Volume 1 — BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LATE JOHN PICKERING.

Article in the Law Reporter of June, 1846.

It was a remark of Lord Brougham, illustrated by his own crowded life, that the complete performance of all the duties of an active member of the British Parliament might be joined to a full practice at the bar. The career of the late Mr. Pickering illustrates a more grateful truth: that the mastery of the law as a science and the constant performance of all the duties of a practitioner are not incompatible with the studies of the most various scholarship,—that the lawyer and the scholar may be one. He dignified the law by the successful cultivation of letters, and strengthened the influence of these elegant pursuits by becoming their representative in the concerns of daily life and in the labors of his profession. And now that this living example of excellence is withdrawn, we feel a sorrow which words can only faintly express. We would devote a few moments to the contemplation of what he did and what he was. The language of exaggeration is forbidden by the modesty of his nature, as it is rendered unnecessary by the multitude of his virtues.

John Pickering, whose recent death we deplore, was born in Salem, February 7, 1777, at the darkest and most despondent period of the Revolution. His father, Colonel Pickering, was a man of distinguished character and an eminent actor in public affairs, whose name belongs to the history of our country. Of his large family of ten children John was the eldest.[142] His diligence at school was a source of early gratification to his family, and gave augury of future accomplishments. An authentic token of this character, beyond any tradition of partial friends, is afforded by a little book entitled "Letters to a Student in the University of Cambridge, Massachusetts, by John Clarke, Minister of a Church in Boston," printed in 1796, and in reality addressed to him. The first letter begins with an honorable allusion to his early improvement. "Your superior qualifications for admission into the University give you singular advantages for the prosecution of your studies.... You are now placed in a situation to become, what you have often assured me is your ambition, a youth of learning and virtue." The last letter of the volume concludes with benedictions, which did not fall as barren words upon the heart of the youthful pupil. "May you," says Dr. Clarke, "be one of those sons who do honor to their literary parent. The union of virtue and science will give you distinction at the present age, and will tend to give celebrity to the name of Harvard. You will not disappoint the friends who anticipate your improvements." They who remember his college days still dwell with fondness upon his exemplary character and his remarkable scholarship. He received his degree of Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge in 1796.

On leaving the University he went to Philadelphia, at that time the seat of government, his father being Secretary of State. Here he commenced the study of the law under Mr. Tilghman, afterwards the distinguished Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and one of the lights of American jurisprudence. But his professional lucubrations were soon suspended by his appointment, in 1797, as Secretary of Legation to Portugal. In this capacity he resided at Lisbon for two years, during which time he became familiar with the language and literature of the country. Later in life, when his extensive knowledge of foreign tongues opened to him the literature of the world, he recurred with peculiar pleasure to the language of Camoens and Pombal.

From Lisbon he passed to London, where, at the close of the last century, he became, for about two years, the private secretary of our Minister, Mr. King, residing in the family and enjoying the society and friendship of this distinguished representative of his country. Here he was happy in meeting with his classmate and attached friend, Dr. James Jackson, of Boston, then in London, pursuing those medical studies whose ripened autumnal fruits of usefulness and eminence he still lives to enjoy. In pleasant companionship they perambulated the thoroughfares of the great metropolis, enjoying together its shows and attractions; in pleasant companionship they continued ever afterwards, till death severed the ties of long life.

Mr. Pickering's youth and inexperience in the profession to which he afterwards devoted his days prevented his taking any special interest, at this period, in the courts or in Parliament. But there were several of the judges who made a strong impression on his mind; nor did he ever cease to remember the vivacious eloquence of Erskine or the commanding oratory of Pitt.

Meanwhile, his father, being no longer in the public service, had returned to Salem; and thither the son followed, in 1801, resuming the study of the law, under the direction of Mr. Putnam, afterwards a learned and beloved Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, whose rare fortune it has been to rear two pupils whose fame will be among the choicest possessions of our country,—Story and Pickering. In due time he was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of the law in Salem.

