IRLF 
 
 3 Efi7 Dfib 
 
v 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 . DAVIS 
 

 ~* 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 

 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 
 I 
 
 THE LAWYER. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. L. C. TUTHILL. 
 
 
 
 
 4 We fare on earth as other men have fared : 
 Were they successful ? Let us not despair." 
 In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserves 
 For a bright manhood, there is no such word 
 As /art." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 GEORGE P. PUTNAM. 
 
 LONDON: PUTNAM'S AMERICAN AGENCY. 
 
 1850. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 

 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 
 
 GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York. 
 
 BDWARD O. JENKINS, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPES, 
 
 No. 114 Nassau Street, New York 
 
 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 GIVE me the best possible example of an American Law 
 yer a model for the young men of our country. 
 
 " The late Jeremiah Mason, of Boston," was the prompt 
 reply. 
 
 " I recommend to your notice John Jay, of New York," 
 said an9ther. 
 
 " Bring forward Chief Justice Marshall as a glorious ex 
 ample !" exclaimed a fervent admirer of that great man. 
 
 " Do not forget Pinckney, of Maryland, one of the ablest 
 lawyers this country has produced," added a fourth adviser, 
 
 " William Wirt would prove the most exciting and encour 
 aging example to the youthful aspirant to legal distinction." 
 
 Stay, stay ! my good friends, you have already made out 
 a brilliant constellation of "bright particular stars" may 
 they prove guiding-stars to success. 
 
 It is but an humble task to daguerreotype from spirited 
 paintings executed by others. Yet, a similar task is at- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 tempted in this little volume. The original likenesses were 
 drawn by great masters,* and the full-length portraits will, 
 doubtless, be carefully studied, when after years give time 
 and opportunity. 
 
 * Webster, Jay, Wheaton, Kennedy. 
 

 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Talents, ... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Jeremiah Mason ......... , "* 18 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Self-Confidence. Gouvcrneur Morris, . . . . .21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 John Jay, . , . .... . . . 27 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Unity of Purpose. John Marshall ....... 88 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 William Pinckney, ... ..... . . 49 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Energy and Perseverance. William Pinckney, . . . . 5S 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 William Wirt's Childhood, ....... 63 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 William Wirt's Boyhood, ....... .81 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 William Wirt Admitted to the Bar, ... .86 
 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. PAGE 
 
 William Wirt'a Legal Progress, -91 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A Prophecy, 94 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Modesty and Emulation, .99 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Advancement, .... .: ... 106 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 William Wirt's Advice to a Young Lawyer 118 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Wirt and Pinckney, .... ... 120 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Closing Scene, . . . . . . . .126 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 General Learning. Legare, Parker, Du Ponceau, . 129 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Religious Principles. Chief Justice Tilghman and Charles 
 
 Chauncey, Esq 162 
 
 NOTES, 178 
 
CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 TALENTS. 
 
 " Who shall regulate 
 With truth the scale of intellectual rank ?" 
 
 " The most important thing in life is the choice of a profession."* Pascal. 
 
 LET no boy think of becoming a lawyer, unless some 
 one, better qualified than himself, discover his talents, 
 talents peculiarly adapted to that learned profession. 
 
 " A use for everything, and everything to its use." 
 
 Do not spoil a good merchant or mechanic, by moiling 
 through life a poor lawyer. 
 
 Neither should the mistakes of partial friends mislead. 
 " That boy is a famous disputer," says a proud father ; 
 " he can always make the wrong appear the better rea 
 son; he will make a capital lawyer." 
 
 Because he is like a snarling puppy, biting at every 
 body's heels ! No, sir ; he is not the boy for a lawyer. 
 
 " My son is as cunning as a fox," says the fond moth 
 er, whose watchful eye he evades ; "he will do right well 
 for a lawyer." 
 
 * " La chose la plus importante a la vie, c'est le choix d'un metier." 
 
10 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 Low cunning is the mark of a small mind. Wisdom 
 can find no room there. 
 
 " That fellow has a glib tongue of his own ; he will 
 make a great noise at the bar," says the schoolmaster, 
 who has been deceived by the ready recitations, which 
 have been merely an eflfort of memory. The mill may 
 make as much noise when there is no grist in the hop 
 per, as when it is full. The schoolmaster should remem 
 ber, vox et preterea nihil. 
 
 " But here is an incipient lawyer surely, for he is al 
 ways setting the other boys by the ears !" 
 
 A pitiful mistake ! It is the business of the lawyer 
 to get people out of difficulties, not the mean, detestable 
 eflfort to plunge them into quarrels which this boy's con 
 duct exhibits. As well might you say, that the steam- 
 engine was made on purpose to blow people up sky-high. 
 
 Study well your own capabilities. Does your heart 
 thrill at the burning words of eloquence ? The noble deeds 
 of great men^ do they fill you with enthusiasm ? Do 
 they excite in you a fervent determination to act a glori 
 ous part in the life-drama 1 Are you filled with an in 
 tense desire to defend the cause of the oppressed, to re 
 store the injured to their rights, to sustain the laws of 
 your country ? 
 
 Ambition may be a noble, generous passion, or it may 
 be the meanest, and most selfish of all passions, 
 
 " That sin by -which the rebel angels fell." 
 
THE LAWYER. 11 
 
 The ambition of an unprincipled man of genius, is vastly 
 different from that of the man who is " great through sound 
 sense and strong judgment." These are far better qual 
 ifications for a lawyer, than that indefinite attribute 
 genius. 
 
 We acknowledge that there is an aptness or fitness for 
 a particular calling or profession, which is usually mani 
 fested in boy hood ;(1.) and this should, if possible, be fol- 
 
 (1.) The examples to illustrate "Success in Life" are purposely 
 drawn from the biography of our own countrymen, yet reference to dis 
 tinguished men of other countries will occasionally be made in the mar 
 ginal notes. 
 
 William Pitt, son of the first Earl of Chatham, was little more than 
 fourteen years of age when he went to reside at the University of 
 Cambridge. At that time, says his biographer, Dr. Tomline, after 
 wards Bishop of Winchester, who was also his tutor, " his proficiency 
 in the learned languages was probably greater than was ever acquired 
 by any other person in such early youth. In Latin authors he seldom 
 met with difficulty, and it was no uncommon thing for him to read 
 into English six or seven pages of Thucydides which he had not pre 
 viously seen ; sometimes without a mistake. He had such an exact 
 ness in discriminating the sense of words, and so peculiar a penetra 
 tion in seizing at once the meaning of writers, that he never seemed 
 to learn, but only to recollect. Nor was it in learning only, that Mr. 
 Pitt was so superior to persons of his age. Though a boy in years and 
 appearance, his manners were formed and his behavior manly. He 
 mixed in conversation with unaffected vivacity, and delivered Ms sen 
 timents with perfect ease, equally free from shyness and flippancy, 
 and always with strict attention to propriety and decorum. 
 
 While Mr. Pitt was an under-graduate, he never omitted attending 
 chapel, morning and evening, or dining in the public hall, except 
 when prevented by indisposition. Nor did he pass a single evening 
 out of the college walls. His sweetness of temper and vivacity of 
 
12 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 lowed out. " To attempt putting another upon the boy, 
 will usually be but labor in vain ; and what is so plastered 
 on will at best but set untowardly , and have always hang 
 ing to it the ungracefulness of constraint and affecta 
 tion. "(2.) 
 
 disposition endeared him to me in a degree which I should in vain 
 attempt to express. 
 
 " At the age of seventeen he began to mix with other young men of 
 his age and station, then resident at Cambridge, and no one was ever 
 more admired by his acquaintance and friends. He was always the 
 most lively person in company, abounding in playful wit and repartee, 
 but never known to excite pain or give just ground of offence; 
 
 " Though his society was universally sought, and from the age of sev 
 enteen or eighteen he constantly passed his evenings in company, he 
 steadily avoided every species of irregularity, and he continued to pur 
 sue his studies with ardent zeal and unremitted diligence during his 
 whole residence in the university. In the course of this time I never 
 knew him to spend an idle day, nor did he ever fail to attend me at 
 the appointed hour. At this early period there was the same firm 
 ness of principle and rectitude of conduct, which marked his character 
 in the more advanced stages of life." 
 
 (2.) It is said of Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England," While he 
 was yet a child, the signs of genius, for which he was in after life 
 distinguished, could not have escaped the notice of his intelligent 
 parents. They nfust have been conscious of his extraordinary pow 
 ers, and of their responsibility, that, upon the right direction of his 
 mind, his future eminence, whether as a statesman or as a philosopher, 
 almost wholly depended. In his twelfth year he was meditating upon 
 the laws of the imagination. At thirteen, he was sent, fully prepared, 
 to the University of Cambridge. In one of his essays, Bacon says, 
 " Custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years ; this is what 
 we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom." And yet 
 this same wise man says : " The mould of a man's fortunes is in his 
 own hands." 
 
CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 JEUEMIAH MASON. 
 
 ' Great through sound sense and strong judgment ; 
 Great by comprehensive views of things ; 
 Great by high and elevated purposes." Daniel Webster. 
 
 JEREMIAH MASON was by birth and education a Con 
 necticut man. That little State has been the nursery 
 from which thousands and ten thousands have gone forth, 
 to every part of the Union, to fill the high places of the 
 land. 
 
 The ancestors of Jeremiah Mason, for several genera 
 tions, had resided in the north-east section of that State, 
 and one of his near relations still owns the very property 
 purchased from the Indian sachem, Uncas. It lies in 
 the town of Lebanon, in Windham county. There Jer 
 emiah Mason was born, on the 27 th of April, 1768. He 
 was the sixth of nine children. His father was a man of 
 " considerable opulence, and highly esteemed by the com 
 munity." Moreover, he was a truly good man. 
 
 " His mother," says Mr. Webster, " was distinguish 
 ed for a good understanding, much discretion, the purity 
 2 
 
14 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 of her heart and affections, and the exemplary kindness 
 and benevolence of her life. It was her great anxiety 
 to give all her children the best education, within the 
 means of the family, which the state of the country 
 would allow, and she was particularly desirous that Jere 
 miah should be sent to college." 
 
 " In my recollection of my mother," says Mr. Mason, 
 " she was the personification of love, kindness, and be 
 nevolence." Blessed tribute of grateful memory from 
 such a son ! 
 
 At sixteen years of age, young Mason was sent to 
 Yale College, in his native State, and there was gradua 
 ted in 1784. He received one of the honors of the class 
 and performed a part in the Commencement exercises, 
 which greatly raised the expectations of his friends, and 
 gratified and animated his love for distinction. 
 
 " In the course of a long and active life," says he, " I 
 recollect no occasion when I have experienced such eleva 
 tion of feeling." 
 
 Mr. Mason was destined for the law, and commenced 
 the study of that profession with Mr. Baldwin,(8.) at New 
 Haven. From thence, after a year, he went to Vermont, 
 and studied in the office of Stephen Rowe Bradley. 
 
 (3.) The Hon. Simeon Baldwin, of New Haven, " a gentleman who has 
 lived to perform important public and private duties ; has served his 
 country in Congress, and on the bench of the Supreme Court of Con 
 necticut, and still lives to hear the account of the peaceful death of his 
 distinguished pupil." 
 
THE LAWYER. 15 
 
 Having completed the required course of preparatory 
 study, Mr. Mason was admitted to the bar in Vermont 
 and New Hampshire. 
 
 A few miles below Walpole, in New Hampshire, at 
 Westmoreland, he commenced practice, at the age of 
 twenty-three. But Walpole being a larger village, 
 where he could find congenial society and more busi 
 ness, he wisely, determined to remove to that place. 
 
 A journey to Virginia, at this period,- formed an inter 
 esting variety in the life of the young lawyer. He men 
 tions having been highly gratified with seeing Presi 
 dent Washington, and was charmed by the urbanity and 
 dignity of his manner. He also heard Fisher Ames make 
 his celebrated speech upon the British Treaty. 
 
 From Walpob, Mr. Mason removed to Portsmouth, 
 and there his practice became extensive. A few years 
 after his removal, he was appointed Attorney- General of 
 the State of New Hampshire. Very much confined to 
 his profession, he never sought office or political elevation. 
 Yet he was at length persuaded to accept the post of a Sen 
 ator of the United States, and took his seat there in June, 
 1813. He was at once acknowledged as holding a high 
 position among the great men who were there assembled. 
 
 But the law was his forte, and for that he determined 
 to relinquish political eminence. He resigned his seat in 
 the Senate in 1817. In 1832, Mr. Mason removed to 
 Boston. 
 
16 SUCCESS IN X.IFE. 
 
 This slight sketch of Jeremiah Mason has been pre 
 sented, merely as an introduction to the character given 
 of him by Mr. Webster ; than whom, surely, no one 
 understands better, what qualifications make the com 
 plete lawyer. It should be carefully studied by all who 
 aim at success in the profession. 
 
 " The characteristics of Mr. Mason's mind, as I think, 
 were real greatness, strength, and sagacity. He was 
 great through sound sense and sound judgment. Great 
 by comprehensive views of things. Great by high and 
 elevated purposes. Perhaps sometimes he was too cau 
 tious and refined, and his distinctions became too minute ; 
 but his discrimination arose from a force of intellect, and 
 quick-seeing, far-reaching sagacity, everywhere discern 
 ing his object, and pursuing it steadily. Whether it 
 was popular or professional, he grasped a point and held 
 it with a firm hand. He was sarcastic sometimes, but 
 not frequently ; not frothy or petulant, but cool and 
 vitriolic. Unfortunate for him on whom his sarcasm 
 fell. 
 
 " His conversation was as remarkable as his efforts at 
 the bar. It was original, fresh, and suggestive ; never 
 dull or indifferent. He never talked when he had no 
 thing to say. He was particularly agreeable, edifying, 
 and instructive to all about him. 
 
 "As a professional man, Mr. Mason's great ability lay 
 in the department of the Common Law. In this part of 
 
THE LAWYER. IT 
 
 jurisprudence, he was profoundly learned. He had drunk 
 copiously from its deepest springs ; and he had studied 
 with diligence and success the departures from the Eng 
 lish Common Law, which had taken place in this country, 
 either necessarily, from difference of condition, or posi 
 tively, by force of our own statutes. In his addresses, 
 both to courts and juries, he affected to despise all elo 
 quence, and certainly disdained all ornament ; but his ef 
 forts, whether addressed to one tribunal or the other, were 
 marked by a degree of clearness, directness, and force, 
 not easy to be equalled. 
 
 " But political eminence and professional fame fade 
 away, and die with all things earthly. Nothing of char 
 acter is really permanent, but virtue and personal worth. 
 These remain. Whatever of excellence is wrought into 
 the soul itself, belongs to both worlds. Real goodness 
 does not attach itself merely to this life ; it points to 
 another world. Political or professional reputation can 
 not last forever ; but a conscience void of offence before 
 God and man, is an inheritance for eternity. Religion, 
 therefore, is a necessary and indispensable element in 
 any great human character. There is no living with 
 out it. Religion is the tie that connects man with his 
 Creator, and holds him to His throne. If that tie be all 
 sundered, all broken, he floats away, a worthless atom 
 in the universe ; its proper attractions all gone, its des 
 tiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but dark- 
 2* 
 
18 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 ness, desolation, and death. A man with no sense of re 
 ligious duty, is he whom the Scriptures describe in such 
 terse but terrific manner as " living without God in the 
 world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of 
 the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his 
 happiness, and away, far, far away, from the purposes 
 of his creation. 
 
 " A mind like Mr. Mason's active, thoughtful, pene 
 trating, sedate could not but meditate deeply over the 
 condition of man below, and feel its responsibilities. He 
 could not look on this wondrous frame, 
 
 ' This universal frame, thus wondrous fair,' 
 
 without feeling that it was created and upheld by an In 
 telligence, to which all other intelligences must be respon 
 sible. I am bound to say, that in the course of my life, 
 I never met with an individual, in any profession or con 
 dition of life, who always spoke, and always thought, 
 with such awful reverence of the power and presence of 
 God. No irreverence, ro lightness, even no too familiar 
 allusion to God and His attributes, ever escaped his lips. 
 The very notion of a Supreme Being was, with him, made 
 up of awe and solemnity. It filled the whole of his great 
 mind with the strongest emotions. A man like him, with 
 all his proper sentiments and sensibilities alive in him, 
 must, in this state of existence, have something to be 
 lieve, and something to hope for ; or else, as life is ad- 
 
THE LAWYER. 19 
 
 vancing to its close and parting, all is heart-sinking and 
 oppression. Depend upon it, whatever may be the mind 
 of an old man, old age is only really happy when, on feel 
 ing the enjoyments of this world pass away, it begins to 
 lay a stronger hold on those of another. 
 
 " Mr. Mason's religious sentiments and feelings were 
 the crowning glories of his character. 
 
 " Mr. Mason died in old age, not by a violent stroke 
 from the hand of death ; not by a sudden rupture of the 
 ties of nature, but by a gradual wearing out of his con 
 stitution. He enjoyed through life, indeed, remarkable 
 health. He took competent exercise, loved the open air, 
 and avoiding all extreme theories or practice, controlled 
 his habits of life by the rules of prudence and modera 
 tion. 
 
 " His whole life, marked by uniform greatness, wisdom, 
 and integrity ; his deep humility, his profound reverence 
 for the Divine Majesty, his habitual preparation for 
 death, his humble trust in his Saviour, left nothing to be 
 desired for the consolation of his family under this great 
 loss. He was gradually prepared for his departure. 
 His last years were passed in calm retirement ; and he 
 died as he wished to die, with his faculties unimpaired, 
 without great pain, his family around his bed, and the 
 precious promises of the Gospel before his mind." 
 
 Here is, indeed, a character suited for the young 
 man's model. Trace its lineaments, as drawn by the 
 
20 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 hand of a master. Ponder upon it, analyze it, for it 
 bear the nicest scrutiny. (4.) It will demonstrate to you 
 that a lawyer, in spite of his peculiar temptations, may 
 be a truly religious man, and be acknowledged as such 
 by the whole community. 
 
 Chief Justice Shaw recommends the character of Mr. 
 Mason, as "an example to all those young men who take 
 upon themselves the responsibilities, and aspire to the 
 honors of the legal profession. 
 
 '"It is true," he says, "that every one cannot feel 
 assured of the eminent natural gifts which characterized 
 Mr. Mason's mind ; but all can imitate the patient study, 
 the industrious investigation, the ' unshaken integrity, 
 and conscientious fidelity which prominently marked the 
 career of this eminent Jurist." 
 
 (4.) " The truest admiration is that by which we receive other minds 
 into our own." 
 
CHAPTER THREE. 
 
 SELF-CONFIDENCE. 
 
 " Things out of hope are compassed oft with venturing." Shakspeare. 
 
 "The grand practical question is, how we are to avoid the darkness and the desert, 
 and take our portion in the fair and fertile. Is there a lot cast for us, in this matter, or 
 is it onr own doing?" 
 
 "So build we up the being that we are." Wordsworth. 
 
 WHEN Sir Walter Raleigh, in a meditative mood, 
 scribbled the line, " I would climb, but fear to fall," he 
 was, doubtless, " screwing his courage to the sticking- 
 place." His royal mistress added, " Then why attempt 
 to climb at all V 9 This taunt stung him to the quick ; 
 his wavering self-confidence was restored and permanently 
 fixed. 
 
 Disappointments throw weak minds off their balance ; 
 the strong and the wise perceive that they are from 
 without, and make use of them for their own advantage. 
 Instead of continuing under the dark and sullen clouds of 
 discontent, they emerge into clearer light, and go on 
 with more cheerful alacrity. It has sometimes been 
 remarked, that great occasions produce great men. Not 
 so ; the great men already are such ; they only want 
 occasions to call forth their talents. Give them a fair 
 
22 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 field, and the confidence which belongs to true greatness 
 will enable them to prove their strength. 
 
 There is an immense difference between self-confidence 
 and self-conceit. When the young artist Corregio first 
 saw the beautiful paintings of Raphael, and exclaimed, 
 " I, too, am a painter," it was not arrogant self-con 
 ceit, it was the consciousness of similar power. 
 
 Admiral Nelson was exceedingly piqued, when he was 
 a young man, because he was not mentioned in a news 
 paper paragraph, in which an action was briefly de 
 scribed, where he had been present. " Never mind," 
 said he, " I will one day have a Gazette of my own." 
 The consciousness of courage and naval skill prompted 
 this proud resolution. Self-conceit is a wren in peacock's 
 feathers ; self-confidence, the soaring eagle. You may 
 have been puffed up into overweening conceit of your 
 self by the flattery of others, but nothing excepting the 
 internal conviction of power, can give you self-confidence. 
 
 " I have read in some marvelous story, 
 Sone legend strange and vague," 
 
 of a man who was cast upon a desert island, among a 
 people who had lost their king. The story says not how 
 he became a runaway ; but when the people saw the 
 stranger, they fancied he was their sovereign, and im 
 mediately placed the glittering crown upon his brow, 
 and the golden sceptre in his hand. 
 
 " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 
 
THE LAWYER. 23 
 
 The head of the hapless runaway must, indeed, have 
 been uneasy, and the hand that had lately held the 
 plough, or grasped the blacksmith's hammer, must have 
 trembled, as it lifted the sceptre. 
 
 Many a time and oft would he have relinquished 
 these emblems of power, and with them the greatness that 
 had been thrust upon him. But no ; he was their king, 
 and a king he must remain. 
 
 In a similar condition, many a lawyer has found him 
 self ; too late, he has discovered that neither by nature 
 nor by education was he fitted for the profession which 
 he had chosen, or, still more unfortunately, that which 
 had been forced upon him. 
 
 It is a mistake, fraught with direful consequences, that 
 a man can only be respectable or distinguished, by be 
 longing to one of " the learned professions.'' 
 
 " As for the honor of different vocations, there never 
 was a truer sentence than the stale one of Pope stale 
 now, because it is so true 
 
 ' Act well your part, there all the honor lies.' 
 
 And it is the just boast of our own country, that in no 
 civilized nation is the force of this philanthropic maxim 
 so nobly illustrated as in ours thanks to our glorious 
 institutions." 
 
 " When the celebrated Gouverneur Morris left college, 
 he lost no time in deliberating on the choice of a profes- 
 
24 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 sion, for he seems to have destined himself for the law, 
 from the time of his first reflections on the subject. His 
 ancestors had gained renown in this career, and it was 
 natural that his inclination should lead him in the same 
 direction. He knew, moreover, that his success in life, 
 his fortune and fame, his future usefulness and consider 
 ation, depended upon his own efforts. 
 
 " Naturally active, sanguine in his temperament, con 
 scious of his powers, and not wanting in ambition, he 
 had an early and continued confidence in himself ] which 
 enabled him to command all the resources of his mind, 
 and to convert them, on any given occasion, to the best 
 account. In fact, this self-confidence was one of the re 
 markable features of his character through life, and 
 perhaps its tendency was rather to err on the side of 
 boldness and presumption, than on that of timidity and 
 reserve. But there are few more enviable qualities of the 
 understanding, than the power of ascertaining its own bias 
 and strength, and of causing these to unite and co-oper 
 ate in the attainment of a difficult object. No man 
 had this power in a greater degree than Gouverneur 
 Morris, nor exercised it with more skill and effect. He 
 has often been heard to say, that in his intercourse with 
 men, he never knew the sensation of fear or inferiority, 
 of embarrassment or awkwardness. Although this al 
 most daring self-possession, which never forsook him, 
 may, at times, have deprived his manners of the charm 
 
THE LAWYER. 25 
 
 which a becoming diffidence and gentleness of demeanor 
 are apt to infuse, yet as a means of advancement in the 
 world, it must be allowed, when properly regulated, to 
 take the precedence of every other quality." . . 
 
 Self-depreciation is not humility, though often mis 
 taken for it. Its source is oftener mortified pride. 
 
 Self-confidence must have its foundation in self-knowl 
 edge. A proper, a just estimate of one's abilities, alone 
 can ensure that confidence, which is neither arrogant nor 
 presumptuous. 
 
 It might have been supposed by some persons, who 
 were contemporaneous with the poet Milton, that he pos 
 sessed an arrogant confidence in his own genius ; but time, 
 the best test, has proved that he did not overestimate his 
 abilities. 
 
 He says, " These abilities, wheresoever they be found, 
 are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed." Yet so 
 conscious was he of the " gift," that he deems himself 
 prepared for a " work," " not to be raised from the 
 heat of youth, or the vapors of wine, like that which flows 
 at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the 
 trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained 
 by the invocation of dame Memory and her seven daugh 
 ters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who 
 can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends 
 out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to 
 touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." 
 3 
 
26 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 But, notwithstanding this consciousness of power, and 
 this acknowledgment of the source from which it was de 
 rived, did Milton expect success, without vigorous effort 
 on his own part ? No ; read, young man, for your spe 
 cial benefit, what he says of his mode of life. " My 
 morning haunts are where they should be, at home ; not 
 sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, 
 but up and stirring ; in winter, often ere the sound of 
 any bell awake men to labor or devotion ; in summer, as 
 oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, 
 to read good authors, or cause them to be read till the 
 attention be weary, or memory have its full freight ; 
 then, with useful and generous labors, preserving the 
 body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, 
 and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of 
 religion, and our country's liberty." 
 
 Sic iter ad astra. 
 
 The self-confidence which accomplishes the end de 
 signed, success, is not founded upon self-partiality, or self- 
 exaggeration but upon true, consistent self-knowledge, 
 and self-respect. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 JOHN JAY. 
 
 "The law 
 Whereof yon are a well-deserving pillar." 
 
