PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF SIXTY YEARS AT
THE NEW YORK BAR.'

]|F those who sixty years ago were with me at the bar almost
all have " gone forth into the great darkness," and the very
names of most of them are as unknown to most of you of
this generation as though they had never been. Only two or
three remain who can remember them. They were men of study,
learning, toil; men of pride, ambition, hope ; men who largely shared
the public attention and respect. Some of them had fame, some had
fortune, some had disappointment—all had death.

At that time there lingered in this city several lawyers whose
admission to practice was more than a century ago. Among them
were Egbert Benson, Chancellor Kent, Morgan Lewis, Aaron Burr,
Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Jacob Morton, Edward Griswold, Jacob Rad¬
clifle, Richard Varick, and Joseph Strong. Of these I think that
Chancellor Kent, who died in 1848, survived the longest, and few now
present can remember him, while only one or two of us have seen the
others whom I have named.

It was my privilege and happiness to pass my clerkship as a
student at law in the ofiice of Chancellor Kent, where his son (only
less distinguished than the chancellor), William Kent, was associated
with him.

The chancellor retired from the bench on the Blst of July, 1823, on
completing his sixtieth year, such being the limit of age, under the
constitution of 1821 (then in force), to which any incumbent could
hold the ofiice. His judicial labors had, of course, received only scanty
compensation ; but after he withdrew from them, though he never
appeared at the bar, yet his opinions, which were eagerly sought, not
only here, but from every part of the country, and his services as
counsel in important cases, and his great work. The Commentaries,
were all more amply rewarded. When he left the bench (and indeed
to the end of his life), he was in the fulness of his mental vigor, and
strength, and wisdom, and of the goodness and gladness of his guileless
heart. His serene cheerfulness and kindness delighted all who had
intercourse with him. He was "in wit a man, simplicity a child."
His personal qualities secured to him the love, as his learning, wisdom,
dignity, and purity did the reverence of all. As remarked by Judge
Duer, in his eulogium on the chancellor, " Although his life, from his

1 From an address by the Honorable Benjamin D. Silliman, at the complimentary dinner tendered lo him by
the har of New York and Brooklyn, May 24, 1889, the sixtieth anniversary of his admission to practice.