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RUFUS CROATE Rufus Choate was more than an advocate ; he was the supreme forensic artist of all time. Advocacy was to him not a profession but an art, and during his thirty-six years at the bar, he practised it as such. Law, the darling and master passion of his life, he loved with the selfless devotion and stead- fast constancy of the genuine artist. He cared not for fame, fortune, power, high place, the fruits of toil and the spoils of ambition, save as by-products of his busy career at the bar. Success in the law, paid for in the honest coin of work well done, was the one thing he sought, and having found, was content. . . . . Rufus Choate was born on the 1st October, 1799, at Hog Island, in Essex County, Massachusetts. His parents were plain folks, sober, industrious and high-minded, but not greatly superior to their neighbours. Why genius decided to pay a call to the Choates of Hog Island can be explained only on the ground that no hovel is safe from it. Choate was an eagle born into a nest of earthlings. It is impossible to account for him. As Joseph H. Choate has said, "How it was that such an exotic nature, so ardent and tropical in all its manifestations, so truly southern and Italian in its impulses, and at the same time so robust and sturdy in its strength, could have been produced upon the bleak and barren soil of our northern cape, and nurtured under the chilling blasts of its east winds, is a mystery insoluble." Before the dusk of his childhood, it was apparent that Rufus Choate had the accomplice of genius, industry, and was determined to draw the bolt of wisdom's secrets. At an age when most boys are still struggling with the alphabet, he had abandoned himself, heart and soul, to the banquet of books. Before he was six, he had read Pilgrim's Progress, truly a formidable citadel of letters for one so young to conquer. By his tenth year he had devoured nearly every book in the village library. He came by his love of reading honestly for both his parents, within the narrow range of their intellects, were readers. They feasted upon the moral precepts and literary delights of the Bible daily. In the Choate family the Bible was read from Genesis to Revelation every two years. Is not that fact the master key to Rufus Choate's sovereign command of language? Between the covers of books, Choate found a world more fascinating to him than the real world. His approach to life

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was always through literature. He was a genuine man of books. Books were a part of his habit of dress. He was never without one or more of them. He read with his meals ; - he read while walking through the fields, or while riding through the streets ; he would even get up from his bed after the first sleep of night to go to his books. Choate was not a casual or haphazard reader. He once said, "Desultory- reading is a waste of life. Read by system." There was a purpose to all his own reading-whether to store his mind with facts, to dip into the stream of ideas having their, rise in the great minds of the ages, to light the fires of his imagination, to subdue the language to his mastery, to cultivate his mind, or to improve his memory. Believing a change as good as a rest, so as not to tire his mind, he would frequently put down one book and take up another. Thus in a spare half-hour he might read a verse or two from the Greek Testament, a few lines from Virgil, and a passage from -Edmund Burke, whom he called the fourth Englishman. Choate received his early schooling at a succession of small private schools. At sixteen, through the generosity of his brother, he was able to enter Dartmouth College, where he applied himself to his studies with such zeal that he endangered his health. The orator in him came early to the fore. He was graduated from Dartmouth, in 1819, as valedictorian of his class and rose from a sick bed to give an address which anti- cipated his future greatness. While at college, Choate came under the spell of Daniel Webster. Influenced by his hero-worship of Webster, he decided to study law. After tutoring for a year at Dartmouth, he put in a term at the law school in Cambridge. In 1821, he entered the law office of William Wirt, Attorney-General under President Munroe. In 1825, he was admitted to practice by the Court of Common Pleas, and two years later by the Supreme Court. In, his Autobiography, Darwin tells us that his neglect of all liberal studies, for his Mistress Science, caused the atrophy of that part of the brain on which the higher tastes depend, with possible injury to his. intellect, and probably damage to his moral character. Choate took care that the same thing did not happen to him. While preparing for the bar, he devoted himself wholly to the study of law, but as soon as he was admitted to practice, lest he `dry' his mind and take the edge off his sympathies, he gave himself to more liberal studies. He used to say, "Five hours a day, including practice, is enough

