lawyers in the United States. It was said : "he was truly a walking encyclopaedia. He would refer the court and bar not only to authorities, but would give the style of the case, the number of the volume and the page." Chief Justice Chase said : " He was the best read lawyer of my acquaint ance, and in the United States." Judge Green was the author of some ele mentary essays which received the com mendation of Lord Campbell and other English judges. Immediately after the war he was appointed, with the approbation of the people of Richmond, one of the judges of the court of conciliation, a system of judicature established by military authority. "As a practitioner of law he was a model example to his brethren of the bar. He practiced the profession as a science, whose seat is in the bosom of God. Always can did and courteous, he disdained a trick or device, as unprofessional and mean." John M. Patton, R. T. Daniel, Howe Peyton, R. E. Scott, Judge William Daniel, Conway Robinson, Judge Moncure, Judge Bouldin, Judge Robertson, Judge Crump, Judge Meredith, all distinguished lawyers, were his contemporaries at the bar. His most noted speech is said to have been made in the Court of Appeals in a case involving the question whether a party claiming under a devise took a share as heir under the despotic operation of the rule in Shelley's case. " It may be doubted whether this argument has ever been rivalled in acu men, nicety of discrimination, fullness and exactitude of learning, and depth and clear ness of research. With the ease and con fidence of a master he threads the way through the maze of clashing decisions, which have rendered the labor of acquiring the learning upon the famous rule in Shel ley's case almost herculean, now educing order and harmony where minds less acute and learned had found only hopeless disso nance and confusion; and now laying bare the errors and inaccuracies of imposing
names that never before had felt the rude shock of a criticism so fearless and thorough. There can be no higher or more satisfactory evidence of the remarkable merit of this argument than the order of the court, at whose bar it was delivered, directing its publication in the reports of the court. It fills one hundred and ninety-seven pages of the nineteenth volume of " Grattan's Re ports" and will always be referred to with pride by the bar of Virginia." Of this report Mr. Conway Robinson sent two copies to England, one to Baron Bramwell, and another to Mr. Justice Welles, the former of whom wrote Mr. Robinson, March 20, 1871, regard ing it: "The argument you sent me was very remarkable, very indeed. It would have been so on this side of the Atlantic; but that, for pleasure or profit, on your side any one should have made himself capable of it seems surprising. I am afraid that some of our idols are not all gold." And the latter wrote, April 7, 1871, "I am in debt for the elaborate argument of Mr. Green. Of it, all I can venture to say is, that it shows a prodigious amount of indus try and well-directed ability upon a very difficult, though limited question. I have sent the case to Lord Cairns and should like to have sent it also to Lord Leonards." The following is an account given of a discussion one evening, at the county tavern, at Orange court house. " Three lawyers were there who took part in the debate, the Judge (Field) and the remainder of the bar as auditors. General Gordon, William Green and Alexander R. Hollyday. Gen eral Gordon was dilating on the marvellous genius of Shakespeare. Judge Green, who was quietly walking up and down the room listening, interposed: "Well, General, I am not disposed to depreciate your beautiful tribute to the im mortal bard, but it is due in loyalty to our profession to affirm with confidence, what I am ready to maintain before the court that, whatever he knew of other avocations, he
