It is a common saying among lawyers, that in proportion to the labor
which their profession exacts, and the degree of distinction which
success confers upon them during their lifetime, their fate is a hard
one in the struggle for immortality. They are accustomed to say in a
tone of half complaint, that the zeal and ability which would earn for
them a cheap celebrity in some other pursuit, is expended upon the
establishing of some nice distinction, or the solving of some intricate
problem which no one but themselves can appreciate, and in which no one
but themselves (and their clients) take any interest. There is some
truth in all this. The whole community stands ready to read the last
production of the literary man, so only that he make it worth reading,
and often without requiring even so much; whereas, the neatest point
that a lawyer could take is constitutionally repulsive to one-half of
creation, and dry and unmeaning to the greater part of the remainder.
Even those whose names are on the lips of men, owe their good fortune
often to something other than their law. If Blackstone were not among
the most classical writers of the English language, we should not have
lived to see twenty-one English editions of his Commentaries. He was
probably a less profound lawyer than several sergeants who practised
before him in the Court of Common Pleas, whose names would escape an
insertion in the most Universal Biographical Dictionary. So the
successful lawyer must content himself with his worldly prosperity,--if
in his lifetime he receives his good things, that must be his comfort,
and in truth it is no small one.
But the nature of a lawyer's employment, even if he combine with it the
kindred one of politics and legislation, is not apt to invest his home
with that attraction to the stranger which the home of the literary man
possesses. We are at once interested to know who the author is, who has
charmed us by the quaintness of his conceits, or the freshness and
purity of his style. We want to see the house and the room, where those
intricate plots are matured, or those life-like characters are first
conceived. But Coke upon Littleton, seems pretty much the same, whether
read upon the green slope of a country hill, or in the third story of an
office down town. Besides, the author is at liberty to seek the most
secluded spots, and dwell amongst the most romantic scenery, and
surround himself with all that makes life beautiful to contemplate; and
it is for his interest to do this, in order that his mind may be kept
open to impressions, his spirits elevated and serene, and his whole life
calm and happy. The lawyer on the other hand, must seek communion, not
with nature, but with men; he must dwell among large communities, and
rail even there where merchants most do congregate.
The home of the distinguished lawyer and statesman whose name is placed
at the head of these lines, is an exception from the homes of others of
his peers; if it be true that it is the fate of a lawyer's home to be an
object of interest to its inmates alone. There was something in his
frank, enthusiastic and generous nature, which made him always
susceptible to the influences of home, and always fitted to awake and to
wield those enchantments with which a home is invested. The secluded
peninsula of Marblehead, with its long firm beach upon one side, and its
rocky precipitous shore upon the other, begirt on three sides by the
ever-changing Atlantic, is considered by his biographer to have had its
effect in moulding the character of the boy; and in the quiet, tame
inland beauty of Cambridge, with its academical proprieties, and its
level streets, and its spacious marshes, through which the winding
Charles "slips seaward silently;" many remain outside of the family
circle, to testify to the magical attraction which once hung about the
narrow brick house where he lived, and the cordial greeting which the
visitor received at the hands of its former occupant.
Judge Story was born in the antiquated, primeval fishing town of
Marblehead; a town presenting such a rocky and barren surface, that when
Whitfield entered it for the first time, he was fain to inquire, "Pray,
where do they bury their dead?" Story himself speaks of his birth-place
as "a secluded fishing town, having no general connection with other
towns, and, not being a thoroughfare, without that intercourse which
brings strangers to visit it, or to form an acquaintance with its
inhabitants." In fact it could not well be a thoroughfare, since it
leads only from Salem to the sea, and the inhabitants of the latter town
have a sufficiently ready access of their own. But though Marblehead
with its scanty soil, and its isolated position, is neither an Eden nor
a thoroughfare, it is at least a stout old place where men are grown;
where an entire regiment was furnished for the cause of American
Independence, completely officered and manned by brave men, to whom the
dangers of war were but a continuation of previous lives of peril, and
who supplied besides more privateers than history has recorded, to
harass the enemy upon an element with which they were more familiar.
