His love of knowledge seemed to increase with his years, and he devoted himself to its acquisition with a persistent enthusiasm which is rarely found at that period of life. But a man of such capacity for business, of such tried integrity, and of so wide a legal reputation, could not be hid. The great Central Rail Road of Illinois wanted a man to look after its interests and to give direction to its affairs, and Judge Lane was elected Counsel and Resident Director of that Corporation, in Nov., 1855. He removed to Chicago, and continued in this office, until March 16, 1859. He was now in his 66th year, of sound health, his mental faculties unimpaired, and his thirst for knowledge unabated. His mind was richly stored with the knowledge which books can give, but he had never permitted himself to enjoy the luxury of foreign travel, and to gather knowledge from beyond the ocean by personal observation. He resolved on a visit to Europe. He resigned his office in the Illinois Central Rail Road, and embarked at Boston for Liverpool in the steamer Arabia, March 23, 1859. An extract from his Journal written on the day of his departure, setting forth the objects and motives of this visit, will furnish an interesting illustration of his character. My life has been spent chiefly in the service of others. From 21 to 31, while exercising the profession of Law, my object was to gain a living. Emigrating at the age of 23 was the first break in a student's monotony. The two years I spent in Elyria were very profitable in giving me access to external nature, and in forcing upon me the power of observation. From my 31st year until my 52d year I was upon the Bench. It was a new field, inducing new studies, or rather old studies from a new stand point. From my 52d year until this my 65th year, I have been a servant of Rail Road Corporations. Last week on Wednesday evening I closed my engagement with the Illinois Central Rail Road, and now I am my own master. My first object is to separate myself entirely from my former business, and feel myself aloof from all such engagements. My next is to make an entire change in the manner of my life-to cut off the habitual current of my thoughts, and to acquire new courses of thinking and living. My third is to see new forms of life, manners, natural objects and works of antiquity, and to compare them by such as I now know. I know I cannot see every thing. I shall try to pass without regret such as I cannot witness. I do not intend to keep an account of all I can see, but shall leave such descriptions for the Guide Book. My purpose here is to set down my own thoughts and feelings subjectively, designing it to be a commentary upon other books of travel and not a book of travels itself." From this extract it will be seen that his object was not mere relaxation from toil, nor the gratification of an idle, aimless curiosity, but to change the course of his life, and to have access to new sources of knowledge by personal observation. Improvement, intellectual acquisition, adding to his mental stores, was the object of this step. To carry into effect this purpose would involve great industry, selfcontrol and perseverance. To make the tour of Europe as many do, with no definite object but to break the monotony of professional toil, or to recover health, or from the vain desire of that prestige which foreign travel confers-to do this in the prime of life, before the men tal habits have become fixed and rigid by age, involves no great mental exertion, and in fact is rather a pastime than a labor. But the tour proposed by Judge Lane, demanded hard labor; and when it is. remembered that this was undertaken by a man within five years of his three score and ten, it furnishes a striking illustration of the strength of his ruling passion, the love of knowledge. He arrived at Liverpool on the 14th of April. From thence, in two or three days he proceeded to London. This city he made his chief residence during the four weeks he passed in England. His time was fully employed in visiting the places and objects which have become world renowned in this great metropolis of our father-land. He made excursions into the country around, visiting Cathedrals, Churches, Abbeys, and whatever else could awaken interest in a mind devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. No day was willingly unemployed. If prevented from sight seeing by rain, or by illness, as he sometimes was, he laments it as an unprofitable day. From London he went to Paris. In his journal he records an incident which illustrates the thoroughness with which he meant to do the work of exploration in this celebrated French capital. Although he could read the French language in books with nearly as much facility as his own, yet he found he could not pronounce it well in conversation. He therefore put himself immediately under a native instructor, and for three or four weeks spent an hour each day in reciting his lessons, with all the punctuality of a school-boy. After spending about seven weeks in France he proceeded to Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, devoting only about a week to these old Dutch cities. On the 8th of July he reached Berlin, the capital of Prussia; visited its University and its great library of 600,000 volumes, its museum, containing a large collection of busts and pictures, and the remains of the 1st and 2d Frederick, and heard the celebrated Michelet lecture on Aristotle. From Berlin he went to Prague, 66 a half Asiatic city," as he terms it, of Bohemia, in Austria, and celebrated in history as the birthplace of Jerome, the martyr, and