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KENT, WILUAH. 



KEXYON, LOUD. 



general studies, and he began early to be regarded u one of tbo moat 

 promising of the rUing public men u well u Imwycn of hii day. 

 From 1790 to 1794 he tat hi the elate legislature, but failing in 

 Mooring hi* re-election, he Menu, about the latter year, to bare with- 

 drawn from politico, and to have devoted himself to the more profound 

 tudy of the principle* of jurisprudence. Elected professor of law in 

 Columbia College, he, in 1794, left Poughkeepsie, where ho had 

 bithrrto lired, for New York, in which city he continued to reside 

 daring the remainder of his life. In 1796 he was appointed master 

 in chancery, and in 1797 recorder of New York and associate-justice 

 of the supreme court Honours of various kinds were now being 

 liberally bestowed upon him. " In recognition of his great legal learn- 

 ing,* the faculty of Columbia College bestowed upon their professor 

 the degree of LL.D. ; and a similar honour was subsequently conferred 

 by Harvard and Dartmouth colleges. In 1800 he was appointed, with 

 Judge Radcliffe, to revise the legal code of New York a work of tome 

 labour, and requiring great judgment, but one which was so executed 

 as to obtain general approbation. In ISO! Mr. Kent was made chief- 

 justice of New York, an office he held for nearly ten years with 

 the highest credit. He then accepted the still more elevated post of 

 chancellor, which ho continued to occupy till the 1st of August 1823, 

 when he became (Unqualified by the clause in the state constitution, 

 which provided that no person shall hold the office of chancellor or 

 judge beyond the age of sixty. Though thus superannuated, Chan- 

 cellor Kent was far from thinking of repose. He had been for five- 

 and twenty years a judge at law and in equity, and having been during 

 that time constantly employed in his judicial duties, he gays in the 

 preface to his ' Commentaries,' he was " apprehensive that the sudden 

 cessation of his habitual employment, and the contrast between the 

 discussions of the forum, and the solitude of retirement, might be 

 unpropitious to his health and spirits, and cast a premature shade 

 over the happiness of declining years." He therefore once more very 

 willingly accepted the appointment of professor of law in Columbia 

 College ; and he now brought to bear upon his teaching the results of 

 his long and very important judicial experience. Happily for the legal 

 student he was induced to embody the substance of hia lectures, and 

 bin observation of the workings of the law he had BO long administered, 

 in an elaborate work entitled ' Commentaries on American Law,' 4 vols. 

 8vo, 1826-30.. This work was at once received throughout the United 

 State* as a text-book, and speedily obtained general acceptance in this 

 country as a standard work on the constitutional law of America, and 

 time bos amply confirmed the first favourable impression. Ketaiuing 

 almost to the last his remarkable physical strength and mental activity, 

 Chancellor Kent survived till the 12th of December 1S17, when he 

 died, amidst the general regrets of his fellow-citizens, in his eighty- 

 fourth year. Ho was a man of cheerful temperament, of methodical 

 habits, great industry, and thorough integrity. In private life he was 

 esteemed in no ordinary degree ; while as a j udge bis decisions have been 

 pronounced by the courts of America to be of the highest authority ; 

 and as an authority on constitutional law he ranks alongside of his 

 great countrymen, Story and Marshall. 



KENT, WILLIAM, an artist of moderate ability as a painter and 

 sculptor, bnt one of some ability and considerable influence as an 

 architect and landscape gardener, was born in Yorkshire in 1684. 

 Both hia parentage and education were humble, and he was appren- 

 ticed to a coach-painter. Conceiving however that he had abilities 

 which ought to elevate him above that grade, he attempted to establish 

 himself as a portrait and historical painter, and so far attracted notice 

 that some gentlemen raised a contribution for the purpose of enabling 

 him to go and study in Italy. Thither he accordingly proceeded in 

 1710, and remained there several years; and there, in 1716, he had 

 the good fortune to win the notice and patronage of the Earl of Bur- 

 lington, who not only brought home his protege, and exerted all his 

 influence and authority in matters of taste to recommend him to 

 others, but took him under his own roof, where he remained till his 

 death, April 12, 1748. How for Kent assisted his patron in his designs, 

 or the latter assisted him, is doubtful ; but it is certain that he soon 

 discovered greater capacity for architecture than he had done for 

 painting. The designs for Holkham, the seat of the Karl of Leicester, 

 Norfolk, are said to have emanated principally, if not entirely, from 

 him ; and if so, that edifice proves him to have possessed both talent 

 and taste a* an architect, it being excellent in plan, and possessing 

 many beauties of design. But his greatest skill lay in landscape- 

 gardening ; in which art he is regarded as the father of the English 

 style. Walpole, who is sometimes as lavish as he is at others niggard 

 of praise, say* that Kent was " painter enough to taste the charms of 

 landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and 

 born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of 

 imperfect eMays." Shakspere's monument in Westminster Abbey 

 will preserve his name as a sculptor, without however adding to his 

 reputation. 



KENYON, LLOYD, LORD, the second son of Lloyd Kenyon, Esq., 

 by Jane, daughter of liobert Kddowes of Eagle Hall in Cheshire, was 

 born at Oreddington in Flintshire, on the 6th of October 1732. He 

 was descended from an ancient family in Lancashire, which had 

 migrated into North Wale* at the commencement of the hut century. 

