cious excitement, clamoring for the life of an unfortunate man, whom I believed then to be, and still believe to have been, an innocent one; but who was sacrificed, in my judgment, to the blood-thirsty passions that sometimes sway the public mind. Judge Kent presided at his trial, and, on review, all his rulings were sustained. It occurred, however, to some gentlemen of the Bar, that one step might have been sanctioned in behalf of the accused, without any violation of the strictest legal requirement. That step was not allowed, and the community was loud in its approval of the refusal; and we, who differed from the public, took the liberty of expressing our dissent. At a public meeting of some members of the Bar, I took occasion to express my opinion to that effect; though, in my allusions to the judicial action of the deceased, I did not fail to speak of him with that respect which his high character, his position, and his learning, commanded. Now, this sensitiveness to censure, allied with courage, exhibited itself in Judge Kent. The next time we met he called me to him, and addressed me in a tone and manner that I shall never cease to remember, and in terms that it would be ill-timed and indecorous, perhaps, for me to mention; but his words impressed me with the conviction that he had a yet nobler character than even, with my high regard for him, I had before ascribed to him. In all my future intercourse with him, from that moment, I could see that if his bearing had changed to me, it was only to become more friendly, and seemed to manifest still more the feminine grace and gentleness which so largely entered into his nature-the natural attendant of his soft tones, and kind manner, his quiet speech, and thought, and feeling. By some of the gentlemen who have already spoken, we have been informed as to his state of mind when he felt that the hand of death was upon him, and I am happy to hear that he was well prepared to take his leave of earth, and descend to that grave toward which we are all hastening. I do not regard the mere circumstance of physical death with any poignant emotion of grief or sorrow; but I do contemplate with awe the destruction of an intellect. I can never bear to think, that when the body returns to dust, the mind which animated, vivified and controlled it, is forever lost. I say, with a great writer "Shall that alone which thinks Be, like the sword, consumed before the sheath, I think the great dramatist made no greater failure than in his scene where he represents Hamlet holding in his hand the skull of the poor jester. It was an occasion which should have been surrounded with intense feeling, and made eloquent with profound and elevating thought. Shakspeare must here defer to Byron, whose memorable lines you may not regret to hear: "Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, 'All that we know is, nothing can be known.'" We do not believe that this intellect perishes, though the frame may decay and dissolve into its elements. We hold ourselves to be dignified, as we are enlightened and sustained, by that faith to which the older gentlemen who addressed this meeting might more properly refer. We believe in the sweet assurance and the promise so sweetly expressed by that other great poet, Whittier, of whom our country may so justly boast: "And Thou, oh, most compassionate! Who didst stoop to our estate, Drinking of the cup we drain, Treading in our path of pain. Through the doubt and mystery, Give us but thy steps to see, And the grace to draw from thence Larger hope and confidence. Show thy vacant tomb, and let As of old, the angels sit Whispering by its open door, Fear not! for He has gone before." Mr. WM. CURTIS NOYES said: Mr. Chairman: It is impossible to avoid, on such an occasion as this, some repetition, and it is to be hoped that any error of that sort may be excused. In 1822, an obsure law student, living in a country town, presented to the great Master of Equity Jurisprudence, in this country, an order for the purpose of obtaining his fiat, so that it might be entered by the register. He approached him with awe and diffidence. The order was perused, the magic words written on the back, and kindly he was told, "Young man, now take that to brother Moss." There was something so familiar in the manner and mode of the address, that it led to conversation, and was followed, on his part, by words of encouragement and kindness, which left an impression and produced an effect that never can be forgotten. He was at that time sitting in a small rear room, in his dwelling in Columbia street, in Albany, his table loaded with books and papers, the walls covered with books; and it was there, undoubtedly, that the great legal opinions which have furnished guides for you, and for the judiciary generally, ever since that period, were prepared and sent forth to the world. At the same time, there was another law student-distinguished— a son of the chancellor of the state of New York, studying law in a town adjoining that already referred to; sitting every day at the feet of one of the wisest men I have ever known, the greatest common lawyer of his day—a man to whom "wisdom, at one entrance, was quite shut out"-and whose teachings were sought by others, like this young law student, anxious to drink in the words of wisdom and learning from his lips. We know very little of the student life of the one last referred to; but we do know that he led afterward a life of purity, of high professional attainment, of unaffected and unobtrusive piety; that he became a distinguished judge; that he received and laid down academic honors and professorial places; and that, at last, he closed his career by a christian's death. These two students followed different paths-one sought the interior