Boston City (part 20 of 67)

1 [The elder died in 1750, the younger in graved in Vol. II. p. 343. A sister of the younger 1788. The younger at one time lived in School Auchmuty was the wife of Benjamin Prat. - Street. The Auchmuty House in Roxbury, often Drake's Roxbury , p. 209. - Ed. ] the resort of Auchmuty's Tory friends, is en- 2 [See fac-simile in Vol. III., ch. i. - Ed.] VOL. IV. - 73.

was a humorist, not sufficiently reverent of things divine to please his strait¬ laced contemporaries; he was " for fun, drollery, humor, flouts, jeers, con¬ tempt. He has an irregular, unmethod¬ ical head, but his good, and his expres¬ sions happy." At a merry dinner of the brethren of the Bar we find Kent, doubtless with a very excellent satire for those times, presenting a project for an Act of Parliament against devils. His theory of life and religion was that this existence was only one - and perhaps not the first one - of an unending series of periods of probation and so of advancement; not so bad a notion in itself, perhaps, but too original and devoid of Biblical authority to please the Bostonians of that day. When the troubles between the colonies and the mother country came to a head, Kent went to Halifax, thereby giving currency to the opinion that he was a Loyalist refugee, though there seems some reason to doubt the propriety of thus ranking him.1

Oxenbridge Thacher seems, from what insufficient glimpses we get of him, to have been a man of charming character, having the cultivation of a gentleman and the knowledge of a profound and ingenious lawyer. He was a silvery-tongued and persuasive speaker, happily combining subtilety and clearness in ^ his arguments. His father, a colonel and a deacon, was " a very holy man," supposably " not well pleased with his son's preferring the law," rather wishing that he should be a deacon ; though why the position of deacon should have been more incompatible with the legal than with the military profession, does not clearly appear. Probably it was due to his father's influence that Mr. Thacher, after gradu¬ ating at Harvard College in 1738, studied divinity and became a clergyman; and perhaps it was natural distaste for this calling which induced him to abandon it, on the odd ground that his voice was too weak, and to adopt a vocation for which doubtless he was better fitted, but for which a feeble voice has never been considered a peculiar qualification. At one time, when James Otis was apparently wavering in his attachment to the cause of the colonies, and the suspicion had gone widely abroad that he had fallen a victim to the bribes and blandishments of Governor Hutchinson, it was attributed to the influence of Thacher, strongly exerted with his friend, that Otis was brought back and strengthened in his patriotic faith and at¬ tachments. Thacher himself was a sound patriot, greatly to the disgust of the king's party in the province, for he was a man who had gained for him¬ self both love and respect. When Hutchinson had the audacity to make himself chief-justice for an obvious political purpose, Thacher spoke with great freedom and indignation of the indefensible proceeding. It was im¬ possible to bribe or silence him, and equally impossible to defame his character or actions. He won, therefore, the distinction of an exceptional animosity. The Tories " hated him," says John Adams, " worse than they did James Otis or Samuel Adams; and they feared him more,, because they had no reveng.e for a father's disappointment of a seat on the Superior Bench to impute to him, as they did to Otis." Mr. Thacher died in 1765, of a pulmonary complaint, which was believed to have been aggravated by his extreme anxiety concerning public affairs. He was but little abroad among men during his latter days, by reason of his ill-health, and he was greatly concerned lest his countrymen were not showing a sufficiently high and quick spirit in resenting the royal encroachments, - a needless alarm, indeed, but highly honorable to him who, in his sick chamber, cherished so independent and courageous a temper.1

Stephen Sewall, whose father also had been a lawyer, belonged to a family which has given many distinguished names to the history of Massa¬ chusetts. He " stood very high in public esteem for his honor, integrity, moderation, and great benevolence." He was made Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the Province, and held that position when the application was made for the granting of a Writ of Assistance. He "expressed great doubt of the legality of such a writ, and of the authority of the court to grant it." But within a month after the application, and before the hearing in the cause, he died, greatly to the chagrin of the patriot party. As ill fortune would have it, his estate proved insufficient to pay his debts ; and his nephew, Jonathan Sewall, acting as administrator, petitioned the Legislature for a grant of money to enable him to satisfy the creditors. The ground taken was that the chief-justice had been rendered insolvent by reason of his public spirit in serving upon an inadequate salary. Jonathan Sewall 2 was himself a member of the Bar in excellent repute as a lawyer, and very popular as a man, and thus far in his career had leaned to the popular side in the various disputes with Great Britain. But in the matter of this petition he encountered the successful opposi¬ tion of Colonel Otis, and of his son, the famous James Otis. This angered Sewall greatly, and Governors Bernard and Hutchinson, and Judge Trow¬ bridge, were sedulous in their efforts to make this resentment a cause of political separation. Calling also to their aid the seductions of official position, they achieved an unfortunate success in their schemes, and there¬ after Jonathan Sewall was to be ranked as a stanch Tory. He had his re¬ ward in the several places of solicitor-general, attorney-general, advocategeneral, and judge of admiralty "with six thousands a year; " but he does

2 [Sewall lived at one time in the house, now Boston. General Riedesel occupied this house greatly changed, on the westerly corner of Brat- in 1777-78. - Ed.]

not hold that position in the memory of posterity which his abilities would have insured to him had he been steadfast in his earlier political faith.

A nephew of Jeremiah Gridley was Benjamin Gridley, who also was called to the Bar; but though apparently he had sufficiently good abilities, he turned out nothing better than a lazy wag. " He has no business of any kind ; lies abed till io o'clock ; drinks, laughs, and frolics, but neither studies nor practises his profession."

Edmund Trowbridge, born in 1709, an eminent lawyer and admirable man, was made Attorney-General of the Province in 1749, and was afterward de¬ servedly raised to the post of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, however, his Tory predilections led him to consort with Governors Bernard and Hutchinson, and he became in time very unpopular with the people at large, though his kindness of disposition served to pre¬ serve most of his personal friendships. In 1772 he resigned his seat upon the Bench, and retired to the little village of Byfield, where he long re¬ mained.1 His ostensible excuse was that he wished to escape the small-pox, then epidemic in Boston ; but it was shrewdly surmised that he was more afraid of the patriots than of disease. In Byfield he instructed Theophilus Parsons in the law.2 He had the finest law library then in the Province, a rare and valuable possession in those days. He had also another less harm¬ less possession, being a large full-length portrait of Governor Hutchinson, in a handsome frame, which he kept in .his parlor, to the alarm of his family, who dreaded that it might induce a foray from the lawless Sons of Liberty. Accordingly, one day, when Trowbridge was away from home, they cut out and burned the canvass, and put in its place a portrait, by Copley, of Jus¬ tice Richard Dana. Trowbridge died in Cambridge in 1793, at the ripe age of ninety-four, leaving a high reputation for professional learning, to which Chief-Justice Parsons and Chancellor Kent afterward bore willing testimony. It is an odd circumstance that at different times he had two names, and appears during a part of his life, at least, to have been known by them both indifferently. He was the adopted child and heir of Colonel Edmund Goffe, and took the name of Goffe in early youth ; but afterward, toward the time of the Revolution, he reassumed his original name of Trowbridge. It has been suggested in explanation of this, that Colonel Goffe was a connec¬ tion of the regicide judge, and that the Tory proclivities of Trowbridge made him unwilling in such times of revolt to bear the disloyal name. But this theory is a mere surmise, resting on no sufficient authority.3

No adequate sketch of the Bar of Boston in this pre-Revolutionary pe¬ riod could be complete, without a narrative of one of the most important

1 [His home in Cambridge, to which he re- 3 Peter Oliver, Dudley, Fitch, and perhaps a turned, was a mansion which stood where now the few more might be mentioned ; but unfortunately meeting-house of the first parish stands. - Ed.] tradition preserves little more besides their causes ever tried in this country; but it has fallen to the writer1 2 of another chapter to recall the events which induced a resort on the part of the Gov¬ ernment to Wiits of Assistance, resulting in a decision of the court sustain¬ ing them. Later on, Hutchinson, who was the presiding justice, when seeking from the home Government reparation for the sacking of his house and destruction of his furniture at the time of the Stamp-Act riot, enlarged

2 [This cut follows the portrait by Copley, named in the text, now owned by Richard II. Dana, of the third generation. The picture measures 4,% X 3^ feet. Richard Dana was born in Cambridge, Aug. 7, 1699, and died in

Boston, May 17, 1772. A duplicate is owned by his descendants in England. Perkins's Cop¬ ley, , p. 50. The Massachusetts Gazette , June 1, contains his obituary, copied into Frothingham's Warren, 195. See further in Vol. II. of this History, pp. 324, 373. - Ed.]

upon his services on this memorable occasion, and claimed that the decision made in the cause was due to his personal influence exerted upon reluctant associates. Under all the circumstances, what Hutchinson claimed as a glory must, even from a Tory standpoint, be regarded as a disgrace. In the long run the triumph lay with James Otis, who had argued against the writs, and who from this time became the principal leader of the malcontents or patriots. They needed just such a one as he, and his ardent and zealous temper would not let him refuse their urgent summons. His private busi¬ ness was neglected and went to ruin, while he attended more and more exclusively to public affairs. He was elected to the General Court, and there continued his exertions. Still, however, he occasionally practised, and after the soldiery had been sent over to overawe the colonists, when the Superior Court, on coming together in the council chamber, found a guard posted and cannon ranged before the building, and troops quartered within it, Otis arose, and "with a significant expression of loathing and scorn" moved the adjournment of the court to Faneuil Hall, observing that "the stench occasioned by the presence of the troops might prove infectious, and that it was utterly derogatory to the court to administer justice at the points of bayonets and mouths of cannon."

