fore the Whig convention of
1855. I have heard some of Mr. Choate's clients dwell upon his mighty
power as an advocate, and it seems to me that words of law flowing from
such lips might have been suggestive of the harmony of the universe. The
chirography of Mr. Choate was equal to any Chinese puzzle; it was even
more difficult to decipher than that of Horace Greeley. I once received
a note from him and was obliged to call upon my family to aid me in
reading it. He had a fund of humor which was universally applauded by an
admiring public. Once, in replying to a toast on Yale College at the
"Hasty-Pudding" dinner, he said that "everything is to be irregular this
evening." He followed this remark by poking a little fun at the expense
of the College by reading a portion of the will of Lewis Morris, one of
the Signers and the father of Gouverneur Morris. This document was
executed in 1760 in New York, and in it he expresses his "desire that my
son, Gouverneur Morris, may have the best education that is to be had in
Europe or America, but my express will and directions are that he be
never sent for that purpose to the Colony of Connecticutt, lest he
should imbibe in his youth that low craft and cunning so incident to the
People of that Colony, which is so interwoven in their Constitutions
that all their art cannot disguise it from the World; though many of
them, under the sanctifyed garb of Religion, have endeavored to impose
themselves on the World for honest men." The laughter which followed the
reading of this extract was as _regular_ as the remarks were
_irregular_. It may be added that Lewis Morris died two years after
making this will, when his son Gouverneur was between ten and eleven
years of age, and that his desires were respected, as his son was
graduated from King's (now Columbia) College in New York in 1768, when
only sixteen years old. His father, cold in the grave, had his revenge
on the "Colony of Connecticutt" and the hatchet, for aught we know to
the contrary, was forever buried, while old Elihu's college still
survives in New Haven.

An anecdote relating to Gouverneur Morris still lingers in my memory.
Before his marriage, quite late in life, to Miss Anne Cary Randolph, his
nephew, Gouverneur Wilkins, was generally regarded as heir to his large
estate. When a direct heir was born, Mr. Wilkins was summoned to the
babe's christening. One of the guests began to speculate upon the name
of the youngster, when Mr