temple, with Cicero and Burke, with Otis and Hamilton and Webster, with Pinkney and Wirt, whose words and thoughts he loved to study and to master. Many a noted orator, many a great law yer, has been lost in oblivion in forty years after the grave closed over him, but I ven ture to believe that the Bar of Suffolk, aye, the whole Bar of America, and the people of Massachusetts, have kept the memory of no other man alive and green so long, so vividly and so lovingly, as that of Rufus Choate. Many of his characteristic utter ances have become proverbial, and the flash es of his wit, the play of his fancy, and the gorgeous pictures of his imagination, are the constant themes of reminiscence, wher ever American lawyers assemble for social converse. What Mr. Dana so well said over his bier is still true to-day : " When as law yers we meet together in tedious hours and seek to entertain ourselves, we find we do better with anecdotes of Mr. Choate, than on our own original resources." The admir able biography of Professor Brown, and his arguments, so far as they have been pre served, are text books in the profession — and so the influence of his genius, character and conduct is still potent and far reaching in the land. You will not expect me, upon such an occasion, to enter upon any narrative of his illustrious career, so familiar to you all, or to undertake any analysis of those remarkable powers which made it possible. All that has been done already by many appreciative admirers, and has become a part of Ameri can literature. I can only attempt, in a most imperfect manner, to present a few of the leading traits of that marvelous person ality, which we hope that this striking statue will help to transmit to the students, lawyers and citizens who, in the coming years, shall throng these portals. How it was that such an exotic nature, so ardent and tropical in all its manifestations, so truly southern and Italian in its impulses,
and at the same time so robust and sturdy in its strength, could have been produced upon the bleak and barren soil of our north ern cape, and nurtured under the chilling blasts of its east winds, is a mystery insolu ble. Truly " this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." In one of his speeches in the Senate, he draws the distinction between " the cool and slow New England men, and the mercurial chil dren of the sun, who sat down side by side in the presence of Washington, to form our more perfect union." Truly, if ever there was a mercurial child of the sun, it was him self most happily described. I am one of those who believe that the stuff that a man is made of has more to do with his career, than any education or environment. The greatness that is achieved, or is thrust upon some men, dwindles before that of him who is born great. His horoscope was propi tious. The stars in their courses fought for him. The birthmark of genius, distinct and ineffaceable, was on his brow. He came of a long line of pious and devout ancestors, whose living was as plain as their thinking was high. It was from father and mother that he derived the flame of intellect, the glow of spirit and the beauty of tempera ment, that were so unique. And his nurture to manhood was worthy of the child. It was "the nurture and ad monition of the Lord." From that rough pine cradle, which is still preserved in the room where he was born, to his premature grave at the age of fifty-nine, it was one long course of training and discipline of mind and character, without pause or rest. It began with that well-thumbed and dog's-eared Bible from Hog Island, its leaves actually worn away by the pious hands that had turned them, read daily in the family from January to December, in at Genesis and out at Revelations every two years, and when a new child was born in the household, the only celebration, the only festivity, was to turn back to the first chapter, and read once
