I represent that portion of the Junior Bar which may be called the "great unemployed." I speak for those unfortunates to whom, thus far, the law has seemed less of a practice than of a profession. I am well aware, sir, that in the early days of our seniors at the bar things were quite different. I am credibly informed that in their time the client did the waiting, not the lawyer. When they had crammed into two years the work of seven,—when they had skimmed through such text-books as chance and their inclinations had suggested,-when they had satisfied the inquiring minds of the board of examiners as to the action of assumpsit or the estate in fee-simple, they doubtless found an impatient turba clientium awaiting their coming from the examination room, burning to seek their counsel and cram their pockets with glittering fees. The times are changed; clients are changed, and we have fallen on degenerate days. We sit long years in solitude. Like Mariana, in the moated grange, ‘He cometh not, she said.'”

"The years are fleeting; and on us, in our turn, must fall the responsibilities and trusts of life. Then when time shall have made us stronger, and suffering more patient, if we have been earnest in endeavor, firm in purpose, honest in emulation, true to our exemplars and ourselves, the bar that has so often found them in the generations of yesterday and to-day may not search hopelessly among her servants of to-morrow for the skill, the learning, the eloquence, the strict integrity, the calm devotion to his threefold duty which make the perfect lawyer; nor our Republic seek in vain among her younger children for that broad and generous statesmanship which embraces all humanity, is firm, benevolent, consistent, which, lifted above the passions of the hour, acts not for to-day but for all time,-tried though it may be by both extremes of fortune, still stands four-square to all the winds that blow.

“I am but one in this company, and stand on the threshold of professional life. I am altogether unworthy to speak for my brethren of the younger bar, and yet, to-night, I feel their hearts beating with my heart, and hear their voices ring in mine, bidding me tell you that we seek no higher glory and cherish no loftier ambition than to tread worthily in the footsteps of our fathers, and at the end of lives of usefulness, and it may be of honor, to hand down unspotted and unstained the institutions they committed to our care into the keeping of their children's children's sons.”

The commencement of his career in Philadelphia was also the commencement of the epoch of the centennial celebrations of our country's birth; and here again, in all the work of preparation for those celebrations he bore a principal part. "No one more distinguished himself as a speaker on those occasions than he." Having done good service in Pennsyl vania, he was sent on to Boston to represent Philadelphia at the celebrated "Boston tea party," Dec. 16, 1873; and his speech at that time added one more to the long list of brilliant addresses which have made Faneuil Hall so famous. But we have not space to enumerate the different subjects of public interest which received his hearty support. His native city and State put him forward on every important occasion, and he could always be counted on for efficient help in every worthy cause. He made speeches before all kinds of societies-political, philosophical, social, and literary. He was a member of the famous Fifth Avenue Conference, May 16, 1876; a delegate to the Cincinnati Convention, June, 1876; and, in the Presidential campaign of the same year, "went on the stump." A prominent member of the Cincinnati Convention said that "no one Eastern man did more at the West to insure Mr. Hayes' election to the Presidency than Henry Armitt Brown."

Such had been the laborious and useful life of a young man of thirty-three, when in response to an invitation to deliver an oration on the centennial anniversary of the occupation of Valley Forge by the American Army, under Washington, he made the attempt when his physical system was completely run down by hard work. The address was one of his most brilliant efforts, and although a severe cold almost prevented him from speaking, he held the interest of the vast crowd for two hours without flagging, and without the slightest manifestation of weariness. "The last words were delivered with immense effect, and in perfect silence, when he turned, took two or three steps back to his chair, dropped into it, and almost fainted. Cheer on cheer rang out, and a large number rushed forward to shake hands with him; but the first person who reached him noticed his condition, and called out: 'Boys, the man is used up, we must wait till he is better, to shake hands with him,' and the crowd fell back." But the tension of the bow had been too great and too long continued. He was seized with typhoid fever, and after a long struggle of fiftyeight days with the disease, on the 21st day of August, 1878, he was at rest.

No young man of his years has ever perhaps had a more brilliant public career in this country than he. Harry Armitt Brown was a born orator, and exercised an extraordinary influence over all who listened to him. Professor Hoppin says: "With the exception of Patrick Henry, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, and a few of our greatest orators, no speaker in the land ever had moments of completer triumph than he over the minds and feelings of his hearers-as at Carpenters' Hall, Valley Forge, and the occasion when he mastered rude and hostile assemblies by the spell of his eloquence."

We cannot forbear quoting an account of a remarkable dream, which is interesting in a psychological point of view.

"REV. AND DEAR SIR,-After many delays I send you a short account of the dream which excited your interest last summer.

