attached to them undue importance. By his own example he showed that
he bore them no exclusive love. He regarded them as an essential part
of liberal education, opening the way to other realms of knowledge,
while they mature the taste and invigorate the understanding. Here
probably all will concur. It may be questioned, whether, in our hurried
American life, it is possible, with proper regard for other studies,
to introduce into ordinary classical education the exquisite skill
which is the pride of English scholarship, reminding us of the minute
finish in Chinese art,--or the ponderous and elaborate learning which
is the wonder of Germany, reminding us of the unnatural perspective in
a Chinese picture. But much will be done, if we establish those habits
of accuracy, acquired only through early and careful training, which
enable us at least to appreciate the severe beauty of antiquity, while
they become an invaluable standard and measure of attainment in other
things.
The classics possess a peculiar charm, as models, I might say masters,
of composition and form. In the contemplation of these august teachers
we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of
the world, better remembered and more cherished than any intermediate
voice,--as the language of childhood still haunts us, when the
utterances of later years are effaced from the mind. But they show the
rudeness of the world's childhood, before passion yielded to the sway
of reason and the affections. They want purity, righteousness, and
that highest charm which is found in love to God and man. Not in the
frigid philosophy of the Porch and the Academy are we to seek these;
not in the marvellous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the
mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on
whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the
animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful
strife of an athlete at the Olympian games; not in the torrent of
Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in
the fitful philosophy and boastful eloquence of Tully; not in the
genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. To
these we give admiration; but they cannot be our highest teachers. In
none of these is the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit
of these classics has been in constant contention with the Sermon on
the Mount, and with those two sublime commandments on which "hang all
the law and the prophets."[161] The strife is still pending, and who
shall say when it will end? Heathenism, which possessed itself of
such Siren forms, is not yet exorcised. Even now it exerts a powerful
sway, imbuing youth, coloring the thought of manhood, and haunting the
meditation of age. Widening still in sphere, it embraces nations as
well as individuals, until it seems to sit supreme.
[161] Terence, taught, perhaps, by his own bitter experience as slave,
has given expression to truth almost Christian, when he says,--
"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."
_Heauton._, Act I. Sc. 1.
And in the _Andria_,--
"Facile omnes perferre ac pati, Cum quibus erat cunque una: iis sese
dedere: Eorum obsequi studiis: advorsus nemini: Nunquam præponens se
illis." Act I. Sc. 1.
Our own productions, though yielding to the ancient in arrangement,
method, beauty of form, and freshness of illustration, are superior
in truth, delicacy, and elevation of sentiment,--above all, in the
recognition of that peculiar revelation, the Brotherhood of Man. Vain
are eloquence and poetry, compared with this heaven-descended truth.
Put in one scale that simple utterance, and in the other all the lore
of antiquity, with its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the
latter will be light in the balance. Greek poetry has been likened to
the song of the nightingale, as she sits in the rich, symmetrical crown
of the palm-tree, trilling her thick-warbled notes; but these notes
will not compare in sweetness with those teachings of charity which
belong to our Christian inheritance.
These things cannot be forgotten by the scholar. From the Past he may
draw all it can contribute to the great end of life, human progress
and happiness,--progress, without which happiness is vain. But he must
close his soul to the hardening influence of that spirit, which is more
to be dreaded, as it is enshrined in compositions of such commanding
authority.
"Sunk in Homer's mine,
I lose my precious years, now soon to fail,
Handling his gold; which, howsoe'er it shine,
Proves dross, when balanced in the Christian scale."[162]
[162] Cowper, Sonnet to John Johnson: Minor Poems.
In the department of _philology_, kindred to that of the classics,
our Scholar labored with similar success. Unlike Sir William Jones
in genius, he was like this English scholar in the multitude of
languages he embraced. Distance of time and space was forgotten, as
he explored the far-off primeval Sanscrit,--the hieroglyphics of
Egypt, now awakening from the mute repose of centuries,--the polite
and learned tongues of ancient and modern Europe,--the languages of
Mohammedanism,--the various dialects in the forests of North America,
and in the sandal-groves of the Pacific,--only closing with a _lingua
franca_ from an unlettered tribe on the coast of Africa, to which his
attention was called during the illness which ended in death.
