deniable, perhaps irresistible tendency of the age towards commercialism. All the more need is there to hold fast to ancient ideals, so that at all times the nucleus, even if small, shall preserve high and noble traditions. In the confidence derived from the study of what our predecessors have done, we look forward to the younger men to make a like record for the century to come. The following note, giving subsequent details as to the library, has been prepared by Mr. Hewitt : Samuel Dickson, now the Chancellor of the Law Association, succeeded Mr. Wallace as Librarian in December, 1860, and upon his resignation in 1865, was succeeded by James T. Mitchell, now Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. At this time the library had grown to nearly 6000 volumes, crowded into the two rooms in the old District Court building, but it was a very complete collection of Reports. (See ante, p. 24.) In 1871 George Tucker Bispham (Chancellor of the Law Association from 1896 to 1899) became the Librarian, and in December, 1872, the books were moved to the third story of the building at the southeast corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets. At this time the library contained 8000 volumes, and some progress had been made in collecting the statute laws of the different States. In 1874 Francis Rawle relieved Mr. Bispham of the active cares connected with library management, and two years later, in December, was formally appointed Librarian and held this office until August, 1892, when he resigned; he was subsequently a member of the Library Committee for several years. The long years of Mr. Rawle's incumbency were marked by a notable advance. In this period the income of the Association flowed in somewhat larger currents, and the membership was larger than had been the case in the earlier decades. In 1874 the library possessed some 8500 books. In 1892 the collection numbered 27,000 volumes. The membership in 1874 was 332; in 1892, 479. The period was marked by the preparation of the card catalogue and by the continuation of Mr. Baldwin's important collection of the Briefs and Transcripts of Records in cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. (See ante, p. 37.) A like collection of paper books of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was begun and has since been kept up. The statute law of the various States of the Union received especial attention, and the library advanced in that respect into a leading place. In 1887 the growth of the library, and the increased extent of its use by the members of the Association, required more constant attendance on the part of the Librarian than had been possible under the earlier system, and John H. Ingham became Assistant Librarian, holding the position until August, 1892, when Mr. Rawle resigned and the present Librarian, Luther E. Hewitt, was elected. The library has grown to 43,197 volumes (December, 1904). From two untrained assistants, who sufficed in 1876, the force has now grown to eight assistants to the Librarian. THE LEADERS OF THE OLD BAR by HORACE BINNEY "One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin,- More laud than gilt o'erdusted." PREFACE In the title of these sketches, "The Old Bar of Philadelphia," refers to the first Bar after the Declaration of Independence. Of the primitive Bar of the Province, we know nothing; and next to nothing of the men who appeared at it from time to time, up to the termination of the Colonial government. The statement of Chief Justice Tilghman, in the Bush Hill case,1 reveals to us all we know, and all that probably we can ever know, in regard to the subject; for, as the grandson of Tench Francis, who was Attorney-General in 1745, and connected by marriage and association with the most eminent families of the bar, he knew as much of the former bar as any of his contemporaries, and they have all long since departed without adding anything to what he left. "From what I have been able to learn," said the Chief Justice, "of the early history of Pennsylvania, it was a long time before she possessed any lawyers of eminence. There were never wanting men of strong minds, very well able to conduct the business of the Courts, without much regard to form. Such in particular, was Andrew Hamilton, the immediate predecessor of Mr. Francis, and the father of the testator; but Mr. Francis appears to have been the first of our lawyers who mastered the technical difficulties of the profession. 1 Lyle v. Richards, 9 Serg. & Rawle. His precedents of pleadings have been handed down to the present day; and his commonplace book, which is in my possession, is an evidence of his great industry and accuracy." "Mr. Francis succeeded Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Chew succeeded to Mr. Francis, in the office of Attorney-General, and in professional eminence." Mr. Chew remained at the bar until 1774, and was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from that time until the former order of things passed away; and although there are a few other names, at the same epoch, to be added to these three, yet the narrowness of the tradition, taken altogether, the constitution of the Provincial Supreme Court, in which the Chief Justice was commonly the only lawyer, the total absence of every note of judicial