"In the fall of 1865, I think it was in the month of November, while I was studying law in the city of New York, I retired to my room about midnight of a cold blustering evening. I remember distinctly hearing the clock strike twelve as I lay in bed watching the smouldering fire until drowsiness crept upon me and I slept. I had hardly lost consciousness when I seemed to hear loud and confused noises, and felt a choking sensation at my throat as if it were grasped by a strong hand. I awoke (as it seemed), and found myself lying on my back on the cobble-stones of a narrow street, writhing in the grip of a low-browed, thick-set man, with unkempt hair and grizzled beard,' who, with one hand at my throat and holding my wrist with the other, threw his weight upon me and held me down.

"From the first I knew that his desire was to kill me, and my struggles were for life. I recall distinctly the sense of horror at first and then that of furious determination which took possession of me.

"I did not make a sound, but with a sudden effort threw him half off me, clutched him frantically by the hair, and in my agony bit furiously at his throat. Over and over we rolled upon the stones. My strength began to give way before the fury of my struggles, I saw that my antagonist felt it and smiled a ghastly smile of triumph.

"Presently I saw him reach forth his hand and grasp a bright hatchet. Even in this extremity I noticed that the hatchet was new and apparently unused, with glittering head and white polhed handle. I made one more tremendous fight for life; for a

second I held my enemy powerless, and saw with such a thrill of delight as I cannot forget the horror-stricken faces of friends, within a rod of us, rushing to my rescue. As the foremost of

them sprang upon the back of my antagonist he wrenched his wrist away from me. I saw the hatchet flash above my head, and felt instantly a dull blow on the forehead.

"I fell back on the ground, a numbness spread from my head over my body, a warm liquid flowed down upon my face and into my mouth, and I remember the taste was of blood, and my 'limbs were loosed.'

"Then I thought I was suspended in the air a few feet above my body. I could see myself as if in a glass, lying on the back, the hatchet sticking in the head, and the ghastliness of death gradually spreading over the face. I noticed especially that the wound made by the hatchet was in the centre of the forehead, at right angles to and divided equally by the line of the hair. I heard the weeping of friends, at first loud, then growing fainter, fading away into silence. A delightful sensation of sweet repose without a feeling of fatigue-precisely like that which I experienced years ago at Cape May, when beginning to drown-crept over me. I heard exquisite music; the air was full of rare perfumes; I sank upon a bed of downy softness-when, with a start, I awoke. The fire still smouldered in the grate; my watch told me I had not been more than half an hour asleep.

"Early the next morning I joined an intimate friend, with whom I spent much of my time, to accompany him, as was my daily custom, to the Law School. We talked for a moment of various topics, when suddenly he interrupted me with the remark that he had dreamed strangely of me the night before.

“Tell me,' I asked; 'what was it?'

"I fell asleep,' he said, 'about twelve, and immediately dreamed that I was passing through a narrow street, when I heard noises and cries of murder. Hurrying in the direction of the noise, I saw you lying on your back fighting with a rough laboring man, who held you down. I rushed forward, but as I reached you he struck you on the head with a hatchet, and killed you instantly. Many of our friends were there, and we cried bitterly. In a moment I awoke, and so vivid had been my dream that my cheeks were wet with tears.'

"What sort of man was he?" I asked.

"A thick-set man, in a flannel shirt and rough trousers: his

hair was uncombed, and his beard was grizzly and of a few days' growth.'

"Within a week I was in Burlington, New Jersey. I called at a friend's house.

666

"My husband,' said his wife to me, 'had such a horrid dream about you the other night. He dreamed that a man killed you in a street fight. He ran to help you, but before he reached the spot your enemy had killed you with a great club.'

“Oh, no,' cried the husband across the room; 'he killed you with a hatchet.'

"These are the circumstances as I recall them. I remembered the remark of old Artaphernes, that dreams are often the result of a train of thought started by conversation or reading, or the incidents of the working time, but I could recall nothing, nor could either of my friends cite any circumstance that ever they had read, had ever heard by tale or history,' in which they could trace the origin of this remarkable dream.

"I am, dear sir, very truly yours,

"HENRY ARMITT BROWN.

"P.S.--I may add that these friends of mine were personally unknown to each other.

"The first one, in New York, dreamed that he was the foremost who reached the scene, the other that he was one of the number who followed; both of which points coincided with my own dream."

LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.*-No one who has ever laughed or wept over the pages of Charles Dickens can fail to be interested in these "letters," which appear in two volumes, and cover over a thousand pages. There is the same charm of style, clearness of expression, and idiomatic English, which mark his published works; and the information given, and the opinions expressed, with not infrequent touches of humor or pathos, keep up the interest throughout. The one characteristic of these letters which we will emphasize-among the many upon which we might dwell -is their friendly tone. In the haste of life, so common in this country, do not our American literary men fail to exhibit that warm interest in their friends which would make their own lives

* The Letters of Charles Dickens: Edited by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter. In two volumes. Charles Scribner's Sons: New York. 12mo. pp. 544, 536. For sale by E. P. Judd, New Haven.