the utility of a history of English law, filled up with some minuteness upon the outline thus drawn. Thomas Jefferson questioned the wisdom of Blackstone's plan of smoothing the path of the student of law. He was also opposed to citing English authorities after the declaration of independence, and is reported to have said that to exclude them would be "to uncanonize Blackstone, whose book, although the most eloquent and best digested of our law catalogues, has been perverted more than all others to the degeneracy of legal science; a student finds there is a smattering of everything, and his indolence easily persuades him that if he understands that book he is master of the whole body of the law."-SINGLETON, ROY, 1890, Sir William Blackstone and His Works, Magazine of American History, vol. 24, p. 31.

GENERAL

An early taste for literature has too often misled the student from the ruder and more rugged paths of his profession; but the taste and genius of Blackstone rendered his literary acquirements subservient to his professional success. The acquirements of Sir William Blackstone as a scholar were, doubtless, very considerable. He had always been in the habit of employing much of his time in reading, and, possessing a powerful

memory, with a mind very capable of arranging its stores, he was remarkable for the variety and extent of his information. It is to be regretted that he never applied himself to any undertaking of a purely literary nature, in which there can be little doubt that he would have been eminently successful.-ROSCOE, HENRY, 1830, Lives of Eminent British Lawyers, pp. 243, 256.

Of his "History of the Charters" it is in vain to attempt any abridgment; for such is the precision of his taste, and such the importance of the subject, that there is not a sentence in the composition that is not necessary to the whole, and that should not be perused. Whatever other works may be read slightly, or omitted, this is one the entire meditation of which can in no respect be dispensed with. The claims which it has on our attention are of no common nature. The labour which this eminent lawyer has bestowed on the subject is sufficiently evident. SMYTH, WILLIAM, 1840, Lectures on Modern History.

His copy of octosyllabics, entitled "The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse," is one of the best minor poems of the time, and suggests that so skilful a versifier might have taken his place with the professional lyrists.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 307.

PERSONAL

Fled, in his old age, from the detestation of a country, where he had been beloved, esteemed, and admired, and applauded with exaggeration in short, where he had been everything from his infancy -to a country where he was nothing; pinched by a pension, which, though ample in Boston, would barely keep a house in London; throwing round his baleful eyes on the exiled companions of his folly; hearing daily of the slaughter of his countrymen and conflagration of their

cities; abhorred by the greatest men and soundest part of the nation, and neglected, if not despised by the rest, hardened as had been my heart against him, I assure you I was melted at the accounts I heard of his condition. Lord Townsend told me that he put an end to his own life. Though I did not believe this, I know he was ridiculed by the courtiers. They laughed at his manners at the levee, at his perpetual quotation of his brother Foster, searching his pockets for letters to read to the king, and the king turning

away from him with his head up, etc.ADAMS, JOHN, 1817, Letter to William Tudor, Works, vol. x, p. 261.

Few who sat upon the bench in the last century were more deserving of commendation than Judge Hutchinson. His character in this capacity was irreproachable. His learning, even in the science of the law, was highly respectable, and, when we consider his early education, was indeed remarkable. He possessed great clearness of thought, and excelled in that most difficult property of a good judge, a clear and intelligible statement of the case upon which he was to pass. It is a traditionary anecdote that, after listening to the charges given his associates, juries were in the habit of remarking when Hutchinson rose to address them, "Now we shall have something which we can understand." In his official character he had great readiness and capacity for business, and was faithful and laborious in the performance of his duties. He was a fluent and graceful speaker, a vigorous writer, and a respectable scholar.

Had he lived at almost any other period of our history, with the same industry and application of his powers, his fame would have survived as that of an useful, honorable, and honored man. WASHBURN, EMORY, 1840, Sketches of Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 304, 305.

No servant of the Crown ever received more slander, personal abuse, and misrepresentation, than Thomas Hutchinson in Massachusetts, and yet his descendants have allowed a whole century to elapse without making an effort to defend his character. Time will show that it did not need defending, and the delay is an advantage to all parties, for we can now examine the situation calmly and dispassionately, which it was impossible to do during the prevalence of political excitement. We would wish, therefore, to speak without offence, and endeavour to re-unite in the bonds of friendship those ties which were unfortunately loosened at the time of the dispute. HUTCHINSON, PETER ORLANDO, 1883, ed., The Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, Preface, p. iii.

Few Americans of the Revolutionary period have had a more lasting renown than Thomas Hutchinson, and few have been more leniently judged on a second hearing. Abused for his virtues, condemned

in his absence, feared, hated, and maligned to a degree which now seems absurd, the lapse of a century has left his fellow Bostonians ready to see and acknowledge the really attractive side of his character. . . One can almost affirm that he was a loyalist by stress of reason rather than by conviction or sympathy. His soul yearned for his native land, his best wishes were for his countrymen, he felt himself an alien in the England which

swallowed him. But the conviction of the absolute correctness of his position in regard to the logical supremacy of Parliament paralyzed every movement of his heart or of his intellect.-WHITMORE, W. H., 1884, Thomas Hutchinson, The Nation, vol. 38, pp. 298-299.

