and near its close married Miss Mary Lynde Oliver, who died on the 22d of June following. In 1808, he was married to Miss Sarah Waldo Wetmore.

Story's rise in his profession was rapid, and in 1810 he was appointed by Madison, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He accepted the office at a pecuniary sacrifice of his professional income exceeding the official salary of $3500 a year, some two thousand dollars. In 1827, he prepared an edition in three volumes of the Laws of the United States. In 1829, the Hon. Nathan Dane offered the sum of $10,000 to Harvard College, as the foundation of a law professorship, on the condition that his friend Story should consent to become its first professor. Story having as a friend of the college and of legal science accepted the appointment, delivered an inauguration Address on the Value and Importance of the Study of Law, which is regarded as one of his finest productions.

His instructions were of course delivered during the vacations of the Supreme Court. His biographer gives a pleasant picture of the interest taken by teacher and pupil in the subject matter before them.

For the benefit of the students he sold to the college his library at one half its value.

During the preparation of the Encyclopædia Americana by his friend Dr. Lieber, Justice Story contributed a number of articles on legal subjects, forming some hundred and twenty pages of the work. He was also a large contributor to the American Jurist.

In 1832, he published his Commentaries on the Constitution in three volumes, and in the following spring the Abridgment of the work, which is in general use throughout the country as a college text-book. The Commentaries were received with universal favor at home and abroad, where they were translated into French and German.

In 1834, he published his Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws. In 1835, a selection from his Miscellaneous Writings. In 1836, the first volume of his Commentaries upon Equity Jurisprudence, and in 1846, a work on Promissory Notes.

To these we must add the comprehensive reference to his miscellaneous writings made by

his son.

Its

When we review his public life, the amount of labor accomplished by him seems enormous. mere recapitulation is sufficient to appal an ordinary mind. The judgments delivered by him on his Circuits, comprehend thirteen volumes. The Reports of the Supreme Court during his judicial life occupy thirty-five volumes, of which he wrote a full share. His various treatises on legal subjects cover thirteen volumes, besides a volume of Pleadings. He edited and annotated three different treatises, with copious notes, and published a volume of Poems. He delivered and published eight discourses on literary and scientific subjects, before 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 Codifica

tion, and on the salaries of the Judiciary; several very 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.

In 1845, he determined to resign his judicial office and devote his entire attention to his favorite law school, which had prospered greatly under his care. It was his wish, however, before doing so to dispose of all the cases argued before him, and it was in consequence of the severe labor he imposed upon himself in the heat of summer to accomplish this object, that he became so utterly exhausted that his physical frame could offer slight resistance to the attacks of disease. In September, 1845, he was engaged in writing out the last of these opinions when he was taken with a cold followed by stricture, and the stoppage of the intestinal canal. He was relieved from this attack after great suffering for many hours, but his powers were too enfeebled to rally, and he sank into a torpor, "breathed the name of God, the last word that ever was heard from his lips," and a few hours after, on the evening of the tenth of September, died.

Every honor was paid his memory. Shops were closed and business suspended in Cambridge on the day of his funeral, which in accordance with his wishes was conducted in a simple manner, and a sum of money was soon after raised at the suggestion of the Trustees of Mount Auburn where he was buried, for the purpose of placing his statue in the chapel of that cemetery. The commission for the work was intrusted to the son of the deceased, Mr. William W. Story, who has since published in two large octavo volumes the "Life and Letters" of his distinguished father, and has thus contributed by the exercise of two of the most permanent in effect of human instruments, the pen and the chisel, to the perpetuation and extension of his fame.

Judge Story was an active student throughout life. It was his practice to keep interleaved copies of his works near at hand, and to add on the blank pages any decisions or information bearing upon their subject. The personal habits of one who accomplished so much were necessarily simple and temperate, but the detail may be read with interest as recorded by his son.

He arose at seven in summer, and at half past seven in winter,-never earlier. If 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 to 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. During the evening he received his friends, and he was rarely without company; but if alone, he read some new publication of the day,the reviews, a novel, an English newspaper; sometimes corrected a proof-sheet, listened to music, or talked with the family, or, what was very common, played a game of backgammon with my mother. This was the only game of the kind that he liked. Cards and chess he never played.

