he was formed less for the contentions of the forum than for the
exercises of the academy. And yet it is understood that he declined
several opportunities of entering its learned retreats. In 1806 he was
elected Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages in
Harvard University; and at a later day he was invited to the chair of
Greek Literature in the same institution. On the death of Professor
Ashmun, many eyes were turned towards him, as fitted to occupy the
professorship of law in Cambridge, since so ably filled by Mr.
Greenleaf; and on two different occasions his name was echoed by the
public prints as about to receive the dignity of President of the
University. But he continued in the practice of the law to the last.
He should be claimed by the bar with peculiar pride. If it be true, as
has been said, that Serjeant Talfourd has reflected more honor upon his
profession by the successful cultivation of letters than any of his
contemporaries by their forensic triumphs, then should the American
bar acknowledge their obligations to the fame of Mr. Pickering. He was
one of us. He was a _regular_ in our ranks; in other service, only a
_volunteer_.
The mind is led instinctively to a parallel between him and that
illustrious scholar and jurist, ornament of the English law, and
pioneer of Oriental studies in England, Sir William Jones, to whom I
have already referred. Both confessed, in early life, the attractions
of classical studies; both were trained in the discipline of the law;
both, though engaged in its practice, always delighted to contemplate
it as a science; both surrendered themselves with irrepressible ardor
to the study of languages, while the one broke into the unexplored
fields of Eastern philology, and the other devoted himself more
especially to the native tongues of his own Western continent. Their
names are, perhaps, equally conspicuous for the number of languages
which occupied their attention. As we approach them in private life,
the parallel still continues. In both there were the same truth,
generosity, and gentleness, a cluster of noble virtues,--while the
intenser earnestness of the one is compensated by the greater modesty
of the other. To our American jurist-scholar, also, may be applied
those words of the Greek couplet, borrowed from Aristophanes, and
first appropriated to his English prototype: "The Graces, seeking a
shrine that would not decay, found the soul of Jones."
While dwelling with admiration upon his triumphs of intellect and the
fame he has won, we must not forget the virtues, higher than intellect
or fame, by which his life was adorned. In the jurist and the scholar
we must not lose sight of the _man_. So far as is allotted to a mortal,
he was a spotless character. The murky tides of this world seemed to
flow by without soiling his garments. He was pure in thought, word,
and deed; a lover of truth, goodness, and humanity; the friend of the
young, encouraging them in their studies, and aiding them by wise
counsels; ever kind, considerate, and gentle to all; towards children,
and the unfortunate, full of tenderness. He was of charming modesty.
With learning to which all bowed with reverence, he walked humbly
before God and man. His pleasures were simple. In the retirement of
his study, and the blandishments of his music-loving family, he found
rest from the fatigues of the bar. He never spoke in anger, nor did any
hate find a seat in his bosom. His placid life was, like law in the
definition of Aristotle, "mind without passion."
Through his long and industrious career he was blessed with unbroken
health. He walked on earth with an unailing body and a serene mind;
and at last, in the fulness of time, when the garner was overflowing
with the harvests of a well-spent life, in the bosom of his family, the
silver cord was gently loosed. He died at Boston, May 5, 1846, in the
seventieth year of his age,--only a few days after he had prepared for
the press the last sheets of a new and enlarged edition of his Greek
Lexicon. His wife, to whom he was married in 1805, and three children,
survive to mourn their irreparable loss.
The number of societies, both at home and abroad, of which he was an
honored member, attests the widespread recognition of his merits. He
was President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; President
of the American Oriental Society; Foreign Secretary of the American
Antiquarian Society; Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
the American Ethnological Society, the American Philosophical Society;
Honorary Member of the Historical Societies of New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, and Georgia;
Honorary Member of the National Institution for the Promotion of
Science, the American Statistical Association, the Northern Academy of
Arts and Sciences, Hanover, N.H., and the Society for the Promotion
of Legal Knowledge, Philadelphia; Corresponding Member of the Academy
of Sciences at Berlin, the Oriental Society of Paris, the Academy of
Sciences and Letters at Palermo, the Antiquarian Society at Athens,
and the Royal Northern Antiquarian Society at Copenhagen; and Titular
Member of the French Society of Universal Statistics.
