[171] children are as healthy and happy as they appeared when I had the pleasure of seeing them. Give my best regards to Grosch,1 and tell him that I am his debtor for a long and most interesting letter, and that I shall write him very soon. You have a young American—Shaw—at Heidelberg. How does he do? Believe me ever, my dear friend, most truly and sincerely yours, P. S. Your article on criminal legislation in Germany was published in the October number of the ‘American Jurist.’ It has been read with great satisfaction. When shall we have the continuation?
To Dr. Francis Lieber, Columbia, S. C.
Boston, Dec. 10, 1840.Don't, dear Lieber, be offended by my long silence. I am in the midst of my profession; for the last two days have been all the time in court; and for the last two months, besides attending to my professional business, printing the third volume of my Reports. . . . Behold me now, dear Lieber, in the tug and sweat of my profession, with rays of sunlight streaming from across the sea, and with the greater source of pleasure in my thoughts of what I have seen and enjoyed. Each steamer brings me some testimony of kindness or courtesy, and so I am not allowed to forget the scenes I have left behind. Would that I were in your Deutschland! . . . Sitting in this small office is a change from the scenes of the last three years. I have been in court all day, then read law, and now in my office, late in the evening, scrawl you these unsatisfactory lines. . . . Have you read Hallam's ‘History of Literature’? Is it not the great book of the age? I have been charmed by its learning, sagacity, and honesty. How careful Hallam is in the expression of his opinions. His style of criticism is a model of candor, impartiality, and carefulness. . . . I recently received a very kind letter from Mittermaier, who complained of me for my long silence. Indeed, I had not written him since my return. Lord Denman wrote me a noble letter, so kind to me and so cheering for the cause of American law in England. He is the Chief-Justice, and writes me that an opinion of Judge Story, where he had overruled a judgment of the Queen's Bench, ‘will neutralize the opinion of the latter court, and henceforth the point considered will be regarded as an open question.’2 The stream is then turned back; and we who, for long years, have received it from England, are about to send the current upon the fountain-head. The judge was highly gratified; and well he might be, for it is the indication of
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1 Dr. Lambert Grosch, a law pupil of Professor Mittermaier, and a magistrate, who died in 1875.
2 See Sumner's reference to Lord Denman's letter, Works, Vol. I. p. 269; ‘Life and Letters of Story,’ Vol. II. p. 379.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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