Here begins the long, unbroken series of his labors in literature and philology, running side by side with the daily, untiring business of his profession. It is easy to believe, that, notwithstanding his undissembled predilection for jurisprudence as a science, he was drawn towards its practice by the compulsion of duty rather than by any attraction it possessed for him. Not removed by fortune from the necessity, to which Dr. Johnson so pathetically alludes, of providing for the day that was passing over him, he could indulge his taste for study only in hours secured by diligence from the inroads of business or refused to the seductions of pleasure. Since the oration for Archias, perhaps no lawyer ever lived who could have uttered with greater truth the inspiring words with which, in that remarkable production, the Roman orator confessed and vindicated the cultivation of letters: "Me autem quid pudeat, qui tot annos ita vivo, judices, ut ab nullius unquam me tempore aut commodo aut otium meum abstraxerit, aut voluptas avocârit, aut denique somnus retardârit? Quare quis tandem me reprehendat, aut quis mihi jure succenseat, si, quantum cæteris ad suas res obeundas, quantum ad festos dies ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates, et ad ipsam requiem animi et corporis conceditur temporum, quantum alii tribuunt tempestivis conviviis, quantum denique aleæ, quantum pilæ, tantum mihi egomet ad hæc studia recolenda sumpsero?"[143]

In his life may be seen two streams flowing side by side, as through a long tract of country: one fed by the fresh fountains high up in the mountain-tops, whose waters leap with delight on their journey to the sea; while the other, having its sources low down in the valleys, among the haunts of men, moves with reluctant, though steady, current onward.

Mr Pickering's days were passed in the performance of all the duties of a wide and various practice, first at Salem, and afterwards at Boston. He resided at the former place till 1827, when he removed to the metropolis, where two years afterwards he became City Solicitor, an office whose arduous labors he continued to discharge until within a few months of his death. There is little worthy of notice in the ordinary incidents of professional life. What Blackstone aptly calls "the pert dispute" renews itself in infinitely varying form. Some new turn of litigation calls forth some new effort of learning or skill, calculated to serve its temporary purpose, and, like the manna which fell in the desert, perishing on the day that beholds it. The unambitious labors of which the world knows nothing, the advice to clients, the drawing of contracts, the perplexities of conveyancing furnish still less of interest than ephemeral displays of the court-room.

The cares of his profession and the cultivation of letters left but little time for the concerns of politics. And yet, at different periods, he filled offices in the Legislature of Massachusetts. He was three times Representative from Salem, twice Senator from Essex, once Senator from Suffolk, and once a member of the Executive Council. In all these places he commended himself by the same diligence, honesty, learning, and ability which marked his course at the bar. The careful student of our legislative history will not fail to perceive his obligations to Mr. Pickering, as the author of important reports and bills. The first bill for the separation of Maine from Massachusetts was reported to the Senate by him in 1816, and though the object failed for the time with the people of Maine, the bill is characterized by the historian of that State as "drawn with great ability and skill."[144] The report and accompanying bill on the jurisdiction and proceedings of the Courts of Probate, discussing and remodelling the whole system, were from his hand.

In 1833 he was appointed to the vacancy, occasioned by the death of Professor Ashmun, in the commission for revising and arranging the statutes of Massachusetts, being associated in this important work with those eminent lawyers, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Stearns. The first part, or that entitled Of the Internal Administration of the Government, corresponding substantially with Blackstone's division Of the Rights of Persons, was executed by him. This alone entitles him to be gratefully remembered, not only by those having occasion to consult the legislation of Massachusetts, but by all who feel an interest in scientific jurisprudence.

His contributions to what may be called the literature of his profession were frequent. The American Jurist was often enriched by articles from his pen. Among these is a review of the valuable work of Williams on the Law of Executors, and of Curtis's Admiralty Digest, where he examined the interesting history of this jurisdiction; also an article on the Study of the Roman Law, where, within a short compass, he presented a lucid history of this system, and the growth in Germany of the historical and didactic schools, "rival houses," as they may be called, in jurisprudence, whose long and unpleasant feud has only recently subsided.