 A NAME has oftentimes had an influence on the 
 choice of a profession. That distinguished and excellent 
 lawyer, John Jay, of New York, was named after the 
 Hon. John Chambers, one of the Judges of the Supreme 
 Court of the Province. There is nothing distinctive in 
 the name John, but being thus called as the namesake of 
 a great man, should excite an earnest desire to sustain the 
 reputation which another has fairly earned. This seems 
 to have been an incitement to John Jay. But a still 
 more decided and effective influence than that of a name 
 was exercised upon the opening mind of John Jay. 
 
 " Peter Jay had ten children ; John was his eighth 
 child, and was born in the city of New York, the 12th 
 of December, 1T45. The character of his parents was a 
 theme on which their son John delighted to converse ; for ^| 
 seldom have parents been so loved and reverenced as they 
 were by him. Both father and mother were actuated by 
 
28 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 sincere and "fervent piety. The father possessed strong 
 masculine sense was a shrewd observer and admirable 
 judge of men; resolute, persevering, and prudent; an 
 affectionate father, a kind master, but governing all under 
 his control with mild but absolute sway. 
 
 " The mother had a cultivated mind and fine imagina 
 tion, and was mild and affectionate in her temper and 
 manners ; a cheerful resignation to the will of Providence, 
 during many years of sickness and suffering, bore witness 
 to the strength of her religious faith. Two of the 
 children, a son and a daughter, were attacked in their 
 infancy by small-pox, and were deprived of sight by 
 this formidable disease. It was thought that the two 
 little sufferers could be brought up more safely and ad 
 vantageously in the country than the city. For this 
 purpose the father purchased a farm at Rye, on the 
 shores of Long Island Sound, whither he removed his 
 family, while John was still in the nurse's arms. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the cares of a large family, the mo 
 ther devoted much of her time to the instruction of the 
 two blind children, and the little John. To the former 
 she read the best authors, to the latter she taught the 
 rudiments *of English, and the Latin grammar. When 
 John was between six and seven years old, his father, 
 %iwriting about him, remarked, ' Johnny is of a very grave 
 disposition, and takes to learning exceedingly well. He 
 will soon be fit to go to grammar school.' 
 
THE LAWYER. 29 
 
 " When eight years old, he was sent to* a grammar 
 school at New Rochelle, kept by the Rev. Mr. Stoope, 
 pastor of the French Church. His character, even at 
 this early age, seems to have been sufficiently marked to 
 excite the favorable anticipations of his discerning father, 
 who, in a letter to a friend, observed, ' I cannot forbear 
 taking the freedom of hinting to you, that my Johnny 
 gives me a very pleasing prospect. He seems to be en 
 dowed with a very good capacity is very reserved, and 
 quite of his brother James's disposition for books.' 
 
 " The gentleman, to whose charge he was now committed, 
 was a native of Switzerland, and of odd habits, ignorant 
 of the world, regardless of money, and remarkable for 
 absence of mind ; he devoted every moment of leisure to 
 his studies, particularly to the mathematics, leaving the 
 undisputed government of himself and his household to 
 his wife, who was as penurious as he was careless. The 
 parsonage, and everything about it, was suffered to decay ; 
 and the boys were treated with little food and much 
 scolding. John contrived to prevent the snow from 
 drifting upon his bed, by closing the broken panes of 
 glass with pieces of wood. The contrast between such 
 lodgings, and such treatment, and that to which he was 
 accustomed at home, was not pleasing, but not without 
 its uses. The plain and simple diet to which he was 
 confined, led to that indifference to the quality of his 
 food for which, through life, he was remarkably distin- 
 
30 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 guished, while his constitution, no doubt, derived addi 
 tional strength and vigor from the hardships to which he 
 was exposed. His health was robust, and in after life 
 he used to mention the pleasure he at this time enjoyed 
 in roaming through the woods and gathering nuts, which 
 he carried home in his stockings, which he stripped off 
 for the purpose. 
 
 The inhabitants of the village of New Rochelle were 
 chiefly descendants of French refugees, and French was 
 spoken by them as well as at the parsonage, and John 
 thus acquired, with little trouble, a language for which he 
 afterward had so much use. He remained at this school 
 three years, when his father took him home and placed 
 him under the instruction of a private tutor, who com 
 pleted his preparation for college. 
 
 At the early age of fourteen John Jay entered Co 
 lumbia College, in New York, then called King's Col 
 lege. The President was the excellent Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson. 
 
 The young freshman was now suddenly introduced to a 
 scene entirely new to him, and was thrown among com 
 panions of various dispositions and habits, without any 
 other guide or monitor than his own good sense and 
 virtue. His intercourse with others made him sensible 
 of his own deficiencies, and he commenced the work of 
 correcting them with a resolution and perseverance 
 not often accomplished in early youth. His artic- 
 
THE LAWYER. 31 
 
 ulation was indistinct, and his mode of pronouncing the 
 letter L,' exposed him to ridicule. He purchased a 
 book written by Sheridan, probably his c Lectures on 
 Elocution,' and shutting himself up daily in his room, 
 studied the rules, and practiced upon them, till his object 
 was accomplished." 
 
 He had, moreover, a habit of reading so rapidly, as to 
 be understood with difficulty. For the purpose of cor 
 recting this fault, he read aloud to himself, making a full 
 stop after every word, until he had acquired the com 
 plete control of his voice, and he thus became an ex 
 cellent reader. 
 
 With the same energy he pursued all his studies, and 
 especially English composition. So intent was he upon 
 this, that when about to write an English exercise, he 
 placed paper and pencil by his bedside, that if, while 
 meditating upon his subject in the night, a valuable idea 
 occurred to him, he might make some note of it, even in 
 the dark, that might recall it in the morning. His ap 
 plication and correct deportment acquired for him the 
 esteem and friendship of the President. 
 
 At the Commencement exercises, the Latin Salutatory 
 Oration was considered the highest honor, and this was 
 spoken, in the year 1T64, by John Jay. 
 
 But, while yet in college, he decided upon a profession, 
 and commenced reading law with one of his fellow- 
 students. Two weeks after he was graduated, he entered 
 
32 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 the office of Benjamin Kissam, Esq. ,(5.) of New York, 
 as a student at law. 
 
 After Mr. Jay was admitted to the bar, it sometimes 
 happened that he was engaged on the opposite side to Mr. 
 Kissam. On one of these occasions, the latter being em 
 barrassed by some position taken by the other, pleasant 
 ly remarked in court, that he had brought up a bird to 
 pick out his own eyes. " Oh no," retorted his opponent, 
 " not to pick out, but to open your eyes." 
 
 Mr. Jay married Sarah, the youngest daughter of 
 Governor Livingston, of New Jersey, a zealous and dis 
 tinguished patriot of the Revolution. 
 
 The Revolution was an interruption to Jay's legal 
 pursuits. He was chosen a delegate to the Continental 
 Congress, from the city and county of New York. This 
 Congress met at Philadelphia, as every American knows, 
 
 (5.) Lindley Murray, afterward distinguished by his various works 
 on grammar and elocution, was at this time a student in the same 
 office. In a short memoir of himself, published after his death, lie 
 paid the following tribute to his early companion : " The celebrated 
 John Jay, Esq., late Governor of New York, was my fellow-student 
 for about two years. His talents and virtues gave at that period 
 pleasing indications of future eminence. He was remarkable for 
 strong reasoning powers, comprehensive views, indefatigable application, 
 and uncommon firmness of mind. With these qualifications, added to 
 a just taste in literature, and ample stores of learning and knowledge, 
 he was happily prepared to enter on that career of public virtue by 
 which he was honorably distinguished, and made instrumental in pro 
 moting the good of his country." 
 
THE LAWYER. 33 
 
 in 1774. Mr. Jay was perhaps the youngest member of 
 the House, being then in his twenty-ninth year. 
 
 a Notwithstanding his youth, he was placed on a com 
 mittee for drafting an address to the people of Great Brit 
 ain, and a memorial to the people of British America. 
 The address to the people of Great Britain was drawn 
 up by Mr. Jay, and adopted by Congress. Mr. Jefler- 
 son, while ignorant of the author, declared it to be a pro 
 duction certainly of the finest pen in America. " 
 
 Mr. Jay from this time devoted himself to the service 
 of his country, in the field and in the cabinet, until the 
 termination of the eventful struggle for liberty. 
 
 Mr. Jay was chosen Chief Justice of the State of 
 New York, immediately after its organization as a State, 
 an office which he found incompatible with other duties, 
 and resigned it. 
 
 He was afterward sent as Minister Plenipotentiary to 
 Spain ; then on a mission to France ; and later, as Envoy 
 to England. Under Washington's administration, Mr. 
 Jay officiated for a time as Secretary of State ; and when 
 the Supreme Court of the United States was organized, 
 he was appointed Chief Justice. Subsequently, he was 
 chosen Governor of the State of New York, and late 
 in life, President of the American Bible Society. 
 
 It may seem that Mr. Jay might, with more propriety, be 
 called a statesman than a lawyer ; but the law was his 
 profession, as it has been that of the many who have taken a 
 
34 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 part in the councils of the nation, or represented it abroad. 
 His character well deserves careful study that noble 
 character which gave him a title to those honors which 
 encouraged his youth and adorned his age. It is a stimu 
 lating example for all whom Hope beckons on to suc 
 cess. 
 
 The character of John Jay is simple and uniform ; it 
 is perplexed by no eccentricities or contradictions. His 
 public and his private life, his professions and his con 
 duct, form one harmonious whole. Endowed by his Cre 
 ator with a vigorous mind, a sound judgment, and a pi 
 ous heart, he pursued right objects ; selected his means 
 with an almost intuitive perception of their fitness, and 
 used them with a prudence that rarely failed to ensure 
 success. Formed by nature with that irritability of tem 
 per which is so often at once the attendant and the bane 
 of genius, he acquired a degree of equanimity seldom 
 attained by any. 
 
 Although warm, constant, and disinterested in his 
 friendships, he indulged no feelings of hostility toward 
 those who attempted to injure him ; and no act of his life 
 is known that indicated a desire for revenge. He was, 
 however, free from that weak confidence which too often 
 makes well-disposed men the dupes of artifice and malice. 
 Having once had good cause to doubt a man's sincerity 
 or integrity, he never after trusted him. " Separate your 
 self from your enemies," was the rule by which he regu- 
 
THE LAWYER. 35 
 
 lated his conduct toward those who wished him ill ; and 
 in the whole course of his life he never deserted a friend 
 nor courted an enemy. 
 
 A sense of future accountability seems to have been 
 always present to his mind, and he esteemed the sentence 
 his fellow-men might pass upon him, when compared with 
 the realities of the judgment-day, as the dust of the 
 balance. 
 
 Few could claim a more entire exemption from the sins 
 comprehended in the lust of the eyes and the pride of 
 life. Although for many years filling stations which ne 
 cessarily brought him into constant intercourse with the 
 rich and the fashionable, his dress, furniture, and equi 
 page were always as plain and frugal as propriety would 
 permit. As a republican, he thought it became him to 
 set an example of plainness and simplicity ; *as a Chris 
 tian, he acknowledged the obligation to be temperate in 
 all things. But his frugality had nothing in common 
 with parsimony. " A wise man," he said, " has money 
 in his head, but not in his heart." His contributions to 
 the ever-varying calls of religion and benevolence were 
 cheerful and generous. It was a favorite saying with 
 him, that ostentation and rapacity go together. He was 
 liberal in all his contracts, acting on the maxim that no 
 hard bargain is a good one. To his poor neighbors he 
 often made loans without interest, and when payment 
 could not be exacted except by distressing them, he for- 
 
36 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 gave the debt, and to his bounty were they frequently in 
 debted for food, clothing, and medical attendance. 
 
 A distinguishing trait in Mr. Jay's character was mod 
 esty ; not an affectation of inferiority to others, or a dis 
 trust of his own powers, but a total absence of all en 
 deavor to attract admiration. He assumed no impor 
 tance, claimed no deference, and boasted of no merit. 
 He had had full experience of the pleasures and the pains 
 of public life, and his advice to his sons was, never to ac 
 cept an office, except from a conviction of duty. 
 
 His patriotism, prompted and guided by the precepts 
 of Christianity, ever refused to make the smallest sacrifices 
 of truth or justice to the cause of his country, while for 
 the same object it was always ready to surrender what 
 ever else was most dear to him. Much as he loved 
 his country* he spurned the principle implied in the 
 sentiment, " Our country, right or wrong ;" and on 
 all occasions, public as well as private, inflexibly ad 
 hered to the maxim that honesty is the best policy. 
 
 Mr. Jay's religion was fervent, but mild and unosten 
 tatious. Through life he continued a member of the 
 Episcopal Church. 
 
 On the whole, his life exhibits a rare but interesting 
 picture of the Christian patriot and statesman, and justi 
 fies the universal reverence for his character so eloquent 
 ly described in an address delivered, soon after his death, 
 by G. C. Verplanck ? Esq. 
 
THE LAWYER. 3V 
 
 " A halo of veneration seemed to encircle him as one 
 belonging to another world, though lingering among us. 
 When the tidings of his death came to us, they were re 
 ceived through the nation, not with sorrow or mourning, 
 but with solemn awe, like that with which we read the 
 mysterious passage of ancient Scripture,- ' AND ENOCH 
 
 WALKED WITH GoD, AND HE WAS NOT, FOR GOD TOOK 
 
CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 UNITY OF'PURPOSE. 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 " Reason frowns on him who wastes that reflection on a destiny independent of him 
 self, which he ought to reserve for actions of which he is master." Sir Jas. Mclntosh. 
 
 " Whoever is not forced by necessity, but feels within him, growing with his growth, 
 an inclination as true and unvarying as the maguetic needle, let him follow its pointing, 
 trusting to it as a compass in the desert." 
 
 THE power of concentrating thought, or what the 
 phrenologists call concentrativeness, is a primary requi 
 site for an able lawyer. Without it, he may become an 
 eloquent orator and a persuasive pleader, but not a con 
 vincing advocate, nor a wise counselor. In addition to 
 this intellectual faculty, he must possess an indomitable 
 will a will, irresistible as the lightning which splits 
 " the gnarled, unwedgeable oak," and constant as the at 
 traction of gravitation. 
 
 The recklessness with which young men squander the 
 glorious talents with which they have been endowed by 
 the Creator is marvelous, pitiful. Instead of a fixed, 
 
THE LAWYER. 39 
 
 determinate aim, toward which all efforts converge, they 
 try their skill, now in this direction, and then in one 
 diametrically opposite. (6.) Gathering flowers where fancy 
 leads, and laurels which will be in " the sere and yellow 
 leaf" before the wearers have reached the meridian of 
 life, they gradually pass into the shade of mediocrity, and 
 their suns set ingloriously. 
 
 Distinction, in any profession, is not the reward of 
 such divided effort. There must be early, continuous, 
 self-denying labor. Without such unwearied application, 
 talents the most commanding will not give the impulse 
 necessary to reach the aim. The sinewy arm of the 
 long-practiced archer can only draw the bow of Ulysses, 
 and the calm, steady eye can only send the arrow to the 
 mark. 
 
 The unity of purpose, which ensures success, does not, 
 by any means, reject those acquirements which are sec 
 ondary or subsidiary. The old adage says, " Every 
 part helps every other part." The most eminent law 
 yers have not neglected mathematical studies, nor the 
 cultivation of taste, yet these were subordinates, and kept 
 their place in the ranks.* 
 
 A fine example of the unity of purpose here recom 
 mended, is furnished by the late Chief Justice Marshall. 
 
 (6.) " Many a man has lost being a great man, by splitting into two 
 middling ones." 
 * Note B. 
 
40 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 There is no denying it, Virginia and Massachusetts 
 grow* great men. Among Virginia's noblest sons was 
 John Marshall. How came he to be a great man 1 
 
 John's father, Thomas Marshall, was a planter ; not a 
 rich planter, but a man of moderate fortune. A lim 
 ited education, even for the times in which he lived, 
 was all that the planter received ; and yet he was a man 
 of uncommon ability, and made the best possible use of 
 the means afforded him for the acquisition of knowledge. 
 He was a man of strong, good sense, and commanded 
 the reverence, and won the confidence and affection of 
 his children. 
 
 John was the eldest of fifteen children. All these 
 children were richly endowed with intellect ; but it was 
 a pleasure to this eldest-born to declare, when he stood 
 among the foremost men of the country, that his father 
 was superior to any of his gifted sons. This he was 
 accustomed to say when he was capable of appreciating 
 intellectual character. 
 
 John was, literally, a backwoodsman, for Fauquier 
 county lay upon the western frontier of the State. 
 There were no schools in the neighborhood. Colonel 
 Marshall taught his own children, and thus gave their 
 infant minds such a bent and inclination as suited his 
 own taste. Happily it was a correct one, for no gnarled 
 and twisted a twigs" seem to have been the consequence. 
 
 * To grow wheat, rice, (fee., is a Southern provincialism. 
 
THE LAWYER. 41 
 
 Colonel Marshall was a devoted admirer of English 
 classic literature. For history and poetry especially, he 
 had a strong inclination, which John early imbibed. 
 
 The wild adventure and romantic scenery of the new 
 settlements would tend to excite the imagination, and 
 call out energy and activity. The Indians were their 
 neighbors, and might at any time become foes. Inter 
 minable forests stretched their umbrageous shades to the 
 far- west. Mountains and ravines, dark, unexplored cav 
 erns, and foaming cataracts, met the view of the young 
 adventurer. 
 
 " Genius is a fire that is early enkindled in the soul." 
 There are few great men who have not in early life 
 dallied with the muses. 
 
 Amid beautiful scenery, and with the course of read 
 ing which young Marshall pursued, it is not surprising 
 that there was an early manifestation of poetical senti 
 ment, and an attempt to form " the sounding line." 
 
 " At the age of twelve, John Marshall had transcribed 
 Pope's Essay on Man, and also some of his moral essays. 
 The love of poetry, thus awakened in his warm and 
 vigorous mind, never ceased to exert a commanding in 
 fluence over it." 
 
 At the age of fourteen, John Marshall was sent from 
 
 home, and placed under the care of Mr. Campbell, a 
 
 respectable clergyman. After remaining a year with 
 
 this gentleman, he returned to the house of his father, 
 
 4* 
 
42 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 who had procured a tutor to reside in his family. At 
 the end of this year he had commenced reading Horace 
 and Livy. " His subsequent mastery of the classics 
 was the result of his own efforts, without any other aid 
 than his grammar and dictionary. He never had the 
 benefit of an education at any college, and his attain 
 ments in learning were nursed by the solitary vigils of 
 his own genius. His father, however, continued to 
 superintend his English education, to cherish his love of 
 knowledge, to give a solid cast to his acquirements, and 
 to store his mind with the most valuable materials. He 
 was not merely a watchful parent, but an instructive 
 and affectionate friend, and soon became the most con 
 stant, as he was at the time almost the only intelligent 
 companion of his son. The time not devoted to his 
 society was passed in hardy, athletic exercises, and prob 
 ably to this circumstance was owing that robust con 
 stitution which remained fresh and firm in a green old 
 age."(7 ) 
 
 But the American Revolution came on, and other in 
 terests were, for a time, merged in that great event. 
 
 In 1775, John Marshall was appointed first lieutenant 
 in a company of minutemen, enrolled for actual service. 
 Lieutenant Marshall was engaged in the battle of the 
 Great Bridge, where the British troops, under Lord 
 
 (7.) " The body ought to be the soul's best friend, and cordial, dutiful 
 helpmate." 
 
THE LAWYER. 43 
 
 Dunmore, were repulsed with great gallantry. In 1777, 
 he was promoted to the rank of captain, and fought in 
 the memorable battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and 
 Monmouth. During a season of inaction, he attended 
 the law lectures of Mr. Wythe, afterward Chancellor 
 of the State, and a course of lectures on natural philoso 
 phy, given by Mr. Madison, President of William and 
 Mary College, Virginia. After thus passing the winter 
 and spring of 1779-80, in the summer he obtained a 
 license to practice law. In October he returned to the 
 army, and continued in service till the next February, 
 1781. These circumstances are dwelt upon more particu 
 larly, to show how few were the advantages of education 
 received by John Marshall, compared with the elaborate 
 and finished education of the present day. The best 
 part of education, after all, is that which a man gives 
 himself. Most young men have intellectual power 
 enough, if constantly and effectively applied, to become 
 useful and highly respectable in their trade or profession. 
 The difficulty usually is, that they are too weak of pur 
 pose, too fluctuating and unsteady in their aims and 
 efforts. (8.) The moment the leading-strings of their 
 guardians and preceptors are loosened, they stumble and 
 stagger under the weight of responsibility resting upon 
 them, and too often fall by the way- side, weary with the 
 
 (8.) " II y a cent bonne tetes pour une ame ferme." Baron Wessenberg. 
 
44 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 strife. Not so with Marshall ; he braced up strong sin 
 ews and steady nerves for mental, as he did for physical 
 encounter. 
 
 He rapidly rose to distinction at the bar. In the 
 spring of 1782, he was elected a member of the State 
 Legislature, and in the autumn of the same year a mem 
 ber of the Executive Council. 
 
 In 1783, he married Miss Ambler ; a happy union, 
 which continued for nearly fifty years. 
 
 The dangers and difficulties of those days drew tal 
 ent of all kinds into one channel ; and lawyers were, 
 almost of necessity, statesmen. Although Marshall 
 devoted time to legal study and to practice, yet the 
 affairs of the confederacy, at this crisis, demanded his 
 enlightened efforts and powerful support. Dangers men 
 aced the infant republic, and Marshall was one of those 
 wise " statesmen who have ears to hear the distant 
 rustling of the wings of Time. Most people only catch 
 sight of Time when it is flying away. When it is over 
 head, it darkens their view." After the adoption of the 
 Constitution of the United States, some of the leading 
 features of which Marshall had eloquently and power 
 fully advocated, he determined to relinquish public life, 
 and to devote himself exclusively to his chosen profes 
 sion. But, having been unanimously elected a represen 
 tative to the State Legislature by the citizens of Richmond, 
 he reluctantly yielded to the earnest wishes of his con- 
 
THE LAWYER. 45 
 
 stituents. For three successive years he continued in 
 the Legislature, and then declined a re-election. But 
 again he was induced, at a trying period in the history 
 of Virginia, to become one of her legislators. 
 
 President Washington requested Marshall to accept 
 the office of Attorney-General of the United States, but 
 he declined it, upon the ground of its interference with his 
 lucrative practice in Virginia. He was also solicited by 
 Washington to accept the place of Minister to France, 
 which he respectfully declined. He afterward accepted 
 the appointment of Envoy to Amsterdam, in conjunction 
 with General Pinckney and Mr. Gerry. Upon him 
 principally devolved the duty of preparing the official 
 dispatches. " They are models of skillful reasoning, 
 forcible illustration, accurate detail, and urbane and dig 
 nified moderation." 
 
 On his return home, Mr. Marshall resumed his pro 
 fessional labors with high hopes, for he had lost few 
 clients during his absence, and new ones were daily 
 added to the list. He peremptorily refused to become a 
 candidate for Congress for a while ; yet, he could not 
 turn a deaf ear to the urgent entreaty of one whose 
 persuasive arguments were seldom resisted. General 
 Washington invited Mr. Marshall to pass a few days at 
 Mount Vernon, whither he went in company with Mr. 
 Justice Washington. 
 
 Washington did not for a moment disguise the object 
 
46 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 of his invitation. It was to urge upon Mr. Marshall and 
 Mr. Washington the propriety of their becoming candi 
 dates for Congress. Mr. Washington yielded to the 
 wishes of his uncle, without a struggle ; but Mr. Mar 
 shall resisted, on the ground of his situation, and the 
 necessity of attending to his private affairs. 
 
 General Washington said, that u there were crises in 
 national affairs which made it the duty of a citizen to 
 forego his private for the public interest. He considered 
 the country to be then in one of these." 
 
 The conversation was long, animated, and impressive, 
 full of the deepest interest, and the most unreserved confi 
 dence. It had its effect. Mr. Marshall became a can 
 didate, and was elected to Congress. Before his election 
 he was offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, 
 by President Adams. This he declined, and Mr. Bush- 
 rod Washington was appointed. In May, 1800, Mr. 
 Marshall was nominated by the President to the office of 
 Secretary of War. In 1801, he became Chief Justice 
 of the United States an office which, by many, is con 
 sidered the highest in our country. 
 
 " The fame of the warrior(9.) is forever embodied in the 
 history of his country, and is colored with the warm 
 lights reflected back by the praise of many a distant age. 
 The orator and the statesman live not merely in the rec- 
 
 (9.) "The greatness of the warrior is poor and low compared with 
 the magnanimity of virtue." 
 
THE LAWYER. 47 
 
 ollections of their powerful eloquence, or the deep im 
 pressions made by them on the character of the genera 
 tion in which they lived, but are brought forth for public 
 approbation in political debates, in splendid volumes, in 
 collegiate declamations, in the works of rhetoricians, in 
 the school-books of boys, and in the elegant extracts of 
 after life." 
 
 " The place of justice," says Lord Bacon, " is a hal 
 lowed place," and he who holds that place and there sus 
 tains the majesty of the law, is to be venerated from age 
 to age. In the character of Chief Justice Marshall, 
 moderation was united with firmness, sagacity with mod 
 esty, learning with experience and solid wisdom. 
 
 " What, indeed, strikes us as most remarkable in his 
 whole character, even more than his splendid talents, is 
 the entire consistency of his public life and principles. 
 There is nothing in either which calls for apology or con 
 cealment. Ambition never seduced him from his princi 
 ples, nor did popular clamor deter him from the strict 
 performance of duty." 
 