In the summer afternoons he left his library towards twilight, and might always be seen by the passer-by sitting with his family under the portico, talking or reading some light pamphlet or newspaper, often surrounded by friends, and making the air ring with his gay laugh. This, with the interval occupied by tea, would last until nine o'clock. Generally, also, the summer afternoon was varied three or four times a week, in fair weather, by a drive with my mother of about an hour through the surrounding country in an open chaise. At about ten or half past ten he retired for the night, never varying a half hour from this time.

Story retained his early fondness for poetry throughout life, and sometimes amused his leisure moments even when on the bench by versifying any casual thought suggested to him by the arguments of counsel." A few specimens of these rhymed reflections are given by his son.

It was my father's habit, while sitting on the Bench, to versify any casual thought suggested to him by the arguments of counsel, and in his note books of points and citations, several pages are generally devoted to memoranda in prose and verse, of facts, and thoughts, which interested him. In his memorandum-book of arguments before the Supreme Court in 1831 and 1832, I select the following fragments written on the fly-leaf:

You wish the Court to hear, and listen too?
Then speak with point, be brief, be close, be true.
Cite well your cases; let them be in point;
Not learned rubbish, dark, and out of joint;—
And be your reasoning clear, and closely made,
Free from false taste, and verbiage, and parade.

Stuff not your speech with every sort of law, Give us the grain, and throw away the straw.

Books should be read; but if you can't digest, The same's the surfeit, take the worst or best.

Must make his learning apt, his reasoning clear,
Pregnant in matter, but in style severe;
But never drawl, nor spin the thread so fine,
That all becomes an evanescent line.

The following sketch was drawn at this time on
the Bench, and apparently from life:-
With just enough of learning to confuse,-
With just enough of temper to abuse,—
With just enough of genius, when confest,
To urge the worst of passions for the best,-
With just enough of all that wins in life,
To make us hate a nature formed for strife,-
With just enough of vanity and spite,

To turn to all that's wrong from all that's right,Who would not curse the hour when first he saw Just such a man, called learned in the law.

The legal writings of Judge Story from his own pen extend to thirteen volumes; the Reports of his decisions on Circuits to thirteen; and those of the Supreme Court while he occupied a seat on the Bench and contributed his full share to their contents, to thirty-five.

The style of Story, both in his Commentaries and in his Miscellanies, is that of the scholar and man of general reading, as well as the thoroughly practised lawyer. It is full, inclined to the rhetorical, but displays everywhere the results of laborious investigation and calm reflection. His law books have fairly brought what in the old volumes was considered a crabbed science to the appreciation and sympathy of the unprofessional reader. Chancellor Kent, on the receipt of his Miscellaneous Works in 1836, complimented the author on "the variety, exuberance, comprehensiveness, and depth of his moral, legal, and political wisdom.

Every page and ordinary topic is replete with a copious and accurate display of principles, clothed in a powerful and eloquent style, and illustrated and recommended by striking analogies, and profuse and brilliant illustrations. You handle the topic of the mechanical arts, and the science on which they are founded, enlarged, adorned, and applied, with a mastery, skill, and eloquence, that is unequalled. As for jurisprudence, you have again and again, and on all occasions, laid bare its foundations, traced its histories, eulogized its noblest masters, and pressed its inestimable importance with a gravity, zeal, pathos, and beauty, that is altogether irresistible."* This was generously said, and though the language of eulogy, it points out with great distinctness the peculiar merits which gave the writings of Story their high reputation at home and abroad.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

All else how poor in fact, in law how weak.

Who's a great lawyer? He, who aims to say
The least his cause requires, not all he may.

Greatness ne'er grew from soils of spongy mould,
All on the surface dry; beneath all cold;
The generous plant from rich and deep must rise,
And gather vigor, as it seeks the skies.

Whoe'er in law desires to win his cause,
Must speak with point, not measure out "wise saws,"

remarked that two of the foremost names in our national literature and art should be associated with that of the great leader, in war and peace, of their country.

Washington Allston, the descendant of a family of much distinction in South Carolina, was born at Charleston, November 5, 1779. He was prepared for college at the school of Mr. Robert Rogers, of Newport, R. I.; entered Harvard in

*Story's Life, ii. 217.

He returned to South Carolina; sold his property; sailed for England, and on his arrival in London became a student of the Royal Academy, then under the presidency of Benjamin West. Here he remained for three years, and then, after a sojourn at Paris, went to Rome, where he resided for four years, and became the intimate associate of Coleridge.

