84. T/ze HAZARD FAMILY 
     
    
   
   
    
     others, entitles him to claim rank as a distinguished man, and as it were, demon— 
     
     strates the possession of those impressive and useful qualities, whose combina- 
     
     tion renders character at once eminent and enduring. Mr. Hazard’s course of 
     
     reading and study, operating upon a mind of genuine native strength, and con- 
     
     firming and justifying a native sturdiness of will (the germ and guaranty of 
     
     greatness), gave to all his literary efforts and political proceedings an a1r and 
     
     cast of originality. He read and dwelt upon such books as Rabelais, Burtons 
     
     flmztomy of Melancholy, Hobbes Leviathan, Swift 3 Gulliver, Berkeley S Querzst, 
     
     and, latterly, the dramas of Shakespeare and the romances of Sir Walter Scott. 
     
     In the middle and latter periods of his professional career, he was employed in 
     
     most of the important law—suits of the day, both in the courts of the State and 
     
     the United States. In politics, though his agency in the conflicts of parties, if 
     
     examined in the nicety of details, might betray some seeming inconsistencies, he 
     
     was in the main true to himself and the system of conservatism. His legislative 
     
     reports on banks, currency, &c., and on the extension of suffrage, are marked by 
     
     sterling thought and true and profound principles. In his style, as may have 
     
     been anticipated from what has been here said, there was nothing gaudy or 
     
     flashy; he aimed at and hit the mark of a plain, pure, Anglo— —Saxon diction.” ‘ 
     
     In connection with this charming and honest tribute from Mr. Hazard 3 old 
     
     friend, it may be well to add that of an admirer, who, born too late to enjoy his 
     
     friendship, yet realized his brilliant qualities, said: — 
     
    

    
     “It was my misfortune to know little of the men who made the Newport Bar 
     
     celebrated in the early part of this century. Benjamin Hazard I never saw; he 
     
     died, I think, in 1840; but I have heard so much about him that I seem to have 
     
     known him well. He was one of those men who, vital in every part, live long in 
     
     memory and in tradition. There are those now among the living who could do 
     
     justice to his character; and the late Professor Goddard, in a few well—chosen 
     
     words, has left a portrait of him which Rhode Island people will not willingly 
     
     let die. I read every now and then his great report in defense of the suffrage 
     
     under the old Charter. Like the celebrated paper of Alexander Hamilton in 
     
     favor‘of the United States Bank, it is a monument to the patriotism, the abil— 
     
     ity and the integrity of its author; like that, also, it is a defense of a system 
     
     which the lapse of time and the change of circumstances rendered an obsolete 
     
     idea; but it was none the less a system which had the support of able, honest 
     
     men in a past generation; and it is too early, even now, to pass a final judgment 
     
     upon their wisdom and foresight.” 2 
     
    

    
     There are few men of Mr. Hazard's prominence and ability about whom so lit- 
     
     tle has been written and given to the public. We conclude our sketch with the 
     
     “ portrait ” from Mr. Goddard’s address: —— 
     
    

    
     “ Mr. Hazard felt himself at home in the General Assembly. There, and not in 
     
     our courts or primary assemblies, did he put forth, with the most effect, the un- 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     1 Wm. Hunter, in Updike’s Hist. of the Narragansett Church, pp. 478, 479. 
     
     , 2 Payne’s Reminiscences of the Rhode Island Bar, p. 48. 
     
    
   
   
    
     common