the Court of Appeals of Maryland to write to ChiefJustice Taney a letter of compliment on his birthday. I have been able to procure but one of his answers, which is the following letter:

WASHINGTON, March 19, 1860.

GENTLEMEN:-I return my cordial thanks for

your very kind letter on my birthday. If I have done anything to merit in any degree the approbation you are pleased to express, I owe it to my training in the Maryland Courts and at the Maryland Bar; and no mark of approval could be more grateful to me, or more highly valued, than the one you have sent me from the highest judicial tribunal of the State.

At the same time I am sensible of the personal kindness which prompted your letter, and am grateful for it.

With the highest respect and esteem,

I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,

Hon. JOHN C. LEGRAND, Chief Justice.

Hon. J. B. ECCLESTON,

R. B. TANEY.

Hon. WILLIAM F. TUCK, Judges of the Court of Appeals.
Hon. JAMES L. BARTOL,

Chief-Justice Taney was of a singularly domestic nature. All through life he loved to talk of his early home in Calvert County, Maryland. The friends of his youth were remembered with great warmth of affection. But he lived so long that all had died and left him, except Mr. Justice Morsell, for many years one of the Judges of the Circuit Court in the District

of Columbia. Judge Morsell was older than himself. They were born in the same neighborhood, and were playmates, hunting wild game in the woods, and fishing and bathing in the streams and rivers of their native county; and were linked together by their youthful joys in an enduring friendship. They had now walked down the hill of life together, to rest forever at its base; and the country they both had seen moving in such a grand career was now torn by civil war. As a last parting token of his friendship, ChiefJustice Taney sent his friend a photograph of himself. The note accompanying it, I could not procure. The following is Judge Morsell's acknowledgment.

MY DEAR SIR: receipt of your card,

a most welcome token, indeed,

of a highly-prized, early, and long-continued friendship, formed in better days of law and order, and without change continued. Let it never be severed! With much esteem and respect, yours,

The Hon. Chief-Justice TANEY,

JAMES S. MORSELL.

Washington.

It surely is pleasant and exalting, to contemplate such friendship as this between two such aged men. I record it with unspeakable pleasure, to testify of the noble nature of Judge Morsell, whom I knew well, and to show how Chief-Justice Taney lived in the hearts of those who knew him best.

In the first chapter of this Memoir, Chief-Justice Taney speaks of Joshua Williams, one of his classmates at Dickinson College. When the Rev. Dr. Sprague was preparing his "Annals of the American Pulpit," he inquired, by letter, of Chief-Justice Taney about Mr. Williams. I find in the fourth volume of the Annals the following letter in answer:

WASHINGTON CITY, May 20, 1850.

DEAR SIR- You ask for my recollections of my class-mate Joshua Williams. More than fifty years. have passed since we graduated together at Dickinson College; but my recollection of him seems as fresh as the day after we parted, for he was not a man to be forgotten by his companions.

It is not in my power to give you any particular incidents in his life worth repeating. Indeed, in the calm and quiet life of a student faithfully performing his college duties, and preparing himself for future usefulness, there is scarcely ever any striking event worth recording in his biography. Such, according to my recollection, was Mr. Williams. He was, I believe, a few years older than myself. His standing as a scholar was equal to the highest in the class. He was studious, yet cheerful, social, and a general favorite. His life was pure and unsullied, and it is a pleasure to recall him to memory such as he then was. We all thought him eloquent; and, although he and I never met after we left college, I have often inquired after him and heard of him, and have been gratified to find that his future did not disappoint the anticipations of

those who were his companions and fellow-students. I have ever cherished for him a high and cordial regard.

With great respect and esteem,

I am, dear sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D.

R. B. TANEY.

This Mr. Williams became a distinguished minister in the Presbyterian Church, was pastor at Big Spring, Pennsylvania, and died in 1838.

After Chief-Justice Taney removed to Baltimore City, he formed an enduring friendship with Mr. David M. Perine, a gentleman of the highest character, and the most scrupulous attention to duty in one of the most important public offices in the city. The Chief Justice took pleasure in visits to his beautiful country-seat near Baltimore, to stroll under the shady trees on the banks of artificial lakes so natural as to seem to have been formed in the beginning of things.

The following letters, which I have procured from Mr. Perine, will show what manner of man the Chief Justice was in his friendships, and what tenderness of feeling he had for his suffering fellow-men:

WASHINGTON, March 16, 1862.

MY DEAR FRIEND: -To-morrow, if I live to see it, I shall, as you know, be eighty-five years old; and I cannot suffer it to close without expressing my grati

tude to the Giver of all good, that I have been so long spared to those I love, and that age has not found me. without true and tried friends to comfort and solace it. And among the foremost in that number, I need not say how sensible I am of your constant and unwearied friendship for now nearly forty years, and never forget the proofs you have given of it in the darkest and most sorrowful scenes of my long life.

I wish I could have seen my eighty-sixth year begin with brighter hopes. The one I have just passed has been a sad one. And there is, I doubt not, a million of persons- men, women, and children — in this now distracted country, who, at my last birthday, were full of bright hopes, and cheerful homes, who are now mourning over ruined fortunes, or weeping for husbands or sons or brothers who have fallen in battle or died of the diseases of a camp life.

How sad it is to look upon this picture, and see how suddenly it has come upon the country! Will the year in which I am about to enter be better? I fear not.....

God's will be done; and we must meet it with the faith of Christians and the firmness and courage of manhood.

May you and yours pass through it safely and happily is the sincere prayer of me and mine, who all join me in affectionate remembrances.

Ever your friend,

D. M. PERINE, ESQ., Baltimore.

R. B. TANEY.

As the darkness grew thicker over our country torn by civil war, the letters of the Chief Justice to his