ccurred in the
debate in the House of Commons, on the great question as to the right of
the Parliament of Great Britain to tax the Colonies. At the close of the
discussion, in which Fox and Burke, as well as others, had distinguished
themselves, a learned lawyer arose and said that the real point on which
the whole matter turned, had been unaccountably overlooked. In the midst
of deep silence and anxious expectation from all quarters of the House,
he proceeded to show that the lands of the Colonies had been originally
granted by the Crown, and were held _ut de honore_, as of the Manor of
Greenwich, in the county of Kent; and thence he concluded that as the
Manor of Greenwich was represented in Parliament, so the lands of the
North American Colonies (by tenure, a part of the Manor) were
represented by the knights of the shire for Kent.[31]

Let me remark, too, before hastening to another topic more immediately
connected with the duties of active professional life, that the
cultivation of a taste for polite literature has other importance
besides its value as a preparation and qualification for practice and
forensic contests. Nothing is so well adapted to fill up the interstices
of business with rational enjoyment, to make even a solitary life
agreeable, and to smooth pleasantly and honorably the downward path of
age. The mental vigor of one who is fond of reading, other things being
equal, becomes impaired at a much later period of life. The lover of
books has faithful companions and friends, who will never forsake him
under the most adverse circumstances. "As soon as I found," said Sir
Samuel Romilly, "that I was to be a busy lawyer for life, I strenuously
resolved to keep up my habit of non-professional reading; for I had
witnessed so much misery in the last years of many great lawyers, whom I
had known, from their loss of all taste for books, that I regarded their
fate as my warning." Mr. Gibbon was wont to say that he would not
exchange his love of reading for the wealth of the Indies. It is indeed
a fortune, of which the world's reverses can never deprive us. It
fortifies the soul against the calamities of life. It moderates, if it
is not strong enough to govern and control the passions. It favors not
the association of the cup, the dice-box, or the debauch. The atmosphere
of a library is uncongenial with them. It clings to home, nourishes the
domestic affections, and the hopes and consolations of religion.

Anothe