 Amid the extravagances of party spirit, he has stood 
 with a calm and steady inflexibility ; neither bending to 
 the pressure of adversity, nor bounding with the elasti 
 city of success. He has lived as such a man should live 
 (and yet how few deserve the commendation), by and 
 with his principles. If we were- tempted to say in one 
 word what it was in which he chiefly excelled other men. 
 
48 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 we should say in wisdom ; in the union of that virtue 
 which has ripened under the hardy discipline of princi 
 ples, with that knowledge which has constantly sifted 
 and refined its old treasures, and as constantly gathered 
 new." 
 
 " Interesting as it is to contemplate such a man in his 
 public character and official functions, there are few 
 great men to whom one is brought near, however dazzling 
 maybe their talents or actions, who are not thereby painful 
 ly diminished in the estimate of those who approach them. 
 The jnist of distance sometimes gives a looming size to 
 their character, but more often conceals its defects. To 
 be amiable as well as great, to be kind, gentle, simple, 
 modest, and social, and at the same time to possess the 
 rarest endowments of mind, and the warmest affections, 
 is a combination devoutly to be wished, but seldom met. 
 Yet Chief Justice Marshall was in the domestic circle 
 exactly what a wife, a child, a brother, and a friend 
 would most desire." 
 
CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 WILLIAM PINCKNEY, 
 
 "II possedait, au plus haut degre, ces facultes brillantes qui president 
 aux arts d'imagination mais qui constituent aussi, ou qui fecondent 1'esprit 
 d'invention, danstous les genres ; cette vivacite, et cette energie de concep 
 tion qui rendent une nouvelle vie aux objets, en les exprimant, et qui les 
 embelliscnt encore, en les faisant revivre. Toutefois et par une rencontre 
 aussi heureuse que rare, il etait egalement doue do ces qualites eminentes, 
 qui ferment les penseurs. Exerce aux meditations profondes il etait capable 
 de suivre avec incroyable perseverance les deductions les plus etendues ; il 
 savant atteindre par un regard penetrant, les distinctions les plus deli- 
 cates, et quelquefois les plus subtiles." De Gerando. 
 
 ONE of the most brilliant luminaries of the law came 
 near hiding his legal talents under a bushel. William 
 Pinckney, of Annapolis, in Maryland, 10 commenced the 
 study of medicine, but happily discovered that he had 
 mistaken his vocation, and turned his attention to the le 
 gal profession. He seems to have lost no time in fitting 
 himself for it, as we learn that, at the age of twenty- 
 two, he was admitted to the bar. 
 
 Let us see with what equipments he was provided for 
 
 10 William Pinckney was born A. j>. 1764. 
 
 5 
 
50 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 the forensic field. He was carefully instructed in clas 
 sical studies by a private teacher, to whom he afterward 
 rendered the warmest tribute of gratitude and aifection. 
 For three years he pursued his legal studies under Mr. 
 Justice Chase, an eminent lawyer of the Maryland bar. 
 During this time he disciplined his mind by the cultiva 
 tion of logic, so that no fallacies could be imposed upon 
 his understanding. He became acute in his perception 
 of truth, and dexterous in the use of arguments for its 
 support. He had perfect command of his native lan 
 guage, and poured it forth in a rich, melodious voice, 
 accompanied by an animated and graceful delivery. To 
 all these he added a person dignified and manly, and a 
 fine, strong physiognomy. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that his first efforts at the bar were hailed as omens of 
 future distinction. 
 
 In 1796, Mr. Pinckney was induced to leave his pro 
 fessional pursuits and accept the appointment of Commis 
 sioner to Great Britain. He went with his family to 
 London, where he resided for eight years. 
 
 In one of his letters written during this absence, he 
 says, " It is my most earnest wish to return home with 
 out loss of time, and to apply in earnest to my profession, 
 for the purpose of securing, while my faculties are unim 
 paired, a competence for my helpless family. A few 
 years of professional labor will bring me into the sere 
 and yellow leaf of life, and if I do not begin speedily, I 
 
THE LAWYER. 51 
 
 shall begin too late. I am used to adverse fortune, and 
 know how to struggle with it ; my consolations cannot 
 easily desert me the consciousness of honorable views, 
 and the cheering hope that Providence will yet enable me 
 to pass my age in peace. It is not of small importance 
 to me that I shall go back to the bar cured of every pro 
 pensity that could divert me from business stronger than 
 when I left it and, I trust, somewhat wiser. In regard 
 to legal knowledge, I have been a regular and industri 
 ous student for the last two years, and I believe myself 
 to be a much better lawyer than when I arrived in Eng 
 land." 
 
 In another letter he makes some remarks on party 
 spirit, which it would be well for every young American* 
 to reflect upon conscientiously. 
 
 " I am prepared," says Mr. Pinckney, " on my re 
 turn, to find the spirit of party as high and phrensied as 
 the most turbulent would have it. I am even prepared 
 to find a brutality in that spirit which in this country 
 (England) either does not exist, or is kept down by the 
 predominance of a better feeling. I lament that this is 
 so ; and I wonder that it is so for the American people 
 are generous and liberal, and enlightened. We are not, 
 I hope, to have this inordinate zeal, this extravagant 
 fanaticism entailed upon us, although really, one might 
 almost suppose it to be a part of our political creed, that 
 internal tranquillity, or rather the absence of domestic 
 
52 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 
 
 discord, and a rancorous contention for power, was in 
 compatible with the health of the state, and the liberty 
 of the citizen. I profess to be temperate in my opinions, 
 and shall put in my claim to freedom of conscience ; but 
 when both sides are intolerant, what hope can I have 
 that this claim will be respected ?" 
 
 Mr. Pinckney returned to the United States in 1804, 
 and " immediately resumed with renewed ardor his pro 
 fessional pursuits. During his long residence in Eng 
 land, he had never laid aside his habits of diligent study, 
 and had availed himself of opportunities for intercourse 
 with the accomplished lawyers of that country. He was 
 in the constant habit of attending the debates in the two 
 houses of Parliament ; a higher standard of literary at 
 tainments than had been thought necessary to embellish 
 and adorn the eloquence of the bar in his own country, 
 was held up to his observation. He employed his leisure 
 hours in endeavoring to supply what he now found to be 
 the defects of his early education, by extending his knowl 
 edge of English and classical literature. He devoted pe 
 culiar attention to the subject of Latin prosody and Eng 
 lish elocution, aiming, above all, to acquire a critical 
 knowledge of his own language its pronunciation its 
 terms and significations its synonymes ; and, in short, 
 its whole structure and vocabulary. By these means, he 
 added to his natural facility and fluency, a copiousness 
 and variety of elegant and appropriate diction, which 
 
THE LAWYER. 53 
 
 graced even his colloquial intercourse, and imparted new 
 strength and beauty to his forensic style." 11 
 
 Mr. Pinckney removed from Annapolis to Baltimore, 
 after his return from England, and in 1805, he was ap 
 pointed to the office of Attorney-General of the State of 
 Maryland. But events of stirring interest to the coun 
 try again called him from his favorite pursuits. He 
 was induced by Mr. Jefferson to accept the appointment 
 of Minister Extraordinay to Great Britain, in conjunc 
 tion with Mr. Monroe, to treat with the British Cabinet, 
 on matters which then agitated the two countries, and 
 which finally resulted in the war of 1812-14. 
 
 With regard to the acceptance of this responsible mis 
 sion, he says in a letter to a friend : " The plain matter 
 of fact is, a great national crisis occurs, which requires, 
 or is supposed to require, an extraordinary foreign mis 
 sion. The President, whom I might be said to know 
 only by character, offers this important charge to me. I 
 give up my profession. I surrender all my hopes of fu 
 ture fortune. I forego a second time, and forever, the 
 
 11 To the young man, it is strongly recommended to keep a Com 
 mon-place Book. If he designs to be a lawyer let one portion of the 
 book be specially devoted to law no matter how much he enriches 
 this department, with extracts and quotations having a direct bearing 
 upon law, but, at the same time, let him cull freely and frequently 
 from the wide fields of general literature. The variety of elegant and 
 appropriate diction, thus copied out by his hand, will give tone and 
 vigor to his own style, without making him an imitator. 
 
 5* 
 
54 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 expectation of placing my numerous and helpless family 
 in a state of independence. I am willing to admit that 
 I may have acted improvidently, but I am quite sure 
 that I have not deviated from that path of honor in which, 
 with an approving conscience, I have walked from my 
 boyish days. My appointment is known to have been as 
 completely unsolicited as ever appointment was from the 
 beginning of the world." 
 
 Mr. Pinckney earnestly endeavored to remove by pacific 
 means the obstacles thrown in the way of a neutral com 
 merce, and strenuously maintained the honor and rights 
 of his country. He met with many and great discourage 
 ments. During all the time of his absence he was anx 
 ious to return to his beloved home, and yet the interests 
 of the country demanded his stay. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Madison, who had succeeded Mr. 
 Jefferson in the Presidency, Mr. Pinckney says, " I pray 
 you most earnestly to recall me immediately, if you find 
 it in any way expedient to do so. Believe me, I shall go 
 back to my profession with a cheerful heart." 
 
 Again he writes to Mr. Madison, " I ask your leave at 
 this time to close my mission here, because I find it im 
 possible to remain. Age is stealing upon me, and I shall 
 soon have lost the power of 'retrieving the time which has 
 been wasted in endeavors to deserve well of my country. 
 Every day will make it more difficult to resume the hab 
 its which I have twice improvidently abandoned. At 
 
THE LAWYER. 55 
 
 present, I feel no want of cheerful resolution to seek 
 them again, as old friends which I ought never to have 
 quitted, and no want of confidence that they will not dis 
 own me." 
 
 Finding that all remonstrance on the part of our 
 government was useless, the President recalled Mr. 
 Pinckney. On the 1st of February, 1811, he had an au 
 dience of leave, at Carlton House, and soon after em 
 barked for home in the frigate Essex, and arrived in 
 June. With his accustomed alacrity and ardor, he im 
 mediately resumed the labors of his profession. 
 
 In the following December, the President offered him 
 the appointment of Attorney- General of the United States, 
 which he accepted ; but finding it inconvenient to reside 
 at the seat of government, he soon resigned the office. 
 
 Mr. Pinckney was actively engaged in the defence of 
 the country, during the war. He commanded a volunteer 
 corps, with which he marched to Bladensburg, at the 
 time of the attack on the city of Washington by the 
 British, under General Ross. He conducted with great 
 gallantry in the action at Bladensburg, and was severely 
 wounded. After the peace, he resigned his command. 
 
 Mr. Pinckney was soon after sent as a Representative 
 to Congress, from the city of Baltimore. It would seem 
 that, however strong might have been his desire to pur 
 sue his profession, the calls of his country were too urgent 
 to be resisted. 
 
56 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 The biographer mentions that Mr. Pinckney frequently 
 came in conflict -with the great abilities of Samuel Dex 
 ter, whom he pronounces one of the ablest men this 
 country has produced. He adds, " The manner in 
 which Samuel Dexter combined the various talents and 
 attainments of the common lawyer, the civilian, and the 
 statesman, may be appealed to as a striking example of 
 those expansive views, and liberal studies, which distin 
 guished the more eminent advocates at the American 
 bar." 
 
 Samuel Dexter was the son of an eminent merchant of 
 Boston, of the same name. The Dexter Professorship of 
 Sacred Literature, at Harvard University, was founded 
 by the elder Dexter, who was one of the distinguished 
 patriots of the Revolution. 
 
 " The son was graduated at that University, in 1781. 
 After being admitted to the bar, he rose rapidly to emi 
 nence in his profession, and in the public councils of his 
 native State." 
 
 He was elected first as a Representative, and then as a 
 Senator to Congress, where he took a high standing as 
 an eloquent and able debater. During the administration 
 of the first President Adams, he was appointed Secretary 
 of War, and of the Treasury. 
 
 " The features of the intellectual character of Mr. 
 Dexter presented a strong contrast with those of Mr. 
 Pinckney. He had cultivated his powers by silent medi- 
 
THE LAWYER. 57 
 
 tation and reflection, rather than by the study of books. 
 Without being at all deficient in mere technical learning, 
 he relied mainly upon his own distinguished faculties ; 
 and, in his legal investigations, sought for those original 
 principles which lie at the foundation of every civilized 
 code. His forensic style was marked by a strong meta 
 physical logic, combined with great purity and simplicity 
 of diction ; and he unfolded the most perplexed and in 
 tricate questions of public and private law with a power 
 of analysis which seemed almost intuitive." 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
 
 ENERGY AND PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 WILLIAM PINCKNEY. 
 
 " Energy is Haifa man's capacity." President Dwight. 
 
 ONE of the most remarkable features in the character 
 of Pinckney, was his indomitable perseverance. Not 
 withstanding the frequent diversion of his splendid 
 talents into other channels, he returned to the law with 
 fresh ardor and zeal. " His brilliant success at the bar 
 was as much the effect of extraordinary diligence and 
 labor, as of his genius and rare endowments of mind. 
 His continued application to study, writing, and public 
 speaking, a physical constitution as powerful as his intel 
 lectual, enabled him to keep up with a singular perse 
 verance. He was never satisfied with investigating his 
 causes, and took infinite pains in exploring their facts 
 and circumstances, and all the technical learning con 
 nected with them. He constantly continued the practice 
 of private declamation as a useful exercise ; and was in 
 the habit of premeditating his pleadings at the bar, and 
 
THE LAWYER. 59 
 
 his other public speeches, not only as to the general order 
 or method to be observed in treating his subject, the 
 authorities to be relied upon, and the leading topics of 
 illustration, but frequently as to the principal passages 
 and rhetorical embellishments. These last he sometimes 
 wrote out beforehand, not that he was deficient in facility 
 or fluency, but in order to preserve the command of a 
 correct and elegant diction. All those who have heard 
 him address a jury, or a deliberative assembly, know that 
 he was a consummate master of the arts of extemporane 
 ous debating ; but he believed, with the most celebrated 
 and successful orators of antiquity, that the habit of 
 written composition is necessary to acquire and preserve 
 a style at once correct and graceful in public speaking 
 without this aid it is apt to degenerate into colloquial 
 negligence, and to become enfeebled by tedious verbosity. 
 His law papers were drawn up with great care, and his 
 written opinions were elaborately composed, both as to 
 matter and style." 
 
 Mr. Pinckney engaged in the performance of his profes 
 sional duties with unusual zeal, always regarding his own 
 reputation as at stake, as well as the rights and interests 
 of his clients, sensibly alive to everything which might 
 affect either. He spoke with great ardor and vehemence. 
 It must be evident that the most robust constitution 
 would not be sufficient to sustain such intense and unin- 
 termitted labor, where every exertion was a contest for 
 
60 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 victory, and each new success a fresh stimulus to ambi 
 tion. He therefore found it necessary to vary his occu 
 pations, and to retire altogether from the bar for a season. 
 He accepted the appointment of Minister Plenipoten 
 tiary to the Court of Russia, and of Special Minister to 
 that of Naples. 
 
 Mr. Pinckney said to one of his friends, " There are 
 those who wonder that I will go abroad, however honora 
 ble the service. They know not how I toil at the bar ; 
 they know not all the anxious days and sleepless nights ; 
 I must breathe awhile ; the bow forever bent will break. 
 Besides, I want to see Italy the orators of Britain I 
 have heard but I want to visit that classic land, the 
 study of whose poetry and eloquence is the charm of my 
 life. I shall set my foot on its shores with feelings 
 that I cannot describe, and return with new enthusiasm, 
 I hope new advantages, to the habits of public speaking." 
 
 Mr. Pinckney sailed for Naples in the Washington, 
 commanded by Commodore Chauncey, and landed on the 
 classic shores of Italy on the 26th of July, 1816. He 
 immediately applied himself to the business of his mis 
 sion. Some obstacles in the way of his Russian mission 
 presented themselves, but they were removed, and he 
 went to St. Petersburg, where he remained for nearly 
 two years. 
 
 A gentleman who became acquainted with Mr. Pinckney 
 at St. Petersburg, in a letter to a friend at home, among 
 
THE LAWYER. 61 
 
 other things, mentions that " his (Mr. Pinckney's) great 
 forte was his thorough and exact acquaintance with the 
 English language, with its best models of diction, with 
 its significations, its grammar, and its pronunciation. 
 Upon this he prided himself exceedingly, and well he 
 might, for you know the singular art and skill with which 
 he displayed his mastery over his own language ; his 
 power of using it with astonishing force, elegance, and 
 accuracy, in the simplest conversation, upon common 
 topics, in his legal arguments, which were to instruct and 
 influence the finest minds in the country, and in the 
 debates of the Senate, which were to aflect permanently 
 and vitally the destinies of the nation." 
 
 After about two years' residence abroad, Mr. Pinckney 
 asked to be recalled ; and, soon after his return home, he 
 was elected to the Senate of the United States. This 
 was in 1820. 
 
 He continued his professional labors with the same in 
 tense application and ardent desire of success which had 
 marked his whole career. But his busy life was hurrying 
 to a conclusion. He died at Washington, on the 25th of 
 February, 1822. 
 
 The character of Pinckney, as delineated by Wheaton, 
 is one which every aspirant for legal distinction should 
 carefully study. 
 
 To extraordinary natural endowments, Mr. Pinckney 
 added deep and various knowledge in his profession. 
 6 
 
62 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 A long course of study and practice had familiarized his 
 mind with the science of jurisprudence. He had felt 
 himself originally attracted to it by invincible inclina 
 tion j it was his principal pursuit in life, and he 
 never entirely lost sight of it in his occasional deviations 
 into other pursuits and employments. He was devoted 
 to the law with a true enthusiasm ; and his other studies 
 and pursuits, so far as they had a serious object, were 
 valued chiefly as they might minister to this idol of his 
 affections. He said, " the bar is not the place to acquire 
 or preserve a false or fraudulent reputation for talents ;" 
 and, on that theatre, he felt conscious of possessing those 
 powers which would command success. 
 
 When actively engaged in the practice of his profes 
 sion, he toiled with almost unparalleled industry. All 
 other pursuits, the pleasures of society, and even the 
 repose which nature demands, were sacrificed to this en 
 grossing object. His character, in this respect, affords 
 a bright example for the younger members of the profes 
 sion. His entire devotion to his professional pursuits 
 was continued with unremitting perseverance to the end 
 of his career. He continued to exert all his faculties, as 
 if his entire reputation were staked on each particular 
 display. 
 
 JVb abilities, however splendid, can command success 
 at the bar, without intense labor and persevering appli 
 cation. 
 
THE LAWYER. 63 
 
 Mr. Pinckney enjoyed the reputation of having been 
 rarely equaled, and, perhaps, never excelled in the 
 power of reasoning upon legal subjects. His mind was 
 acute and subtle, and, at the same time, comprehensive 
 in its grasp, rapid and clear in its conceptions, and sin 
 gularly felicitous in the exposition of the truths it was 
 employed in investigating. 
 
 His style does not appear to have been originally 
 modeled after any particular standard, or imitated from 
 the example of any particular writer or speaker. It was 
 formed from his peculiar manner of investigating and 
 illustrating the subjects with which he had to deal ; and 
 was impressed with the stamp of his vigorous and com 
 prehensive intellect. It displayed, occasionally, the 
 copiousness, fore?, and idiomatic grace, and the boldness 
 and richness of metaphor which distinguished the old 
 writers of English prose. But in all its essential quali 
 ties, Mr. Pinckney's style was completely formed long 
 before he had the advantage of studying any of these 
 models of eloquence. 
 
 Whoever has listened to him on a dry and complica 
 ted question of mere technical law, when there seemed 
 to be nothing on which the mind delighted to fasten, 
 must recollect what a charm he diffused over the most in 
 tricate and arid discussions by the clearness and purity of 
 his language, and the calm flow of his graceful elocution. 
 
 His favorite mode of reasoning was from the analogies 
 
64 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 of the law ; and whilst he delighted his auditory by his 
 powers of amplification and illustration, he instructed 
 them by tracing up the technical rules and positive insti 
 tutions of jurisprudence to their original principles and 
 historical source. 
 
 Of the extent and solidity of his legal attainments, it 
 would be difficult to speak in adequate terms, without 
 the appearance of exaggeration. He was profoundly 
 versed in the ancient learning of the common law, its 
 technical peculiarities and feudal origin. He was famil 
 iar with every branch of commercial law, and extensively 
 acquainted with the principles of international law. 
 
 His favorite law-book was the Coke Littleton, which 
 he had read many times. Its principal texts he had 
 treasured up in his memory, and his arguments at the bar 
 abounded with perpetual recurrences to the principles 
 and analogies drawn from this rich mine of common-law 
 learning. 
 
 He was not what is commonly called a learned man, but 
 he excelled in those branches of human knowledge which 
 he had cultivated as auxiliary to his principal pursuit. 
 It has been already mentioned that he was a thorough 
 master of the English language its whole structure and 
 vocabulary. He used to relate to his young friends an 
 anecdote, which explains one of the motives which in 
 duced him at a mature age, and after he had risen to em 
 inence, to review and extend his classical studies, and at 
 
THE LAWYER. 65 
 
 the same time illustrates one of the most remarkable 
 traits of his character that resolution and firmness of 
 purpose with which he devoted himself to the acquisition 
 of any branch of knowledge he deemed it desirable to 
 possess. During his residence in England, some ques 
 tion of classical literature was discussed at table in a 
 social party where he was present, and the guests in turn 
 gave their opinions upon it. Mr. Pinckney being silent 
 for some time, an appeal was at length made to him for 
 his opinion, when he had the mortification to be compelled 
 to acknowledge that he was unacquainted with the sub 
 ject. In consequence of this incident, he was induced to 
 resume his classical studies, and actually put himself un 
 der the care of a master for the purpose of reviewing 
 and extending his acquaintance with ancient literature. 
 
 During the whole course of his active and busy life, 
 Mr. Pinckney pursued his professional studies, and those 
 which related to the English language, with the strictest 
 method and perseverance. In other respects he seems 
 to have read in the most desultory manner possible, to 
 gratify his curiosity and to keep pace with the current 
 literature of the day. His tenacious memory enabled 
 him to retain the stores of miscellaneous knowledge he 
 had thus acquired, and his mind was enriched with liter 
 ary and historical anecdote. 
 
 His profession was the engrossing pursuit of his life, 
 and beyond that his talents shone most conspicuously in 
 6* 
 
66 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 those senatorial discussions which fall within the province 
 of the constitutional lawyer. 
 
 When some members of the Senate were accused of 
 ambitious motives, Mr. Pinckney said, " For myself I 
 can truly say, that I am wholly destitute of what is com 
 monly called Ambition. It is said that Ambition is the 
 disease of noble minds. If it be so, mine must be a vul 
 gar one, for I have nothing to desire in this world but 
 professional fame, health and competence for those who 
 are dear to me, a long list of friends among the virtuous 
 and the good, and honor and prosperity for my country." 
 
 From a letter written from St. Petersburg by some 
 person well acquainted with Mr. Pinckney, we learn 
 that " his neatness and attention to the fashionable cos 
 tume of the day were carried to an extreme, which ex- 
 jjbsed him, while at home, to the charge of foppery and 
 affectation. But it should be remembered how large a 
 portion of his life he had spent abroad, and in the high 
 est circles of European society. Though he undoubt 
 edly piqued himself upon being a finished and elegant 
 gentleman, yet his manners and habits of dress were ac 
 quired in Europe, and so far from being remarkable 
 there, they were in exact accordance with the common 
 and established usages of men of his rank and station."* 
 
 * From a lawyer's common -place book, " Cleanliness is to be cul 
 tivated. 1st. It is a mark of politeness. 2d. It produces love. It 
 bears an analogy to purity of mind/' 
 
THE LAWYER. 67 
 
 The lawyer's dress and address are his first letters of 
 introduction. He makes his own way afterward. 
 
 It is said of Sir Matthew Hale, that in his youth " he 
 loved fine clothes," but that he passed from the " ex 
 treme of vanity in his apparel, to that of neglecting him 
 self too much," and was, in consequence of his shabby 
 appearance, once taken up by a press-gang, for the King's 
 service ; " for he was a strong and well-built man, but 
 some that knew him, coming by and giving notice who 
 he was, the press-men let him go. This made him re 
 turn to more decency in his clothes." 
 
 The editor of the Life of Sir Matthew, in connection 
 with this anecdote, quotes from an old English writer as 
 follows : 
 
 " Let thy apparel be decent, and suited to the quality 
 of thy place and purse ; too much punctualitie and too 
 much morositie are the two poles of pride." 
 

 CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT'S CHILDHOOD. 
 
 " For the strocture that we raise, 
 Time is with materials filled ; 
 Our to-days and yesterdays, 
 
 Are the blocks with which we build." Longfellow. 
 
 FOR the encouragement of young men laboring under 
 serious disadvantages, an example will now be given of 
 one who, in the words of his eloquent biographer,* 
 " springing from an humble origin, was enabled to attain 
 to high distinction among his countrymen." 
 
 William Wirt was born in the year 1772. His father 
 kept a tavern in Bladensburg, Maryland. William was 
 the youngest of six children, and was early left an or 
 phan, his father dying before he was two years old, and 
 his mother before he had reached his eighth year. 
 
 William was a lively, shrewd, pleasant-tempered, and 
 beautiful boy, upon whom many eyes were turned in 
 kindly regard. 
 
 * Hon. John P. Kennedy, from whose " Life of Wirt" we have, with 
 his permission, made copious extracts. 
 

 THE LAWYER. 69 
 
 And well it was for the orphan boy that he won this 
 kindly regard. 
 
 In a charming autobiography, written for his own 
 family, William Wirt has given an amusing and exceed 
 ingly interesting account of his early life. 
 