In the Law Reporter for September, 1841, he published an article of singular merit, on National Rights and State Rights, being a review of the case of Alexander McLeod, recently determined in the Supreme Court of New York. This was afterwards republished in a pamphlet, and extensively circulated. It is marked by uncommon learning, clearness, and power. The course of the courts of New York is handled with freedom, and the supremacy of the Government vindicated. Of all the discussions elicited by that interesting question, on which, for a while, seemed to hang the portentous issues of peace and war between the United States and Great Britain, that of Mr. Pickering will be admitted to take the lead, whether we consider its character as an elegant composition, or as a searching review of the juridical questions involved. In dealing with the opinion of Mr. Justice Cowen, renowned for black-letter and the bibliography of the law, he shows himself more than a match for this learned Judge, even in these unfrequented fields, while the spirit of the publicist and jurist gives a refined temper to the whole article, which we vainly seek in the other production.

In the North American Review for October, 1840, is an article by him, illustrative of Conveyancing in Ancient Egypt, being an explanation of an Egyptian deed of a piece of land in hundred-gated Thebes, written on papyrus, more than a century before the Christian era, with the impression of a seal or stamp attached, and a certificate of registry in the margin, in as regular a manner as the keeper of the registry in the County of Suffolk would certify to a deed of land in the City of Boston at this day. Jurisprudence is here adorned by scholarship.

There is another production which, like the preceding, belongs to the department of literature as well as of jurisprudence: his Lecture on the Alleged Uncertainty of the Law, delivered before the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Though written originally for the general mind, which it is calculated to interest and instruct in no common degree, it will be read with equal advantage by the profound lawyer. It is not easy to mention any popular discussion of a juridical character, in our language, deserving of higher regard. It was first published in the American Jurist, at the solicitation of the writer of this sketch, who has never referred to it without fresh admiration of the happy illustrations and quiet reasoning by which it vindicates the science of the law.

In considering what Mr. Pickering accomplished out of his profession, we are led over wide and various fields of learning, where we can only hope to indicate his footprints, without presuming to examine or describe the ground.

One of his earliest cares was to elevate the character of classical studies in our country. In this respect his own example did much. From the time he left the University, he was always regarded as an authority on topics of scholarship. But his labors were devoted especially to this cause. As early as 1805, in conjunction with his friend, the present Judge White, of Salem, he published an edition of the Histories of Sallust with Latin notes and a copious index. This is one of the first examples, in our country, of a classic edited with scholarly skill. The same spirit led him, later in life, to publish in the North American Review, and afterwards in a pamphlet, "Observations on the Importance of Greek Literature, and the Best Method of Studying the Classics," translated from the Latin of Professor Wyttenbach. In the course of the remarks with which he introduces the translation, he urges with conclusive force the importance of raising the standard of education in our country. "We are too apt," he says, "to consider ourselves as an insulated people, as not belonging to the great community of Europe; but we are, in truth, just as much members of it, by means of a common public law, commercial intercourse, literature, a kindred language and habits, as Englishmen or Frenchmen themselves are; and we must procure for ourselves the qualifications necessary to maintain that rank which we shall claim as equal members of such a community."

His Remarks on Greek Grammars, which appeared in the American Journal of Education in 1825, belongs to the same field of labor, as does also his admirable paper, published in 1818, in the Memoirs of the American Academy, on the Proper Pronunciation of the Ancient Greek Language.[145] He maintained that it should be pronounced, as far as possible, according to the Romaic or modern Greek, and learnedly exposed the vicious usage introduced by Erasmus. His conclusions, though controverted when first presented, are now substantially adopted by scholars. We well remember his honest pleasure in a communication received within a few years from President Moore, of Columbia College, in which that gentleman, who had once opposed his views, announced his change, and, with the candor that becomes his honorable scholarship, volunteered to them the sanction of his approbation.

The Greek and English Lexicon is his work of greatest labor in the department of classical learning. This alone would entitle him to praise from all who love liberal studies. With the well-thumbed copy of this book, used in college days, now before us, we feel how much we are debtor to his learned toil. Planned early in Mr. Pickering's life, it was begun in 1814. The interruptions of his profession induced him to engage the assistance of the late Dr. Daniel Oliver, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Dartmouth College. The work, proceeding slowly, was not announced by a prospectus until 1820, and not finally published until 1826. It was mainly founded on the well-known Lexicon of Schrevelius, which had received the emphatic commendation of Vicesimus Knox, and was generally regarded as preferable to any other for the use of schools. When Mr. Pickering commenced his labors there was no Greek Lexicon with definitions in our own tongue. The English student obtained his knowledge of Greek through the intervention of Latin. And it is supposed by many, who have not sufficiently regarded other relations of the subject, as we are inclined to believe, that this circuitous and awkward practice is a principal reason why Greek is so much less familiar to us than Latin. In honorable efforts to remove this difficulty our countryman took the lead. Shortly before the last sheets of his Lexicon were printed, a copy of a London translation of Schrevelius reached this country, which proved, however to be "a hurried performance, upon which it would not have been safe to rely."[146]

