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different societies. He wrote biographical sketches of ten of his contemporaries; six elaborate reviews for the North American; three long and learned memorials to Congress. He delivered many elaborate speeches in the legislature of Massachusetts and the Congress of the United States. He also drew up many other papers of importance, among which are the argument before Harvard College, on the subject of the Fellows of the University; the Reports on Codification, and on the salaries of the Judiciary; several important Acts of Congress, such as the Crimes Act, the Judiciary Act, the Bankrupt Act, besides many other smaller matters. In quantity, all other authors in the English law, and judges must yield to him the palm. The labors of Coke, Eldon, and Mansfield, among judges, are not to be compared to his in amount. And no jurist in the common law, can be measured with him, in extent and variety of labor." Judge Story was a constant and assiduous student from a very early period of his life until the time of his decease. His habits were extremely regular and systematic. He never rose earlier than seven, and always retired for the night at or about ten. If, on rising, his 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 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 (which, on his part, was always simple) 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." His evenings were spent socially with his friends and family, or in reading the current literature of the day. Thus his life was passed, and thus it was prolonged. Retaining to the end the undisturbed possession of all his faculties, he died, after a short illness, on the tenth of September, 1845. A full and comprehensive account of his life and services, has been published since his death, from the facile pen of his son, Mr. W. W. Story. His Miscellaneous Works, edited by the same able hand, are now before the public.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE.

Judge Story pronounced the following dis- | itself over the business of many ages, must course at Cambridge, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, on the thirtyfirst of August, 1826:

GENTLEMEN: If I had consulted my own wishes, I should not have presumed to address you on the present occasion.. The habits of professional employment rarely admit of leisure for the indulgence of literary taste. And in a science, whose mastery demands a whole life of laborious diligence, whose details are inexhaustible, and whose intricacies task the most acute intellects, it would be matter of surprise, if every hour withdrawn from its concerns did not somewhat put at hazard the success of its votary. Nor can it escape observation, how much the technical doctrines of a jurisprudence, drawn from remote antiquity, and expanding

have a tendency to chill that enthusiasm which lends encouragement to every enterprise, and to obscure those finer forms of thought which give to literature its lovelier, I may say, its inexpressible graces. The consciousness of difficulties of this sort may well be supposed to press upon every professional mind. They can be overlooked by those only whose youth has not been tried in the hard school of experience, or whose genius gives no credit to impossibilities.

I have not hesitated, however, to yield to your invitation, trusting to that indulgence which has not hitherto been withheld from well-meant efforts, and not unwilling to add the testimony of my own example, however humble, in favor of the claims of this society to the services of all its members.

We live in an extraordinary age. It has been

marked by events, which will leave a durable impression upon the pages of history by their own intrinsic importance. But they will be read with far deeper emotions in their effects upon future ages; in their consequences upon the happiness of whole communities; in the direct or silent changes forced by them into the very structure of society; in the establishment of a new and mighty empire, the empire of public opinion; in the operation of what Lord Bacon has characterized almost as supreme power, the power of knowledge, working its way to universality, and interposing checks upon government and people by means gentle and decisive, which have never before been fully felt, and are even now, perhaps, incapable of being perfectly comprehended.

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ledges no finer models than those of antiquity. The stream of a century has swept by the works of Locke and Newton; yet they still stand alone in unapproached, in unapproachable majesty. Nor may we pronounce that the present age, by its collective splendor in arts and arms, casts into shade all former epochs. The era of Pericles witnessed a combination of talents and acquirements, of celebrated deeds and celebrated works, which the lapse of twenty-two centuries has left unobscured. Augustus, surveying his mighty empire, could scarcely contemplate with more satisfaction the triumph of his arms, than the triumph of the philosophy and literature of Rome. France yet delights to dwell on the times of Louis the Fourteenth, as the proudest in her annals; and England, with far less propriety, looks back upon the reign of Queen Anne for the best models of her literary excel

But, though we may not arrogate to ourselves the possession of the first genius, or the first era in human history, let it not be imagined that we do not live in an extraordinary age. It is impossible to look around us without alternate emotions of exultation and astonishment. What shall we say of one revolution, which created a nation out of thirteen feeble colonies, and founded the empire of liberty upon the basis of the perfect equality in rights and representation of all its citizens; which commenced in a struggle by enlightened men for principles, and not for places, and in its progress and conclusion exhibited examples of heroism, patriotic sacrifices, and disinterested virtue, which have never been surpassed in the most favored regions? What shall we say of this nation, which has in fifty

