ectual faculties matured early.
Mr. Wilde, for many years the clerk of the court of Suffolk, expressed
to me the opinion that Judge Curtis' first argument was as good as his
last argument. There can be no doubt, however, that his legal
arguments were unrivalled in recent times. He was equipped with all
the legal learning that could be required in any case. He had the
capacity to see the points on which a case must turn, and he had the
courage to pass over the immaterial facts, and points in which other
men often lay stress to the injury of their arguments, and to the
annoyance of the courts. In his arguments in the impeachment case of
President Johnson, he furnished the only ground on which the Senate
could stand in rendering a verdict of not guilty.

During his service in the House he introduced an extraordinary bill
which received little or no support from the members. By that bill it
was made a misdemeanor to flow the land of another for any purpose
whatsoever, thus changing the ancient Mill Act of the State; provided,
however, that it should not apply to any citizen of Massachusetts. It
was said that Curtis had a client whose land had been flowed by a
Rhode Island man, and not being willing to pursue him in the courts of
the United States, he framed the bill in question. Of course the bill
failed. Again in 1851 he gave an opinion that Sumner, Wilson, myself
and perhaps some others, could be indicted for the coalition by which
the Whig Party was driven from power in Massachusetts. The opinion was
printed secretly and read in the Whig caucus, where it received so
little support that it was suppressed. When the parties had
disappeared, I read a copy that had been preserved in the office of the
Boston _Journal._

Judge Curtis was a jurist, and that only. He had no literary taste in
the true sense, although the statement has been made that he was a
constant reader of novels. However that may have been, his speeches
were seldom if ever adorned or burdened by illustrations or references
outside of the books of the profession.

George T. Curtis, a brother of Benjamin R., was a member of the House
for several years, between 1840 and 1850. With the overthrow of the
Whig Party in 1851, he disappeared from the politics of the State, and
at about the same time he removed to New York. As a writer he is clear
and methodical, but from choice or fortune many of his subjects have
not been acceptable, and his treatmen