English novelists and satirists, — Swift, DeFoe, Fielding, and Smollett. He was a student and admirer of Hogarth, frequently calling attention to the minute details of his pictures, showing the artist's nice touch and the student's careful eye. He was a close observer of Nature, — of the trees of the forest, and of the wild flowers and their haunts. He had a strong taste for, and a love of, mechanics and the mechanical arts. A new machine was a delight to him, and after court he must go down to the machineshop or manufactory to see it in operation. He also took great interest in the affairs of town and State, and held numerous offices, being school- committee man, fire warden, selectman, and for eight years a Represen tative to the Legislature from the town of Boston; and for three or four years Senator from Suffolk. In the Convention of 1820, to revise the Constitution of the State, Mr. Shaw was a delegate from the town of Boston. During all these twenty-six years of prac tice, Mr. Shaw's business was confined chiefly to the Boston courts. He worked alone, with brief exception, for the first six teen years, and then took into partnership Mr. Sidney Bartlett, who had been his stu dent, and who up to the time of his death was so well known to the bar of this Com monwealth and in the Supreme Court at Washington. Mr. Shaw travelled but little, was fond of home, but enjoyed greatly the meetings of the clubs of which he was a member, and other social gatherings. He had fine social qualities, large conversational powers, and a fund of good humor and quiet mirth. He was twice married. His first marriage, at the somewhat mature age of thirty-seven, was with Eliza, a daughter of Josiah Knapp, Esq., a merchant of Boston. By her he had two children, a son and daughter. His sec ond marriage was in 1827, with Hope, a daughter of Dr. Samuel Savage, of Barn stable, by whom he had two sons, both of whom afterward became members of the bar
in Boston. Home was always a happy place to him; and he never was more attractive and delightful than at his own fireside. In this quarter of A. century at the bar, Mr. Shaw built up a solid professional repu tation, and acquired a valuable practice; not a great many cases, but important and leading causes. His examinations and arguments of legal questions were comprehensive and thorough; his addresses to the jury, forci ble, earnest, and logical. Upon the death of Chief-Justice Parker,in the summer of 1830, Mr. Shaw was ap pointed by Governor Lincoln as his suc cessor. He was at first very reluctant to accept the office; and a heavy pressure was brought to bear upon him before he con sented to do so. He was then in his fiftieth year; he had won his way, slowly but surely, to eminent rank at the bar, and to a lucrative practice. He had acquired a moderate prop erty, and was living happily and to his taste. He had a growing family to support and educate. He knew a great place was to be filled, and was distrustful of himself. He felt that he ought to and must decline. In this exigency Mr. Webster was requested by the Governor to confer with him, and urge his acceptance of the place. After two in terviews with the future chief-justice, Mr. Webster succeeded in obtaining a reluctant assent. Mr. Shaw accepted the office, and held it for thirty years, retiring in 1860, less than a year before his death, which occurred in 1861. He went upon the bench in his fiftieth year, and then worked through the lifetime of a generation, with strength and vigor to the last. Some of his later judgments are his best, and are, indeed, remarkable for their freshness and for the sagacity and grasp with which he apprehended the new exigencies of society and business, and ap plied and adapted old rules of law to them. An opinion written in his eightieth year (Commonwealth v. Temple, 14 Gray, 69) has the freshness, vigor, and constructive power of early manhood.