Other ages have been marked by brilliant feats in arms. Wars have been waged for the best and for the worst of purposes. The am-lence. hitious conqueror has trodden whole nations under his feet, to satisfy the lust of power; and the eagles of his victories have stood on either extreme of the civilized world. The barbarian has broken loose from his northern fastnesses, and overwhelmed in his progress temples and thrones, the adorers of the true God, and the worshippers of idols. Heroes and patriots have successfully resisted the invaders of their country, or perished in its defence; and in each way have given immortality to their exploits. Kingdoms have been rent asunder by intestine broils, or by struggles for freedom. Bigotry has traced out the march of its persecutions in footsteps of blood; and superstition employed its terrors to nerve the arm of the tyrant, or immolate his victims. There have been ancient leagues for the partition of empires, for the sup-years quadrupled its population, and spread itport of thrones, for the fencing out of human improvement, and for the consolidation of arbitrary power. There have, too, been bright spots on the earth, where the cheering light of liberty shone in peace; where learning unlocked its stores in various profusion; where the arts unfolded themselves in every form of beauty and grandeur; where literature loved to linger in academic shades, or enjoy the public sunshine; where song lent new inspiration to the temple; where eloquence alternately consecrated the hall of legislation, and astonished the forum with its appeals.

We may not assert that the present age can lay claim to the production of any one of the mightiest efforts of human genius. Homer and Virgil, and Shakspeare and Milton, were of ather days, and yet stand unrivalled in song. Time has not inscribed upon the sepulchre of the dead any nobler names in eloquence, than Demosthenes and Cicero. Who has outdone the chisel of Phidias, or the pencil of Michael Angelo, and Raffaelle? Where are the monuments of our day, whose architecture dares to contend with the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian of Greece, or even with the Composite or Gothic of later times? History yet points to the pregnant though brief text of Tacitus, and acknow

self from the Atlantic to the Rocky mountains, not by the desolations of successful war, but by the triumphant march of industry and enterprise? What shall we say of another revolution, which shook Europe to its centre, overturned principalities and thrones, demolished oppressions, whose iron had for ages entered into the souls of their subjects, and after various fortunes of victory and defeat, of military despotism and popular commotion, ended at last in the planting of free institutions, free tenures, and representative government in the very soil of absolute monarchy? What shall we say of another revolution, or rather series of revolutions, which has restored to South America the independence torn from her three centuries ago, by the force or by the fraud of those nations whose present visitations bespeak a Providence, which superintends and measures out, at awful distances, its rewards and its retributions? She has risen, as it were, from the depths of the ocean, where she had been buried for ages. Her shores no longer murmur with the hoarse surges of her unnavigated waters, or echo the jealous footsteps of her armed oppressors. Her forests and her table lands, her mountains and her valleys, gladden with the voices of the free. She wel

comes to her ports the whitening sails of com- | merce. She feels that the treasures of her mines, the broad expanse of her rivers, the beauty of her lakes, the grandeur of her scenery, the products of her fertile and inexhaustible soil, are no longer the close domain of a distant sovereign, but the free inheritance of her own children. She sees that these are to bind her to other nations by ties, which outlive all compacts and all dynasties, by ties of mutual sympathy, mutual equality, and mutual interest.

But such events sink into nothing, compared with the great moral, political, and literary revolutions, by which they have been accompanied. Upon some of these topics I may not indulge myself even for a moment. They have been discussed here, and in other places, in a manner which forbids all hope of more comprehensive illustration. They may, indeed, be still followed out; but whoever dares the difficulties of such a task, will falter with unequal footsteps.

What I propose to myself on the present occasion, is of a far more limited and humble nature. It is to trace out some of the circumstances of our age, which connect themselves closely with the cause of science and letters; to sketch here and there a light and shadow of our days to look somewhat at our own prospects and attainments-and thus to lay before you something for reflection, for encouragement, and for admonition.

