when his powers of observation were of course opening-he noticed that the girls kept even pace with the boys in their common studies, and went beyond them in quickness of perception and delicacy of feeling. If the sexes become unequal intellectually in after life—which we will not assume, as he does somewhat unceremoniously-he attributes it only to this-that the education of females generally ends where with the men it may be said effectively to begin.

Story's studies here, however, closed abruptly; his master, a harsh and passionate man, punished him on one occasion with injustice and with excessive severity. He quitted the Academy at once, and at a moment when he was preparing to fit himself for Harvard in the following year- having mastered the usual preparatory studies in Latin, and that most discouraging book, the Westminster Greek Grammar '-and when he was beginning to study the Gospel of St. John, with a view to make an easy transition into Greek.' As Story was a clever and industrious lad, he was probably in the first rank among the young academicians of Marblehead-and certainly this proficiency at fifteen does not tell much for the labours of their Orbilius::-we are not surprised that the daughters of the place were able to keep up with the sons.

6

But two months remained before it was requisite for him to pass his preliminary examination, with a view to commencing residence in the ensuing term at Harvard. By great labour and such assistance as the common town schoolmaster could afford him, he believed he had prepared himself, and was taken by his uncle to Cambridge accordingly. Here, however, to his great disappointment he was informed by the President that in addition to what he had prepared he must be examined in all the studies which the freshmen class had been pursuing during the last six months.' Considering his slender stock of knowledge at this time, it certainly argues not only great ability, but even more of that undaunted resolution and industry with that just selfconfidence, which are essential to success in the Law, to attempt and accomplish in six weeks what he reports of himself in the following passage:

'My task was now before me. I have a distinct recollection of the main parts. Sallust was to be read through; the Odes of Horace; two books of Livy; three books, I think, of Xenophon's Anabasis-and two books of Homer's Iliad; besides English grammar and rhetoric, and, I think, logic and some other studies. I sat down boldly to the task, reciting every morning five lessons which I mastered during the preceding evening, and five or six more in the course of the day. It was intense labour; but I found no great difficulty, except in Homer.

The

The dialects puzzled me exceedingly, and my treacherous memory failed in preserving them accurately, so that I was often obliged to go over the same ground. For my first lesson in Homer I got five lines well; for my second, ten; for my third, fifteen; and then the mystery dissolved apace. In the course of the first three weeks I had gone through all the requisite studies. I could look back on my past labours with the silent consciousness of victory. There is nothing to a young mind unaccustomed to the exercise of its powers so gratifying as this. . . . . At the end of the vacation I was again offered for examination, and without difficulty obtained my matriculation.'-vol. i. p. 41.

There is a little vagueness in this statement of what was to be done; and the examination at the close was probably not very severe. Some allowance, too, may not uncharitably be made for the medium through which the successful lawyer in after life would look back on this earliest triumph of the powers to which he had afterwards owed so much. Yet, with every allowance made, this was just such an effort in youth as would warrant bright anticipations of his manhood. In passing, we may remark that our preparatory teachers would do well to imitate Story's example as to Homer in every transition with their pupils to a new book. We remember well in our own case precisely the same rule was adopted, and in regard to the same book. The lesson was extremely short, but for the first 200 or 300 lines every word, literally and without exception, was parsed, and the mystery did dissolve apace.

ness.

He joined his class in January, 1795. An English youth from a public school starting in the far more brilliant and large worlds. of Oxford or Cambridge could scarcely be so excited as Story, coming from his secluded fishing village and its academy, was upon being launched at Harvard. The impressions of Marblehead, scenery as well as society, were severe and sombre; and they had nourished, in a somewhat sentimental nature, gloom and retiredThe tone of his religious education concurred to produce this effect. His uncle was a rigid Calvinist, and imported his theology into his ordinary talk and feelings. The new world in which the nephew now moved was surrounded by a lighter and a more genial atmosphere. His nature put forth its inborn buoyancy and elasticity; he delighted in the studies of the placein the competition with his class-fellows-in the intimacy of a few friends, among whom was one of European fame in the sequel, Channing; and in the shaking of his mind his religious opinions underwent a change-he renounced Calvinism, and embraced unhappily the creed, if so it may be called, of the Unitarians, to which through all his life he adhered.

At

6

At nineteen he quitted college and, returning to Marblehead, entered the office of Mr. Samuel Sewell, then a distinguished practitioner of the Essex bar, and a member of Congress. It is called an office, for the barristers of the United States, except in the Supreme Court at Washington, may be, and commonly are, admitted and act as attorneys also-a union of characters happily, as we think, unknown as yet in England, which, though it may frequently give to the barrister a more practical and intimate knowledge of the details of procedure, tends to lower the tone, and with conscientious minds even to fetter the freedom in the discharge of their duties. It is not good for the advocate to be immediately in contact with the hopes and fears, the strong unreasonable likings and hates of his clients-to be admitted to all their secrets; still less to have to search for witnesses, to humour their waywardness, to guard them against tampering; and to go through all that preliminary contention in a cause, which must bring the mind heated and embittered to what ought to be the open, measured, free, and yet courteous contention of the trial.

