The memory of the beauty and sweetness and delightful accomplishment
of Mr. Upham's daughter, Judge Gray's mother, who died in
the Judge's early youth, was still fragrant among the old
men and women who had been her companions. She is mentioned
repeatedly in the letters of that accomplished Scotch lady
--friend of Walter Scott and of so many of the English and
Scotch men of letters in her time--Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
Mrs. Grant says in a letter published in her Memoir: "My
failing memory represents my short intercourse with Mrs.
Gray as if some bright vision from a better world had come
and, vanishing, left a trail behind." In another letter she
speaks of the enchantment of Mrs. Gray's character: "Anything
so pure, so bright, so heavenly I have rarely met with."
The title, which the kindness of our countrymen has given
to Massachusetts, that of Model Commonwealth, I think has
been earned largely by the character of her Judiciary, and
never could have been acquired without it. Among the great
figures that have adorned that Bench in the past, the figure
of Justice Gray is among the most conspicuous and stately.
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