 He says, " In 1779, I was sent to Georgetown, eight 
 miles from Bladensburg, to school. I was placed at 
 boarding with the family of Mr. Schoolfield, a Quaker. 
 They occupied a small house of hewn logs at the eastern 
 end of Bridge street. Friend Schoolfield was a well-set, 
 square-built, honest-faced, and honest-hearted Quaker ; 
 his wife one of the best of creation. A deep sadness fell 
 upon me when I was left by the person who accompanied 
 me to Georgetown. When I could no longer see a face 
 that I knew, nor an object that was not strange, I re 
 member the sense of total desertion and forlornness that 
 seized upon my heart. Unlike anything I have felt in 
 after years, I sobbed, as if my heart would break, for 
 hours together, and was utterly inconsolable, notwith 
 standing the maternal tenderness with which good Mrs. 
 Schoolfield tried to comfort me. Almost half a century 
 has rolled over the incident, yet full well do I recollect 
 with what gentle affection and touching sympathy she 
 urged every topic that was calculated to console a child of 
 my years. After quieting me in some measure by her 
 caresses, she took down her Bible and read to me the 
 story of Joseph and his brethren. It is probable I had 
 
70 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 read it before, as such things are usually read, without 
 understanding it ; but she made me comprehend it, and 
 in the distresses of Joseph and his father, I forgot my 
 own. His separation from his family had brought him 
 to great honor, and possibly mine, I thought, might be 
 equally fortunate. I claim some sense of gratitude. / 
 never forgot an act of kindness, and never received one 
 that my heart has not impelled me to wish for some oc 
 casion to return it. So far as my experience goes, I am 
 persuaded, too, that doing an act of kindness, and still 
 more, repeated acts to the same individual, are as apt to 
 attach the heart of the benefactor to the object, as that 
 of the beneficiary to the person who does him the service. 
 It was so in this instance. I went to see Mrs. School- 
 field after I became a man, and a warmer meeting has 
 seldom taken place between mother and son." 
 
 Here, then, is the secret of the " kindly regard," the 
 affectionate, grateful disposition of the youthful Wirt. 
 
 The romance of his character is exhibited, most amus 
 ingly, in the following account of his first love. The boy 
 must have been at the time eight years old. He tells 
 the story as follows : 
 
 " From Georgetown I was transferred to a classical 
 school about forty miles from Bladensburg. I was board 
 ed with a widow lady by the name of Love, and my resi 
 dence in her family forms one of the few sunny spots in 
 the retrospect of my childhood. There were two boys of 
 
THE LAWYER. VI 
 
 us near the same age ; Johnson Carnes was rather older 
 and larger than I was. He was a good, diffident, rather 
 grave boy, with better common sense than I had : but he 
 did not sing, was rather homely, and had no mirth and 
 frolic in him ; I, on the contrary, was pert, lively, and 
 saucy and they used to say pretty withal I said smart 
 things sometimes, and sang two or three songs of humor 
 rery well." 
 
 " To crown all, I had a sweetheart, one of the prettiest 
 cherubs that ever was born. Mr. Thomas Reeder lived 
 on the banks of the Potomac. The house was of brick, 
 situated on a high, airy bank, giting a beautiful view 
 of the river, which is there four miles wide. Peggy 
 Reeder was the only child of her parents, about my 
 own age, rather younger, and as beautiful as it 
 is possible for a child to be. We fell most exceed 
 ingly in love with each other. She was accustomed to 
 make long visits to her Aunt Love ; and no two lovers, 
 however romantic, were ever more happy than we. On 
 my part, it was a serious passion. No lover was ever 
 more disconsolate in the absence of his mistress, nor more 
 enraptured at meeting her. I do not know whether it is 
 held that the affections keep pace with the intellect in 
 their development, but I do know that there is nothing in 
 the sentiment of happy love which I did not experience 
 for that girl, in the course of the two years when I re 
 sided as Mrs. Love's. When I left there we were firmly 
 
72 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 engaged to be married at the following Easter. I felt 
 proud and happy, not in the least doubting the fulfillment 
 of the engagement at the time appointed. 
 
 u As for school, Mr. Dent was a most excellent man, 
 a sincere and pious Christian, and, I presume, a good 
 teacher. In the two years, Johnson Carnes and myself 
 got as far advanced as Caesar's Commentaries, though 
 we could not have been well grounded, for when I chang 
 ed to another school, I was put back to Cornelius Nepos. 
 Mr. Dent was very good-tempered. I do not remember 
 to have received from him a harsh word, or any kind of 
 punishment, but once." 
 
 The imaginative character of William Wirt's mind 
 was early developed. He says, " I became sensible of 
 the power of forming and pursuing, at pleasure, a day 
 dream, from which I derived great enjoyment, and to 
 which I found myself often recurring. There was 
 nothing in the scenery around me to awaken such vagaries. 
 It was tame, gentle, and peaceful ; there was neither in 
 centive nor fuel for poetic dreams. Mine were the 
 amusements of the dull morning walks from Mrs. Love's 
 to the school-house. It was a walk of about two miles, 
 and my companion was rather disposed to silence. I 
 remember very distinctly the subject of one of these 
 vagaries, from the circumstance of my having recalled, 
 renewed, and varied it again and again, from the pleasure 
 it afforded me. I imagined myself the owner of a 
 
THE LAWYER. 73 
 
 beautiful black horse, fleet as the winds. My pleasure 
 consisted in imagining the admiration of the immense 
 throngs on the race-field, brought there chiefly to witness 
 the exploits of my prodigy of a horse. I could see them 
 following and admiring him as he walked along by the 
 course, and could hear their bursts of applause as he shot 
 by, first one competitor and then another, in the race. 
 The vision was vivid as life ; and I felt all the glow of 
 triumph that a real victory could have given." 
 
 Desire of distinction! How it already throbbed at 
 the heart of the school-boy ! 
 
 The next change in the early life of William Wirt 
 was to the school of the Rev. James Hunt, the Presby 
 terian minister in Montgomery county. There he board 
 ed in the family of Major Magruder, a planter. The 
 original name was MacGregor. 
 
 " The Major showed marks of Highland extraction. 
 He was large, robust, and somewhat corpulent, with a 
 round, florid face, short, curling, sandy hair, and blue-gray 
 eyes. He was strong of limb, fiery in temperament, hos 
 pitable, warm-hearted, and rough. He was a magistrate, 
 and ex officio a conservator of the peace, which, how 
 ever, he was as ready, on provocation, to break as to 
 preserve. At times, he was kind and playful with the 
 boys ; but woe betide the unfortunate boy or man who 
 became the object of his displeasure. Mrs. Magruder's 
 contrast with her husband was striking. She was quiet, 
 I 
 
SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 and generally silent. I do not remember having heard 
 her speak a dozen times in the two years that I lived in 
 the family. But the Major's voice I remember, as the 
 loud north wind that used to rock the house and sweep 
 the snow-covered field. They had a large family, seven 
 sons and four daughters. The grown sons were numerous, 
 and loud enough to keep the house alive, being some 
 what of the Osbaldistone order, except that there was not 
 a Rashleigh among them ; nor was there a Di Vernon 
 among the girls." 
 
 " Major Magruder's household embraced not less than 
 twenty white persons. To these there was a constant 
 addition, by visitors to the young people of the family. 
 It was, in fact, an active, bustling, merry, noisy family, 
 always in motion, and often in commotion. To me it 
 was painfully contrasted with the small, quiet, affection 
 ate establishment of Mrs. Love. There I had been the 
 petted child, and supreme object of attention. Here I 
 was lost in the multitude, unnoticed, unthought of, and 
 left to make my way, and take care of myself, as well as 
 I could. My hair, which, under the discipline of Mrs. 
 Love's daughters, was as clean and soft as silk, now lost 
 its beauty. I had been spoiled by indulgence, and was 
 really unfit to take care of myself. I did not know how 
 to go about it. Young as I was, I had reflection enough 
 to compare the two scenes in which I had lived, to feel 
 my present desolation, and to sigh over the past. The 
 
THE LAWYER. Y5 
 
 tune of Roslin Castle never recurred to my memory 
 without filling my eyes with tears." 
 
 " There was another circumstance which embittered 
 my residence at Major Magruder's. One of my com 
 panions was ill-tempered, and I became the peculiar 
 object of his tyranny. There was that in my situation 
 which would have disarmed a generous temper. I was a 
 small, feebly-grown, delicate boy, an orphan, and a poor 
 one, too, but these circumstances seemed rather to invite 
 than to allay the hostility of this fierce young man. 
 During the two years that it was my misfortune to be in 
 the house with him, and his school-fellow, I suffered a 
 wanton barbarity, that so degraded and cowed my spirit, 
 that I wonder I have ever recovered it." 
 
 This was the part of Wirt's life-apprenticeship 
 which was to try his mettle. Here he undoubtedly lost 
 the "pert" and "saucy" ways of which he accuses 
 himself. Let us see how he sought to relieve himself 
 from his persecutor. 
 
 " The rest of the family were content to let me alone, 
 and I became, at length, well content to be so. I can 
 recall here the first experience I had of the refuge and 
 comfort of solitude. 13 Often have I gone to bed long 
 before I was sleepy, and long before any other member 
 of the household, that I might enjoy, in silence and 
 
 12 " Solitude is the nurse of genius." 
 

 *76 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 to myself, the hopes which my imagination never failed 
 to set before me. These imaginings rest on my memory 
 with the distinctness of yesterday. I looked forward to 
 the time when I should be a young man, and should 
 have my own office^ of two rooms, my own servant, 
 and the means of receiving and entertaining my friends 
 with elegant liberality, my horse, and fine equipments, a 
 rich wardrobe, and these all recommended by such man 
 ners and accomplishments as should again restore me 
 to such favor and affectionate intercourse as I had known 
 at Mrs. Love's. I never dreamt of any other revenge 
 on my tormenting school-fellow, than to eclipse him, arid 
 make him sue for my friendship.'' 
 
 These extracts from the autobiography, which, by 
 the way, was only given by Mr. Wirt till his eleventh 
 year, " sufficiently indicate the temperament of the boy, 
 and give us no slight glimpses of the future aspirations 
 of the man. They show how true an eye and how true 
 a heart he had for the kindly influences that fell in the 
 way of his youthful experience." 
 
 " The ingenuous and quick-sighted boy" was, doubt 
 less, shy and diffident, and the trials of his desolate con 
 dition as an orphan, must have been greatly enhanced by 
 his extreme sensitiveness. But where the boy felt entire 
 confidence, he could be gay and light-hearted. Fortu 
 nately, the aunt with whom he lived, while quite young, 
 won that confidence, and before her, he exhibited traits of 
 
THE LAWYER. 77 
 
 character not observed by others, particularly the alterna 
 tion from " grave to gay," from " thoughtfulness to light- 
 hearted ease." When his uncle was debating with her 
 the question of his education, she remarked, a When I 
 look at that dear child, he scarcely seems one of us, and 
 I weep when I think of him." 
 
 " Such an expression," says Mr. Kennedy, " would 
 seem to indicate some early presage of that superiority 
 which his riper years developed." 
 
 William Wirt remained until he was fifteen years of 
 age at the school of Mr. Hunt. Here, he laid the firm 
 foundation for his future intellectual career. " He ac 
 quired some insight into astronomy, some taste for phys 
 ics, some relish for classical study, but above all, some 
 sharpness of appetite for the amusements afforded by the 
 { run of the library .' 
 
 " That library cheated him out of many a worse rec 
 reation, and whilst it captivated his boyish imagination 
 with its world of treasures, it served also to implant in 
 his mind that love of various lore, which seeks its enjoy 
 ment among the flowers that enamel the broad fields of 
 literature." 
 
 A taste for reading formed thus early, is indeed one 
 of the most effectual preventives of vice. The gratifi 
 cation of that taste is, moreover, taking the whole course 
 of a long life into view, one of the highest enjoyments that 
 man can have upon this earth. 
 7* 
 
78 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 " Many men who have won distinction by their intel 
 lectual accomplishments, have been able to trace their 
 first impulses toward an honorable renown, to the oppor 
 tunities afforded by a miscellaneous library, and to the 
 tastes which it has enabled them to improve." 
 
 u There seems to have been in the case of William 
 Wirt, quite a sufficient concentration of methodized 
 study, in the pursuit of his own laborious profession, to 
 justify and commend the habit of light and excursive 
 reading in all other departments of science or literature. 
 It may be said to have been Mr. Wirt's characteristic 
 quality of mind, to perceive and keenly to relish the 
 riches of that upper world of thought humane letters. 
 These, comprehending in their scope nearly everything 
 that is graceful in aesthetics, everything that is beautiful 
 in art, glowing in poetry, and eloquent in thought, pre 
 sent to the student a field of various observation, which 
 can only be cultivated and enjoyed by the most appa 
 rently desultory study." 
 
 The lawyer who is thus prepared has a wide field for 
 illustration, of immense advantage, when he comes to ad 
 dress a jury. 
 
 Wirt tried his pen first upon poetry. 
 
 " He read how Pope 13 had first tempted his muse 
 at twelve years of age. He himself was now thirteen ; 
 why shouldn't he versify?" 
 
 13 " I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 
 
THE LAWYER. 79 
 
 Sure enough, why should not so imaginative a mind 
 produce genuine poetry ? 
 
 " He tried his hand at it, and failed. He accordingly 
 resolved that nature had not made him a versifier. There 
 was, however, the world of prose open to him, and forth 
 with he set out upon that quest." 
 
 This resolve was a fortunate one, for he might other 
 wise have made only a second-rate poet, instead of a 
 first-rate lawyer. At this very time, William Wirt was 
 acquiring a taste for the profession in which he after 
 ward became so distinguished. 
 
 u Mr. Hunt was in the habit of taking his pupils to the 
 Montgomery court, in term time, to give them some insight 
 to those mysteries which may be said to be, in this coun 
 try, the ladder to preferment. The court-house was 
 some four miles from the school. The whole troop, 
 headed by the Domine, went on foot, and with due so 
 lemnity entered the rustic hall of justice, and took their 
 seats in the unoccupied jury-box. Amongst the pleaders, 
 one of the youngest was William H. Dorsey, well known 
 to the school and neighborhood. He became their favor 
 ite, and in their eyes a hero. Boys have a great instinct 
 for hero-worship ; and worship with them is imitation." 
 
 " Why should we not have a little court of our own ?" 
 said the schoolboys. " Agreed." 
 
 Mr. Hunt's school-room forthwith became the court 
 room, and here the youthful Wirt first displayed the 
 
80 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 germs of that forensic eloquence which, in after years, 
 charmed both judge and jury. He also drew up the con 
 stitution for the youthful moot court and a prefatory let 
 ter of apology. 
 
CHAPTER NINTH. 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT'S BOYHOOD. 
 
 "Build to-day, then, strong and sure, 
 
 With a firm and ample base ; 
 And ascending and secure, 
 
 Shall to-morrow find its place," Longfellow. 
 
 WHEN William Wirt was fourteen years old, he left 
 school. His small patrimony was expended, and at this 
 early age he was to be thrown upon his own resources 
 for support. But his amiable deportment and his talents 
 had won for him powerful friends. 
 
 " Mr. Peter A. Carnes was an early patron and most 
 useful friend to the lad. This gentleman belonged to 
 the bar of Maryland. He had the best opportunities to 
 observe the character of the young and sprightly boy, 
 whose qualities were so well adapted to captivate his re 
 gard. This acquaintance ripened into a strong and last 
 ing attachment, which was subsequently manifested in 
 the most substantial proofs of friendship to his family." 
 
 Mr. Carnes afterward married Elizabeth, the eldest 
 sister of William Wirt, and being thus connected, the 
 interest in his protege increased, and he was able to ren 
 der him essential service. 
 
82 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 " Besides Mr. Carries, there was another who now 
 took an interest in the success of the youthful scholar, 
 and whose connection with him had the most happy influ 
 ence in shaping his career to that eminence which he af 
 terward achieved." 
 
 Ninian Edwards, afterward Governor of Illinois, was 
 the classmate of Wirt at Mr. Hunt's school. When 
 young Edwards went home, after the breaking up of that 
 school, he carried with him the constitution of the moot 
 court which Wirt had drawn up, and the prefatory re 
 port. The father, Benjamin Edwards, it seems, was 
 so much struck with the talent displayed in them, that 
 he soon after wrote to Wirt, inviting him to come into 
 his family as a tutor to his son Ninian and two of his 
 nephews, who were preparing for college. 
 
 Mr. Edwards assured the young tutor that his library 
 should be at his service, and this would be a great advan 
 tage in prosecuting his studies. Soon, " the pupil, now 
 converted into a teacher, was most comfortably estab 
 lished at Mount Pleasant as this seat was appropriate 
 ly called ' .1 the bosom of a hospitable, cultivated, and 
 estimable family." 
 
 Who will presume to say that merit does not meet 
 with reward ? Here was a lad of only fifteen, promoted 
 above his school-fellows, and making his way in the world. 
 His first step is taken upon the ladder of eminence. He 
 was now brought under genial influences. Mr. Edwards 
 
THE LAWYER. 83 
 
 was well versed in general literature, his mind was 
 strong, direct, and trained to reflection ; his demeanor 
 challenged respect and esteem by its dignity ; his char 
 acter, public and private, was distinguished for lofty pat 
 riotism and inflexible virtue. His manners were affable, 
 and particularly agreeable to the young." 
 
 " To the last day of his life, Wirt could not speak of 
 Benjamin Edwards but with a grateful affection, which 
 seemed to be even more than filial." 
 
 When Wirt had conquered the obstacles of poverty, 
 and, as Mr. Kennedy forcibly remarks, had hewn his 
 way to a brilliant reputation, he wrote to his benefactor 
 as follows : u You have taught me to love you like a 
 parent. Well indeed may I do so, since to you, to the 
 influence of your conversation, your precepts and your 
 example in the most critical and decisive period of my 
 life, I owe whatever of useful or good there may be in 
 the bias of my mind or character. Continue, then, I im 
 plore you, to think of me as a son, and teach your chil 
 dren to regard me as a brother : they shall find me one 
 indeed, if the wonder-working dispensations of Provi 
 dence should ever place them in want of a brother's arm, 
 or mind, or bosom." 
 
 The young tutor's destination was the bar, but after 
 all, there were many drawbacks tp his success. He was 
 shy and timid. ^ His enunciation was thick and indistinct, 
 marked by a nervous rapidity of utterance. " Round, 
 
84 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 *'"* 
 
 clear, and dauntless speech," may well be considered the 
 lawyer's first, second, and third recommendation to the 
 public. 
 
 Mr. Edwards encouraged his young friend to overcome 
 these obstacles. He told him how many distinguished 
 men had either broken down, or feared a break- down, at 
 their first trial as public speakers. 
 
 " Dorsey," said he, " whom you so much admire, and 
 Pinckney , whom you will admire still more when you shall 
 have seen him, are making their way to distinction under 
 as great disadvantages as any you have to encounter." 
 
 Wirt passed twenty happy and useful months under 
 the roof of Mr. Edwards. He devoted his leisure to 
 classical study and preparation for his chosen profession. 
 At the expiration of this period his health failed, and by 
 the advice of friends he was induced to make a journey 
 to Georgia on horseback, There he passed the winter 
 with his friend and brother-in-law, Mr. Carnes, and his 
 sister. 
 
 " The traveler set out alone. He was in his seven 
 teenth year. The way was long, and a great deal of it 
 lay through a dreary wilderness of pine-forest and sand. 
 It was no light enterprise in that day, but we may well 
 imagine that to the cheerful boy, so full of pleasant fan 
 cies and rosy hopes, the wayside brought no weariness. 
 In the first outlook of a youth of seventeen upon the 
 world, mounted upon a steed, with a purse sufficiently 
 
THE LAWYER. 85 
 
 stored to bring him to his journey's end, with all his 
 worldly goods packed on a pad behind his saddle, with a 
 gay heart in his bosom, and a sunshiny face beneath his 
 beaver, what is there on the globe to make him sad ?" 
 If our young adventurer had kept a journal of this 
 expedition, it would, doubtless, have demonstrated the 
 content and joy with which he pursued his lonely journey. 
 His health and vigor were restored, and in the spring he 
 returned to Maryland. 
 
CHAPTER TENTH. 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT ADMITTED TO THE BAR. 
 
 "Thus, ia the destitution of the wild desert, does our young Ishmae] acquire for him 
 self the highest of all possessions, that of Self-help." Carlyle. 
 
 AT the early age of seventeen, Wirt commenced the 
 study of the law, with William P. Hunt, the son of his 
 former preceptor. This was a year of vast consequence 
 to his future progress, for he seems to have been already 
 at the very gate of the Temple of Themis. Maryland, 
 however, was not to be the theatre where the most con 
 spicuous acts in the life- drama of William were to be 
 performed. 
 
 " While with Mr. Hunt," writes Wirt, " a friend in 
 formed me of a very advantageous station for a lawyer 
 in the State of Virginia. Everybody urged me to seize 
 it. I removed my residence immediately to Virginia, 
 and after residing about five months with a Mr. Swann, 
 an acquaintance and school-mate of Tom Carnes, and a 
 young fellow of distinguished legal abilities, I applied 
 to the judges for a license, and obtained the signature of 
 three of their honors." 
 
THE LAWYER. 87 
 
 " This is the introduction of William Wirt to Virgin 
 ia, a State with whose fame he grew to be almost in 
 separably identified, and toward which he never ceased 
 to look with the affection of a child to a parent. 
 
 " The court in which he was admitted to practice was 
 that of Culpepper county, and his residence was at the 
 court-house village." 
 
 The " equipment" of William Wirt, for the learned 
 profession into which he had now entered, would seem 
 as insufficient for a modern practitioner as would the bow 
 and arrow of the savage for the United States soldier. 
 He has told the story himself, that his whole magazine 
 of . intellectual artillery at this period, comprised no other 
 munitions than a copy of Blackstone, two volumes of 
 Don Quixote, and a volume of Tristram Shandy. 
 
 And how was he, thus equipped and with so little 
 drilling, to meet the contest with well-trained, disciplined 
 antagonists ? It will be remembered that Wirt was con 
 stitutionally diffident, and that he had not yet overcome 
 the hurried speech and " thick tongue" which annoyed 
 him at school. Judge, then, young man, what must 
 have been William Wirt's emotions when called u for 
 the first time to discourse the most difficult and perplex 
 ing of all human lore in the presence of the frowning 
 and solemn majesty of the bench," or those twelve men 
 who represent " the country." 
 
 " The young votary, who, for the first time, stands in 
 
88 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 this presence, surrounded by its usual and characteristic 
 auditory ; when he sees the compact pavement of heads, 
 with their multitudinous eyes concentred upon one focus, 
 and that focus himself, all eager to hear every word," 
 what but " nightmare" can give an idea of the " op 
 pressed brain and bewildered sight" of the shy and un- 
 practiced youth, under these trying circumstances ?" 
 
 " One such scene I have witnessed," says Mr. Ken 
 nedy, " and I remember the agony with which the con 
 fused novitiate arose a second time having been but a 
 moment before compelled to take his seat, in the hope to 
 collect his routed thoughts. His second essay was not 
 more fortunate than the first. He stood silent for a 
 brief space, and at the end was able to say, ( Gentle 
 men, I declare to Heaven, that if I had an enemy, upon 
 whose head I would invoke the most cruel torture, I could 
 wish him no other fate than to stand where I stand now.' 
 Curiously enough, the sympathy which the appeal 
 brought him, seemed almost instantly to give him strength. 
 A short pause was followed by another effort, which was 
 completely, and even triumphantly, successful." 
 
 William Wirt's first appearance at the bar has been 
 described in a memoir written by his friend, Mr. Cruse. 
 
 " With these advantages," a rich and melodious voice 
 when undisturbed by timidity, a pleasing person and pre 
 possessing manners, a and defects" an indistinct enun 
 ciation, and extreme bashfulness, " he was to begin the 
 
THE LAWYER. 89 
 
 competitions of the bar in a part of the country where he 
 was quite unknown, where much talent had preoccupied 
 the ground. There is no part of the world where, more 
 than in Virginia, these embarrassments would be lessened 
 to a new adventurer, as there is nowhere a more courteous 
 race of gentlemen. There was, however, another embar 
 rassment our lawyer had no cause. But he encountered 
 a young friend much in the same circumstances, who 
 had a single case, which he proposed so share with 
 Wirt, as the means of making a joint debut. With this 
 small stock in trade, they went to attend the first County 
 Court." 
 
 Their case was one of joint assault and battery. The 
 motion was opened " by Wirt's friend, with all the alarm 
 of a first essay. The bench was then, in Virginia County 
 Courts, composed of the ordinary justices of the peace ; 
 and the elder members of the bar, by a usage, the more 
 necessary from the constitution of the tribunal, fre 
 quently interposed as amid curia, or informers of the 
 conscience of the court. It appears that on the case 
 being opened, one of these customary advisers interposed. 
 The ire of our beginner (Wirt) was kindled by this re 
 ception of his friend, and by this voluntary interference 
 with their motion ; and when he came to reply, he forgot 
 the natural alarms of the occasion, and maintained his 
 point with recollection and firmness. This awakened 
 the generosity of an elder member of the bar, a person 
 
90 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 of consideration in the neighborhood, and a good lawyer. 
 He stepped in as an auxiliary, remarking that he also 
 was amicus curia, and in this capacity would state his 
 conviction of the propriety of the motion, and that the 
 court was not at liberty to disregard it ; adding, that its 
 having come from a new quarter, gave it but a stronger 
 claim on the candor and urbanity of a Virginian bar. The 
 two friends carried their point in triumph." 
 
 Not the most sanguine friend of Wirt had prophesied 
 so successful a termination to his first effort. 
 
