well for me to hear and to ponder. But his earthly career is closed. He was born at Albany, in 1782, in a house still standing. His mother was then with her father, who had an important command in the northern department of the army of the Revolution, and was residing in Albany.

In contemplating this sad bereavement, I cannot forget that in the six brief years I have been a member of the court of which he was the honored Chief-Justice at the time of his death, others of his brethren have also fallen. First, Lewis H. Sandford, in the prime of life, and with great capacities and qualifications, and a most able and efficient Judge, was suddenly removed from this field of labor by the great destroyer. Next, and after a brief interval of time, Elijah F. Paine was called to his last account. By his death the court was deprived of an upright and able Judge. He had suffered so much from previous ill health, that he was not able to accomplish as marked results as his abilities, with good health, would have enabled him to produce. Next, and but a little over a year since, Thomas J. Oakley, then the Chief-Justice of this court, also died—when he died, a truly great man ceased to live. He had been a Judge of this court from the time of its organization. He bore himself heroically through all the vicissitudes and disasters of life. His experience was worth more than many volumes of matter printed to instruct us and light up the pathway of judicial and professional investigation and duty. It was a pleasure to contemplate him, when listening to the presentation of a voluminous and complex case, and to witness the facility with which he would discard immaterial matters, and reach the actual and turning points of the controversy. He always read and examined his cases with care, and was ready to discuss them at as early a day as any of his brethren associated with him in hearing the argument. It was unnecessary for him to read to be certain of elementary law, or to apply it with extraordinary accuracy. In considering, with a view to their decision, questions which had been argued before a full bench, when they were questions of moment, and there was a conflict of views, it was at times exceedingly interesting to listen to the discussion of them between himself and his distinguished associate, who has so soon followed him to the grave. The argumentation of the one was as terse and pointed as that of the other was copious and powerful. Each could assign as good reasons for the positions he took, and defend them with as much ability as any living Judge of our day. Each of them was a great aid to the other, and the experience and learning which the two combined would give strength and character to any court. But they, and Sandford, and Paine, all of whom were members of the Superior Court on the 1st of January, 1852, will be seen or heard no more in the land of the living.

In recurring to this succession of sad events, and yielding to the emotions with which the most recent of them all oppresses us, it is gratifying to know that the last years of our distinguished brother were years of happiness to him and to his family, and of usefulness to the public as well as to the profession, and of signal service to the court of which he was a member. His intellect was clear, active, and vigorous to the last. He found pleasure in performing the duties of the office, to which he had been twice elected by the suffrages of the people, and to the gratification of the bar. I do not believe that partiality or prejudice, or that fear or favor, or the apprehension of any consequences personal to himself, ever exercised the slightest influence over his deliberations, or for one moment clouded his views or warped his judgment. He was truly a great man, an eminent jurist, an upright and fearless Judge. If the average of the profession can and will, in all periods of time, equal his ability and learning at the bar, and fairly approximate to his stern rectitude in morals and conduct, and if the average of our Judges on the bench will bring to it the industry, the wisdom and the fearlessness which illustrated his brief judicial career, the legal profession will suffer no decline, the bench will dispense justice and command undiminished confidence and respect, and no one need despair of the republic.

Hon. BENJAMIN F. BUTLER then offered the following resolutions:

Resolved, That in the death of the Hon. JOHN DUER, Chief-Justice of the Superior Court of the city of New York, the legal profession and the public at large are called to mourn the loss of a Judge whose genius and learning made him an ornament to the bench upon which, with so much dignity, he presided; and whose uprightness, love of truth, and manly independence justly entitle him to the esteem and reverence of our whole community.

Resolved, That while we thus express our sense of the high judicial abilities of our departed brother, and of the fidelity with which he discharged his duties on the bench, a just appreciation of his character and services prompts us to a special commemoration of the eloquence, learning, and brilliant talents which distinguished him as an advocate; the scrupulous care with which, when at the bar, he sought to guard and promote the dignity and usefulness of his profession; his efficient and honorable labors to improve the legislation and jurisprudence of our state, as one of the revisers of its Statute laws; his writings on an important branch of legal science, and other productions of his pen, particularly his beau tiful tribute to the memory of the great commentator on American law;

his genial spirit and scholarly attainments; his philanthropy and patriotism; and, above all, the unaffected Christian graces which illustrated and adorned his character and life.

Resolved, That as a mark of respect for the deceased, and of our deep sense of the loss which the public and the profession have sustained, the members of the bar now present will attend his funeral in a body.

Resolved, That a copy of the foregoing resolutions, attested by the secretaries of this meeting, be transmitted by them to the family of Judge DUER, as an expression of our sympathy and condolence.

Resolved, That these proceedings be published under the direction of the secretaries, and that an attested copy be furnished by them to his honor, Justice Bosworth, to be by him laid before the Superior Court, at its next General Term, with the request of this meeting that the same be recorded in the minutes of the court.

Mr. BUTLER, in a voice of deep emotion, then spoke as follows:

In speaking, Mr. President, to the resolutions which have been read, I shall endeavor to keep within the limits proper to the occasion. To do this I must omit any attempt to sketch the biography of Judge Duer, and must confine myself to some personal reminiscences connected with his career and labors as a lawyer, and to such incidental remarks as they may suggest.

