PREPARES FOR THE BAR.

29

country, when the traitor is driven from the walls and the nascent conspiracy is crushed; but I love him when I behold him in the villa of Lucullus, interesting himself in the education and prospects of its young owner." And he felt all and more than he said. In the delightful family of Mr. Wirt, and among the friends of the family, Mr. Chase found all of social life that his heart desired, and was happy in it. "I became slightly acquainted with a number of prominent characters," he writes to Mr. Trowbridge, "but was too diffident to push myself into notice; possibly too proud to ask for recognition, and preferring to wait for it; too indifferent also-a more serious fault-to what transpired around me to take much pains to acquaint myself with the histories and men of the hour. I made much too little use of the advantages which a residence in Washington at that period afforded. I was poor and sensitive; a young teacher, needing myself to be taught and guided."

But the time came when the permanent business of life was to begin. He had continued his occupation as a teacher for nearly three years, from February, 1827, until near the end of October, 1829, when he relinquished it and devoted himself with assiduity to preparing for examination preliminary to admission to the bar. This examination took place on the 21st of December following. "The most distinguished men in the legal profession," says Mr. Chase in one of his "personal memoranda,' "do not always give early promise of future eminence. I have never attained much professional distinction, and have not wholly deserved what I have attained. My reading for the bar had not been diligent or very extensive. I had looked through Burlamaqui at college. After I went to Washington, in 1826, and had opened my school in the spring of 1827, I received as pupils the sons of William Wirt, and was received by him as a studentat-law. It may well be believed that between the cares of a school and other duties, and the attractions of society and especially of the delightful family circle of Mr. Wirt-where I was ever welcomed with cordial kindness-I made no great progress in legal lore. Mr. Wirt never examined me. Only once did he put a question to me about my studies. He asked me one day while I was reading Blackstone if I understood him. I answered confidently, 'Yes.' But I was greatly mistaken, as I afterward

found. The knowledge obtained by bare reading is of very little value. Books must be meditated and talked to be understood and converted into mental aliment.

"I forget what books I read besides 'Blackstone's Commentaries;' 'Cruise's Digest,' I think [he read 'Rutherforth's Institutes,' also], and perhaps some others 'Dalrymple on Feudal Law,' I remember as one, but the catalogue was very short.

"Very seldom, I imagine, has any candidate for admission to the bar presented himself for examination with a slenderer stock of learning. I was examined in open court. The venerable and excellent Justice Cranch put the questions. I answered as well as I was able-how well or how ill I cannot say-but certainly, I think, not very well. Finally, the Judge asked me how long I had studied. I replied that, including the time employed in reading in college and the scraps devoted to legal reading before I regularly commenced the study, and the time since, I thought three years might be made up. The Judge smiled and said, 'We think, Mr. Chase, that you must study another year and present yourself again for examination.' 'Please your honors,' said I deprecatingly, 'I have made all my arrangements to go to the Western country and practise law.' The kind Judge yielded to this appeal, and turning to the clerk said, 'Swear in Mr. Chase.' Perhaps he would have been less facile if he had not known me personally and very well."

It is important here to avoid misconception. At the time of Mr. Chase's examination the law of Maryland made three years' study an essential prerequisite to admission to the bar of the State, and the objection of Justice Cranch went, not to want of sufficiently extensive and accurate legal learning on the part of Mr. Chase-for, in point of fact, he had passed an unusually creditable examination-but to a fear that he had not met the demands of the statute in respect of the three years' time required to be devoted to study.

Having been admitted, however, Mr. Chase prepared for his departure from the capital. He had entertained some thoughts of establishing himself at Baltimore; but had ultimately determined upon the West. "I would rather be first," he wrote to his friend Cleveland-"I would rather be first twenty years

BEGINS LIFE AT CINCINNATI.

31 hence at Cincinnati than at Baltimore. As I have ever been first at school and college (except at Dartmouth, where I was much too idle), I shall ever strive to be first wherever I may be, let what success will attend the effort. It can do no harm to try, and 'fearing the attempt,' we often fail of the attainment which might easily attend us." But his ambition to be first among his fellows was tempered by the promptings of his conscience: "I feel," he wrote to L. H., shortly after his arrival in Cincinnati, "that the fever of life brings with it only the joys of delirium to those who place their chief happiness in the achievement of a lofty and distinguished fame. May God enable me to be content with the consciousness of faithfully discharging all my duties, and deliver me from a too eager thirst for the applause and favor of men!"

