Vol. X.
No. 12.
BOSTON.
December, 1898.
RUFUS CHOATE. An address delivered at the unveiling of his Statue in the Court House in Boston, October 15, 1898, by Joseph H. Choate. I DEEM it a very great honor to have been invited by the Suffolk Bar Association to take part on this occasion in honor of him, who still stands as one of the most brilliant ornaments of the American Bar in its annals of two centuries. Bearing his name and lineage, and owing to him, as I do, more than to any other man or men — to his example and inspiration, to his sym pathy and helping hand — whatever success has attended my own professional efforts, I could not refuse the invitation to come here to-day to the dedication of this statue, which shall stand for centuries to come, and con vey to the generations who knew him not, some idea of the figure and the features of Rufus Choate. Neither bronze nor marble can do him justice. Not Rembrandt himself could reproduce the man as we knew and loved him — for until he lay upon his death bed he was all action, the " noble, divine, godlike action " of the orator — and the still life of art could never really represent him as he was. I am authorized at the outset to express for the surviving children of Mr. Choate, their deep sense of gratitude to the generous donor of this statue of their honored father, and their complete appreciation of the senti ment which has inspired the city and the court to accept it as a public treasure, and to give it a permanent home at the very gates of the Temple of Justice, at whose shrine he worshiped. They desire also to express publicly on this occasion their admiration of the statue itself, as a work of art, and a faith
ful portrait in form and feature of the living man as he abides in their loving memory. The city of Boston is certainly indebted to Mr. French for his signal skill in thus adding a central figure to that group of great ora tors whom its elder citizens once heard with delight — Webster, Choate, Everett, Mann, Sumner and Garrison. In life, they divided the sentiments and applause of her people. In death, they share the honors of her Pantheon. It is forty years since he strode these an cient streets with his majestic step; forty years since the marvelous music of his voice was heard by the living ear; and those of us who, as students and youthful disciples, fol lowed his footsteps, and listened to his elo quence, and almost worshiped his presence, whose ideal and idol he was, are already many years older than he lived to be; but there must be a few still living, and present here to-day, who were in the admiring crowds that hung with rapture on his lips — in the courts of justice, in the densely packed as sembly, in the Senate, in the Constitutional Convention, or in Fancuil Hall, consecrated to Freedom — and who can still recall, among life's most cherished memories, the tones of that matchless voice, that pallid face illuminated with rare intelligence, the flashing glance of his dark eye, and the light of his bewitching smile. But in a decade or two more, these lingering witnesses of his glory and his triumphs will have passed on, and to the next generation he will be but a name and a statue, enshrined in fame's 505
