a second edition, the noble author had changed his opinion, because the decision, cited in the first, had been quashed. Here then was an opinion which seemed to be settled. But the advocate for the appellee, adverting to this variation of an author, who did not decide any thing, upon his own proper principles, cited, by anticipation, the third edition of the work, predicting that the author would certainly return to his first opinion, because a third decision would be made, similar to the first. This raised a laugh and the citation of the poor author remained without effect.'

All the treatises of Pothier are not of equal merit. Those which he published, in his lifetime, after having put the last touch to them, are perfect; but those, which were published after his decease, leave much to be desired. His posthumous treatises are, for the most part, mere sketches; and though traced by so sure a hand, that, if we do not find in them all the developements, of which the subject is susceptible, and which the author would certainly have given, they are at least free from errors: the coloring is wanting, but the design is pure and correct. Those of his posthumous works, which have been published, are the treatises-des fiefs-des cens—des champarts de la garde, &c.-du preciput legal des nobles -des hypotheques-des substitutions-des successions-des propres des donations testamentaires ·des donations entre vifs-des personnes des choses de la procedure civile et

criminelle.

The style of Pothier has its faults. It also has its merit. In general he seems to be diffuse. But let any one attempt to retrench any thing, and he will see that it must be done, at the expense of clearness. He is negligent and destitute of elegance; but he always employs the proper word, and there is scarcely a passage in his works, which might be changed with advantage. The following is the testimony of M. Letrosne on this subject: Pothier did me the honor many times,' says he, 'to employ me to look over his manuscripts, in order to correct any negligence or prolixity, that I might discover in them: and I always did, or rather, always attempted to do, what he wished. My remarks were few and of trifling importance, notwithstanding the liberty he gave me, and I may say even, notwithstanding my desire to please him by the performance

of a labor which he required. I felt that if I had composed the work, I should have written it differently throughout, because every one has his peculiar manner of writing. But when I undertook to compress the style, or to present the questions in a different manner, I perceived that it would be necessary to remould the whole, and, at the same time, that his style was that which was most pertinent to the subject, and could scarcely be changed but at the expense of clearness. Several persons, to whom he gave the same commission, experienced the same result.'

Pothier, in fine, says Dupin, is the author, whom we cite the most frequently, and with the most confidence, in our tribunals. He has not caused Domat to be forgotten, but Domat cannot supply the place of Pothier. D'Aguesseau perfectly understood the difference between these distinguished men, when he remarked, that whoever should well understand Domat would not be the most profound of jurisconsults. Would he have said the same of him, who should thoroughly master the Pandects and the Treatises of Pothier? Several editions of these treatises were published between the epoch of his death, and the year 1789, but the changes, which have taken place in the legislation, have not had the effect to diminish the reputation which he enjoyed, and since the promulgation of the new civil code, his works more than ever deserve to be consulted, as its first interpreter.

The works of Pothier have not been received as laws; but they have obtained an equivalent honor; since more than three fourths of the civil code have been literally extracted from his treatises. The compilers of the code, satisfied that they could not invent a more perfect order, than that adopted by Pothier in his treatises, and that they could not obtain more certain principles or more equitable decisions, from any other source, had the extreme good sense, to confine themselves to an analysis of his works. Any one may be convinced of this fact, by examining the title des obligations conventionnelles en général1 (conventional obligations in general), which is nothing more than a continued analysis of the Treatise on Obligations. Not only are the divisions of that work preserved, and the

1 Code Civil, Book 3, Tit. 3.

same principles established, (with the exception of four or five articles), but the very language of Pothier is employed. The same may be said of the title du contrat de mariage et des droits respectifs des epour' (of the contract of marriage, and of the respective rights of husband and wife), which is an abridgment of the Treatise on Community, with the addition of some articles concerning the dotal regime, which it did not enter into the plan of Pothier to treat. There is the same conformity in the titles of usufruct, habitation? — possession3 -property-prescription-sale-letting to hire' — and

many others.