Unfortunately the career of this daring and brilliant advocate was destined to an untimely end. Early in 1768 Hutchinson wrote, "We have now and then flashes from our firebrand. I wish I could think them presages of his extinction ; " and again, "Otis, like an. enraged demon, ran about the house ; " and soon after, Otis " behaved in the house like a madman." In sad truth the clouds of insanity were rapidly gathering athwart that glorious intellect, and tendencies of Nature were accelerated by human agency. Otis fell a victim, as Mr. C. F. Adams has said, to his own irregularities and the vindic¬ tiveness of his enemies. He was violently assaulted and beaten over the head with a cane one evening in a coffee-house,1 by one of the Royal Commis¬ sioners. Subsequently, in an action which he brought against his assailant, he recovered the sum, then a large one, of ,£2,000 in damages; but he mag¬ nanimously remitted payment upon receiving from his adversary a written acknowledgment of fault and request for pardon. The effect, however, upon the brain of Otis, already predisposed to disorder, could not be cured by money or apology, and the madness which rapidly advanced was doubt¬ less hastened, though probably not wholly caused, by this disaster. On May 23, 1778, he was leaning against the post of an open door of the house in Andover in which he lived, telling a story to several other inmates, when a sudden flash of lightning struck him instantly dead. Singular as the death was, it was remembered with astonishment by his friends that he had often expressed a wish that he might die in this manner ; and it was not without a certain awe that it was recalled that he had written to his sister, " I hope when God Almighty, in his righteous Providence, shall take me

1 [This was the British Coffee-house in King royal officers, on the spot where since the Mas- (now State) Street, a place much frequented by sachusetts Bank stood. - Ed.]

One other cause occurring in the ante-Revolutionary period deserves mention, and this is the trial of Captain Preston and his soldiers upon a charge of murder for the famous Boston Massacre. It is needless to re¬ capitulate the details of that well-known occurrence, or to dilate upon the excited state of popular feeling.2 When the accused sought the services of John Adams and of Josiah Quincy, Jr., as counsel, they preferred no ordi¬ nary request. Adams had been slowly making his way at the Bar for twelve years; Quincy was nine years his junior. Both were well known to be strong friends of the Colonial cause. They might well consider it unfair that they should be called upon to undertake a defence of persons whose very presence on the soil they reprobated, - a defence which, if conducted with due zeal and thoroughness, might destroy their popularity, reputation, and usefulness with their own townspeople, and ruin their business pros¬ pects. It was supposed to be a shrewd artifice on the part of the culprits, designed at once to help themselves and to injure their defenders; yet pro¬ fessional ethics seemed unquestionably to demand that the lawyers should accept the duty, and they both courageously and promptly engaged to do so. One would think, indeed, that both of them had given sufficient proof of ardent attachment to the popular cause to escape misapprehension in this matter ; yet it is of record that many patriots, unable to appreciate their motives, were greatly offended with them. A striking letter to Mr. Quincy from his father, together with the just and spirited answer of the son, are preserved in the Memoir of Josiah Quincy , Junior. The old gentleman wrote : -

" I have been told that you have actually engaged for Captain Preston ; and I have heard the severest reflections made upon the occasion by men who had just before manifested the highest esteem for you, as one destined to be a savior of your country. I must own to you it has filled the bosom of your aged and infirm parent with anxiety and distress, lest it should not only prove true, but destructive of your reputation and interest ; and, I repeat, I will not believe it unless it be confirmed by your own mouth, or under your own hand."

In an admirably independent and sound reply to this painful appeal, the young lawyer wrote, condemning the lack of feeling of those who had traduced him unheard to his venerable father: -

" Let such be told, sir, that those criminals, charged with murder, are not yet legally proved guilty, and therefore, however criminal, are entitled by the laws of God and man to all legal counsel and aid ; that my duty as a man obliged me to under¬ take ; that my duty as a lawyer strengthened the obligation ; that, from abundant caution, 1 at first declined being engaged ; that, after the best advice and most mature deliberation had determined my judgment, I waited on Captain Preston and told him that I would afford him my assistance ; but prior to this, in presence of two of his friends, I made the most explicit declaration to him of my real opinion on the contests (as I expressed it to him) of the times, and that my heart and hand were indissolubly attached to the cause of my country ; and finally, that I refused all engagement until advised and urged to undertake it by an Adams, a Hancock, a Molineux, a Cushing, a Henshaw, a Pemberton, a Warren, a Cooper, and a Phillips. This and much more might be told with great truth ; and I dare affirm that you and the whole people will one day rejoice that I became an advocate for the aforesaid criminals, charged with the murder of our fellow-citizens."

The trial of Captain Preston began Oct. 24, 1770, and was brought to an end on the sixth day thereafter by his acquittal. The trial of the soldiers followed, resulting in the conviction of two of them of manslaughter, and in the acquittal of the remaining six. It is an odd circumstance that /? rj\ . the prosecution was conducted on behalf of the Crown by Samuel Quincy,1 Solicitorgy General, a brother of Josiah Quincy, Jr., who had separated in politics from the rest of his family, and espoused the so-called Loyalist side. The trials were not in themselves especially note¬ worthy, save for the moral traits which they developed ; and in this res¬ pect they were certainly remarkable. Not only Adams and Quincy, but the jurors also, won high honor by their conduct; and even the people at large, having a little time given them for reflection, so thoroughly appreci¬ ated the honorable motives which had actuated the reluctant counsel, that they hastened to elect John Adams a representative to the General Court. There is no nobler record in the annals of the country. It seems scarcely credible that after thirty years had elapsed, and John Adams had become President of the United States, an ignoble newspaper writer actually de¬ scended, in aspersing him as being under " British influence," to cite this trial in proof of his proclivities. Whoever else won honor in this matter, the English captain certainly did not, for he instantly disappeared from the neighborhood without even so much as saying " thank you " to those who had perilled so much and acted so courageously by him. The two con¬ victed soldiers were branded in the hand by the sheriff, while the tears poured down their cheeks from shame and indignation at what they deemed an unmerited disgrace.

Soon after the trial of this cause, ill-health compelled Mr. Quincy to abandon a profession in which he could not have failed to achieve a bril¬ liant success, unless, indeed, as is probable, he had been drawn from it into public affairs. He went abroad, in hopes of overcoming certain pulmonary symptoms, but unfortunately failed to do so, and died at sea on his way home, at the early age of thirty-one. John Adams also, during the excit¬ ing years which led up to the Revolution, found himself constantly more engrossed by public affairs, which seemed imperiously to demand his energies, and to draw him away from the active practice of his profession. Yet he was still called upon from time to time thereafter to perform services for which his early legal training was supposed peculiarly to fit him. In 1820, when Maine was set oft from Massachusetts as a separate State, he was a prominent member of the convention chosen to prepare the new constitution for the latter. He was then well advanced in years, and most of his coadjutors belonged to the next generation; among them were Joseph Story and Daniel Webster. His son, John Quincy Adams, was also bred to the Bar, and had an office in Boston at various intervals during his Ions? life; but he likewise was absorbed by the rapid succession of public offices which he was called upon to fill, and perhaps for this reason never showed any great measure of legal aptitude. Yet in 1810, being then in Russia, he was tendered by Mr. Madison a seat upon the Bench of the Supreme Court. He wisely declined, for though he would have made a respectable and industrious judge, he would hardly have achieved a higher distinction.

The Revolutionary period, and the unsettled years which closely fol¬ lowed it, are ornamented by few names of distinction in the law. Francis Dana, - son of Justice Richard Dana, already mentioned, - having been sent as minister to Russia during the war, was afterward made Chief-Justice of Massachusetts. He had the reputation of being an able lawyer and a forcible speaker, and filled a large space in his day and generation. But except in this meagre statement and the tradition which Sullivan preserves for us of his magnificent white corduroy surtout, lined with fur, and his Russian muff, his life and characteristics have passed into oblivion.1 He was, however, the progenitor of an able race, who keep the name famous to our own time. His son, Richard H. Dana, was in his day a writer of some note in the literary circles of Boston; and, in the next generation, Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., has been in our own times one of the most distin¬ guished jurists and eloquent advocates of Massachusetts.2

Not less famous than the name of Dana, in the legal annals of Massa¬ chusetts, is that of Lowell. The first John Lowell was a prominent ad¬ viser of the patriot merchants in the days of the war, and won reputation especially in prize causes. Upon the organiza¬ tion of the United States courts, he was very appropriately selected as the first incumbent upon the Bench of the same District Court upon which his

1 [His portrait, by Brackett, is owned by 1785, for a seat on the Supreme Bench of Mas- Richard H. Dana, the second of the name, who sachusetts, of which he became the chief in prepared a brief memoir of him in 1876, which November, 1791, a position he resigned in 1800. was printed in the Penn. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., He died in Cambridge in 1811. One of his i. 86. He was born June 13, 1743, and bore dis- daughters married Washington Allston. - Ed.] tinguished service during the Revolution. He 2 [Descendants of Richard Dana, of Camreturned to Boston from his mission to St. Pe- bridge, said to include all of the name, are traced tersburg in December, 1783, to be made a dele- in Memoranda of Some of the Descendants , etc., gate to Congress, which office he again left, in by the Rev. J. J. Dana, Boston, 1865. - Ed.]

great-grandson has since sat. He remained there until the Federalists passed their bill creating the short-lived Circuit Court, of which Lowell was made the judge; only, however, to be displaced when, in the following year, the vindictive Democrats, coming into power, abolished the tribunal. John Lowell enjoyed a great and deserved reputation equally in respect of his professional ability and of his high character.1 He had a son, a lawyer of great promise and high public spirit, but whose health was too poor to enable him to achieve the success to which he was entitled. The present judge, now also on the Circuit bench, has succeeded to his ancestor's rare legal faculty, as well as to his public functions. Such striking examples of heredity as are presented in the Dana and Lowell families are certainly rare.

had signed the Declar¬ ation of Independence.2 He fell in easily with the prevailing habits of the Bench in those 'days, - habits which can hardly be admired, in point of good breed¬ ing or suavity, since the judges were wont to use their authority in a very harsh and offensive manner. But in 1800 an amelioration was fortunately effected in this regard by the appointment of Theodore Sedgwick as an associate jus¬ tice. He was a courte¬ ous gentleman as well as a good lawyer ; and his influence and example worked a reform in the manners of his associates which has continued down to the present day substantially unbroken, save during the reign of Chief-Justice Parsons.

