258 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



his life the condition of his health did not permit him to undertake any but 

 necessary routine labors. For these reasons he was seen but little except 

 by his nearest friends, or in the performance of his public duties; and it 

 was only those who were closely associated with him who were able to esti- 

 mate him at his true worth. The community, however, did not fail to 

 appreciate his high qualities. He was equally characterized by accuracy of 

 information, soundness of judgment, and a high standard of conduct; and 

 these qualities combined gave him an influence the strength and extent of 

 which he was himself probably far from suspecting. It may be said that 

 no man among us inspired more universal confidence, or was regarded with 

 more universal esteem. Always courteous and unassuming, he was a man 

 of strong convictions, and held to his opinions with great tenacity, although 

 without intolerance. 



In his public duties, as rei^orter to the Supreme Court, all his best intel- 

 lectual qualities found room for exercise. His j)ublished reports, if I am 

 rightly informed, rank among the best of their class. But while perform- 

 hig his professional duties faithfully and with high intelligence, he found 

 his truest enjoyment in the study of literature — using this word in its 

 highest significance. He was familiar with the best that has been said by 

 the great creative minds of the world, and his fine taste and correct judg- 

 ment were nowhere more marked than here. It was the chief happiness 

 of his life that at its very close he was enabled to gratify this taste without 

 stint, and in the most congenial companionship. The master spirits of 

 Greek literature had always been his favorite writers; and the winter spent 

 by him in Athens, where the American School of Classical Studies had just 

 been established, brought him into direct and loving communion with the 

 choicest memories of classical antiquity. Much as his friends in Madison 

 regret that he was separated from them during the last two years of his 

 life, they recognize that this exi^erience was to him the greatest happiness 

 that he could have wished. His relations to literature were, however, for 

 the most part those of enjoyment and culture. He wrote very little him- 

 self, but that of a quality which one would wish to see more common. The 

 members of the Madison Literary Club will remember with high apprecia- 

 tion the few papers which he read before them;, and to most of us it was 

 no doubt an unexpected, although by no means a surprising revelation, ^vvhen 

 he came to be known as being possessed of a poetic faculty, genuine, al- 

 though rarely exercised. 



As a member of our Academy there is little to be said of him. He had 

 not the physical strength to do any work for it. I do not remember that 

 he ever took an active part in its proceedings; but its members always felt 

 it as a privilege and an honor to count him as one of themselves. 