This recital exhibits the variety and extent of his studies in a
department which is supposed inaccessible, except to peculiar and
Herculean labors. He had a natural and intuitive perception of
affinities in language, and of its hidden relations. His researches
have thrown important light on the general principles of this science,
as also on the history and character of individual languages. In
devising an alphabet of the Indian tongues in North America, since
adopted in the Polynesian Islands, he rendered a brilliant service to
civilization. It is pleasant to contemplate the Scholar sending forth
from his seclusion this priceless instrument of improvement. On the
distant islands once moistened by the blood of Cook newspapers and
books are printed in a native language, which was reduced to a written
character by the care and genius of Pickering. The Vocabulary of
Americanisms and the Greek and English Lexicon attest still further the
variety and value of his philological labors; nor can we sufficiently
admire the facility with which, amidst the duties of an arduous
profession and the temptations of scholarship, he assumed the appalling
task of the lexicographer, which Scaliger compares to the labors of the
anvil and the mine.
There are critics, ignorant, hasty, or supercilious, who are too apt
to disparage the toils of the philologist, treating them sometimes
as curious only, sometimes as trivial, or, when they enter into
lexicography, as those of a harmless drudge. It might be sufficient
to reply, that all exercise of the intellect promoting forgetfulness
of self and the love of science ministers essentially to human
improvement. But philology may claim other suffrages. It is its
province to aid in determining the character of words, their extraction
and signification, and in other ways to guide and explain the use
of language; nor is it generous, while enjoying eloquence, poetry,
science, and the many charms of literature, to withhold our gratitude
from silent and sometimes obscure labors in illustration of that great
instrument without which all the rest is nothing.
The science of Comparative Philology, which our Scholar has
illustrated, may rank with shining pursuits. It challenges a place
by the side of that science which received such development from
the genius of Cuvier. The study of Comparative Anatomy has thrown
unexpected light on the physical history of the animate creation; but
it cannot be less interesting or important to explore the unwritten
history of the human race in languages that have been spoken, to trace
their pedigree, to detect their affinities,--seeking the prevailing law
by which they are governed. As we comprehend these things, confusion
and discord retreat, the Fraternity of Man stands confessed, and the
philologist becomes a minister at the altar of universal philanthropy.
In the study of the Past, he learns to anticipate the Future; and in
sublime vision he sees, with Leibnitz, that Unity of the Human Race
which, in the succession of ages, will find its expression in an
instrument more marvellous than the infinite Calculus,--a universal
language, with an alphabet of human thoughts.[163]
[163] Fontenelle, Éloge de Leibnitz: OEuvres, Tom. V. p. 493.
Leibnitz, Opera, ed. Dutens, Vol. V. p. 7.
As the sun draws moisture from rill, stream, lake, and ocean, to be
returned in fertilizing shower upon the earth, so did our Scholar
derive knowledge from all sources, to be diffused in beneficent
influence upon the world. He sought it not in study only, but in
converse with men, and in experience of life. His curious essay on the
Pronunciation of the Ancient Greek Language was suggested by listening
to Greek sailors, whom the temptations of commerce had conducted to our
shores from their historic sea.
Such a character--devoted to works of wide and enduring interest, not
restricted to international lines--awakened respect and honor wherever
learning was cultivated. His name was associated with illustrious
fraternities of science in foreign nations, while scholars who could
not know him face to face, by an amiable commerce of letters sought the
aid and sympathy of his learning. His death has broken these living
links of fellowship; but his name, that cannot die, will continue to
bind all who love knowledge and virtue to the land which was blessed by
his presence.
* * * * *
From the Scholar I pass to THE JURIST. JOSEPH STORY died in the month
of September, 1845, aged sixty-six. His countenance, familiar in this
presence, was always so beaming with goodness and kindness that its
withdrawal seems to lessen sensibly the brightness of the scene.
We are assembled near the seat of his favorite pursuits, among the
neighbors intimate with his private virtues, close by the home hallowed
by his domestic altar. These paths he often trod; and all that our eyes
here look upon seems to reflect his genial smile. His twofold official
relations with the University, his high judicial station, his higher
character as Jurist, invest his name with a peculiar interest, while
the unconscious kindness which he showed to all, especially the young,
touches the heart, making us rise up and call him blessed. How fondly
would the youth nurtured in jurisprudence at his feet--were such an
offering, Alcestis-like, within the allotments of Providence--have
prolonged their beloved master's days at the expense of their own!
The University, by the voice of his learned associate, has already
rendered tribute to his name. The tribunals of justice throughout the
country have given utterance to their solemn grief, and the funeral
torch has passed across the sea into foreign lands.
