they are written in a most patriotic spirit, but calm, dispassionate, and unprejudiced by one who loved England, and venerated ancient wisdom, and the literature and glories of byegone days-by one who did not merely see things through the medium of books, but had entered with ardour in his youth and manhood into the political conflicts of his countrymen, and taken an active and distinguished part in them; and who, although he renounced politics in the narrow sense from the moment he ascended the bench, still retained, as his letters testify, the liveliest interest respecting all the great questions of the time; one, lastly, whose very position as a judge, in the way we have before explained, made it a part of his duty to inform himself thoroughly in all the bearings and workings of the American Constitution.

We have hardly afforded our readers any specimen of Story's own writing; they will not regret our selecting for them the concluding paragraphs of this treatise :

'The slightest attention to the history of the national Constitution must satisfy every reflecting mind how many difficulties attended its formation and adoption, from real or imaginary differences of interest, sectional feelings, and local institutions. It is an attempt to create a National Sovereignty, and yet to preserve the State Sovereignty, though it is impossible to assign definite boundaries in every case to the powers of each. The disturbing causes, which more than once in the Convention were on the point of breaking up the Union, have since immeasurably increased in vigour. The very inequalities of a Government confessedly founded in compromise were then felt with a strong sensibility; and every new source of discontent, whether accidental or permanent, has added to the painful sense of these inequalities. The Nort cannot but perceive that it has yielded to the South a superiority of representatives, already amounting to twenty-five beyond its due proportion; and the South imagines that, with all this preponderance in representation, the other parts of the Union enjoy a more perfect protection of their interests than her own. The West feels her growing power and weight in the Union, and the Atlantic States begin to learn that the sceptre must one day depart from them. If, under these circumstances, the Union should once be broken up, it is impossible that a new Constitution should ever be formed embracing the whole territory. We shall be divided into several nations or confederacies, rivals in power and interest, too proud to brook injury, and too close to make retaliation distant or ineffectual. Our very animosities will, like those of all other kindred nations, become more deadly because our lineage, laws, and language are the same. Let the history of the Grecian and Italian republics warn us of our dangers. The National Constitution is our best and our only security. United, we stand-divided, we fall. 'If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a

more

more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the Constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils and sufferings and blood of their ancestors, and capable, if wisely improved and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid, its compartments are beautiful as well as useful, its arrangements are full of wisdom and order, and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of men may justly aspire to such a title. It may nevertheless perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, the People. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people in order to betray them.'

Labours such as had long been habitual with Story began to tell even on his strong constitution. In November, 1842, he had a very serious illness, and was obliged to give up his attendance in Court for the session of that winter-the only occasion on which he was absent for the thirty-three years during which he held his office; he was also compelled to intermit his lectures; and though he recovered, it became clear to him that he must soon elect between the two offices, for both of which together his strength would be insufficient. He was not slow in deciding for the Lecture-room : the Bench was no longer what it had been to him; all the colleagues with whom he had commenced his judicial course had passed away-among them the great Chief with whom he had lived in the most entire sympathy of opinions, public and private, and on terms of mutual love and admiration; the new race treated him indeed with respect and regard, but they were of a different age; they did not sympathize with him in his constitutional opinions; differences occurred more frequently than he had been accustomed to, and, in numberless small particulars, more easily felt than described, his situation in the Supreme Court was less agreeable to him than it had been. On the death of Marshall he had been passed over, and not placed at the head of the Court, as he might reasonably think without due consideration of his great claims; and, though he made no complaint, not the less it may have operated on his feelings. On the other hand, the duties of the law school were of undiminished interest, and they did not involve the long periodical absences from home

which of late, in the decline of health and vigour, had become more and more irksome..

Before he resigned, however, he determined to clear the docket of his Circuit Court,' that his successor might enter on his duties without any arrear. At the beginning of September, 1845, he had heard all the cases, and drawn up the judgment of the Court in all but one, which he had nearly completed. But this involved very severe and continuous labour in a very hot season; he took a slight cold, which was followed by more alarming symptoms-and, the relief from these leaving him under a hopeless general prostration of the bodily powers, in a very few days he died. He had anticipated this termination of the illness: he waited it with a calm expectation, was surrounded by an affectionate wife and family, and breathed his last in pious hope and in peace.

It need not be mentioned that the end of such a man in the United States was attended by demonstrations of regret and honour, public and private; addresses and orations, processions and meetings, were sure to be bestowed on his memory; but what his son justly dwells on with mournful pride, was the affectionate anxiety of friends and neighbours during his illness :

"The alternations of his condition were the engrossing subjects of interest in Cambridge and Boston, and most touching instances of the affectionate feelings which his kindly nature had created were manifested among the townsfolk. Many of them thronged the gate, lingering round it, or returning from hour to hour, to learn the tidings of his health, and cautiously refraining from noise. Tears stood in the eyes of the roughest while they asked of him. All felt that they were about to lose a friend, or, as one of them expressed it to me, that a part of the sunlight of the town would pass away with him. Everywhere a cloud hung over the village, business stopped in the streets, and even over the busy stir of the city his illness seemed to cast a shadow.'-ii. 548.