For many years he maintained a copious correspondence, on matters of
jurisprudence, science, and learning, with distinguished names at home
and abroad: especially with Mr. Du Ponceau, at Philadelphia,--with
William von Humboldt, at Berlin,--with Mittermaier, the jurist, at
Heidelberg,--with Dr. Prichard, author of the Physical History of
Mankind, at Bristol,--and with Lepsius, the hierologist, who wrote to
him from the foot of the Pyramids, in Egypt.
The death of one thus variously connected is no common sorrow. Beyond
the immediate circle of family and friends, he will be mourned by the
bar, among whom his daily life was passed,--by the municipality of
Boston, whose legal adviser he was,--by clients, who depended upon his
counsels,--by good citizens, who were charmed by the abounding virtues
of his private life,--by his country, who will cherish his name more
than gold or silver,--by the distant islands of the Pacific, who will
bless his labors in the words they read,--finally, by the company of
jurists and scholars throughout the world. His fame and his works will
be fitly commemorated, on formal occasions, hereafter. Meanwhile, one
who knew him at the bar and in private life, and who loves his memory,
lays this early tribute upon his grave.
THE SCHOLAR, THE JURIST, THE ARTIST, THE PHILANTHROPIST.
AN ORATION BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AT
THEIR ANNIVERSARY, AUGUST 27, 1846.
Then I would say to the young disciple of Truth and Beauty, who
would know how to satisfy the noble impulse of his heart, through
every opposition of the century,--I would say, Give the world
beneath your influence a _direction_ towards the good, and the
tranquil rhythm of time will bring its development.--SCHILLER.
In this Oration, as in that of the 4th of July, Mr. Sumner took
advantage of the occasion to express himself freely, especially
on the two great questions of Slavery and War. In the sensitive
condition of public sentiment at that time, such an effort would
have found small indulgence, if he had not placed himself behind
four such names. While commemorating the dead, he was able to
uphold living truth.
The acceptance of this Oration at the time is attested by the toast
of John Quincy Adams at the dinner of the Society:--
"The memory of the Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the
Philanthropist; and not the memory, but the long life of the
kindred spirit who has this day embalmed them all."
This was followed by a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Sumner, dated
at Quincy, August 29, 1846, containing the following passage:--
"It is a gratification to me to have the opportunity to repeat the
thanks which I so cordially gave you at the close of your oration
of last Thursday, and of which the sentiment offered by me at the
dinner-table was but an additional pulsation from the same heart.
I trust I may now congratulate you on the felicity, first of your
selection of your subject, and secondly of its consummation in the
delivery.... The pleasure with which I listened to your discourse
was inspired far less by the success and _all but_ universal
acceptance and applause of the present moment than by the vista of
the future which is opened to my view. Casting my eyes backward no
farther than the 4th of July of last year, when you set all the
vipers of Alecto a-hissing by proclaiming the Christian law of
universal peace and love, and then casting them forward, perhaps
not much farther, but beyond my own allotted time, I see you have
a mission to perform. I look from Pisgah to the Promised Land; you
must enter upon it.... To the motto on my seal [_Alteri sæculo_]
add _Delenda est servitus_."
Similar testimony was offered by Edward Everett in a letter dated
at Cambridge, September 5, 1846, where he thanks Mr. Sumner for
his "most magnificent address,--an effort certainly of unsurpassed
felicity and power,"--then in another letter dated at Cambridge,
September 25th, where he writes: "I read it last evening with a
renewal of the delight with which I heard it. Should you never
do anything else, you have done enough for fame; but you are, as
far as these public efforts are concerned, at the commencement
of a career, destined, I trust, to last for long years, of
ever-increasing usefulness and honor."