Since the publication of his Lexicon, several others in Greek and English have appeared in England. The example of Germany and the learning of her scholars have contributed to these works. It were to be wished that all of them were free from the imputation of an unhandsome appropriation of labors performed by others. The Lexicon of Dr. Dunbar, Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh, published in 1840, contains whole pages taken bodily—"convey, the wise it call"—from that of Mr. Pickering, while the Preface is content with an acknowledgment, in very general terms, of obligation to the work which is copied. This is bad enough. But the second edition, published in 1844, omits acknowledgment altogether; and the Lexicon is welcomed by an elaborate article in the Quarterly Review,[147] as the triumphant labor of Dr. Dunbar, "well known among our Northern classics as a clever man and an acute scholar. In almost every page," continues the reviewer, "we meet with something which bespeaks the pen of a scholar; and we every now and then stumble on explanations of words and passages, occasionally fanciful, but always sensible, and sometimes ingenious, which amply repay us for the search.... They prove, moreover, that the Professor is possessed of one quality which we could wish to see more general: he does not see with the eyes of others; he thinks for himself, and he seems well qualified to do so." Did he not see with the eyes of others? The reviewer hardly supposed that his commendation would reach the production of an American lexicographer.

In the general department of Languages and Philology his labors were various. Some of the publications already mentioned might be ranged under this head. There are others which remain to be noticed. The earliest is the work generally called The Vocabulary of Americanisms, being a collection of words and phrases supposed to be peculiar to the United States, with an Essay on the State of the English Language in this country. This originally appeared in the Memoirs of the American Academy, in 1815, and republished in a separate volume, with corrections and additions, in 1816. It was the author's intention, had his life been spared, to print another edition, with the important gleanings of subsequent observation and study. Undoubtedly this work has exerted a beneficial influence upon the purity of our language. It has promoted careful habits of composition, and, in a certain degree, helped to guard the "well of English undefiled." Some of the words found in this Vocabulary may be traced to ancient sources of authority; but there are many which are beyond question provincial and barbarous, although much used in our common speech,—"fæx quoque quotidiani sermonis, fœda ac pudenda vitia."[148]

In the Memoirs of the American Academy for 1818 appeared his Essay on a Uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of North America. The uncertainty of their orthography arose from the circumstance that the words were collected and reduced to writing by scholars of different nations, who often attached different values to the same letter, and represented the same sound by different letters; so that it was impossible to determine the sound of a written word, without first knowing through what alembic of speech it had passed. Thus the words of the same language or dialect, written by a German, a Frenchman, or an Englishman, would seem to belong to languages as widely different as those of these different people. With the hope of removing from the path of others the perplexities that had beset his own, Mr. Pickering recommended the adoption of a common orthography, which would enable foreigners to use our books without difficulty, and, on the other hand, make theirs easy for us. To this end, he devised an alphabet for the Indian languages, which contained the common letters of our alphabet, so far as practicable, a class of nasals, also of diphthongs, and, lastly, a number of compound characters, which it was supposed would be of more or less frequent use in different dialects. With regard to this Essay, Mr. Du Ponceau said, at an early day, "If, as there is great reason to expect, Mr. Pickering's orthography gets into general use among us, America will have had the honor of taking the lead in procuring an important auxiliary to philological science."[149] Perhaps no single paper on language, since the legendary labors of Cadmus, has exercised a more important influence than this communication. Though originally composed with a view to the Indian languages of North America, it has been successfully followed by the missionaries in the Polynesian Islands. In harmony with the principles of this Essay, the unwritten dialect of the Sandwich Islands, possessing, it is said, a more than Italian softness, was reduced to writing according to a systematic orthography prepared by Mr. Pickering, and is now employed in two newspapers published by natives. Thus he may be regarded as one of the contributors to that civilization, under whose gentle influence those islands, set like richest gems in the bosom of the sea, will yet glow with the effulgence of Christian truth.