Our sketch already covers more space than we had designed -but we feel that it would be very imperfect if we omitted some account of his personal habits, and some explanation how he accomplished so much; it was, at least, not by a slovenly discharge of his duties. Writing to Chancellor Kent, he says

'I am sadly overworked, and yet I can scarcely avoid it; so important, so pressing, and so intricate are the cases flowing constantly in upon me. My health, however, is not broken down by the labour, although I live in constant dread that it may be. I know not how some judges get over or round their judicial duties; they are either much quicker and clearer and stronger than I am, or they are more easily satisfied by giving their first off-hand opinions. This I cannot do; I feel bound to do my best, and to examine and, as far as I may,

exhaust

exhaust the learning of the books, before I venture on my judgments.' -ii. 469.

This was in 1844, when he had already received one warning.

His son, however, describes the daily course of his life at home, and in justice to the original part of this work, from which we have extracted little or nothing, we will give the passage:

'The secrets by which he was enabled to accomplish so much in so short a space of time, were systematic industry, variation of labour, and concentration of mind. He was never idle. He knew the value of those odds and ends of time which are so often thrown away. There was always something ready for the waste time to be expended upon. He varied his labour; never overworking himself on one subjectnever straining his faculties too long in one direction. "Le changement d'étude est toujours relâchement pour moi," said D'Aguesseau ; and so my father found it. He never suffered himself to become nervous or excited in his studies-but the moment that one employment began to irritate him he abandoned it for another which should exercise different faculties. When he worked it was with his whole mind, and with a concentration of all his powers upon the subject in hand. Listlessness and half attention bring little to pass. worth doing at all he thought worth doing well.

What was

'He arose at seven in summer and at half-past seven in winternever earlier. If breakfast was not ready, he went at once to his library and occupied the interval, whether it was five minutes or fifty, in writing. When the family assembled he was called and breakfasted with them. After breakfast he sat in the drawing-room and spent from a half to three quarters of an hour in reading the newspapers of the day. He then returned to his study, and wrote until the bell sounded for his lecture at the law-school. After lecturing for two and sometimes three hours he returned to his study, and worked until two o'clock, when he was called to dinner. To his dinner he gave an hour, and then again betook himself to his study, where in the winter time he worked as long as the daylight lasted, unless called away by a visitor, or obliged to attend a moot-court. Then he came down and joined the family-and work for the day was over. Tea came in about seven o'clock, and how lively and gay was he then, chatting over the most familiar topics of the day, or entering into deeper currents of conversation with equal ease! All of his law he left up stairs in the library—he was here the domestic man in his home. During the evening he received his friends, and he was rarely without company, but if alone he read some new publication of the day-the reviews, a novel, an English newspapersometimes corrected a proof-sheet, listened to music, or talked with the family, or what was very common, played a game of backgammon with my mother. This was the only game of the kind he liked-cards and chess he never played. In the summer afternoon he left his library towards twilight, and might always be seen by the passer-by

sitting

sitting with his family under the portico, talking, or reading some light pamphlet or newspaper, often surrounded by his friends, and making the air ring with his gay laugh. This, with the interval occupied by tea, would last until nine o'clock. At about ten he retired for the night, never varying half an hour from that time.

'His diet was exceedingly simple-not because he did not enjoy the luxuries of the table, not from asceticism or whim, but from necessity. Yet though debarred from them himself, he enjoyed the satisfaction which others derived from them with a peculiar gusto.

'He had great bodily activity, and the energy shown in everything he did, expressed itself in his motions, which were sudden and impulsive. He walked very rapidly, taking short quick steps and never sauntering. The exercise he took was almost entirely incidental to his duties, and consisted in driving to Boston to hold his court or attend to other business, and in walking to and from the law school. In the summer he used to drive about the surrounding country in the late afternoon, and sometimes to stroll for half an hour in the garden. But his real exercise was in talking. Conversation was his gymnasium: and his earnestness and volubility of speech, and vivacious gesticulation, afforded the necessary stimulant to his system. Scarcely anything more rouses the internal organs to activity or gives more movement to the blood than talking or singing. To talk was natural and necessary to my father; but he was never more out of his element than when he set forth to take a walk for exercise, and he used to join in our laugh when we jested him upon it-admitting that he could not bring his mind to it seriously. Yet he never seemed to feel the want of it; and I am fully persuaded that the constant activity of his body and mind, and especially the excitement of conversation, stood him instead of the exercise which is necessary to taciturn and phlegmatic persons.'-ii. 152.

In reviewing the life of an American jurist of so much celebrity, an English journal ought not to pass over in silence his generous admiration and ardent love of England-they break out again and again in his correspondence and elsewhere; as he watched our proceedings both in the courts of justice and Parliament with intense interest, so it was among the highest objects of his ambition to have an English reputation; that his works should be known and cited as authority by English lawyers was very dear to him; he cultivated a friendly intercourse by letter with several of the English judges; at one time he had intended to visit us, and was so fully expected that Mr. Everett had announced his arrival for a certain day and invitations had been sent for him from Lord Brougham and Lord Denman. His disappointment when com pelled to give up the voyage was extreme; he was moved even to tears when he read of the kindly and distinguished companies who were prepared to greet him: Would to God,' said he, that I could see Westminster Hall, and the Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament

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