In 1809 he returned to America for a period of two years, which he passed in Boston, and at this time married the sister of the Rev. Dr. Channing. He also delivered a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In 1811 he commenced a second residence in London, where, in 1813, he published a small volume, The Sylphs of the Seasons, and other Poems, which was reprinted in Boston the same year. The date is also marked in his career by the death of his wife, an event which affected him deeply.

During this sojourn in Europe, which extended to 1818, several of his finest paintings were produced. On his return home he resumed his residence at Boston. In 1830 he married a sister of Richard H. Dana, and removed to Cambridgeport. His lectures on Art were commenced about the same period. It was his intention to prepare a course of six, to be delivered before a select audience in Boston, but four only were completed, and these did not appear until after his decease.

near the dawning of Sunday, with scarce a struggle, he was called from the temporary repose of the holy day to the perpetual Sabbath of eternity. His remains were interred at the setting of the sun on the day of the funeral, in the tomb of the Dana family in the old Cambridge graveyard.

Had Mr. Allston been a less severe critic of his own productions he would have both painted more and written more. Nothing left his easel or his desk which was not the ripe product of his mind, which had cost not only labor but perplexity, from the frequent change to which his fastidiousness submitted all his productions. His Belshazzar's Feast, as it hangs in its incomplete state in the Boston Athenæum, shows a strange and grotesque combination of figures, of gigantic mingled with those of ordinary stature. It is owing to the artist's determination, when his work was nearly completed, to reconstruct the whole, and by the radical change we have mentioned, as well as others of composition, render his months of former labor null and void. Had his life been extended the work no doubt would have been completed, and have created the same feelings of awe and admiration which some of its single figures, that of the Queen for example, now excite; but as it stands, it is perhaps a more characteristic as well as impressive monument of the man.

With the exception of this work, Mr. Allston's productions are all complete.

In the Spring of 1839, Allston exhibited, with remarkable success, a gallery of his paintings at Boston. They were forty-five; brought together from various private and other sources. A letter was published at the time in the New York Evening Post, noticing the collection, which was understood to be written from Dana to his friend Bryant. It speaks of "the variety and contrast, not only in the subjects and thoughts, and emotions made visible, but in the style also," and finds in the apparent diversity "the related variety of one mind." Several of the more prominent subjects, and the influence breathing from them, are thus alluded to:-"Here, under the pain and confused sense of returning life lay the man who, when the bones of the prophet touched him, lived again. Directly opposite sat, with the beautiful and patiently expecting Baruch at his feet, the majestic announcer of the coming woes of Jerusalem, seeing through earthly things, as seeing them not, and looking off into the world of spirits and the vision of God. What sees he

In 1811 he published Monaldi, an Italian romance of moderate length, which had been written as early as 1821 when Dana published his Idle Man, and, but for the discontinuance of that work, would probably have appeared there. In the latter part of his life he was chiefly engaged on his great painting of Belshazzar's Feast. After a week's steady labor on this work, he retired late on Saturday night, July 8, 1843, from his studio to his family circle, and after a conversation of peculiar solemnity, sat down to his books and papers, which furnished the usual occupation of a great portion of his

is about to speak! And there is Beatrice, absorbed in meditation, touched gently with sadness, and stealing so upon your heart, that curiosity is lost in sympathy-you forget to ask yourself what her thought? and look in silence till you become the very soul of meditation too. And Rosalie, born of music, her face yet tremulous with the last vibrations of those sweet sounds to which her inmost nature had been responding. What shall I say of the spiritual depth of those eyes? You look into them till you find yourself communing with her inmost life, with emotions beautiful, exquisite, almost to pain. Indeed, when you recollect yourself, you experience this effect to be true of nearly all these pictures, whether of

living beings or of nature. After a little while you do not so much look upon them as commune with them, until you recover yourself, and are made aware that you had been lost in them. Herein is the spirit of art, the creative powerpoetry. And the landscapes-spots in nature, fit dwelling-places for beings such as these!"

His poems, though few in number, are exquisite in finish, and in the fancies and thoughts which they embody. They are delicate, subtle, and philosophical. Thought and feeling are united in them, and the meditative eye

which hath kept watch o'er man's mortality

broods over all. In The Sylphs of the Seasons he has pictured the successive delights of each quarter of the year with the joint sensibility of the poet and the artist, bringing before us a series of images of the imagination blended with the purest sentiment.