 The ordeal was past, the ice was broken, and the 
 new barrister felt that he might thenceforth walk into 
 the courts unquestioned. 
 
 There had been a want of system in Wirt's course of 
 preparation, which must have increased his natural diffi 
 dence of himself. He must, too, have been conscious of 
 ignorance on many points connected with his profession ; 
 and his extreme youth was not calculated to inspire his 
 clients with unlimited confidence. Yet, in spite of this 
 formidable array of unpropitious circumstances, " his 
 practice at the bar of Culpepper increased, and during 
 the two years which he remained in that part of the 
 country, he secured the esteem and regard of influential 
 friends." 
 
CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT ; S LEGAL PROGRESS. 
 
 " Shall he who soars, inspired by loftier views, 
 Life's little cares and little pains refuse ?" 
 
 " Let your heart be tender, but your breast strong, and struggle and hope at the same 
 time." Jean Paul. 
 
 IN the neighborhood of Charlotteville, at Pen Park, 
 resided Doctor George Gilmer. This place was in the 
 immediate neighborhood of Mr. Jefferson, and within a 
 day's ride of Mr. Monroe and Mr. Madison. The 
 delightful residence of Dr. Gilmer afforded, among other 
 great attractions, the best society of the time choice 
 books were found in the library, instructive and agreeable 
 conversation enlivened the fireside. But the richly-gift 
 ed daughter of Dr. Gilmer was the crowning attraction 
 of Pen Park. Mildred Gilmer was " intellectual, kind, 
 cheerful, and noted for her good sense. The imagina 
 tive and susceptible young barrister found a fairy -land 
 in this romantic spot, and a spell in the eye and tongue 
 of the maiden, which charmed too wisely to be broken. 
 The father's regard for him opened the way to a closer 
 alliance, and it was not long before he took his place in 
 the family as a cherished son-in-law." 
 
92 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 Wirt was now in his twenty-fifth year. His practice at 
 the bar was increasing, and his reputation widely extend 
 ing. The stores of English literature Hooker, Boyle, 
 Locke, Barrow, South, Bacon, and Milton now delighted 
 and enriched his mind. 
 
 Mr. Cruse, who knew William Wirt well at that 
 time, says, " He was highly engaging and prepossessing. 
 His figure was strikingly elegant and commanding, with 
 a face of the first order of masculine beauty, animated, 
 and expressing high intellect. His manners took the 
 tone of his heart ; they were frank, open, and cordial, 
 and his conversation, to which his reading and early pur 
 suits had given a classic tinge, was very polished, gay, 
 and witty. Altogether he was a most fascinating com 
 panion, and to those of his own age, irresistibly and uni 
 versally winning." 
 
 The temptations which surrounded Wirt at this time 
 were fearful. " An unbounded hospitality, amongst the 
 gentlemen of the country, opened every door to the indul 
 gence of convivial habits." 
 
 It is deeply to be lamented that these temptations 
 were sometimes too strong for the virtue of William 
 Wirt, and that he yielded occasionally in such a way as 
 to occasion deep anxiety to his friends, and future re 
 morse to himself. Willingly would we have drawn a 
 thick veil over the faults that thus dimmed the bril 
 liancy of the young barrister's character, but truth 
 
THE LAWYER. 93 
 
 obliges the biographer to confess that there were some 
 aberrations from the path of virtuous sobriety, which 
 William Wirt deeply, sadly regretted in after years. 
 
CHAPTER TWELFTH. 
 
 A PROPHECY. 
 
 " Once, as he (Sir Matihew Hale) was buying some cloth for a new suit, the draper, 
 with whom he differed about the price, told him he should have it for nothing, if he 
 would promise him a hundred pounds when he came to be Lord Chief Justice of Eng 
 land. To which he answered, that ' he could not, with a good conscience, wear any 
 man's cloth unless he paid for it.' So he satisfied the draper, and carried away the 
 cloth. Yet the draper lived to see him advanced to that same dignity." Bishop Burnet. 
 
 ONE of those fortunate prophecies, which surprise by 
 their realization, is mentioned in connection with this pe 
 riod of Wirt's life, as an incident worth relating. 
 
 James Barbour, Dabney Carr, and Wirt were on 
 their customary journey to Fluvanna, the adjoining coun 
 ty to Albermarle, to attend the court there, " the State 
 of Flu," as that county was called in their jocular terms. 
 Wirt was noted for making clever speeches, as they rode 
 together. Sometimes he rode ahead of his companions, 
 and, waiting for them by the road-side, welcomed them, 
 in an oration of mock gravity, to the confines of i ' the 
 State of Flu," representing himself to be one of its 
 dignitaries, sent there to receive the distinguished persons, 
 into whom he had transformed the young attorneys of 
 the circuit. These exhibitions, and others of the same 
 kind, are said to have afforded many a laugh to the actors. 
 
THE LAWYER. 95 
 
 The three friends dined and passed the night at Carr's 
 Brook, in Albemarle. During the visit, Barbour enter 
 tained the company with a discourse upon the merits of 
 himself and his companions, in the course of which he 
 undertook to point out their respective destinations in af 
 ter life. 
 
 " You, Dabney," said he, "have indulged a vision of 
 judicial eminence. You shall be gratified, and shall hold 
 a seat on the bench of the Court of Appeals of Virginia." 
 
 " Your fortune, William," he continued, addressing 
 himself to Wirt, " shall conduct you to the Attorney- 
 Generalship of the United States, where you shall have 
 harder work to do than making bombastic speeches in 
 the woods of Albemarle. As for myself, I shall be con 
 tent to take my seat in the Senate of the United States." 
 
 This jocular prophecy has become notable in conse 
 quence of its exact fulfillment, in respect to each of the 
 parties. 
 
 These were golden days to William Wirt. He went 
 to Albemarle poor, and without powerful friends- He 
 had very little experience in the business of life, and no 
 great store of useful knowledge. Moreover, he had not 
 entered into the lists with powerful adversaries to prove 
 his strength, and was not very sanguine as to his final 
 success. 
 
 Here he found himself surrounded with warm friends 
 capable of appreciating his merits, and able to aid him 
 
96 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 with judicious instruction and wise counsel. But dark 
 clouds came over the cheerful path that Wirt was tread 
 ing with a joyous heart. His father-in-law, Dr. Gilmer, 
 that invaluable instructor, guide, and friend, was re 
 moved by death. In the fifth year of his married life a 
 still heavier blow was inflicted in the loss of his wife. 
 
 This, if not the first, was " the most painful lesson of 
 his life upon the uncertainty of human happiness, and 
 the duty of establishing hopes upon a surer foundation 
 than the treasures of earth." 
 
 Adversity is not unfrequently the most healthful ingre 
 dient in the cup of human experience, and the best tonic 
 to brace the mind for those encounters in which virtue is 
 proved and renown achieved. 
 
 In the early letters of Wirt there are occasional indi 
 cations of that reverence for religious subjects which 
 formed so prominent a characteristic of his later life. 
 No occasion of hilarity, no youthful indiscretion, seems 
 ever to have betrayed him into the profanation of sub 
 jects esteemed sacred, or to the practice of the scoffs and 
 jests which sometimes disgrace thoughtless youth, or 
 unthinking age. 
 
 The death of his wife deepened the religious senti 
 ment, and led him to desire more earnestly the solace of 
 Christian faith, and of that hope which is as " an anchor 
 to the soul, sure and steadfast." 
 
 The delightful residence of Pen Park had become full 
 
THE LAWYER. 97 
 
 of sad associations to the sensitive heart of Wirt ; he 
 left the beloved spot, and established his residence in 
 Richmond. So intense was his melancholy, that for a 
 time he suspended his legal practice. His friends, how 
 ever, persuaded him to resume some occupation of mind, 
 and through their influence he was appointed Clerk of 
 the House of Delegates. This office was one of suffi 
 cient consideration to be regarded by a young man as 
 an advancement in the career of life. It was, besides, 
 not so engrossing but that he might pursue his profes 
 sion whilst he held it. 
 
 This appointment was so far serviceable to him that it 
 brought him into personal acquaintance with some of the 
 most distinguished men of the day. He met with full 
 approbation in his new office, and was re-elected in the 
 two succeeding years. The young clerk became a great 
 favorite with all. 
 
 This portion of his life, Wirt was accustomed to con 
 sider, on a review of it, one of great temptation. He 
 was, however, frequently led to reflect upon the necessity 
 of a steady aim, if he would arrive at eminence in his 
 profession. 
 
 It has already been remarked that the elocution of 
 Wirt in the early period of his professional career was 
 indistinct, and his manner embarrassed. There was hes 
 itation at one moment, the too rapid flow of utterance at 
 another, and frequent stammering. 
 9 
 
98 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 Wirt, in speaking of these difficulties to a friend, said, 
 " My pronunciation and gesture at this time were terri 
 bly vehement. I used, sometimes, to find myself liter 
 ally stopped by too great rapidity of utterance ; and if 
 any poor mortal was ever forced to struggle against a 
 difficulty in that matter, it was I ; but my stammering 
 became at last a martyr to perseverance^ and except 
 when I get some of my youthful fires lighted, I can man 
 age to be pretty intelligible now." 
 
 It will be very encouraging to those who may be 
 troubled with similar difficulties of enunciation to know, 
 that Wirt entirely overcame them by careful attention 
 and judicious practice. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 MODESTY AND EMULATION. 
 
 " There are great men enough to excite us to aim at true greatness." 
 
 AT the close of the third session of the Legislature, for 
 which Mr. Wirt had officiated as clerk, he was chosen, 
 unanimously , one of the Chancellors of the State of 
 Virginia. This was a high honor for a man only twenty- 
 nine years of age, and shows the estimation in which he 
 was already held by his adopted State. 
 
 " It had not entered into his imaginings to expect such 
 a mark of favor from the Legislature. The same diffi 
 dence in himself, which forbade him to solicit such a 
 distinction, now wrought in him some perturbation of 
 spirit in the accepting of it. It is not always the quality 
 of true genius to distrust itself, for there are instances of 
 men of the brightest parts protruding themselves upon 
 the public, with that eager self -commendation which we 
 are accustomed to call vanity in weaker minds ; but this 
 attribute of diffidence is so generally the accompaniment 
 of youthful merit, that we scarcely err when we reckon 
 
100 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 upon it as one of the signs by which we may prophesy 
 future success." 
 
 This modesty is, most assuredly, quite pleasing in a 
 young man, and gains the good-will and the assistance of 
 his elders, who have already won their way to eminence. 
 
 The historian, Prescott, says, " If we are to point out 
 a moral as the key of the fiction of Don Quixote, we may 
 pronounce it to be, the necessity of proportioning our un 
 dertakings to our capacities." Aye, there's the rub ! How 
 is a young man to know his own capacities 7 " Thrust 
 out the invisible fruit-buds of your soul, and as a man, 
 you will profit by the ripened fruit," says Jean Paul. 
 
 When Mr. Wirt went to consult Mr. Monroe about 
 accepting his appointment, and expressed doubts and 
 fears as to his suitableness, either in age or acquirements, 
 for the post, Mr. Monroe replied, " that the Legis 
 lature, he doubted not, knew very well what it was doing, 
 and that it was not probable Mr. Wirt would disappoint 
 either it or the suitors of the court." 
 
 The duties of his new station required that Mr. Wirt 
 should reside in Williamsburg, and it seems he was 
 quite willing to remove to that place. He writes on the 
 occasion to a friend, as follows : 
 
 " I wished to leave Richmond, on many accounts. I 
 dropped into a circle, dear to me for the amiable and 
 brilliant traits which belonged to it, but in which I had 
 
THE LAWYER. 101 
 
 found, that during several months I was dissipating my 
 health, my time, my money, and my reputation. This 
 conviction dwelt so strongly, so incessantly, upon my mind, 
 that all my cheerfulness forsook me, and I awoke many 
 a morning with the feelings of a madman. I had resolved 
 to leave Richmond, and was meditating only a decent 
 pretext to cover my retreat. In this perplexity the ap 
 pointment descended upon me, unsolicited, unthought of, 
 with the benevolent grace of a guardian angel. If I do 
 not fill the office with justice, at least, to my country, it 
 shall not be for want of unremitting effort on my part. 
 " Your friend, 
 
 " WILLIAM WIRT." 
 
 " It was not long after the period to which our narra 
 tive has now arrived, that Elizabeth, the second daughter 
 of Colonel Gamble, of Richmond, became the wife of 
 William Wirt. Of all the fortunate incidents in the life 
 of Wirt," continues his biographer,* "his marriage 
 with this lady may be accounted the most auspicious. 
 During the long term of their wedlock, distinguished for 
 its happy influence on the fortunes of both, her admira 
 ble virtues, in the character of wife and mother, her 
 tender affection and watchful solicitude in everything that 
 interested his domestic regard, and in all that concerned 
 his public repute, commanded from him a devotion which, 
 
 * Hon. John P. Kennedy. 
 
 9* 
 
102 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 to the last moment of his life, glowed with an ardor that 
 almost might be called romantic." 
 
 Mr. Wirt found the Chancellorship an impediment to 
 his progress in legal studies ; besides, the salary was too 
 small for the support of a family. The duties of the 
 office demanded nearly all his time, and his purpose to 
 become eminent in his profession would thus be defeated. 
 Accordingly, six or seven months after his marriage, he 
 relinquished the honor which had been conferred upon 
 him, and devoted himself entirely to the practice of the 
 law. 
 
 Upon this subject he thus writes to his friend, Dabney 
 Carr : 
 
 " This honor of being a Chancellor is a very empty 
 thing, stomachically speaking ; that is, although a man 
 may be full of honor, his stomach may be empty ; or, in 
 other words, honor will not go to market and buy a peck 
 of potatoes. On fifteen hundred dollars a year I can 
 live ; but if death comes, how will my wife and family 
 live ? I would go to the bar and bend all the powers of 
 my soul and body to the profession, for fifteen years. In 
 the course of my business, thus it would be my study so 
 to unite my dignity with my interest as, in my old age, 
 to be able to lead my sons (if I am blessed with sons) 
 upon the theatre of life, so as to pre-engage for them the 
 respect and confidence of the world ; that they might never 
 blush at the mention of their father's name, unless it 
 
THE LAWYER, 103 
 
 were a blush of reflected honor and virtuous emula 
 tion." 
 
 At this time Mr. Wirt thought seriously of a removal 
 to Kentucky. On this topic he again writes to his friend 
 Dabney Carr: 
 
 " The separation from many who are dear to me will be 
 painful. It is a pain which I seem to have been destined 
 to suffer more frequently than almost anybody else equal 
 ly fond of friends. From the time I first left my na 
 tive roof, (at the age of seven,) I lived nowhere, except 
 merely long enough to let my affections take a firm root, 
 when either want or calamity have torn me up, and waft 
 ed me into some strange and distant soil. Eight or ten 
 times I have experienced this fate ; and though a separa 
 tion from those whom I love and who love me, however 
 often repeated, would still be painful, I derive comfort 
 from the thought that I have never yet been thrown upon 
 a soil too cold or barren for friendship and love. 
 
 " You ask, why quit the State which has adopted, which 
 has fostered me, which has raised me to its honors 1 It 
 is the partiality of your friendship which puts this ques 
 tion. I am sure it is very immaterial to Virginia where 
 I reside. 
 
 " For the first time in my life, I look forward with a. 
 thoughtful mind and a heart aching with uncertainty, to 
 the years which lie before me. I cannot abide the re 
 flection that the time shall ever come when my conscience 
 
104 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 shall reproach me with having neglected the interests 
 and happiness of my family ; with having involved, by 
 my want of energy and enterprise, a lovely and innocent 
 wife, with a group of tender and helpless children, in 
 want and misery. 
 
 " But Hope, like an angel of peace, whispers to my heart 
 that this shall not be. She does, indeed, present some 
 most brilliant and ravishing scenes to my waking fancy. 
 Wealth, fame, respect, the love of my fellow- citizens, 
 she designs with the boldness and grandeur of an Angelo ; 
 while, with all the softness and sweetness of a Titian's 
 pencil, she 1 draws my wife and a circle of beauteous 
 cherubs, happy as innocence, and peace, and plenty can 
 make them." 
 
 The project of the emigration to Kentucky was aban 
 doned, and Mr. Wirt determined to take up his abode 
 in Norfolk. 
 
 Again he writes to his friend Carr as follows : 
 " Well, sir, you have heard that I have disrobed my 
 self of the Chancellor's furs, and I feel much the cooler 
 and lighter for it. Not but there was some awkward 
 ness in coming down to conflict with men, to whom, a few 
 days before, my dictum was the law. The pride was a 
 false one, and I revenged myself on it. I feel little tri 
 umph in being thus able to get out of myself, to survey, 
 from an intellectual distance, the workings of my own 
 heart, to discern and to chastise its errors." 
 
THE LAWYER. 105 
 
 The man who can thus make an impartial and candid 
 friend of himself, has gained a- great point in the refor 
 mation and perfection of his own character. 19 . 
 
 19. Phocian the Athenian, a man of great severity, and no ways 
 flexible to the will of the people, one day when he spoke to the peo 
 ple was applauded ; whereupon he turned to one of his friends and 
 said, " What have I done amiss ?" Lord Bacon. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 ADVANCEMENT. 
 
 " Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping." 
 
 MR. WIRT, very soon after his removal to Norfolk, was 
 in a full practice at the bar, and was rapidly rising to emi 
 nence. In a letter to one of his earliest and best friends, 
 William Pope, dated August 6th, 1803, he says : 
 
 " I am already engaged in very productive business in 
 five courts. I am very sanguine that, with the blessing 
 of Providence, I shall be able to retire from business in 
 ten or fifteen years, with such a fortune as will place my 
 family at least above want. 
 
 " And how do you prosper, my good friend ? Does for 
 tune flow in upon you in a golden deluge ? I hope it 
 does. Good men, only, deserve to be rich, because they, 
 only, are disposed to employ their wealth for the good 
 of the world. But things in general take a different 
 turn, and none grow rich but the selfish and the sordid. 
 
 Our friend B , however, is an illustrious exception 
 
 to this remark. A more feeling, a more benevolent, a 
 more philanthropic heart, never palpitated in the bosom 
 of a man." 
 
THE LAWYER. 107 
 
 Within a few weeks after the date of the foregoing 
 letter, the eldest child of Mr. Wirt, Laura Henrietta, 
 was born. 
 
 New and holy resolutions for his future life were now 
 made by the grateful father. He writes to his beloved 
 companion, " I am convinced, thoroughly and perma 
 nently convinced, that the very highest earthly success, 
 the crowning of every wish of the heart, would still leave 
 even the earthly happiness of man incomplete. The soul 
 has more enlarged demands, which nothing but a com 
 munion with Heaven can satisfy. The soul requires a 
 broader and more solemn basis, a stronger anchor, a safer 
 port in which to moor her happiness, than can be found 
 on the surface of this world." 
 
 In another letter to his wife he says, " The man who 
 knows and feels his own foibles, and can draw off from 
 himself so far as to make a proper estimate of his own 
 imperfections, will be hurt by the flattery of others." 
 
 About this time Mr. Wirt wrote the British Spy. The 
 book was published anonymously, and was eagerly read 
 throughout the Union. His popularity was well deserved 
 for as Mr. Kennedy remarks, " It was written in a 
 polished and elegant style, and the distinctive traits 
 of Virginia society, manners, opinions, and popular insti 
 tutions, are glanced at with a happy facility of obser 
 vation." 
 
 Who does not remember with pleasure " The Blind 
 
108 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 Preacher," an extract from the British Spy, as one of 
 the choicest specimens in his reading-book at school ? 
 But this was but an cc aside" in the drama of Wirt's 
 life. He devoted himself with great zeal and applica 
 tion to his professional duties, and made himself a firm 
 standing-place among able competitors for the topmost 
 round of the ladder of forensic eminence. 
 
 " Forensic life," says Mr. Kennedy, " is, in great 
 part, life in the noon-day, in presence of sharpsight- 
 ed observers, and not the most indulgent of critics. 
 It has always two sides, whereof one is sentinel upon 
 the other ; and a blunder, a slip, or a slovenly neglect of 
 the matter in hand, never escapes without its proper 
 comment. The public opinion of the merits of a lawyer 
 is but the winnowed and sifted judgment of the bar, and 
 is, therefore, made up after severe ordeal, and upon 
 standard proof." 
 
 Mr. Wirt had not been long in Norfolk before he 
 wrote "to a friend,-" Here I am abreast with the van of 
 the profession in this quarter, with the brightest hopes 
 and prospects puffed by the newspapers as an orator, 
 to which I have no pretensions, and honored and applaud 
 ed far beyond my deserts. I have formed, in my imagi 
 nation, a model of professional greatness which I am far,, 
 very far below, but to which I will never cease to aspire. 
 It is to this model that I compare myself, whenever the 
 world applauds, and the comparison humbles me to the 
 
THE LAWYER. 109 
 
 dust. But I must not despair, since it is only by 
 aiming at perfection that a man can attain his highest 
 practicable point." 1 
 
 The correct principles of Wirt revolted against the 
 position in which he found himself, when his talents had 
 made him extensively known as one of the most eloquent 
 advocates in the State. 
 
 He writes to Mrs. Wirt : " I look to you as a refuge 
 from care and toil. It is this anticipation only which 
 enables me to sustain the pressure of employments so un 
 congenial to my spirits this indiscriminate defence of 
 right and wrong this zealous advocation of causes at 
 which my soul revolts. But the time will come when I 
 hope it will be unnecessary." 
 
 " He began to long," says Mr. Kennedy, " for the 
 privilege of an extensive devotion of his time to that 
 higher range of practice which gives occasion for the em 
 ployment of the subtlest powers of intellect, in the study 
 and development of the great principles of right." 16 
 
 *5 " Law was designed to keep a State in peace ; 
 To punish robbery, that wrong might cease ; 
 To be impregnable, a constant fort, 
 To which the weak and injured might resort." Orabbe. 
 
 16 \Ve are not sent into this world to do anything into which 
 we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, 
 and that must be done strenuously ; other work to do for our delight, 
 and that is to be done heartily ; neither is to be done by halves or 
 shifts, but with a will ; and what is not worth this effort, is not to be 
 done at all." Ruskin. 
 
 10 
 
110 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 In this sphere of forensic life, as distinguished from 
 that which is properly assigned to the advocate, is only 
 to be achieved that best renown which has followed the 
 names of the greatest lawyers. 17 
 
 The aspirations after a noble name to leave as a rich 
 inheritance, which were frequently expressed by Wirt, 
 will, no doubt, find a ready response in the heart of many 
 a young man, who is now pressing onward in life's 
 career. 
 
 " The idea has always been very dismal to me," says 
 Wirt, " of dropping into the grave, like a stone into the 
 water, and letting the waves of Time close over me, so 
 as to leave no trace of the spot on which I fall. For 
 this reason, at a very early period of my youth, I resolv 
 ed to profit by the words of Sallust, who advises that if 
 a man wishes his memory to live forever on the earth, 
 he must either write something worthy of being always 
 read, or do something worthy of being written and immor 
 talized by history. Perhaps it is no small degree of 
 vanity to think myself capable of either ; but I have 
 always been taught to consider the passion for fame as 
 not only innocent, but laudable, and even noble. I mean 
 that kind of fame which follows virtuous and useful 
 actions." 
 
 l? " The lawyer must be able to reason from the noblest princi 
 ples of human duty, and must comprehend, at a glance, the mighty 
 maze of human relations." Everett. 
 
THE LAWYER. Ill 
 
 Mr. Wirt occasionally expresses regret that his own 
 education had not been more systematic, and his reading 
 less desultory. He mentions one of his cotemporaries, 
 " whose voice had all the softness and melody of the harp, 
 whose mind was at once an orchard and a flower-garden, 
 loaded with the best fruits, and smiling in all the many- 
 colored bloom of spring, whose delivery, action, style, 
 and manner, were perfectly Ciceronian." 
 
 These very attractive qualities Mr. Wirt contrasts 
 with the sterner ones of Marshall's character. 
 
 "Here is John Marshall, whose mind seems to be 
 little else than a mountain of barren and stupendous 
 rocks, an inexhaustible quarry, from which he draws his 
 materials, and builds his fabrics, rude and Gothic, but of 
 such strength that neither time nor force can beat them 
 down ; a fellow who would not turn off a single step from 
 the right line of his argument, though a Paradise 
 should rise to tempt him ; yet who, all dry and rigid as 
 he is, has acquired all the fame, wealth, and honor that 
 a man need desire. There is no theorizing against facts ; 
 Marshall's certainly is the true road to solid and lasting 
 reputation in courts of law. The habits of his mind are 
 directly those which an accurate and familiar acquaint 
 ance with the mathematics generates." 
 
 Mr. Wirt very modestly adds, " I feel so sensibly 
 my own deficiencies in this mathematical study, that, if 
 Heaven spares my son, and enables me to educate him, I 
 
112 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 will qualify him to be a professor in it, before lie shall 
 know what poetry and rhetoric are. If he turns out to 
 have fancy and imagination, he will then be in less 
 danger of being run away with and unhorsed by them. 
 If he be for the bar, I shall never cease to inculcate 
 Marshall's method, being perfectly persuaded that for 
 courts, especially superior and appellative courts (where 
 there are no juries), this is the only true method." 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 WILLIAM WIB/TS ADVICE TO A YOtTNG- LAWYER. 
 
 "To work insatiably, requires much leas mind, than to work judiciously." 
 
 IN 1806, Mr. Wirt removed to Richmond. The fol 
 lowing excellent advice forms a part of a letter written 
 about this period to a young lawyer, in whom Mr. Wirt 
 felt great interest. 
 
