The labors of so great a lawyer are as much more useful as they are
less conspicuous than those of any prominent politician or
legislator, unless he be one of the very few who have high
constructive or creative ability. There is little risk of
overestimating the value of a life devoted to mastering that complex
system of jurisprudence, the old, ever-expanding, and ever-improving
common law which is interwoven with our whole fabric of government,
property, and personal rights, and to applying it profoundly through
trial by jury and before courts of law, not merely that justice may
be obtained for clients, but that decisions shall be made determining
the rights and duties of men for generations to come. And when such a
life is not only full of immense work and achievement, but
is penetrated and informed with genius, sensibility, and
loving-kindness, it passes sweetly and untraceably, but influentially
and immortally, into the life of the nation.
THE REGICIDE COLONELS IN NEW ENGLAND.
Before the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, to the throne
of his ancestors, he had issued a "Declaration," promising to all
persons but such as should be excepted by Parliament a pardon of
offences committed during the late disorderly times.
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