The town of Marblehead is supported by the fishery business. A large
portion of its inhabitants are simple fishermen, whose manhood is passed
in voyages to the Great Banks, and voyages back; a constant succession
of those perils which are incident to the sea, with long winter evenings
of sailors' yarns and ghost stories, in one monotonous round, till they
finally depart
"On that drear voyage from whose night
The ominous shadows never lift."
It was among a population of this kind, and at a time when a long and
disastrous war had crippled their resources, that the youthful Story
began with his accustomed enthusiasm to acquire that education whose
root is bitter when grown in the most favorable soil. Without advantages
of good schooling, or a plentiful supply of books, he did what thousands
of others, great and small, have done and are doing; that is, he
acquired an education without the modern improvements on which our boys
rely, and whose value their parents and teachers are so apt to
over-estimate. In the shop of the Marblehead barber, the village great
men assembled to hear the news, and to hold forth upon the condition and
prospects of the young republic, as well as to have their ambrosial
locks powdered and their beards removed. Here, in place of the modern
lecture room, our young hero resorted, and listened reverently to
oracular utterances from wise mouths in the intervals of the shaving
brush and the razor. The village barber himself, endowed with an easy
garrulity, more natural and professional than the stately reserve of his
metropolitan brother, could, at his leisure, retail the wisdom of his
many councillors, diluted to the point where it admitted of the mental
digestion of a child.
This, together with the usual toils and discouragements of the classics,
and the hopes and fears which a college examination inspires, made up a
boy's life in Marblehead before this century began. The old Judge, late
in life recalling these early Marblehead times, speaks of other
influences, some of whose effect is, we imagine, derived from the fact
that he is viewing them in his maturity, as they then appear, softened
as seen down the long vista of nearly forty years. "My delight," he
says, "was to roam over the narrow and rude territory of my native town;
to traverse its secluded beaches and its shallow inlets; to gaze upon
the sleepless ocean; to lay myself down on the sunny rocks, and listen
to the deep tones of the rising and the falling tides; to look abroad
when the foaming waves were driven with terrific force and uproar
against the barren cliffs or the rocky promontories, which every where
opposed their immovable fronts to resist them; to seek, in the midst of
the tremendous majesty of an eastern storm, some elevated spot, where,
in security, I could mark the mountain billow break upon the distant
shore, or dash its broken waters over the lofty rocks which here and
there stood along the coast, naked and weather-beaten. But still more
was I pleased in a calm, summer day, to lay myself down alone on one of
the beautiful heights which overlook the harbor of Salem, and to listen
to the broken sounds of the hammers in the distant ship-yards, or to the
soft dash of the oar of some swift-moving boat, or to the soft ripple of
the murmuring wave; or to gaze on the swelling sail, or the flying bird,
or the scarcely moving smoke, in a revery of delicious indolence."
When Story left Marblehead and entered Harvard College in 1795, he was
brought in contact with somewhat different circumstances and different
temptations from those which there await the youthful student in these
days. Coming from a small and tolerably illiterate fishing town, into
the midst of such literary shades, being in daily converse with young
men at an age when the mind is lively, and full of the easy
self-confidence which the mutual flattery of a College begets, his
enthusiasm was quickened anew, and his generous nature attacked on its
weakest side. "I seemed," he says, "to breathe a higher atmosphere, and
to look abroad with a wider vision and more comprehensive powers.
Instead of the narrow group of a village, I was suddenly brought into a
large circle of young men engaged in literary pursuits, and warmed and
cheered by the hopes of future eminence." There is, perhaps, no
impropriety in saying, that at fifteen, we look abroad with a wider
vision and more comprehensive powers than we do at twelve, and such
young men as Channing, his friendly rival in College, and Tuckerman, his
chum, might well be warmed and cheered by the hopes of future eminence.
The students in those days enjoyed as much seclusion as now, with
perhaps a little less general culture and a little more dissipation.