 " Endeavor to cultivate that superior grace of manners 
 which distinguishes the gentleman from the crowd around 
 him. In your conversation avoid a rapid and indistinct 
 utterance, and speak deliberately and articulately. 
 
 Blend with the natural hilarity of your temper, that 
 dignity of sentiment and demeanor, which alone can pre 
 vent the wit and humorist from sinking into a trifler, 
 and can give him an effective attitude in society. 
 
 Get a habit, a passion , for reading not flying from 
 book to book with the squeamish caprice of a literary 
 epicure, but read systematically, closely, and thought 
 fully, analyzing every subject as you go along, and lay 
 ing it up safely and carefully in your memory. 
 
 Determine with yourself that no application shall be 
 10* 
 
114 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 wanting to lift you to the heights of public notice ; and 
 if you find your spirits beginning to flag, think of being 
 buried all your life in obscurity, confounded with the 
 gross and ignorant herd around you. But there are 
 yet more animating and more noble motives for this em 
 ulation : the power of doing more extensive good the 
 pure delight of hearing one's self blessed for benevolent 
 and virtuous actions, and as a still more unequivocal and 
 rapturous proof of gratitude, c reading that blessing in 
 a nation's eyes ;' add to this, the communicating the ben 
 eficial effects of this fame to our friends and relations ; 
 the having it in our power to requite past favors, and to 
 take humble and indigent genius by the hand, and lead 
 it forward to the notice of the world. These are a few, 
 and but a few, of the good effects of improving one's 
 talents to the highest point, by careful and constant study, 
 and aspiring to distinction." 
 
 On reviewing his past life, at this period, Mr. Wirt 
 seems to have been forcibly struck with the warning 
 and encouragement which it presented to young men. 
 
 " I have, indeed," says he, " great cause of grati 
 tude to Heaven. In reviewing the short 
 course of my life, I can see where I made plunges from 
 which nothing less than a Divine hand could ever have 
 raised me ; but I have been raised, and I trust that my 
 feet are now upon a rock. Yet, can I never cease to de 
 plore the years of my youth, that I have murdered in 
 
THE LAWYER. 115 
 
 idleness and folly. What a spur should this reflection 
 be to young men !" 
 
 The eloquent author of the Life of William Wirt says : 
 " We have remarked of Wirt, that his life is peculiarly 
 fraught with materials for the edification of youth. Its 
 difficulties and impediments, its temptations and trials, 
 its triumphs over many obstacles, its rewards, both in 
 the self-approving judgment of his own heart, and in the 
 success won by patient labor and well-directed study ; 
 and the final consummation of his hopes, in an old age 
 not less adorned by the applause of good men, than by 
 the serene and cheerful temper inspired by a devout 
 Christian faith ; all these present a type of human 
 progress worthy of the imitation of the young and the 
 gifted." 
 
 But this " progress" is not to be made without con 
 stant effort. Wirt in his figurative style thus describes it : 
 
 " You will find it pretty much of an Alp-climbing busi 
 ness. The points of the rocks to which you cling will 
 often break in your hands, and give you many a fall and 
 many a bruise ; but instead of despairing at the first 
 fall, or the twentieth, remember the prospect from the 
 summit and the rich prizes that await you. Up with a 
 laugh, catch a better hold next time, and try it again." 
 
 " The law is to many, at first, and at last, too, a dry 
 and revolting study. It is hard and laborious ; it is a 
 dark arid intricate labyrinth, through which they grope 
 
116 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 in constant uncertainty and perplexity the most painful 
 of all states of mind. But you cannot imagine that this 
 was the case with Lord Mansfield or with Blackstone, who 
 saw through the whole fabric in full daylight in all its 
 proportions and lustre." 
 
 The pleasure with which Wirt entered into a trial of 
 legal strength, after he had "toiled and moiled" in his 
 profession for many years, is thus expressed : 
 
 " I have some expectation of going to Washington in 
 February to plead a cause. I shall be opposed to the At 
 torney-General, and perhaps to PINCKNEY. 4 The blood 
 more stirs to wake the lion than to hunt the hare.' I 
 should like to meet them." 
 
 To the friend to whom he has so frequently addressed 
 stimulating arguments, Mr. Wirt again writes : 
 
 " You must read, sir ; you must read and meditate like 
 a Conestoga horse no disparagement to the horse by the 
 simile. You must read like Jefferson, and speak like 
 Henry. If you ask me how you are to do this, I cannot 
 tell you, but you are nevertheless to do it." 
 
 " By the way, there is one thing I had like to have for 
 gotten. One of the most dignified traits in the character 
 of (Patrick) Henry, is the noble decorum with which he 
 debated, and the uniform and marked respect with which 
 he treated his adversaries. I am a little afraid of you in 
 this particular, for you are a wit and a satirist. Take 
 care of this propensity. It will make you enemies, pull 
 
THE LAWYER. 117 
 
 a bee-hive on your head, and cover your forensic path 
 with stings and venom. Let it be universally agreed 
 that you are the most polite, gentlemanly debater at the 
 bar. That, alone, will give you a distinction, and a noble 
 one too ; besides, it is a striking index and proper con 
 comitant of first-rate talents. 
 
 For two or three years you must read, delve, medi 
 tate, study, and make the whole mine of the law your 
 own. 
 
 Let me use the privilege of my age and experience to 
 give you a few hints, which, now that you are beginning 
 the practice, you may find not useless. 
 
 1. Adopt a system of life, as to business and exercise ; 
 and never deviate from it, except so far as you may be oc 
 casionally forced from it by imperious and uncontrolla 
 ble circumstances. 
 
 2. Live in your office ; that is, be always in it except 
 at the hours of eating and exercise. 
 
 3. Answer all letters as soon as they are received ; 
 you know not how many heart-aches it may save you. 
 Then fold neatly, and file away neatly, alphabetically, 
 and by the year, all the letters so received. Let your 
 letters of business be short, and keep copies of them. 
 
 4. Put every law paper in its place as soon as received, 
 and let no scrap of paper be seen lying for a moment on 
 your writing-chair or tables. 
 
 5. Keep regular accounts of every cent of income and 
 
118 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 expenditure, and file your receipts neatly, alphabetically, 
 and by the month, or, at least, by the year. 
 
 6. Be patient with your foolish clients, and hear all 
 their tedious circumlocution and repetition with calm and 
 kind attention ; cross-examine and sift them until you 
 know all the strength and weakness of their cause, and 
 take notes of it at once, whenever you can do so. 
 
 7. File your bills in Chancery at the moment of 
 ordering the suit, and while your client is still with you 
 to correct your statement of his case ; also, prepare every 
 declaration the moment the suit is ordered, and have it 
 ready to file. 
 
 8. Cultivate a simple style of speaking, so as to be 
 able to inject the strongest thought into the weakest 
 capacity. You will never be a good jury lawyer without 
 this faculty. 
 
 9. Never attempt to be grand and magnificent before 
 common tribunals, and the most you will address are 
 common. 
 
 10. Keep your Latin and Greek, and science, to 
 yourself, and to the very small circle which they may 
 suit. The mean, envious world will never forgive you 
 your knowledge, if you make it too public. It will re 
 quire the most unceasing urbanity and habitual gentle 
 ness of manners, almost to humility, to make your superior 
 attainments tolerable to your associates. 
 
 11. Enter with warmth and kindness into the interesting 
 
THE LAWYER. 119 
 
 concerns of others not with the consciousness of a 
 superior, but with the tenderness and simplicity of an 
 equal. 
 
 12. Be never flurried in speaking, but learn to as 
 sume the exterior of composure and collectedness, what 
 ever riot and confusion may be within; speak slowly, 
 firmly, distinctly, and make your periods by proper 
 pauses, and a steady, significant look. 
 
 You talk of complimenting your adversaries. Take 
 care of your manner of doing this. Let it be humble 
 and sincere, and not as if you thought it was in your 
 power to give them importance by your fiat. These 
 maxims are all sound ; practice them, and I will warrant 
 your SUCCESS." 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. 
 
 WIRT AND PINCKNEY 
 
 THE long-wished-for contest with Pincknej at length 
 took place. He " had broken a lance" with the legal 
 giant, and had not been crushed in the encounter. 
 
 " Pincknej was at this time in the zenith of his fame. 
 He was the chief object of interest in the Supreme Court, 
 and the most prominent subject of popular criticism. No 
 man ever drew forth a larger share of mingled applause 
 and censure.*' 
 
 Nothing could be more diverse than the distinctive 
 characters of the eloquence of Pincknej and of Wirt. 
 On this account, it was difficult for the latter at once to 
 appreciate the talents and skill of the former, which he, 
 subsequentlj, fullj acknowledged. Yet one can perceive, 
 from the following extracts from a letter, written bj Wirt 
 after this first encounter, that he felt the weight and the 
 point of that " lance" which he had so ardently longed 
 to meet. 
 
 " I wish I had been trained to industry and method," 
 says Wirt, " and whipped out of those lazj and saunter- 
 
THE LAWYER. 121 
 
 ing habits which fastened about me early, and have held 
 the 'fee simple of the bark' ever since. Your truly 
 great man does more business, and has more leisure, and 
 more peace of conscience, and more positive happiness, 
 than any forty of your mediocre persons. This is hu 
 miliating to me, and I don't like to think of it, but do you 
 profit by it. 
 
 " I was near him (Pinckney) five or six weeks, and 
 watched him narrowly. He has nothing of the rapid and 
 unerring analysis of Marshall ; but he has, in lieu of it, 
 a dogmatizing absoluteness of manner which passes for an 
 evidence of power with the million, which, by-the-by, in 
 cludes many more than we should at first suspect ; and 
 he has acquired with those around him a sort of papal in 
 fallibility. 
 
 " Socrates confessed that all the knowledge he had 
 been able to acquire seemed only to convince him that he 
 knew nothing. This frankness is one of the most char 
 acteristic traits of a great mind. Pinckney would make 
 you believe that he knows everything. 
 
 " At the bar he is despotic, and cares as little for his 
 colleagues or adversaries as if they were men of wood. 
 He has certainly much the advantage of any of them in 
 forensic show. Give him time and he requires not much 
 and he will deliver a speech which any man might be 
 proud to claim. You will have good materials, very well 
 put together, and clothed in a costume as magnificent as 
 11 
 
122 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 that of Louis XIV. ; but you will have a vast quantity 
 of false fire, besides a vehemence of intonation, for which 
 you see nothing to account in the character of the thought. 
 His arguments, when I heard him, were such as would 
 have occurred to any good mind of the profession." 
 
 Wfrt evidently felt dissatisfied with himself; indeed, 
 he said, after this first rencontre with his formidable an 
 tagonist, " A mean and sneaking figure I made in that 
 cause ; I was never more displeased with any speech I 
 have made since I commenced practice." 
 
 Mr. Wirt had strong predilections for literature, and, 
 from time to time, indulged his taste in writing. The 
 British Spy, the Old Bachelor, and the Life of Patrick 
 Henry, are all well known to the reading public ; but 
 as we are considering him only as the lawyer, it would 
 be irrelevant to mention more particularly his literary 
 success. 
 
 " The following letter from the President," says Mr. 
 Kennedy, a contained a summons which, it is said, and, I 
 believe, truly said, was altogether unexpected, as it was 
 certainly unsought by him to whom it was addressed." 
 
 JAMES MONROE TO WILLIAM WIRT 
 
 ("PaiVATE.) 
 
 " WASHINGTON, October 29th, 1819. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : 
 
 " The vacancy made in the office of Attorney- General 
 of the United States, by the appointment of Mr. Rush 
 
THE LAWYER. 123 
 
 Minister to England, enables me to offer it to your ac 
 ceptance. Highly respecting your talents, and having 
 long entertained a sincere friendship for you, I need not 
 add that it would be very gratifying to me to find that 
 this proposition accorded with your interest and views. 
 Should this be the case, I hope that it will be convenient 
 to you to join us at an early day, as there are many sub 
 jects of great importance requiring early attention. 
 
 * c A visit to Richmond to attend to your engagements 
 there, after the expiration of a few weeks, would not, I 
 presume, interfere with your duties here. 
 
 " I am, dear sir, with sincere regard, 
 
 " Yours, . JAMES MONROE." 
 
 Mr. Wirt accepted this appointment, and continued in 
 the office through the administration of Mr. Monroe and 
 his successor, John Quincy Adams. 
 
 The advice, which Wirt reiterates, from time to time, 
 to the young lawyer in whom he took a paternal interest, 
 .is invaluable to every aspirant after eminence in the pro 
 fession. 
 
 He says, " Don't be in a hurry to distinguish yourself ; 
 and, on the other hand, do not hang back too long. Let 
 the occasion of your first display be good, and your prep 
 aration ripe. 
 
 " On all occasions, private and public, throw the utmost 
 modesty and the most scrupulous delicacy into your man- 
 
124 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 ner, and be more disposed to have your scientific knowledge 
 drawn from you than to volunteer a display of it. 
 
 " Read law like a horse. Pursue it indefatigably, and 
 suffer no butterfly's wings, stones, &c., to draw you aside 
 from it. 
 
 " In your arguments at the bar, let argument strongly 
 predominate. Sacrifice your flowers, and let your col 
 umns be Doric rather than Composite the better me 
 dium is Ionic. 
 
 " Aim at the character of strength, cogency, compre 
 hension, and imitate, of all things, Judge Marshall's and 
 Locke's simple process of reasoning. The world will ever 
 give sanction to this as the truest criterion of mind." 
 
 Mr. Wirt, after having several times encountered him, 
 seems fully to have appreciated his great rival, Pinck- 
 ney. He says in one of his letters to Mrs. Wirt, " Pinck- 
 ney commenced his speech to-day, and spoke throughout 
 it. He is really a fine creature in his profession ; has a 
 fertile and noble mind." 
 
 Again he says : " I expect to go to Baltimore again 
 next month, and to have another grapple with Glendower 
 Pinckney. A debate with Pinckney is exercise and health. 
 I find much pleasure in meeting him. His reputation is 
 so high that there is no disparagement in being foiled by 
 him, and great glory in even dividing the palm." 
 
 He also renders the following tribute to the greatness 
 of Chief Justice Marshall : 
 
THE LAWYER. 125 
 
 " Marshall spoke to the judgment merely, and for the 
 simple purpose of convincing. He was justly pronounced 
 one of the first men of the country, was followed by 
 crowds, looked upon and courted with every evidence of 
 admiration and respect for the great powers of his mind. 
 Marshall's maxim seems always to have been, c aim ex 
 clusively at strength,' and, from his eminent success, I 
 say, if I had my life to go over again, I would practice 
 on his maxim with the most rigorous severity until the 
 character of my mind was established." 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 THE CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 " He sent his hopes on high 
 And reaped the fields of heaven." 
 
 AFTER having filled the office of Attorney-General for 
 twelve years, Mr. Wirt resumed unofficial practice at the 
 bar, and this he continued the remainder of his life. 
 
 In January, 1834, he repaired to Washington to at 
 tend the usual term of the Supreme Court. He was 
 present at the sittings of the court until the 8th of Feb 
 ruary. On Sunday, the 9th, he attended church at the 
 Capitol, and walked the distance of a mile in the cold, 
 damp air. From that time, " Death approached with a 
 steady pace," and, on the morning of the 18th, the la 
 mented Wirt had departed to the "better land." 
 
 The Supreme Court adjourned on hearing the sad 
 news. A meeting of the bar was called, which Daniel 
 Webster addressed as follows : 
 
 " It is announced to us that one of the ablest, one of 
 the most distinguished members of this bar, has departed 
 this mortal life. William Wirt is no more ! He has 
 this day closed a professional career, among the longest 
 
THE LAWYER. 127 
 
 and most brilliant which the distinguished members of the 
 profession in the United States have at any time accom 
 plished. Unsullied in everything which regards profes 
 sional Tionor and integrity, patient of labor, and rich in 
 those stores of learning which are the reward of patient 
 labor, and patient labor only ; and if equaled, yet cer 
 tainly allowed not to be excelled in fervent, animated, and 
 persuasive eloquence, he has left an example, ivhich those 
 who seek to raise themselves to great heights of profes 
 sional eminence will, hereafter, carefully study. Fortu 
 nate, indeed, will be the few who shall imitate it success 
 fully ! 
 
 " As a public man, it is not our peculiar duty to speak 
 of Mr. Wirt here. His character, in that respect, belongs 
 to his country, and to the history of his country. And, sir, 
 if we were to speak of him in his private life and his social 
 relations, all we could possibly say of his urbanity, his 
 kindness, the faithfulness of his friendships, and the 
 warmth of his affections, would hardly seem sufficiently 
 strong and glowing to do him justice in the feeling and 
 judgment of those who, separated now forever from his 
 embraces, can only enshrine his memory in their bleeding 
 hearts. Nor may we, sir, more than allude to that other 
 relation, which belonged to him, and belongs to us all ; 
 that high and paramount relation which connects man 
 with his Maker. It may be permitted us, however, to 
 have the pleasure of recording his name as one who felt 
 
128 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 a deep sense of religious duty, and who placed all his 
 hopes of the future in the truth and in the doctrines of 
 Christianity. 
 
 " But our particular ties to him were the ties of our pro 
 fession. He was our brother, and he was our friend. 
 With talents powerful enough to excite the strength of 
 the strongest, with a kindness both of heart and manner 
 capable of warming and winning the coldest of his breth 
 ren, he has now completed the term of his professional 
 life, and of his earthly existence, in the enjoyment of the 
 high respect and cordial affections of us all." 
 
 The biographer of Wirt thus gives the crowning glory 
 to his character : 
 
 " As life advanced, his convictions of the truth and 
 value of the Christian revelation, and of the duties it im 
 posed upon him, became more earnest and profound. He 
 devoted a portion of his time, every day, to the reading 
 of the Scriptures ; engaged in a comprehensive study of 
 theology ; cultivated habits of prayer and meditation, 
 which he promoted and encouraged throughout his fami 
 ly. In short, the latter years, especially, of Mr. Wirt's 
 life, furnish us the spectacle of a highly-gifted, thought 
 ful, and accomplished mind, stimulated by a fervent and 
 sincere piety, and employed in the promotion of every 
 good work suggested by enlightened benevolence or 
 Christian duty." 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 GENERAL LEARNING-. 
 
 " Perhaps the self-approving, haughty world, 
 Receives advantage from his hours 
 Of which she little dreams." Cowper. 
 
 " Learned, wise, judicious." 
 
 AMONG the many terms which have been bestowed 
 upon the age in which we live, it may not have been 
 called a sympathizing age ; yet such, in truth, it is. 
 Knowledge being universally diffused, the electric chain 
 of sympathy passes from the hard-handed artisan to the 
 chief justice upon the bench. 
 
 A lawyer may no longer confine his studies to the dry, 
 musty tomes of a law-library. He must survey the wide 
 domains of science, in the fruitful gardens of literature 
 he may gather ripe clusters, and in the great human 
 museum he must study and dissect human character. 
 
 It is not enough that he be wise and learned in his 
 own profession, but he must commend himself to the 
 minds of other men, and gain their respect, by show 
 ing that he is not ignorant of what concerns their dearest 
 
130 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 interests. " There are those who look upon this as a diffi 
 cult, if not an absolutely hopeless matter; but herein 
 they greatly mistake. Let an individual come to consider 
 it as a high, moral duty, that he should be always grow 
 ing in knowledge, and let him form a distinct and reso 
 lute purpose, that the stock of his acquisitions shall be 
 continually enlarging, though it be by the smallest de 
 grees, and it will be a matter of surprise, even to himself, 
 how easily, how delightfully, how effectually, this high 
 resolve is carried into execution. With his faculties al 
 ways awake, and the avenues for useful information al 
 ways open, he will discover a thousand opportunities for 
 improvement, which another would allow to escape ; he 
 will not disdain the humblest contribution to his knowl 
 edge from the humblest man in society ; nay, he will 
 take lessons by night and by day, even from the objects 
 of inanimate nature, for here, especially, are open to 
 him some of the sublimest fields of science and philoso 
 phy. His profession may be an active and laborious 
 one, insomuch that he is driven to make his nights short 
 and his days long. 
 
 "Above all, he takes advantage of a systematic arrange 
 ment of his duties , and an economical distribution of his 
 time ; he has his hours for business and his hours for 
 study, and though he is always occupied, he is never in 
 a hurry. It is in vain to say that this representation is 
 merely imaginary, for there are examples, many exam- 
 
THE LAWYER. 131 
 
 pies, both among the dead and the living, to illustrate 
 its practicability."* 
 
 The first example we shall give is that of the late la 
 mented HUGH S. LEGARE. The extraordinary powers and 
 varied attainments of the late Attorney- General were the 
 product of early and incessant culture, and of untiring 
 industry and labor. How else could such rare excellence, 
 in so many different departments of human talent and 
 knowledge, have been acquired ? for he was primus inter 
 pares in all a finished scholar, a consummate orator, a 
 profound lawyer, an able and accomplished statesman. 
 No felicity of genius, however great, no fecundity of na 
 ture, however teeming, could account for such intellectual 
 riches, without the creative energies of constant and un 
 wearied diligence ; for it is a truth, as applicable to the 
 philosophy of mind as to the science of political economy, 
 that labor is the true and only source of either mental or 
 material wealth. No paltry vanity of natural endow 
 ments ever prevented Mr. Legare from bearing earnest 
 and instructive testimony in his discourse, as he exem 
 plified so strikingly in his practice, to the truth and value 
 of this grand arcanum of all sound superiority and suc 
 cess. 
 
 Having enjoyed, in early youth, the advantages of a 
 finished education in the best schools of his own country 
 
 * William B. Sprague, D.D, 
 
132 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 and of Europe, he continued, through all the avocations 
 and active employments of his future life, the same hab 
 its of diligent and enthusiastic study by which he estab 
 lished at first a marked pre-eminence among his school 
 fellows. 
 
 He was smitten with a sympathetic appreciation of the 
 great Roman orator's noble panegyric of letters : Hac 
 studia, etc.') delectant domi, non impediitnt foris, per- 
 noctant nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticantur. 
 
 His books were his inseparable companions, whether 
 at home or abroad. They passed the night with him ; 
 they traveled with him; they accompanied him in his 
 occasional rural retreats. A jealous economist of time, 
 and particularly attentive to husband those fragments of 
 leisure which irregularly intervene in the routine of daily 
 employment, and which, by most persons, are thrown 
 away as useless, he was more fortunate, even, than the 
 ancient philosopher who reproached himself with the loss 
 of one day in the course of a long life. Legare never 
 lost an hour; for, however small the interval of time 
 which fell upon his hands unoccupied by the necessary 
 demands of business, or the cherished society of a chosen 
 circle of friends, it was never wasted. A book, a pen, 
 or a train of thought to be resumed, was always at hand 
 to absorb and employ it usefully, 
 
 As a scholar, he stood wiithout; a rival among the pub 
 lic men of America of his day, and if, even in that class 
 
THE LAWYER. 133 
 
 of learned men who make the cultivation and pursuit of 
 letters the sole business of their lives, he had any supe 
 rior in scholarship, it would be difficult to say who that 
 superior was. His acquaintance with the great writers 
 of antiquity, the master-minds of Greece and Rome, was 
 intimate, thorough, and familiar placing at his ready 
 and perfect command all those exquisite models of taste, 
 eloquence, and power, which lie enshrined in their im 
 mortal works. In the languages and literature of modern 
 Europe he was , perfectly at home. He not only read,' 
 but wrote and spoke the languages of France and Germany 
 with the ease and elegance of a native, and was pro 
 foundly versed in their history and literature. He had 
 explored, with particular industry and success, the rich 
 mines of learning and historical discovery (so to speak), 
 which the acute and recondite researches of modern Ger 
 man writers have opened, and enlarged his own accumu 
 lated stores by the superaddition of the fruits of their 
 valuable labors. With all this affluence of intellectual 
 wealth, he made no ostentatious display of his acquisi 
 tions. They were assimilated into the solid nutriment 
 of his own mind, and their effect was seen, rather in the 
 enlarged scope and vigor of his conceptions, than in any 
 exhibition of mere learning. 
 
 To the question, was he an eminent lawyer, Judge 
 Story, in his beautiful and touching address to the law- 
 school at Harvard, while the funeral bells of Boston were 
 12 
 
134 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 yet tolling the knell of his departed spirit, answered em 
 phatically and unhesitatingly, " No man was more so." 
 And certainly, if a profound acquaintance with the most 
 renowned systems of ancient and modern law, with the 
 common law of England, the civil law of Rome, the 
 codes of France and Germany, added to a familiar 
 knowledge of the laws and constitution of our own coun 
 try, and a thorough indoctrination in the principles of 
 universal jurisprudence, can make an able and accom 
 plished lawyer, Legare was such. 
 
 One of the great secrets of his superiority was, to place 
 ever before him the highest standards of excellence in 
 every department as the beau ideal, at least, which a true 
 and lofty ambition should aim to approximate as near as 
 possible, if not able fully to attain. 
 
