Section third: professional life.
- Lectures at the law School -- Edits Vesey's Reports -- continues legal studies and practice until 1846
In 1840 Mr. Sumner returned from what would have been to most men only a long holiday of pleasure, but which to him had been a University life and a holiday, all blended in one; and, after a few hearty hand-shakings, he dashed again with all his fervor into the study of the science of law, and its engrossing practice. Again he became Lecturer at the Law School, and before 1846 he had edited, with matchless ability, Vesey's Reports, in twenty volumes. The learning he displayed in this labor was immense; for it was by no means confined to verbal, or even judicial criticism. The volumes were enlivened by vivid and captivating biographical sketches of great lawyers and jurists, besides apt, fresh, and learned annotations. It would be difficult to find another instance, in any country, of [9] so mature and splendid a reputation won at so early an age, for he had not reached his thirty-fifth year. But Charles Sumner's life-career had not yet commenced. Shining as was the structure he had already reared, none knew the depths of the foundations he had been laying. This ornate edifice of a dazzling reputation was soon to give way for a structure of more colossal proportions, which was to grow larger and grander every year; and which, although it had so often seemed complete, yet in his own judgment was still left unfinished when he was so suddenly summoned away.1