His early studies in this branch are attested by an article in the North American Review for June, 1819, on Du Ponceau's Report on the Languages of the American Indians, and another article in the same Review, for July, 1820, on Dr. Jarvis's Discourse on the Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America. The latter attracted the particular attention of William von Humboldt.

The Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society contain several important communications from him on the Indian languages: in 1822 (Vol. IX. Second Series) an edition of the Indian Grammar of Eliot, the St. Augustin of New England, with Introductory Observations on the Massachusetts Language by the editor, and Notes by Mr. Du Ponceau, inscribed to his "learned friend, Mr. Pickering, as a just tribute of friendship and respect";—in 1823 (Vol. X. Second Series) an edition of Jonathan Edwards's Observations on the Mohegan Language, with an Advertisement and Copious Notes on the Indian Languages by the editor, and a Comparative Vocabulary of Various Dialects of the Lenape or Delaware Stock of North American Languages, together with a Specimen of the Winnebago Language;—in 1830 (Vol. II. Third Series) an edition of Cotton's Vocabulary of the Massachusetts Language. He also prepared Roger Williams's Vocabulary of the Narragansett Indians for the Rhode Island Historical Society. These labors were calculated, in no ordinary degree, to promote a knowledge of our aboriginal idioms, and to shed light on that important and newly attempted branch of knowledge, the science of Comparative Language.

Among the Memoirs of the American Academy, published in 1833, (Vol. I. New Series) is the Dictionary of the Abnaki Language, in North America, by Father Sebastian Rasles, with an Introductory Memoir and Notes by Mr. Pickering. The original manuscript of this copious Dictionary, commenced by the good and indefatigable Jesuit in 1691, during his solitary residence with the Indians, was found among his papers after the massacre at Norridgewock, in which he was killed, and, passing through several hands, at last came into the possession of Harvard University. It is considered one of the most interesting and authentic documents in the history of the North American languages. In the Memoir accompanying the Dictionary, Mr. Pickering, with the modesty which marked all his labors, says that he made inquiries for memorials of these languages, "hoping that he might render some small service by collecting and preserving these valuable materials for the use of those persons whose leisure and ability would enable them to employ them more advantageously than it was in his power to do, for the benefit of philological science."

The elaborate article on the Indian Languages of America in the Encyclopædia Americana is from his pen. The subject was considered so interesting, in regard to general and comparative philology, while so little was known respecting it, that a space was allowed to this article beyond that of other philological articles in the Encyclopædia. The forthcoming volume of Memoirs of the American Academy contains an interesting paper of a kindred character, one of his latest productions, on the Language and Inhabitants of Lord North's Island, in the Indian Archipelago, with a Vocabulary.

The Address before the American Oriental Society, delivered and published in 1843, as the first number of the Journal of that body, is an admirable contribution to the history of languages, presenting a survey of the peculiar field of labor to which the Society is devoted, in a style which attracts alike the scholar and the less critical reader.

Among his other productions in philology may be mentioned an interesting article on the Chinese Language, which first appeared in the North American Review for January, 1839, and was afterwards dishonestly reprinted, as an original article, in the London Monthly Review for December, 1840; also an article on the Cochin-Chinese Language, published in the North American Review for April, 1841; another on Adelung's "Survey of Languages," in the same journal, in 1822; a review of Johnson's Dictionary, in the American Quarterly Review for September, 1828; and two articles in the New York Review for 1826, being a caustic examination of General Cass's article in the North American Review respecting the Indians of North America. These two papers were not acknowledged by their author at the time they were written. They purport to be by Kass-ti-ga-tor-skee, or The Feathered Arrow, a fictitious name from the Latin Cas-tigator and an Indian termination skee or ski.