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for the law." To assure himself that all parts of his brain were adequately nourished, he was at pains to balance his mental diet. Lest the molecules of his mind become arranged in stiff, formal patterns, he made a point of reading some poetry every day. He once gave a law student this advice-advice which, like the wise physician, he took himself, "I would read every day one page at least,-more if you can,-in some fine English writer, solely for elegant style and expression. William Pinkney said to a friend of mine, `He never read a fine sentence in any author without committing it to memory.' The result was decidedly the most splendid and the most powerful English spoken style I ever heard"...... Rufus Choate opened his first law office in Danvers in 1823. As he gained a footing at the bar, his forensic genius unfolded blossom by blossom. His first work in his profession was largely on the criminal side. It has been said that no client of his was ever convicted of a crime. No doubt this statement is an enthusiastic exaggeration, but it is no exaggera- tion to say that Choate never lost a case which could be won by the twin-efforts of genius and industry. His powers of persuasion were such that, as someone put it, he could almost make a jury believe that the Siamese twins did not look alike. In Essex County, Choate became known as "The Great Criminal Lawyer." Wendell Phillips once referred to him slightingly as the man "who made it safe to murder; and of whose health thieves asked before they began to steal." On one occasion in court, Choate had his reputation thrown up to him in a humorous fashion. He was cross-examining a sailor who, lacking a thief's honor, had turned State's Evidence. The sailor spoke of a conversation he had had with Choate's client and Choate pressed him to give the details of the conversation . "Tell us how and what he spoke to you," he insisted. "Why," replied the sailor, dealing Choate a knockout blow, "he told us that there was a lawyer in Boston named Choate, and he'd get us off if they caught us with the money in our boots." But, for all his reputation as a criminal lawyer, Choate never made his profession (to use the old phrase) a port of refuge for rogues. Professor Samuel Gilman Brown, in his Memoir of Choate's Life, tells us that "When talking with a client respecting a defence, Choate's. rule was, never to ask whether he did the act; yet he was very watchful for signs of innocence or guilt. After an interview with a person who consulted him as to a disgraceful imputation under which he was labouring, he remarked, `He did it, he sweats so'."

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While he believed accused persons, whether guilty or innocent, entitled to the best legal services they could obtain, Choate would not throw his forensic mantel over anyone whom he knew beyond . question to be guilty. He did not conceive it his duty, as an advocate, to defend every person who sought his services. It will be remembered that, despite the pressure of friends, he steadfastly refused to undertake the defence of Professor Webster, of Harvard, the murderer of Dr. Parkman . There was an element of fanaticism in Choate's devotion to his clients' interests . No other advocate ever had the habit of work as he had. He did not believe that success came easily. To a friend, who suggested that good work was sometimes the result of accident or inspiration, he replied, "Nonsense? You might as-well drop the Greek alphabet on the ground and expect to pick up the Iliad." He ruled accident and inspiration out of. his own calculations. When a case came to him, he embarked on a remorseless course of preparation, never - ceasing from his labours until final judgment had been given. Fees were a secondary consideration to him. He had little instinct for business. A young lawyer once handed him $50.001 saying that he believed it was the amount he was asking for acting as senior counsel in â case. "No," smiled Choate, "I named $25.00 but you said $50.00, and I yielded." The artist in Choate did not allow him to `cash in' on his talents. His mind was not on his fees but on turning in a finished and artistic performance . Choate was not an empirical lawyer. He did -not confine himself to working out specific legal problems. He did not regard the law as a wilderness of legal decisions, but as an exact science, based on broad, general principles, through which were woven the strands of cause and effect. To improve his mastery of legal science, as Joseph Neilson tells us in his Memoirs of Rufus Choate, "He was in the habit of collecting the facts stated in cases reported in the books, and of preparing arguments for or against the decisions; of criticising the authorities cited, and finding others to confirm or qualify them; and of- seeking to discover how far a doctrine, underlying a series of adjudications, might be made to appear more or less just in the light of history, of reason, and of scientific principles." Choate rose at five o'clock in the morning the year round. In all his habits of life, he was regular and methodical. He had to be to get through the amount of work he did. ®n rising he made himself a cup of, tea and took a brisk walk, returning- to

