health of his father, he was called home and labored for some months upon the farm, and his studies were otherwise interrupted. In his journeys to the college at Middlebury he took along with him packages of furs which he had acquired in hunting, the avails of which he used in purchasing books for his college course. His admission to the Bar was in his twenty-second year; he practiced in Berk shire, Sheldon, and St. Albans, representing the two latter towns in the Legislature, and acting as State attorney until he declined the position. He was elected judge of the Supreme Court in 1825, and after a service of two years declined a re-election on account of indebtedness, being under the necessity of earning more money than his compensation as judge afforded him. After a practice of two years he was again elected judge, and held the office until [852, acting as Chief the last six years, when he declined further judicial labors. Two years later he was elected governor, and served for two years. He was the first governor elected by the Republican party. Judge Royce never married; after his father's death in 1833, he made his home at his mother's in East Berkshire, and re sided there until his death. Judge Royce took high rank as a jury advocate, the equal of any at the Bar. He was effective in his simple statement of a case; he analyzed and presented the evi dence, detecting the distinctions and shades of difference that often escaped others, and which served to expose a dishonest witness or frustrate the most cunningly devised schemes of fraud. He was pleasant, al though grave and serious in his manner; his language was more to instruct and con vince than to amuse the jury by sallies of wit or startling paradoxes. His well con sidered premises were sustained by the evi dence and his conclusions were logical. When discussing questions of law before the court he rarely read cases and seldom
referred to them. He was not a " case scavenger," but acted upon well settled general principles and arguments drawn from them; it was not as a lawyer, but in his judicial capacity that he' became so widely known, and no one served the State with more benefit than he. He was modest and diffident, hesitated in forming or ex pressing his legal opinions, and he was sometimes called the "doubter," after Lord Eldon. He was an excellent presiding judge at a jury trial, and endeavored to work out justice in every case; he was free from intimating any opinion to the jury as to the weight of evidence before them, but would refer to the evidence very fully and so present the case to their minds, that they would naturally arrive at the result which he thought just. No one in the State ever had superior capacity in that respect. He never allowed a witness to be interrupted during his examination so that counsel might write down all that the witness said, and he never interrupted the witness himself for that pur pose. He might, after the witness was through, ask him to repeat what he had said on some point. He adopted this course for the reason that it was im portant for the jury to hear and under stand the witness, more so than it was for the court or counsel to write down all that was said, and that if the witness was fre quently interrupted, there was less chance of his being accurately understood by the jury. He was polite, kind, and encouraging to the younger members of the profession; overlooked and corrected their mistakes in papers or pleadings, and did not permit a party to be injured by them. He was a great equity judge, — one of the best; was pro foundly learned in the principles of equity, but never ostentatiously displayed his learn ing. Others read more books, but few profited so much by their reading. His written opinions were models, and are received as authority and appreciated
