After the abolition of the circuit court, Mr. Tilghman resumed the practice of his profession, and continued it until the 31st July 1805, when he was appointed president of the courts of common pleas in the first district.

He remained but a few months in the common pleas. In the beginning of the year 1806, Mr. Shippen, the chief justice of the supreme court, yielded to the claims of a venerable old age by retiring from the office, and on the 25th of February, Mr. Tilghman was commissioned in his place by Governor McKean, himself a great lawyer and judge, and interested as a father in the court which he had led on to distinguished reputation in the United States. From the time that he took his seat on the bench, at March term 1806, for the space of more than ten years, he delivered an opinion in every case but five, the arguments in four of which he was prevented from hearing by sickness, and in one by domestic affliction; and in more than two hundred and fifty cases, he either pronounced the judgment of the court, or his brethren concurred in his opinion and reasons without a comment.

His attention, from the beginning to the end of the twenty-one years that he presided in the supreme court, was undeviatingly given to every case; and he prepared himself for all that required consideration at his chamber, by taking an accurate note of the authorities cited by counsel, and of the principal heads and illustrations of their argument. This labour was not performed to accumulate the evidences of his devotion to business, nor under subjection to an inveterate habit. He was far above all this. He did it under a sense of conscientious duty to retain such minutes as would enable him to examine the authorities, and to review the observations of counsel, after the illusion, and perhaps the excitement of the public discussion had gone by. The contents of twenty volumes of reports, and upwards of two thousand judgments, most of them elaborate, all of them sufficiently reasoned, very few upon matters of practice, or on points of fugitive interest, attest the devotion of his judicial life; and although it is not meant to deprive of their share of the merit of these labours, the eminent men who survive him on the bench, and who remain to continue, and I hope to exalt the fame of our jurisprudence, I may say, and they will cheerfully admit, that he was the presiding spirit of their consultations, as he was of their court.

In addition to these strictly official duties, the legislature of Pennsylvania committed to the judges of the supreme court, in the year 1807, the critical duty of reporting the English statutes in force within this commonwealth. The duty is called critical, for so undoubtedly it was considered by the chief justice. The service exacted an unlimited knowledge of our colonial legislation, and of the practice and administration of the law in the province, through a period of nearly a century, in which there was not the light of a reported case. It required also an intimate familiarity with the written law of England, its history, both political and legal, and a knowledge of the impressions which it had given to and received from the common law, during the course of many centuries. The selection, moreover,

was to be made in the chambers of the judges, without the aid of that best of all devices for eliciting the truth, an ardent, free, and ingenuous discussion by counsel. I need not say to the professional hearer, that the task was Herculean. In the course, however, of less than two years, it was performed; and the profession and the public are indebted to it for an invaluable standard of reference in a province of the law before that time without path or guide. It is not perfect. It has not the obligation of judicial authority. I speak the sentiments of its principal author. Some statutes are perhaps omitted. Still the original work will remain as a monument to those by whom it was erected, and who may now be said to rest beneath it. If it shall increase at all, it will be by the contributions which the hand of respect and affection shall bring to swell the tribute to the venerable dead. The labours thus recited, my brethren, in addition to what we know to have been performed at Nisi Prius, and in circuits through the state, entitle this eminent judge to the praise of great industry, a virtue which it is an offence against morality to call humble, in one who is the keeper both of his own talent, and not seldom of that of others also. It was, however, industry of the highest order-a constant action of the intellect practically applied.

All his opinions are remarkable for their admirable common sense, and their adaptation to the common understanding. There is no reaching after what is recondite or abstruse,-no affectation of science. The language of the law, as he uses it, is vernacular, 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 effort to entangle justice in the meshes of chicane. The law was his master; he 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 administration, and of the profession too, that the occasions were rare in which his efforts did not bring them into harmonious co-operation.