Even this enumeration does not close the catalogue of Mr. Pickering's productions. There are others—to which, however, we refer by their titles only—that may be classed with contributions to general literature. Among these is an Oration delivered at Salem on the Fourth of July, 1804; an article in the Encyclopædia Americana, in 1829, on the Agrarian Laws of Rome; an article in the North American Review for April, 1829, on Elementary Instruction; an Introductory Essay to Newhall's Letters on Junius, in 1831; a Lecture on Telegraphic Language, before the Boston Marine Society, in 1833; an article on Peirce's History of Harvard University, in the North American Review for April, 1834; an article on the South Sea Islands, in the American Quarterly Review for September, 1836; an article on Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, in the New York Review for April, 1838; the noble Eulogy on Dr. Bowditch, delivered before the American Academy, May 29, 1838; and Obituary Notices of Mr. Peirce, the Librarian of Harvard College, of Dr. Spurzheim, of Dr. Bowditch, and of his valued friend and correspondent, the partner of his philological labors, Mr. Du Ponceau; also an interesting Lecture, still unpublished, on the Origin of the Population of America, and two others on Languages.

The reader will be astonished at these various contributions to learning and literature, thus hastily reviewed, particularly when he regards them as the diversions of a life filled in amplest measure by other pursuits. Charles Lamb said that his real works were not his published writings, but the ponderous folios copied by his hand in the India House. In the same spirit, Mr. Pickering might point to the multitudinous transactions of his long professional life, cases argued in court, conferences with clients, and deeds, contracts, and other papers, in that clear, legible autograph which is a fit emblem of his transparent character.

His professional life first invites attention. Here it should be observed that he was a thorough, hard-working lawyer, for the greater part of his days in full practice, constant at his office, attentive to all the concerns of business, and to what may be called the humilities of the profession. He was faithful, conscientious, and careful; nor did his zeal for the interests committed to his care ever betray him beyond the golden mean of duty. The law, in his hands, was a shield for defence, and never a sword to thrust at his adversary. His preparations for arguments in court were marked by peculiar care; his brief was elaborate. On questions of law he was learned and profound; but his manner in court was excelled by his matter. The experience of a long life never enabled him to overcome the native childlike diffidence which made him shrink from public display. He developed his views with clearness and an invariable regard to their logical sequence,—but he did not press them home by energy of manner, or any of the arts of eloquence.

His mind was rather judicial than forensic in cast. He was better able to discern the right than to make the wrong appear the better reason. He was not a legal athlete, snuffing new vigor in the atmosphere of the bar, and regarding success alone,—but a faithful counsellor, solicitous for his client, and for justice too.

It was this character that led him to contemplate the law as a science, and to study its improvement and elevation. He could not look upon it merely as the means of earning money. He gave much of his time to its generous culture. From the walks of practice he ascended to the heights of jurisprudence, embracing within his observation the systems of other countries. His contributions to this department illustrate the turn and extent of his inquiries. It was his hope to accomplish some careful work on the law, more elaborate than the memorials he has left. The subject of the Practice and Procedure of Courts, or what is called by the civilians Stylus Curiæ, occupied his mind, and he intended to treat it in the light of foreign authorities, particularly German and French, with the view of determining the general principles, or natural law, common to all systems, by which it is governed. Such a work, executed with the fine juridical spirit in which it was conceived, would have been welcomed wherever the law is studied as a science.

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:—

With a mind thus deeply imbued with learning, it will be felt that he was formed less for the contentions of the forum than for the exercises of the academy. And yet it is understood that he declined several opportunities of entering its learned retreats. In 1806 he was elected Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages in Harvard University; and at a later day he was invited to the chair of Greek Literature in the same institution. On the death of Professor Ashmun, many eyes were turned towards him, as fitted to occupy the professorship of law in Cambridge, since so ably filled by Mr. Greenleaf; and on two different occasions his name was echoed by the public prints as about to receive the dignity of President of the University. But he continued in the practice of the law to the last.

He should be claimed by the bar with peculiar pride. If it be true, as has been said, that Serjeant Talfourd has reflected more honor upon his profession by the successful cultivation of letters than any of his contemporaries by their forensic triumphs, then should the American bar acknowledge their obligations to the fame of Mr. Pickering. He was one of us. He was a regular in our ranks; in other service, only a volunteer.

