what actually exists. This is a specimen of his language: "King Mob has there a warning. He will not allow himself to be spoken to, except in accents of adulation and assent, and if you approach him in any other tone, the only answer which he deigns to make to you is a reassertion of his former position as confident and uncompromising as if it proceeded from the Comte de Chambord or Pio Nono himself. Strange and almost incredible as it seems to us the sad and instructive fact is attested by writers of the very highest authority, native as well as foreign, that this democratic country has shut itself out from the advantages of free political discussion so effectually, that it is perhaps not too much to say, that no monarchical state in Europe ever was as impervious to the voice of counsel from without as America has been during the present century." If this is the kind of stuff that is taught to the students of law at the University of Glasgow, we trust that that institution is not a representative one in Scotland. IN NOTES OF CASES. the case of Del., Lack. and West. R. R. Co. v. Salmon, 10 Vroom, 299, recently decided by the Court of Errors and Appeals in New Jersey, it is held that where one by negligence or misconduct occasions a fire on his premises, or the premises of a third person, which spreads from thence to plaintiff's property, and causes an injury, the injury is not, as a legal proposition, too far removed from his negligent act to involve him in legal liability. This is in direct conflict with the doctrine maintained in And Grover, J., in Pollett v. Long, supra, at p. 206, speaks doubtfully of the authority of Ryan v. N. Y. Cent. R. R. Co. See also as criticising the same cases: Perley v. Eastern R. R. Co., 98 Mass. 414419; Kellogg v. Chicago and Northwestern R. R. Co., 26 Wis. 223; 7 Am. Rep. 69; Fent v. Toledo, Peoria and Wabash R. R. Co., 59 Ill. 349-359; Grand Trunk R. R. Co. v. Richardson, 91 U. S. Rep. 454– 471. And the doctrine in Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Kerr has been much shaken in Pennsylvania by the recent decision of Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Hope, 80 Penn. St. 373. As to the general principle see Hart v. West. R. R. Co., 13 Metc. 99; Hookset v. Concord R. R. Co., 38 N. H. 242; Smith v. Lond. and S. W. R. R. Co., L. R., 5 C. P. 98, and note to case 7 Am. Rep. 80. In Tancil v. Seaton recently decided by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, the action was by the finder of a bank note against a bailee to whom he delivered it for safe-keeping, and who refused to redeliver it on demand. The action was defended upon the ground, among others, that the title of the plaintiff, acquired by the finding (which was communicated to defendant at the time the note was delivered to him), was not sufficient to support the action. The court held that the defense was not sustainable and that the title of the finder was good against every one but the true owner. general rule that the finder of lost goods has title against every one except the owner, was claimed by defendant not to be applicable to choses in action, The and the case of McLaughlin v. Waite, 9 Cow. 670; affirmed 5 Wend. 404, was cited as sustaining this doctrine. In that case it was held that a lottery ticket vendor's certificate is not property, but only an evidence of a right to property, that it does not belong to the finder so as to enable him to recover of the vendor on it. This would not, however, author Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Kerr, 1 Am. Rep. 431; 62 Penn. St. 353; and Ryan v. N. Y. Cent. R. R. Co., 35 N. Y. 210. These cases the court say cannot be sustained by principle or authority. This is undoubtedly true, the cases being numerous in which responsibility is laid upon the original wrong-ize the application of a similar rule to bank notes, doer, though intervening agencies, without his fault, have interposed. Scott v. Sheppard, 2 W. Bl. which are by common consent treated as money. Miller v. Race, 1 Burr. 457. The case of Bridges v. 892; Sneesby v. London and York R. Co., L. R., 9Q Hawksworth, 7 Eng. L. & Eq. 424, very strongly 5 B. 263; Romney Marsh v. Trinity House, L. R., Exch. 204; S. C., L. R., 7 Exch. 247; George v. Skivington, L. R., 5 Exch. 1; Collins v. Middle Level Comm'rs, L. R., 4 C. P. 279; The George and Richard, L. R., 3 A. & F. 466; Byrne v. Wilson, 15 Irish L. Rep. 332; Pollett v. Long, 56 N. Y. 200; Powell v. Deveney, 3 Cush. 300; Vanderburgh v. Truax, 4 Denio, 464; Thomas v. Winchester, 6 N. Y. 397; Carter v. Towne, 103 Mass. 507. And the two cases cited as maintaining a doctrine contrary to that of the principal case, have been to some extent questioned in New York. In Webb v. R. W. and O. R. R. Co., 10 Am. Rep. 389; 49 N. Y., at p. 428, Folger, J., says: "I am of the opinion that on the disposition of the case before us, we are not to be controlled by the authority of the case in 35 N. Y., more than we are by that of the long line of cases which preceded it." resembles the principal one. The plaintiff in that case having picked up from the floor of the shop of them over to defendant to keep until the owner defendant a parcel containing bank notes, handed should claim them. They were advertised by the defendant, but no one appearing to claim them and three years having elapsed, plaintiff requested defendant to return them, tendering the cost of the advertisements and offering an indemnity. The defendant having refused to return them, action was brought, and it was decided that plaintiff was entitled to the notes as against defendant. See as sustaining the general rule mentioned Avery v. Delamire, Str. Rep. 505; Brandon v. Huntsville Bank, 1 Stew. (Ala.) 320; Matthews v. Harsell, 1 E. D. Smith, 393. N. Y. & Harlem R. R. Co. v. Haws, 56 N. Y. 176, is an instructive case upon this subject, though the precise point involved in the principal case was not at issue." A RUFUS CHOATE. VI. CORRESPONDENT, long intimate with Mr. Choate, and having the best means of forming opinions as to his natural gifts, calls our attention to a work with an auriferous title, which we had overlooked.