The men who were coming forward at the Bar during the latter years of the eighteenth century have left behind them names deservedly famous.3

1 [Judge Lowell bought, in 1785, an estate in Roxbury, which he made his residence after he had retired from active duties, and of which there is an account in Drake's Town of Rox¬ bury, 394. - Ed.]

2 [Robert Treat Paine lived on the west cor¬ ner of Milk and Federal streets, in a large gam¬ brel-roofed house, with gardens in the rear. He died here May 11, 1S14. - Ed.]

he is grown older, less industrious, and wealth or the hypo may stop his practice. Otis is eager in the chase of fame and wealth, and, with a great deal of eloquence, is really a good lawyer, and improving. . . . Dexter is very able, and will be an Ajax at the bar as long as he stays. You know [addressed to Gore] that his aversion to reading and to practice are avowed. Sullivan, who seems immortal, is admonished of his decay by a fit every three months. ... I know of no very dashing young men coming forward." - Ed.]

I hey were a brilliant and able coterie. There were Christopher Gore, Sam¬ uel Dextei, the father of Franklin Dexter, who was only less able than his great progenitor, Harrison Gray Otis, Benjamin Austin, James Sullivan, and Samuel Sewall. It is melancholy to find how little knowledge remains concerning any of these men beyond the naked fact of a great reputation. No name is more familiar in Boston than that of Harrison Gray Otis, and yet except for the tradition of his silvery voice, his graceful elocution, and persuasive oratory, how little is there to be learned about his life and doings ! He was a nephew of the famous James Otis, and was scarcely less promi¬ nent in public affairs. In the stirring times of 1812, and thereabout, he was the favorite speaker in Faneuil Hall, which was always crowded when he was to be heard.1

Benjamin Austin was, during his life, esteemed as a lawyer much more highly than any persons, save antiquarians, are now aware. Indeed, it is piobable that he would to-day be altogether forgotten, were it not for the unfortunate celebrity which he acquired in connection with one of the most noted tiials which have ever occurred in Boston. In the middle of the day, on Aug. 4, 1806, his son was shot dead by Thomas O. Selfridge in State Street. The act created the greatest excitement. It was at a period when party feeling was running very high, and there had been a quarrel grow¬ ing out of political hostility between Mr. Austin, Sr., and Mr. Selfridge. On the Fourth of July in that year the Republicans of Boston had gotten up a procession, and a grand banquet in a tent on Copp's Hill. The pres¬ ence of the Tunisian Ambassador caused such a rush of the curious pop¬ ulace into the tent that the ticket-taker could not do his duty; the receipts fell short, and the landlord of the Jefferson Tavern,2 who had been caterer for the feast, was paid by the committee only so much as they had col¬ lected. He employed Selfridge to enforce payment of the balance by suit against the committee as individuals. Austin, who was at the head of the committee, being one day rallied in an insurance office about the suit, re¬ plied that it had been instigated by the Federal lawyer who brought it. Afterward, upon proof that he was in error in his statement, he retracted it, though not in a sufficiently public manner to satisfy Mr. Selfridge, who forthwith published him in the Gazette as a coward, a liar, and a scoundrel. Austin also published a counter-statement. Charles Austin, the young man who was killed, was a student in Harvard College, eighteen years of age. Upon the trial of Selfridge the defence was, that young Austin had es¬ poused his father's side in the controversy, and that he had meditated in¬ flicting chastisement upon Selfridge ; that accordingly, as he saw Selfridge crossing State Street, he himself advanced rapidly and threateningly from

1 [Of the eloquence of Harrison Gray Otis, 2 [This noted resort stood on the present see the Memotr of Theoplulus Parsons , p. 183. Salem Street, and was for some time the head- His law office at one time was in the building quarters of the Republicans. There is a note now (1S81) standing on the lower corner of on the origin of it in Amory's James Sullivan , Court and Tremont streets, where later Daniel ii. 163.]

the side-walk towards Selfridge, armed with a heavy cane, and began strik¬ ing at Selfridge's head; that Selfridge, thus assailed, and being a man of feeble physique and quite unable to defend himself by force, drew his pis¬ tol and shot his assailant dead. The case was tried before Judge Parker; James Sullivan, Attorney-General, and Daniel Davis, Solicitor-General, ap¬ peared for the prosecution. Samuel Dexter, Christopher Gore, Harrison Gray Otis, and Charles Jackson were for the defence. The case was admirably tried, as can be learned from a full report of it, which fortu¬ nately still exists. There was less petty technical squabbling over unim¬ portant points than is customary in our own time, but every particle of evidence was clearly brought out; the counsel made arguments which it would be difficult for any lawyer of our day to improve upon, and no jury ever had a man's life or liberty in their hands with better opportunity for meting out strict justice. The verdict was "not guilty." How far it may have been affected by the political predilections of the jurors it is hard to say. It was well understood at the time that the case took on a strong political complexion, and it is hardly to be supposed that a panel of sound Jeffersonians would have been brought to this conclusion even by the eloquence of Gore and Dexter. Certainly these gentlemen did their best for their fellow-laborer in the Federalist vineyard, and greatly distinguished themselves.1

Samuel Dexter has left a great name. He was a gentleman of varied and liberal acquirements, and very distinguished as a lawyer. Mr. Justice Story, before whom he practised, was wont to speak of him in terms of the highest praise, ranking him indeed as inferior to William Pinkney, - the leader, in Story's estimation, among all the counsel who practised at the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, - but second to none else. From the judge's description of the two men, it may be doubted whether the taste of the present day would not cause his preference to be reversed. Pinkney had a fiery, impetuous style of oratory, which seemed to lift his auditors from their feet, and bear them along whithersoever the flood of his eloquence was di¬ rected ; but Dexter was more even, tranquil, and dispassionate, seeking to convince his hearers, not overwhelming their cool reason, but rather leaving it free for the better comprehension of his lucid argument. He was not, however, devoid of the faculty of passionate oratory, and upon the rare occasions when he was excited to it the effect is said to have been very great. Yet all this is only tradition; scarcely anything of his has been pre¬ served, excepting a eulogy which he delivered upon Fisher Ames. His greatest effort was before the Supreme Court of the United States, made at the time when the merchants of Boston, ruined by the Embargo, undertook to establish the unconstitutionality of the law. Mr. Dexter appeared on

1 Thomas Handasyd Perkins was foreman of the day, and a separate publication, contained the grand jury which found the indictment, and the report of this trial, the indictment being for Paul Revere was foreman of the petit jury which manslaughter, - not for murder. See also Parrendered the verdict. Portraits of both are given son's Memoir of Theophilus Parsons, 250; Amelsewhere in this History. [The newspapers of ory's James Sullivan, ii. 167. - Ed.]

their behalf; and though he lost his case, - which indeed was intrinsically hopeless, yet he reaped great honor from his conduct of it. It is a mis¬ fortune for history no less than for law in the United States, that not even an outline of his profound and able argument in a cause of such weighty

4 [This cut follows a likeness painted by J. ernor Gore is traced by Wm. H. Whitmore, in Trumbull, and given in 1838 to Harvard College his Geneaology of the Payne and Gore Families, by Wm. E. Payne, a nephew of Gore, and now printed in the Mass. His. Soc. Proc., 1875, and also hanging in Memorial Hall. The descent of Gov- as a publication of the Prince Society. - Ed.]

public import is extant. For a time Mr. Dexter was much in public life; beginning in the State Legislature he went thence to Congress, and was both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. In the adminis¬ tration of John Adams he was first Secretary of War, and then Secretary of the Treasury. But with the advent of Jefferson he retired from public life, and thereafter devoted himself exclusively to the law. He died untimely in his fifty-fifth year, May 4, 1816, from an acute difficulty in the throat. Dexter during most of his life was, as became a gentleman of his position in Boston in those days, a stanch Federalist; but in his later years his opinions upon the questions resulting in the war of 1812 induced him to abandon the party and join the Republicans, greatly to the regret of his friends.1

Dexter's compeer, friend, and rival was Christopher Gore, who was even more largely engaged in public life. For eight years he remained in England as Commissioner on behalf of the United States, busied with the settlement of claims for British spoliations under Jay's treaty; upon his return he was three years in the State Senate. In [809 he was elected Governor, and in 1814 he was chosen United States Senator from Massachusetts. Amid such numerous and exacting public functions, it is surprising that he could find time to attend much to the practice of the law. Yet it is certain that so long as he lived he was considered to stand high in the first rank of his profession. He was the first United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. In private practice his specialty was commercial law, of which he was a master; but his speech in the Selfridge case shows that he might have excelled also in the more showy and oratorical departments, had he been so minded. Except this, it may be said that absolutely nothing remains to show what he could do. He was a high-bred, courtly gentleman of the old school. His habits and appearance partook largely of that aristocratic element which then distinguished the prominent Federalists throughout the country, and nowhere to a greater degree than in Boston. He had a magnificent house at Waltham, in the neighborhood of Boston, with marble floors, a deer-park, and like expensive and luxurious appoint¬ ments. He drove in a coach-and-four, with outriders in livery. Indeed it is said that the loss of his election to a second term of the governorship was largely due to these over-gorgeous habits. He had an ample fortune, a liberal portion of which he bequeathed to Harvard College. Gore Hall, used for the library, was built with this fund, and named for him.

