discourses, 117; objection to Latin 
 words, 119; the Plymouth oration, 
 120 ; acquirement of style, 120; 
 Choate's eulogy of, 150-156; and an 
 nexation of Texas, 160 ; course pur 
 sued in McLeod's case, 174; defend 
 ed by Choate, 175-177 ; negotiates 
 the Ashburton treaty, 185; journey 
 to Hanover with Choate and Wood- 
 bury, 267; a stage-coach recitation, 
 268; preparation of cases, 296; the 
 Greek Testament vs. the Constitu 
 tion, 338 ; on Choate's style, 386 ; 
 plea for harmony in Whig State Con 
 vention, 391; 7th of March speech, 
 392; shut out from Faneuil Hall, 
 393; "Faneuil Hall Open," 394; 
 Choate's handwriting, 394. 
 
 Webster, Fletcher, 331, 393. 
 
 Webster, Professor, case of, 15; Mr. 
 
 Dexter's interest in, 16; tries to se 
 cure Choate's services, 16, 17; Sum- 
 ner urges Choate to undertake the 
 defense, 16 ; why he refused, 16 ; pro 
 posed line of defense, 18-20 ; rejection 
 by Webster and his friends, 19 ; fail 
 ure of theory presented at the trial, 
 20. 
 
 Whig State Convention of 1847, 390- 
 392. 
 
 Whigs, Conscience and Cotton, 390, 
 391. 
 
 Whipple, E. P., Choate's habit of out 
 door study, 64; Webster's revision 
 of Plymouth oration, 120. 
 
 White murder trial, 10. 
 
 White, Richard Grant, on acquirement 
 of style, 120, 121. 
 
 Wilde, Mr. Justice, a mot, 366; "I 
 suppose you slept well," 403. 
 
 Wilson, Henry, the ruling genius in 
 Massachusetts Convention 236 ; his 
 name likely to grow in importance, 
 405 ; testimony to Choate's elo 
 quence, 406-408. 
 
 Winslow, Rev. Hubbard, 412. 
 
 Winslow, John, letter from, 383-413. 
 
 Women as witnesses, 337. 
 
 Woodbury, Levi, invited to deliver an 
 oration at Dartmouth, 267 ; stage 
 coach journey with Choate and Web 
 ster, 267; their conversation, 268. 
 
 Wright, Silas, 160. 
 
 Young America, no new thing in his 
 tory, 32. 
 
 Zenger, John Peter, case of, 14. 
 
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