One of the most striking characteristics of our age, and that, indeed, which has worked deepest in all the changes of its fortunes and pursuits, is the general diffusion of knowledge. This is emphatically the age of reading. In other times this was the privilege of the few; in ours, it is the possession of the many. Learning once constituted the accomplishment of those in the higher orders of society, who had no relish for active employment, and of those whose monastic lives and religious profession sought to escape from the weariness of their common duties. Its progress may be said to have been gradually downwards from the higher to the middle classes of society. It scarcely reached at all, in its joys or its sorrows, in its instructions or its fantasies, the home of the peasant and artisan, It now radiates in all directions; and exerts its central force more in the middle, than in any other class of society. The means of education were formerly within the reach of few. It required wealth to accumulate knowledge. The possession of a library was no ordinary achievement. The learned leisure of a fellowship in some university seemed almost indispensable for any successful studies; and the patronage of princes and courtiers was the narrow avenue to public favor. I speak of a period at little more than the distance of two centuries; not of particular instances, but of the general cast and complexion of life.

The principal cause of this change is to be found in the freedom of the press, or rather in this co-operating with the cheapness of the

press. It has been aided also by the system of free schools, wherever it has been established; by that liberal commerce, which connects by golden chains the interests of mankind; by that spirit of inquiry, which Protestantism awakened throughout Christian Europe; and above all by those necessities which have compelled even absolute monarchs to appeal to the patriotism and common sentiments of their subjects. Little more than a century has elapsed since the press in England was under the control of a licenser; and within our own days only has it ceased to be a contempt, punishable by imprisonment, to print the debates of Parliament. We all know how it still is on the continent of Europe. It either speaks in timid under tones, or echoes back the prescribed formularies of the govern ment. The moment publicity is given to affairs of state, they excite everywhere an irresistible interest. If discussion be permitted, it will soon be necessary to enlist talents to defend, as well as talents to devise measures. The daily press first instructed men in their wants, and soon found, that the eagerness of curiosity outstripped the power of gratifying it. No man can now doubt the fact, that wherever the press is free, it will emancipate the people; wherever knowledge circulates unrestrained, it is no longer safe to oppress; wherever public opinion is enlightened, it nourishes an independent, mascu line, and healthful spirit. If Faustus were now living, he might exclaim with all the enthusiasm of Archimedes, and with a far nearer approach to the truth, Give me where I may place a free press, and I will shake the world.

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One interesting effect, which owes its origin to this universal love and power of reading, is felt in the altered condition of authors themselves. They no longer depend upon the smiles of a favored few. The patronage of the great is no longer submissively entreated, or exultingly proclaimed. Their patrons are the public; their readers are the civilized world. They address themselves, not to the present generation alone, but aspire to instruct posterity. No blushing dedications seek an easy passport to fame, or flatter the perilous condescension of pride. No illuminated letters flourish on the silky page, asking admission to the courtly drawing-room. Authors are no longer the humble companions or dependents of the nobility; but they constitute the chosen ornaments of society, and are welcomed to the gay circles of fashion and the palaces of princes. Theirs is no longer an unthrifty vocation, closely allied to penury; but an elevated profession, maintaining its thousands in lucrative pursuits. It is not with them as it was in the days of Milton, whose immortal "Paradise Lost" drew five sterling pounds, with a contingent of five more, from the reluctant bookseller.

My Lord Coke would hardly find good authority in our day for his provoking commentary on the memorable statute of the fourth Henry, which declares that "none henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, or use the

craft of multiplication," in which he gravely | mind, which grapples closer and mightier than enumerates five classes of beggars, ending the all others. They may feel sure, that every just catalogue in his own quaint phraseology with sentiment, every enlightened opinion, every "poetasters," and repeating for the benefit of earnest breathing after excellence will awaken young apprentices of the law, the sad admo- kindred sympathies from the rising to the setnition, ting sun.

"Sæpe pater dixit, Studium, quid inutile tentas? Mæonidas nullas ipse reliquit opes."

There are certainly among us those who are within the penalty of this prohibition, if my Lord Coke's account of the matter is to be believed, for they are in possession of what he defines to be "a certain subtil and spiritual substance extracted out of things," whereby they transmute many things into gold. I am indeed afraid that the magician of Abbotsford is accustomed to use the craft of multiplication;" and most of us know to our cost, that he has changed many strange substances into very gold and very silver. Yet even if he be an old offender in this way, as is shrewdly suspected, there is little danger of his conviction in this liberal age, since, though he gains by every thing he parts with, we are never willing to part with any thing we receive from him.

