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ancient or modern Mexico, or in Peru, or Iceland, and the mental transition from Rome and Israel to any suggested place on the face of the earth while moderate, would be nat ural, graceful and easy. It was my fortune, in the few remaining years after his retirement from active work in the profession, to see much of him. To him all subjects and all things were apropos. I do not remember ever introducing a topic of conversation that he did not at once take up familiarly the subject to which it related and add luster to what had been written or said by others. Perhaps it was my aim to draw him out. To get the richness of his learning and the fullness of his reminiscent power, it was necessary after introducing a subject, to listen well, and let him pull on" in his own way, and as he recalled one event, that would suggest another, and before leav ing the subject the ground would be thor oughly and intelligently covered. I remember one evening he asked me what I had been reading. I told him I had just finished the life of Thaddeus Stevens. "Well," said he, "Thaddeus Stevens was a remarkable man." Continuing, he said, "I remember the first time I ever heard of him. It was in 1830 or '31, at the time the anti-Masonic crusade was on. My father was a Mason, and my grand father Wheeler was an anti-Mason. One morning father and I were weeding- in the garden and talking, and I heard some one say, 'Good morning, Mr. Bingham.' I looked up, and there stood Grandfather Wheeler, with his arms folded, leaning against the garden wall. After passing the compliments of the day, Grandfather Wheeler said, 'I heard a great speech yesterday over at Peacham. It was the greatest speech I ever heard in my life, and it was against the Masons.' 'Vas it?' said father. 'Who made it?' 'Young Thad. Stevens,' grandfather re plied. I remember he said 'Young Thad. Stevens,' and I recall that I won dered at the time how young a man could be and make as great a speech as grandfather said that was." From this

Judge Bingham took up the subject and ran the whole gamut of the rise and fall of the anti-Masonic party in Vermont and the na tion. He told who the candidates were, and the vote cast for the various candidates in the State and country. From this he followed the career of Thaddeus Stevens through the ante-bellum days, and through his great and signal service in Congress covered by the Civil War and the reconstruction period. At this point, in a spirit of playfulness, and to test his memory and his sublime and child like simplicity and sincerity, I said, "Judge Bingham, I believe you said at the outset that you and your father were weeding in the garden in 1830 or '31 when your grandfather came along. What were you weeding?" Ap parently unmindful of my playfulness, after a moment's reflection he replied, "We were weeding out the onion bed," and then, with out being further diverted, continued on his course in the delineation of the character, strength and politics of Thaddeus Stevens. After seeing Paris, Rufus Choate wrote, with a feeling apparently akin to sadness: "I have lost the Tuileries, and Boulevards, and Champs Elysees, and Seine, and Ver sailles, and St. Cloud, of many years of read ing and reverie — a picture incomplete in details, inaccurate in all things, yet splendid and adequate in the eye of imagination — and have gained a reality of ground and architecture, accurate, detailed, splendid, impressive — and I sigh!'' Such is the reve lation which usually comes to man upon see ing with the eye that of which he has read; but not so with Mr. Bingham. His reading and reflection had been so thorough and analytical that the world and its great centres seemed to have no sur prises for him. He knew the world's history, and in his mind's eye, though not actually, had seen all its structures. He seemed to have trod the streets of Rome, and walked beneath her imposing domes, within her galleries, her monasteries, and her churches, and to have wandered through the ruins of her ancient gardens and the dark