The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 | Page 3

that, in the defence of Judge Chase, "Paine
furnished the logic, Choate the rhetoric, and Smith the slang."
From 1872 to 1883 Mr. Paine was Lecturer on the Law of Real

Property at the Law School of the Boston University, an office whose
duties he performed with great credit to himself, and profit to those
whom he addressed. So thoroughly was he master of his subject,
difficult and intricate as it confessedly is, that in not a single instance,
except during the lectures of the last year, did he take a note or scrap of
memoranda into the class room.
While he has always been a close and devoted student of the law, Mr.
Paine has yet found time for general reading, and has hung for many an
hour over the pages of the English classics with keen delight. For
Homer and Virgil he still retains the relish of his early days, and, in the
intervals of professional toil, has often slaked his thirst for the waters of
Helicon in long and copious draughts. How well he appreciated the
advantages of an acquaintance with literature, he showed early in a
suggestive and instructive lecture on "Reading," which we heard him
deliver before the Lyceum at Hallowell more than forty years ago. With
his lamented friend Judge B.F. Thomas, he believes that a man cannot
be a great lawyer who is nothing else,--that exclusive devotion to the
study and practice of the law tends to acumen rather than to breadth, to
subtlety rather than to strength. "The air is thin among the apices of the
law, as on the granite needles of the Alps. Men must find refreshment
and strength in the quiet valleys at their feet."
With his brethren of the bar Mr. Paine has always held the friendliest
relations, and he has enjoyed their highest esteem. To none, even the
humblest of his fellow advocates, has he ever manifested any of the
haughtiness of a Pinkney, or any of that ruggedness and asperity which
gained for the morose and sullen Thurlow the nickname of _the tiger_.
Amid the fiercest janglings and hottest contentions of the bar, he has
never forgotten that courtesy which should mark the collision, not less
than the friendly intercourse, of cultivated and polished minds. His
victories, won easily by argumentative ability, tact, and intellectual
keenness, unaided by passion, have strikingly contrasted with the costly
victories of advocates less self-restrained. Though naturally witty and
quick at retort, he has never used the weapon in a way to wound the
feelings of an adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses,
he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so;

and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for
prevarication in all its forms, yet he has never sought by browbeating
and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a
witness, or involve him in self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle,
and straightforward, though full and careful examination, winning the
good-will of the witness, and inspiring confidence in the questioner, Mr.
Paine has been far more successful in extracting the truth, even from
reluctant lips, than the most artful legal bully. He knows that the
manoeuvres and devices which are best adapted to confuse an honest
witness, are just what the dishonest one is best prepared for. It was not
for all the blustering violence of the tempest, that the traveler would lay
aside his cloak. The result was brought about by the mild and genial
warmth of the sun.
Few advocates have had more success with juries than the subject of
this sketch. The secret of this success has been, not more the admirable
lucidity and cogency of his addresses, than the confidence and trust
with which his reputation for fairness and truthfulness, and his evident
abhorrence of exaggeration, have inspired his hearers. Another
explanation is, that he has avoided that rock on which so many
advocates wreck their cases,--prolixity. Knowing that, as Sir James
Scarlett once said, when a lawyer exceeds a certain length of time, he is
always doing mischief to his client,--that, if he drives into the heads of
the jury unimportant matter, he drives out matter more important that
he had previously lodged there,--Mr. Paine has taken care to press
home the leading points of his case, giving slight attention to the others.
That Mr. Paine has been animated in the pursuit of his profession by
higher motives than those which fire the zeal of the mere "hired master
of tongue-fence," is shown by the comparative smallness of his fees,
especially in cases exacting great labor. Great as has been his success in
winning verdicts, and sound as have been his opinions, it is doubtful
whether there is another lawyer living of