was published in one of the contemporary school readers as a model of judicial elo quence. In that year he removed to Sara toga Springs. He held that office until 1828, when he was appointed chancellor, succeeding Kent, who was retired at the age of sixty by force of the absurd constitu tional provision. In the latter year the Chancellor removed to Albany, where he remained until 1833, and then returned to Saratoga Springs and continued there until his death. In 1832, with President Nott of Union College, and Benjamin F. Butler, he was instrumental in composing the difference between the Federal Supreme Court and the State of Georgia, growing out of the Indian titles in that State, and which had led to the imprisonment of certain missionaries there,and persuaded Governor Lumpkin to release them. He was chancellor until 1848, when the court was abolished by virtue of the pro visions of the Constitution of 1846. Thus he also was retired from judicial office at the age of sixty, but by a more radical and more reasonable process. In 1847 ne was appointed by the Legislature to the chair manship of the commission to codify the laws of the State, but he declined the office on the ground that sufficient time was not allowed the commission to accomplish that work, and when the same post was tendered to him by Governor Fish, two years later, he again refused, and for the same reason. From 1848 until his death he acted as chamber-counsel and as referee in important litigations. In 1848 he was the unsuccess ful candidate, for Governor, of the " National Democracy," the "Hard Shell " or " Hunker" wing, opposed to the " Free Soil " wing, of the Democratic Party. He died in 1867. Such is the outline of a life not marked by any great events or startling achievement, but honorable, useful, and laborious in a remarkable degree. One who with such lit tle prestige and education was deemed worthy to be Kent's successor, at the age of forty, must have been a man of mark and
power and reputed to be deeply learned in the law. Yet the office does not seem to have been much in demand, and he ap pears to have been the last resort, for all the judges of the Supreme Court declined it. The accessible sources of information about Walworth's career are very scant, and although he was so prominent and influential an actor in his prime, and has been dead so short a time, and held more judicial power than any other man in the history of his State, his fame has already become some what traditional. Upon his assumption of the chancellor ship, April 28, 1828, Walworth delivered an address to the bar, which is a singular com pound of modesty and pride. It is printed in the first volume of Paige's Chancery Reports, and is as follows : — "Gentlemen of the Bar : "In assuming the duties of this highly respon sible station, which at some future day would have been the highest object of my ambition, permit me to say, that the solicitations of my too partial friends, rather than my own inclination or my own judgment, have induced me to consent to occupy it at this time. "Brought up a farmer until the age of seven teen, deprived of all the advantages of a classical education, and with a very limited knowledge of Chancery law, I find myself, at the age of thirtyeight, suddenly and unexpectedly placed at the head of the judiciary of the State; a situation which heretofore has been filled by the most able and experienced members of the profession. "Under such circumstances, and when those able and intelligent judges, who for the last five years have done honor to the bench of the Supreme Court, all declined the arduous and responsible duties of this station, it would be an excess of vanity in me, or anyone in my situation, to suppose he could discharge those duties to the satisfaction even of the most indulgent friends. But the uniform kindness and civility with which I have been treated by every member of the profession, and in fact by all classes of citizens, while I oc cupied a seat on the bench of the Circuit Court, afford the strongest assurance that your best wishes for my success will follow me here. And in return,