The rewards of authorship are now almost as sure and regular, as those of any other profession. There are, indeed, instances of wonderful success, and sad failure; of genius pining in neglect; of labor bringing nothing but sickness of the heart; of fruitless enterprise, baffled in every adventure; of learning waiting its appointed time to die in patient suffering. But this is the lot of some in all times. Disappointment crowds fast upon human footsteps in whatever paths they tread. Eminent good fortune is a prize rarely given even to the foremost in the race. And after all, he who has read human life most closely, knows that happiness is not the constant attendant of the highest public favor; and that it rather belongs to those who, if they seldom soar, seldom fall.

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Scarcely is a work of real merit dry from the English press, before it wings its way to both the Indies and Americas. It is found in the most distant climates, and the most sequestered retreats. It charms the traveller, as he sails over rivers and oceans. It visits our lakes and our forests. It kindles the curiosity of the thick-breathing city, and cheers the log hut of the mountaineer. The Lake of the Woods resounds with the minstrelsy of our mother tongue, and the plains of Hindostan are tributary to its praise. Nay, more, what is the peculiar pride of our age, the Bible may now circulate its consolations and instructions among the poor and forlorn of every land, in their native dialect. Such is the triumph of letters; such is the triumph of Christian benevolence.

With such a demand for books, with such facilities of intercourse, it is no wonder that reading should cease to be a mere luxury, and should be classed among the necessaries of life. Authors may now, with a steady confidence, boast, that they possess a hold on the human

Nor should it be overlooked, what a beneficial impulse has been thus communicated to education among the female sex. If Christianity may be said to have given a permanent elevation to woman, as an intellectual and moral being, it is as true that the present age, above all others, has given play to her genius, and taught us to reverence its influence. It was the fashion of other times to treat the literary acquirements of the sex as starched pedantry, or vain pretensions; to stigmatize them as inconsistent with those domestic affections and virtues which constitute the charm of society. We had abundant homilies read upon their amiable weaknesses and sentimental delicacy, upon their timid gentleness and submissive dependence; as if to taste the fruit of knowledge were a deadly sin, and ignorance were the sole guardian of innocence. Their whole lives were "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and concealment of intellectual power was often resorted to, to escape the dangerous imputation of masculine strength. In the higher walks of life, the satirist was not without color for the suggestion, that it was

"A youth of folly, an old age of cards;" and that elsewhere, "most women had no character at all," beyond that of purity and devotion to their families. Admirable as are these qualities, it seemed an abuse of the gifts of Providence to deny to mothers the power of instructing their children, to wives the privilege of sharing the intellectual pursuits of their husbands, to sisters and daughters the delight of ministering knowledge in the fireside circle, to youth and beauty the charm of refined sense, to age and infirmity the consolation of studies, which elevate the soul and gladden the listless hours of despondency.

These things have in a great measure passed away. The prejudices which dishonored the sex, have yielded to the influence of truth. By slow but sure advances, education has extended itself through all ranks of female society. There is no longer any dread, lest the culture of science should foster that masculine boldness or restless independence, which alarms by its sallies, or wounds by its inconsistencies. We have seen that here, as everywhere else, knowledge is favorable to human virtue and human happiness; that the refinement of literature adds lustre to the devotion of piety; that true learning, like true taste, is modest and unostentatious; that grace of manners receives a higher polish from the discipline of the schools; that cultivated genius sheds a cheering light over domestic duties, and its very sparkles, like those of the diamond, attest at once its power and its pu