For many years about this same period James Sullivan filled a large space before the eyes not only of the people of Boston,2 but of the whole

1 [We much need a life of Dexter. A little and there in the biographies of his contemporavolume, consisting of some friendly recollections, ries. He lived in the Beacon Street side of the communicated to the Boston Evening Transcript house on the corner of Beacon and Park streets, by Lucius Manlius Sargent, his law pupil, and - EdJ.

afterward printed separately as Reminiscences of 2 [In the autumn of 1782 James Sullivan Samuel Dexter , 1857, is the chief record we have, moved to Boston, and occupied a house on Bow- To this should be added an essay by Judge Story doin Square. In the first chapter of the second in his Miscellaneous Writings , and a glance here volume of his Life, by T. C. Amory, we have an

Commonwealth. Of Irish descent, he had the courage, activity, eloquence, and hospitality which distinguish the best of that race. He was born in Berwick, Maine, April 22, 1744, the fourth son in a numerous family, many of whom acquired distinction in public life. An accident which befell him in early years, in cutting down a tree, rendered him lame and prevented his entering the army, as he had intended. He was able, however, as a civ¬ ilian once also in a military way - to render essential service during the Revolutionary war. At the time of the adoption of the State Constitu¬ tion in 1780, Sullivan was on the Bench of the Supreme Court with Cushing, Sargent, and Sewall. But in 1782, out of regard to the general poverty, the Legislature established his salary at only £300, and reduced him to the necessity of resigning. For several years, he said, he had received from the Government barely enough to pay his travelling expenses upon circuit. He had, however, as he frankly acknowledged, a strong fancy for a public career, and the intervals when he was not filling some office of public trust and service were few and brief. It is seldom that we encounter the record of a busier life ; he was not only a lawyer in large practice, but a writer and a man of affairs both in business and in politics. He was a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775, and again a delegate from Massachusetts in 1783 ; a judge, at different times, of the Admiralty, Probate, Superior, and Supreme Courts ; a representative in the State Legislature ; a member of the Executive Council; a member of sundry public commissions; for seventeen years attorney-general, for two years governor, and finally a member of all sorts of societies, quasi-public and private, notably of the Massachusetts His¬ torical Society, of which he was one of the founders, and for many years the president, until displaced by political opponents.1 He was the promoter of the famous Middlesex Canal, and by his energy carried that great labor to a successful consummation. He was engaged in many other business undertakings. He wrote law books, - especially his learned work on land titles, - and some able political tracts. He was also a constant and liberal contributor to the newspapers, in all the numerous and exacting political and personal controversies of the times, following the fashion of the public men of that day in using this channel to reach the people and influence popular opinion. Add to all this the exactions of a large private profes¬ sional practice, and the time devoted to social intercourse with an unusually numerous circle of friends, - for he was a very popular man, - and it is evi¬ dent that Governor Sullivan could have had few idle moments. When, in 1790, he was made attorney-general, he insisted that a salary should be annexed to the office in place of the previous system of payment by fees. The change was to his own pecuniary disadvantage ; but he was resolved that his emoluments should not be dependent upon the number of prosecu¬ tions which he could institute or carry through. This was of a piece with the upright and just temper which marked him throughout life. The Self¬ estimate of him as a lawyer, and of the condition 1 [See Amory's Life of James Sullivan, ii. of practice in his day. - Ed.] 133; Austin's Life of Gerry. - Ed.]

ridge case was the most famous which it fell to him to conduct during his long term of office ; but only second to it was the still-remembered trial of Jason Fairbanks for the murder of Miss Fales. She was the village belle at Dedham, and perhaps a trifle prone to flirtation. Fairbanks was a sickly and unattractive youth, one of her admirers, to whom she seemed rather unaccountably kind. One day he met her in a meadow, and, having in vain attempted to dishonor her, he stabbed or rather hacked her to death with a knife, with circumstances of extreme barbarity. Intense excitement prevailed. The trial took place in the Dedham church, Chief-Justice Dana presiding in the pulpit, associates Paine, Strong, and Davis sitting in the desk below him, and the jury occupying the neighboring pews. John Lowell and Flarrison Gray Otis appeared for Fairbanks, and surprised every one by the force and ingenuity of their defence. It is said that Lowell was then, and ever after remained, convinced of his client's inno¬ cence. Sullivan however, in closing, made a superb address, and won a well-merited verdict of " guilty." 1 Strange to say, the wretched prisoner found sympathizers sufficiently enterprising to rescue him from his con¬ finement and run him off towards Canada. By good fortune, however, he was recaptured when almost upon the very border, was brought back, and - since fortunately the days of sentimentality for brutal criminals had not yet arrived - he met his just deserts upon the gallows.

In the Selfridge trial Sullivan labored under severe disadvantages. Fie had been hard pushed with other causes during the term ; he was in illhealth, and within a few days he had lost, by sudden death in his own house, one of his sons. Gore wrote out his argument carefully for the re¬ port of the case; but Sullivan trusted to the ordinary reporter's notes. Yet even under all these disadvantages the speech appears to have been a fine one, though it was not generally considered that he was at his best in it. He was always a very fluent and ready speaker, quick in expedient and never disconcerted, with a surprising ability for carrying on other business, even to the writing of his law books and political tracts during the conduct of a cause, without ever losing the thread of his opponent's case. In spite of his lameness he is said to have had an excellent personal presence.2

Sullivan was one of the few gentlemen of position and prominence in Massachusetts who belonged to the Republican party. Such, however, was the respect felt for his character that he was well liked even by Federalists. Most of his personal friends were almost inevitably, as Boston society was then constituted, of the Federal persuasion, and it is much to his and to their credit that, at a time when personal animosity was freely imported into political life, such friendships were warmly maintained. But it must be said that he was a very high-spirited and independent man in political as well as in all other matters, and more than once gave offence to his party.

They could not, however, get along without him in Massachusetts, and for¬ gave perfoice his occasional derelictions. He was several times their can¬ didate for Governor, narrowly missing success, until in 1807 he was elected, and again in 1808 was re-elected, dying in that year before his term of office had expired. Democrat though he was, he had lived handsomely, and was opposed in the gubernatorial campaign, as Gore was soon afterward, on the ground that he was too much of an aristocrat. The personal charges brought against him in the canvass were very discreditable to his opponents, but are now in a certain sense agreeable reading, as showing that falsehood and calumny were at least as freely used in political warfare in those days as in our own. Few men, near the close of so long and active a life, could have been found so invulnerable to just reproach as was Governor Sullivan.

Theophilus Parsons was a student in the office of Tudee Trowbridne When admitted to practice at the bar he opened his office in Newburyport, and there did a thriving business for the merchants and ship-captains who then gave an air of liveliness and enterprise to the streets of that now tranquil and sleepy old town. He became a master of prize and admiralty law, then a lucrative branch of practice, and divided the business in these departments with John Lowell and Governor Sullivan. Clients who are making money fast are usually welcome to the lawyer's of¬ fice, and such were the kind who came to Parsons. One of them, a master of a privateer, one day threw into the lap of Mrs. Parsons - as she sat, after the simple, pleasant fashion of the day, in her husband's office - a dozen heavy silver-gilt spoons, with the remark that " the squire had not charged him half enough." Another, one day, said that in praying the Lord to make him rich he believed he must have prayed too hard, for it seemed that now the Almighty " meant to drown him out." Parsons came to Boston in 1806 with a high reputation. It was remarked that' he never used a brief, trusting with perfect confidence to a memory of extraordinary tenacity. He addressed jurors and judges alike with brevity, simplicity, and force, and achieved brilliant successes. Chief-Justice Parker has left a de¬ scription of him in argument: "He put one foot on his chair, and, with an elbow on his knee, leaned over and began to talk about the case as a man might talk to a neighbor at his fireside." A juror once said of him:

" He is not much of a lawyer, and he don't talk or look as if he would ever be one; but he seems a real good sort of a man." He had an eccentric habit of declining ever to take a fee from a widow or a clergyman.