 His idea of the nobleness and grandeur of the law, in 
 its true dignity, was that which Bolingbroke has so just 
 ly and eloquently portrayed, and his impersonations of 
 that idea were the Bacons, the Clarendons, the Somers, 
 the Mansfields of England, the Marshalls, the Pinck- 
 neys of America. 18 
 
 18 In his letters on the study of history addressed to Lord Corn- 
 bury, Bolingbroke, after speaking of the profession of the law as 
 " in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, in its abuse 
 and debasement, the most sordid and the most pernicious," makes the 
 following remarks, admirable alike for their eloquence and truth : 
 " There have been laAvyers that were orators, philosophers, historians 
 there have been Bacons and Clarendons, my lord. There will be 
 none such any more, till, in some better age, true ambition, or the love 
 
THE LAWYER. 135 
 
 The narrow and unworthy prejudice against learning, 
 as incompatible with professional eminence, which has 
 been properly rebuked by Judge Story, sometimes ven 
 tured to question the claims of Mr. Legare to the char 
 acter of an able lawyer, on the very ground of his ac 
 knowledged pre-eminence in the attainments of elegant 
 literature. The same Gothic prejudice, we learn from 
 cotemporary memorials, boldly called in question the le 
 gal abilities of Lord Mansfield, and was humorously sat 
 irized at the time, in some lines of Pope, in which the 
 poet represents two heavy sergeants of the temple, c who 
 deemed each other oracles of law,' exulting, with a 
 grave self-complacency, in the fancied profoundness of 
 their own legal attainments, while 
 
 ' Each bliook his head at Murray as a wit.' 
 
 And yet this Murray rapidly rose, through all the grada 
 tions of professional eminence, to the chief justiceship of 
 the King's Bench, in which court he presided with unri- 
 
 of fame, prevails over avarice, and till men find leisure and encour 
 agement to prepare themselves for the exercise of this profession by 
 climbing up to the vantage-ground, so my Lord Bacon calls it, of 
 science ; instead of groveling all their lives below, in a mean, but 
 gainful application to all the little arts of chicane. Till this happen, 
 the profession of the law will scarce deserve to be ranked among the 
 learned professions ; and whenever it happens, one of the vantage- 
 grounds to which men must climb is metaphysical, and the other his 
 torical knowledge." 
 
136 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 valed lustre and ability for thirty- two years, having been 
 thrice offered the great seal of Lord Chancellor ; and 
 such was the almost miraculous infallibility displayed by 
 him as a judge, that out of the numerous decisions ren 
 dered by him during that long period of time, but two 
 or three of his judgments were ever reversed, and about 
 an equal number of instances occurred in which any of 
 his brethren differed in opinion from him. With such an 
 illustrious example before us, we shall be slow to believe 
 that the superior literary accomplishments of Mr. Le- 
 gare were likely to prove a hinderance to him in the path 
 of professional reputation and success, or to prevent him 
 from fulfilling his destiny, in becoming one of the chief - 
 est glories of the American bar."* 
 
 THEOPHILUS PARSONS, late Chief Justice of the Su 
 preme Court of Massachusetts, was termed the giant of 
 the law ; the living oracle of the law ; and yet he found 
 time during all his legal career to attend to literary and 
 scientific pursuits. His classmate and chum, at Harvard 
 University, Judge Tudor, used to say, " Parsons, after 
 the usual college exercises, was in the habit of taking his 
 slate and amusing himself with some deep mathematical 
 calculation, and would vary his recreation by reading 
 some tale or novel, it seeming indifferent to him which of 
 these amusements first fell in his way." Chief Justice 
 
 * Hon. William C. Rives. 
 
THE LAWYER. 137 
 
 Parker remarks, " I have within the last seven years of his 
 life found him indulging the same propensity finding 
 him with his slate and pencil so deeply engaged that I 
 would not disturb him for some minutes after my en 
 trance, and not unfrequently as deeply engaged in some 
 modern novel or other work of fancy." 
 
 While studying law, Parsons kept the grammar-school 
 in Falmouth, now Portland, in Maine, an occupation than 
 which none is more calculated to promote the habit of 
 accurate as well as severe study. The teacher finds that 
 a superficial acquaintance with the knowledge he under 
 takes to impart will not answer his purpose, and is driv 
 en by necessity to the closest attention and investigation 
 of details. At that important period of education, hav 
 ing mastered the usual studies of the college, the mind 
 begins to mature, and the habits of thought and study 
 are first formed which have the most decided influence 
 upon the intellectual character. 
 
 But Parsons had even at an earlier period disciplined 
 his mind by close application. The companions of his 
 childhood testify that even that period of life was marked 
 by mental labor and study, and that the season of the 
 greatest temptation to pleasure, youth, was one of perse 
 vering acquisition. They say that he seemed to possess 
 the wisdom and experience of those who had been men 
 long before him. 
 
 Judge Parker, in an eloquent eulogium upon Chief Jus- 
 12* 
 
138 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 tiee Parsons, said, " Those of us who have seen him lay 
 open his vast stores of knowledge in later life, unaided 
 by recent acquirement, and relying more upon memory 
 than research, can account for his greatness only by sup 
 posing a patience of labor in youth, which almost ex 
 hausted the sources of information, and left him to act, 
 rather than to study, at a period when others are but be 
 ginning to acquire." 
 
 His familiar and critical knowledge of the Greek arid 
 Latin tongues, so well known to the literati of this 
 country, and to some of the most eminent abroad, was 
 the fruit of his early labors, preserved, and perhaps ri 
 pened in maturer years, but gathered in the spring-time 
 of life. His philosophical and mathematical knowledge 
 were of the same early harvest, as were also his logical 
 and metaphysical powers. Had he died at the age of 
 twenty-one, I am persuaded that he would have been 
 held up to youth as an instance of astonishing and suc 
 cessful perseverance in the severest employments of the 
 mind." 
 
 The following anecdote will prove that Mr. Justice 
 Parsons was known as a Greek scholar abroad : 
 
 " Some years since, Mr. Vanderkemp, formerly of 
 Ley den, received a letter from Mr. Luzac, professor of 
 the Greek language, &c., in the University of Leyden, 
 confessedly the first Greek scholar of his day in Europe, 
 in which letter Mr. Luzac inquired of Mr. Vanderkemp, 
 
THE LAWYER. 139 
 
 whether he had made acquaintance with a Mr. Parsons, 
 of Boston, of whom he had heard that he was called, in 
 America, ' the giant of the law.' How well Mr. Par 
 sons might be entitled to this appellation, Mr. Luzac 
 said he could not judge ; but he could of his own knowl 
 edge affirm that he was ' a giant in Greek criticism.' 
 Professor Luzac' s opinion was founded on a correspond 
 ence he held with the Chief Justice, relative to some rare 
 editions of Greek authors which could not be obtained 
 then, either in this country or in England." 
 
 As an instance of the persevering application of Par 
 sons, it is mentioned that he resumed the study of Greek 
 after he was forty years old, when his eldest son was fit 
 ting for college. 
 
 There is in existence a manuscript Greek grammar 
 which he began to write, because there was then no gram 
 mar of that language in English ; but before his gram 
 mar was completed, the Gloucester Greek grammar was 
 published, and he laid it aside. 
 
 The celebrated Dr. Bowditch, in his Practical Navi 
 gator, when on the subject of lunar observations, men 
 tions a method of correcting the apparent distance of the 
 moon from the sun, and says, " It is an improvement on 
 Witchell's method, and was made in consequence of a 
 suggestion from a gentleman eminently distinguished for 
 his mathematical acquirements." Chief Justice Par 
 sons was the gentleman alluded to. Dr. Bowditch also 
 
140 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 received some communications from him on the subject 
 of the comet which at that time made its appearance, 
 which showed ingenuity and scientific learning. 19 His 
 knowledge in astronomy, mechanics, chemistry, and elec 
 tricity was great. 
 
 " Parsons left an immense mass of manuscripts ; but 
 none intended for the press. The greater part were on 
 legal subjects ; almost as many, however, were mathe 
 matical ; and there were some on various topics of relig 
 ion, philosophy, and science. He had been heard to 
 say, that after he had been studying any particular sub 
 ject, he liked to write upon it, for the purpose of giving 
 clearness and precision to his thoughts. 
 
 " He was fond of mechanical employments, and had 
 a large collection of tools, with which he often amused 
 himself, and would leave the gravest study to make a 
 plaything for his boys, or show them how to make one. 
 He entered into all the enjoyments of his children, and 
 increased them by his active sympathy." 
 
 " Neither philosophers nor children could leave his so 
 ciety without being improved or entertained. Amid the 
 multifarious occupations of his mind in business and sci- 
 
 19 " He had in his library books in Hebrew, French, and Italian, 
 which he occasionally read. Besides a very large and valuable libra 
 ry, he had a collection of astronomical and scientific instruments im 
 ported for him by his intimate friend, the late Dr. Prince, of Salem. 
 It was considered the best collection then possessed by any private 
 person, and he made frequent use of it." 
 
THE LAWYER 141 
 
 entific pursuits, he had still found room for all the lighter 
 literature, and was ready for his critique even upon the 
 ephemeral works of fancy and taste." 
 
 " He was accessible, familiar, and communicative, 
 never morose or ill-natured, a patron of literature and 
 literary men, a warm friend to the clergy and to the in 
 stitutions of religion and learning, and a most ardent ad 
 mirer and promoter of merit among the young. 20 
 
 " Parsons could leave the theological controversy, the 
 mathematical problem, or the legal inquiry, and enter at 
 once with spirit and interest into domestic conversation, 
 and even into children's sports." 
 
 Were all these varied acquirements, and this intense 
 sympathy with his fellow-beings, a hinderance to Parsons 
 in his legal career ? Let one of his cotemporaries at the 
 bar answer. 
 
 " Never was fame more early or more just, than that 
 of Parsons as a lawyer. At an age when most of the 
 profession are but beginning to exhibit their talents and 
 to take a fixed rank at the bar, he was confessedly, in 
 
 20 The zealous attention of the Chief Justice to the interests of 
 Harvard University, while he was a member of the corporation, are 
 generally known. He was also one of the supervisory committee of 
 a grammar school in Boston. He generally took the lead in the ex 
 amination, and besides his extraordinary knowledge of Greek and 
 Latin, his presence was useful in other respects. He so interested 
 the boys with anecdotes of the men and the times about which they 
 were reading, as to render their examinations pleasant instead of be 
 ing formidable to them. 
 
142 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 point of profound legal knowledge, among the first of 
 its professors. 
 
 " At that early period of his life, his most formidable 
 rival, and most frequent competitor, was the accom 
 plished lawyer and scholar, the late Judge Lowell, who 
 was considerably his senior, but who entertained the 
 highest respect for the general talents and judicial skill 
 of his able competitor. It was the highest intellectual 
 treat to hear these great men contending for victory in 
 the judicial forum. Lowell, with all the ardor of the 
 most impassioned eloquence, assaulting the hearts of his 
 auditors, and seizing their understandings also, with the 
 most cogent as well as the most plausible arguments ; 
 Parsons, cool, steady, and deliberate, occupying every 
 post which was left uncovered, and throwing in his for 
 ces wherever the zeal of his adversary had left an open 
 ing. Notwithstanding this almost continual forensic war 
 fare, they were warm personal friends, and freely ac 
 knowledged each other's merits. 
 
 " The other eminent men of that day, with whom Par 
 sons was brought to contend, did full justice to his great 
 powers. I have myself heard the late Governor Sulli 
 van declare that he was the greatest lawyer living." 
 
 " That distinguished lawyer and statesman, Rufus 
 King, of New York, having finished his education at our 
 university (Harvard), at an age when he was qualified to 
 choose his own instructor, placed himself under the tui- 
 
THE LAWYER. 143 
 
 tion of Parsons, and probably it was owing in some meas 
 ure to the wise lessons of the master, as well as to the 
 great talents of the scholar, that the latter acquired a 
 celebrity, during the few years he remained at the bar, 
 seldom attained in so short a professional career." 
 
 " Among men eminent themselves, I do not disparage 
 others by placing Parsons at the head," continues his el 
 oquent eulogist : " they were great men, he was a wonder 
 ful man. Like the great moralist of England, he might 
 be surrounded by men of genius, literature, and science, 
 and neither he nor they suffer by a comparison." 
 
 May the life and celebrity of this great man stimu 
 late the young to diligence and perseverance in their 
 studies, so that at some future time one may rise up 
 among them fit to supply his place in public estima 
 tion.* 
 
 Mr. Du Ponceau, long a distinguished member of the 
 Philadelphia bar, was a Frenchman by birth, but afford 
 ing as he does an example of great literary attainments 
 in addition to legal acquirements, a sketch of his life and 
 character will, it is believed, be found both useful and 
 entertaining. 
 
 PETER S. Du PONCEAU was born in 1760, at the little 
 town of St. Martins, in the Isle of Re, on the western coast 
 of France. Before the age of six years he had learned by 
 heart a Latin and French vocabulary, an indication of his 
 
 * Chief Justice Parsons died in 1813, at the age of sixty-three. 
 
144 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 future taste for languages. At the grammar school which 
 he soon after attended, this fondness for languages was 
 still farther developed. He met one day, at a neighbor's 
 house, with an English grammar. What trifles often 
 decide the future destiny ! 
 
 " Childlike," says Du Ponceau, " I was delighted with 
 the letters K and w, which my eyes had not been accus 
 tomed to see. I took the book home, and began to study 
 the English language. My progress was rapid. There 
 were English and Irish families in the town. I had a 
 good ear and flexible organs, soon spoke English, and be 
 came a perfect Jlnglomane. I devoured Milton, Thom 
 son, Young, Pope, Shakspeare. I also wrote English cor 
 rectly. I have English verses (bad enough, to be sure), 
 but which were addressed to me from Rochelle by a young 
 Englishman, when I was but twelve years of age. I 
 learned a great deal of English poetry by heart, much 
 of which I retain to this day." 
 
 In the same manner Du Ponceau acquired the Italian 
 language. His fondness for English studies continued 
 after he entered college ; he was never without an Eng 
 lish classic in his pocket, and received from his compan 
 ions the sobriquet of V Anglais. 
 
 He left college at the early age of fifteen. His father 
 had just deceased, and his mother insisted upon his ta 
 king orders in the Romish Church. He had imbibed the 
 principles of the Reformation, and resisted for a long 
 
THE LAWYER. 145 
 
 time, but was ultimately compelled to submit, a took the 
 tonsure, and became Monsieur VJlbbe." 
 
 The youthful abb6 was sent by the Bishop of Rochelle 
 to a college in Poitou as a regent. There he instructed 
 a class in the Latin language. The other regents, who 
 were older men, became jealous of the boy of fifteen. 
 They excited the pupils to pelt him with apples and to 
 annoy him in every possible way, untrl life became intol 
 erable, and he resolved to quit the place and throw him 
 self upon the wide world. " For the sake of truth," he 
 says, " I must add, that I was also induced to this step 
 by my religious scruples ; and, to be perfectly candid, by a 
 restless disposition, and a spirit of adventure, which made 
 me see everything in bright colors before me." 
 
 On Christmas day, 1775, leaving all his luggage be 
 hind, he sallied forth at daybreak, with the u Paradise 
 Lost" in one pocket and a clean shirt in the other, on 
 his way to the great capital of France. There he ar 
 rived in the beginning of January, 1776, with the firm 
 resolution of depending from that moment on his own ex 
 ertions alone for subsistence, and for whatever fortune 
 might await him. 
 
 " Behold me now in Paris," he exclaims, " at the age 
 of fifteen, with a light heart and still lighter purse. But 
 I was full of hope, I had buoyant spirits, and saw every 
 thing couleur de rose!" 
 
 The father of Du Ponceau was a military man, and 
 13 
 
146 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 two years before this time had solicited the place of Lieu 
 tenant- Governor of Versailles, which office he was on the 
 point of obtaining at the time of his death. 
 
 At Versailles the young Du Ponceau was well received 
 by his father's acquaintances. The Baron de Mont- 
 morency blamed him for leaving the post of instructor, 
 but yet treated him kindly. 
 
 Being disappointed in an application for a clerkship in 
 one of the departments, he left Versailles and returned 
 to Paris. Here he made himself independent for the 
 time, by translating English works and commercial let 
 ters, and by giving lessons in English and French. 
 
 Da Ponceau, in the course of a few months after his 
 return to Paris, became acquainted with Count de Gebe- 
 lin, a celebrated philologer, who offered to take him as 
 his secretary. This offer was gladly accepted, and with 
 him Du Ponceau remained for six or eight months, at 
 which time he left for America. 
 
 The Baron Steuben, who was a,bout to sail for this 
 country, was in want of a secretary who could speak and 
 write the English language; the young Du Ponceau 
 suited him exactly. 
 
 They sailed together from Marseilles, and landed at 
 Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, on the 1st of Decem 
 ber, 1777. 
 
 Baron Steuben and his secretary soon left Portsmouth, 
 and thence went to Boston, where, among other distin- 
 
THE LAWYER. 147 
 
 guished persons, they met John Hancock and Samuel 
 Adams. 
 
 Du Ponceau says he was at that time a stern Republi 
 can, and had been so from the first moment that he be 
 gan to reflect. <c I shall never forget," he says, " the 
 compliment paid me by Samuel Adams, on his discover 
 ing my republican principles." 
 
 " Where," said he to me, "did you learn all that?" 
 
 " In France," replied I. 
 
 " In France ! That is impossible !" Then recover 
 ing himself, he added, " Well, because a man was born 
 in a stable, it is no reason why he should be a horse." 
 " I thought to myself," adds Mr. Du Ponceau, " that in 
 matters of compliment they ordered these things better 
 in France !" 
 
 Baron Steuben proceeded to Yorktown. Congress ap 
 pointed a committee to confer with him on the subject of 
 his pretensions, and were not a little surprised when he 
 informed them, that all his ambition was to serve as a 
 volunteer in their army. All the favor that he asked 
 was, that MM. Depontiere and Du Ponceau should have 
 the rank of captain, which was immediately granted. 
 
 Du Ponceau prided himself upon this honor, and it was 
 as a surviving captain of infantry, of the army of the 
 Revolution, that he received a pension until the day of 
 his death. 
 
 The privations of the army during the winter spent at 
 
148 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 Valley Forge are matters of history. Whilst there, 
 Baron Steuben was appointed a Major-general of the 
 United States army. Du Ponceau was still the secretary 
 of the Baron, and his aid-de-camp. 
 
 At the close of the campaign of 1779, they took up 
 their winter-quarters in Philadelphia. Mr. Du Ponceau 
 was there attacked with symptoms of pulmonary disease, 
 and the physicians pronounced it incurable. 
 
 " I gave up.^Esculapius and his disciples, and deter 
 mined to be my own physician. I strove, above all 
 things, to keep up my spirits. I wrote satirical verses 
 on the consumption, and determined that it should not 
 consume me." 
 
 He rode frequently on horseback, and after a while 
 recovered his health. 
 
 On the 25th of July, 1781, Du Ponceau took the re 
 quisite oaths, and became a citizen, as he expresses it, 
 " of the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania." " Be 
 hold me, then," he adds, " a citizen of the United States, 
 having entered with them into a solemn compact, to which 
 I have faithfully adhered, and which I have never re 
 pented." 
 
 " Mr. Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of the State of 
 New York, having been appointed Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs, Mr. Du Ponceau was strongly recommended to 
 him as an assistant. To this office he was recommended 
 by Governor McKean and Judge Peters." 
 
THE LAWYER. 149 
 
 In Mr. Livingston's office Mr. Du Ponceau continued 
 till the close of the war. He then determined to study 
 law, and for that purpose, entered the office of Mr. Wil 
 liam Lewis, of Philadelphia, whom he regarded as, at the 
 time, the most celebrated lawyer .in that city. 
 
 In 1T85, Mr. Du Ponceau was admitted an attorney 
 of the Court of Common Pleas. In the following year he 
 was admitted to full practice in the Supreme Court of the 
 State. 
 
 " Mr. Du Ponceau was now busily engaged in the active 
 exercise of an honorable, laborious, and lucrative avoca 
 tion ; but, as he himself said, the life of a lawyer, in the 
 full practice of his profession, offers very little but the 
 dull and dismal round of attendance upon courts, hard 
 studies at night, and, in the day, fatiguing exertions, 
 which, however brilliant, are confined to a narrow thea 
 tre, and leave nothing behind but a blaze of reputation 
 and the echo of a name." 
 
 " The reports of the different courts show that he was 
 constantly engaged, often in most important suits ; and 
 on questions of civil and foreign law, his opinion was 
 justly held in the highest estimation. In the intervals 
 of his arduous occupation, he found leisure to translate 
 several valuable foreign works on law, and to write inter 
 esting essays on professional subjects, some of which were 
 published. So high was Mr. Du Ponceau's reputation, 
 at the commencement of the present century, as a learned 
 13* 
 
150 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 jurist, in the Roman and French laws more especially, 
 that the important office of Chief Judge of Louisiana was 
 offered him by President Jefferson, but he declined it." 
 
 In 1827, Mr. Du Ponceau was created Doctor of Laws, 
 and was also elected a corresponding member of the 
 French Institute in the Academy of Inscriptions. 
 
 In 1835, the prize of Linguistique was awarded him 
 for a memoir on the Indian languages of North America. 
 Of the American Philosophical Society, and of the His 
 torical Society of Pennsylvania, he was president at the 
 time of his death. He was also president of the Athe 
 naeum. 
 
 " Science and literature," says Du Ponceau, " are the 
 glory of a state. The noble acqueducts, temples, roads 
 of the Greeks and Romans, have perished, but their lit 
 erary fame will last forever. If England were sunken 
 into the ocean, her fame would be perpetuated by the 
 works of her admirable historians, philosophers, and 
 poets."* 
 
 " The study of different languages," said he, " has led 
 me into a more impartial view of the character of the 
 different nations of the world, of their virtues, and of 
 their foibles. I love the country of my choice, and have 
 no political attachment to any other." 
 
 Such were the sentiments entertained by him from the 
 moment he became a citizen of the country. A more 
 
 * Appendix D. 
 
THE LAWYER. 151 
 
 patriotic, American heart never beat in an American 
 bosom. 
 
 Mr. Du Ponceau died in 1844, in the eighty-fourth 
 year of his age. 
 
 The various societies of which he was an officer de 
 plored the loss they had sustained, as that of one " whose 
 pre-eminent acquirements as a philosopher, and zeal for 
 the promotion of useful knowledge, were equaled only by 
 the integrity of his principles and the practical virtues of 
 his life." The bar of Philadelphia lamented a venerable 
 brother, whose profound learning and varied accomplish 
 ments had, for more than fifty years, distinguished him, 
 and shed lustre on the profession. 
 
CHAPTER NINETEENTH. 
 
 RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES. 
 
 CHIEF JUSTICE TILGHMAN AND CHARLES CHAUN- 
 CEY, ESQ. 
 
 " Cast thine eye apon the sages of the law that have been before thee, and never shalt 
 thon find any one that hath excelled in the knowledge of these laws, but hath drawn 
 from that divine knowledge gravity and integrity." Lord Coke. 
 
 THE trite, hackneyed jokes about the dishonesty of 
 lawyers, as a class, have been again and again refuted 
 by the lives of some of the most eminent men in the pro 
 fession. Many such burning and shining lights might be 
 held up for the guidance and encouragement of the young 
 man who deems the profession one which casts insur 
 mountable obstacles in the paths of integrity and piety. 
 Unless the highest aim of mortal existence, preparation 
 for a future state, were attainable by the lawyer, his 
 success would not^be considered complete. Examples 
 have already been given of men who based their morality 
 upon deeply-fixed religious principles ; we shall add to 
 these but two others, namely, the late Chief Justice 
 Tilghman and the late Charles Chauncey, Esq., both of 
 Philadelphia. 
 
THE LAWYER. 153 
 
 The character of the chief justice was drawn by the 
 Hon. Horace Binney. His moral qualities were of the 
 highest order. It has been said, that the panegyrists of 
 great men can rarely direct the eye with safety to their 
 early years, for fear of lighting upon the traces of some 
 irregular passion. But to Justice Tilghman may with 
 justice be applied the praise of the Chancellor D'Agues- 
 seau, that he was never known to take a step out of the 
 narrow path of wisdom, and that it was sometimes re 
 marked, if he had been young, it was for the purpose, not 
 of palliating a defect, but of doing greater honor to his 
 virtues. Of his early life, few of his cotemporaries re 
 main to speak ; but those few attest what the harmony 
 of his whole character in later years would infer, that his 
 youth gave presage, by its sobriety and exemplary recti 
 tude, of all that we witnessed and admired in the matu 
 rity of his character.* 
 
 It is great praise to say of so excellent a judge, that 
 there was no contrariety between his judgments and his 
 life ; that there was a perfect consent between his public 
 and his private manners ; that he was an engaging ex 
 ample of all he taught ; and that no reproach, which, in 
 his multifarious employment, he was compelled to utter 
 against all the forms of injustice, public and private, so- 
 
 * " One of those who need not the smart of guilt to make them virtu 
 ous, nor t' e regret of folly to make them 
 
154 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 cial and domestic, against all violations of law, from 
 crime down to those irregularities at which, from general 
 infirmity, there is a general connivance, in no instance 
 did the sting of his reproach wound his own bosom. 
 Yet it was in his life only, and not in his pretensions, 
 that you discerned this, his fortunate superiority to 
 others. In his private walks he was the most unpretend 
 ing of men. He bore constantly about him those char 
 acteristics of true greatness, simplicity and modesty. 
 
 The temper of the chief justice was singularly placa 
 ble and benevolent. It was not in his power to remem 
 ber an injury. A few days before his death he said to two 
 of his friends, attendant upon that scene, " I am at peace 
 with all the world. I bear no ill-will to any human being, 
 and there is no person in existence to whom I would not 
 do good and render a service, if it were in my power. 
 No man can be happy who does not forgive injuries which 
 he may have received from his fellow-creatures." How 
 suitable was this noble conclusion to his whole life ! What 
 a grace did this spirit impart to his own supplications ! 
 This was not a counterfeit virtue, assumed when the 
 power to retaliate was wasted by disease. It was not the 
 mere overflow of a kindly nature, unschooled by that di 
 vine science which teaches benevolence as a duty. In 
 his own eulogium upon his eminent friend, Dr. Wistar, 
 he says : " Vain is the splendor of genius without the 
 virtues of the heart. No man who is not good deserves 
 
THE LAWYER. 155 
 
 the name of wise. In the language of Scripture, folly 
 and wickedness are the same ; not only because vicious 
 habits do really corrupt and darken the understanding, 
 but because it is no small degree of folly to be ignorant, 
 that the chief good of man is to know the will of his 
 Creator, and to do it." 
 