In the department of penal law he was relieved, by his office, from frequent labours, although he annually presided in a court of oyer and terminer for this county. His knowledge of this branch of the law was extensive and accurate; his judgment in it, as in every other, was admirable. His own exemption from moral infirmity, might be supposed to have made him severe in his reckonings with the guilty; but it is the quality of minds as pure as his to look with compassion upon those who have fallen from virtue. He could not but pronounce the sentence of the law upon such as were condemned to hear it; but the calmness, the dignity, the impar tiality, with which he ordered their trials, the deep

attention which he gave to such as involved life, and the touching manner of his last office to the convicted, demonstrated his sense of the peculiar responsibility which belonged to this part of his functions. In civil controversies, such excepted as by some feature of injustice demanded a notice of the parties, he reduced the issue pretty much to an abstract form, and solved it as if it had been an algebraic problem. But in criminal cases, there was a constant reference to the wretched persons whose fate was suspended before him; and in the very celerity with which he endeavoured to dispose of the accusation, he evinced his sympathy. It was his invariable effort, without regard to his own health, to finish a capital case at one sitting, if any portion of the night would suffice for the object; and one of his declared motives was to terminate, as soon as possible, that harrowing solicitude, worse even than the worst certainty, which a protracted trial brings to the unhappy prisoner. He never pronounced the sentence of death without severe pain; in the first instance it was the occasion of anguish. In this, as in many other points, he bore a strong resemblance to Sir Matthew Hale. His awful reverence of the great Judge of all mankind, and the humility with which he habitually walked in that presence, made him uplift the sword of justice as if it scarcely belonged to man, himself a suppliant, to let it fall on the neck of his fellow

man.

Upon the whole, his character as a judge was a combination of some of the finest elements that have been united in that office. Among those which may be regarded as primary or fundamental, were a reverential love of the common law and a fervent zeal for justice, as the end and intended fruit of all law.

His early education, it has been remarked, was excellent. He was an accomplished Latin scholar, but, to his own regret, had suffered his Greek to fall away by desuetude. The literature of the former language he kept constantly fresh in his mind. His memory was stored with beautiful Latin, which he has been heard to repeat, as it were, to himself, when the occasion recalled it, and his modesty did not care to pronounce it aloud. On all his circuits and journies into the districts of the supreme court, his companions were the Bible, a Latin author, and some recent treatise of distinction in the law. Upon the last that he ever made, he refreshed his recollections of the Pharsalia. It is perhaps no idle fancy to suppose that he may have then read, with almost a personal application, the prophetic appeal of the spectre to the race of Pompey:

veniet quæ misceat omnes Hora duces. Properate mori

Such a name and such an example, are of great efficacy in the inquiry concerning the fittest basis of liberal education. All the faculties of his mind were thoroughly developed,-he accumulated large stores of knowledge, he brought them into daily use, he reasoned accurately, he conversed elegantly, his taste was refined, -the pleasures which it brought to him were pure,-his imagination was

replete with the beautiful forms of ancient poetry,he was adequate to the functions of one of the most exalted offices, he knew little of the natural sciences, and his education was such as has been described. It would be unjust to him, however, to say, that he undervalued knowledge of any kind, and least of all that knowledge which is opening every day to the world, and to this part of the world especially, new sources of wealth, and new proofs of the wisdom and beneficence of Deity. On the contrary, with that diffusive liberality for which he was conspicuous, he gave his counsel and his money to every plan for increasing this species of knowledge; but it cannot be asserted of him, that he recommended it, in any of its branches, as an instrument for unfolding the faculties of youth. He regarded these sciences as treasure for accumulation, after education had performed its office. For the great work of training the minds of young men to liberal pursuits, and to the learned professions, his opinion was anchored upon the system, by which he had been reared himself,-the system of the American colleges.

His moral qualities were of the highest order. It has been said, that the panegyrists of great men can rarely direct the eye with safety to their early years, for fear of lighting upon the traces of some irregular passion. But to the subject of this discourse may with justice be applied the praise of the Chancellor D'Aguesseau, that he was never known to take a single step out of the narrow path of wisdom, and that although it was sometimes remarked he had been young, it was for the purpose not of palliating a defect, but of doing greater honour to his virtues. Of his early life, few of his cotemporaries remain to speak; but those few attest what the harmony of his whole character in later years would infer, that his youth gave presage, by its sobriety and exemplary rectitude, of all that we witnessed and admired in the maturity of his character. It is great praise to say of so excellent a judge, that there was no contrariety between his judgments and his life, that there was a perfect consent between his public and his private manners,-that he was an engaging example of all he taught,-and that no reproach which, in his multifarious employment, he was compelled to utter against all the forms of injustice, public and private, social and domestic,-against all violations of law, from crime down to those irregularities at which, from general infirmity, there is a general connivance,-in no instance, did the sting of his reproach wound his own bosom. Yet it was in his life only, and not in his pretensions, that you discerned this his fortunate superiority to others. In his private walks, he was the most unpretending of men. He bore constantly about him those characteristics of true greatness, simplicity and modesty. Shall I add, that the memory of all his acquaintance may be challenged to repeat from his most unrestrained conversation, one word or allusion that might not have fallen with propriety upon the ear of the most fastidious delicacy.

