His professional life first invites attention. Here it should be observed that he was a thorough, hard-working lawyer, for the greater part of his days in _full practice_, constant at his office, attentive to all the concerns of business, and to what may be called the humilities of the profession. He was faithful, conscientious, and careful; nor did his zeal for the interests committed to his care ever betray him beyond the golden mean of duty. The law, in his hands, was a shield for defence, and never a sword to thrust at his adversary. His preparations for arguments in court were marked by peculiar care; his brief was elaborate. On questions of law he was learned and profound; but his manner in court was excelled by his matter. The experience of a long life never enabled him to overcome the native childlike diffidence which made him shrink from public display. He developed his views with clearness and an invariable regard to their logical sequence,--but he did not press them home by energy of manner, or any of the arts of eloquence. His mind was rather judicial than forensic in cast. He was better able to discern the right than to make the wrong appear the better reason. He was not a legal athlete, snuffing new vigor in the atmosphere of the bar, and regarding success alone,--but a faithful counsellor, solicitous for his client, and for justice too. It was this character that led him to contemplate the law as a science, and to study its improvement and elevation. He could not look upon it merely as the means of earning money. He gave much of his time to its generous culture. From the walks of practice he ascended to the heights of jurisprudence, embracing within his observation the systems of other countries. His contributions to this department illustrate the turn and extent of his inquiries. It was his hope to accomplish some careful work on the law, more elaborate than the memorials he has left. The subject of the _Practice and Procedure of Courts_, or what is called by the civilians _Stylus Curiæ_, occupied his mind, and he intended to treat it in the light of foreign authorities, particularly German and French, with the view of determining the general principles, or natural law, common to all systems, by which it is governed. Such a work, executed with the fine juridical spirit in which it was conceived, would have been welcomed wherever the law is studied as a science. It is, then, not only as lawyer, practising in courts, but as jurist, to whom the light of jurisprudence shone gladsome, that we are to esteem our departed friend. As such, his example will command attention and exert an influence long after the paper dockets in blue covers, chronicling the stages of litigation in his cases, are consigned to the oblivion of dark closets and cobwebbed pigeon-holes.