decision until 1754, and the all but total until after 1776, had caused that Bar to disappear from nearly all memories at the beginning of the present century; and therefore, in the middle of the fourth generation since the Revolution, I have taken the liberty of referring to the earliest bar under the new order of things, as being the Old Bar of Philadelphia. From that time to the present, the bar of this City has been an identity, superintended by competent and frequently very able judges, whose proceedings have been vouched by authoritative reports, and having, at all times, among its leaders, men of legal erudition and ability. It is not, however, to ignore the primitive bar, so much as to give its due precedence to the first bar of the Commonwealth as a scientific bar, and as the true ancestry of the present bar, that I have used the language in the titlepage. The description of the subjects of sketch as the leaders of the Bar, may appear to be too definite; but although definite, it is not meant to be exclusive. It must not imply that there were no others who held the position of leaders. The three in particular were the seniors, by a few years, of all the bar, and were generally the most prominent in the professional as well as in the public eye. My own freer association with them has induced me to select them from the body, and to pay to them a debt which, though it may have too little dignity to be called a debt to the law, is a debt or duty to their learning and ability in the law. In the new order of things introduced by the American Revolution, these gentlemen largely contributed to establish the reputation of the bar of this City. Their professional example and learning were of great and extensive use in their day, and ought to be handed down by something better than such fugitive pages as these. A lawyer who has passed his youth and early manhood in the society of such men, is the happier for it through life, and especially in old age. On all occasions of vexation or weariness with things near at hand, he can escape at pleasure into the past of these men, which was full of their influence, full also of judicial independence and dignity, and full of professional honor, with unlimited public respect; from which scene the few clouds that are to be found in the clearest skies have been absorbed or dispelled by time, and to which the clouds of his own day, if there are any, cannot follow him. PHILADELPHIA, March, 1859. H. B. WILLIAM LEWIS. It may be thought that I select a very narrow and local theme when I attempt to sketch some of the personal and professional characteristics of a lawyer of the Philadelphia bar, who was little more than a lawyer, though he was a great lawyer, and who culminated in his profession more than sixty years since. But I adopt the theme, in some degree, because it is narrow and local, and is therefore more within my compass; and because it is beyond the memory of most of the living, and therefore, in the advantages of personal recollection, is pretty much an octogenarian perquisite of my own. What I write upon the subject, cannot be of any general interest. It is too remote, and too limited. It wants the essential, and, at this day, all-engrossing attractions of the new and the various or diversified; and it will want, what alone can supply the place of these attractions, a treatment that is a substitute for the subject. But it is a debt that I would pay; the joint debt, perhaps, of several, which has fallen, according to law, upon the longest liver; and I would pay it for them and for myself. A general interest in the transaction is therefore comparatively indifferent to me. I expect, consequently, that no one out of the Pennsylvania bar, and very few who are not of the Philadelphia bar, will look at it; and, except to this bar, I offer neither invitation nor inducement to put aside for it, even for an hour the more stimulant interests of the day. Has not the modern race of lawyers everywhere undergone some change from the old times, by rising or falling into the Athenian category, the very large class of those who spend their time in telling or hearing some new thing? There are, at least, professional tendencies that way, which make them less and less curious of anything that savors of a former age. Most of the old limitations have been abridged, and the exceptions to them cut away, to save the labor of looking back. Old authorities no longer divide with old wine, the reverence of either seniors or juniors. Most of the old law books, that used to be thought almost as good a foundation for their part of the truth, as the prophets and apostles are for the whole truth, are taken away, I rather think, from the bottom of the building, and thrown into the garret. That Littleton upon whom Coke sits, or seems to sit to the end of things, as Carlyle says, has fewer than of old, I suspect, to sit with him for long hours to alleviate the incumbrance. For the most part, as I am told, the incumbent and the succumbent lie together in the dust, which uppermost not many care to know. All the Entries, Brooke, and Coke, and Levinz, and Rastall, and the others, have made their exits some time ago, and will not appear again before the epilogue. Almost any law book that is more than twenty-one years of age, like a single |