Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/297

 over-sanguine expectations. An indefatigable writer of textbooks, he possessed that unusual legal accomplishment—a charming literary style. He clothed his propositions in such a pleasing form that, like sugar-coated pills of legal lore, they were swallowed and assimilated with the minimum of effort and the maximum of enjoyment. His works were even more popular than Story’s. It is said that his “Contracts” achieved the largest sale of any law book ever published. Seven other treatises stand to his credit, on one of which alone he is reported to have netted a profit of $40,000. His lectures, for clearness, scope, and literary excellence, have often been compared to those of Blackstone. He delighted in laying down broad views of the subject, sometimes carrying his generalizations to an extreme.

Parker, on the other hand, though deeply respected for his thoroughness, was precise, minute, and involved to the point of obscurity. If a single step of his logic was lost by the listener, farewell to all hope of following to the conclusion! His law on any given question was sound, absolutely and exasperatingly sound; but he could no more give a comprehensive view of a whole topic than an oyster, busy in perfecting its single pearl, can range over the ocean floor. In private life, however, the Chief Justice was always interesting and often witty. It is worth while to quote his account of his