It is, then, not only as lawyer, practising in courts, but as jurist, to whom the light of jurisprudence shone gladsome, that we are to esteem our departed friend. As such, his example will command attention and exert an influence long after the paper dockets in blue covers, chronicling the stages of litigation in his cases, are consigned to the oblivion of dark closets and cobwebbed pigeon-holes.
But he has left a place vacant, not only in the halls of jurisprudence, but also in the circle of scholars throughout the world, and, it may be said, in the Pantheon of universal learning. Contemplating the variety, the universality of his attainments, the mind, borrowing an epithet once applied to another, involuntarily exclaims, "The admirable Pickering!" He seems, indeed, to have run the whole round of knowledge. His studies in ancient learning had been profound; nor can we sufficiently admire the facility with which, amidst other cares, he assumed the task of lexicographer. Unless some memorandum should be found among his papers, as was the case with Sir William Jones,[150] specifying the languages to which he had been devoted, it might be difficult to frame a list with entire accuracy. It is certain that he was familiar with at least nine,—English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Romaic, Greek, and Latin, of which he spoke the first five. He was less familiar, though well acquainted, with Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Hebrew,—and had explored, with various degrees of care, the Arabic, Turkish, Syriac, Persian, Coptic, Sanscrit, Chinese, Cochin-Chinese, Russian, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Malay in several dialects, and particularly the Indian languages of America and the Polynesian Islands.
The sarcasm of Hudibras on the "barren ground" supposed congenial to "Hebrew roots" is refuted by the richness of his accomplishments. His style is that of a scholar and man of taste. It is simple, unpretending like its author, clear, accurate, and flows in an even tenor of elegance, which rises at times to a suavity almost Xenophontian. Though little adorned by flowers of rhetoric, it shows the sensibility and refinement of an ear attuned to the harmonies of language. He had cultivated music as a science, and in his younger days performed on the flute with Grecian fondness. Some of the airs he had learned in Portugal were sung to him by his daughter shortly before his death, bringing with them, doubtless, the pleasant memories of early travel and the "incense-breathing morn" of life. A lover of music, he was naturally inclined to the other fine arts, but always had particular pleasure in works of sculpture.
Nor were those other studies which are sometimes regarded as of a more practical character foreign to his mind. In college days he was noticed for his attainments in mathematics; and later in life he perused with intelligent care the great work of his friend, Dr. Bowditch, the translation of the Mécanique Celeste. He was chairman of the committee which recommended the purchase of a first-class telescope for the neighborhood of Boston, and was the author of their interesting report on the use and importance of such an instrument. He was partial to natural history, particularly botany, which he taught to some of his family. In addition to all this, he possessed a natural aptitude for the mechanic arts, which was improved by observation and care. Early in life he learned to use the turning-lathe, and, as he declared in an unpublished lecture before the Mechanics' Institute of Boston, made toys which he bartered among his school-mates.
This last circumstance gives singular point to the parallel, already striking in other respects, between him and the Greek orator, the boast of whose various knowledge is preserved by Cicero: "Nihil esse ulla in arte rerum omnium, quod ipse nesciret: nec solum has artes, quibus liberales doctrinæ atque ingenuæ continerentur, geometriam, musicam, literarum cognitionem et poetarum, atque illa, quæ de naturis rerum, quæ de hominum moribus, quæ de rebuspublicis dicerentur; sed annulum, quem haberet, se sua manu confecisse."[151] The Greek, besides knowing everything, made the ring which he wore, as our friend made toys.
As the champion of classical studies, and a student of language, or philologist, he is entitled to be specially remembered. It is impossible to measure the influence he has exerted upon the scholarship of the country. His writings and his example, from early youth, pleaded its cause, and will plead it ever, although his living voice is hushed in the grave. His genius for languages was profound. He saw, with intuitive perception, their structure and affinities, and delighted in the detection of their hidden resemblances and relations. To their history and character he devoted his attention, more than to their literature. It is not possible for this humble pen to determine the place which will be allotted to him in the science of philology; but the writer cannot forbear recording the authoritative testimony to the rare merits of Mr. Pickering in this department, which it was his fortune to hear from the lips of Alexander von Humboldt. With the brother, William von Humboldt, that great light of modern philology, he maintained a long correspondence, particularly on the Indian languages; and his letters will be found preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin. Without rashly undertaking to indicate any scale of pre-eminence or precedence among the cultivators of this department, at home or abroad, it may not be improper to refer to his labors in those words of Dr. Johnson with regard to his own, as evidence "that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the Continent."[152]
If it should be asked by what magic Mr. Pickering was able to accomplish these remarkable results, it must be answered, By the careful husbandry of time. His talisman was industry. He delighted in referring to those rude inhabitants of Tartary who placed idleness among the torments of the world to come, and often remembered the beautiful proverb in his Oriental studies, that by labor the leaf of the mulberry is turned into silk. His life is a perpetual commentary on those words of untranslatable beauty in the great Italian poet:—
"Seggendo in piuma,
In fama non si vien, nè sotto coltre:
Sanza la qual, chi sua vita consuma,