* On taking up the book we learn that Mr. Choate was "the first and foremost of made orators," but "was not a natural orator- a born orator"- though "Chatham and Patrick Henry were natural orators of superior order, and Henry Clay was of the same school." The statement that Choate was not a natural orator would disturb no one who could accept the suggestion that Doctor Johnson was not a natural critic, or Faraday a born chemist. The inference would be that each of them had to "toil terribly" in climbing up to the eminence attained. The idea is as simple as that the tillage of the soil makes possible the harvest. But we are disturbed when told that some men - Chatham, Henry and Clay as distinguished from Choate, were natural or born orators. self some paper on the classics, translate it aloud and continuously in English prose." As to Patrick Henry, we accept all the praise that can be bestowed consistently with nature and with recorded experience. But it may be observed that, like many fluent speakers, he had acquired great experience by talking "an infinite deal of nothing" up to the hour when the vision of our independence, to be achieved by war, opened before him as an apocalypse, transformed his spirit and gave a prophetic tone to his utterances. As to Henry Clay, we need only recall his efforts at the debating society to cultivate a habit of speaking, and his statement made long after to a class of students, that he owed his "success in life to the habit, early formed and for some years continued, of reading daily in a book of history or science and declaiming the substance of what he had read in some solitary place." Mr. Clay was not peculiar. Wheaton, in his Life of William Pinkney, says that "he always continued to declaim in private." But in the chapter "On the Study of Forensic Eloquence," which Mr. Isaac Grant Thompson has inserted in his edition of Warren's Law StudiesEnglish authors have paid due attention to the perfecting the work by the scholarly treatment of preparatory studies of Lord Chatham, and of his an important topic which Warren had neglected — son. Nature, prodigal in gifts, had left to each illustrative instances are given. He regards "the the common legacy of toil as the condition of his opinion that excellence in speaking is a gift of becoming an orator. We are told that "the best nature, and not the result of patient and persistent clue to Pitt's (Chatham's) own mental tasks, more labor and study," as mischievous and unfortunate, especially in the field of oratory, is afforded by and happily enforces that view by referring to the those which he enjoined to his favorite son.” We studious efforts of Cicero, Chatham and Fox, are also told, on the authority of Lord Stanhope, Curran, Choate and others. Of Choate he says: "that the son ascribed his lucid order of reasoning "Forensic rhetoric was the great study of his life, to his early study of the Aristotelian logic, and his and he pursued it with a patience, a steadiness, a ready choice of words to his father's practice in zeal, equal to that of Chatham and Curran." He making him every day, after reading over to himreminds us that Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield, carried on the study of oratory with the utmost *In his letter, Prof. Sanborn says: "Col. Parker, in his zeal, and that a friend had caught him in "the act of practicing before a glass, while Pope (the poet) sat by to aid him, in the character of an instructor;" and adds, "Such are the arts by which are produced those results that the uninitiated ascribe to genius." 'Golden Age of American Orators,' a work much read by students, attempts to prove that Mr. Choate was not 'a natural orator' like Henry and Clay. I think that Mr. Choate's early history refutes that theory. I learned from Prof. Shurtleff, his teacher, something of his eloquence in college." He then gives an extract from Choate's Valedictory Address, which, so far as I can judge, indicates the freedom and range of thought, and the felicity of expression that might distinguish an orator "to the manner born," and adds: "In this brief paragraph are the keynotes of his life, attachment to friends, love of learning and admiration of nature." The professor also mentions two circumstances which tend to illustrate the character of the address and the effect of its delivery, from which it might be inferred that if nature ever "tried her 'prentice young Choate. He says that when Choate spoke "his pathos drew tears from many who were not used to the melting mood." Also, that "one rustic maiden was there from Norwich, Vt. She was all ears, eyes and heart; she gazed, loved and wept. On the following Monday, while bending over her wash-tub, she said, 'Mother, you can't think how pretty that young man, who had the valedictory, spoke. He was so interesting that I