But, as we have intimated, in some respects the changes were greater.
The anti-republican system of "fagging" had not then become quite
obsolete and forgotten, but existed at least in oral tradition, whereas
now, its less rigorous substitute has recently fallen into disuse. In
those days there was not even an unsuccessful attempt, to render the
intercourse between the Professors and the students in any sense
parental, but the formal and unconfiding manners of the old school were
preached, as well as practised. The line of division between the College
and the town was sharply drawn and unhesitatingly maintained on the part
of the former, and the opportunities for social intercourse with Boston
were comparatively limited, when omnibuses were unknown, and the bridge
regarded as a somewhat hazardous speculation. Now the students are to be
seen in Washington street on Saturdays, and there is scarce an evening's
entertainment in Boston, without young representatives from Cambridge.
And the old town itself has added so many new houses to its former
number, that a great change is coming over the face of Cambridge
society. The term "the season" is beginning to have its proper
significance, the winter months being pretty well filled with the
customary social observances. It is true that the College is still the
controlling element. Festivities are mostly suspended during the first
two months of the year, which is the time of the winter vacation, and
revive again with the return of the spring and the students. But from
faint symptoms which may be detected by the anxious observer, there is
reason to fear that it may not be long before the great body of the
students will have cause on their part, to complain of that
exclusiveness which they have exercised as their prerogative for more
than two centuries.
The four short years of Story's undergraduate existence were passed
free, alike from this species of social pleasure and social anxiety. He
was naturally fond of company, and had a healthy, youthful taste for
conviviality; but he shrank instinctively from excesses, and was,
fortunately, also ambitious to win a high rank for scholarship. His
companions were of his own age, and those divinities who people the
inner chambers of a young man's fancy at the age of nineteen, were not
upon the spot to distract overmuch his attention from his studies. He
left his home within the College walls before he had arrived at manhood,
and returned again some thirty years after in the maturity of his
powers, to repay to his foster mother the debt which he owed for his
education, by imparting to her younger children the results of his
experience. Cambridge is to be considered as his home; it was there that
he won his greatest fame, it was there that he fondly turned to refresh
himself after his labors on the full bench and the circuit; this was the
home of his affections and his interests, and there his earnest and
active life was brought to its calm and peaceful close.
In Brattle-street, a little distance on the road from the Colleges to
Mount Auburn, there stands a narrow brick house, with its gable end to
the street, facing the east, and a long piazza on its southern side. It
is situated just at the head of Appian Way--not the Queen of Ways,
leading from Rome to Brundusium, over which Horace journeyed in company
with Virgil, and Paul's brethren came to meet him as far as Appii Forum
and The Three Taverns, but a short lane, boasting not many more yards
than its namesake miles; leading from Cambridge Common to
Brattle-street, journeyed over by hurrying students with Horace and
Virgil under their arms, without a single tavern in it, and hardly long
enough to accommodate three. The external appearance of the house would
hardly attract or reward the attention of the passer by. It stands by
itself, looking as much too high for its width as an ordinary city
residence in New-York, that has sprung up in advance of the rest of its
block. The street in which it stands is flat and shady, but wonderfully
dusty nevertheless, for Cambridge is a town
"Where dust and mud the equal year divide."
The old inhabitants may be supposed to be reconciled to that dust, of
which they are made, and to which they naturally expect in a few years
to return. Thus Lowell finds it in his heart to sing the praises of
Cambridge soil,
"Dear native town! whose choking elms each year
With eddying dust before their time turn gray,
Pining for rain,--to me thy dust is dear;
It glorifies the eve of Summer day."
But, however native Cantabs may feel, the temporary resident hails the
friendly watering-cart, which appears at intervals in the streets, since
the old town has changed itself into a city.
A flower-garden on the south side, separates Judge Story's house from
the village blacksmith, who has had the rare happiness of being
celebrated in the verses of his two fellow-townsmen, the poets
Longfellow and Lowell;
"Under a spreading chestnut tree,
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands,
And the muscles of his brawny arm
Are strong as iron bands.
