because into them he threw the whole force and vitality of
his nature, and because we could thus more completely indicate the
variety of his accomplishments and the essential characteristics of
his genius and individuality. A knowledge of them is indispensable to
a just estimate of the man, and it must die with him and his hearers,
excepting only as it may be preserved by contemporaneous written
criticism and judgment, and by indeterminate and shadowy tradition.

The labors of so great a lawyer are as much more useful as they are
less conspicuous than those of any prominent politician or
legislator, unless he be one of the very few who have high
constructive or creative ability. There is little risk of
overestimating the value of a life devoted to mastering that complex
system of jurisprudence, the old, ever-expanding, and ever-improving
common law which is interwoven with our whole fabric of government,
property, and personal rights, and to applying it profoundly through
trial by jury and before courts of law, not merely that justice may
be obtained for clients, but that decisions shall be made determining
the rights and duties of men for generations to come. And when such a
life is not only full of immense work and achievement, but
is penetrated and informed with genius, sensibility, and
loving-kindness, it passes sweetly and untraceably, but influentially
and immortally, into the life of the nation.

THE REGICIDE COLONELS IN NEW ENGLAND.

Before the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, to the throne
of his ancestors, he had issued a "Declaration," promising to all
persons but such as should be excepted by Parliament a pardon of
offences committed during the late disorderly times. In the
Parliamentary Act of Indemnity which followed, such as had been
directly concerned in the death of the late King were excepted from
mercy. Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goffe were members of the High
Court of Justice which convicted and sentenced him. It was known that
they had fled from England; and one Captain Breedon, lately returned
from Boston, reported that he had seen them there. The Ministry sent
an order to Endicott, the Governor of Massachusetts, for their
apprehension and transportation to England.

The friendly welcome which had in fact been extended to the
distinguished fugitives cannot be confidently interpreted as an
indication of favorable judgment of the act by which their lives were
now endangered.