The course for a legal student was then very disheartening, very difficult, good only for the youth who to more than common ability united strength of body, ardent hope, undaunted courage and perseverance. Nearly half the year Mr. Sewell was absent in Congress he was on his circuit during another portion; he had no clerk, or elder pupil, to assist the new comer, and Story was left alone to work his own way as best he might. These were common difficulties, and no doubt many a youth sank under them—either gave up the pursuit in despair, or contented himself with a superficial knowledge. To the few, however, this rough mode has its advantages-what we acquire for ourselves, through many struggles, we make our own completely; by the strenuous effort and deliberate labour we gain power, our muscles are developed; we can, when we please, at any time make a great exertion, and we acquire a well-grounded self-possession.

So it was with Story, yet the trial was hard:—

'I shall never forget the time,' he says, 'when having read through Blackstone's Commentaries, Mr. Sewell, on his departure for Washington, directed me next to read Coke on Littleton. It was a very large folio, with Hargrave's and Butler's notes, which I was required to read also. Soon after his departure I took it up, and after trying it day after day with very little success, I sat myself down and wept bitterly. My tears dropped on the book and stained its pages. It was but a momentary irresolution-I went on and on-and began at last to see daylight, aye, and to feel that I could comprehend and reason upon the text and the comments. When I had completed the reading of this most formidable work, I felt that I breathed a purer air, and that I had acquired a new power. The critical period was passed-I no

longer

longer hesitated-I pressed on to the severe study of special pleading, and by repeated perusals of Saunders's Reports, acquired such a decided relish for this branch of my profession, that it became for several years afterwards my favourite pursuit. Even at this day I look back upon it with a lingering fondness.'-i. 74.

Et nos in Arcadiâ. We cannot indeed quite sympathise with the learned judge in his fond and faithful doating on the illsavoured pleader, of whom Roger North gives so racy an account, and whom Hale chides for being so naughty in his pleadinga circumstance which the naughty Brother evidently chuckles over in recounting; nor do we recollect that the Temple atmosphere seemed to clear up and our respiration to be freer when we had completed Coke on Littleton; but long ago, alas! as it is, we have a lively recollection of the difficulty of the work; often we had need to be consoled with the great commentator's own kind assurance

' albeit the reader shall not at any one day (do what he can) reach to the meaning of our author, or of our commentaries, yet let him no way discourage himself, but proceed; for on some other day, in some other place, that doubt will be cleared.'

Students of the last generation, yet taking a lively interest in those of the present, we are sorry to hear that the study of this book is not so much a matter of course in the Temple as it used to be; undoubtedly it lies open to the charge of being undigested, unscientific, often redundant, sometimes even foolish; and utilitarians may urge that much of it has no direct application to the law in its altered state; but after all, the best authorities will agree that a thorough mastering of it will tend more than any other to give the practising lawyer that depth of legal principle and familiarity with legal analogies without which he cannot be accomplished in his art.

Upon the death of Washington in 1800, Congress and the General Court of Massachusetts having recommended that eulogies should be delivered in all the towns, young Story was nominated for that purpose at Marblehead. This occasion was a worthy one; but we have been struck with the passion for eulogies, addresses, and public speeches of every sort, which seems to pervade the Union; for a calculating, busy, go-ahead race, it is quite wonderful to what a childish extent the Americans (will they forgive us?) indulge in the fondness for these displays. Story, we conclude, was a successful performer, for throughout life he was very frequently called on for orations of this kind; he often spoke feelingly and forcibly-he appears to have sympathised with the national predilection.

After little more than a year of such teaching as Mr. Sewell

had

had been able to give him, that gentleman was made a judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; Story therefore migrated to Salem, and entered the office of Mr. Putnam, who also occupied afterwards a seat on the same bench. He had in this short space fitted himself to be a useful pupil; one or more of such may usually be found in the chambers of our special pleaders and conveyancers, young men who can really do work for their professed teacher-whose drafts and opinions on cases require little correction-who can usefully talk with his clients and discuss matters suggestively with himself.

'Although he read much, yet we talked more,' says Mr. Putnam, ' and I believe in my heart, that he even then did the greater part of my business. I had a pretty full practice, and his regular course of reading was frequently interrupted by the examination of the books touching the cases which were offered for my consideration, and I have no doubt that my clients were greatly benefited by his labours in my service.'-vol. i. p. 84.

We believe the late Mr. Justice Littledale could have said as much for the late (we grieve to say) Mr. Justice Patteson.

Salem was an enlarged sphere when compared to Marblehead -there was much more society; Mr. Story entered into it with zest, and was received with favour. Small clubs or associations existed among the young people, rejoicing in such names as the Moscheto Fleet, the Antediluvians, the Sans Souci, the Social Group; of these he was a member, and a spirited defender when they were slandered as immodest and immoral meetings. Yet he must have been somewhat stern and out spoken. It is a lady, ingenuous at least, one of the belles of those societies, who tells the following anecdote of him and herself::

that

'One evening while we were playing whist at a small party, I took up a card to which I had no right. He saw it, and said, Lcard does not belong to you; you must lay it down, or I leave the table. On our return home I said to him, Why were you so particular that I should lay down that card? Because, he answered, you had no right to it, and I will never countenance injustice or unfairness in the smallest matter. I shall never see you do anything in the least improper, without expressing my disapprobation.'-i. 88.

In July, 1801, at the age of twenty-two, Story was called to the Essex Bar, and 'opened his office' at Salem; he had nothing but his merits to depend on; he was without legal connexion, and his political and his religious views, at a time when party heats ran very high, were much against him; he was known to have dropped the Calvinism of his fathers, but to be steady in their democratic opinions; he found the Judges and the Bar strong Federalists, and he was looked on with coldness. Ere long, nevertheless, business flowed in upon him, and when at the

end