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politely, greatly to the amusement of the spectators. He was a delegate to the Con tinental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence drawn by his former pupil. Wythe, Jefferson, and Pendleton took a leading part in the revision of the laws made necessary by the change of government, the special part undertaken by Wythe being the British Statutes from the fourth year of James I. In the year 1777 he was appointed one of the three Judges of the High Court of Chancery, and on the reorganization of that court in 1788, its sole Chancellor. With his services as Chancellor Wythe, which were highly honorable and useful to the State, we have nothing to do : nor is there space to tell how well he discharged his duties as professor of law for eight years at William and Mary. He was an earnest advocate of the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In the very important case, which excited a great deal of comment at the time, decided by Chancellor Wythe in the High Court of Chancery of Page v. Pendleton, Wythe's Reports, p. 211, the court held that the right to money due an enemy cannot be confiscated. The Supreme Court of the United States in Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dali, p. 266, refers to the first decision as authority; and that court finally reached the same opinion as had Virginia's great and upright Chancellor three years before. Every Vir ginia lawyer knows Wythe as Chancellor Wythe, and not as Judge; and if any man doubts his learning and integrity, let him refer to Wythe's Reports (i vol.), which have recently gone through a second edition. He has the great honor of being the only State Court Judge in Virginia who has reported his own decisions. Wythe was fearlessly honest, both as law yer and judge. John Randolph said of him that " he lived in the world without being of the world; that he was a mere incar nation of justice, — that his judgments were all as between A and B; for he knew nobody, but went into court, as Astnea was supposed to come down from heaven,

exempt from all human bias." His learning • was extensive, and he was in the habit of putting curious references to the rules of logic and mathematics in his decrees; and some of them fairly bristle with classical allusions. Many of them are very funny. He rendered a decree in May, 1804, expound ing the will of Patrick Henry. After quoting the parable in St. Matthew, ch. xx. he says : " The land was a gift, not naturally or morally to be retributed or countervaled by price, by pounds or dollars, and their frac tional parts, but meriting an entirely different remuneration; namely, the effusion of a grate ful mind, which owing owes not, but still pays, at once indebted and discharged." In the above quotation the spelling has been modernized. He was married twice, but had no children who survived him. His death was a very sad one, he being poisoned by his greatnephew George Wythe Swinney, who would have been benefited by his will; but Swinney's crime was discovered in time to change it, — which was done, greatly to the satisfaction of the public. Swinney was not hanged, but escaped, because the circumstan tial evidence was not sufficient to convict. Another very singular occurrence at the end of this distinguished man's career is the melancholy fact that no one knows where he was buried, though his funeral was a public one in the city of Richmond. The Virginia State Bar Association now has under consideration the matter of erecting some sort of monument to his memory. He was the preceptor of two Presidents and one Chief-Justice of the United States. Henry Clay, who first knew him in his six teenth year, was engaged by the Chancellor as his amanuensis, because from gout or rheu matism m his right hand he could scarcely write his name. Mr. Clay says : — "Upon his dictation, I wrote, I believe, all of the reports of cases which it is now possible to publish. I remember that it cost me a great deal of labor, not understanding a single Greek character, to