versal public demand; and he made a speech against it which was said on all hands to be the ablest speech of the whole debate. He could stand alone well enough, when there was anything worth standing out about. The subsequent history of that bankrupt law demonstrated that Judge Prentiss was right. It was an ill-advised, hasty piece of legislation, which Congress was glad afterwards to abandon and repeal.

I cannot dwell upon incidents of his Senatorial career. I cannot rehearse or repeat anything from his speeches. I must pass superficially over much that might be dwelt on. The flying hour admonishes me that I must hasten on. One single passage let me quote from memory-and I can repeat substantially his language in a speech made in the United States Senate in 1841, when, in his own quiet and modest way, he expressed what was the guiding principle of his public and political life. "I would not be understood," he says, "as undervaluing popularity, because I disclaim it as a rule of conduct. I am quite too humble and unpretending an individual to count greatly upon it, or to seek for or desire any which does not arise from the pursuit of right ends by right means. Whatever popularity that may bring will be as grateful to me as to any one. But I neither covet nor am ambitious of any other." He expressed in that modest way the same thought Lord Mansfield expressed when he said, "I am not insensible to popularity; but I desire the popularity that follows, not that which is run after."

In 1841, very near the conclusion of his second term in the Senate, he was appointed, by universal consent, and with unqualified approbation, Judge of the United

States Court for the District of Vermont, to succeed Judge Paine, who had deceased. He went upon the bench, and remained there the rest of his life.

In those days Judge Nelson was the judge of the Supreme Court of the United States who was assigned to this circuit. And, unlike the judges of our day, who are either too busy or too little inclined to travel about the country and hold circuit courts, it used to be Judge Nelson's practice, and his pleasure, to come up into Vermont once a year at least, and sometimes oftener, and sit in the United States Court with Judge Prentiss. If there ever was a better court than that, for the daily administration of human justice, year in and year out, in great matters and small, I do not know where it sat. The men were entirely unlike. No two judges so eminent could have been less alike than they were. Judge Nelson was not a great lawyer; he was a very good one. He had a large judicial experience, natural judicial qualities, great practical sagacity, a strong sense of justice, and the moral courage of a lion. He was probably one of the best presiding magistrates that has sat upon the bench of any nisi prius court in our day. Not, I repeat, because he was a great lawyer, but because he was a great magistrate. He had a sway over the proceedings of his court that controlled its results for good; there was a moral power and dignity about it that was salutary in its influence, not only on the business in hand, but upon everybody that came near it. It was felt by counsel, by juries, by witnesses, by parties. I used to think, as Justice is depicted as bearing the scales and the sword, that Prentiss carried the scales, and Nelson the sword. Prentiss carried the scales,

hung upon a diamond pivot, fit to weigh the tenth part of a hair, so conscientious he was, so patient, so thoughtful, so considerate, so complete in his knowledge of every principle and every detail of the law of the land. When he held up the scales, he not only weighed accurately, but everybody felt that he weighed accurately. But his very modesty, his distrust of himself, his fear lest he should go too far or too fast, deprived him to some extent of what might be called the courage of his judicial convictions. Nelson, when they sat together, always took care to assure himself from Judge Prentiss that he was right in his conclusions. They never differed. It would have been very difficult to have brought Judge Nelson to a different conclusion from what he was aware Judge Prentiss had arrived at. But the sword of justice in Nelson's hand was "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." And when a decision was reached, it was put in force without delay or further debate, and without recall. And so it was that the court became like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. It carried with it an inevitable respect and confidence. It was a terror to the evil-doer, and the prompt protection of the just.

And yet so modest, even in that fine and ripe and consummate experience and knowledge that Judge Prentiss had attained, so modest was he in its exercise, that it was difficult to bring him to a final decision in important matters without the assistance of Judge Nelson. And he never could be brought, though much urged, to go to the city of New York to assist in the discharge of the press of business there, as it is customary for judges to do, and as I am frank to say he ought to have done. He did himself injustice by

the excess of his modesty; but, after all, it was an error on the praiseworthy side.

These desultory observations upon Judge Prentiss's life, in its various relations, may perhaps have indicated sufficiently what I desire to convey in regard to the qualities of his character and his intellect; he was a man of rare and fine powers, of complete attainments in jurisprudence, a student and a thinker all the days of his life; conservative in all his opinions, conscientious to the last degree, thoughtful of others, a gentleman in grain, because he was born so, a Christian in the largest sense of the term, whose whole life was spent in the careful discharge of his duty, without a thought of himself, his own aggrandizement, or his own reputation. I saw him for the last time I ever saw him on the bench of his court, towards the close of his life, perhaps at the last term he ever held. He was as charming to look at as a beautiful woman, old as he was. His hair was snow-white, his eyes had a gentleness of expression that no painter can do justice to; his face carried on every line of it the impress of thought, of study, of culture, of complete and consummate attainment. His cheek had the color of youth. His figure was as erect and almost as slender as that of a young man. His old-fashioned attire, the snowy ruffle, and white cravat, the black velvet waistcoat, and the blue coat with brass buttons, was complete in its neatness and elegance. And the graciousness of his presence, so gentle, so courteous, so dignified, so kindly, was like a benediction to those who came into it. Happy is the man to whom old age brings only maturity and not decay. It brought to him not the premonitions of weakness, of disease, and

dissolution, but only ripeness-ripeness for a higher and a better world. It shone upon him like the light of the October sun on the sheaves of the ripened harvest.

Of his private and domestic life I forbear to speak. Historical societies have nothing to do with that. Some here are old enough to remember the admirable woman, his wife. Some may still remember his home, in a day when, as I have said before, the times were different from what they are now. Steam had not put out the fire on the hearth. Ostentation had not paralyzed hospitality. The houses swarmed with healthy children. There were fewer books, but more study. There was less noise, and more leisure. There was plainer living, and better thinking. He had, as some knew, peculiarities — eccentricities, they might be called-in his personal conduct. They were nothing, probably, but the outgrowth of a strong individuality, which consideration for others restrained from having any other vent. His ways were exact; they were set; they were peculiar. When he came down from his chamber in the morning, and his family and his guests were in the house, he spoke to no one. It was understood that no one should speak to him. He passed through them as if in a vacant room to his particular chair. He took down the Bible and read a chapter; and he rose up and offered a prayer. And then he went to the breakfast-table. After that, there was no courtesy more benignant and kindly than his. And that was an unvarying practice; and every one who knew the ways of his household respected it. It was the flower of that old-time reverence which distinguished his whole life; when he came forth in the morning, he spoke to God first.