of the state, the other its commercial metropolis. They met for the first time, at the first young men's political convention ever held, I believe, in the state of New York, in the year 1828; and he who presided over that body, twelve years afterward, when governor of the state (now, as is generally understood, to be the premier of this country, and who is to be "the pilot to weather the storm" to which allusion has been made, and I trust successfully,) conferred upon one of them the office of circuit judge of the first circuit of the state of New York. That judge was William Kent, whose memory we have now met to honor. A friendship then commenced between these young men (for they were still young men) which has lasted until it has been unfortunately severed by death. It is not necessary to speak here, and in this presence, particularly of the life of one so well known and so universally esteemed in this community. His large learning, his professional industry, the unspotted integrity which distinguished him in all he did, in public and pri vate, his social worth, his legal qualifications, have all been adverted to in terms of proper commendation. It may be allowed to speak of his professional integrity here, with a view to its practical uses and the benefit of his example, more in detail. He seems to have fashioned his life, in that respect, upon the the model given by the good Bishop Saundeson, in his advice to pleaders: "Not to think, because he has the liberty of the court, and perhaps the favor of the judge, and that, therefore, his tongue is his own, and he may speak his pleasure to the prejudice of the adversary's person or cause; and not to seek preposterously to win the name of a good lawyer by wresting and perverting good laws; or, the opinion of the best counsellor, by giving the worst and the shrewdest counsel; and not to count it, as Protagoras did, the glory of his profession, by subtlety of wit, and volubility of tongue, to make the worst cause the better; but like a good man, as well as a good orator, to use the power of his tongue to shame wit and impudence, and protect innocency; to crush oppressors and succor the afflicted; to advance justice and equity, and to help them to right that suffer wrong; and to let it be as a ruled case to him, in all his pleadings, not to speak in any cause to wrest judgment." A careful observation of his life for more than thirty years (a truth which my brethren will attest), authorizes the remark that, in no case, did he go beyond or fall short of these principles. His mental qualifications, so far as his professional course was concerned, are evident from what has been already said. He was too gentle in his feelings and sympathies, for the rough and harsh methods of trial by jury. He had a great distaste for efforts of that description, and never sought, but rather declined them. But in the argument of cases at bar, in the discussion of strict legal questions, no man was more thorough, none more honest, none more sound and logical, than he. Allusion is undoubtedly allowable to some of the extraordinary cases in which he was engaged. They have already been mentioned; but a participator in some of them may be allowed to speak of him in reference to them. He was engaged, in 1840, in an argument before the court of errors, then consisting of the lieutenant governor, the senate and the chancellor, of the cause involving the constitutionality of the general banking law. He had for his associates and antagonists such men as Ogden, and Spencer, and Sandford, all of whom have gone down to the grave covered with professional honors-and in the discussion of the important questions in that case, upon which, so far as he was concerned, the existence of the Bank of Commerce depended, and the continuance of the best banking system this state has ever known, depended-in the discussion of these questions, he was fully equal to any who were engaged in the case. A reflection was produced by that argument, which may have arisen in the minds of some of his brethren here assembled. He said every thing so pleas antly, so gently, with so little effort, that he seemed to give scarcely any evidence of the power he possessed, and of the industry he had employed in making himself master of the subject. He never appeared to put forward his whole strength; there seemed to be always behind a reserved power, which he could command at any time, but which he did not think it necessary to bring forward. It was obvious, too, that he made no parade or pretense of learning. Every thing flowed naturally. A beautiful allusion took its proper place without effort. Nothing was strained, nothing forced-all was natural; showing that what he had acquired had become a part of himself; was a portion of the man, and had been incorporated thoroughly into his mental constitution. At a later period of his life, and just four years before the day on which his death was announced, he commenced in the court of appeals, with others, the argument of what has been mentioned as the "Million Trust Case." There he had associates and antagonists with whom, if he was unsuccessful in presenting his views of the case, or inferior in power or learning, the contrast would have been most unfortunate. Of the dead, he was associated with Mr. Butler; and of the dead, among his antagonists, Mr. Hill and Mr. Beardsley—all honored names in our garner of legal worthies—were ready to watch, and to expose any thing omitted, or improperly urged. By an arrangement between the counsel engaged in that cause, a particular department of it had been assigned to him in the court below, and was, with a confidence that had no doubt, again intrusted to him in the court of appeals. He presneted it, during an argument of two days, occupying |