He has been heard to confess that literature was his earliest passion,
which yielded only to a sterner summons beckoning to professional
life; and they who knew him best cannot forget that he continued to
the last fond of poetry and polite letters, and would often turn from
Themis to the Muses. Nor can it be doubted that this feature, which
marks the resemblance to Selden, Somers, Mansfield, and Blackstone, in
England, and to L'Hôpital and D'Aguesseau, in France, has added to the
brilliancy and perfection of his character as a jurist. In the history
of jurisprudence it would not be easy to mention a single person
winning its highest palm who was not a scholar also.
The first hardships incident to study of the law, which perplexed
the youthful spirit of the learned Spelman, beset our Jurist with
disheartening force. Let the young remember his trial and his triumph,
and be of good cheer. According to the custom of his day, while
yet a student in the town of Marblehead, he undertook to read Coke
on Littleton, in the large folio edition, thatched over with those
manifold annotations which cause the best-trained lawyer to "gasp and
stare." Striving to force his way through the black-letter page, he was
filled with despair. It was but a moment. The tears poured from his
eyes upon the open book. Those tears were his precious baptism into the
learning of the law. From that time forth he persevered, with ardor and
confidence, from triumph to triumph.
He was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States,
by the side of Marshall, at the early age of thirty-two. At the same
early age Buller--reputed the ablest judge of Westminster Hall, in the
list of those who never arrived at the honors of Chief Justice--was
induced to renounce an income larger than the salary of a judge, to
take a seat by the side of Mansfield. The parallel continues. During
the remainder of Mansfield's career on the bench, Buller was the
friend and associate upon whom he chiefly leaned; and history records
the darling desire of the venerable Chief Justice that his faithful
assistant should succeed to his seat and chain of office; but these
wishes, the hopes of the profession, and his own continued labors
were disregarded by a minister who seldom rewarded any but political
services,--I mean Mr. Pitt. Our brother, like Buller, was the friend
and associate of a venerable chief justice, by whose side he sat for
many years; nor do I state any fact which I should not for the sake of
history, when I add, that it was the long-cherished desire of Marshall
that Story should be his successor. It was ordered otherwise; and he
continued a judge of the Supreme Court for the space of thirty-four
years,--a judicial life of almost unexampled length in the history of
the Common Law, and of precisely the same duration with the illustrious
magistracy of D'Aguesseau in France.
As judge, he was called to administer a most extensive jurisdiction,
embracing matters which in England are so variously distributed that
they never come before any one court; and in each department he has
shown himself second to none other, unless we unite with him in
deferring to Marshall as the greatest expounder of a branch peculiar
to ourselves, Constitutional Law. Nor will it be easy to mention any
other judge who has left behind so large a number of judgments which
belong to the first class in the literature of the law. Some excel in
a special branch, to which their learning and labor are directed. He
excelled in all. At home in the feudal niceties of Real Law, with its
dependencies of descents, remainders, and executory devises,--also in
the ancient hair-splitting technicalities of Special Pleading,--both
creatures of an illiterate age, gloomy with black-letter and verbal
subtilties,--he was most skilful in using and expounding the rules
of Evidence, the product of a more refined period of juridical
history,--was master of the common law of Contracts, and of Commercial
Law in its wide expanse, embracing so large a part of those topics
which concern the business of our age,--was familiar with Criminal Law,
which he administered with the learning of a judge and the tenderness
of a parent,--had compassed the whole circle of Chancery in its
jurisdiction and its pleadings, touching all the interests of life, and
subtilely adapting the Common Law to our own age; and he ascended with
ease to those less trodden heights where are extended the rich demesnes
of Admiralty, the Law of Prize, and that comprehensive theme, embracing
all that history, philosophy, learning, literature, human experience,
and Christianity have testified,--the Law of Nations.
It was not as judge only that he served. He sought other means of
illustrating the science of the law which he loved so well, and
to the cares of judicial life superadded the labors of author and
teacher. To this he was moved by passion for the law, by desire to
aid its elucidation, and by the irrepressible instinct of his nature,
which found in incessant activity the truest repose. His was that
constitution of mind where occupation is the normal state. He was
possessed by a genius for labor. Others may moil in law as constantly,
but without his loving, successful study. What he undertook he always
did with heart, soul, and mind,--not with reluctant, vain compliance,
but with his entire nature bent to the task. As in social life, so was
he in study: his heart embraced labor, as his hand grasped the hand of
friend.