"His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan,
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whatever he can,
And looks the whole world in the face
For he owes not any man.
"Week in, week out, from morn to night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
"And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor."
Among the children who thus looked in upon the old smith in former days,
was Lowell himself, who has embodied this juvenile reminiscence in a few
lines, which may be appropriately inserted here, and the curious reader
may contrast the image they contain, with the parallel one in the
concluding lines from Longfellow, quoted above.
"How many times prouder than King on throne,
Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's,
Panting have I the creaky bellows blown,
And watched the pent volcano's red increase,
Then paused to see the ponderous sledge brought down
By that hard arm voluminous and brown,
From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees."
The village blacksmith is dead now; the fires which he lighted in the
forge have gone out, and an unknown successor wields the sledge, which
may still be heard as ever, from the piazza of his neighbor's house, and
down the road on the other side, as far as the row of lindens which
overshadow a mansion once inhabited by the worthy old Tory, Brattle, who
has given his name to the street.
The external appearance of Judge Story's house does not add much to the
poetry of its surroundings. It runs back in an irregular way, a long
distance from the street, and at its furthermost end, in the second
story, is, or used to be, the library, commanding the same view which
constituted such a recommendation to Dick Swiveller's house, namely, the
opposite side of the way. There is not, therefore, an opportunity for
much romance to cluster about it, nor is its attractiveness increased,
when the reader is reminded that the story beneath answered the purposes
of a woodshed. But the house which witnessed the daily labors of such a
man, need not covet or pretend to those outside attractions which it
unquestionably lacks.
Judge Story removed to Cambridge, for the purpose of taking charge of
the Law-school connected with the University. This institution had just
received an endowment from Nathan Dane, which, together with the labors
and reputation of the new Professor, were the prime causes of its
establishment upon such a durable foundation, that the number of its
students was increased five fold. From this period, his time was divided
among Washington, during the sitting of the Supreme Court, the first
circuit in the New-England States, and Cambridge, which henceforward was
his home. The Law-school he regarded as his favorite and most important
field of labor, and always recurred to his connection with it, with
pleasure and pride; and a word concerning this Institution may, with
propriety, be coupled with a description of his personal habits, so that
both together will furnish, better than any thing else, a correct
picture of the daily life of the man.
At the time that Story accepted the Dane Professorship in the Law-school
in Cambridge he had already achieved the labor of a lifetime. A
lucrative business at the bar, was quitted for a seat upon the bench of
the Supreme Court of the United States. He began his political life as a
democrat and stanch supporter of Jefferson, when there were not many
such in Massachusetts; but in later life he became a whig. The natural
effect of a judicial station upon a mind like his, was to make him
cautious and conservative; and he finally seemed a little distrustful of
even the party with which he was associated. In the convention of 1820,
which formed the existing constitution of Massachusetts, he took an
active part with such men as Webster, Parker, Quincy and Prescott, and
many of our important mercantile statutes and bankrupt laws were drawn
by him, nearly, or quite in the form in which they were finally passed
by Congress. He had been for about eighteen years an associate Justice
of the Supreme Court, when, without resigning that position, he assumed
the almost equally onerous duties of a Professor of Law. This new field
of activity was entered upon with earnestness and zeal, and it is not
necessary to state the success with which his efforts were attended.
Towards the students his manner was familiar and affectionate. He was
fond of designating them as "my boys," and without assuming any
superiority, or exacting any formal respect, he participated so far as
he was able in their success and failure; and extended beyond the narrow
period of the school, far into active life, that interest in their
behalf which he had contracted as their teacher. His lectures upon what
are commonly considered the dry topics of the law, were delivered with
enthusiasm, and illustrated with copious anecdotes from the store-house
of his memory and his experience, and filled with episodes which were
suggested to his active mind at almost every step. Indeed, if one were
disposed to point out his prominent fault as a legal writer, he would
probably select that diffuseness of style and copiousness of
illustration, which, though it contributes somewhat to fulness and
perspicuity, does it nevertheless at the cost of convenient brevity;
which can more easily be dispensed with in a poem than in a law-book.