The mind is led instinctively to a parallel between him and that illustrious scholar and jurist, ornament of the English law, and pioneer of Oriental studies in England, Sir William Jones, to whom I have already referred. Both confessed, in early life, the attractions of classical studies; both were trained in the discipline of the law; both, though engaged in its practice, always delighted to contemplate it as a science; both surrendered themselves with irrepressible ardor to the study of languages, while the one broke into the unexplored fields of Eastern philology, and the other devoted himself more especially to the native tongues of his own Western continent. Their names are, perhaps, equally conspicuous for the number of languages which occupied their attention. As we approach them in private life, the parallel still continues. In both there were the same truth, generosity, and gentleness, a cluster of noble virtues,—while the intenser earnestness of the one is compensated by the greater modesty of the other. To our American jurist-scholar, also, may be applied those words of the Greek couplet, borrowed from Aristophanes, and first appropriated to his English prototype: "The Graces, seeking a shrine that would not decay, found the soul of Jones."

While dwelling with admiration upon his triumphs of intellect and the fame he has won, we must not forget the virtues, higher than intellect or fame, by which his life was adorned. In the jurist and the scholar we must not lose sight of the man. So far as is allotted to a mortal, he was a spotless character. The murky tides of this world seemed to flow by without soiling his garments. He was pure in thought, word, and deed; a lover of truth, goodness, and humanity; the friend of the young, encouraging them in their studies, and aiding them by wise counsels; ever kind, considerate, and gentle to all; towards children, and the unfortunate, full of tenderness. He was of charming modesty. With learning to which all bowed with reverence, he walked humbly before God and man. His pleasures were simple. In the retirement of his study, and the blandishments of his music-loving family, he found rest from the fatigues of the bar. He never spoke in anger, nor did any hate find a seat in his bosom. His placid life was, like law in the definition of Aristotle, "mind without passion."

Through his long and industrious career he was blessed with unbroken health. He walked on earth with an unailing body and a serene mind; and at last, in the fulness of time, when the garner was overflowing with the harvests of a well-spent life, in the bosom of his family, the silver cord was gently loosed. He died at Boston, May 5, 1846, in the seventieth year of his age,—only a few days after he had prepared for the press the last sheets of a new and enlarged edition of his Greek Lexicon. His wife, to whom he was married in 1805, and three children, survive to mourn their irreparable loss.

The number of societies, both at home and abroad, of which he was an honored member, attests the widespread recognition of his merits. He was President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; President of the American Oriental Society; Foreign Secretary of the American Antiquarian Society; Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Ethnological Society, the American Philosophical Society; Honorary Member of the Historical Societies of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, and Georgia; Honorary Member of the National Institution for the Promotion of Science, the American Statistical Association, the Northern Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hanover, N.H., and the Society for the Promotion of Legal Knowledge, Philadelphia; Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the Oriental Society of Paris, the Academy of Sciences and Letters at Palermo, the Antiquarian Society at Athens, and the Royal Northern Antiquarian Society at Copenhagen; and Titular Member of the French Society of Universal Statistics.

For many years he maintained a copious correspondence, on matters of jurisprudence, science, and learning, with distinguished names at home and abroad: especially with Mr. Du Ponceau, at Philadelphia,—with William von Humboldt, at Berlin,—with Mittermaier, the jurist, at Heidelberg,—with Dr. Prichard, author of the Physical History of Mankind, at Bristol,—and with Lepsius, the hierologist, who wrote to him from the foot of the Pyramids, in Egypt.

The death of one thus variously connected is no common sorrow. Beyond the immediate circle of family and friends, he will be mourned by the bar, among whom his daily life was passed,—by the municipality of Boston, whose legal adviser he was,—by clients, who depended upon his counsels,—by good citizens, who were charmed by the abounding virtues of his private life,—by his country, who will cherish his name more than gold or silver,—by the distant islands of the Pacific, who will bless his labors in the words they read,—finally, by the company of jurists and scholars throughout the world. His fame and his works will be fitly commemorated, on formal occasions, hereafter. Meanwhile, one who knew him at the bar and in private life, and who loves his memory, lays this early tribute upon his grave.