It seemed to me then,
as it seems to me now, that there could be no more delightful
life for a man competent to the service than one spent in
discussing with the admirable lawyers, who have always adorned
that Bench, the great questions of jurisprudence, involving
the rights of citizens, and the welfare of the Commonwealth,
and helping to settle them by authority. This ambition was
also disappointed. I have twice received the offer of a seat
on that Bench, under circumstances which rendered it out of
the question that I should accept it, although on both occasions
I longed exceedingly to do so.
Shortly after I was admitted to the Bar, good fortune brought
me at once into the largest practice in the great County of
Worcester, although that Bar had always been, before and since,
one of the ablest in the country. Judge Emory Washburn, afterward
Governor and Professor of Law at Harvard, and writer on jurisprudence,
had the largest practice in the Commonwealth, west of Boston,
and I suppose with one exception, the largest in the Commonwealth
outside of Boston. He asked me to become his partner in June,
1852.
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