But that characteristic which might perhaps be considered as a blemish
in his legal treatises, only rendered him better, qualified for a
successful oral lecturer. A printed volume admits of the last degree of
condensation, because repeated perusals of one page will effect every
thing which could be expected from a prolonged discussion over many; and
to text-books of law, the student or the practitioner resort principally
for a statement of results, with the addition of only so much general
reasoning as may render the results intelligible. In an oral lecture on
the other hand, as the attention cannot be arrested; or time taken to
overcome difficulties, repetition and reiteration, so far from being a
blemish, is a merit. To these qualifications Story added engaging
manners, and a personal presence, which gave him extraordinary influence
over the young men who crowded to receive the benefit of his
instructions. His zeal was contagious, and awakened similar feelings in
his hearers, and the enthusiasm of the speaker and the audience acted
and reacted upon each other. Many anecdotes are related to show the
interest in the study of the law, which, under his magical influence,
was awakened, not only among the few who are naturally studious, but
among the whole body of the students almost without exception.
Saturday is a day of rest in Cambridge by immemorial usage. To force
upon the undergraduates a recitation on Saturday afternoon, would
outrage their feelings to such an extent, as to justify in their opinion
a resort to the last appeal, namely, a rebellion. Yet under Story's
ministrations the law-students were eager to violate the sacredness of
Saturday, to which the Judge assented, animated by a zeal superior to
their own. So that the whole week was devoted to lectures, and the
conducting in moot courts of prepared cases. "I have given," says the
Judge in a letter to a friend, "nearly the whole of last term, when not
on judicial duty, two lectures every day, and even broke in upon the
sanctity of the _dies non juridicus_, Saturday. It was carried by
acclamation in the school; so that you see we are alive." One of the
pupils describes a similar incident; a case was to be adjourned, and
Saturday seemed the most convenient time, "the counsel were anxious to
argue it; but unwilling to resort to that extreme measure. Judge Story
said--Gentlemen, the only time we can hear this case, is Saturday
afternoon. This is _dies non_, and no one is obliged or expected to
attend. I am to hold Court in Boston until two o'clock. I will ride
directly out, take a hasty dinner, and be here by half-past three
o'clock, and hear the case, if you are willing. He looked round the
school for a reply. We felt ashamed, in our own business in which we
were alone interested, to be outdone in zeal and labor by this aged and
distinguished man, to whom the case was but child's play, a tale twice
told and who was himself pressed down by almost incredible labors. The
proposal was unanimously accepted." The same interesting communication
describes the scene which took place when the Judge returned to
Cambridge in the winter from Washington. "The school was the first place
he visited after his own fireside. His return, always looked for, and
known, filled the library. His reception was that of a returned father.
He shook all by the hand, even the most obscure and indifferent; and an
hour or two was spent in the most exciting, instructive, and
entertaining descriptions and anecdotes of the events of the term.
Inquiries were put by the students from different States, as to leading
counsel, or interesting causes from their section of the country; and he
told us as one would have described to a company of squires and pages, a
tournament of monarchs and nobles on fields of cloth of gold:--how
Webster spoke in this case, Legare or Clay, or Crittenden, General
Jones, Choate or Spencer, in that; with anecdotes of the cases and
points, and all the currents of the heady fight."
Judge Story's gracious and dignified demeanor upon the bench is too well
known, and not closely enough connected with an account of his home
life, to justify a description here. All who have spoken upon the
subject, have borne witness to the kindness and courtesy with which he
treated the bar, particularly the younger members, who most need, and
best appreciate such consideration. No lawyer was provoked by captious
remarks, or mortified by inattention or indifference, or that offensive
assumption of superiority which places the counsel at such disadvantage
with the judge, and lowers his credit with his clients and the
spectators. With novices at the bar his manner was patient and
encouraging, with the leaders whose position was nearly level with his
own, attentive, cordial, at times even familiar, but always dignified.