Hutchinson's good breeding and high character made him popular in society, where he made the acquaintance of Gibbon and General Paoli, and he paid frequent visits to court; but as a consistent Calvinist, he regarded Garrick and playgoing with only qualified approval. He was also engaged in writing the third volume of his "History," covering the period "from 1749 to 1774, and comprising a detailed narrative of the origin and early stages of the American revolution"; but it was not published until 1828, when his grandson, the Rev. John Hutchinson, edited it. He was created D. C. L. at Oxford, in 1776. During the last years of his life he bore with fortitude the loss of his property and the ingratitude of his countrymen; but the death of his daughter Peggy, followed by that of his son Billy, broke him down, and he died on 3 June, 1780. He was buried at Croydon.- SANDERS, LLOYD C., 1891, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXVIII, p. 345.

He was buried at Croydon on the 9th of June. It would scarcely be possible for a human life to close among circumstances of deeper gloom. He and his children, to be sure, were not in want; his balance at his banker's was £6387 15s 3d. In every other way utter wreck had overtaken his family and himself. His daughters and his youngest son, dispirited, dropped prematurely at the same time. with him into the grave. The prospects of the elder sons seemed quite blasted. In daily contact with him, a company of Loyalist exiles, once men of position and substance, now discredited and disheartened,

were in danger of starvation. The country he had loved had nothing for him but contumely. To a man like Hutchinson. public calamity would cause a deeper pang than private sorrows. No more threatening hour for England has probably ever struck than the hour when the soul of this man passed. It was becoming apparent that America was lost, a rending which easily might be fatal to the empire, and which her hereditary enemies were hastening to make the most of. To America herself the rending seemed to many certain to be fatal. While the members were thus being torn away, destruction seemed to impend at the heart. At the moment of the death, London was at the mercy of the mob in the Gordon riots. The city was on fire in many places; a drunken multitude murdered right and left, laying hands even upon the noblest of the land. Mansfield, because he had recommended to the mercy of a jury a priest arrested for celebrating mass, saved his life with difficulty, his house with all his possessions going up in conflagration. The exile's funeral passed on its way through smoke and uproar that might easily have been regarded as the final crash of the social structure. No one foresaw then what was immediately to come; that England was to make good her loss twice over; that America was to become the most powerful of nations; that the London disorders were on the surface merely and only transient. In Hutchinson's latest consciousness, every person, every spot, every institution dear to his heart, must have seemed to be overwhelmed in catastrophe. Such was the end of a life thoroughly dutiful and honorable!-HosMER, JAMES K., 1896, The Life of Thomas Hutchinson, p. 348.

GENERAL

Hutchinson, whose writing is more worthy of the dignified title of history than any other American composition during our colonial state.-SAVAGE, RICHARD, 1816, Hubbard's History of New England, North American Review, vol. 2, p. 223.

The only monument of his mind is his "History of Massachusetts," written with lively inquisitiveness and a lawyer-like criticism; though without a glimpse of the great truths which were the mighty causes of the revolutions he describes. He was philosophic, if to know somewhat of the

selfish principles in man be philosophy; otherwise he was blind, except to facts.BANCROFT, GEORGE, 1838, Documentary History of the Revolution, North American Review, vol. 46, p. 477.

His "History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," which, in its completed form, brings the story down to the very year of the author's exit from the colony, may fairly be called a praiseworthy production, even from the literary standpoint. One old book may be valuable as an original authority, another may be prized for its quaintness of autobiographical detail or social chronicle. Hutchinson's work offers something more than this, and deserves some credit for its literary style. Notwithstanding the marked political opinions of the author, one feels a confidence in his statements greater than that reposed in the writings of the professional moralist Cotton Mather. Naturally, Hutchinson never attained a tithe of the popularity enjoyed by Increase and Cotton Mather in their capacity of historians; politics had crowded literature to the wall, and Hutchinson was not the man to get an impartial hearing in his lifetime. But it is now apparent that he possessed an ability shared but never fully displayed by Thomas Prince: that of accumulating, studying, and assimilating historical materials, and placing them before the reader in an orderly and intelligible form. It is this ability that makes the historian; and in the maturity and thoroughness of Hutchinson's work we find the beginning of the second and principal period of historical literature in America. More than this one cannot claim; to say less than this would be injustice. In Hutchinson's diary and miscellaneous papers are sometimes to be found a loftiness of thought and a transparency of diction which are similar to the good literary qualities of the "History."-RICHARDSON, CHARLES F., 1887, American Literature, 16071885, vol. I, p. 448.

Governor Hutchinson was fortunate in respect to materials for his work, having access to many documents and sources of information long since lost. From these he compiled, with excellent judgment and rare scholarship, a work which will always be regarded as the highest authority.PATTEE, FRED LEWIS, 1896, A History of American Literature, p. 52.