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an hour with his books and a meagre breakfast, before setting out for his office, where he arrived not later than the stroke of nine. Midnight would often find him still -at work. His days were much alike, as pearls strung on the thread of time. At the end of the day, he would be worn out and suffering from a nervous headache, but he had a marvelous resiliency. A few hours sleep would charge him with new energy. Physical exer- tion did not appeal to him but he considered it a necessary evil -hence his daily walks. He could not be persuaded to rest from his labours long enough to take a real vacation. He did not know what it was to allow his mind to lie fallow. A friend once told him that he would ruin his constitution if he did not take a rest. "Sir," was his reply, "the constitution was destroyed long ago ; I am now living under the by-laws." Choate was only human and therefore not infallible . A story is told of him which illustrates that, for all his careful preparation and industry, he was not entirely free from error. He was once prosecuting a lad of nineteen, a shoemaker's apprentice, who was charged with the murder of his master's wife, for whom he had conceived a youthful passion . Benjamin F. Butler, a master of courtroom strategy if ever there was one, was defending. The prisoner was indicted for the murder of Angelina Taylor and, in their evidence, the State's witnesses all called her Angeline. When Choate closed his case, Butler rose and made a motion for the discharge of his client on the ground that the accused was indicted for the murder of Angelina Taylor and the State had not proved that a person of that name had been murdered. Poor Choate nearly dropped through the floor. After argument on the motion, the presiding judge, Chief Justice Shaw, straining a point in the interests of justice, allowed Choate to reopen his case to call further evidence. Choate, not yet recovered from his shock, recalled his principal witness. Butler objected to the first question put to the witness and when asked by the court to state the grounds of his objection, he began, speaking with deliberate slowness, "May it please the court. Since the court has seen fit to recommence the prosecution of my client." Chief Justice Shaw, indignant at the suggestion, stopped him with, "Mr. Butler, so you assert that this court has recommenced the prosecution of your client." Butler, whose courage never failed him, came back, "I beg the court's pardon ; I should perhaps have said, `since the court has seen fit to allow the recommencement of the prosecution.' " The upshot of the case, despite defence counsel's wily maneuver,

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His masterstroke was his introduction of the defence of somnambulism. He called witnesses to show that Terrill was in the habit of committing violent acts while asleep. It was this defence which aroused the public's ire against him. Many laymen, not appreciating the issues involved, regarded it as evidence of his willingness to go to any length to secure a favourable verdict. In his own mind Choate was convinced of his client's innocence. When he gave his case to the jury, in these words, he was but expressing his true feelings : "Every juror," he said, "when he puts into the urn the verdict of `Guilty', writes upon it also, `Let him die' . . . . . Under the iron law of Rome, it was the custom to bestow a civic wreath upon him who should save the life of a citizen. Do your duty this day, gentlemen, and you may deserve the civic crown." After an anxious two hours for Choate and his client, the jury returned a verdict of `Not Guilty' . Choate's genius had broken the chain of circumstantial evidence which linked. Terrill with Mrs. Bickford's violent death. Sir Leslie Stephen has written that jurymen have a kind of dumb instinct which leads them to associate eloquence with humbug. Such was not Choate's view. He made use of all the powers of speech at his command, paying juries the compli- ment of giving them the best that was in him. But he had logic as well as eloquence. Richard H. Dana Jr. called him the greatest master of logic at the Boston Bar, saying that his efficacy rested not merely or chiefly upon his eloquence, but principally upon his philosophic and dialectic power. Daniel Webster paid a like tribute to Choate when he remarked to Peter Harvey, "It is a great mistake to suppose that Mr. Choate, in that flowery elocution, does not keep his logic all right. Amid all that pile of flowers there is a strong, firm chain of logic." Eloquence, to be sure, has its weakness as well as its strength. It sometimes leaves the advocate open to a broadside of ridicule. Brougham ruined the effect of an eloquent speech of Charles Phillip's by referring to it as "the horticultural address of my learned friend?" One of Choate's eloquent efforts before a jury suffered a similar fate at the hands of Jeremiah Mason. After Choate's eloquence had held the jury spellbound, - Mason, with his forthright style of advocacy, broke the spell by saying, "And .now, gentlemen of the jury,

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I don't know as I can gyrate afore you as my friend Choate does; but I want to state just a few simple pints." Choate used to say to his students, "If you haven't got hold of the jury, got their convictions at least open, in your first half hour, you will never get them." He believed in advancing upon a jury with his best arguments first, while their minds were fresh and receptive. Believing one argument stated in five different ways equal to five arguments, he would present his points in various dresses, each one novel and interesting. He never neglected small points, knowing that some minds deal in trifles, paying more attention to the twig than to the tree. He was always politeness itself to a jury. He adopted a deliberate air of deference, making them feel that while they were the judges of the case, they were such reasonable men that they could not fail to agree with him, because fortune gave him the better side of the case. With witnesses, Choate preferred the gentle touch, to the sledgehammer blow. He rarely abused a witness. "Never brow beat a witness on the cross-examination," he once advised a student, "it only makes him more obstinate and hostile. When I began to practice law, I used to think it very fine to be severe, and even savage, towards my opponent's witnesses; but I soon found it would not do, and I reformed my method altogether. Violence does no good ; the gentle method is best. It is the old story of the sun and the wind." Choate's method of dealing with witnesses was consistent with his kindly nature and gentle disposition. But for all his gentleness, he was a match for the most difficult witness. George W. Nesmith has written of him, "I once heard him deal with a bad witness in court. He did not call him hard names, but covered him over with an oily sarcasm so deep that the jury did not care to look after him. In other words, the witness was slain politely, and laid out to dry". . . . . When Rufus Choate opened his law office in Boston, Daniel Webster was at the height of his great powers and Choate, to gain a place in the legal firmament, had to compete with him in the courts. He soon proved himself a match for even "the godlike Daniel." But as Mathew H. Carpenter (who studied law under Choate) says, "Choate always stood in awe of Webster, and spent nights in preparation when about to contest with him at the Bar. This I never could understand; as a mere lawyer, I think that Choate is as much the superior of