My earliest recollections of the friend and brother whose loss we now deplore, carry me back something more than forty years. He was then a member of the Orange county bar, less than five and thirty years of age, but already distinguished, not only at home, but in the highest courts, by his extensive learning, his logical powers, and his fervid eloquence. I was then a law student at Albany, where he frequently appeared as an advocate, and where I had thus an opportunity of witnessing his professional efforts.

I heard him in 1816, in Jackson v. De Lancey, one of the first causes argued by him in the court for the correction of errors. The case was important, and of special interest to him, for his clients were his own family, seeking to recover a large and valuable tract of land, once the property of his maternal grandfather, William Alexander, the Lord Sterling of the revolutionary army. Though unsuccessful in the claim, his argument confirmed and increased his previous reputation. I may

remark in passing, that his associate was John V. Henry, of Albany; the opposing counsel were Thomas J. Oakley, then of Poughkeepsie, and Martin Van Buren, then attorney-general of the state. What a bar did our state then possess, which, without drawing from this metropolis, could furnish, in the interior, four such men!

In 1821, he was a member of the convention which formed the constitution of that year. In this body, also, he was distinguished by his ability and eloquence.

In 1824, I was associated with him as his junior, in a case of interest, at the Columbia circuit, then held by his honor Judge BETTS; and then began my personal intimacy with him. In November of that year, most unexpectedly to each of us, we were appointed, with Erastus Root, then lieutenant-governor, to revise the statute laws of the state. A plan for a new and more scientific revision of the statutes, first suggested by Mr. DUER, was in the succeeding winter submitted to the legislature, and a new act passed for executing the work in accordance therewith, and committing it to Mr. DUER, the late HENRY WHEATON, and myself.

The late JOHN C. SPENCER afterwards came into the commission, in the place of Mr. WHEATON, and gave to it the great aid of his accurate learning and unparalleled industry. This is not the time or the place to enter into details concerning this work, or to speak at large of its influence on the legislation or jurisprudence of the state. But it is the time and place to say-and he who addresses you is, by a sad necessity, the only person who can now say it-that for any benefits derived from this work the people of this state are more largely indebted to JOHN DUER than to any other person. Others prepared larger portions of the text, and performed more of the severe labor which belonged to the work; but he was the head, the soul, the master-spirit, of the commission. And though, after having spent the greater part of two successive years at Albany in this service, he was compelled, by the duties of the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, (to which, in 1827, he was appointed by President ADAMS,) and by other imperative considerations, to withdraw himself, for the most part, from any further connection with the work, yet he continued to his associates his wise counsels, and occasionally his efficient and valuable aid. During the next twenty years, indeed until his accession to the bench, the intercourse between Judge DUER and myself, in successive re-publications of the statutes, and in professional avocations, was frequent, sometimes long protracted, and always of the most friendly character.

In the resolutions which have been offered, it was the design of the

committee-it was my design, for to me was intrusted the task of drawing them to speak of our lamented friend and brother, not in the language of extraordinary eulogy, but in that of sober and discriminating truth.

In the same spirit, allow me to amplify a little some of the points touched in the resolutions.

Mr. DUER's early judicial studies, like those of most of our American lawyers, were desultory and imperfect; indeed, during his clerkship, I have reason to believe, that he applied himself to the Latin classics and to general studies, rather than to the science of the law. But from the time of his admission to the bar, he must have studied, with great diligence, the law of real property, and other leading titles; and after he became a resident of this city, he devoted himself, with characteristic ardor, to the law of insurance and other branches of commercial law. One of the products of these studies-alas, that we are obliged to speak of it as unfinished-is found in the libraries of Europe as well as of our own country, in the two volumes of his Law and Practice of Marine Insurance. The just and beautiful tribute paid by you, sir, to our departed friend, makes it not only needless, but scarcely proper, that I should say a word as to his qualifications or services as a Judge; and I shall leave to those who are to follow me to speak at large of his abilities as an advocate and his genius as an orator. I will only say, that to great quickness and fertility of intellect, he united a vast amount of acquired knowledge, not merely in the learning of his profession, but in kindred sciences and in general literature. His taste had been formed by a diligent study of the Roman classics, and by the perusal of the best authors in our tongue, from Hooker and Bacon to his own time. He was passionately fond of poetry in early life he sometimes courted the muses; and in his more elaborate speeches at the bar, in his occasional addresses which have appeared in print, and in many of his judicial opinions, he often exhibits an inspiration and a harmony, the natural fruit of these tastes and studies. A man of true genius himself, he had a true and sympathetic appreciation of the genius and merits of others, and was singularly free from any traits of envy, jealousy, and selfishness. Those who have heard him speak of the great men, who, forty years ago, adorned this bar, will at once recognize this feature of his character; and those who never enjoyed this pleasure, have but to read on the monument of Thomas Addis Emmett, his glowing eulogy of that illustrious orator, expressed in the tongue of Cicero, and breathing his very spirit, to convince them of the truth of my

assertion.

In view of the solemn circumstances under which we are now assem