Mr. Prescott, under date of October 2d, writes:--
"The most happy conception has been carried out admirably, as
if it were the most natural order of things, without the least
constraint or violence. I don't know which of your sketches I like
the best. I am inclined to think the Judge; for there you are on
your own heather, and it is the tribute of a favorite pupil to his
well-loved master, gushing warm from the heart. Yet they are all
managed well; and the vivid touches of character and the richness
of the illustration will repay the study, I should imagine, of any
one familiar with the particular science you discuss."
Chancellor Kent, of New York, under date of October 6th, expresses
himself as follows:--
"I had the pleasure to receive your Phi Beta Kappa Address, and I
think it to be one of the most splendid productions in point of
diction and eloquence that I have ever read. You brought a most
fervent mind to the task, glowing with images of transcendent
worth, and embellished with classical and literary allusions drawn
from your memory and guided by your taste, with extraordinary
force.... You have raised a noble monument to the four great men
who have adorned your State, and I feel deeply humbled with a sense
of my own miserable inferiority when I contemplate such exalted
models."
These contemporary tokens of friendship and sympathy seem a proper
part of this record.
ORATION.
To-day is the festival of our fraternity, sacred to learning, to
friendship, and to truth. From many places, remote and near, we have
come together beneath the benediction of Alma Mater. We have walked
in the grateful shelter of her rich embowering trees. Friend has
met friend, classmate has pressed the hand of classmate, while the
ruddy memories of youth and early study have risen upon the soul. And
now we have come up to this church, a company of brothers, in long,
well-ordered procession, commencing with the silver locks of reverend
age, and closing with the fresh faces that glow with the golden blood
of youth.
With hearts of gratitude, we greet among our number those whose
lives are crowned by desert,--especially him who, returning from
conspicuous cares in a foreign land, now graces our chief seat of
learning,[154]--and not less him who, closing, in the high service
of the University, a life-long career of probity and honor, now
voluntarily withdraws to a scholar's repose.[155] We salute at once
the successor and the predecessor, the rising and the setting sun.
And ingenuous youth, in whose bosom are infolded the germs of untold
excellence, whose ardent soul sees visions closed to others by the
hand of Time, commands our reverence not less than age rich in
experience and honor. The Present and the Past, with all their works,
we know and measure; but the triumphs of the Future are unknown and
immeasurable;--therefore is there in the yet untried powers of youth a
vastness of promise to quicken the regard. Welcome, then, not less the
young than the old! and may this our holiday brighten with harmony and
joy!
[154] Hon. Edward Everett, President of Harvard University.
[155] Hon. Josiah Quincy, late President of Harvard University.
As the eye wanders around our circle, Mr. President, in vain it seeks
a beloved form, for many years so welcome in the seat you now fill.
I might have looked to behold him on this occasion. But death, since
we last met together, has borne him away. The love of friends, the
devotion of pupils, the prayers of the nation, the concern of the
world, could not shield him from the inexorable shaft. Borrowing for
him those words of genius and friendship which gushed from Clarendon
at the name of Falkland, that he was "a person of prodigious parts
of learning and knowledge, of inimitable sweetness and delight in
conversation, of flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind,
and of primitive simplicity and integrity of life,"[156] I need not add
the name of STORY. To dwell on his character, and all that he has done,
were a worthy theme. But his is not the only well-loved countenance
which returns no answering smile.
[156] History of the Rebellion, Book VII.
This year our Society, according to custom, publishes the catalogue of
its members, marking by a star the insatiate archery of Death during
the brief space of four years. In no period of its history, equally
short, have such shining marks been found.
"Now kindred Merit fills the sable bier,
Now lacerated Friendship claims a tear;
Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
Still drops some joy from withering life away."[157]
[157] Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, vv. 303-306.
