others were even superior in grasp of 'legal principles, in accuracy of perception, in logical power, and in simplicity and clearness of ex pression, none equalled him in extent and variety of learning; and it is hardly possible to overestimate the historical value of his services to the law in general and to federal jurisprudence in particular. His legal treat ises gathered and arranged the learning on important branches of the law at a time when legal literature was in its infancy. Wherever English law was administered they com manded authority and respect. Lord Chief Justice Denman paid him the compliment of saying in a case in which Story's opinion dif fered from that of the Queen's Bench that the former would "at least neutralize the ef fect of the English decisions, and induce any of their courts to consider the question as an open one; and Lord Campbell, in the House of Lords, pronounced Story greater than any law writer of whom England could boast since the days of Blackstone. In his judicial labors he covered all the great branches of the law, from the technical and recondite learning of real property and special pleading to the broad and equitable principles of chancery and admiralty. The weight of his individual opinion is illustrated by the profound influence which his rather hasty generalization in Wood v. Dummer, 3 Story, has exercised on corporation law. In the domain of admiralty law his histori cal position 'is second Only to that of Lord Stowell. Before Story's time the principles of admiralty were imperfectly understood in this country; its jurisdiction was illdefined, and its practice literally without form. The relative rights and duties of ship owners, ship masters and seamen awaited exposition and adjustment. Then, the non-intercourse and embargo acts and the war of 1812 created a new class of cases in shipping, salvage and insurance. The law of prize, too, was almost unknown here before that time. To Story fell the heav
iest share of this difficult work in conse quence of the extensive commerce of his cir cuit. The proximity of New England to the British dominions, the conquest of part of our territory by the enemy, and the practice of trading under licenses and of making col lusive captures, gave rise to a multitude of questions, his solution of which forms a lu minous commentary on the origin, history and application of this brandi of law. He may truly be said to have created the law of patents. Prior to his time the courts had con tributed almost nothing to this subject. But Jefferson's restrictive policy had forced the commercial States to engage in manufactur ing, thereby increasing the value of every improvement in the mechanical arts and lead ing to increased vigilance in securing patents. The bulk of this work, too, came upon Story; more patent cases were decided in the First Circuit than in all the other circuits com bined. On the supreme bench he was second only to the chief justice in constitutional and international law, delivering eleven opinions in the former subject and thirty-seven in the latter. Appointed by a Republican president in expectation that he would stem the rising tide of Federal authority, he proved' to be Marshall's ablest supporter and Taney's most vigorous critic. He looked with apprehen sion and alarm upon the constitutional ten dencies of the court after Marshall's death, and is said to have contemplated retirement. Again and again he enforced his minorityviews with references to his veneration for the great Chief Justice. But Story was a man of independent convictions, and upon more than one occasion successfully contro verted Marshall's conclusions. Reference has already been made to the Girard will case; and his powerful dissenting opinion in the case of the Nereid was substantially accepted by the court after the Civil War. With all 'his learning and intense pre occupation Story was a man of most admir-
