The spirit which glowed in his teachings filled his life. He was, in the truest sense, Jurist,—student and expounder of jurisprudence as a science,—not merely lawyer or judge, pursuing it as an art. This distinction, though readily perceived, is not always regarded.
Members of the profession, whether on the bench or at the bar, seldom send their regard beyond the case directly before them. The lawyer is generally content with the applause of the court-house, the approbation of clients, "fat contentions, and flowing fees." Infrequently does he render voluntary service felt beyond the limited circle in which he moves, or helping forward the landmarks of justice. The judge, in the discharge of his duty, applies the law to the case before him. He may do this discreetly, honorably, justly, benignly, in such wise that the community who looked to him for justice shall pronounce his name with gratitude,—
"That his bones,
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em."
But the function of lawyer or judge, both practising law, is unlike that of the jurist, who, whether judge or lawyer, examines every principle in the light of science, and, while doing justice, seeks to widen and confirm the means of justice hereafter. All ages have abounded in lawyers and judges; there is no church-yard that does not contain their forgotten dust. But the jurist is rare. The judge passes the sentence of the law upon the prisoner at the bar face to face; but the jurist, invisible to mortal sight, yet speaks, as was said of the Roman Law, swaying by the reason, when he has ceased to govern by the living voice. Such a character does not live for the present only, whether in time or place. Ascending above its temptations, yielding neither to the love of gain nor to the seduction of ephemeral praise, he perseveres in those serene labors which help to build the mighty dome of justice, beneath which all men are to seek shelter and peace.
It is not uncommon to hear the complaint of lawyers and judges, as they liken themselves, in short-lived fame, to the well-graced actor, of whom only uncertain traces remain when his voice has ceased to charm. But they labor for the present only. How can they hope to be remembered beyond the present? They are instruments of a temporary and perishable purpose. How can they hope for more than they render? They do nothing for all. How can they think to be remembered beyond the operation of their labors? So far forth, in time or place, as any beneficent influence is felt, so far will its author be gratefully commemorated. Happy may he be, if he has done aught to connect his name with the enduring principles of justice!
In the world's history, lawgivers are among the greatest and most godlike characters. They are reformers of nations. They are builders of human society. They are fit companions of the master poets who fill it with their melody. Man will never forget Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe,—nor those other names of creative force, Minos, Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, Justinian, St. Louis, Napoleon the legislator. Each is too closely linked with human progress not to be always remembered.
In their train follow the company of jurists, whose labors have the value without the form of legislation, and whose recorded opinions, uttered from the chair of a professor, the bench of a judge, or, it may be, from the seclusion of private life, continue to rule the nations. Here are Papinian, Tribonian, Paulus, Gaius, ancient, time-honored masters of the Roman Law,—Cujas, its most illustrious expounder in modern times, of whom D'Aguesseau said, "Cujas has spoken the language of the law better than any modern, and perhaps as well as any ancient," and whose renown during life, in the golden age of jurisprudence, was such that in the public schools of Germany, when his name was mentioned, all took off their hats,—Dumoulin, kinsman of our English Queen Elizabeth, and most illustrious expounder of municipal law, one of whose books was said to have accomplished what thirty thousand soldiers of his monarch failed to do,—Hugo Grotius, filled with all knowledge and loving all truth, author of that marvellous work, at times divine, at other times, alas! too much of this earth, the "Laws of War and Peace,"—John Selden, who against Grotius vindicated for his country the dominion of the sea, supped with Ben Jonson at the Mermaid, and became, according to contemporary judgment, the great dictator of learning to the English nation,—D'Aguesseau, who brought scholarship to jurisprudence throughout a long life elevated by justice and refined by all that character and study could bestow, awakening admiration even at the outset, so that a retiring magistrate declared that he should be glad to end as the young man began,—Pothier, whose professor's chair was kissed in reverence by pilgrims from afar, while from his recluse life he sent forth those treatises which enter so largely into the invaluable codes of France,—Coke, the indefatigable, pedantic, but truly learned author and judge, Mansfield, the Chrysostom of the bench, and Blackstone, the elegant commentator, who are among the few exemplars within the boast of the English Common Law,—and, descending to our own day, Pardessus, of France, to whom commercial and maritime law is under a larger debt, perhaps, than to any single mind,—Thibaut, of Germany, earnest and successful advocate of a just scheme for the reduction of the unwritten law to the certainty of a written text,—Savigny, also of Germany, renowned illustrator of the Roman Law, who is yet spared to his favorite science,—and in our own country one now happily among us to-day by his son,[165] James Kent, the unquestioned living head of American jurisprudence. These are among jurists. Let them not be confounded with the lawyer, bustling with forensic success, although, like Dunning, arbiter of Westminster Hall, or, like Pinkney, acknowledged chief of the American bar. The jurist is higher than the lawyer,—as Watt, who invented the steam-engine, is higher than the journeyman who feeds its fires and pours oil upon its irritated machinery,—as Washington is more exalted than the Swiss, who, indifferent to the cause, barters for money the vigor of his arm and the sharpness of his spear.
The lawyer is the honored artisan of the law. Tokens of worldly success surround him; but his labors are on the things of to-day. His name is written on the sandy margin of the sounding sea, soon to be washed away by the embossed foam of the tyrannous wave. Not so is the name of the jurist. This is inscribed on the immortal tablets of the law. The ceaseless flow of ages does not wear off their indestructible front; the hour-glass of Time refuses to measure the period of their duration.