fellow, and is now enjoying, in his native town, East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, a serene old age, the ripe fruit of temperance, self-control and a virtuous life. The County then contained apopulation of about thirty-two thousand.

Nothwithstanding this array of able counsellors, Mr. Longfellow, fearless of the competition, earnestly engaged in the struggle which such a rivalship exacted. The forensic efforts and encounters were conducted with more regard to courtesy and the dignity of the Bar at that period than at the present time. The members of the Bar and the Judges on the Bench, carried into their official deportment the dignified and somewhat formal manners of the old school. Levity or vulgarity could not exist in the presence of that personification of dignity, the learned Chief Justice Dana, nor would rudeness or degrading personalities be tolerated by his more learned, but less polished successor, Chief Justice Parsons, and his associates, the pure-minded Sewall and the stern and reserved Sedgwick.

Parker, Davis, Chase and Whitman, could not do otherwise than welcome to their association, a brother, kindred to them in all elevated qualities. Mr. Longfellow soon secured a successful and profitable practice, and took a commanding position at the Bar, by the urbanity of his conduct, his legal abilty, and the integrity of principles. One of his cotemporaries at the Bar, recently said to me, "Longfellow had a fine legal mind, he was industrious, attentive, courteous, and got into business at once. His first address to the jury was plausible and ingenious, and almost as good as any one he afterwards made." On the death of Chase and Symmes, and the removal of Judge Parker to Boston, all which occurred in 1806 and early in 1807, he became one of the leaders in the practice, which, as he advanced, continually

increased, until its accumulated weight bore too heavily upon his over-taxed powers; and he was admonished by a fearful attack of epilepsy, to withdraw for a while from the excitements of business and its overwhelming cares. He gradually, although most reluctantly quitted a field, which had been to him a source of happiness and fame, and on which he had conferred dignity and honor.

No man more surely gained the confidence of all who approached him, or held it firmer; and those who knew him best, loved him most. In the management of his causes, he went with zeal and directness of purpose to every point which could sustain it: there was no travelling out of the record with him, nor a wandering away from the line of his argument after figures of speech or fine rhetoric, but he was plain, straight forward and effective in his appeals to the jury, and by his frank and candid manner won them to his cause. And I may truly offer him as an illustration of Fuller's "good advocate," whom he thus describes, "He makes not a Trojan siege of a suit, but seeks to bring it to a set battle in a speedy trial. In pleading, he shoots fairly at the head of the cause, and having fastened, no frowns nor favors shall make him let go his hold." But with all this, although firm and unyielding when he believed himself to be right, he never forgot the duties of a gentleman and a christian, nor lost his suavity of manners in the ardor and bravery of action. “Quando ullum invenient parem?"

A man of such estimable qualities, was not permitted to give his whole time to his profession: the people demanded the exercise of his eminent ability and practical talent for their service; and in 1814, a year of great excitement and danger to the republic from the war with England,— a large fleet hanging upon our coast, and a well disciplined army

menacing our northern frontier, he was sent to the legis lature of Massachusetts, and while there, he was chosen a member of the celebrated Hartford Convention, in company with Judge Wilde, from this State, George Cabot, Harrison Gray Otis and other distinguished Federalits from Massachusetts and the other New England States. In 1816, he was chosen an Elector of President, and with Prentiss Mellen and the other Electors of Massachusetts, threw his vote for the eminent statesman, Rufus King, a native of Maine. Mr. Monroe, the candidate of the Democratic party was elected for this, his first term, by a majority of one hundred and nine votes; for his second term, from 1817 to 1821, he received every electoral vote but one, which was thrown for John Quincy Adams, by Gov. Plumer of New Hampshire.

This was the era of good feeling, or as John Randolph called it, the "era of indifference." Political harmony prevailed, such as had not existed since the days of Washington: the old Federal party, which had embraced many of the wisest and best men of the country, whose names are now canonized, then ceased to exist; all parties united to render a sincere and hearty support to the federal constitution; opposition to which, in the early days of the government, had created the anti-federal party.

In 1822, Mr. Longfellow was chosen to the eighteenth Congress, the closing two years of Mr. Monroe's second admínistration, where he was associated with Lincoln of Maine Webster of Massachusetts, Buchanan of Pennsylvania, Clay of Kentucky, Barbour and Randolph of Virginia, McLane of Delaware, Forsyth of Georgia, Houston of Tennesee, Livingston of Louisiana-Henry Clay being Speaker of the House, John Chandler and John Holmes being Senators

from Maine. Having served out his term faithfully and well, and by his voice and vote, resisting the general and profuse expenditure of public money for indiscriminate internal improvements, he took leave of political life, which had no charm for him. The remainder of his years, so far as his health permitted, he gave to his profession; how well he served it, the first sixteen volumes of the Massachusetts Reports, and the first twelve of the Maine Reports, extending through a period of more than thirty years, bear ample testimony; they exhibit his ability as a learned jurist, and his skill as an ingenious dialectitian. In 1828, he received from Bowdoin College the honorable and merited distinction of Doctor of Laws.

In his domestic life, Mr. Longfellow was as exemplary as he was able in public and professional relations. In January, 1804, he married Zilpah, daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, of Portland, with whom he lived in uninterrupted happiness for more than forty-five years. She was a woman of fine manners, and of great moral worth. By her he had eight children; four sons and four daughters. The sons are destined to transmit the name with new luster to posterity, in lines divergent from the parental profession, poetry, divinity and science. The elder surviving son, by his sweet and eloquent verse, has not only made his name vocal throughout his own land, but has found genial echoes, on the other shores of the ocean, and his numbers will be repeated in distant lands and times, like the songs of the rapt bards that have floated down to us through the centuries, which have preserved nought else.

In all the relations of private and public life, Mr. Longfellow was a model man; kind and affectionate in his family,

prompt and efficient in business, courteous uniformly, ready with money or service, whenever properly required, and filling large places in benevolent and religious institutions-his death was deeply mourned- and the people grieved most of all that they should see his face no more.

A life so adorned, could not have been withdrawn from its sphere of usefulness, without making a palpable void; and I only express the universal sentiment that was felt at his departure, that an able, upright and Christian gentleman had gone; one to whom may be applied language used in regard to an eminent English lawyer, "that he cast honor upon his honorable profession, and sought dignity, not from the ermine or the mace, but from a straight path and a spotless life."

The Bar, at a very full meeting, took an honorable and appropriate notice of the death of their deceased brother. Professor Greenleaf, the particular friend and admirer of Mr. Longfellow, and who for many years practised with him at the Cumberland Bar, in reply to a letter from another friend, inviting him to attend the meeting, said, "Dear Brother Davies: Many thanks for your kind letter and kind remembrance. It warms and cheers me. I am strongly tempted to go down to the Supreme Court in November, especially as the meeting you anticipate will draw out the quæ extant of the Cumberland Bar, as it was in our youth. We shall see Whitman and Potter, possibly Southgate; but where are Orr, and Mellen and Hopkins, and the rest of that day, and now at last, Longfellow? It will be a scene of lights and shadows."

I am forcibly reminded of the shadows, by the sudden withdrawal from our daily observation, and from earth, of our first president, Mr. Parris. At the time I drew the