OF RUFUS CHOATE WITH A MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE. BY SAMUEL GILMAN BROWN, PROFESSOR IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. Ἐν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος ἐφόρει. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 1862. 308.1 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by HELEN OLCOTT CHOATE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. To The Memory of LEMUEL SHAW, LL. D. FOR THIRTY YEARS CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS, THESE WORKS OF RUFUS CHOATE, WITH THE MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE, ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 433339 PREFACE. WHEN first requested to prepare a sketch of the life of Mr. CHOATE, I was not ignorant of the difficulty of writing it so as to present a fair and complete portraiture—the traits of his character were so peculiar, its lights and shades so delicate, various, and evanescent. The difficulty has not grown less as I have proceeded with the work, and no one, I think, can be so well aware as I am, of its insufficiency. It may seem singular that none of Mr. Choate's addresses to a jury are included in this collection of his speeches, — that the department of eloquence in which perhaps he gained his greatest fame, should here be unrepresented. In this disappointment, those by whom this selection has been made, certainly share. It was not until the very last, and after making a careful examination of every accessible report of his legal arguments, that they reluctantly came to the conclusion that no one remained which, considering the nature of the subject, or of the report itself, would do justice to the advocate, or very much gratify the reader. As to Mr. Choate's political sentiments and action during the later years of his life, it did not seem necessary to do more than to give his opinions as they were honestly formed and frankly expressed. The time has not yet come for treating fully and with entire fairness the questions of those days. One still "walks on ashes thinly covering fires." A word should perhaps be said with reference to the fragments of translations from Thucydides and Tacitus, which a* |