Excerpt from Memoir of Theophilus Parsons: Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; With Notices of Some of His Contemporaries My father died in 1813. If lie were wholly forgotten, I should not seek to revive a recollection of him. But his official position, to which circumstances gave a peculiar importance, required of him to give some decisions which laid the foundations of important law. These must be remembered and sometimes referred to, at least by lawyers. They perhaps are almost the only men of this generation who know much about him. For nearly all others the veil of time has settled over him; and if his name be heard or read, it calls up no distinct image. If this veil only obstructed or obscured the remembrance of him, or if it entirely prevented this remembrance, I should make no effort to remove it. But while he is remembered at all, he should be remembered aright. He had no love of fame, contemporary or posthumous. It will probably appear to a reader of this Memoir, that it was one of his errors to despise public opinion exceedingly. He not only cared nothing whatever for fame, but was less desirous than he should have been to leave a just impression of himself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.