He arrived in Cincinnati in March, 1830; was admitted to the bar of Ohio in the following June, and at once enteredwith ardor and hope-upon the active work of a lawyer's life.

CHAPTER VI.

BEGINS LIFE AS A LAWYER AT CINCINNATI-SPECULATION IN 1886 -THE LYCEUM AND SOME LITERARY WORK-EULOGY UPON BROUGHAM-CHASE'S STATUTES- -COMMENDATIONS OF CHANCELLOR KENT AND JUSTICE STORY.

IT

T is not possible, within the assigned limits of this volume, to give any extended account of Mr. Chase's labors in his profession, except in so far as those labors had an influence upon the political sentiment and public affairs of the country. It is perhaps enough to say, concerning them, that they were distinguished by the vigor, the careful industry, and the conscientiousness, which marked all his work.' These elements of

Mr. Chase to his Brother, Edwin I. Chase.

“CINCINNATI, September 17, 1880. "MY DEAR BROTHER: Your last letter was received this evening, and I only anticipate my previous intention a day or two by answering it immediately. I sympapathize with you in your unaccountable depression of spirits. I am frequently visited with such feelings; which overcome me like a summer's cloud, but, like a summer's cloud, they are generally very transient, passing away with the occasion that gave birth to them. The best specific I know of against them is constant employment; the mind must be kept in constant action.

"I wish, in answer to your questions, I could tell you of a long list of suits in court, and crowding clients, and other agreeable things of that nature. But you must remember I have had an office only from the beginning of the month, and that here where the members of the bar are so numerous, and business generally has formed a channel for itself—it is idle for a young man to expect much business at the start. I thought, and still think, that if I can make ten dollars in the first three months, twenty in the next three, forty in the next three, and eighty in the next, I shall do well. If I shall be able in the second year to pay my own expenses, and the third to make as much more than my expenses as in the first year I fall short, I shall be fully satisfied. If this be my lot, I shall, at the age of twenty-five, be established in my profession, out of debt, with a fair income, and able, and I trust willing, to aid others as I have myself felt the need of aid. After all, however,

SUCCESS AND EMBARRASSMENT.

33

character rapidly brought him into public notice; he formed excellent professional connections, and his business grew to be large and profitable, and included many important causes. With extensive practice came, of course, corresponding money rewards; and if he did not arrive at affluence, he did, at an early period of his life, reach a condition of moderate fortune. In 1837 he was seized with the prevailing speculative fever, and became somewhat involved. "I have no complaint to make about hard times," he wrote to his friend Cleveland, "and have a poor opinion of this way of evading self-censure by ascribing the consequences of our own folly and wrong-doing to abstractions. I recognize, in the embarrassments which I share, the necessary results of a system I once approved and engaged in, rather hoping than believing it to be right. I intend, with God's blessing, to pay the debts I owe as speedily as possible, and I trust I never again shall be tempted into speculation of any sort"-a resolution from which, in after-life, he never departed.' But this temporary engagement in business, external to his profession, did not for a moment swerve him from the utmost application to the interests of his clients. He labored incessantly, and carried his application to that degree, that in the mid-winter of 1836 and 1837, he suffered from a protracted and dangerous sickness. But work became the natural temper and habit of his mind, because he believed in it as a duty.

Some portion of his time, however, he devoted to less exactone's success in life depends not so much on the accidental circumstances which may surround him, as upon the active energy of his own character. . . . All that we have to do is to march steadily up to the objects which, like ghosts, appear in our path, but vanish when we draw near to them. Set your mark high, my dear brother, and I have no fears for you. Do not think it safe to spend any moment idly; it is not safe.

....

"Your affectionate brother,

"SALMON PORTLAND CHASE.

"P. S.-When speaking of my professional situation, I omitted to mention that I have yet had but two visitors in the shape of clients; from one of whom I never expect to get any thing. From the other I received four dollars."

1 "It was during his term as Secretary of the Treasury that his bankers invested some thousands of dollars of his money in a stock which rose a few months afterward, giving a profit on the transaction of some four thousand dollars. A check for the amount, nearly a year's salary of a Cabinet officer" (at that time), "was sent to Mr. Chase. He returned it to be destroyed, and declined utterly the increase made upon his money."-DEMAREST LLOYD.