“Resolved, That as respects his practice as a counsellor and advocate at this bar, we would record our sense of his integrity, prudence, fidelity, depth of learning, knowledge of men and affairs, and great powers of persuading kindred minds; and we know well, that, when he died, there was extinguished one of the few great lights of the old common law.

“Resolved, That Mr. Webster be requested to present these resolutions to the Supreme Judicial Court, at its next term, in Boston; and the District Attorney of the United States be requested to present them to the Circuit Court of the United States now in session.

     “Resolved, That the Secretary communicate to the family of Mr.
     Mason a copy of these resolutions, together with the respectful
     sympathy of the bar.”

The proprieties of this occasion (continued Mr. Webster) compel me, with whatever reluctance, to refrain from the indulgence of the personal feelings which arise in my heart, upon the death of one with whom I have cultivated a sincere, affectionate, and unbroken friendship, from the day when I commenced my own professional career, to the closing hour of his life.  I will not say, of the advantages which I have derived from his intercourse and conversation, all that Mr. Fox said of Edmund Burke; but I am bound to say, that of my own professional discipline and attainments, whatever they may be, I owe much to that close attention to the discharge of my duties which I was compelled to pay, for nine successive years, from day to day, by Mr. Mason’s efforts and arguments at the same bar. Fas est ab hoste doceri; and I must have been unintelligent, indeed, not to have learned something from the constant displays of that power which I had so much occasion to see and to feel.

It is the more appropriate duty of the present moment to give some short notice of his life, character, and the qualities of his mind and heart, so that he may be presented as an example to those who are entering upon or pursuing the same career.  Four or five years ago, Mr. Mason drew up a biography of himself, from the earliest period of his recollection to the time of his removal to Portsmouth, in 1797; which is interesting, not only for the information it gives of the mode in which the habits of his life were formed, but also for the manner of its composition.

He was born on the 27th day of April, 1768, at Lebanon in Connecticut.  His remotest ancestor in this country was Captain John Mason (an officer who had served with distinction in the Netherlands, under Sir Thomas Fairfax), who came from England in 1630, and settled at Dorchester in the Colony of Massachusetts.  His great-grandfather lived at Haddam.  His grandfather, born in 1705, lived at Norwich, and died in the year 1779.  Mr. Mason remembered him, and recollected his character, as that of a respectable and deeply religious man.  His ancestor on the maternal side