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Webster as Webster was the superior of lawyers generally. I remember an instance of one of Choate's clients coming into his office in great glee, and informing Mr. Choate that he had just met his antagonist, who had said he expected to be beaten in the case, because he had nobody but Mr. Webster, who would pay no attention to the case until it was called for trial, while Mr. Choate would be thoroughly prepared on every point. Mr. Choate seemed to be rather displeased than flat- terred, and, turning to his client in a solemn, almost tragic, manner, he said. "Beware of any hope that rests upon under- valuation of Mr. Webster. He will be there on the morning of the trial with one case from the Term Reports exactly in point ; and, if we escape with our lives, so much the- better for us." A judge, whom fortune favored with the opportunity of knowing both Webster and Choate, said of them "Webster seemed to be a good deal like other folks, only there was more of him. But Choate was peculiar,-a strange, beautiful product of our time, not to be measured by reference to ordinary men." How happily he put it! Choate and Webster were opposed . to each other in the Smith Will Case, tried before the Supreme Judicial Court, at Northampton, in 1847. Smith, a wealthy bachelor, for reasons best known to himself, made a will disinheriting his poor relations . When he died, his heirs at law consulted Choate who made an attempt in the courts to break the will. Three witnesses were required to make a will valid. Choate attacked Smith's will on the ground that one of the witnesses to it, Theophilus Parsons Phelps, a grandson of Chief Justice .Theophilus Parsons, had not been of sound mind when the will was signed. A lonely recluse, who had too much time with himself, Phelps was subject to recurring periods of melancholy, during which periods he was not .in his right mind. Before the 'trial, Webster had an interview with Phelps and succeeded to some extent in bringing him out-of his shell. He decided to call him as a witness. With his usual considera tion, Choate promised Webster that he would not be too severe with Phelps in cross-examination . Choate's address to the jury was a masterpiece of forensic eloquence. Webster did -not, attempt to rival him on his own ground. He clung close to the shore of facts. After Choate had finished his address, Webster brought the jury back to realities with, "And now, gentlemen, we are called upon to

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consider a question, not of poetry, but of fact." The honors of the case went to Webster. His courage in calling Phelps as a witness secured a verdict for him. In the last case in which Webster appeared, the india rubber case, Goodyear v. Day, tried before the United States Court at Trenton, N.J., in the spring of 1852, Choate was his opponent. Webster appeared for the plaintiff. He was briefed for a fee of $10,000, with the promise 'of an extra $5,000 if he won the case. Webster won the case, but not, we may be sure, because the defendant was poorly represented. . . . . The two greatest names in the directory of great advocates are Rufus Choate and Lord Erskine. Though different in most ways in which men are different, as advocates there is hardly a penny to choose between them. Erskine lived at the time of a crisis in the history of English liberty. He was extended to his limit by the great state trials in which he appeared. Pleading in defence of freedom, he was thrice armed because his cause was just. The greatest battles of Choate's day were fought not in the courts, but in the Senate, and he had little part in them. He never had a case that called for his last ounce of ability. Fate was against him . As someone has put it, he did not have very many great cases, but he made many little ones great. Choate never had a chance to rise to the supreme heights reached by Erskine, but, 'had opportunity knocked, it would not have found him wanting. He was a more finished artist than Erskine. He had more knowledge and more industry. He developed his talents to a higher degree of perfection . But had he Erskine's native genius? Choate drew more from art, Erskine more from life. Would we be far wide of the mark, if we called Erskine the Shakespeare and Choate the Milton of the bar? . . . . Even the most superficial examination of Rufus Choate's style as an orator reveals his passion for words. He loved words not for their own sake but for the thoughts behind them. Words were to him, to borrow Mr. Justice Holmes' apt phrase, the skins of living thoughts. His delight in moulding words to the pattern of his thoughts is illustrated on every page of his reported speeches. In his speeches and scraps of writings, as Joseph Neilson tells us, Choate used 11,693 unrepeated words. In his reading, he never passed over a word that he did not know. If he encountered an unfamiliar word, down would