Parsons was appointed by Governor Strong to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Chief- Justice Dana. The promotion was made over the head, as it were, of the senior Associate Justice, Theodore Sedgwick, at the private intercession of Judges Isaac Parker and Samuel E. Sewall. The truth was, that Sedgwick was a courteous and amiable gentleman, who could not be expected to make any reform in the extreme and mischievous laxity which then disfigured the administration of justice; but Parsons was a man of vol. iv. - 75.

different temper. No sooner had he taken his seat upon the bench than the whole air of the court-room seemed charged with a terrible energy. No excuse was listened to, no delay was admitted. Counsel might try in their turn, or they must submit to the inexorable non-suit or default. The drop¬ sical dockets rapidly shrunk when gashed by the unsparing lancet of the new Chief. The lawyers at first grumbled much ; but suitors were better pleased, and the great improvement effected soon reconciled all persons to the new system. Yet it cannot be denied that Parsons often carried his autocratic spirit too far. It was not only that his manners were rough; but he was too apt to take the case into his own hands, to lead or drive the jury according to his own notions, and not unfrequently even to refuse to hear the arguments of counsel. In spite of his perfect honesty and his shrewd intelligence, this was over-doing the judicial authority. Samuel Dexter, once smarting beneath one of these arbitrary interruptions, said with some temper, " Your honor did not argue your own cases in the way you require of us." " Certainly not," replied Parsons ; " but that was the judge's fault, not mine." He had a quick and trenchant tongue, and was almost as proud of his reputation for wit as of his standing as a lawyer; so that it was dangerous for counsel to tilt with him, especially when he had the authority of office at his back. Yet sometimes he got as good as he gave. For example, once, when he was in Hampshire on circuit, Elijah H. Mills, afterward a distinguished lawyer and politician of Northampton, then very young at the bar, was compelled to take charge of the cases of an old lawyer who had been taken suddenly ill. Mills called upon the chief-justice with a letter of introduction, stated the embarrassing position in which he found himself, and asked for advice as to whom he should employ as senior counsel in the emergency. " I think on the whole," said Parsons, " that you had better employ nobody; you and I can do the business about as well as any one." It was hardly to be wondered at that these allies made a brilliant campaign through the session. At its close, one of the old coun¬ try lawyers visited the chief-justice, and, as he rose to take leave, Parsons

" I'm not so sure of that, judge," retorted the other; " I think some of send¬ ing my office-boy with my papers ; you and he together will do the busi¬ ness full as well as I can."

Parsons was a sound Federalist; but unlike his rivals of that political creed, he was far from being an aristocrat in manners or appearance. He was slouching in figure, and careless to the point of being actually slatternly and unclean in his dress and person. Once when he was going on circuit, his wife put six clean shirts in his valise, with strict injunctions that he should be sure to put on a fresh shirt every day. On his return at the end of the week, no shirt was to be found in his valise; he vowed solemnly that he could not account for it, that he had put on a fresh shirt every morning. It turned out that he had indeed done so ; but he had never taken off a shirt during the time: he had put one on over another to the end of the supply!

He died in 1S13, at the age of sixty-three, of some trouble in the head. As his mind wandered towards the end, his last words were: " Gentlemen of the juiy, the case is closed, and in your hands; you will please retire, and agree upon your verdict.1' 1

In casting about to determine which law office in Boston he should enter, Daniel Webster found none so well suited to his taste as that of Governor Gore. It was with no small diffidence that the lad from the country, un¬ known and unfriended, ventured to approach the famous and aristocratic lawyer whose office then was in " Scollay's Building," where now stands the statue of Winthrop. But Mr. Gore received him with great kindliness, and readily gave him all the opportunities which he wished. A warm friend¬ ship grew up and endured between them during the remaining years of the ex-governor's life, and Webster always held his memory, both as a man and as a lawyer, in great veneration. It was while in Mr. Gore's office that Mr. \\ ebstei had the offer of the clerkship of a court of common pleas in New Hampshire, with a salary of one thousand five hundred dollars per annum. It seems astonishing now to think that his first impulse was to ac¬ cept this position, and it is curious to speculate upon what would have been his career had he done so. Fortunately, however, Mr. Gore threw his influ¬ ence so vigorously and authoritatively into the opposite scale that Webster changed his mind, refused the office, - to the extreme disappointment of his aged lather, and was saved to his country and his profession. Soon after¬ ward, in 1 805, in the Court of Common Pleas in Boston, Mr. Gore moved the admission of Mr. \\ ebster to the Bar, and according to the custom of the day he made a short speech concerning his pupil. " It is a well-known tradition, says Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, " that on this occasion Mr. Gore predicted the future eminence of his young friend. What he said has not been preserved ; but that he said what Mr. Webster never forgot, that it was distinctly a prediction, and that it excited in him a resolve that it should not go unfulfilled, we have upon his own authority, although he appears to ha\ e been unwilling to repeat the words of Mr. Gore's address." After this ceremony Mr. Webster returned to New Hampshire; but a principle of gi a\ itation too strong to be resisted drew him back towards Boston, of which place he became permanently a citizen in August, 1816. There he not only found congenial friends and devoted admirers, but was often able to make more money in a single case than he had been able to gather in twelve

1 [We fortunately have a filial record of After coming to Boston, he lived for a year on Judge Parsons's life m a Memoir of Theophilus the southerly side of Bromfield Street, but in Parsons , by his son of the same name, written 1801 he bought a house with a large garden on over fifty years after the judge's death, and when the eastern side of Pearl Street, and there died, but a small portion of his manuscripts remained Judge Parsons's library was for his day a very in the family hands. An unfinished portrait by large one, - between five and six thousand vol- Stuart, painted after Judge Parsons's death, but times. After his death in 1S13, it was sold for regai ded f as an admirable likeness," is prefixed more than its original cost with interest. " Such to the volume. . It is said in Mason's Stuart , p. a sale was then without precedent, and has not 236, that the artist Alexander painted in the eyes occurred since, that I know of," says his son. in the unfinished picture, before it was engraved. Memoir of Theophilus Parsons , p. 263. - Ed.]

months in New Hampshire, where his practice, we are told, had never been worth more than two thousand dollars a year, and was scarcely susceptible of possible increase beyond that paltry sum. Mr. Webster's fame as a states¬ man far overshadows his reputation as a lawyer ; yet in the argument of a

1 [This cut follows an unfinished picture by Stuart, who only completed the head. It was painted at the time when Webster first moved to Boston from Portsmouth. It is owned by Mr. Henry Parkman, of Boston. On the terrace in front of the State House stands a statue of him by Powers, which met with such adverse criticism that Mr. Everett, who delivered in 1859 an ora¬ tion at its dedication, felt called upon to defend it. - Works , iv. 146, 1S6. An excellent engraving of Powers's bust, which was made from life before Webster was fifty, adorns the second volume of Webster's Works as edited by Mr. Everett. A re¬ port of the reasons urged by Mr. George T. Cur¬ tis and Mr. J. T. Stevenson, against accepting the statue as an adequate representation of Mr. Webster, will be found in full in the Boston Courier , July 8, 1859. The model which was constitutional question he has never had a superior. He can hardly, how¬ ever, be regarded as peculiarly associated with Boston in his professional career ; for though he often practised in the State courts, and had many steady clients in this city, his chief business was in the Supreme Court at Washington, and it was before that tribunal that all his greatest efforts were made. Among his professional achievements, by far the most popularly known are his great speeches in the Knapp cases at Salem. It may be doubted whether a more effective harangue was ever uttered in a court-room, than that famous and familiar speech which contains the now proverbial words : " There was no escape from confession but suicide ; and suicide is confession." In the earlier trial Franklin Dexter, who had the arduous task of defending the accused not only against a terrible weight of adverse preferred by many was that made by Thomas Ball, upon which, with some changes, that artist moulded the statue which in 1876 was erected in Central Park, New York, when the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop and others delivered addresses. The proceedings of the occasion were issued in a sumptuous quarto, with a large engraving of the statue, and another is given in Harvey's Reminiscences of Webster.

The engraved portraits of Mr. Webster are numerous ; but the following will show the grad¬ ual change in his appearance, of which Mr. Ev¬ erett speaks in his defence of Powers's statue : a miniature, painted at twenty-two, and engraved on the title of Harvey's Reminiscences ; by Miss Goodrich, a miniature, painted in 1820, in the Private Correspondence , i. ; by Plealy, in 1843, in Curtis's Life of Webster , i. ; by Chester Hard¬ ing, engraved by Schoff, in Works, i., and in the Boston Memorial ; and another, in 1S49, 'n Curtis's Life , ii., engraved by Jackman after Whipple's daguerreotype ; by J. Ames in 1852, with slouched hat and fishing costume, a full length in Harvey's Reminiscences ; and a similar head by Ames, in Private Correspondence, ii.

