OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 237 



resentative in the Congress of the United States. Entertaining, how- 

 ever, no ambition for popular distinction, and preferring a sphere of life 

 more congenial to his peculiar faculties and tastes, he resigned that sta- 

 tion before entering upon its duties, and accepted the office of Judge of 

 Probate for the County of Essex, — a station of far greater importance 

 to the domestic peace and welfare of the community than is generally 

 understood, involving indeed gi-eat responsibilities, and requiring for 

 the due discharge of its duties thorough knowledge of a peculiar de- 

 partment of law, sound judgment, gentleness of manner, beneficent 

 patience, and spotless integrity ; but absorbing no time beyond the 

 special days appropriated for their administration, and leaving a large 

 portion therefore for other pursuits. He retained this office for the 

 period of thirty-eight yeai's, fulfilling its duties not only to entire ac- 

 ceptance, but in such manner as to attract a degree of veneration and 

 affisctionate confidence throughout the county. 



But great as must have been the satisfaction from the consciousness 

 of duty thus discharged, and without which one of his philanthropic 

 affections and high sense of obligation to others could not have been 

 satisfied, this was not the field in which his highest enjoyment, or per- 

 haps his highest usefulness, was found. He was by nature intended 

 for a general scholar. His moral and intellectual faculties were all 

 attuned to communion with the sages, philosophers, poets, historians, 

 and thinkers of all ages, assembled around him in his extensive, quiet 

 library, where, far above the rivalries, contests, juggles, and jostlings 

 of professional or political life, well might he say, " My library is 

 dukedom large enough." 



He had gathered around him an extensive and choice collection of 

 books, amounting within a few years of his death, and until reduced by 

 the liberal donation to be presently mentioned, to about ten thousand 

 volumes, with the best of which he was familiar, being accustomed not 

 only to constant and careful study, but to taking notes of all that he 

 deemed worthy of especial remembrance. History was one of his 

 favorite studies, and his knowledge of it was extensive and accurate. 

 With that of England and this country he was entirely acquainted ; 

 and especially were the records of the lives and doings of the Pilgrim 

 Fathers of New England as familiar to his memory as were the occur- 

 rences of his own life. He was highly accomplished in classical lore, 

 and, with his friend, Mr. Pickering, prepared for publication an edition 

 of Sallust, believed to be the first Latin classic edited in this country. 



