"Hic victor cestus artemque repono."
The eminent service rendered to the country and the age, by Judge Parker, while Royall professor of Law at Cambridge, forms a material part of our national history.
Richard Fletcher was a native of Cavendish, Vt. Having graduated at Dartmouth, in 1806, he studied law with Daniel Webster, and commenced practice in Salisbury, N. H. In 1819 he removed to Boston, where he shortly took rank with the very first of legal advocates.
His biographer says: "While in practice before the courts his presence ever commanded the utmost respect. Of good form, of handsome and expressive features, and of most gentlemanly and pleasing address, with his great learning and untiring industry, it is not strange that he should have succeeded at the bar and on the bench.
"He was an orator of great power,—fluent and elegant in diction, bright and sparkling in thought, keen and quick in repartee.
"His care not to be engaged in unworthy causes was a matter of note.
"In political life he found little that suited his tastes, although at different times a member of both the State and National Legislatures.
"Mr. Fletcher was a sincere Christian. His religion was not so much of the aggressive kind, nor did he often urge his views upon others; but it pervaded his entire character, and shone out in all his actions. In his will he made a provision for publishing biennially, a prize essay adapted to impress 'on the minds of all Christians a solemn sense of their duty to exhibit in their godly lives and conversation the beneficent effects of the religion they profess, and thus increase the efficiency of Christianity in Christian countries, and recommend its acceptance to the heathen portions of the world.'"
Few of Dartmouth's alumni have manifested a more affectionate, steadfast devotion to their Alma Mater, than Mr. Fletcher.
Tappan Wentworth was the son of Isaac Wentworth, of Dover, N. H., and was born there February 24, 1802, and died in Lowell, June 12, 1875. His father was a poor man, a boatman running a freight-boat between Dover and Portsmouth.