Mr. Webster's fame is so closely connected with the Federalist town and the Whig city, that it maybe well to indicate the chief contributions to an understanding of his character and career. The two most authentic accounts of him are the Memoir which Mr. Everett prefixed to Webster's Works, in their author's lifetime, and the ex¬ tended Life prepared by his executor, George Ticknor Curtis, published in 1869; many of the papers on which it was based are now in the collection of Charles P. Greenough, Esq. Mr. Curtis subsequently, in 1878, issued in expla¬ nation of Webster's later political views a little monograph on The Last Years of Webster. Webster's son, Fletcher, published the Private Correspotidence in two volumes in 1857, with which was an autobiographical fragment ending with 1817, and some recollections of his schooleloquence of Webster, complained to days by his mates. Charles Hale gave a paper on his literary work in college in Old and New, July, 1873. It is noteworthy that Webster's first Latin lesson at Exeter was recited to Joseph Stevens Buckminster, the subsequent Boston pulpit orator. Books dealing more or less with his personal character are Charles Lanman's Private Life of Daniel Webster, 1S56, and Peter Harvey's Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Webster, 1877. March's Reminiscences of Congress deal largely with Webster up to 1835; and the lives of his political contemporaries all throw side¬ lights. Joel Parker delivered an address treat¬ ing him as a jurist. Edwin P. Whipple has measured him in his' Fssays, i. 172, and lately in an Essay presenting Webster as a master of English style in Webster's Great Speeches, 1879. At his death in 1852, the Eulogies in Congress were printed in a volume-; George S. Hillard delivered an oration before the Government of Boston, which, with other memorials, made up a commemorative volume issued by the city. Other addresses of a like character were delivered by Mr. Everett (in his Works) ; and another, by Rufus Choate, was spoken at Dartmouth, the alma mater of both, and the manuscript of this is now in the Public Library, as well as other interesting memorials, - namely, the short-hand report made by Joseph Gales of Webster's re¬ ply to Hayne, Jan. 26, 1830, and the copy which the author prepared from it for the press, and the silver vase given to him in 1835 by various Boston gentlemen. It should be remembered that the city also owns Healy's large picture of Webster replying to Hayne, which hangs in Faneuil Hall. Party feeling, or that judgment which came from such as kept aloof from his admirers, sometimes took issue with the esti¬ mates commonly made of him; and some of these antagonistic views can be found in Theo¬ dore Parker's Historic Americans , James Parton's Famous Americans, and in Wendell Phillips's Speeches. - Ed. ] the panel that this gentleman had been brought into the case " to hurry the jury against the law, and beyond the evidence." In the succeeding trial opposition was made, under a statute, to Mr. Webster's taking part at all. The objection was, however, overruled ; unfortunately perhaps for the pris¬ oner, but very fortunately for all lovers of noble specimens of professional oratory. Only less interesting was the Kenniston case. But far in advance of these Nisi Prius causes looms the great Dartmouth College case, which may perhaps be justly esteemed the most important cause ever tried in this country. Mr. Webster appeared for the college, and had the pleasure and glory of triumph. Whether his eloquence warped the court from a sound decision is a problem which the profession have not yet succeeded in solv¬ ing beyond dispute; and the two factions still divide the Bar of the country, remaining, like two political parties, forever incapable of agreement.

Older than Daniel Webster, but in the memory of New England lawyers inseparably associated with him, was Jeremiah Mason. He also was born in New Hampshire, but as early as 1768, so that he was fourteen years Mr. Webster's senior. He did not, however, remove to Boston until 1832,' so that when Mr. Webster came to the New Hampshire Bar, he found Mr. Mason reigning there almost supreme. It was not long ere the two were regarded as not unequal opponents, and were constantly pitted against each other; but they were, and ever continued to be, the best of friends. Mr. Mason was a man of strongly marked individuality, with great independence and courage, a clear, strong, and keen mind, a trenchant wit, and a brusque, not to say a rough, manner. Long before he came to Boston he had served with distinction in the Senate of the United States from New Hampshire, and his practice had carried him not only all over New England, but often also to Washington. He was the intimate friend of Rufus King and Chris¬ topher Gore, and a valuable correspondence between him and them has fortunately been preserved. He shared with Mr. Webster the honor of winning the Dartmouth College case. He had some claim to be what is called a " character ; " and his shrewd, witty, often sarcastic, and sometimes rough retorts were, to judge from tradition, the frequent provocation to merriment in his lifetime. It is sad, however, to find how singularly few

1 [William Prescott had retired from the bar which is here copied (1831), he marks as a defour years before this, when, as Mr. Webster parture from the old ways that he had laid aside later said, he "stood at the head of the Bar of the quill, temporarily at least. An account of him will be found in the appendix to Mr. Ticknor's Life of William H Pres- ' colt, his son. A portrait of him, by Stuart, is owned by his daughter, the widow of Franklin Dexter, a son of Samuel Dexter ; and another by the estate of the late James Lawrence, who married a daughter of the historian.

Massachusetts for legal learning and attain- Judge Story, in his autobiography, pays Judge ments." Judge Prescott did not die till No- Prescott a high tribute. Life and Letters of of the " good stories " to which his sharp-edged tongue gave rise have been preserved. Perhaps the best and most familiar is this: A judge be¬ fore whom he was conducting a case put a question to an important wit¬ ness. In an instant Mr. Mason was on his feet, and checked the witness's ieply. " May it please your Honor," he said, " I should like to inquire on whose side you asked that question? If it is on our side, we do not want it put ; and if it is on the other side, the answer would not be legal evidence." As may be supposed, his forte lay in cross-examination, which, as he man¬ aged it, was a species of vivisection beneath which many a dishonest wit¬ ness, and perchance occasionally also an honest one, writhed in pitiable suffering. One of his clients one day said to him, just before going in to trial, "We shall win the case; I am sure of it, for in a dream last night I had information from the Angel Gabriel." " Aha ! " cried Mr. Mason, " we must subpoena him at once." Mr. Webster says that when he came to the Bar he observed that Mr. Mason was a "cause-getting" man. "He had a habit of standing quite near to the jury, so that he might have laid his finger on the foreman's nose ; and then he talked to them in a plain con¬ versational way, in short sentences, and using no word that was not level to the comprehension of the least educated man on the panel. This led me to examine my own style; and I set about reforming it altogether." There certainly was not much artificiality or polish about Mr. Mason's rhetoric ; but it was full of a rugged vigor, which prevailed mightily with a jury, and of a logical clearness not less formidable before the judges in banc}

An intimate friend of Mr. Mason was Mr. Justice Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States. This gentleman was born at Marblehead, Sept. 1 8, 1779- He became one of the greatest jurists whom this country has ever produced. Appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States by Mr. Madison, in 1810, he imbibed the spirit of Chief- Justice Marshall, for whom he had a warm affection, as well as a high esteem. His long services and eminent ability pointed him out as the natural successor to the distinguished position which Marshall left vacant in 1835 i and he would undoubtedly have enjoyed the well-merited honor had it not been for the narrow prejudices and rancorous hostility of Presi¬ dent Jackson, who openly avowed his antipathy to the "school of Kent and Story," and passed by this latter gentleman to appoint Roger B. Taney, - a sufficiently good lawyer, but who really owed his office to an act of political servility. This unjust treatment, however, cannot dim the lustre of Story's fame. He played a great part in framing both the constitutional and the commercial law of this country, at a period when both these depart-

1 [The only authoritative life of Mr. Mason nate in knowing him from his coming. Mr. is one written by George S. Hillard, in 1873, Mason died in October, 1848, aged a little over from material furnished by the late Robert M. eighty. In Mr. Hillard's opinion, Mr. Mason Mason, Esq., his son, and privately printed. It is " was perhaps the greatest lawyer that ever praconly the last chapter of this book which covers tised at the Bar in New England." - Ed.] his Boston career, and Mr. Hillard was fortu- ments were in a plastic state; and the War of 1812 devolved upon him the duty of almost creating the American doctrines of admiralty and prize law. His capacity for labor was immense; he acquired easily, and poured forth his knowledge with wonderful fluency. As Judge of the Supreme Court,

Joseph Story

Professor in the Dane Law School at Harvard College, and the writer of a small library of treatises upon legal topics, - all which functions he com¬ bined through many years of his busy career, - he seemed almost to live

1 [This cut follows a likeness by Gilbert Stuart, painted in 1819, and bequeathed by the judge to Harvard College, where it now hangs in Memorial Hall. See Mason's Gilbert Stuart , p. 260. A statue of Story, sitting, by his son \V. W. Story, is in the chapel at Mount Au¬ burn ; and a bust of him ( 1S46) by the same is in Memorial Hall, Cambridge. This same son published the authoritative Life and. Letters of Joseph Story in 1851. The likeness in this book follows a crayon by his son, drawn after

Story's death ; and in Vol. II. p. 555, there is a list of the likenesses of him. An autobiog¬ raphy is contained in his Miscellaneous Works, 1852. Charles Sumner paid a tribute to him, which is printed in his Speeches ; and in Pierce's Life of Sumner there is much light thrown on their friendly intercourse. George S. Hillard printed a memoir in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., April, 1868. Mr. Webster's estimate, pronounced be¬ fore the Bar on the day of Story's funeral, will be found in his Works, ii. 297. - Ed.]

The Bench And Bar En Boston

achieved exuberance generally without re¬ dundancy, and displayed an enormous range of learning without often exposing himself to the charge of pedantry. Al¬ though appointed by Madison, Judge Story took the Federalist view concerning the proper method of interpreting the Constitution; and fortunately his powerful influence was thrown always in happy unison with that of Marshall, in favor of broad and liberal construction. This was the natural habit of his mind, and rapidly wore out some youthful predi¬ lections which he had en¬ tertained for the fanciful and alluring, but unsound and impracticable, tenets of the Jeffersonian school of legists. Wit and hu¬ mor were hardly traits of Judge Story. He could enjoy a joke well enough, but seldom endeavored to make one. He was as genial and kindly as he was learned, with a wise, benevolent face, but of a serious nature. Fortu¬ nately he had the good sense, or happy instinct, to understand his own gifts, and never to under¬ take anything which he could not do well good story which is told of him is this: He loved to lie late in his bed, but vol. iv. - 76.

boasted of being always wide awake so long as he was out of it. President Quincy, of Harvard College, and John Quincy Adams, on the contrary, were gravely " addicted to the vice of intemperate early rising." One day these two gentlemen made a sort of complimentary visit, to attend one of Judge Story's lectures at the law school. But ere long they both fell sound asleep, to the no small amusement of the students. Story, not at all discomfited, stopped short, pointed to the slumberers and said : " Gen¬ tlemen, you see before you a melancholy example of the evil effects of early rising." The burst of laughter which followed quickly broke the dreams of the worthy old sleepers.