Scholarship, Jurisprudence, Art, Humanity, each is called to mourn a
chosen champion. Pickering the Scholar, Story the Jurist, Allston the
Artist, Channing the Philanthropist, are gone. When our last catalogue
was published they were all living, each in his field of fame. Our
catalogue of this year gathers them with the peaceful dead. Sweet and
exalted companionship! They were joined in life, in renown, and in
death. They were brethren of our fraternity, sons of Alma Mater. Story
and Channing were classmates; Pickering preceded them by two years
only, Allston followed them by two years. Casting our eyes upon the
closing lustre of the last century, we discern this brilliant group
whose mortal light is now obscured. After the toils of his long life,
Pickering sleeps serenely in the place of his birth, near the honored
dust of his father. Channing, Story, and Allston have been laid to
rest in Cambridge, where they first tasted together the tree of life:
Allston in the adjoining church-yard, within sound of the voice that
now addresses you; Channing and Story in the pleasant, grassy bed
of Mount Auburn, under the shadow of beautiful trees, whose falling
autumnal leaves are fit emblem of the generations of men.
It was the custom in ancient Rome, on solemn occasions, to bring
forward the images of departed friends, arrayed in robes of office,
and carefully adorned, while some one recounted what they had done,
in the hope of refreshing the memory of their deeds, and of inspiring
the living with new impulse to virtue. "For who," says the ancient
historian, "can behold without emotion the forms of so many illustrious
men, thus living, as it were, and breathing together in his presence?
or what spectacle can be conceived more great and striking?"[158]
The images of our departed brothers are present here to-day, not in
sculptured marble, but graven on our hearts. We behold them again, as
in life. They mingle in our festival, and cheer us by their presence.
It were well to catch the opportunity of observing together their
well-known lineaments, and of dwelling anew, with warmth of living
affection, upon the virtues by which they are commended. Devoting the
hour to their memory, we may seek also to comprehend and reverence
the great interests which they lived to promote. Pickering, Story,
Allston, Channing! Their names alone, without addition, awaken a
response, which, like the far-famed echo of Dodona, will prolong
itself through the live-long day. But, great as they are, we feel
their insignificance by the side of those great causes to which their
days were consecrated,--_Knowledge_, _Justice_, _Beauty_, _Love_, the
comprehensive attributes of God. Illustrious on earth, they were but
lowly and mortal ministers of lofty and immortal truth. It is, then,
THE SCHOLAR, THE JURIST, THE ARTIST, THE PHILANTHROPIST, whom we
celebrate to-day, and whose pursuits will be the theme of my discourse.
[158] Hampton's Polybius, Book VI. Ext. II. ch. 2.
Here, on this threshold, let me say, what is implied in the very
statement of my subject, that, in offering these tributes, I seek no
occasion for personal eulogy or biographical detail. My aim is to
commemorate the men, but more to advance the objects which they so
successfully served. Reversing the order in which they left us, I shall
take the last first.
* * * * *
JOHN PICKERING, THE SCHOLAR, died in the month of May, 1846, aged
sixty-nine, within a short distance of that extreme goal which is the
allotted limit of human life. By Scholar I mean a cultivator of liberal
studies, a student of knowledge in its largest sense,--not merely
classical, not excluding what in our day is exclusively called science,
but which was unknown when the title of scholar first prevailed; for
though Cicero dealt a sarcasm at Archimedes, he spoke with higher
truth when he beautifully recognized the common bond between all
departments of knowledge. The brother whom we mourn was a scholar, a
student, as long as he lived. His place was not merely among those
called by courtesy _Educated Men_, with most of whom education is
past and gone,--men who have studied; he studied always. Life to him
was an unbroken lesson, pleasant with the charm of knowledge and the
consciousness of improvement.
The world knows and reveres his learning; they only who partook
somewhat of his daily life fully know the modesty of his character. His
knowledge was such that he seemed to be ignorant of nothing, while,
in the perfection of his humility, he might seem to know nothing. By
learning conspicuous before the world, his native diffidence withdrew
him from its personal observation. Surely, learning so great, which
claimed so little, will not be forgotten. The modesty which detained
him in retirement during life introduces him now that he is dead.
Strange reward! Merit which shrank from the living gaze is now observed
of all men. The voice once so soft is returned in echoes from the tomb.