the residence of Wallenstein, the Austrian General. Returning to Dresden he visited Leipsic, which he could not explore satisfactorily on account of the heat of the weather, and went to Nuremburg, in Bavaria. His impressions of this place are thus expressed in his journal of July 23d: "This is Nuremburg! a place I have longed to see, and which fully answers expectations. To describe it is beyond my power, but Murray is eloquent and I leave the task to him. My notes must relate to my experiences only, and they are of such a character that not one-tenth of the feelings which beset me are capable of expression. I feel in the midst of the Middle Ages. All around me seems to have been built then, or the restorations are so complete as admits no allusion to the present, and even examples of the medieval costumes are to-day seen in the streets." Spending only two days here, he next went to Frankfort, which he terms a town of moneyed aristocrats, Jews, bankers. Almost the only object of interest to him in this well built town was the house in which was born the great German poet, Goethe. Taking a steamer at Mayence, he sailed down the Rhine to Cologne, and back again the next day to Mayence. Of this trip he says: "I VOL. XXI. 27* hope I shall ever retain my recollections of this excursion. The days were fair; the first clear, bright sunshine, the second cloudy, with occasional streaks of sun. I remained on deck the whole day, enjoying and comparing the scenery with a sail on the Hudson, the Upper Mississippi, and the St. Lawrence-all different and all of equal beauty." Soon after this he went to Switzerland, where he spent three or four weeks visiting every place of historical interest, and from thence made his way into Italy. His inquisitive mind found abundant occupation in exploring the cities of this ancient country and in examining the works of art, both ancient and modern, which he found on every hand. After a residence of nearly two months in the dominions of the Pope, he returned to England, through France, and reached London on the 10th of February, 1860. Here he remained until April 14th, when he sailed for New York, which he reached on the 27th. He was absent from home a few days more than one year and one month. This European tour was a marvel of industry and energy for a man so far advanced in life. His journal and his letters to his family show constant occupation. He carried the same habits of regularity and order and diligent improvement of time abroad that he had followed at home. Qualified as few men are for such a visit, by a large fund of various knowledge, he made this trip one of great intellectual benefit. His journal, if published, would make a volume of more solid worth and enduring interest than nine-tenths of the books of this kind which issue from the press. No man thought less of titles and names of honor than Judge Lane, since they are often conferred by favoritism or by the hope of patronage. But sometimes they are bestowed under such circumstances that they are a valuable testimony to the worth of him who receives them. Such was the degree of LL.D., which he received from Harvard University-his Alma Mater-in 1850. Richly endowed as this institution is with the gifts of the opulent, and enjoying a high repu tation as a seat of learning, it could have no other motive for bestowing its honors on a Western man, than a desire to recognize and reward distinguished merit. In September, 1856, he was elected member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. He was also a member of the New York Historical Society, the Ohio Historical Society, and the Chicago Historical Society. After his return from Europe, having no public business, he gave himself more exclusively to his studies than ever. His library, enriched with many new books of great value procured on his foreign tour, became more than ever his home. Here he was glad to welcome his friends, who found him always ready to communicate from those abundant stores which he had collected abroad. With faculties unimpaired he passed his time enlarging, systematizing and perfecting his knowledge, mingling, but little in the affairs of the world around him. Some of his friends wished that he had been less retiring, but he had given many years exclusively to the public, and why might he not properly be allowed to spend the few years that remained of his life in comparative seclusion? Judge Lane had enjoyed almost interrupted bodily health. Once (in 1829) he suffered an attack of bilious fever, which terminated in typhoid. His robust physical constitution, his regular habits, his plain and simple style of living, contributed to preserve him from the attacks of disease to which he was so much exposed in the discharge of his professional duties in a newly settled country. He reached his three score years and ten in sound health, showing little of the infirmities of age. But about a year or two before his death he began to be troubled with a soreness on the tongue, which proved to be an incipient cancer. This was removed, and he hoped that he might be spared the affliction of dying of this dreaded disease. But it reappeared in a few months afterwards in the throat and about the neck. Its rapid progress soon made it evident that the disease was incurable; but the knowledge of this fact gave him no alarm. He had already set his house in order. For more than 30 years he had been a worthy communicant in the Episcopal Church, and had evinced to all who best knew him a true Christian spirit. He met his last sickness with calm resignation to the divine will. He felt that his work was