414 EDWARD REYNOLDS, M.D. 



teaching be oral or by published writings, one of the indispensable 

 requisites for success is the power of making himself thoroughly and 

 easily understood by one who is unacquainted with the subject taught. 

 With this power one can scarcely fail of a fair degree of success ; 

 without it the greatest talents and attainments may come to naught. 

 It may be said, indeed, that this power is equally indispensable in a 

 teacher of any other subject, and literally, of course, this is true ; but 

 in most subjects the difficulty of making one's self understood is be- 

 lieved to be less great than in law, and hence the power of doing so 

 less rare. This power Professor Parsons possessed in a very eminent 

 degree. He had, indeed, a positive genius for simple and lucid state- 

 ments. Whatever he clearly understood himself h© seldom failed 

 to make perfectly intelligible to his hearers or readers, even if they 

 were laymen ; hence his lectures and his books were always popular. 

 Nor need it be wondered at that one whose genius did not specially 

 fit him for the law should have made so great a figure in it; for those 

 who have a special genius for law are seldom successful in teaching it, 

 except to those who have already obtained a considerable mastery of 

 it. Sir Edward Coke, for example, is the greatest name in the Eng- 

 lish law, and yet his writings are to the tyro not merely unintelligible, 

 but repulsive. On the other hand, Sir William Blackstone never 

 made a great figure in the practice of his profession, and, though he 

 was made a judge, he never distinguished himself in that capacity ; 

 and yet his Commentaries have been more read and more admired 

 than any other law book in the English language. The secret of 

 Blackstone's great success was that he excelled all other legal writers 

 in his style and in his mode of treating his subject; and the merits 

 of Professor Parsons were not unlike those of Blackstone. It may 

 be added that Professor Parsons was a great admirer of Blackstone, 

 and probably there is no legal author with whom he would have been 

 so proud to be compared. 



EDWARD REYNOLDS, M.D. 



Edward Reynolds was born the 2Sth of February, 1793, in 

 Hawkins Street, Boston. His father was Edward Reynolds, a mer- 

 chant of Boston, whose wife, his mother, was Deborah, daughter of 

 Samuel and Deborah Belcher. There were five other children, two 

 sons and three daughters. 



The subject of this notice was trained for college principally at the 

 Boston Latin School, under Masters Hunt and William Biglow. 