If the other poems may be described as occasional, it should be remarked they are the occasions not of a trifler or a man of the world, but of a philosopher and a Christian, whose powers were devoted to the sacred duties of life, to his art, to his friends, to the inner world of faith. In this view rather than as exercises of poetic rhetoric, they are to be studied. One of the briefer poems has a peculiar interest, that entitled Rosalie. It is the very reflection in verse of the ideal portrait which he painted, bearing that name.

His lectures on Art, published after his decease, in the volume edited by R. H. Dana, Jr., show the vigorous grasp, the intense love, the keen perception which we should naturally look for from such a master.

Monaldi is an Italian story of jealousy, murder, and madness. Monaldi is suspicious of his wife, kills her in revenge, and becomes a maniac. The work is entirely of a subjective character, dealing with thought, emotion, and passion, with a concentration and energy for which we are accustomed to look only to the greatest dramatists. The chief scene of the volume is the self-torturing jealousy of Monaldi, contrasted with the innocent calmness of his wife. We read it with shortened breath and a sense of wonder. Not less powerfully does the author carve out, as it were, in statuary, the preliminary events by which this noble heart falls from its steadfast truth-worshipping loyalty. We see the gradual process of disaffection, from the first rude physical health of the soul, when it is incapable of fear or suspicion, rejecting the poison of envy; then gradually admitting the idea as if some unconscious act of memory, a haunting reminiscence, then recurring wilfully to the thought, till poison becomes the food of the mind, and it lives on baleful jealousies, wrongs, and revenges: the high intellectual nature, so difficult to reach, but the height once scaled, how flauntingly they bear the banner of disloyalty; Monaldi, like Othello, then spurns all bounds; like Othello, wronged and innocent.

Those who had the privilege of a friendship or even an acquaintance with Allston, speak with enthusiasm of his conversational powers. He excelled not only in the matter but the manner of his speech. His fine eye, noble countenance, and graceful gesture were all unconsciously brought

into play as he warmed with his subject, and he would hold his hearer by the hour as fixedly with a disquisition on morals as by a series of wild tales of Italian banditti. Allston gave his best to his friends as well as to the public, and some of his choicest literary composition is doubtless contained in the correspondence he maintained for many years with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, and others among the best men of his, and of all time.

In an enumeration of the published works of Mr. Allston, the volume of outline engravings from the sketches found in his studio after his decease should be especially commemorated, for it contains some of his most beautiful as well as most sublime conceptions; and as nearly all his paintings, with the exception of the Belshazzar, are the property of private individuals, forms almost the only opportunity accessible to the general public for the enjoyment of his artistic productions. His manner may there be learnt in its precision, strength, grandeur, and beauty.

Of the moral harmony of Allston's daily life, we have been kindly favored with a picture, filled with incident, warm, genial, and thoroughly appreciative, from the pen, we had almost said the pencil, of the artist's early friend in Italy, Washington Irving. It is taken from a happy period of his life, and our readers will thank the author for the reminiscence :

"I first became acquainted," writes Washington Irving to us, "with Washington Allston, early in the spring of 1805. He had just arrived from France, I from Sicily and Naples. I was then not quite twenty-two years of age-he a little older. There was something, to me, inexpressibly engaging in the appearance and manners of Allston. I do not think I have ever been more completely captivated on a first acquaintance. He was of a light and graceful form, with large blue eyes and black silken hair, waving and curling round a pale expressive countenance. Everything about him bespoke the man of intellect and refinement. His conversation was copious, animated, and highly graphic; warmed by a genial sensibility and benevolence, and enlivened at times by a chaste and gentle humor. A young man's intimacy took place immediately between us, and we were much together during my brief sojourn at Rome. He was taking a general view of the place before settling himself down to his professional studies. We visited together some of the finest collections of paintings, and he taught me how to visit them to the most advantage, guiding me always to the masterpieces, and passing by the others without notice. 'Never

attempt to enjoy every picture in a great collection,' he would say, 'unless you have a year to bestow upon it. You may as well attempt to enjoy every dish in a Lord Mayor's feast. Both mind and palate get confounded by a great variety and rapid succession, even of delicacies. The mind can only take in a certain number of images and impressions distinctly; by multiplying the number you weaken each, and render the whole confused and vague. Study the choice pieces in each collection; look upon none else, and you will afterwards find them hanging up in your memory.'