I place in the front his modesty and his learning, two attributes by
which he will be always remembered. I might enlarge on his sweetness of
temper, his simplicity of life, his kindness to the young, his sympathy
with studies of all kinds, his sensibility to beauty, his conscientious
character, his passionless mind. Could he speak to us of himself, he
might adopt words of self-painting from the candid pen of his eminent
predecessor in the cultivation of Grecian literature, leader of its
revival in Europe, as Pickering was leader in America,--the urbane
and learned Erasmus. "For my own part," says the early scholar to
his English friend, John Colet, "I best know my own failings, and
therefore shall presume to give a character of myself. You have in me
a man of little or no fortune,--a stranger to ambition,--of a strong
propensity to loving-kindness and friendship,--without any boast of
learning, but a great admirer of it,--one who has a profound veneration
for any excellence in others, however he may feel the want of it in
himself,--who can readily yield to others in learning, but to none in
integrity,--a man sincere, open, and free,--a hater of falsehood and
dissimulation,--of a mind lowly and upright,--of few words, and who
boasts of nothing but an honest heart."[159]
[159] Erasmi Epist., Lib. V. Ep. 4.
I have called him Scholar; for it is in this character that he leaves
so excellent an example. But the triumphs of his life are enhanced by
the variety of his labors, and especially by his long career at the
bar. He was a lawyer, whose days were spent in the faithful practice
of his profession, busy with clients, careful of their concerns in
court and out of court. Each day witnessed his untiring exertion in
scenes little attractive to his gentle and studious nature. He was
formed to be a seeker of truth rather than a defender of wrong; and
he found less satisfaction in the strifes of the bar than in the
conversation of books. To him litigation was a sorry feast, and a
well-filled docket of cases not unlike the curious and now untasted
dish of "nettles," in the first course of a Roman banquet. He knew that
the duties of the profession were important, but felt that even their
successful performance, when unattended by juridical culture, gave
small title to regard, while they were less pleasant and ennobling than
the disinterested pursuit of learning. He would have said, at least as
regards his own profession, with the Lord Archon of the _Oceana_, "I
will stand no more to the judgment of lawyers and divines than to that
of _so many other tradesmen_."[160]
[160] Harrington's Oceana, p. 134.
It was the law as a _trade_ that he pursued reluctantly, while he had
true happiness in the science of jurisprudence, to which he devoted
many hours rescued from other cares. By example, and contributions
of the pen, he elevated the study, and invested it with the charm of
liberal pursuits. By marvellous assiduity he was able to lead two
lives,--one producing the fruits of earth, the other of immortality.
In him was the union, rare as it is grateful, of lawyer and scholar.
He has taught how much may be done for jurisprudence and learning even
amidst the toils of professional life; while the enduring lustre of his
name contrasts with the fugitive reputation which is the lot of the
_mere lawyer_, although clients beat at his gates from cock-crow at the
dawn.
To describe his labors of scholarship would be impossible on this
occasion. Although important contributions to the sum of knowledge,
they were of a character only slightly appreciated by the world at
large. They were chiefly directed to two subjects,--classical studies
and general philology, if these two may be regarded separately.
His early life was marked by a particular interest in _classical
studies_. At a time when, in our country, accurate and extensive
scholarship was rare, he aspired to possess it. By daily and nightly
toil he mastered the great exemplars of antiquity, and found delight
in their beauties. His example was persuasive. And he added earnest
effort to promote their study in the learned seminaries of our country.
With unanswerable force he urged among us a standard of education
commensurate, in every substantial respect, with that of Europe. He
desired for the American youth on his native soil, under the influence
of free institutions, a course of instruction rendering foreign aid
superfluous. He had a just pride of country, and longed for its good
name through accomplished representatives, well knowing that the
American scholar, wherever he wanders in foreign lands, is a living
recommendation of the institutions under which he was reared.
He knew that scholarship of all kinds would gild the life of its
possessor, enlarge the resources of the bar, enrich the voice of the
pulpit, and strengthen the learning of medicine. He knew that it would
afford a soothing companionship in hours of relaxation from labor,
in periods of sadness, and in the evening of life; that, when once
embraced, it was more constant than friendship,--attending its votary,
as an invisible spirit, in the toils of the day, the watches of the
night, the changes of travel, and the alternations of fortune or health.