Caleb Cushing.

the testator must govern, while at the same time the circumstances surrounding the tes tator, as well as the testator's peculiarities and views, should be learned and considered in ascertaining that intention. "It is an admirable statement of the law, and a most lucid illustration of applying law to conditions and circumstances to be either strengthened or tempered thereby. No one would go far astray in the principles of con struing a will who should first read the opin ion in Popkin et al. vs. Sargent et al. "How Mr. Cushing succeeded as AttorneyGeneral is sufficiently attested by the vol umes of his opinions, and the comments made upon them by eminent jurists of this and other countries. "But the lawyer is only one phase of Mr. Cushing, and the most eminent lawyers sel dom do more than write their names in water. "I had the highest regard for and confi dence in Mr. Cushing's ability, integrity, and patriotism. It is well known what confi dence those in authority placed in him during the war, and how often they availed them selves of his gifts, accomplishments, and abilities during our darkest days. I heard him say at nearly the end of the war that he considered the way in which the Admin istration had kept up the courage and confi dence of the people and had availed itself of the resources of the country as worthy of much praise." The relations of Mr. Cushing with Daniel Webster were very intimate, and he often rendered his friend aid in the way it was not infrequently asked. The seventy-seventh birthday of the great statesman was cele brated, Jan. 18, 1859, by his friends at Boston, when Mr. Cushing presided, and speeches were made by Rufus Choate and others. Some extracts are given from his speech on that occasion as a good speci men of his style; as an indication, also, of how strongly Mr. Webster impressed his contemporaries. "We, friends, associates, admirers of Web

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ster, assemble on his birthday, not to mourn him dead in the silent grave where his mor tal body lies interred, but to rejoice in the immortality of his glory, to honor him as living still, with all his native majesty and strength of lineament and proportions, in our hearts, in the veneration of his country men, in the respect and honor of the world. "' Death makes no conquest of this conqueror, For now he lives in fame, though not in life.' '"Quicquid ex Agricola amavimus, quicquid mirati sumus, manet, mansurumque est, in animis hominum, in aeternitate temporum, fama rerum.' To the commemoration of all this we have dedicated ourselves this evening; and fitly we do so, gathered around this flower-decked board, with harmonies of the eye and ear to animate us, and with " feast of reason " to crown that of sense, — as in the Athenian or Roman days men sat at the ban quet table with garlanded images of their honored dead on the seats beside them, in re-vivified presence as it were, so — their souls overflowing with speech and song — to celebrate the memory of the heroic persons of the Republic. . . . "My own respect, admiration, and attach ment for Webster, beginning at an early date, and acquiring new strength with every day of a constant and most confidential in timacy through life, settled down into that condition of mind regarding him which rightly belongs to the contemplation of one of Plutarch's men. How it would startle and move us, if Demosthenes were to step out from behind the curtained shadows of history, to rouse the fierce democracy of another Greece against the ambition of another Philip; or a Cicero, in his ample robe and purple-bordered tunic, hurling his consular anathemas at Catiline, or pouring forth his senatorial invectives on the head of Mark Antony. Yet have we not all heard and seen this? Ay, but we may have heard it as though hearing it not, and seen it as though seeing it not. Just as the infinite and eternal God is with us always, though