keen navigator of the tortuous channels of nisi prim; John H. Reynolds, the New York Erskine; Henry G. Wheaton, the silvervoiced orator; John K. Porter, the trench ant; Henry E. Davies, the synthetic; An drew S. Garr, the special pleader Chitty of America; James W. Gerard, the elder, whose incessant humor was as dignified as fresh and illustrative; Henry C. Murphy, the fertile in expedients; Francis Kernan, the analyst; Benjamin D. Noxon, a modern Coke; Ben jamin W. Bonney, a curious compound of mildness and severity; and William Curtis Noyes, who was the opponent of Mr. Evarts in the argument mentioned. All only living now in the reports. And were present also the " not dead but gone before " judges of that occasion, Greene C. Bronson, Addison Gardner, Charles H. Ruggles, Samuel Jones the second, William B. Wright and Chief-Judge Jewett. All those are names that even the lawyers of this gen eration love to conjure with among them selves. Of those named among lawyers and judges, three were destined to ascend the bench of the Court; one of them to be a predecessor of the then young Evarts in the Senate; one to be an unsuccessful candidate for the Pres idency; three destined to Congress; and all to be followed to their graves by revering associates fond of their fame. I have chosen to date the legal career of Mr. Evarts from that argument because it was in a case which attracted much legal, commercial and social attention, and pre sented novel points. Beneficiaries of a life and remainder testamentary estate possessed funds deposited in Chancery to a large amount, which had been loaned for invest ment by the Chancellor's order, and for which a bond and mortgage had been taken. The clerk of Chancery, a relative of the Chancel lor, without due order had satisfied the mort gage in order to novate it with another mort gage. On the foreclosure of the latter, the owners of the funds discovered a deficiency
which brought up the question of the validity of the substitute mortgage, and whether the first did not still stand as security for the fund. Upon these facts Mr. Evarts made a most ingenious argument, taking for his point the equity of marshaling securities and for making the first mortgage still avail able. But although he lost, yet the opinions show that his authorities had evidently much worried the judges in their consultation room. But he had already been in practice seven years, and had then attracted marked atten tion by his assiduity, pleasing social manners, and business connection through friends of his father. And a few words about him who gave inheritance to his son of industry, method, philanthropic influences, strong ethical leanings, love of literature, hatred of wrongs, pure Saxon style of composition and a taste for legal pursuits. Bostonians may purchase a biography of this Jeremiah Evarts, for on his death in 183 1, when his son William was yet a grammar-school pupil, his friends deemed him worthy of a com memorative volume. He was a Vermonter, which accounts for the purchase by the son in his advancing age of a charming estate in that State for purposes of summer rest and sea sonable relaxation. The sire graduated at Yale when the century was only two sum mers old. After taking degree he taught school three years, the while studying law; then practiced his profession under shadow of New Haven elms a short time, but went to Boston in order to edit a religious monthly called the " Panoplist," or armor of defense, in which pursuit he continued until 1821, while his son was an urchin of three years. Then he accepted office as treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners for For eign Missions and merged his own magazine into one projected by those commissioners, and still known as the " Missionary Herald." He was a marked philanthropist, an original Anti-slavery man, and so great a friend of the then persecuted red man of the far
