er had been attained, was attainable
by him; and it has been remarked, that he never neglected nor overlooked
any opportunity of improving his intellectual faculties, or of acquiring
esteemed accomplishments." Notwithstanding his numerous occupations at
the Bar at home, the onerous duties of his station in India, and his
premature death, before he had attained his forty-eighth year, he has
left behind many learned works, which illustrate Oriental languages and
history, and attest the extent of his labors and acquisitions. Indeed,
it might be regarded as impossible, were we not informed of the regular
allotment which he made of his time to particular occupations, and his
scrupulous adherence to the distribution he had thus made. The moral
character of this eminent man, was no less exemplary. It is the
testimony of one of his contemporaries: "He had more virtues and less
faults, than I ever yet knew in any human being; and the goodness of his
head, admirable as it was, was exceeded by that of his heart." His own
measure of true greatness, humanly speaking, he has left behind him, in
very emphatic words: "If I am asked, who is the greatest man? I answer,
the best. And if I am required to say, who is the best? I reply, he that
has deserved most of his fellow-creatures."[58]

This department of English literature has been recently much enriched
by the labors of the present Lord High Chancellor of England, Lord
Campbell. In America we have a few well written and instructive legal
biographies, among which ought especially to be named, Mr. Wheaton's
Life of William Pinkney, and Professor Parsons' interesting Memoir of
his distinguished father, Chief Justice Parsons. Mr. Binney, at the
close of his honored and honorable life, is paying the debt, which every
man owes to his profession, in animated spirit-stirring sketches of his
great and good contemporaries. How forcibly does this distinguished
jurist illustrate the remark of Cicero in his Treatise on Old Age: "Sed
videtis, ut senectus non modo languida atque iners non sit, verum etiam
sit operosa, et semper agens aliquid et moliens; tale scilicet, quod
cujusque studium in superiore vita fuit." What a noble example might be
held up, in the life and character of Chief Justice Marshall! His
biography, while it will be the record of active patriotism and
humanity, will exhibit a course of arduous self-training, for the great
conflicts of opinion, in which it was his lot afterwards t