552 NATHANIEL HOLMES. 



[iscern the coogruities of things. In the midst of the most serious 

 development of an idea, it \\a~ often a flash of wit that lit up the obscure 

 point ><> that it remained clear forever. Quite in harmony with his wide 

 human interest was also hi.* love of outward Nature, and the use lie 

 made of it in bis writing. All experience contributed with him to the 

 interpretation of that religious instinct which in turn gave to experience 

 its meaning and its purpost , 



Ephraim Emerton. 



NATHANIEL Hoi. Ml - 



rHAWEL Holmes was born at Peterborough, N. II., July 2,1814. 

 His paternal grandfather was an emigranl from Antrim County. Ireland: 

 afterwards a soldier in the Revolution and a Deacon in the Presbyterian 

 Church. His mother was a daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, Rev. 

 David Annan, a native of Fifeshire, Scotland. As a boy he worked in 

 a machine shop and on his father's farm. Prom 1831 to 1833 he was a 

 student in Phillips-Exeter Academy j and he graduated at Harvard in 

 1837. After spending a year in Maryland as a private tutor, be studied 

 law at the Harvard Law School and in the office of Henry II. Fuller, 



.. in Boston. In 1839 he began practice at St. Louis. Mn. In 1 ■ 

 he was appointed one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri, 

 ring until 1868. His judicial opinions are contained in Volumes 36 

 to 42 (inclusive) of the Missouri Reports. In 1868 he gave up his 

 position on the bench to accept the Royall Professorship of Law in the 

 Harvard Law School. In l s 7l' he resigned the professorship and re- 

 turned to the practice of law in St. Louis, where he remained eleven 



\ears. In ] ss:i he returned to Cambridge, and made bis hi ■ there 



until bis death, on February 26, 1901 . 



Outside the legal profession, Judge Holmes is best known by his 



honk entitled "The Authorship of Shakespeare." a work designed to 



re that the plays attributed to Shakespeare were written by Bacon. 

 This book was first published in 1866, and went through three editions. 

 One of the ablest opponents of the view taken by Judge Holmes has 



utly said of the latt' r's l l< : " This contains the fullest and strongest 



presentation of the argument in favor of Bacon's authorship which has 



I, and it is also marked for its fairness and candor." < Notes 



on the B Shaki leare Question, by Hon. Charles Allen, pp. 1 and 2.) 



Judge Holmes also published, after his return to Cambridge, a work 