Contemporary, friend, and professional rival of Webster was Rufus Choate, whose name still awakens in those who knew him memories more stirring and vivid than can be aroused by the mention of any lawyer of any age or any country. He was the magician of the Bar; about whom everything that any one remembers or has heard seems weird, strange, and wonderful. No definition of the word genius could be drawn so narrow as to exclude his brilliant, singular, fascinating, powerful mind. Not without distinction in public life, a scholar steeped in the literature of ancient and modern days, an able lawyer in arguments to the judges in banc, yet his pre-eminent distinction was as an advocate. His power over a jury was as masterful as his method of obtaining and exercising it was peculiar. His classical allusions, his extravagant and often grotesque imagery, his wild, impossible fancies, his excitable manner, his fervid, impetuous rush of speech, would have seemed to one judging a priori to be far removed from the uncultivated mind and dull intelligence of the average panel. Beautiful and noble as were his more labored productions, much of what he said in court, when put into print and read quietly at the fireside, seems not only lacking in persuasive or convincing qualities, but almost meaning¬ less, and sometimes even absolutely ridiculous. But criticism is paralyzed before the compelling facts which repeated themselves week after week through his many long years of active professional life. His sway was not less complete over his educated fellow-citizens than over rustic jurors, who presumably did not fairly comprehend one sentence in ten. The test of success, the glory of victory, were his. His tactics in trying a case were often said to be Napoleonic; he left no precaution uncared for to secure success, and then fought with an intensity, an energy, an elan which seemed to render such precautions superfluous. He was never discouraged ; he never ceased to struggle. Not till the sheriff had the execution in hand, did Mr. Choate ever regard a case as hopelessly lost. Not unnaturally, he was a more distinguished counsel in weak than in strong cases. A desperate chance roused all his faculties ; but a plethora of strength in his case seemed to confuse him. So long as he practised in Essex County, not a client of his was ever convicted in criminal proceedings. People began to say that he was the scourge of society; that behind his aegis crime could flourish uncontrolled. In the famous Tirrell cases, which he tiied in Boston, and in which, it will be remembered, the famous defence of somnambulism was set up, he even exasperated many respectable and intelligent citizens by his success in securing the acquittal of a debased

1 [This cut follows an engraving after Southworth & Hawes's photograph, which is given in Brown's Life of Choate , where it is called the best likeness of him in repose ; but credit is given to Ames's likeness, now at Dartmouth College, for its representation of him in action; and to Brackett's bust for " spirit," and to Ball's bust for " dignity, force, and truthfulness." Parker's Reminiscences has a striking full-face reckless extravagance of suggestion, almost absurd afterward, - -was furportrait of Choate, following also a photograph by Southworth & Hawes.

Mr. Choate's literary productions were pub¬ lished, with a memoir by Professor S. G. Brown, in 1S62, three years after his death, and the Me¬ moir. , with additions, was separately issued in 1869. This is the authoritative account, having the sanction of the family, and being based on his private papers. The full picture of his wonderful nished in the earlier of these cases. After the defence had all been put in, the Government were permitted to call a witness whom they had then just laid hands upon. Commenting upon this, Mr. Choate said : -

" Where was this tardy and belated witness, that he comes here to tell us all he knows and all he doesn't know, forty-eight hours after the evidence for the defence is closed ? Is the case so obscure, that he has never heard of it ? Was he ill, or in custody? Was he in Europe, Asia, or Africa? Was he on the Red Sea, or the Yellow Sea, or the Black Sea, or the Mediterranean Sea ? Was he at Land's End, or John O'Groat's house? Was he with commissioners on our north-eastern boundary, drawing and defining that much vexed boundary line ? or was he with General Taylor and his army at Chihuahua, or wherever the fleeting south-western boundary-line of our country may at this moment be? No, gentlemen ! he was at none of these places, comparatively easy of access; but - and I will call your attention, Mr. Foreman, to the fact, and urge it upon your consideration - he was at that more remote, more in¬ accessible region, whence so few travellers return, - Roxbury ! "

Mr. Choate's reputation for success in assisting criminals to escape from the just punishment of their crimes once put him in an embarrassing position. He was cross-examining a government witness, a seaman who was testifying against his comrades, charged with stealing money. He had said that Mr. Choate's client instigated the theft. "What did he say?" asked Mr. Choate; " tell me how and what he spoke to you." " Oh," replied the sailor, " he told us there was a man in Boston named Choate, who would get us off even if we were caught with the money in our boots." This was discom¬ fiting; the court-room echoed with the roar of laughter. Mr. Choate alone showed no sign either of amusement or of displeasure, but continued with even tranquillity, as if nothing peculiar had occurred. It will always be a source of regret that Mr. Choate did not appear in the trial of Pro¬ fessor Webster, for the murder of Dr. Parkman, the most famous crimi¬ nal cause ever tried in New England. The story goes that he was solicited to undertake the defence, but refused to do so ; that F'ranklin Dexter went to see him, hoping to persuade him to change his mind, and spent a whole afternoon in his library laying the case before him, and urging him. Choate paced up and down the room. Finally he turned to Mr. Dexter, and put to him one question. What it was is not known, but it touched a vital point. The reply was such that no further inducements could shake his fixed resolution.

The name of Choate acts like a talisman upon those who knew him ; the word brings light into their eyes, and they think and talk of him without personality can be made out only by gleanings win P. Whipple, in American Review, 1847, or, from the recollections of many persons, some of Essays and Reviews, ii. (critical), and Harper's the most important of which are the following: Magazine, November, 1878, also separately (rec- Eclward G. Parker, Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, ollections) ; Atlantic Monthly, July, i860, Janu- 1860; Edward Everett, address, in Works, iv. ary, 1863; North American Review, January, 178; George S. Hillard, in New American Cyclo- 1S63 ; Hours at Home, November, 1866; Napadia; George Lunt, Three Eras of Arew Eng- tional Quarterly Review, 1873 1 American Law land , etc. (as a lecturer); N E. Hist, and Review, October, 1876 (reminiscences); Mass. Geneal. Reg., October, 1S61 (his lineage); Ed-t Hist. Soc. Proc., August, 1859. - Ed.]

readily stopping. Biographies, articles, addresses, have perpetuated his memory and fed the flame of curiosity ; but no one has ever yet drawn the man, a task which, perhaps, is as impossible as to describe color or scent by words. His traits have not been, and cannot -be, captured by a biog¬ rapher and imprisoned in a book; but airy and sprite-like they ever flit

1 [This cut follows a photograph, taken by Whipple & Black, in 1858. The Editor is in¬ debted to Samuel S. Shaw, Esq., for the follow¬ ing memorandum : -

"There is no likeness of Chief-Justice Shaw of earlier date than the bust by S. H. Clevenger, modelled in 1839, in the possession of the Boston Athenaeum, a copy of which fills a niche in the Supreme Court room at Boston. It was taken in his 59th year, and is an admirable portrait. The artist, whose career was cut short by a premature death in

1843, excelled in the fidelity of his likenesses. His resi¬ dence in Boston was short, and it is probable that he saw the chief-justice only as a sitter in hi§ studio. He has given much of the animation which lighted up his face when conversing on subjects which interested him. A daguerreo¬ type of the four judges who then composed the full bench of the Supreme Court was taken by Litch & Whipple in 1845, from which enlarged photographs have been made. It is chiefly interesting as suggesting his appearance before the arrival of old age.

One cannot resist speaking a few words of Choate in a paper like this, though it may perhaps seem unfair to single him out almost alone from among his eminent contemporaries. Judge B. R. Curtis, Chief-Justice

Lemuel Shaw, Judge Peleg Sprague, are but the beginning of a long list of jurists and advo¬ cates who adorned the Bench and Bar at Boston during this period. But catalogue would be uninteresting, and to give more than a cata¬ logue within any reasonable limits would be impossible. Moreover, it is not easy, possibly not wise, to undertake to speak freely of persons whose widows and children are still among us, and many of whose rivals and contemporaries, equally worthy of notice, still survive. Therefore it is, perhaps, quite as well that our allotted limit is already reached, or in¬ deed passed.

attracted much attention from the picturesque effects ob¬ tained from a strong vertical light and deep shadows. It is a three-quarters length, faces directly front, and, though somewhat fantastical and removed from reality, is im¬ pressive.

" The large photograph by Whipple & Black taken in 1858, the chief-justice being then 77 years old, will prob¬ ably be more generally recognized as a good portrait by those who now remember him than any other, - Hunt's excepted. In it all the furrows and wrinkles of old age are conspicuous, and their harsh effect is heightened by the dark color of the hair, which was natural, and remained but slightly changed to the end. The implacable severity of this picture would produce a false impression on those who had no means of correcting it, but it is on the whole very lifelike.

" The great, full-length portrait by Hunt, and its attend¬ ant studies and sketches, belong to the history of art in this country. It was painted in 1859 at the request of the Essex Bar Association, and put in place under the supervision of the artist on December 22 of that year. He had under¬ taken the task with enthusiasm, and the result was accepted by the Bar and the public at large as a complete success. The committee, represented by the Hon. Otis P. Lord, reported their satisfaction in having 'a most faithful and true delineation of the form and features of Chief-Justice Shaw,' and attested to posterity its exact 'fidelity.' The justice of this verdict has apparently never been questioned by any critic. In the smaller sketches by Hunt, much esteemed by those who own them, there should be noticed an exaggeration of details, especially of the nose, amount¬ ing to caricature were it not for the dignity of the whole figure. The bust by King, in the Boston City Hall, was executed after the decease of the chief-justice from pictures and photographs.

