Life of the Honourable William Tilghman: Late Chief Justice of the State of PennsylvaniaThe author, 1829 - 148 pages |
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Agriculture attended authority benevolent better Caspar Wistar cause Chancery character Chester county Chester Town clover commerce Common Law Court Court of Chancery Court of Equity crops death Delaware Doctor duty Edinburgh effect elected eminent England ethmoid bone excellent exertions faculties fame favour feelings fortune genius GOLDER grain gypsum happiness heart honour hope important ject Judge Tilghman judgment judicial kind knowledge labours lamented land late Chief Justice learned legislature liberal living Maryland medicine ment merit mind nature never object opinion Pennsylvania person Philadelphia Philosophical Society physician practice praise President principles profes profession Professor Province of Maryland remain retirement scientific equity sentiment Shippen sion spirit supposed Susquehanna talents Tench Francis thing thou tion ture United University of Pennsylvania venerable virtues WILLIAM TILGHMAN Wistar worthy zeal
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Page 1 - District Clerk's Office. BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the tenth day of August, AD 1829, in the fifty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, JP Dabney, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit...
Page 1 - An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And also to the act, entitled " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and...
Page 45 - For thy comfort and encouragement, cast thine eyes upon the sages of the law that have been before thee, and never shalt thou find any that hath excelled in the knowledge of the laws but hath sucked from the breasts of that divine knowledge, honesty, gravity, and integrity...
Page 88 - Anatomy has been so much studied both by the ancients and moderns, and so many excellent works have been published on the subject, that any discovery, at this time of day, was scarcely to be expected. Yet it is supposed to be without doubt, that Wistar was the first who observed and described the posterior portion of the ethmoid bone in its most perfect state, viz. with the triangular bones attached to it. Of this he has given an accurate description in the volume of our Transactions now in the press....
Page 62 - remnant of life" to which his last memorial refers, unfortunately for us, was short as he had predicted; but he walked it as he had done all that went before, according to his devout aspiration. He continued to preside in the Supreme Court with his accustomed dignity and effect, until the succeeding winter, when his constitution finally gave way, and after a short confinement, on Monday, the 30th of April, 1827, he closed his eyes for ever. It will be long, very long before we shall open ours, upon...
Page 43 - ... his invariable effort, without regard to his own health, to finish a capital case at one sitting, if any portion of the night would suffice for the object; and one of his declared motives was to terminate, as soon as possible, that harrowing solicitude, worse even than the worst certainty, which a protracted trial brings to the unhappy prisoner. He never pronounced the sentence of death without severe pain ; in the first instance it was the occasion of anguish. In this, as in many other points,...
Page 59 - Vain is the splendour of genius without the virtues of the heart. No man who is not good, deserves the name of wise. In the language of Scripture, folly and wickedness are the same; not only because vicious habits do really corrupt and darken the understanding, but because it is no small degree of folly to be ignorant, that the chief good of man is to know the will of his Creator, and to do it.
Page 28 - ... reporting the English statutes in force within this commonwealth. The duty is called critical, for so undoubtedly it was considered by the Chief Justice. The service exacted an unlimited knowledge of our colonial legislation, and of the practice and administration of the law in the Province, through a period of nearly a century, in which there was not the light of a reported case. It required also an intimate familiarity with the written law of England, its history both political and legal, and...
Page 54 - But to the subject of this discourse, may with justice be applied, the praise of the Chancellor D'Aguesseau, that he was never known to take a single step out of the narrow path of wisdom, and that although it was sometimes remarked he had been young, it was for the purpose not of palliating a defect, but of doing greater honour to his virtues. Of his early life, few of his cotemporaries remain to speak ; but those few attest, what the harmony of his whole character in later years would infer, that...
Page 30 - I should rather say, dreaded, as an implication of his conscience. His first inquiry in every case was of the oracles of the law for their response ; and when he obtained it, notwithstanding his clear perception of the justice of the cause, and his intense desire to reach it, if it was not the justice of the law, he dared not to administer it. He acted upon the sentiment of Lord Bacon, that it is the foulest injustice to remove landmarks, and that to corrupt the law is to poison the very fountains...