 It was under the influence of this sentiment that his 
 fortune became a refuge to the unfortunate, far more 
 than his unostentatious manners imported. He was gen 
 tle, compassionate, charitable in many of the senses 
 which make charity the first of virtues ; and long after 
 his leaves and branches were all torn away, there was 
 more than one* that reposed in the shade of his venerable 
 trunk. His closing years finely illustrated the remark, 
 that the heart of a good man is like a good soil which is 
 made more fertile by the ploughshare that tears it and 
 lays it open, or like those plants which give out their 
 best odors when they are broken and crushed. 
 
 An interesting record which the venerable Judge 
 Tilghman left behind him, acquaints us with many of 
 his most private thoughts, and presents him in a relation 
 which no man can renounce, and which, when duly ob 
 served, is the appropriate light wherein to behold an em 
 inent judge the relation of man to his Creator. 
 
 His birth-day, the 12th of August, was habitually appro 
 priated to the review of the past year, to self-examination, 
 and to intercourse with God ; and it will not be deemed 
 
156 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 irreverent to cast an affectionate eye upon this record, 
 and to draw encouragement and counsel from the touching 
 disclosure it makes of his fortitude, resignation, and piety. 
 
 When he completed his forty-eighth year he says : 
 " My health is good, my constitution unimpaired, but I 
 am deeply impressed with the uncertainty of life. Let 
 me prepare to follow the numerous friends who have left 
 the world before me. The last stage of my residence on 
 earth is approaching. Time is precious. I must not 
 suffer it to be wasted in indolence, or thrown away on 
 light amusements. I have endeavored during the course 
 of this day to strengthen my mind with virtuous resolu 
 tions, and I hope my endeavors have not been useless." 
 He then repeats the resolutions he had formed for the 
 government of his life, among which is that of " letting 
 no day pass without prostrating himself before the Su 
 preme Being, in meditation, thanksgiving, and prayer ;" 
 and he concludes his memorial by offering, as he ex 
 presses it, " with a grateful heart, his unworthy thanks 
 to the Almighty and merciful God, for past favors far 
 exceeding his merits, and imploring, with all humility, 
 that He would graciously assist his weak endeavors to 
 keep the resolutions he had made.'' 
 
 But sore afflictions afterward came upon Judge Tilgh- 
 man, and his eloquent eulogist says, " Mark with what a 
 celestial temper, if I may so speak, he records the flight 
 of all these blessings." 
 
THE LAWYER. 157" 
 
 " I have now attained the age of sixty-one, and have 
 survived parents, brothers, sisters, wife, and child. But 
 few of my dearest connections remain in the world. May 
 this reflection induce me so to use the short remainder of 
 my life as may recommend me to Thy favor, and pro 
 cure me the happiness of once more meeting my depart 
 ed friends, according to my confident hope.'' 
 
 " Observe how the light of the divine philosophy shone 
 inward, and dispelled the gloom in which unassisted man 
 would have sunk to despair." 
 
 " Great God, during the last year thou hast thrown 
 me on the bed of sickness, and raised me up from it. 
 .Thou hast taken from me my last earthly hope. I sub 
 mit to thy providence, and pray that thou wilt grant me 
 fortitude under all my afflictions. I am sure that what 
 ever is ordained by thee is right. May I never forget 
 that thou art always present, the witness and judge of 
 my actions and thoughts. My life_is hastening to an 
 end. May I, by thy gracious assistance, so employ the 
 remainder of it as not to be altogether unworthy of thy 
 favor." 
 
 On the last anniversary that he ever saw, he begins 
 his paper with the prophetic declaration, " This day 
 completes my seventieth year, the period which is said 
 to bound the life of man. My constitution is impaired, 
 but I cannot sufficiently thank God that my intellect is 
 sound, that I am afflicted with no painful disease, and 
 14 
 
158 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 that sufficient health remains to make life comfortable. 
 I pray for the grace of the Almighty to enable me to 
 walk, during the short remnant of life, in His ways. 
 Without His aid I am sensible that my efforts are 
 unavailing. May I submit with gratitude to all His 
 dispensations, never forget that he is the witness of 
 my actions, and even of my thoughts, and endeavor to 
 love, honor, and obey Him with all my heart, soul, and 
 strength." 
 
 "It is no longer wonderful that this venerated man 
 performed his duties to universal acceptance, when we 
 discern the spirit, better far than the genius of Socrates, 
 from which he asked counsel. The -ancients would have 
 said of him, that he lived in the presence of all the dei 
 ties, since prudence was never absent from him. The 
 
 9 
 
 holders of a better faith must say, that it was no poeti 
 cal deity, nor to the counsels of his own mind, but to 
 that ' grace' which his supplications invoked that he 
 owed his protection from most of the lapses to which fal 
 lible man is subject." 
 
 " His course does not exhibit the magnificent variety 
 of the ocean, sometimes uplifted to the skies, at others 
 retiring into its darkest caves, at one moment gay with 
 the ensigns of power and wealth, and at another strewing 
 its shores with the melancholy fragments of shipwreck ; 
 but it is the equal current of a majestic river, which safely 
 bears upon its bosom the riches of the land, and reads its 
 
THE LAWYER. 159 
 
 history in the smiling cities and villages, that are reflect 
 ed from its unvarying surface." 
 
 On Monday, the 30th of April, 1827, he closed his 
 eyes forever. It will be long, very long, before we shall 
 open ours upon a wiser judge, a sounder lawyer, a riper 
 scholar, a purer man, or a truer gentleman. 
 
 CHARLES CHAUNCEY. 
 
 One of the most beautiful and striking delineations of 
 character which could be offered for the study of young 
 men, is one recently drawn by an able divine,* of that 
 eminent lawyer, the late Charles Chauncey, of Philadel 
 phia. 
 
 Mr. Chauncey was a native of New Haven, Connec 
 ticut, and a graduate of Yale College. His father was 
 a Judge of the Supreme Court of that State. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Chauncey had completed his course of 
 preparatory study, and had been admitted to the bar, he 
 removed to Philadelphia, where he passed the remainder 
 of his eminently useful life. 
 
 " The incorruptible virtue, the radiant example, the 
 untarnished fame of Charles Chauncey, have become 
 part of the moral treasure of his country. I leave it for 
 others to sketch his intellectual attributes and his legal 
 
 * Rev. Henry A. Boardman, D.D. 
 
160 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 acquirements ; my office is to speak of him, and that 
 briefly, as a Christian. 
 
 The prime quality in Mr. Chauncey's character was 
 integrity. This is as much associated with his name, 
 wherever he was known, as justice is with that of Aris- 
 tides. It is impossible to speak of him without think 
 ing of it, as it was impossible to converse with him with 
 out feeling that you had to do with a man of inflexible 
 probity. If there are men who are honest from policy 
 or interest, who are honest in great matters, but lax in 
 small matters whose perceptions of right and wrong 
 are quick and accurate on questions affecting other peo 
 ple's affairs he was not one of them. He was upright 
 on principle and from preference. The love of truth 
 and right was part of his being. He carried it into ev 
 ery relation and circumstance of life. It controlled his 
 most trivial pecuniary transactions ; it presided over ev 
 ery scene of social enjoyment, even those in which he 
 gave full play to his refined and ardent affections ; it 
 breathed through every sentence he uttered at the bar, 
 whether in one of those luminous and eloquent arguments 
 with which he often captivated the court and jury, or in 
 those incidental passages between opposing counsel the 
 by-play of a trial in which truthful men sometimes ex 
 ceed the limits of sober verity. His clients knew that 
 the advice he gave them was given in all sincerity, and 
 was designed for their good, however counter it might be 
 
THE LAWYER. 161 
 
 to their wishes. The bench and the jury knew they were 
 listening to a man who was a stranger to deception and 
 finesse a man who, though liable, like all other men, to 
 err, could not act a part who, when he spoke, uttered 
 his real convictions, and believed what he was trying to 
 make them believe. 
 
 There have been lawyers whose profession has been as 
 distinct from their personal character m as the wig and 
 gown of an English barrister from the barrister himself; 
 and courts and juries have instinctively, when they rose 
 to speak, recognized their two-fold nature. But they 
 never mistook Mr. Chauncey for one of this hybrid race. 
 In him the union between the advocate and the man was 
 not, as in the other case, a mere mechanical conjunction, 
 like that which held together the different parts of Nebu 
 chadnezzar's image, but a chemical combination an in 
 termixture of the one with the elements of the other.* 
 His speeches, therefore, carried with them all the weight 
 of personal conviction and that, in the case of a man so 
 eminent as well for his ability and his wisdom as for his 
 integrity, was often more than half the battle. 
 
 It were well for the younger men in the profession to 
 consider the great value of such a reputation for integrity, 
 simply as a means of success. They may gain an occa 
 sional triumph by deviating from the line of strict recti- 
 
 "The wise man does good just as he breathes, it is his life." 
 Chinese Maxim. 
 
 14* 
 
162 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 tude, and the prospect of winning an important cause 
 may seduce them into the use of unfair weapons ; but a 
 few victories achieved in this way will ruin, or at least 
 seriously injure them. To a young lawyer CHARACTER 
 is everything. It is character, not learning, not astute 
 ness, not eloquence, which is the basis of confidence ; 
 and " confidence," especially the confidence of clients, 
 and judges and juries, is " a plant of slow growth." It 
 is a sensitive plant, too ; its leaves will begin to curl and 
 wither with the first rude breath of deceit and equivojga- 
 tion. The youthful advocate, flushed with an ill-gotten 
 triumph, little divines what an impression he has made 
 on that stern jurist on the bench, and even upon those 
 emulous associates who throng around him with their con 
 gratulations. They may well congratulate a rival whose 
 ovation, like those the Venetians used to accord to their 
 heroes, is the pledge of his early downfall. Let those 
 who stand on the threshold of this noble profession learn 
 from the example of that eminent man, whose loss we 
 now deplore, that virtue is the highest wisdom that 
 virtue, especially, which has God for its author and end, 
 the word of God for its rule of duty, and the love of God 
 for its animating principle. In this divine endowment, 
 they may see one of the chief implements of his success. 
 He has vindicated the profession from the vulgar cavil 
 that no strictly honest man can be a lawyer, and shown 
 that the bar forms no exception to the rule, that the path 
 
THE LAWYER. 163 
 
 of virtue is the path of honor. In some pregnant crisis 
 of your history, when temptation proffers you its golden 
 fruit, 
 
 " Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste," 
 and you are just saying to yourselves, 
 
 What hinders, then, 
 
 To reach, and feed at once both body and mind ?" 
 
 it may recover you from your perilous position to recall 
 the name of one who maintained an unspotted reputa 
 tion amidst the conflicts and enticements of the bar for 
 upward of fifty years, and whose pure fame is unsullied 
 by a single mean or dishonorable action. 
 
 Mr. Chauncey was no less distinguished for his benevo 
 lence than for his integrity. I do not allude in this re 
 mark merely to the charity which goes out in alms-giv 
 ing, or in contributions to ecclesiastical and religious ob 
 jects. This, when prompted by right motives, is a 
 charity of high esteem in the sight of God ; indeed, our 
 Saviour teaches us that if we are destitute of it, we may 
 scarcely presume to think we are Christians. But the 
 benevolence of Mr. Chauncey included a great deal more 
 than this. He was essentially an unselfish man. He 
 had a heart as well as a head. And his heart was large 
 enough to take in some others, besides his own family 
 and immediate friends. He was always ready to employ 
 his great powers for the relief of the poor, the injured, 
 
164 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 the helpless ; to extend to them " the charity of time, 
 labor, and attention ; the protection of those whose re 
 sources are feeble, and the information of those whose 
 knowledge is small." This was so well understood, that 
 there was probably no man in this community who was 
 so much resorted to for counsel. He was so wise, so 
 candid, so kind, and entered so readily into the circum 
 stances and feelings of his clients, that people of all de 
 scriptions sought his advice on all sorts of subjects.' 
 
 Distinguished counselors, young lawyers, and possibly 
 grave judges, with their vexed questions, capitalists seek 
 ing investments, embarrassed merchants, guardians per 
 plexed to know what to do with their wards, parents to con 
 sult him about their children, widows anxious to secure 
 their little property, together with suitors of various kinds, 
 such were the groups that not unfrequently met at his 
 levees. And they went there because they knew they 
 could confide to him domestic matters which they could 
 scarcely breathe in the ear of another human being ; and 
 that, when they had stated their case to him, he would 
 give them judicious advice, made doubly acceptable by the 
 manner in which it was given. He might without pre 
 sumption have appropriated the language of Job : " When 
 the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye 
 saw me, it gave witness to me. Because I delivered the 
 poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had 
 none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready 
 
THE LAWYER. 165 
 
 to perish came upon me, and I caused the "widow's heart 
 to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed 
 me ; my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was 
 eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a 
 father to the poor ; and the cause which I knew not I 
 searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and 
 I plucked the spoil out of his teeth." Among all the 
 monumental memorials which grace our cemeteries, there 
 is not one which might with more propriety receive these 
 words as its epitaph, than the tomb of Charles Chauncey. 
 Mr. Chauncey's manners partook of the kindness of his 
 nature. To him might be appropriated the beautiful sketch 
 Mr. Addison has drawn of a great light* of the English 
 law. " His life was in every part of it set off with that 
 graceful modesty and reserve which made his virtues 
 more beautiful, the more they were cast in such agreeable 
 shades. His great humanity appeared in the minutest 
 circumstances of his conversation. You found it in the 
 benevolence of his aspect, the complacency of his beha 
 vior, and the tone of his voice. His great application to 
 the severer studies of the law had not infected his temper 
 with anything positive or litigious ; he did not know 
 what it was to wrangle on indifferent points, to triumph 
 in the superiority of his understanding, or to be super 
 cilious on the side of truth. He joined the greatest deli 
 cacy of good breeding to the greatest strength of reason. 
 * Lord Somers. 
 
166 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 By approving the sentiments of a person with whom he 
 conversed, in such particulars as were just, he won him 
 over from those points in which he was mistaken ; and 
 had so agreeable a way of conveying knowledge, that who 
 ever conferred with him grew the wiser, without perceiv 
 ing that he had been instructed. His principles were 
 founded in reason and supported by virtue, and there 
 fore did not lie at the mercy of ambition, avarice, or re 
 sentment." 
 
 Mr. Chauncey abstained from taking an active part in 
 politics ; and with a single exception, that of his consent 
 ing to sit as a member of the Convention for revising the 
 constitution of the State, he uniformly declined public 
 office. It would certainly be unfortunate for the country 
 if all our ablest lawyers should adopt the same line of con 
 duct. But the example may suggest a wholesome lesson 
 to the junior portion of the bar. No man can expect to 
 become an eminent lawyer who does not, for at least a 
 score of years or more, confine himself rigidly to his pro 
 fession. The temptation to embark in politics is very 
 great, especially under a government like ours ; and it 
 has proved fatal to the hopes of many a young lawyer of 
 brilliant talents. The rewards of jurisprudence, like the 
 choicest crystals of the Alps, are too remote and too dif 
 ficult of access, to be secured by any precarious and in 
 constant exertions. The path which leads to them is 
 narrow and rugged, obstructed with rocks and exposed to 
 
THE LAWYER. 167 
 
 avalanches ; and he who sufiers himself to be intimidated 
 by dangers, or diverted into by-paths in quest of flowers, 
 must make up his mind to relinquish the jewels to his 
 competitors. 
 
 Mr. Chauncey's respect for the Sabbath was one of 
 the influences which contributed to mould as well his 
 intellectual and social, as his elevated moral char 
 acter. 
 
 The example is instructive. There is no need of as 
 suming it would be discourteous and unjust to assume, 
 that the bar stands in special need of admonition on this 
 subject. Could the truth, however, be revealed, it might 
 be found that no inconsiderable portion of our able and 
 rising lawyers were more or less in the habit of appro 
 priating a part of the Sabbath to the study and arrange 
 ment of their cases. They forget that there is a law in 
 existence paramount to all earthly legislation ; nor are 
 they struck with the incongruity of preparing themselves 
 to expound and enforce human statutes, by treading 
 under foot the law of God. The pernicious consequences 
 which flow from this practice are manifold. It weakens 
 the moral sense. No man can habitually or frequently 
 set at naught a divine ordinance, without blunting his 
 conscience and impairing his reverence for the authority 
 of God. 
 
 It removes a man from all the wholesome influences of 
 the sanctuary. 
 
168 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 If any confidence is to be placed in the opinion of 
 eminent physiologists, the Sabbath, even though a posi 
 tive institute, has its foundation in the nature of man. It 
 is no arbitrary decree, but an ordinance indispensable to 
 the proper culture and development of his physical and 
 mental powers, and to his social happiness. The tendency 
 of an uninterrupted devotion to earthly pursuits is to de 
 base the character, and to induce premature exhaustion 
 and decay. The Sabbath comes to us as an angel of 
 mercy, to withdraw us, at stated intervals, from the sec- 
 ularities with which we are engrossed to recruit our 
 wearied frames to let in upon our souls and upon our 
 concerns the light of eternity to revive our fading im 
 pressions of spiritual objects to bring us into commu 
 nion with the Father of our spirits and to remind us of 
 what we are s'o prone to forget, that 
 
 " Tis not the whole of life to live, 
 Nor all of death to die." 
 
 There are doubtless exceptions, but it will generally 
 be found that lawyers who devote the whole seven days 
 to business, pay the penalty of their error, either in a 
 loss of health, or in falling a prey to vicious indulgences. 
 The overtasked constitution gives way under a load it 
 was never designed to bear. Physical debility is fol 
 lowed by mental depression. The nervous system ac- 
 
THE LAWYER. 169 
 
 quires a morbid sensitiveness, and men of a serene and 
 amiable temper and bland address, become irritable, 
 harsh, and repulsive. Not unfrequently, stimulating 
 drinks are invoked to inspire the strength demanded by 
 urgent professional duties, and by degrees, the occasional 
 expedient becomes a daily necessity, and the victim has 
 tens with accelerated pace to a dishonored grave. In 
 other instances, the nerves become more and more disor 
 dered, until reason is dethroned ; and the once gifted 
 advocate only lives to excite the pity of the bar he 
 adorned, or awakens their profounder sorrow by his sui 
 cidal death. The wrecks are scattered all along the 
 shore you are coasting, and even those who have just 
 cleared the port and set their sails to the breeze, may 
 deem themselves happy if they have not come in sight 
 of them. 
 
 The testimony of Lord Chief Justice Hale on this point 
 has frequently been quoted. " I have found, by a strict 
 and diligent observation, that a due observance of the duty 
 of this day, hath ever had joined to it a blessing upon the 
 rest of my time ; and the week that hath been so begun 
 hath been blessed and prosperous to me ; and, on the 
 other side, when I have been negligent of the duties of 
 this day, the rest of the week has been unsuccessful and 
 unhappy to my own secular employments ; so that I 
 could easily make an estimate of my successes in my 
 own secular employments the week following, by the 
 15 
 
1*70 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 manner of my passing this day ; and this I do not write 
 lightly or inconsiderately, but upon a long and sound 
 observation and experience.'' 
 
 It has been implied in every line of this sketch, that 
 Mr. Chauncey was a sincere and decided Christian. He 
 not only received the Bible as a Divine Revelation, but 
 embraced its doctrines with a cordial faith, and made its 
 precepts the rule of his conduct. 
 
 This great and good man has gone to his reward.* 
 Full of years and full of honors, in the maturity of all 
 his powers, and without any exhibition of human infir 
 mity, he has been gathered to his fathers. Life's work 
 was done, and well done ; and we cannot doubt that he 
 has received that crown of righteousness which the Lord, 
 the righteous Judge, will give to all them that love his 
 appearing. 
 
 It is the prerogative of Religion to make and keep 
 men pure, and to confer that refinement of feeling for 
 which good-breeding can only substitute a graceful ad 
 dress in other words, to make men what good-breeding 
 requires them to appear to be. The morality which is 
 divorced from godliness, however specious and captiva 
 ting to the eye, is superficial and deceptive. The mo 
 rality you require, " the only morality, (in the language 
 of an eminent compeer of the venerated Chauncey,!) the 
 
 * Mr. Chauncey died in September, 1 849. 
 f Hon. John Sargent 
 
THE LAWYER. % 171 
 
 only morality that is clear in its source, pure in its pre 
 cepts, and efficacious in its principles, is the morality of 
 the Gospel. All else at last is but idolatry the wor 
 ship of something of man's own creation, and that thrice 
 imperfect and feeble like himself, and wholly insufficient 
 to give him support and strength." 
 

 
 
 

 NOTES. 
 
 A. 
 
 COMMONPLACE-BOOKS. 
 
 "In reading authors, when yon find 
 Bright passages that strike your mind, 
 And which, perhaps, you may have reason 
 To think on at another season, 
 Be not contented with the sight, 
 But take them down in black and white. 
 Such a respect is wisely shown, 
 As makes another's thoughts onr own." 
 
 PRESIDENT DWIGHT'S advice to students was, " Al 
 ways carry with you, wherever you go, a commonplace- 
 book in your pockets, and note down on the spot what 
 you wish to retain. * That only is knowledge which is 
 exact.' " 
 
 Dr. Johnson remarks, that " a man who views an 
 object closely and minutely and leaves it two or three 
 hours or longer, and then returns, will be surprised to 
 find how much the remembrance of the parts have faded 
 from his mind. The great leading features may be 
 retained, but the minute discriminating points are soon 
 lost. You will, by having a commonplace-book always 
 15* 
 
174 NOTES. 
 
 at hand, be able to get together a vast number of facts. 
 You may think that it will be only once in a great while 
 that you will meet with anything worth putting down ; 
 but you are mistaken in almost every place, if you are 
 observing, you will find much that will be important. 
 It is from laziness (man is naturally lazy), rather than 
 from want of capacity, that men are deficient in useful 
 knowledge. 
 
 Sagacity of mind depends almost wholly upon indus 
 try united with attention. Very few of our race attend 
 to what is passing before them. This is a rare, very 
 rare quality in the best disposed and most contempla 
 tive minds. 
 
 A small note-book for the pocket, and Todd's c Index 
 Rerum,' or Gould's c Universal Index,' for the common 
 place-book, will facilitate this mode of storing up knowl 
 edge for future use. 
 
 A commonplace-book, without methodical arrangement, 
 would be just about as convenient as a large house with 
 out partition walls to separate it into apartments." 
 
 ' While Sir Matthew Hale was improving himself in 
 the study of the law," says Bishop Burnet, " he not only 
 kept the hours of the hall constantly in term-time, but 
 seldom put himself out of commons in vacation-time ; and 
 continued, then, to follow his studies with unwearied dil 
 igence ; and not being satisfied with the books writ about 
 it, or to take things upon trust, was very diligent in 
 
 * 
 
NOTES. 175 
 
 searching all records. Then did he make divers collec 
 tions out of the books he had read, and, mixing them with 
 his own observations, digested them into a commonplace- 
 book, which he did with so much industry and judgment 
 that an eminent judge of the King's Bench borrowed it 
 of him when he was Lord Chief Baron. He unwillingly 
 lent it, because it had been written by him before he was 
 called to the bar, and had never been thoroughly revised 
 by him since that time ; only what alterations had been 
 made in the law, by subsequent statutes and judgments, 
 were added by him as they had happened ; but the judge, 
 having perused it, said that, ' though it was composed by 
 him so early, he did not think any lawyer in England 
 could do it better.' " 
 
 B. 
 
 " His whole life (Sir Matthew Hale) was nothing else 
 but a continual course of labor and industry. 
 
 " He looked on readiness in arithmetic as a thing which 
 might be useful to him in his own employment, and ac 
 quired it to such a degree that he would often, on a sud 
 den, resolve very hard questions, which had puzzled the 
 best accountants about town. 
 
 "He studied algebra, and went through all the other 
 mechanical sciences. 
 
176 NOTES. 
 
 " He was also very conversant in philosophical learn 
 ing^ and in all the various experiments and rare discov 
 eries of this age, and had the new books written on these 
 subjects sent him from all parts, which he both read and 
 examined critically. Indeed, it will seem scarcely cred 
 ible that a man so much employed, and of so severe a tem 
 per of mind, could find leisure to read, observe, and write 
 so much of these subjects as he did. He called them his 
 diversions ; for he often said, when he was weary with 
 the study of the law, or divinity, he used to recreate him 
 self with philosophy or the mathematics. 
 
 " To these he added great skill in physic, anatomy, 
 and chirurgery. And he used to say, no man could be 
 absolutely a master in any profession, without having 
 some skill in other sciences. 
 
 " To this he added great researches into ancient his 
 tory. 
 
 " Above all, he seemed to have made the study of di 
 vinity the chief of all others. 
 
 " It seems extravagant, and almost incredible, that one 
 man, in no great compass of years, should have acquired 
 such a variety of knowledge ; but as his parts were quick 
 and his apprehensions lively, his memory great and his 
 judgment strong, so his industry was almost indefatiga 
 ble. He rose always betimes in the morning, w as never 
 idle, scarcely ever held any discourse about news, except 
 with some few in whom he confided entirely. He spent 
 
NOTES. 177 
 
 very little time in eating and drinking, and lived so phil - 
 osophically that he always ended his meal with an appe 
 tite. By these means he gained much time that is oth 
 erwise unprofitahly wasted." 
 
 THE END, 
 
 
 

 
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