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ART. V. - BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF WILLIAM WIRT. WHEN death has removed from the scene of his labors and triumphs, a man whose abilities, learning, and virtues have given him a high, as well as a great renown, it is a duty which his survivors owe to themselves to gather up the fragments of his life, that nothing of his example may be lost. This is an obligation binding with peculiar force upon the members of the legal profession, since the reputation of an eminent lawyer can only be thoroughly felt by his brethren, and is not so much of a common possession as that, for instance, of a great statesman or soldier. Besides, the exclusive nature of the pursuits of lawyers necessarily creates a clannish feeling, and makes the force of an individual's example great in proportion to its limited extent, and it is a part of that duty which every one owes to his profession to multiply precedents of high powers honorably and successfully exerted. The influence of a single learned, eloquent, high-minded, and upright lawyer, especially upon the younger members of the profession, is almost incalculable, and it is probable that no young man ever began his professional career, without, almost unconsciously to himself, selecting some eminent in

dividual for a model, and feeling himself constantly spurred on by a consideration of his greatness and success. It is very true, as has often been remarked, that the Kves of lawyers are barren in events; but not more so than those of scholars in general and of the majority of intellectual men. The life of a lawyer is in fact the history of the growth and progress of his mind, and what is commonly called his life is but the record of his opportunities. Were the contemporaries and immediate successors of eminent lawyers careful to record and transmit memorials of them to posterity, we should not be obliged to content ourselves, as we now are, with traditional accounts of the greatness of men who, in their day, gave law to courts and 'wielded at will' that stubborn, if not fierce democratie '— a jury. It is mournful to reflect that we know nothing of such men as Lord Ashburton in England, and the late Samuel Dexter in this country, except from the imperfect memorials preserved by the reporter and the vague impressions banded down from one professional generation to another. He, then, who gives a good legal biography deserves well of his profession, and he who attempts it, whatever be his success, deserves the credit of good intentions.

6

The late Mr. Wirt, we need hardly say, was a.man in all respects worthy of perpetual remembrance, and, though he has earned no inconsiderable literary reputation, he must rank much higher as a lawyer and an advocate than as a scholar and a writer. His literary efforts were a mere toying with Amaryllis in the shade,' but it was by long and assiduous devotion, in the maturity of his powers and the fulness of his strength, that he won the favoring smiles of his sterner mistress. We are not of the generation to which Mr. Wirt belonged, upon some one of whom the task of pourtraying his intellectual character would with more propriety devolve, but as many of his forensic efforts are before the public, and his talents and acquirements are yet 'freshly remembered,' we may venture, though not without some diffidence, to undertake the task.

William Wirt was born in Bladensburg, in the state of Maryland, on the 8th of November, 1772, and was the youngest of six children of Jacob and Henrietta Wirt. His parents were both foreigners, his father being a Swiss and his mother a German, and were in very humble circumstances, though removed

from the extreme of poverty. By the death of his mother, who survived his father for some years, he was left an orphan when he was eight years old, but he escaped the dangers and sorrows to which most orphans are exposed. He was taken into the family of his paternal uncle, and the kind and judicious treatment of his aunt, a woman of strong sense and most affectionate temper, supplied to him what is usually an irreparable loss, that of a mother in infancy or childhood. He inherited a slender patrimony, which, thriftily and carefully managed by his uncle, enabled him to avail himself of the best advantages for education, which the neighborhood afforded and which were probably meagre enough. He passed a year at one school and two years at another, learning but little at both and that little superficially. At the age of eleven, in obedience to that capricious habit too common at this day in our country, and highly injurious to thorough intellectual training, of frequently changing schools and teachers, he was placed under the charge of the Rev. James Hunt, who kept a flourishing and popular academy in Montgomery county, Maryland. This particular change, however, was a favorable one to young Wirt, since his opportunities here were much greater than any he had known before. Mr. Hunt was a man of some reading and had a smattering of science, that is, we may infer so, from the fact that he had an electrical machine, a telescope and a pair of globes, and was wont to amuse his boys and the ladies and gentlemen of the neighborhood with what are called by courtesy, philosophical experiments. He remained at this school four years, and received here the principal part of his education, being carried,' (as we are told in the Biographical Sketch' on which we rely for the greater part of our facts) through all the Latin and Greek classics, then usually taught in grammar schools, and instructed in geography and some of the branches of the mathematics, including arithmetic, trigonometry, surveying, and the first six books of Euclid's Elements.'

It is not improbable that the better part of his education was that which he obtained out of school. During the last two years, he boarded with Mr. Hunt in whose house he found a tolerably

1

1 Prefixed to an edition of the British Spy, printed in New York, in 1832, and which is understood to have been the production of the late Mr. Cruse of Baltimore.