Aided by a natural shrewdness and sense, he got along pretty
well. He had a gift of rather bombastic speech. His exuberant
eloquence was of a style more resembling that prevalent in
some other parts of the country than the more sober and severe
fashion of New England. Just before he came to the Bench
he was counsel in a real estate case in Springfield where
Mr. Chapman, afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
was on the other side. The evidence of recent occupation
and the monuments tended in favor of Chapman's client. But
it turned out that the one side had got a title under the
original grant of the town of Blandford, and the other under
the original grant of an adjoining town, and that the town
line had been maintained from the beginning where Bishop claimed
the true line to be. When he came to that part of the case,
he rose mightily in his stirrups. Turning upon Chapman, who
was a quiet, mild-mannered old gentleman, he said: "The gentleman's
eyes may twinkle like Castor and Pollux, twin stars; but he
can't wink out of sight that town line of Blandford.
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