down upon the desk with a force that made the schoolroom ring, and inspired the lawless with a very wholesome respect for his authority. The fact that from that day to this his office has always been a kind of Mecca, to which his old pupils, whether dwellers in "Araby the Blest" or in the sandy wastes of life, have made pious pilgrimages, shows how deeply he was loved and how highly he was honored as a teacher.

Immediately after graduation Mr. Paine was appointed a Tutor of Waterville College, and discharged the duties of that office for a year. He then began the study of law in the office of his uncle, the late Samuel S. Warren, of China, Maine, and continued the study in the office of William Clark, a noted lawyer in Hallowell, Maine, and, for a year, in the Law School of Harvard University, where he was the classmate of Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips and B.F. Thomas. In the autumn of 1834, he was admitted to the bar of Kennebec County, Maine. Beginning his professional career at Hallowell, he prosecuted it there with signal success till the summer of 1854, having for twenty years a practice not surpassed by that of any member of the Maine bar. During the sessions of 1836, 1837, and again in that of 1853, he represented the citizens of Hallowell in the lower house of the State Legislature. He was also for five years Attorney for Kennebec County. During his stay in Maine, he was repeatedly offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of that State; but, having an unconquerable aversion to office of every kind, civil or political, he declined to accept the honor pressed upon him. In 1853 he was offered by his political friends, then the dominant party in the Legislature, a seat in the United States Senate; but he refused to be nominated. In the summer of 1854, in accordance with a long cherished resolve, which he had been prevented from executing before by a promise to his father that he would not leave Maine during that parent's lifetime, he removed to Cambridge, Mass., and opened a law-office in Boston. Here he at once entered upon a large and lucrative practice, both in the State and Federal courts, which kept steadily increasing for over twenty years, till declining health and partial deafness compelled him to withdraw from the courts of justice, and confine himself to office business. During this period, his opinion on abstruse and knotty points of law was often solicited by eminent counsel living outside of Massachusetts, and he sent written opinions to attorneys in nine different states. As Referee and Master in Chancery, he was called upon to arbitrate in a great number of difficult and complicated cases, involving the ownership and disposition of large amounts of property. His decisions in these vexed cases, which often involved the unravelling of tangled webs of testimony, and the consideration of the nicest and most delicate questions of law, were luminous and masterly, and so impartial withal, that the litigants must have often been convinced of their justness, if not contented,—etaim contra quos statuit, aequos placatosque dimisit.

In 1863 and 1864 Mr. Paine was nominated, without his consent, by the Democratic party of Massachusetts, a candidate for the office of Governor. With much reluctance he accepted the nomination, but, as he expected, and doubtless to his joy, failed of an election. In 1867, on the resignation of Chief Justice Bigelow, the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts was offered by Governor Bullock to Mr. Paine, who, not wishing to give up his large and profitable practice at the bar, declined to accept. This decision, though a natural one, is much to be regretted by the citizens of this state. Coming from an eminently judicial mind, his decisions, had he sat on the bench, would have been models of close, cogent reasoning, clearness, and brevity, worthy of the best days of the Massachusetts judiciary.

Shortly after his removal to this State Mr. Paine was associated with Rufus Choate and F.O.J. Smith in the defence of Judge Woodbury Davis, of Portland, Maine, who had been impeached by the Legislature of that State for misconduct in his judicial office. In an editorial article upon the trial, which appeared after its termination, in the Kennebec Journal, published at Augusta, the Hon. James G. Blaine, the writer, declared epigrammatically that, in the defence of Judge Chase, "Paine furnished the logic, Choate the rhetoric, and Smith the slang."

From 1872 to 1883 Mr. Paine was Lecturer on the Law of Real Property at the Law School of the Boston University, an office whose duties he performed with great credit to himself, and profit to those whom he addressed. So thoroughly was he master of his subject, difficult and intricate as it confessedly is, that in not a single instance, except during the lectures of the last year, did he take a note or scrap of memoranda into the class room.

While he has always been a close and devoted student of the law, Mr. Paine has yet found time for general reading, and has hung for many an hour over the pages of the English classics with keen delight. For Homer and Virgil he still retains the relish of his early days, and, in the intervals of professional toil, has often slaked his thirst for the waters of Helicon in long and copious draughts. How well he appreciated the advantages of an acquaintance with literature, he showed early in a suggestive and instructive lecture on "Reading," which we heard him deliver before the Lyceum at Hallowell more than forty years ago. With his lamented friend Judge B.F. Thomas, he believes that a man cannot be a great lawyer who is nothing else,—that exclusive devotion to the study and practice of the law tends to acumen rather than to breadth, to subtlety rather than to strength. "The air is thin among the apices of the law, as on the granite needles of the Alps. Men must find refreshment and strength in the quiet valleys at their feet."

With his brethren of the bar Mr. Paine has always held the friendliest relations, and he has enjoyed their highest esteem. To none, even the humblest of his fellow advocates, has he ever manifested any of the haughtiness of a Pinkney, or any of that ruggedness and asperity which gained for the morose and sullen Thurlow the nickname of the tiger. Amid the fiercest janglings and hottest contentions of the bar, he has never forgotten that courtesy which should mark the collision, not less than the friendly intercourse, of cultivated and polished minds. His victories, won easily by argumentative ability, tact, and intellectual keenness, unaided by passion, have strikingly contrasted with the costly victories of advocates less self-restrained. Though naturally witty and quick at retort, he has never used the weapon in a way to wound the feelings of an adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness, or involve him in self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle, and straightforward, though full and careful examination, winning the good-will of the witness, and inspiring confidence in the questioner, Mr. Paine has been far more successful in extracting the truth, even from reluctant lips, than the most artful legal bully. He knows that the manoeuvres and devices which are best adapted to confuse an honest witness, are just what the dishonest one is best prepared for. It was not for all the blustering violence of the tempest, that the traveler would lay aside his cloak. The result was brought about by the mild and genial warmth of the sun.

Few advocates have had more success with juries than the subject of this sketch. The secret of this success has been, not more the admirable lucidity and cogency