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come his dictionary from the shelf, and he would subdue the word so completely that forever afterwards it would be ready for service in his vocabulary. Choate's vocabulary was a source of wonder and amuse- ment to his friends. When a member of the Boston Bar asked Judge Wilde- if he knew that a new Dictionary, containing many new words, had been brought out, the Judge replied, "No, I have not heard of it, but, for_ God's Sake, don't tell . Choate." Choate delighted in turning unusual phrases ; in presenting his thoughts in a series of striking images, which by their quaint humour and picturesque originality arrested attention. In speaking of an indefinitely defined state line, he once said, "A boundary line between two sovereign States described by a couple of stones near a pond, and a buttonwood sapling in a, village! The Commissioners might as well have defined it as' starting at a bush, thence . to a blue jay, thence to a hive of bees in swarming time, and thence to five hundred foxes with firebrands tied to their tails." Adjectives were Choate's special delight. They fell from his lips in imposing numbers, each one `full freighted' with power and suggestion. He once described a harness as a "safe, sound, substantial, second-rate, second-hand harness." He said of the Greek mind- that it was "subtle, mysterious, plastic, apprehensive, comprehensive, available." ° His vocabulary contained a strong admixture . of words derived from the Latin. Strange, sonorous, high=sounding words of Latin origin had a fascination for him. He loved their music as they issued from the lips, and the shadows they cast on the imagination. He favored long words and long sentences. His sentences are like waves, once put in motion, they go on and- on. Mr. Claude M. Guess points out in "Itufus Choate, The Wizard of the Law", that Choate, in his Eulogy on Webster, has one sentence of twelve hundred words, which it must have taken him ten minutes to say. Choate's mind was so well stored that when he tried to encompass an idea in a sentence so much information was available that he did not know what to select. Consider a characteristic passage . from one of his speeches "It has been said that there was never_ a great character,never a truly strong, masculine, commanding char- acter,--which was not made so by successive . struggles with great difficulties. Such is the general rule -of the moral world, undoubtedly. All history, all biography, verify and illustrate

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it, and none more remarkably than our own. It has seemed to me probable that if the Puritans on their arrival here, had found a home like that they left, and a social system made ready for them-if they had found the forest felled, roads constructed, rivers bridged, fields sown, houses built, a rich soil, a bright sun, and a balmy air ; if England had covered over their infancy with her mighty wing, spared charters, widened trade, and knit child to mother by parental policy,- it is probable that that impulse of high mind, and that uncon- querable constancy of the first immigrants, might have subsided before the epoch of the drama of the Revolution ." The central nerve of this passage is the copybook truism that a soft- cushioned environment tends to soften the flint of character. Yet what a magnificent interpretation has Choate placed upon this commonplace thought! With what a wealth of words has he invested it! Though fashioned on the best models of ancient and modern times, his style o£ expression was decidedly his own. He said what he had to say in the way most natural for him to say it. Behind his every word was the weight of his scholar- ship and the force of his industry. He would look into fifty books to fashion a single sentence. No task was too great, no inquiry to exacting, for him. His range was as wide as his scholarship was deep. While he wrote sentences which, as someone has said, seemed like life sentences, he could write short sentences as well, sentences pregnant with the simplicity and force of poetry. Take for example these lines from his speech on Webster : "Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who knew and saw it in its hour of calm -those who could repose on that soft green-loved him. His plain neighbours loved him ; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, `How lonesome the world seems.' Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the gospel, the general intelli- gence of the country, the masses afar off loved him. . . . More truly of him than even of the greatest naval darling of England might it be said, that `His presence would set the church-bells ringing, and give school-boys a holiday,would bring children from school and old men from the chimney-corner to gaze on him ere he died. ' " In speaking of Choate's style, Edward Everett (a generous rival of his for oratorical honors) well said, "He is sometimes satisfied, in concise epigrammatic clauses, to skirmish with his light troops and drive in the enemy's outposts. It is only on

