A JUDICIAL ANTHOLOGY. I. BRITISH SPECIMENS. By Henry A. Chaney. "A MONG notable poets who have had legal training, one recalls only Goethe,"1 — so Dr. Weir Mitchell makes one of his characters say. Well, why not Sir Walter Scott also, or Macaulay, or Barry Cornwall, or that other accomplished proctor, the author of " Nothing to Wear "? And what about Bryant, and Lowell, and Sir William Jones? Did not " Black wood's Magazine " print poems, more than fifty years ago, by Albert Pike? Did pot Sergeant Talfourd write " Ion," and Ellen Tree act in it? Did not even Dr. Kenealy compose elegant sonnets? Is there not extant a whole volume of poems by John Quincy Adams? And have we not Irving Browne? Is it not indeed the fact that almost every person of cultivation has at some time or other felt impelled to versify? In the cases of those who, like great judges, have become the subjects of biography, we behold the results preserved by the ruthless care of their biographers; and we can under stand, perhaps, why Brougham feared lest Lord Campbell should outlive and commemo rate him. Let it be admitted that such effu sions, especially when unaccustomed, are not always worth preserving as poetry, and for some inscrutable reason are often regarded, even by the authors, as something to be con cealed, they at least refute the preposterous hypothesis that the legal mind is destitute of fancy. Here follows the first instalment of a col lection of poetic fragments, in which the benches of Britain and of the United States are equally represented. The names attached to the selections are all eminent, — some of them are very eminent. The most celebrated names, to be sure, are not always signed to 1 "Characteristics," Century Magazine, vol. xxi. p. 425.
the most meritorious verse. But the reader may judge if, in the main, the collection does not reach a high standard of excellence: as the poetry of poets, the most of it would be more than respectable; as the poetry of judges, it is remarkable. ON HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. In the noise of the bar and the crowds of the Hall Tho' destined still longer to move, Let my thoughts wander home, and my memory recall The dear pleasures of beauty and love, — The soft looks of my girl, the sweet voice of my boy, Their antics, their hobbies, their sports; How the houses he builds her quick fingers destroy, And with kisses his pardon she courts. With eyes full of tenderness, pleasure, and pride, The fond mother sits watching their play; Or turns, if I look not, my dulness to chide, And invites me, like them, to be gay. She invites to be gay. and I yield to her voice, And my toils and my sorrows forget; In her beauty, her sweetness, her kindness rejoice, And hallow the day that we met. Full bright were her charms in the bloom of her life, When I walked down the church by her side; And five years passed over, I now find the wife More lovely and fair than the bride. Charles Abbott.