"He was exquisitely sensible to the graceful

We had delightful rambles together about Rome and its environs, one of which came near changing my whole course of life. We had been visiting a stately villa, with its gallery of paintings, its marble halls, its terraced gardens set out with statues and fountains, and were returning to Rome about sunset. The blandness of the air, the serenity of the sky, the transparent purity of the atmosphere, and that nameless charm which hangs about an Italian landscape, had derived additional effect from being enjoyed in company with Allston, and pointed out by him with the enthusiasm of an artist. As I listened to himin, and gazed upon the landscape, I drew in my mind a contrast between our different pursuits and prospects. He was to reside among these delightful scenes, surrounded by masterpieces of art, by classic and historic monuments, by men of congenial minds and tastes, engaged like him in the constant study of the sublime and beautiful. I was to return home to the dry study of the law, for which I had no relish, and, as I feared, but little talent.

"Suddenly the thought presented itself, 'Why might I not remain here, and turn painter?' I had taken lessons in drawing before leaving America, and had been thought to have some aptness, as I certainly had a strong inclination for it. I mentioned the idea to Allston, and he caught at it with eagerness. Nothing could be more feasible. We would take an apartment together. He would give me all the instruction and assistance in his power, and was sure I would succeed.

"For two or three days the idea took full possession of my mind; but I believe it owed its main force to the lovely evening ramble in which I first conceived it, and to the romantic friendship I had formed with Allston. Whenever it recurred to inind, it was always connected with beautiful Italian scenery, palaces, and statues, and fountains, and terraced gardens, and Allston as the companion of my studio. I promised myself a world of enjoyment in his society, and in the society of several artists with whom he had made me acquainted, and pictured forth a scheme of life, all tinted with the rainbow hues of youthful promise.

My lot in life, however, was differently cast. Doubts and fears gradually clouded over my prospect; the rainbow tints faded away; I began to apprehend a sterile reality, so I gave up the transient but delightful prospect of remaining in Rome with Allston, and turning painter.

"My next meeting with Allston was in America, after he had finished his studies in Italy ; but as we resided in different cities we saw each

some years afterwards, when we were both in England. I then saw a great deal of him during my visits to London, where he and Leslie resided together. Allston was dejected in spirits from the loss of his wife, but I thought a dash of melancholy had increased the amiable and winning graces of his character. I used to pass long evenings with him and Leslie; indeed Allston, if any one would keep him company, would sit up until cock-crowing, and it was hard to break away from the charms of his conversation. He was an admirable story teller, for a ghost story none could surpass him. He acted the story as

well as told it.

"I have seen some anecdotes of him in the public papers, which represent him in a state of indigence and almost despair, until rescued by the sale of one of his paintings.* This is an exaggeration. I subjoin an extract or two from his letters to me, relating to his most important pictures. The first, dated May 9, 1817, was addressed to me at Liverpool, where he supposed I was about to embark for the United States :

"Your sudden resolution of embarking for America has quite thrown me, to use a sea phrase, all aback. I have so many things to tell you of, to consult you about, &c., and am such a sad correspondent, that before I can bring my pen to do its office, 'tis a hundred to one but the vexations for which your advice would be wished, will have passed and gone. One of these subjects (and the most important) is the large picture I talked of soon beginning: the Prophet Daniel interpreting the hand-writing on the wall before Belshazzar. I have made a highly finished sketch of it, and I wished much to have your remarks on it. But as your sudden departure will deprive me of this advantage, I must beg, should any hints on the subject occur to you during your voyage, that you will favor me with them, at the same time you let me know that you are again safe in our good country.

"I think the composition the best I ever made. It contains a multitude of figures and (if I may be allowed to say it) they are without confusion. Don't you think it a fine subject? I know not any that so happily unites the magnificent and the awful. A mighty sovereign surrounded by his whole court, intoxicated with his own state, in the midst of his revellings, palsied in a moment under the spell of a preternatural hand suddenly tracing his doom on the wall before him; his powerless limbs, like a wounded spider's, shrunk up to his body, while his heart, compressed to a point, is only kept from vanishing by the terrific suspense that animates it during the interpretation of his mysterious sentence. His less guilty but scarcely less agitated queen, the panic-struck courtiers and concubines, the splendid and deserted banquet table, the half arrogant, half astounded magicians, the holy vessels of the temple (shining as it were in triumph through the gloom), and the calm solemn contrast of the prophet, standing like an animated pillar in the midst, breathing forth the oracular destruction of the empire! The picture will be twelve feet high by seventeen feet long. Should I succeed in it to my wishes, I know not what may be its fate; but I leave the future to Providence. Perhaps I may send it to America,

"The next letter from Allston which remains in

*Anecdotes of Artists.