WILLIAM TILGHMAN. 37 



nacular, and his arguments are the most simple that 

 the case will bear. They are not an intricate web, 

 in which filaments separately weak obtain strength 

 by their union, but a chain, whose firmness arises 

 from the solidity of its links, and not from the artifice 

 of their connexion. 



But that quality which exalts his judgments the 

 most in the estimation of the public, is the ardent love 

 of justice which runs through them all. His appetite 

 for it was keen and constant; and nothing could rouse 

 his kind and courteous temper into resentment, more 

 than a deliberate efTort to entangle justice in the 

 meshes of chicane. The law was his master ; lie 

 yielded implicit obedience to its behests. Justice was 

 the object of his affections ; he defended her with the 

 devotion of a lover. It is the high praise of his ad- 

 ministration, and of the profession too, that the occa- 

 sions were rare in which his efforts did not bring them 

 into harmonious co-operation. 



Is it not worthy of remark, that judgments such as 

 these, which enjoyed universal respect, were never- 

 theless, free from every thing like pretension? Chief 

 Justice Tilghman could have done as much with the 

 Bar of Pennsylvania, by the force of his authority, as 

 any Judge that ever sat in his seat. His investigations 

 were known to be so faithful, his reasonings so just, 

 and his convictions so impartial, that there would have 

 been a ready acceptance of his conclusions, without 

 a knowledge of the steps which led to them. He asked 

 however, for submission to no autliority, so rarely as 



