passion or prejudice, for a certain, native, high-minded independence of opinion, and for an impartiality, which amounted, as nearly as possible, to the exemplification of abstract justice; yet, with a decisive. inclination, whenever the opportunity occurred, to present the equitable view of a case. We need not say, therefore, that he exhibited that first qualification of a judge—uprightness—a characteristic, happily, of judicial position in Massachusetts, as a general rule, and maintaining itself comparatively unsullied, even to our own somewhat wavering times. But we firmly believe, if the memory of any one of those who have passed off the stage, in the bright array of Massachusetts judges, were to be appealed to, for a signal example of judicial purity, the name of Charles Jackson would be the first to occur. And, since the position of a judge upon the earth is not, as it is too often considered, that of a mere man of business, according to the ordinary estimate of human affairs, but he is, in some imperfect sense, the vice-chancellor and substitute of infinite wisdom, justice, and power,

-we know not what more could be said in honor of any person, or why any one could wish to bequeath a clearer and nobler reputation to his country.

There are certain opinions of Judge Jackson, in the books, which may be referred to as leading and most valuable judgments. But any special detail of their merits would be out of place here. In conse

quence of failing health, he resigned his office in 1823, and the public thus lost the benefit of those services, which he might, perhaps, have rendered during some considerable portion, at least, of the subsequent thirty years granted to his honored life. For the purpose of relaxation and recovery, he soon sailed for England; and as evidence of a reputation not confined to home or native country, and of personal characteristics well fitted to promote his intercourse with intelligent and cultivated society everywhere, we quote from a letter of a gentleman, writing from London to a friend in Newburyport :-"Two of your townsmen" (the other was Jacob Perkins) now fill the public eye of England, and are the subjects of public and private conversation."

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The remaining years of Judge Jackson's life were passed in studious retirement, and in agreeable communion with an extended circle of family and social friends. In 1836 he was appointed head of the commission, under the resolve of the legislature, for the revision of the statutes of Massachusetts, of the character of which important undertaking we need say nothing. Excepting this arduous labor, and the publication of his learned treatise on Real Actions, to be referred to an earlier date, we are aware of no other public service performed by him, while he was, indeed, necessarily and carefully nursing the often flickering flame of life. In politics, he clung with

the ardor and tenacity of settled principle to the ancient faith of the old Essex platform, of which his master, Parsons, so admirably sketched the outline in his famous "Resolutions;" upon the basis of which so many of the noblest men, whom this country has ever counted amongst its jewels, have so often uttered words of warning and wisdom and encouragement and patriotism, in the roughest times the country has ever seen. In religion, he was, as we have good reason to believe, what was said with equal truth of John Selden, "a resolved serious Christian;" and, unlike too many professional men, he found no excuse for the neglect of its duties, in the engrossing demands of ordinary cares and labors. Indeed, his life was one long routine of fulfilled duties, which a natural sense of rectitude made pleasures. We presume he had faults, for he was human; if so, they were not public, and we know not what they were. He was a gentleman, by nature, sentiment, and cultivation. During his whole life, he was beloved, esteemed and respected. He dies, without a blot upon his memory, and has thus nobly fulfilled the only real purposes of human existence.

MR. CHOATE'S LECTURE

ON

ROGERS AND HIS TIMES.

WE imagine, it will be found not a very easy matter to present even an intelligible sketch of Mr. Choate's great lecture, delivered on Monday evening. No description could really furnish any adequate idea of such a performance. As well might mortal painter endeavor to catch upon canvas those hues of heaven, which kindle into beauty and vanish in the trail of the descending day. And just as no imagination could recall those shapes of capricious loveliness, momentarily shifting and finally melting into that unfathomable ocean of golden light; so those who have subsequently attempted to report this great orator (for assuredly no gray goose-quill, detached from its parent wing, could be quite fleet enough to follow him, at the moment) have thus found the vividness, the glow, the rapidity, and the sparkle of his utterly unexpected diagonalisms, quite beyond the reach of their ability to set down.

Whoever has been in the habit of hearing Mr. Choate at the bar, or upon occasions of public interest, could not fail to be prepared to listen to a discourse, instinct with thought, glittering with the fire of genius, bubbling and boiling over with the stir and riotous action of a teeming and irrepressible fancy. Confessedly, it is a very extraordinary thing, that this great, laborious, and eminently successful lawyer, who occupies a place at the Bar, with no man above, and no man very near him; who so wonderfully exemplifies the axiom, that the part is contained in the whole -as it is in complete and not in imperfect works-by employing constantly the minutest technical details of his profession, with the same unvarying, accurate skill, as that with which he grasps its broadest principles and wields the entire machinery of its philosophical learning; and who devotes more daily hours to the trial and argument of causes, than any three or four other persons together; that such a man, so gifted, so constituted, and so occupied, should have kept his mind thoroughly imbued with the freshness of earlier literary and classical acquisitions—should have pressed on breast-high with whatever is worthy of attention in the literature of to-day, and, on an occasion like the present, should have been able to charm, delight, and, we may say, fascinate an audience as intelligent and cultivated as, we presume, is ordinarily assembled in this or any other American city.