cried; and, law!' she added, holding up her checked apron to her eyes, I can't help crying now, only thinking on 't.'" hand" in fashioning a complete orator, she did so with This matter is of present interest, as we would not have the student adopt the notion that Mr. Choate was goaded on in his studies by a sense of want of which other great orators had not been conscious. Nor should we regard the statement that Chatham and others were natural orators, as signifying any thing more than that they possessed gifts favorable to the cultivation of eloquence. A ready command of language, fine and quick perception, delicate wit and fancy, a fervid imagination, an exquisite sense of the beautiful, a voice sweetly tormenting the hearer, even in the remembrance of it, a graceful and impressive manner - all of which Mr. Choate had - however important as prerequisites, do not qualify the orator. It is his office to instruct, persuade and convince; but without study there can be no knowledge, without knowledge no argument, without argument no real influence in the discussion and disposition of public affairs. In the courts, in legislative and popular assemblies, the question sure to arise is whether the speaker is master of his subject in its substance, details and relations. The persons addressed may distinguish immature from ripe thoughts; information from knowledge; mere impressions from experience. They know that while the voice may be trained for oral discourse, as it may be for music, the mind should have a corresponding culture. Many of them, pitiless as critics, would accept the statement of Cicero that "the orator must possess the knowledge of many sciences, without which a mere flow of words is vain," and would have sympathized with Doctor Johnson when he checked the praise bestowed on a fine speaker, not often heard, as having great resources: "You cannot know as yet; the pump works well, but how are we to know whether it is supplied by a spring or a reservoir?" Mr. Choate's views of the study proper to the orator were not less exacting. His ideal of excellence in oratory, considering it as one of the fine arts, may have been so high that he never could have fully satisfied his own aspirations. But in his lectures and addresses his sentiments are given in the spirit of an unfaltering disciple; his precepts have an electric touch-glow like stars in the firmament of thought. He knew what he taught in large measure and in minute details. He fortifies himself by appeals to history, to experience, and to natural laws. The moral elements in his topics, however obscure, never elude his grasp; the most rugged event or feature he touches palpitates as with a spirit of life and beauty. The philosophy of history is taught suggestively, not by a tedious process, but flashed upon the page as a revelation. His illustrations often have a logical flavor; his inferences the certainty of mathematical deductions. The student may, therefore, follow him with assured steps. Indeed, no student should fail to study addresses like those on "The power of a state developed by mental culture;" on "The conservative force of the American bar," and on "The eloquence of revolutionary periods." He who has given his days and nights to Demosthenes and Cicero, Thucydides and Tacitus, would find his apprehensions quickened, the wealth he has garnered up in his mind enriched by the spirit of Mr. Choate's expositions. Mr. Choate's solicitude as to the choice and use of words in the culture of style, is known to have been great. That he was not peculiar in this branch of study appears from familiar instances. Cicero had taught that the orator's "style of speaking must be formed not only by the choice of words, but by the skillful arrangement and construction of sentences." That instruction has been repeated in varied forms by great teachers from Quintilian down. Doctor Johnson and Dean Swift concur in referring to a perfect style as "proper words in proper places." In perfecting their own works many distinguished authors seem to have accepted that as a definition. When Gibbon wrote over and over the first chapter of his history, and Brougham the conclusion of his speech in the Queen's case, they were not changing the facts or sentiments, but striving, by choice words, to improve the style. Mr. Canning, who, like Macaulay, was continually correcting and refining, is said "to have chosen his words for the sweetness of their sound, and arranged his periods for the melody of their cadence." That Byron found it difficult to satisfy himself in the selection of words, appears from the explanatory notes to an approved edition of his poems. Frequent changes were made. In one instance which we recall, he erased a word and substituted another, then rejected the latter and restored the former; still in doubt, he wrote below, "ask Gifford." Emerson must have approved of Montaigne's choice, or he would not have said, "Cut these words and they bleed; they are vascular and alive." Some of Mr. Webster's imposing figures of speech had been thought over, prepared to the last syllable; hence the eulogy that "each word weighed a ton." Chatham felt the importance of the study when he went twice through Bailey's Dictionary, carefully considering every word. So, also, did Choate when he formed the habit of studying the dictionary page by page, as mentioned by Mr. Gillett. But the question as to the best use of words appeals to a larger and riper experience. Writers and speakers differ in that