' ' Lawyer! 'tis a venerable name, How few deserve it, but how many claim." Nevertheless whoever bore that title seemed to receive masonic-like consideration from Nash in his professional dealings. The word of any lawyer with whom he dealt seemed sufficient to him, and doubtless he would have been often — to use a colloquial slang word — " buncoed," only that no one brought to a dealing with Nash, and regarding him by eye or ear could have the heart to visit him with false pretences, deceit or injury. So loyal was he to consideration of, and the deep signification of, the to him almost sacred word " lawyer," that the only ebullition of anger that his partner son could ever recol lect, as coming from his sire, was when some one in his presence used the phrase " hiring a lawyer." For Nash, a lawyer was not to be classed as servant or employe but was such an one as a Catholic priest regarded himself to be, a member of a sacramental " order," to whom a fee was more of an honorable gratuity (expressed by the Latin of Cicero's time as quiddam honorarium) than a mere cus tomary compensation. Having long known and admired the personal as well as profes sional qualities of Stephen Payn Nash, the writer can well apply to him the couplet that the poet, Fritz Greene Halleck, applied to Joseph Rodman Drake (the poet of the cul prit Fay). ' 'Green be the turfabove thee, friend ofmy better days; None knew thee but to love thee, nor knew thee but to praise." Early in his New York professional life, Nash became a communicant of Trinity parish, whereof for the best part of his later years — three decades — he remained the leading vestryman, and died as senior war den. Trinity corporation is the most im portant religious private corporation in the world. Its inheritance of royal colonial grants of New York City realty from the time of " good Queen Anne," gives it con trol of a gigantic income, which is spent en tirely in an eleemosynary direction; and in
not only diocesan service but in aid of home missionaries and of struggling parishes all over the Union. As counsel to the Trinity corporation, Mr. Nash had increased the number of his busy hours; but he therein only realized a favorite saying of William H. Seward, that " the more busy a man of af fairs became, the more business could he execute." Counselor Nash was not only a rapid, but an accurate thinker. His judgment seemed ever to be an exaltation of intuition. And he had (what was so preeminent in Glad stone's mental composition) the gift of con centration and quick decision. His maxim was carpe diem, divested of the usual flip pancy appertaining to the Latin saying. This faculty made him a much sought after ref eree, and lawyers who asked references from the Court, merely for purposes of delay, whispered to any suggestion by the client of the name of Stephen P. Nash, the Cic eronian expression, procul, procul; for when a reference was ended before him he es chewed the traditional curia adversari vult, and gave decision generally at once. If he had accepted refereeships in all the cases proposed by judges or confreres at the bar to be sent to him — and always in some im portant controversy calling for the exercise of erudition — he would not have had time to attend to his own practice at the bar. It would be accurate to estimate that he de clined hundreds of refereeships where he ac cepted a score. Few of his decisions were appealed from; and the New York reports are silent upon any reversal of them. While Nash for a short time was tenta tively practising in Albany, he was en trusted by Nicholas Hill to argue before the expiring Court of Errors a contention which the latter was unable to attend to because of another equally pressing engagement. A member of the Court, meeting Hill soon afterwards, said, " What an old head on young shoulders was that you sent to argue from your brief."
