XXIX 



advantages, had made some arrangements for the completion of his 

 law studies with the late eminent Theophilus Parsons, influenced 

 partly, perhaps, by an old family friendship, — Mr. Parsons having 

 been named for the Colonel's uncle, the Rev. Theophilus Picker- 

 ing, and been consequently a welcome guest in his father's family. 

 But the earnest wishes of the good uncle, whose unvarying affec- 

 tion had followed Mr. Pickering from infancy, prevailed with him 

 to return to Salem, where he entered the office of Mr. Putnam, af- 

 terwards a judge of the Supreme Judicial Court. 



Here, attracted by Mr. Pickering's well known character, I 

 joined him, to finisli my own professional studies. While he had 

 been abroad, expanding his views of men as well as books, I had 

 been confined to a didactic sphere within the walls of college. On 

 emerging into the world, nothing could have been more welcome 

 to me than such a companion. His society was alike instructive 

 and delightful. It brightened the whole time I was with him, and 

 made it one of the sunniest spots of my life. From that moment, 

 I was for many years a close observer of him in public and in 

 private, at the bar and among his friends, in his walks and amid 

 his studies, in the bosom of his family and at my own fireside, and 

 to my view his whole path of life was luminous with truth and 

 goodness, — never obscured, no, not for a moment, by the slightest 

 shade of obliquity in him. I cannot withhold this cordial testi- 

 mony. To the eye of reflecting age, truth and goodness are every 

 thing, mere genius and fame nothing, — in the comparison, abso- 

 lutely nothing. 



It was while we were thus together in Mr. Putnam's office, that 

 Mr. Pickering revised an edition of Sallust ; an edition pronounced 

 by an able critic in The Monthly Anthology to be " in every re- 

 spect preferable to the Dauphin Sallust," and " not unworthy of 

 the classical reputation of the reputed editor." 



