At the close of this session Mr. Choate resigned his seat in Congress and went to Boston, there to follow the practice of his profession. At the Boston bar he met a remarkably brilliant group of men. There were Jeremiah Mason, whom Mr. Webster is said to have considered the strongest man that he ever met in any legal contest; Franklin Dexter; Chief Justice Shaw (then at the bar); Judges Wilde, Hoar, and Thomas, afterwards of the Massachusetts Supreme Court; Mr. Fletcher, Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, Sidney Bartlett, Richard H. Dana, William D. Sohier, Henry W. Paine, Edward D. Sohier, with others whose names are now almost forgotten. These men formed a bar the like of which has seldom if ever been assembled in any one jurisdiction. Here too Mr. Choate at once came to the front. With every talent which could make a man a great advocate,--with a marvelous memory, a keen logical intellect, a sound legal judgment,--he had now acquired a large professional experience and a very complete professional training. As has been seen, he had a thorough classical training,--that is, of the kind best fitted to his needs. His professional studies before beginning his professional practice had been the best then attainable; very possibly, for him, they were quite as good as can be had at any of the law schools of to-day. His range of reading and information was extremely wide. He had had several years of experience at Washington in Congress. And ever since leaving the law school his mere professional studies had been most severe. It is hard to see how any man could be better equipped for professional practice than Mr. Choate was at this time.