But the boundless ocean of that age was a "closed sea," compared with that on which the adventurer embarks to-day. In Howell's Familiar Letters there is a saying of only a few short years before, that the books of the Common Law might all be carried in a wheelbarrow. To coast such an ocean were a less task than a moiety of his labors whom we now mourn. Called to administer all the different branches of law, kept separate in England, he showed a mastery of all. His was Universal Empire; and wherever he set his foot, in the various realms of jurisprudence, it was as a sovereign,--whether in the ancient and subtile learning of Real Law,--the Criminal Law,--the niceties of Special Pleading,--the more refined doctrines of Contracts,--the more rational system of Commercial and Maritime Law,--the peculiar and interesting principles and practice of Admiralty and Prize,--the immense range of Chancery,--the modern, but important, jurisdiction over Patents,--or that higher region, the great themes of Public and Constitutional Law. In each of these branches there are judgments by him which will not yield in value to those of any other judge in England or the United States, even though his studies and duties may have been directed to only one particular department. His judgments are remarkable for exhaustive treatment. The Common Law, as every student knows to his cost, is found only in innumerable "sand-grains" of authority. In his learned expositions not one of these is overlooked, while all are combined with care, and the golden cord of reason is woven across the ample tissue. There is in them, besides, a clearness which flings over the subject a perfect day,--a severe logic, which, by its closeness and precision, makes us feel the truth of the saying of Leibnitz, that nothing approaches so near the certainty of geometry as the reasoning of the law,--a careful attention to the discussions at the bar, that nothing should be lost,--with a copious and persuasive eloquence investing the whole. Many of his judgments will be landmarks in the law: I know of no single judge who has set up so many. I think it may be said, without fear of question, that the Reports show a larger number of judicial opinions from Story, which posterity will not willingly let die, than from any other judge in the history of English or American law.