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fitting occasions, when great principles are to be vindicated and solemn truths to be told ; when some moral or political Waterloo or Solferino is to be fought, that he puts on the entire panoply of his gorgeous rhetoric." Rufus Choate's first interest in life was his work at the bar. e once said that there was nothing else for any man of intellect to like but the active practice of law. He refused to leave his profession to become a professor of law at Cambridge Law School. He would not even give up the delights of forensic strife for a place on the Supreme Court Bench-where he might have sat as successor to Judge Woodbury. His happiest hours were those he spent in trying to make_ juries feel as he felt and see as he saw. Senator Hoar spoke no word of exaggeration when he said, "No gambler ever hankered for the feverish delights of the gaming table as Choate did for that absorbing game, half chance, half skill, where twelve human dice must all turn up together one way, or there is no victory." Choate had literary talents of a high order. He often talked of writing a book to keep the rose of his remembrance red but he never got around to it. 13t one time he had under consideration a work on the history of Greece, but the appear- ance of Grote's first volume disuaded him from his plans. Politics' claimed only a narrow margin of Choate's time. While his talents were those of a statesman of the first rank, his tastes were not for political honors. Elected a member of Congress in 1839, he did not cut a great figure among the- political giants of the day. He was out of his right element . While sitting in Congress, he longed for the courts. He was re-elected to Congress in 1832, but resigned his seat in the winter of 1834. When Daniel Webster was appointed Secretary of State in 1841, there seemed no one but Choate who could begin to fill his shoes. Reluctantly, Choate entered the Senate as Webster's successor. In 1845, on Webster's re-election to the Senate, Choate was glad to retire so that he could give himself to pursuits more congenial to him than politics. His political thought ran in conservative channels. Neither rebel, nor reactionary, he pursued a middle way. He did not worship the past blindly, nor did he turn his face to the future with unwitting confidence. In an address which' he delivered before the Cambridge Law School, on 3rd July, 1845, Choate gave what may be interpreted as a declaration of his own political faith, when he

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spoke thus, as one lawyer to other lawyers: "It may be said, I think with some truth, of the profession of the Bar, that in all political systems and in all times it has seemed to possess a two-fold nature ; that it has seemed to be fired by the spirit of liberty, and yet to hold fast the sentiments of order and reverence, and the duty of subordination; that it has resisted despotism, and yet taught obedience; that it has recognized and vindicated the rights of man, and yet has reckoned it always among the most sacred and most precious of those rights to be shielded and led by the divine nature and immortal reason of law; that it appreciates social progression and contributes to it, and ranks in the classes and with the agents of progression, yet evermore counsels and courts permanence and conservatism and rest ; that it loves light better than darkness, and yet, like the eccentric or wise man in the old historian, has a habit of looking away as the night wanes to the western sky, to detect there the first streaks of returning dawn." For physical travel Choate had little enthusiasm ; most of his travelling was done in the mind. In 1850, he made his one and only trip to Europe, visiting England, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Germany. The glories of travel in lands strange and new to him, could not win him from his books. Wherever he went, he took his books along. While in Europe he kept a journal, and to this journal he confided that he preferred the New World to the Old. "What one human being," he asked, "Not of a privileged class, is better off in Europe than he would be in America? Possibly a mere scholar, or student of art, seeking learning or taste for itself, to accomplish himself. But the question is, if in any case, high and low, the same rate of mind, and the same kind of mind, may not be as happy in America as in Europe. It must modify its aims and sources somewhat, live out of itself, seek to do good, educate others. It may acquire less, teach more; suck into its veins less nutriment, less essence, less perception of beauty, less relish of it (this I doubt), but diffuse it more. "What is it worth to live among all that I have seen? I think access to the books and works of art is all. There is no natural beauty thus far beyond ours,-and a storied country, storied of battles and blood,-is that an educational influence?" When Rufus Choate reached the mid-afternoon of life, his health began to give way. On the advice of his doctors, in June, 1859, he took passage for England, where he intended to spend the summer in the hope of renewing his failing strength.

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He had delayed consideration of his health too long. ®n board ship, he took a bad turn and was forced to leave the Europe, the vessel on which he had sailed, at Halifax. where it made its first stop. In Halifax, his health showed . feeble signs of improving and attending physicians had hopes for his recovery -but they proved to be false hopes. He died in the early morning of 13th July, in his sixtieth year. Death came quietly, the rainbow-arch after the fitful storms of life, as befitted him, whom the profession of the bar honors as the most perfect 'artist in advocacy the world has known.

ROY ST. GBoRGB STUBBS .

Winnipeg.