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rity. There is not a rank of female society, how- | ever high, which does not now pay homage to literature, or that would not blush even at the suspicion of that ignorance, which a half century ago was neither uncommon nor discreditable. There is not a parent, whose pride may not glow at the thought, that his daughter's happiness is in a great measure within her own command, whether she keeps the cool sequestered vale of life, or visits the busy walks of fashion. A new path is thus open for female exertion, to alleviate the pressure of misfortune, without any supposed sacrifice of dignity or modesty. Man no longer aspires to an exclusive dominion in authorship. He has rivals or allies in almost every department of knowledge; and they are to be found among those whose elegance of manners and blamelessness of life command his respect, as much as their talents excite his admiration. Who is there that does not contemplate with enthusiasm the precious fragments of Elizabeth Smith, the venerable learning of Elizabeth Carter, the elevated piety of Hannah More, the persuasive sense of Mrs. Barbauld, the elegant memoirs of her accomplished niece, the bewitching fictions of Madame D'Arblay, the vivid, picturesque, and terrific imagery of Mrs. Radcliffe, the glowing poetry of Mrs. Hemans, the matchless wit, the inexhaustible conversations, the fine character painting, the practical instructions of Miss Edgeworth, the great known, standing in her own department by the side of the great unknown?

right of kings, and the absolute allegiance of subjects, constituted nearly the whole theory of government from the fall of the Roman Republic to the seventeenth century; that Christianity itself was overlaid and almost buried for many centuries, by the dreamy comments of monks, the superstitions of fanatics, and the traditions of the church? that it was an execrable sin throughout Christendom to read and circulate the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue? Nay, that it is still a crime in some nations, of which the Inquisition would take no very indulgent notice, even if the Head of the Catholic Church should not feel that Bible societies deserve his denunciation? Even the great reformers of the Protestant Church left their work but half done, or rather came to it with notions far too limited for its successful accomplishment. They combated errors and abuses, and laid the broad foundations of a more rational faith. But they were themselves insensible to the just rights and obligations of religious inquiry. They thought all error intolerable; but they forgot in their zeal, that the question, what was truth, was open to all for discussion. They assumed to themselves the very infallibility, which they rebuked in the Romish Church; and as unrelentingly persecuted heresies of opinion, as those who had sat for ages in the judgment-seat of St. Peter. They allowed, indeed, that all men had a right to inquire; but they thought that all must, if Another circumstance, illustrative of the selves; that the full extent of Christian liberty honest, come to the same conclusion with themcharacter of our age, is the bold and fearless was the liberty of adopting those opinions spirit of its speculations. common in the history of mankind, than a ser- restrained right of private judgment, the gloriNothing is more which they promulgated as true. vile adoption of received opinions, and a timid ous privilege of a free conscience, as now estabacquiescence in whatever is established. It lished in this favored land, was farther from matters not whether a doctrine or institution their thoughts even than Popery itself. owes its existence to accident or design, to would not be unjust to these great men. The wisdom, or ignorance, or folly; there is a natural fault was less theirs than that of the age in tendency to give it an undue value in propor- which they lived. They partook only of that tion to its antiquity. What is obscure in its spirit of infirmity which religion itself may not origin warms and gratifies the imagination. wholly extinguish in its sincere, but over zealWhat in its progress has insinuated itself into ous votaries. It is their glory to have laid the the general habits and manners of a nation, be- deep, and, I trust, the imperishable foundations comes imbedded in the solid mass of society. of Protestantism. May it be ours to finish the It is only at distant intervals, from an aggrega-work, as they would have done it, if they had tion of causes, that some stirring revolution been permitted to enjoy the blessed light of breaks up the old foundations, or some mighty these latter times. genius storms and overthrows the entrench- boast of their justice or their charity, while But let not Protestants ments of error. Who would believe, if history they continue to deny an equality of rights to did not record the fact, that the metaphysics of the Catholics. Aristotle, or rather the misuse of his metaphysics, held the human mind in bondage for cannot escape the observation of the most suThe progress of the spirit of free inquiry two thousand years? that Galileo was impris-perficial examiner of history. The press, by oned for proclaiming the true theory of the slow but firm steps, first felt its way, and solar system? that the magnificent discoveries began its attacks upon the outworks of reof Sir Isaac Newton encountered strong oppo-ceived opinions. One error after another sisition from philosophers? that Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, found its way with infinite difficulty into the studies of the English Universities? that Lord Bacon's method of induction never reached its splendid triumphs until our day? that the doctrine of the divine

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lently crumbled into the dust, until success
seemed to justify the boldest experiments.
Opinions in science, in physic, in philosophy, in
morals, in religion, in literature, have been
subjected to the severest scrutiny; and many,
which had grown hoary under the authority

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