Among the prominent lawyers upon the Maine circuit, was his classmate in
college, and intimate friend, Hon. Stephen Longfellow, the father of the
poet, of whom the following story is told. When any objection or
qualification was started by the Court, to a point which he was pressing
upon its attention, too courteous to question or oppose the opinion of
the Judge, he would escape under this formula, "But there is this
_distinction_, may it please your honor;" which distinction, when it
came to be stated, was often so exceedingly thin, that its existence
could be discerned only by the learned gentleman himself. This little
mannerism was known and observed among his friends in the profession,
one of whom now living composed and passed round the bar this epitaph:
"Here lies Stephen Longfellow, LL. D. Born &c. Died &c. With this
_Distinction_. That such a man can never die." This epitaph reached the
bench; and Mr. Longfellow himself, who not long afterwards on an
argument, was met by a question from the Judge. "But, may it please your
honor, there is this dis----" "Out with it, brother Longfellow," said
Judge Story with a good-humored smile. But it would not come. The
epitaph records the death of the distinction.
The interest which Judge Story felt in the prosperity of his University,
was not wholly confined to the Law-school, with which he was immediately
connected. He was one of the overseers of the College, and entered
warmly and prominently into every question affecting the welfare of the
Institution; from an elaborate and recondite argument upon the meaning
of the word "Fellows," in the charter of the college,--the doubt being,
whether none but resident instructors were eligible as Fellows, or
whether the word is merely synonymous with _socius_ or associate,--down
to a reform in the social observances of the students upon the occasion
of what is called Class Day. The old custom had been for the students on
the last day of their meeting, before Commencement, to partake together
of an undefined quantity of punch from a large reservoir of that
beverage previously prepared. In more modern times, this habit came to
be justly considered as subversive of sobriety and good order, and it
was proposed to recast entirely the order of exercises. Of this reform
Judge Story was an advocate; he was present at the first celebration
under the new order of things, and was much gratified and elated at the
change. Class Day is now the culminating point of the student's
life--the exercises are an oration and poem in the morning, and a ball
and reception in the afternoon and evening. More ladies visit the
College on that day, than on any other, and the students have in lieu of
their punch the less intoxicating recreation of a polka.
Judge Story was about five feet eight inches tall, not above the middle
height, with a compact and solid figure; and active and rapid in his
movements. He seldom, if ever, loitered along; his customary gait was
hasty and hurried, and he had a habit of casting quick eager glances
about him as he moved. The expression of his face was animated and
changing, his eyes were blue, his mouth large, his voice clear and
flexible, and his laugh hearty and exhilarating. Late in life he was
bald upon the top of his head, and his white hair below, and the benign
expression of his countenance, gave him a dignified and venerable
appearance, particularly when seated upon the bench. His personal habits
were regular and systematic in the extreme. He never rose before seven,
and was always in bed by half-past ten. His constitution required eight
good hours of sleep, and he did not hesitate to gratify it in that
particular. It was never intended that all men should rise at the same
hour, and it is no great exercise of virtue on the part of those who do
not enjoy sleep, to get up early. After breakfasting he read a newspaper
for a half hour, and then worked faithfully, till called off to attend
the lecture room or the court. After dinner he resumed his labors so
long as daylight lasted, and the evening was devoted until bedtime to
light reading, or social recreation in the midst of his family. He could
pass easily from one species of employment to another without loss of
time, and by working steadily when he did work, he was enabled to go
through a very great amount of labor without any excessive fatigue or
exhaustion. In this way his life was prolonged, and he retained to the
last, undisturbed possession of all his faculties. He died in September
1845, at the age of sixty-six, having been for thirty-four years a Judge
of the Supreme Court of the United States, and for sixteen years a
Professor of law in the school at Cambridge.
=Wheaton.=
[Illustration: Wheaton fac-simile of letter]
[Illustration: Wheaton's Residence Near Copenhagen]