As teacher, he should be gratefully remembered here. He was Dane
Professor of Law in the University. By the attraction of his name
students were drawn from remote parts of the Union, and the Law School,
which had been a sickly branch, became the golden mistletoe of our
ancient oak.[164] Besides learning unsurpassed in his profession, he
brought other qualities not less important in a teacher,--goodness,
benevolence, and a willingness to teach. Only a good man can be a
teacher, only a benevolent man, only a man willing to teach. He was
filled with a desire to teach. He sought to mingle his mind with
that of his pupil. To pour into the souls of the young, as into
celestial urns, the fruitful waters of knowledge, was to him a blessed
office. The kindly enthusiasm of his nature found a response. Law,
sometimes supposed to be harsh and crabbed, became inviting under
his instructions. Its great principles, drawn from experience and
reflection, from the rules of right and wrong, from the unsounded
depths of Christian truth, illustrated by the learning of sages and
the judgments of courts, he unfolded so as to inspire a love for their
study,--well knowing that the knowledge we impart is trivial, compared
with that awakening of the soul under the influence of which the
pupil himself becomes teacher. All of knowledge we can communicate is
finite; a few pages, a few chapters, a few volumes, will embrace it;
but such an influence is of incalculable power. It is the breath of a
new life; it is another soul. Story taught as priest of the law seeking
to consecrate other priests. In him the spirit spake, not with the
voice of earthly calling, but with the gentleness and self-forgetful
earnestness of one pleading in behalf of justice, knowledge, happiness.
His well-loved pupils hung upon his lips, and, as they left his
presence, confessed new reverence for virtue, and warmer love of
knowledge for its own sake.
[164]
"Talis erat species auri frondentis opaca Ilice."
_Æneis_, VI. 208.
The spirit which glowed in his teachings filled his life. He was, in
the truest sense, Jurist,--student and expounder of jurisprudence as
a science,--not merely lawyer or judge, pursuing it as an art. This
distinction, though readily perceived, is not always regarded.
Members of the profession, whether on the bench or at the bar, seldom
send their regard beyond the case directly before them. The lawyer is
generally content with the applause of the court-house, the approbation
of clients, "fat contentions, and flowing fees." Infrequently does he
render voluntary service felt beyond the limited circle in which he
moves, or helping forward the landmarks of justice. The judge, in the
discharge of his duty, applies the law to the case before him. He may
do this discreetly, honorably, justly, benignly, in such wise that the
community who looked to him for justice shall pronounce his name with
gratitude,--
"That his bones,
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em."
But the function of lawyer or judge, both _practising_ law, is unlike
that of the jurist, who, whether judge or lawyer, examines every
principle in the light of science, and, while doing justice, seeks
to widen and confirm the means of justice hereafter. All ages have
abounded in lawyers and judges; there is no church-yard that does not
contain their forgotten dust. But the jurist is rare. The judge passes
the sentence of the law upon the prisoner at the bar face to face; but
the jurist, invisible to mortal sight, yet speaks, as was said of the
Roman Law, swaying by the reason, when he has ceased to govern by the
living voice. Such a character does not live for the present only,
whether in time or place. Ascending above its temptations, yielding
neither to the love of gain nor to the seduction of ephemeral praise,
he perseveres in those serene labors which help to build the mighty
dome of justice, beneath which all men are to seek shelter and peace.
It is not uncommon to hear the complaint of lawyers and judges, as they
liken themselves, in short-lived fame, to the well-graced actor, of
whom only uncertain traces remain when his voice has ceased to charm.
But they labor for the present only. How can they hope to be remembered
beyond the present? They are instruments of a temporary and perishable
purpose. How can they hope for more than they render? They do nothing
for all. How can they think to be remembered beyond the operation
of their labors? So far forth, in time or place, as any beneficent
influence is felt, so far will its author be gratefully commemorated.
Happy may he be, if he has done aught to connect his name with the
enduring principles of justice!
In the world's history, lawgivers are among the greatest and most
godlike characters. They are reformers of nations. They are builders
of human society. They are fit companions of the master poets who fill
it with their melody. Man will never forget Homer, Virgil, Dante,
Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe,--nor those other names of creative force,
Minos, Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, Justinian, St. Louis, Napoleon the
legislator. Each is too closely linked with human progress not to be
always remembered.