That in these volumes Hutchinson has illustrated the fundamental virtues of an historian, and that he deserves to be ranked as, upon the whole, the ablest historical writer produced in America prior to the nineteenth century, are conclusions as to which there is now substantial agreement among scholars. A great historian, Hutchinson certainly was not, and, under the most favorable outward conditions, could not have been. He had the fundamental virtues of a great historianlove of truth, love of justice, diligence, the ability to master details and to narrate them with accuracy. Even in the exercise of those fundamental virtues, however, no historian in Hutchinson's circumstances could fail to be hampered by the enormous preoccupations of official business, or to have his judgment warped and colored by the pre-possessions of his own political career. While Hutchinson was, indeed, a miracle of industry, it was only a small part of his industry that he was free to devote to historical research. However sincere may have been his purpose to

tell the truth and to be fair to all, the literary product of such research was inevitably weakened, as can now be abundantly shewn, by many serious oversights and by many glaring misrepresentations, apparently through his failure to make a thorough use of the important sources of information then accessible to him, such as colonial pamphlets, colonial newspapers, the manuscripts of his own ancestors and of the Mathers, and especially the general court records of the province in which he played so great a part. As to the rarer intellectual and spiritual endowments of a great historian,-breadth of vision, breadth of sympathy, the historic imagination, and the power of style, these Hutchinson almost entirely lacked. That he had not the gift of historical divination, the vision and the faculty divine to see the inward meaning of men and of events, and to express the meaning in gracious, noble, and fascinating speech-Hutchinson was himself partly conscious. TYLER, MOSES COIT, 1897, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783, vol. ii.

accomplished author of one of the most beautiful specimens of metaphysical analysis of the theory of Language, which exist in our language--I mean the work entitled "Hermes."-MORELL, J. D., 1846-47, An Historical and Critical View of Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, p. 144.

Mr. Harris had long left the University of Oxford before he began even to read Aristotle, or to inquire into the Greek philosophy; and he was led to the consideration of universal grammar by no book of the academical cycle, either then or since, but by the "Minerva" of Sanctius. That Mr. Harris was a tardy student of philosophy, is shown, perhaps, in his want of self-reliance, in his prejudice in favor of authority at least of ancient authority.

But truth is not the property of the old or of the new; "nondum occupata," it frequently belongs to neither.-HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM, 1853, Oxford as it Might Be, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature.

The definitions of Harris are considered arbitrary, and often unnecessary, and his rules are complicated; but his profound acquaintance with Greek literature, and his general learning, supplying numerous illustrations, enabled him to produce a curious and valuable publication. Every Every

writer on the history and philosophy of grammar must consult "Hermes." Unfortunately the study of the ancient dialects of the northern nations was little prevalent at the time of Mr. Harris, and to this cause as was the case also with many of the etymological distinctions in Johnson's Dictionary-must be attributed some of his errors and the imperfection of his plan. CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.

GENERAL

Challoner published an English bible, being in some sense a new version, and differing considerably in its diction from that of the Rheims-Douay. Dr. ChalDr. Challoner's version has been followed more than others by English-speaking Catholics since his day, and his influence upon the language of religion and devotion among Catholics has been accordingly very great. His influence in this respect has been still further increased by the great and continued popularity of his books on practical religion, such as "The Catholic Christian Instructed," "Meditations," and other devotional works, some of which have been circulated by millions. So familiar, indeed, is the language of Challoner to Catholic Christians generally, that whenever, in any diocese, the question arises as to which English version of the Vulgate shall be authorized for use in that diocese, the preference is given to Challoner's, rather than to the Rheims-Douay, notwithstanding the traditional veneration to which the latter is held. This was the decision of the late Cardinal Wiseman, and has been that of most English-speaking Bishops of the Catholic Church for the last hundred years.

Dr. Challoner writes with great vigor and

freshness of thought, and in a style remarkable for its sparkling clearness and the purity of his English.-HART, JOHN S., 1872, A Manual of English Literature, pp. 322, 323.

In history, we are indebted to Dr. Challoner for the valuable “Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholics that have Suffered Death in England on Religious Accounts, from the Year 1577 to 1684." He gives us an account of 180 martyrs who suffered during the reign of Elizabeth alone. The "Memoirs" are a monument of the accuracy, research, and moderation of their author. The style, suited to this kind of narrative, is simple and concise. Another important work of Dr. Challoner is his revision of the Rheims-Douay Bible, in which he substituted modern for antiquated terms. His revision is generally used by Catholics, but the admirers of the old Anglo-Saxon would willingly return to the earlier version.—JENKINS, O. L., 1876, The Student's Handbook of British and American Literature, p. 273.

One of the most learned and best known English Catholic writers of the eighteenth century.-MURRAY, JOHN O'KANE, 187784, Lessons in English Literature, p. 217. Challoner inaugurated a new era in