legal literature of our State. If he had made the law his special pursuit,
and been placed on the bench of one of our higher tribunals, there is no
degree of judicial eminence to which he might not have aspired. The
Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York, of which he was a member,
in their resolutions expressive of sorrow for his death, spoke of him as
one whose judicial wisdom and familiarity with the principles and practice
of the law, made his counsels of the highest value.

In 1844, after, I doubt not, some years of previous study, appeared the
first number of Verplanck's edition of Shakespeare, issued by Harper &
Brothers. The numbers appeared from time to time till 1847, when the work
was completed. He made some corrections of the text but never rashly; he
selected the notes of other commentators with care; he added some
excellent ones of his own, and wrote admirable critical and historical
prefaces to the different plays. This edition has always seemed to me the
very one for which the general reader has occasion.

Almost ever since the American Revolution a Board of Regents of the
University of the State of New York has existed, on which is laid the duty
of visiting and superintending in a general way our institutions of
education above the degree of Common Schools. It consists of twenty-three
members, including the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, the Secretary of
State and the Superintendent of Public Instruction; the other nineteen
members are appointed by the Legislature. The Board assists at the
incorporation of all colleges and academies, looks into their condition,
interposes in certain specified cases, receives reports from them and
makes annual reports to the Legislature, and confers by diploma such
degrees as are granted by any college or university in Europe. Mr.
Verplanck was appointed a member of this Board in 1826, in place of
Matthew Clarkson, who had been a Regent ever since 1787. In 1855 he was