"Brought up as a mechanic and for some time a workman at his trade as a millwright, he felt in his breast the inspiration of genius and resolved to leave his occupation and study law.

"Admitted to the Bar, the peculiar structure of his mind, distinguished for strength and originality, combined with an impressive elocution and the most unbending integrity, soon placed him in the forerank as an advocate, and wealth flowed into his coffers to his heart's content."

In 1793, Thomas Ross moved the admission of Joseph Hemphill. It was a frail young man who rose

to take the oath

of fidelity to

Jor. Hemphill

court and client, but no lawyer of his time had a clearer conception of what was involved in it or kept it more religiously.

Confident of his abilty to achieve success at the bar, Mr. Hemphill generously renounced any share in his father's estate and entered the lists. A few years passed and he wrote his name opposite many important cases. His manners introduced him, his learning supported the introduction.

It would be a pleasure to present some features of Porter and Blair and Moore and Todd and Clymer and Wilcocks and Hudson, could I but find them. Alas! my search reveals few facts of little interest, "mere traces, fitful at best and rendered more faint by the shadows of time."

During the terms of Atlee and Henry the trial of cases appears

to have been frequently

interfered with by the trespassing of spectators upon the privileges of the Bar. In 1797 it had become so in

intolerable that Ross Baulhumor

and the other distin

guished lawyers I have mentioned presented the following petition to the Court:

"The undersigned Gentlemen of the Bar take the Liberty respectfully to represent to the Court, the extreme inconvenience, Interruption, and disgust to which they are exposed by the indiscriminate admission of mere Spectators to seats round the table within the Bar.

"They have always supposed this table to have been exclusively designed for the accom

modation of the Gentlemen of the Bar, the immediate Officers of the Court, the Students at Law, and such of the parties to a Cause under Trial whose presence may be necessary to their Counsel. It is obvious that if all the persons of these descriptions should be in Court at any One time the Seats round the Table would not be sufficient for their use and that in fact they are not more than sufficient for those who do in general, actually attend. The Intrusion of persons not entitled operates, therefore, as an exclusion of those who are entitled, and if the Gentlemen of the Bar are able to crowd

into a seat they are nevertheless inconvenienced by

the pressure, the Heat of the Conversation, the Impertinence, and other Circumstances still more disgusting and oppressive to such a degree, as to render their situation in Court extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable and frequently to prevent their proper and necessary attention to the business in which they are engaged.

"Should particular times occur, when there are vacant seats within the Bar, still it is not known how soon they may be wanted. Even if it might be deemed not improper to prevent

these seats to be filled by Suitors or Spectators of Consideration or decent deportment ad interim, Yet the Impractica

RobHudson bility of making the

Discrimination is a Strong reason against the Admission of Strangers at all.

"The undersigned, therefore, respectfully Suggest to the Consideration of the Court the propriety and expediency of making a formal rule of Court on this subject and of making it the peculiar and appropriate Business of Some Officer of the Court to enforce an observance of this rule. It is unpleasant to the Practitioners to make particular applications on this Subject and they hope that some general System may be adopted to prevent the necessity of such applications."

F

CREPE AND EULOGY

"Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,

But I have that within that passeth show
These but the trappings and the suits of woe."

SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet.

IF Moses Levy, of the Philadelphia Bar,

had been asked on the nineteenth of October, 1824, why he was wearing crepe on his left arm, he would have informed his inquirer-if he answered him at all-that the crepe was there as a mark of respect for the memory of the Hon. John D. Coxe, who had recently died.

On the eighteenth of October, "at a respectable meeting of the members of the Bar of Philadelphia," of which Moses Levy was appointed chairman, it was resolved:

"That this meeting has heard with deep regret the death of John D. Coxe, Esq., who for many years was an eminent member of the profession and afterwards presided with