use as they differ in taste, culture, and moods of mind, in perception and judgment, but they would agree that the strength, grace and beauty of the words used depend upon the harmony of their relations to each other, and to the thoughts and sentiments expressed. In a splendid outburst of declamation Mr. Choate refers to the acquisitions and oratorical powers of Mr. Adams, "the old man eloquent," and finds him using "the happiest word, the aptest literary illustration, the exact detail, the precise rhetorical instrument the case demands." Mr. Choate had a clear conception of the studies by which such a power might possibly be acquired. He appears to have read the ancient and the modern histories with constant reference to the influences, near or remote, which led to or qualified events. He had studied the literature of Greece and Rome as critically as that of later periods; loved Cicero and Burke about the same. In such and in related studies he had a theory as exacting as that announced by Hugh Miller when he said, in substance, that an anatomical acquaintance with the bones and muscles is necessary to the painter who represents the human figure, and that he who describes natural erence to that great man is most attractive to me, and I could not resist the impulse of writing a lecture not long ago, on his brilliant career, that I might say something to young students, inadequate though it might be, that would perhaps incite them by his example of untiring industry to a more enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge and a more earnest study of the art of eloquence. That lecture has already been delivered in various colleges and law schools, and I hope has led some of my listeners to read Prof. Brown's memoir of our great advocate, your own papers in the LAW JOURNAL, and the reminiscences of Dr. Storrs, Mr. Carpenter and others who knew and appreciated him. scenery should know the science and strata of the rocks. So, after Mr. Choate could read the Greek and take in the sense with ease, he reads, pen in hand, and with the dictionaries before him. Our best Greek scholars may need such aid occasionally; even Porson is said to have confessed that he could not read Greek as he could his newspaper. But Mr. Choate's purpose was to know the relation and significance of each word, as well as to catch the spirit and style of the author, so even reading thus did not suffice. He says, "Translation daily is manifestly my only means of keeping up my English. This I practice in my post-prandial readings, but I fear it is not quite exacting, laborious and stimulant enough. I have a pretty strong impression that the only sufficient task would be Demosthenes, severely, critically rendered, yet with the utmost striving of words, style, melody, volume of sound, and impression." Again he says: "But. everywhere, under whatever form, style, manner, are to be assiduously cultivated and carefully adapted to the subject." Again, and as to the precise and reflected benefits: "I think I do not overestimate the transcendent value and power, as an instrument of persuasive speech, of what may be described as the best language—that which is the very best suited to the exact demand of the discourse just where it is employed. Every word in the language, by turns, and in the circle of revolv-place without a rival and without a cavil. Years ing oratorical exigencies and tasks, becomes precisely the right one word, and must be used, with one exception, that of immodest ones." He further says: "How such a language- - such an English-is to be attained is plain. It is by reading and by hearing — reading the best books, hearing the most accomplished speakers." In a letter of advice to a student-Richard S. Storrs, Jr.— he says: "I would read every day one page at least, more if you can, in some fine English writer, solely for elegant style and expression. William Pinkney said to a friend of mine, he never read a fine sentence in any author without committing it to memory.' The result was decidedly the most splendid and most powerful English spoken style I ever heard." Such was the result with Mr. Choate himself. No modern author owed less to borrowed thoughts or forms of expression, or, in the higher, better, artistic sense, more to the ministrations of other minds. But the benefits were absorbed by a process as gradual, as natural, if not as insensible as those by which trees gather nutriment from the sun, air, rain, and from the generous soil. J. N. I wish I had the opportunity to comply more closely with your kind request, and send a better response to your invitation. I can only, before getting off for the summer, send you this fragmentary epistle. Mr. Choate is now, to employ Landor's significant line, "Beyond the arrows, shouts and views of men," and his supreme qualities are only beginning to be apparent in their grander aspects. As a lawyer ranking among the highest; as an eloquent advocate second not even to Lord Erskine, whom he far surpassed in scholarship; as a patriot devoted to public duty solely, he is now taking his ago I hung up his portrait in the little room we call 66 our library," for a constant reminder of the long continued enjoyment it was my own good fortune to have derived from the kind-hearted Mentor and friend. To have had the privilege of living in the same city with him for so many years, of hearing the sound of his voice in public and in private for a quarter of a century, was indeed of itself an education. To the