226 (Oct. 19, 
Brinton.] 
His earlier education was completed at the University of Pennsylvania, 
and a few years later he was admitted to the bar, which was his ostensible 
profession for the rest of his life. In later years he paid but little atten. 
tion to it, preferring to give his hours to general reading and intellectual 
conversation. Legal practice was distasteful to him, though I am in- 
formed by those more capable of judging than myself, that his knowledge 
of the theory of the law was sound and extensive. Te was well versed 
in certain branches of it rarely explored by ordinary lawyers, for instance, 
the Roman and Norman codes, and the history of the development of 
English Common Law and Procedures. 
Mr. Law had a remarkably retentive memory and I cannot now recall 
any person of my acquaintance who surpassed him in a knowledge of 
general prose literature. On various occasions when I had been attracted 
by some little-known author I would air my newly acquired knowledge 
in his presence and would usually find that he had dipped more or less 
deeply into the volumes. Thus, on one occasion I had been looking up 
the life and works of Charles von Bonstetten, sufficiently little known in 
this country, but I found he was no stranger to my friend Law. At another 
time we tried him with Jomini’s works on the art of war; but he was 
singularly familiar with them. Such examples were constant. 
He had read extensively in the memoirs and biographies of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, both French and English. His knowl- 
edge of the former language was lexicographically good, and he had kept 
up and increased his knowledge of Latin imbibed at college, and perused 
the Roman authors frequently. F 
To one branch of literature he always manifested an aversion. This 
was poetry, especially its modern forms. I once persuaded him to read 
aloud Swinburne’s ‘‘Our Lady of Seven Sorrows.’ He did so with 
“good accent and good discretion,’’ but at the close threw the volume 
aside with an expression of contempt. This aversion I attribute to a 
natural and cultivated predominance of the intellectual over the emotional 
elements of character. He once informed me that never, even as a youth, 
did he have the common experience of falling in love. His family and 
friendly affections, which were strong, were directed by natural sympa- 
thies, or by a sense of duty, rather than by unconscious emotion. 
To the claims of music he was even more indifferent. Of this art he 
was accustomed to say that it should be placed on a level with cookery, 
the one titillating the palate, the other the ear, neither conveying any 
ideas to the intellect ; at most, perhaps, like Plato, he might have con- 
ceded that music is useful in teaching boys proper etiquette. 
His sense of truth was keen, and I have often heard him inveigh against 
the modern historians who strive to conceal the discredible sides of their 
heroes’ characters. He held up as a model for ali biographers the im- 
mortal pages of Plutarch, who never hesitates to reveal the vanity of a 
Cesar, the meanness of a Cato, or the adulteries of an Alcibiades. I never 
met a man who more clearly perceived than did Law that the cause of 
