strong.] 4:U [ jan, 6, 



followed him rarely found any thing that had escaped 

 his notice, or his thought. What he did not make use 

 of was, in his judgment, of no importance, and there- 

 fore entitled to no consideration. It was not unnoticed 

 because unknown. And it was never safe to treat as 

 of litde worth any position he took. His mind at 

 once seized all the facts and the principles applicable to 

 them, and discarded all that, after careful thought, he 

 deemed immaterial, or inapposite. He was never 

 surprised by any thing against which the extremest 

 vigilance could guard. Hence nothing immature, noth- 

 ing unfinished ever came from him In argument, or in 

 essay. Nor was he thorough only in his profession. 

 He carried the habit into his general reading, both lit- 

 erary and scientific. Whatever he knew, he knew 

 throughout. No chamber of it, however remote, 

 escaped his exploration. He gathered from every 

 book he read all the thoughts worthy of being pre- 

 served, and made them subjects for his own reflection, 

 recurring to them from time to time for renewed con- 

 sideration. 



His readinof was so extensive that he made constant 

 use of helps to return to passages which had most in- 

 terested him. He was therefore a great admirer of a 

 good index. I say index, not digest. His estimate of 

 such an index was expressed in a letter to a friend, writ- 

 ten when he had passed his eighty-sixth year, wherein 

 he said : " I must say in reference to indexes generally, 

 that I have come to regard a good book as curtailed of 