done, and that he was going home. He was mercifully spared a long and painful sickness. He rapidly grew weak; his flesh wasted away, and he sunk quietly into the arms of death on the 12th of June, 1866. On the 14th his funeral was attended at his house, with that unostentatious simplicity which befitted the character of the man. His remains were borne to Oakland Cemetery, in Sandusky, eight lawyers acting as pall-bearers. In the intellectual character of Judge Lane, rapidity of movement was a marked feature. He early became a great reader, and the rapidity with which he would despatch a book was astonishing. Most would infer that his acquisitions must have been superficial, but further acquaintance would soon correct the impression. He had the faculty to a degree I have never seen equalled of gathering from a book all that was valuable in an incredibly short time. He had learned the art of seizing upon the main thoughts of a writer, no matter how much they were drawn out or encumbered with verbiage, and treasuring up these alone in the storehouse of his memory. His library was probably the largest and best selected private library in the State. It was especially rich in historical works. It contained many works in the French and German languages, and yet all the books of this library of 4000 volumes had been read by Judge Lane. It was this power of selection, combined with a retentive memory, that qualified him in no small degree for his office as Judge. He did not need to wade through page after page and section after section of the ponderous books of law in order to sustain his conclusions by precedents and authorities. He seized upon the important matters at once, and brought them to bear immediately upon the point at issue. His mind was not only rapid in its movement but clear in its conceptions. There was no haziness about his expression, as if he saw intellectual objects only in the dim twilight. He thought clearly, and his words were chosen to represent them clearly to others. His decisions on the Bench were models of clearness, conciseness and condensation of thought and style. He once delivered before a literary association in Norwalk, two lectures on the history of Greece and Rome, which exhibited these qualities in a remarkable degree. He told the story of these two nations in a style of such simplicity, clearness and compactness, in words so well chosen-he blended narra tive and comment in such nice proportion, and pointed out so clearly the influence which these nations respectively had exerted upon the destinies of the world, that every hearer felt richly repaid for the hour given to each of these performances. Another lecture delivered in Sandusky, on Italy, in 1861, exhibits similar characteristics. There are few addresses of the kind given by the most celebrated men of the present day before literary associations, which surpass or equal these in intrinsic merit. For his character as a lawyer and judge I must rely mainly on the testimony of those who were associated with him in the legal profession. As an advocate he was not what would be called eloquent. He did not possess that faculty of expanding details which ordinary lawyers have, and with which they win success at the bar. But though he could not be called an eloquent advocate, yet he always presented the case of his clients clearly and concisely. In his addresses to the Jury he made brief statements of the facts and then directed his arguments to the Court. While Prosecuting Attorney he gave entire satisfaction. An early associate* of Judge Lane, and who came to Norwalk about the same time, says: "Judge Lane had no superior on the Bench, if an equal. His legal knowledge was extensive and accurate. He was particularly versed in chancery law. His decisions were always marked by clearness and precision. His place has never been filled.” Another of his friends bears this testimony: "He was the only lawyer to whom I ever applied for information or counsel who never disappointed me. He always gave me what I wanted, or told me where to find it. He came to the Bar when the jurisprudence of Ohio was yet not settled, and brought to its cultivation great general ability, patient research, both in civil and common law, and logical power and acumen. His thorough knowledge of the civil law and his varied, extensive and accurate historical learning, qualified him to compare the systems of our several States and of other countries, and to educe the great principles which lie at the foundation of all systems of jurisprudence. Ohio will never fully understand how much she is indebted to Judge Lane and those like him, who, before and with him, wrought at the foundation of our social security and general happiness and progress as a State. His genial sphere was in legal and historical study, rather than the routine of courts and the practical and rough realities and contests of life. His erudition was more various than was commonly supposed. His mind, cultivated by the study of both the civil and the common law, enabled him to grasp and apply the great principles of equity, jurisprudence, and his preference for chancery practice, and his great appreciation of the principles applied to the law of insurance arose from these circumstances." Another of his legal friends thus speaks of him: "I first met him at his house, in Norwalk, in 1834. He was then one of the Judges of the Court in Bank. For many years afterwards I met him in different counties where he sat as Judge, and always in the winter at Columbus. He was a man of thorough education and scholarly tastes, of James Williams, Esq., Norwalk. |