"Besides the foregoing, one or two oil portraits of no value and several photographs, single or grouped with others, were taken, which merit no special comment." - Ed.]

Chapter Xii The Horticulture Of Boston And Vicinity

AS to the fruits of this region previous to the coming of the colonists we know but little.1 Whether Leif and Thorwald, the Scandinavians, did or did not land on our shores in the tenth century, as the Sagas have it, to find grapes so abundant that they gave this land the name of Vinland| " e still know that the vine was found on our coast by Champlain six hun¬ dred years afterward, and that it prospers through twenty-five degrees of latitude, and should the phylloxera continue its devastations in Europe, our continent may become, literally, the Vineland of the world. No nation possesses such wonderful resources for the culture of fruits; no people have made such rapid progress in the science of pomology; and to Boston and vicinity may be traced primarily the widespread interest in horticul¬ ture throughout our continent. Nor has this enterprise declined. Massa¬ chusetts retains her renown for her skill in horticultural science, and her

The earliest account that we have of the fruits and flowers of New England is given by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, where, in addition to In¬ dian corn and other grains, they also found indigenous fruits and flowers.

Here are grapes," wrote Governor Edward Winslow in 1621, "white and red, and very sweet and strong also ; strawberries, gooseberries, raspber¬ ries ; plums of three sorts, white, black, and red, being almost as good as a damson ; abundance of roses, white, red, and damask, single, but very sweet." 2

The first orchard of which we have any note was that of the Rev. Wil¬ liam Blackstone (Blaxton), planted on the west slope of Beacon Hill.3 In

Lonsdale, Rhode Island, whither he removed in 1634, there may still be seen near his favorite resort, "Study Hill," remains of trees planted by him, and from which were disseminated apples, now under cultivation, by the name of Blackstone. The first planting of fruits by the colonists of

Massachusetts Bay, we believe, was the orchard of Governor John Endicott of Salem, about the year 1628. From this nursery we find that as late as 1648 Endicott sold five hundred apple-trees to William Trask, for which he received two hundred and fifty acres of land, - an acre of land for two apple trees; a noble illustration of the appreciation in which fruits were held by the colonists at that time. The planting of fruits by the colonists under Governor Winthrop was begun, we presume, soon after their arrival in 1630, for we find that seeds and stones of fruits are particularly men¬ tioned among their outfits.

Next to Blackstone, Governor Winthrop was the most prominent in the horticulture of Boston, having, in addition to his farms at Governor's Island and on the Mystic River, a garden opposite the foot of School Street, and adjoining his house.1 Winthrop had frequent correspondence with Endicott in regard to fruit-trees, as also had his son John, Governor of Connecticut; and we read of a good store of pippins from Governor Winthrop's garden. The colonial Legislature granted to Governor John Winthrop Conant's Island in Boston Harbor, afterward known as Governor's Island, on condi¬ tion that he should plant thereon a vineyard, and should pay as rent there¬ for a hogshead of wine. Whether this vineyard was planted or not we have no means of ascertaining ; but the contract was afterward altered to make the rent two bushels of apples a year, - one for the Governor, and one for the General Court.

One of the ancient gardens of Boston of which we have a distinct record is that of Gamaliel Wayte, in Summer Street, - the present site of the store of C. F. Hovey & Co.2 He came over with Edward Hutchinson, and is called a planter, which probably meant farmer or gardener; the latter most likely, for we find by the Book of Possessions that this land is described as Wayte's Garden, and we know that it was noted for the superior excellence of its fruits. This was planted as early as, or before, 1642. 3 Gamaliel seems to have been one of our earliest horticulturists, and long possessed the ability not only to plant but to eat his fruits; for Judge Sewall, in his diary, states

3 Letter of the Hon. Thomas C. Amory. This Brookline, and graced the exhibitions of the estate passed into the hands of Leonard Vassall, Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Of this thence to John Hubbard and Frederick W. estate the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop remarks : Geyer. Here once resided, in the family of Mr. "No garden in Boston had finer fruit fifty years Geyer, Mrs. Maryatt, whose gardens at Wimble- ago, and it was cultivated and cared for with the don were at one time the finest in England for highest intelligence and skill. The best specitheir beauty and variety of flowering plants ; mens of all the old varieties of pears were to be and we may reasonably conjecture, says Mr. found there, and Mr. Gardner had a peculiar art Amory, that "the taste and skill that produce of preserving them from decay and bringing such marvels were nurtured and fostered in her them out after the season for them was over." earlier days among the flower-beds of Summer How many of Wayte's trees or plants survived Street. ' She died in 1S55, at the age of eighty- till these grounds came into the possession of one. This estate passed, in 1800, to Samuel P. Mr. Gardner we know not ; but we have a dia- Gardner, Esq., the father of our respected mer- gram of the garden and the lists of its fruits in chant and fellow-citizen John L. Gardner; and 1811, and as late as 1870 there was an old pear from him the latter probably inherited his love tree in the yard which was in a thrifty condition.

The Horticulture Of Boston And Vicinity

Passing over a hundred years, of whose horticultural history little record remains, we find in the Philosophical Transactions (London, 1734) a paper communicated to the Royal Society by the Hon. Paul Dudley of Roxbury, Chief-Justice of Massachusetts, entitled " Some Observations on the Plants of New England, with Remarkable Instances of the Power of Vegetation," which gives us an account of the size and culture of fruits and vegetables growing in Roxbury in 1726, as follows: -

The Plants ot England, as well as those of the Fields and Orchards as those of the Garden, that have been brought over hither, suit mighty well with our Soil, and grow here to great Perfection.

" 0ur aPPles are without Doubt as good as those of England, and much fairer to look to ; and so are the Pears, but we have not got all the Sorts.

" Our Peaches do rather excel those of England ; and then we have not the Trouble or Expense of Walls for them, for our Peach Trees are all Standards ; and I have had in my own Garden seven or eight Hundred fine Peaches of the Rare-ripes growing at a Time on one Tree.

" Our people of late Years have run so much upon Orchards, that in a village near Boston, consisting of about forty Families, they made near three Thousand Barrels of Cyder. 1 his was in the Year 1721. And in another Town, of two Hundred Fam¬ ilies, in the same year, I am credibly informed, they made near ten Thousand Barrels. Some of our Apple Trees will make six, some have made seven, Barrels of Cyder, but this is not common ; and the Apples will yield from seven to nine Bushels for a Barrel of Cyder.

" A g°ocl Apple Tree with us will measure from six to ten Foot in Girt. I have seen a fine Pearmain, at a Foot from the Ground, measure ten Feet aud four inches round. This Tree in one Year has borne thirty-eight Bushels (by Measure) of as fine Pearmains as ever I saw in England. A Kentish Pippin, at three foot from the Ground, seven Foot in Girt; a Golden Rossetin, six Foot round. The largest Apple Tree that I could find was ten Foot and six Inches round ; but this was no Graft.

" An Orange Pear Tree grows the largest and yields the fairest Fruit. I know one of them, near forty Foot high, that measures six Foot and six Inches in Girt a Yard from the Ground, and has borne thirty Bushels at a Time. I have a Warden Pear Tree that measures five foot six inches round. One of my Neighbors has a Bergamot Pear Tree, that was bi ought fiom England in a Box about the Year 1643, that now meas¬ ures six Foot about, and has borne twenty-two Bushels of fine Pears in one Year.

Our Peach Frees are large and fruitful, and bear commonly in three Years from the Stone. I have one in my Garden of twelve Years' Growth, that measures two Foot and an Inch in Girt a \ard from the Ground, which two Years ago bore me near a Bushel of fine Peaches. Our common Cherries are not so good as the Kentish Cherries of England ; and we have no Dukes or Heart Cherries, unless in two or three Gardens."

We find in 1730 that apples from Blackstone's orchard were for sale in the Boston market. In 1770 we find the following advertisement in the Boston Gazette : -

" To be sold by George Spriggs, Gardener to John Hancock, Esq., a Large Assort¬ ment of English Fruit Trees, grafted and inoculated of the best and richest kinds of Cherry Trees, Pear Trees, Plumb Trees, Peach Trees, Apricots, Nectarines, Quinces, Lime Trees, Apple Trees, grafted and ungrafted, and sundry Mulberry Trees which will be fit to transplant the next year, and Medleys."

John Hancock's nursery and pasture were near the site of the present State House,1 and his garden and orchard surrounded his princely mansion. Governor Hancock's garden is said to have been one of great note, having received constant accessions from England. Miss Eliza Greenleaf Gardner, a distant relative of Mrs. Hancock, who still lives, was for many years an inmate of the Hancock house, and states that -

" The grounds were laid out in ornamental flower-beds, bordered with box ; box trees of large size, with a great variety of fruit, among which were several immense mulberry trees, dotted the garden."'2

Among the prominent gardens which existed in Boston previous to the Revolution was that of Governor Thomas Hutchinson,3 on Garden Court, extending back to Hanover and Fleet streets.4 These grounds are said to have been extensive, and, tradition informs us, they were well stocked with the choice fruits and flowers of those days, as were also the gardens of Sir Henry Frankland and others, in that part of the town.5