II.

Life, Character and Services of Chief Justice Marshall, by Joseph Story.1

The funeral obsequies have been performed; the long procession has passed by, and the earth has closed over the mortal remains of Chief Justice Marshall. Time has assuaged the first agonies of grief of the immediate relatives who were called to mourn over so afflictive a loss; and others, who, looking to the claims of private friendship or to the public interests, were astounded at a blow which, though not unexpected, came at last with a startling force, have had leisure to recover from their perturbation, and may now contemplate the event with a calm though profound melancholy.

It is under these circumstances that we are now assembled together to devote a brief space of time to the consideration of his life, character and services; and then to return again to the affairs of the world, edified as I may hope by what he was and warmed and elevated by a nearer approach to excellences, which, if we may not reach, we may yet gaze on with devout respect and reverence. I am not insensible of the difficulties of the task of worthily discharging the duties of the present occasion. I am but too conscious how much more successfully it would have been accomplished in other hands, and how little is my own ability to do justice even to my own feelings in attempting a sketch of such a man. I have not, however, felt at liberty to decline the part

1A discourse pronounced on the 15th of October, 1835, at the request of the Suffolk Bar, and here republished in full. Justice Story's world-wide fame as jurist and judge, his means of knowledge derived from intimate personal association and friendship with Marshall for twenty-five years, and his sense of responsibility for whatever he might say concerning the Chief Justice and the court, give to this Eulogy an unique, recognized and permanent value

which has been assigned to me in the commemorations of this day, lest I should be thought wanting in readiness to do homage to one who was the highest boast and ornament of the profession. There is this consolation, nevertheless, in undertaking the task, that it requires no labored vindication of motives or actions. His life speaks its own best eulogy. It had such a simplicity, purity, consistency, and harmony, that the narrative of the events in their natural order invests it with an attraction which art need not seek to heighten, and friendship may well be content to leave with its original coloring.

Of the great men who have appeared in the world, many have been distinguished by the splendor of their birth or station; many by the boldness or variety of their achievements; and many by peculiarities of genius or conduct, which, from the extraordinary contrasts presented by them, have awakened the curiosity or gratified the love of novelty of the giddy multitude. I know not how it has happened, but so I fear the fact will be found to be, that high moral qualities are rarely the passport to extensive popular favor or renown. Nay; a calm and steady virtue, which acts temperately and wisely and never plunges into indiscretion or extravagance, is but too often confounded with dullness or frigidity of temperament. It seems as if it were deemed the prerogative if not the attribute of genius to indulge itself in eccentricities, and to pass from one extreme to another, leaving behind it the dark impressions of its vices or its follies. The deeper movements of the soul in the inmost workings of its thoughts are supposed to display themselves like volcanoes in the natural world, by occasional explosions which awe but at the same time excite the crowd of eager spectators. They are struck with admiration of what they do not comprehend, and mistake their own emotions for the presence of superior power. They are bewildered by the shifting exhibition, alternately of brilliant deeds and debasing passions, of intellectual efforts of transcendent energy, and paradoxes of overwrought ingenuity; and being unable to fathom the motives or sources of anomalies they confound extravagance with enterprise and the dreams of wild ambition with lofty and well-considered designs.