to write an opinion on a matter of vital moment to its interests. He bestowed several days on it and charged, as we recollect, five thousand dollars for it. The corporate officers were astounded by the amount. Mr. Field said: "Why did you come to me? You knew that I am not a cheap lawyer. You knew that you could get an opinion to the same effect for a fifth of the money from any one of half a dozen lawyers " — naming them — " which would have commanded respect, but for some reason you came to me. Now I think you came to me because you believed that my opinion would be more influential in effecting the result which you desired, and I believe that end has been accomplished, and that my opinion contributed largely toward it. Am I not right? " The officers could not gainsay these allegations. " Very well, then, gentlemen, you have benefited to a vast amount through my opinion, and you must pay me my charge, which, all things considered, is a very small one." They paid, and they kept on paying his charges. Among Mr Field's most striking personal pecu liarities was his violent hatred of tobacco. He could not endure tobacco smoke, and he was shut out from many public occasions by his sensi tiveness in regard to it. It was very amusing to smokers to hear him rail against smoking, and especially his comments on the slavery of mankind to a habit which compelled public carriers to furnish separate vehicles for their indulgence in it — " worse than cattle cars," he used to call them. One of his best written papers is a diatribe against tobacco. This leads us to speak of his rhetorical style, which is remarkable for its beauty and simplicity, its originality, vigor, and absolute clearness — an absolutely flawless style, peculiar to the man, and as characteristic as that of Lincoln or of Grant. His written style, considering the intense earnest;, ness of his nature, the strength, not to say violence* of his convictions, and the antagonisms which he aroused, and gloried in arousing, was noticeable for its moderation and large minded candor. Another characteristic of Mr. Field, which we believe we have never alluded to, was his optimism. He believed that the world was better than in former times and constantly growing better. He was no laudator temporis acti. He was almost always hopeful, and if ever despondent, only for a moment. He even thought it wonderful that the city of New York is not worse governed! Could anything be said more indicative of his intense optimism? Once when the writer of these lines was dining with him and his brother, the Reverend Henry, the conversation turned on some recent disheartening public event. With a deep sigh, the great lawyer exclaimed, " I tell you, Henry,
it is a bad world, a bad world!" Just then his eye rested on a glass of wine at his elbow — he drank wine in moderation — and taking it up, he added, with a beaming face, " But there is a great deal of good wine in it!" Of course it is as a law reformer that Mr. Field has earned his chief celebrity, and must live, and will live, in history. He was of the intrinsic stuff of which great reformers are made — such as Bentham and Brougham — independent, fearless, reso lute, uncompromising, obstinate, indomitable, untir ing, combative, enjoying intellectual strife, but with ,a high, pure, and unselfish moral end in view. Of what other man of this century can it be said that he devoted fifty years to the amelioration of the laws and the advocacy of national brotherhood and humanity, and that too without one cent of compensation or re ward? He hated, with a holy hatred, all things cruel, barbarous and oppressive. He hated war and .preached national arbitration. He hated cruelty to animals and children, and advocated their efficient protection. He hated craft and inequality in the frame and in the administration of the laws, and fought for and brought about their simplification and amendment. He may be said, without any exaggeration, to have stamped his impress on the laws of twenty-six of these States and Territories, to have furnished the model for much of the prevailing English sstem, and to have inspired the great and growing preference for a scheme of written and certain law which must in time be universally substituted for our present codeless chaos.
Lord Justice Bowex. — Quickly following the death of Lord Justice Stephen, and almost simul taneous with that of Mr. Field, comes the death of Lord Justice Bowen. The career of this distinguished and very accomplished man is a cogent evidence that literary tastes and accomplishment need not stand in the way of complete success at the Bar. Of the last generation of lawyers, this gentleman was perhaps the most celebrated for the successful mingling of law and literature. Not only was he remarkable for an excellent rhetorical style and a fondness for en grafting the graces of literature on the somewhat arid stock of the law, but he also had marked poetical gifts and a deep affection for the classics, which led and enabled him to make a rhythmical version of the first six books of the /Eneid which will always com mand a highly respectable rank in poetical transla tion. It is noteworthy that the great public English men have frequently evinced this taste and somewhat of this talent, as in recent days has been observed in Gladstone and Derby. Lord Justice Bowen had a sound legal sense and a very correct power of dis
