Lord Ashburton's Tribute.

"It was exceedingly difficult to answer him when he was wrong, and impossible when he was right."— Lord Ashburton: Mathews' Getting on in the World. p. 433.

Welsby's Tribute.

"He has done more for the jurisprudence of this country than any legislator or judge or author who has ever made the improvement of it his object."

"Though the ablest man, as well as the ablest debater, in the House, according to Lord Waldegrave, he bore, in agitated silence, the assaults of Pitt, to which he did not dare to reply."-Mathew's Oratory.

His Mere Statement.

"Murray's statement is of itself worth the argument of any other man,' was a common saying."Campbell's Lives of Chief Justices.

JOHN MARSHALL, VIRGINIA.

(1755-1835.)

One of the three great law constructers--Holt, Mansfield, Marshall. Born in Germantown, Virginia, September 24, 1755; died in Philadelphia, July 6, 1835, aged seventy-nine. He had a good education, but no college course. Began the study of law at eighteen, leaving to serve six years in the Revolution, where he became Lieutenant. Admitted at twentyfive; had the largest practice in Virginia at twentyseven; member of the Legislature at thirty-two; of the constitutional convention at thirty-three; refused a United States Attorney-Generalship and Foreign Missions from Adams; Minister to France at forty-two; member of Congress at forty-four; Secretary of War and State under Adams; made Chief Justice by Adams January 31, 1801, to succeed Ellsworth, and held the position thirty-four years, until his death.

Adams said his gift of Marshall to the people of the United States was the proudest act of his life. His best biography is his decisions. "Their most

striking characteristics," says Mr. Justice Bradley, "are crystalline clearness of thought, irrefragable logic, and a wide, statesman-like view of all questions of public consequence." He made Federalist law in nine cases out of ten. Without imagination, his mind was mathematical and legislative. He was neither literary nor scholarly. Often wound up his decisions with, "These seem to be the conclusions to which we are conducted by the reason and spirit of the law. Brother Story will furnish the authorities." His decisions (1 Cranch-9 Pet.-30 volumes), 519 in number, with but eight dissents, are marked by great reach, and the application of general principles refined in the mill of his inexorable logic. "The Constitution," says Story, "owes more to him than to any other single mind for its true interpretation and vindication." "I have never seen a man," says Webster, "of whose intellect I had a higher opinion."

He was tall, meager, emaciated, awkward; kind, genial, simple, unpretentious; plain in dress, an 'eloquent listener;' "a reveler at quoit-playing by day, and novel-reading by night.”

The Judiciary.

"The judge has to pass between the government and the man whom the government is prosecuting; between the most powerful individual in the community and the poorest and most unpopular. The judicial department comes home, in its effects, to every man's fireside; it passes on his property, his reputation, his life, his all. Is it not to the last degree important that he should be rendered perfectly and completely independent, with nothing to influence or control him but God and his conscience."-Extract from speech on the State Judiciary in Constitutional Convention of Virginia in 1830, at age of seventy-five.

Washington.

"To the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens."From the resolutions presented to the House of Representatives on the death of General Washington, December, 1799.

Upon Death of His Wife.

"This day of joy and festivity to the whole Christian world is, to my sad heart, the anniversary of the keenest affliction which humanity can sustain. While around is gladness, my mind dwells on the silent tomb, and cherishes the remembrance of the beloved object which it contains. On the 25th of December, 1831, it was the will of Heaven to take to itself the companion who has sweetened the choicest part of

my life, has rendered toil a pleasure, has partaken of all my feelings, and was enthroned in the inmost recesses of my heart. Never can I cease to feel the loss and to deplore it. Grief for her is too sacred ever to be profaned on this day, which shall be, during my existence, marked by a recollection of her virtues.

* * * More than a thousand times since the 25th of December, 1831, have I repeated to myself the beautiful lines written by General Burgoyne, under similar affliction, substituting 'Mary' for 'Anna:' 'Encompassed in an angel's frame An angel's virtues lay;

Too soon did Heaven assert its claim

And take its own away.

My Mary's worth, my Mary's charms,

Can never more return.

What now shall fill these widowed arms?

Ah! me, my Mary's urn.

Ah! me, ah! me, my Mary's urn.""

-Extract from letter written by himself, Dec. 25, 1832, and found among his papers.

Unassuming-Carrying Home Turkey.

"At one time, while at market, a young man who had recently removed to Richmond, was fretting and swearing violently because he could find no one to take home his turkey. Marshall stepped up and offered to take the turkey home for him. Arriving at the house, the young man inquired, 'What shall I pay you?' 'Oh, nothing,' was the reply; it was on my