young men of my time, who lived so long under the spell of his eloquence, he was an inspirer, an initiator, for he taught us by his example to reverence and seek whatever was best in learning and excellent in thought and character. As young students of literature, eager to listen and acquire if we could, we found a new power created within us by contact even with such a teacher and guide. To follow him, to wait upon his footsteps through the courts of law, the senate or the lecture room, was in a certain sense to be "From unreflecting ignorance preserved." His own great acquirements taught us to nurse that noble self-discontent which points and leads to a loftier region of culture, and impelled us to aspirations we had never dreamed of until his affluent genius led the way. Like Charles Fox, he was born BOSTON, June 7, 1877. with the oratorical temperament, and so he magnetMY DEAR SIR-I thank you for those numbers of ized all the younger men who flocked about him, THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL containing your inter- eager to be instructed. I do not believe the "highesting papers on Mr. Choate. Every thing with ref-placed personage" ever lived in any community who homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power." One of Choate's former office students once said to him: "The more I get into practice the more I like the law." "Like it!" said Choate; "of course you do. There is nothing else for any man of intellect to like!" This was said in that fine frenzy of exaggeration which he sometimes delighted in, but no young man could hear him discourse of jurisprudence and not wish to join the ranks. Law was the banner of his pride; the flux and reflux of party strife were distasteful to every fibre of his intellect, and he always gave us to understand that he consid had more affection and reverence from the youth of his time than Mr. Choate. There were about him habitually that diffusive love and tenderness which make idolatry possible even among one's contemporaries. While he electrified us, he called us at the same time by our Christian names; and when he beckoned us to come, we dared and delighted to stand by his side and listen. His willing and endearing helpfulness made him beloved by his inferiors as few men of his conspicuous eminence ever were before, and one could not approach him and remain unmoved, or only partially attracted. You could not meet him on the street even without having a fresh impulse given to your circulation. Dur-ered his profession worthy of all the hope of ambiing the period when he took early morning walks, some of us, mere boys at that time, loving the sight of the man and the music of his voice, used to be on his track, watching for him on his matutinal rounds. As he came sailing into view, "On broad, imperial wing," with that superb and natural gait so easily recognized by those who knew him, "Far off his coming shone." As he swung himself past, he would drop into our "Under the opening eyelids of the morn," "Oh, such a sacred and home-felt delight, He seemed ever on the alert to quicken and inspire for me." It was dangerous for any young man, not a student at law, to hear him discourse of the profession as he fully and solemnly believed in it, accepting as he did the splendid metaphor of Hooker-"Her seat the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth doing her tion, and all the aspirations for excellence. At the bar Mr. Choate towered superior to every kind of jealousy, of suspicion, of malevolence; to every narrow and sordid motive, to all the meaner trepidations of mortality. He was by nature a gentleman, and he had no petty vanities, either public or private. He was indeed an inspired orator. What power, what tenderness, what magnetism pervaded his utterances! His voice vibrated with every sentiment, every impulse of beauty and wisdom. He ran over the whole gamut of expression at will. When he spoke of flowers his words seemed to have the very perfume of flowers in them, and when he painted the ocean, which he loved so fondly, his tone was as the scent of the sea when the wind blows the foam in our faces. As Churchill said of Garrick, he also had indeed "Strange powers that lie Within the magic circle of his eye." If he habitually composed for the ear more than for the eye, it was because his victories were to be won face to face with his fellow men. I have heard him argue a hundred cases, perhaps, large and small, and he always seemed alike invincible, as if no mortal power could take his verdict from him. His manner to the opposing counsel was full of courtesy and conciliation, but if that counsel became arrogant and insulting, he would slay him with a sentence so full of suavity and keenness that the unmannerly victim never knew what killed him. - There were uninstructed and unsympathetic listeners, of course, who described Mr. Choate as declamatory, and accused him of being over-worded, and over-colored, "driving a substantive and six," as they called it—but those same platitudinous dwellers in the twilight of the mind would no doubt quarrel with the tints in Milton's "Allegro," and find Collins's "Ode to the Passions" highly improper. Mr. Choate was no doubt rich and exuberant in his style, but who would not prefer the leap of the torrent to the stagnation of the swamp? It was truly said by Mr. Everett in Faneuil Hall at the sad hour of our sharp bereavement in 1859, that with such endowments as Mr. Choate possessed, he could fill no |