GEORGE SHARSWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA.

(1810-1883.)

Has the reputation of being one of the most eminent jurists that ever sat on the bench in Pennsylvania. Born in Philadelphia, July 7, 1810, and died there May 28, 1883, aged seventy-two. The son's early education devolved upon his mother and grandfather, his father having died before his birth. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania at twenty, with first honors of his class. Studied law under Joseph R. Ingersoll, and was admitted at twenty-three. His professional progress was slow, but he devoted himself to study. Was four years a member of the Legislature, and commissioned at thirtyfive, by the Governor, District Judge of Philadelphia, where he sat for twenty-two years, writing upwards of five thousand opinions. In 1867 he was elected to the State Supreme Court, and in 1878 became Chief Justice, retiring from the bench in 1882. Though of the minority party, there was but one opinion among lawyers as to who should occupy this position. His decisions while fifteen years a Supreme Judge are

reported in volumes 57 to 102, Pennsylvania State Reports, and, though technical, are based on common sense and take first rank. He said: "The difficulty is not so much to know the law, as it is to know where to find it." In 1850 he revived the law department of the University of Pennsylvania, and occupied the position of senior professor there till his resignation in 1867. It is largely owing to his efforts and erudition that this school has been raised to its present position. He is the author of "Professional Ethics," which, "for grave, pure and mild wisdom,” says the Albany Law Journal, ❝is not surpassed by any words ever addressed to the profession." His "Popular Lectures on the Common Law" attracted wide attention, and his "Blackstone's Commentaries" have made his name familiar for a generation. He is also the author of editions of several English textwriters.

His private life was gentle and pure. He was wedded to the law, and loved the work. No man could have studied it more closely. As a judge he was urbane, popular, kind and impartial.

The Common Law a River.

"The common law is not a straight canal cut by the art of civil engineers, but a mighty river, its head lost in the sands of antiquity, which has sought and made its own channel, and that the most natural and best, though occasionally requiring to be improved by legislative dams and embankments."-Introduction to Blackstone.

Read Biographies of Eminent Lawyers.

"It is well to read carefully and frequently the biographies of eminent lawyers. It is good to rise from the perusal of the studies and labors, the trials and conflicts, the difficulties and triumphs, of such men, in the actual battle of life, with a secret feeling of dissatisfaction with ourselves. Such a sadness in the bosom of a young student is like the tears of Thucydides, when he heard Heroditus read his history of the Olympic Games, and received the plaudits of assembled Greece. It is the natural prelude to severer self-denial, to more assiduous study, to more self-sustaining confidence."-Professional Ethics.

Legal Ethics.

"No lawyer of good conscience should express to court or jury his belief in the justice of his client's cause contrary to the fact."-Legal Ethics.

Law-Reading Exclusively-Its Tendency.

"There is great danger that law-reading, pursued to the exclusion of everything else, will cramp

and dwarf the mind, shackle it by the technicalities with which it has become familiar, disable it from taking large and comprehensive views."-Idem.

The Conventional, Musty Lawyer.

"The lawyer's commonplaces are quaint and professional; they occur to him first in Latin. He measures all sciences out of his proper line of study (and with these he is scantily acquainted) by the rules of law. He thinks a steam engine should be worked with due diligence and without laches; a thing likely to happen he considers as a potentia remotissima; and what is not yet in existence, or in esse, as what he would say is in nubibus. He prefers books bound in plain calf. He garners up his papers with a wonderful appearance of care, ties them in bundles with red tape, and usually has great difficulty when he wants to find them."

* * *

Morality in Law.

"There is perhaps no profession, after that of the sacred ministry, in which a high-toned morality is more imperatively necessary than that of the law. High moral principle is the lawyer's only safe guide; the only torch to lighe his way amidst darkness and obstruction. It is like the spear of the guardian of Paradise.

"No falsehood can endure

Touch of celestial temper, but returns

Of force to its own likeness.""

-Extract from Professional Ethics.

LEMUEL SHAW, MASSACHUSETTS.

(1781-1861.)

Thirty years Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Born January 9, 1781, at Barnstable, Massachusetts; died in Boston, March 30, 1861, aged eighty. He graduated at Harvard in 1800, studied law under David Everett, was admitted in 1804, and settled in Boston, where, after twenty-six years' practice, he rose to eminence. He was a member of both houses of the Legislature from 1811 to 1830, at various times, and of the convention for revising the State laws in 1820. Governor Lincoln appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1830, which position he graced and adorned for thirty years. Daniel Webster, who urged the appointment, said he had laid the people of Massachusetts under lasting obligations to him by inducing the appointment. He was twenty-two years overseer of Harvard, from which he received the degree of LL.D. in 1831.

As a jurist, he was thorough, comprehensive and accurate; as an advocate, earnest, strong and tenacious. Before his accession to the bench, a $3,000