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.