But then a tantalizing sense Invades expectancy intense, And with extorted moan, "Unhappy man! " he sighs, " condemned To show such treasure, and to lend — I keep, but cannot own."
"Wholesome Van1ty." — Chief-Justice Bleckley defends his employment of this expression in his me morial of Judge Erskine, saying that it "was more carefully considered than any other in the whole com position," and " was absolutely essential to a com plete and perfectly candid estimate." " While pride and vanity are different, they are not inconsistent. The first makes no appeal to the opinion of others; the second does. Erskine had both, and in him both were wholesome and respectable. You are the very man," he continues in a letter to the writer, " I should have chosen as a witness to the accuracy and just ap plication of the phrase, and I feel a sore disappoint ment at your volunteering to testify for the ' other side.' But the most reliable experts sometimes break down." We succumb to the Chief-Justice's larger ac quaintance with Judge Erskine, especially when he concedes that he "has the same sort and degree of vanity himself." That renders it " wholesome and respectable." Hard Adject1ves. — Adverting to our remarks in our last issue we would by no means hold Judge Thompson responsible for Mr. Bishop's denunciation of the courts, but it reminds us of Mr. B's objurgations against the decision in People v. Baker, 76 N. Y. 78. He calls it "an absurd ruling," " made without rea soning, and evidently without thinking," " marvel ous oversight,.' "mental oblivion"; and of the Wisconsin Cook case, which follows it, he declares that " the Wisconsin laws are commensurate in wick edness and foolishness with the power of the State." Tnis is deliberately written of an exceedingly careful and elaborate opinion delivered by Judge Folger, and concurred in by all the other judges save one. We think the decision wrong, but such railing as this can produce no impression, except that the critic is too violent and prejudiced to form a just judgment. When one reads Mr. Jeremiah Travis's criticisms of the courts, it seems to him that the author has searched the dictionary for abusive phrases. This last author literally swore himself out of breath, and damned his own book. Mr. Travis is not a strong man; he is simply a violent man : but David Dudley Field was a strong man, and Messrs. Bishop and Thompson are strong men, and in all of them is lacking the tolerance of weaker men's opinions es sential to the widest propagation of their own views. Walworth's Stature. — Mr. W. L. Stone writes us that Walworth was not " small " nor " lean," as
was asserted in the biographical sketch in this maga zine. He thinks that he was about five feet ten inches tall. He admits, however, " that before he died he had shrunk somewhat," and that " he may have been lean in his last days." The biographer was speaking of him in his last days, when he pre sented the appearance described in the sketch. Men differ widely about the height of other men. We have seen Webster described as a man of medium height, which certainly he was not. Kent's Career. — In turning over the eighth vol ume of Humphrey's Tennessee Reports, recently, we found a very excellent obituary of Kent, written in 1847, in which it is said: "To him the credit certainly is due of having laid the foundation of a system of equity jurisprudence, not only in New York, but throughout the United States. The cases in Johnson's Chancery Reports are, in the first place, all reasoned out upon principle," etc. "And most unquestionably, no other decisions have exerted so marked an influence upon the legal mind of the Uni ted States, or are so universally recognized as author ity." The biographer also says : " We consider Chancellor Kent as being one of the great lights and benefactors of this continent." There is less doubt of that than of his statement that he n'_'ver had an enemy. It was undoubtedly true that he was "a bad listener in conversation." Although true that "he never had much taste for the contentions of po litical bodies," yet he was an acute and interested politician in a quiet way, and some of his surviving contemporaries believe that he was a retired potentiality in New York politics. Every young lawyer in this country should read this sketch, full of wisdom, temperate in tone, felicitously expressed, and learn therein the lesson of a great, albeit a noiseless ca reer. How much better to be an oracle for ages than to roar (or bray, as the case may be) in the courts for a season, to the admiration of the open-mouthed, who come into the temple of justice mainly to get out of the cold! Enterpr1s1ng Publ1shers. — One of the queerest examples of enterprise in law-book publishing which has come to our notice is the announcement, by the Edward Thompson Company, that they will issue a new edition of their " American and English Ency clopaedia of Law," before the first is finished! They propose to give a new volume for the corresponding old one and five dollars! This is certainly an unpre cedented attraction, and can be repeated indefinitely. In connection with this, though by no means on the same plane, is the announcement of the West Pub lishing Company of " The Century Digest," contain