 His father lived independently as a country gentleman, and belonged 

 to the eommUsion of ^>Q peao for his county. The education of the 



future chief-justice was however, from the straitened means of the 

 parent, very defective. He was sent early to the grammar school at 

 liuthin, but was taken away before he had time to do mure than 

 acquire a little Latin. At the age of fourteen he was articled to Mr. 

 Tomlinsou, an attorney in large practice at Nantwich in Che-hire, with 

 whom he remained for seven years, during which time bis diligence 

 and shrewdness procured him so much of his master's favour that he 

 expected, at the end of his clerkship, to be taken into partnership. In 

 this expectation he was however disappointed, and thereupon deter- 

 mined upon being called to the bar. In 1754 he took chambers at the 

 Temple, and became a member of Lincoln's Inn. While a student he 

 devoted himself with great earnestness to the law, and to the law 

 only ; and in doing this he made smaller sacrifices than most people. 

 He had neither a literary taste nor a love of pleasure; and hi* 

 pecuniary resources were but scanty. 



Mr. Kenyon was called to the bar in Hilary Term, 1761, but in con- 

 sequence of the want of a professional connection, and being of a 

 character too honourable and independent to stoop to little artifices, 

 many years elapsed before he obtained business. Still he laboured 

 patiently and unceasingly, frequenting the courts both of common 

 law and equity, but more especially the latter, and attending both 

 circuit and sessions. His attainments in all departments appear to 

 have been not only considerable, but exact, and he acquired by degrees 

 the reputation of being a sound lawyer, and a ue.it and safe equity 

 draftsman and conveyancer. It is stated, that bavin? by some sugges- 

 tions, as amicus curiao, attracted the notice of Mr. Thurlow, the then 

 attorney-general, he had the offer made to him of sharing with Mr. 

 Hargrave in the toil and profit of assisting htm. In 1773, when he had 

 been twelve years in the profession, he married Mary, third daughter 

 of George Kenyon of Peele in Lancashire. He now began to rise into 

 notice. In 1779 be was retained as one of the council for Lord Pigot 

 in the state prosecution of Shelton and others for depriving him of his 

 government; and afterwards in the same year as leading counsel for 

 Lord George Gordon. In April 17S2, on the accession of the Fox and 

 Kockinghatn administration, he was appointed attorney-general. While 

 holding this situation his conduct evinced that official intrigue and 

 partisanship were not at all suited to hia character. On the death of 

 the Marquis of Kockingham he retained hia office with Pitt as chan- 

 cellor of the exchequer, and went out with tho Shelburno administra- 

 tion in the spring of the year following. In December he was reappoiutcd 

 attorney-general, having through all the ministerial changes of the day 

 asserted his independence. To the character of an orator he had no 

 pretension, being a man of little imagination, and expressing himself 

 not only without elegance, but occasionally with vulgarity. He was 

 no scholar, and yet he would insert Latin words and phrases without 

 point or taste in his discourse. 



In 1784 he was raised to the office of Master of tho lioll.-, and 

 created a baronet ; and in May 1788 he was gazetted Lord Kenyon, 

 Baron Oreddington, and succeeded Lord Mansfield as Chief-Justice of 

 the King's Bench. His appointment to this important and dignified 

 situation was at the time unpopular with tho profession generally. To 

 the opinion of his brother judges he gave a reception not only of neg- 

 lect, but almost of contempt; and whenever they ventured to differ 

 from him (which only took place some half dozen times in fourteen 

 years), he exhibited the same feelings which another person would do 

 upon receiving a personal affront. To the barristers, both leaders and 

 juniors, he was equally ungracious; and whenever anything escaped 

 them not in accordance with his sentiments, he castigated them in 

 terms neither measured nor in character with the situation which he 

 filled. To some leading men he would take a personal dislike, and 

 allow no opportunity for mortifying them to escape him; Mr. Law, 

 afterwards Lord Kllenborough, was one of them. 



With tho press Lord Kenyon was in high favour; for he struck 

 sternly and with indignation at those offenders who are the peculiar 

 objects of popular dislike. But while doing so he frequently gave too 

 easy credit to accusation, and allowed himself to punish often with a 

 severity not sufficiently tempered. Tho vices of tho wealthy, and 

 those which affected the domestic relations, met with no favour from 

 him. Against gambling he set himself with the utmost sternness ; 

 he even threatened that if any prosecutions were fairly brought before 

 him, and the guilty parties convicted, whatever might be their rank or 

 station in the country, though they were the fir.^t ladies in the land, 

 they should certainly exhibit themselves in the pillory. As a judge, 

 he recognised no distinction between the gamblers of St. James's and 

 the pickpockets of the Strand. Lord Kenyon exerted himself to the 

 utmost to put an end to duelling, and he declared that whoever was 

 convicted of having murdered his fellow-creaturo in a duel should 

 suffer the course of the law ; and he on more than one occasion 

 directed the jury to that conclusion, but without success. Flagitious 

 libels against individuals were punished by him with merited 

 severity. 



But of all writings, those partaking of tho character of political 

 libels were those against which he directed, with the most unflinching 

 perseverance, all the terrors of the law. This was a more dangerous 

 and delicate ground to tread upon, and his conduct will probably find 

 few approvers now. Certain it is, that since the time of Lord Kenyou 

 the practice of prosecuting for political libels has gradually fallen 

 into disuse ; nor would the pillory, as part of the punishment for 



