The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 | Page 4

equal eminence, whose
charges for legal service have been so uniformly moderate.
Reference has been made to Mr. Paine's wit. Several striking examples
might be cited; but two must suffice. Some years ago, when he was

County Attorney, a man who had been indicted in Kennebec County
for arson, was tried, and acquitted by the jury on the ground that he was
an idiot. After the trial, the Judge before whom the case had been tried,
sought to reconcile Mr. Paine to the verdict by some explanatory
remarks. "Oh, I'm quite satisfied, your Honor," said Mr. Paine, "with
the defendant's acquittal. He has been tried by a jury of his peers"--On
another occasion, Mr. Paine was making a legal argument before an
eminent judge, when he was interrupted by the latter, who said: "Mr.
Paine, you know that that is not law." "I know it, your Honor," replied
the advocate, with a deferential bow; "but it was law till your Honor
just spoke."
From 1849 to 1862, Mr. Paine was a member of the Board of Trustees
of Waterville College. In 1851, he was elected member of the Maine
Historical Society, and also of the American Academy. In 1854, his
Alma Mater conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
In the relation of marriage, Mr. Paine has been very happy. In May.
1837, he was united to Miss Lucy E. Coffin, of Newburyport, a lady of
rare endowments, both of head and heart.
Few men have started in a professional career with a more vigorous and
elastic constitution than Mr. Paine's. Endowed with an iron frame and
nerves of lignum vitae, he very naturally felt in youth that his fund of
physical energy was inexhaustible; but, like thousands of other
professional men in this fiery and impatient age, he finds himself in the
autumn of his life afflicted with bodily ills, which he feels that with
reasonable care he might have escaped. Toiling in his profession year
after year from January to December, with no recreation, no summer
vacation, no disposition to follow the wise advice of Horace to
Torquatus,--
rebus omissis Atria servantem postico falle clientem,
--working double tides, and crowding the work of eighty years into
forty, Mr. Paine finds that, large as was his bank account with Nature,
he has been overdrawing it for years, and that he has now to repay these
drafts with compound interest. The lesson he would have young

professional men learn from his experience, is, that they should account
no time or money wasted, that contributes in any way to their physical
health,--that gives tone to the stomach, or development to the muscles.
Let them understand that, though suffering does not follow instantly
upon the heels of transgression, yet Nature cannot be outraged with
impunity. Though a generous giver she is a hard bargainer, and a most
accurate bookkeeper, whose notice not the eighth part of a cent escapes;
and though the items with which she debits one, taken singly are
seemingly insignificant, and she seldom brings in "that little bill" till a
late day, yet, added up at the end of three score years and ten, they may
show a frightful balance against him, which can have no result but
physical bankruptcy.
In Mr. Paine's physiognomy the most noticeable features are the broad,
massive, Websterian forehead, and the sparkling eyes.
In summing up the characteristics of Mr. Paine as a lawyer and as a
man, the writer, who was his pupil at Waterville Academy, and has
enjoyed his friendship to this day, cannot do better than to cite the
words of an acute observer who has known him intimately for many
years. Chief Justice Appleton, of Maine, did not exaggerate, when he
said: "He is a gentleman of a high order of intellect; of superior culture;
in private life, one of the most genial of companions; in his profession,
a profound and learned lawyer, as well as an accomplished advocate."
To conclude,--if the subject of this imperfect sketch has occasion to
regret his excessive devotion to his calling, he can have no other regrets.
At the close of a long, most useful, and most honorable career, which
has been marked throughout by the severest conscientiousness and the
most scrupulous discharge of every professional duty, he is happily
realizing that blessedness which Sir William Blackstone, when
exchanging the worship of the Muses for that of Themis, prayed might
crown the evening of his days:--
"Thus though my noon of life be past, Yet let my setting sun at last
Find out the still, the rural cell, Where sage Retirement loves to dwell!
There let me taste the homefelt bliss Of innocence and inward peace;
Untainted by the guilty bribe, Uncursed amid the harpy tribe; No

orphan cry to wound my ear, My