The kindness of his nature appeared in the intercourse that he maintained with his fellow citizens,

notwithstanding the claims of his station. He probably entertained Mr. Burke's opinion, that as it is public justice that holds the community together, the judges ought to be of a reserved and retired character, and wholly unconnected with the political world. He certainly acted up to all that the senti ment asserts; and he found the benefit of it, the community did also, in a ready submission to those judgments, more than one, in which a suspected infusion of party would have been a disturbing ingredient. No one who knew him in private life, had however any reason to doubt his opinions, when the occasion fitly called for their expression. Not deeming it discreet to meet his fellow citizens in those assemblies where either politics or their kindred subjects were to be discussed, he seized with the more avidity such occasions of intercourse as were presented by meetings for public improvement, for philosophical inquiry, or the cultivation of literature; and in particular he attended with great interest to the concerns of the American Philosophical Society, of which he was chosen president, on the death of Dr. Patterson, in the year 1824, and to those also of the Athenæum, of which he was the first, and, during his life, the only president: the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania rarely missed him from his seat, or the United Episcopal Churches, of this city, from their vestry, as the warden of his venerable friend and pastor Bishop White. It was in this way that he diminished the distance to which his office removed him from society; keeping, however, a constant eye upon that office, even when he moved out of its orbit, and taking scrupulous care, that no external contact should be of a nature to disturb his movements when he returned to it.

The temper of the chief justice was singularly placable and benevolent. It was not in his power to remember an injury. A few days before his death, he said to two of his friends, attendant upon that scene, "I am at peace with all the world. I bear no ill-will to any human being; and there is no person in existence to whom I would not do good, and render a service, if it were in my power. No man can be happy who does not forgive injuries which he may have received from his fellow creatures." How suitable was this noble conclusion to his exemplary life! What a grace did this spirit impart to his own supplications! This was not a counterfeit virtue, assumed when the power to retaliate was wasted by disease. It was not the mere overflow of a kindly nature, unschooled by that divine science which teaches benevolence as a duty. It was the virtue of one, who, in his eulogium upon his eminent friend Dr. Wistar, who had filled the chair of the Philosophical Society, thus made known the foundation on which his benevolence was built. "Vain is the splendour of genius without the virtues of the heart. No man who is not good, deserves the name of wise. In the language of Scripture, folly and wickedness are the same; not only because vicious habits do really corrupt and darken the understanding, but because it is no small degree of folly to be ignorant, that the chief good of man is to know the will of his Creator, and to do it,”

It was under the influence of this sentiment that his fortune became a refuge to the unfortunate, far more extensively than his unostentatious manners imported. Notwithstanding the panoply which protected him from the assaults of this world, he was like the feeblest of his race, naked and defenceless against the dispensations of Heaven. His bosom suffered many and deep lacerations; but they had the propitious effect of opening his heart to mankind, instead of withering and drying up its affections. He was gentle, compassionate, charitable in many of the senses that make charity the first of virtues; and long after his leaves and branches were all torn away, there was more than one that reposed in the shade of his venerable trunk. His closing years finely illustrated the remark, that the heart of a good man is like a good soil, which is made more fertile by the ploughshare that tears it and lays it open, or like those plants which give out their best odours when they are broken and crushed.

An interesting record, which this venerable man has left behind him, acquaints us with many of his most private thoughts, and presents him in a relation which no man can renounce, and which, when duly observed, is the appropriate light wherein to behold an eminent judge,—the relation of man to his Creator.

His birth-day, the 12th of August, was habitually appropriated to the review of the last year, to selfexamination, and to intercourse with God; and it will not be deemed irreverent in us, the only children he has left, to cast an affectionate eye upon this record, and to draw encouragement and counsel, as well as increased veneration for his character, from the touching disclosure it makes of his fortitude, resignation, and piety.

The first of the series which has been found, begins on the 12th of August 1804, when he completed his forty-eighth year. He says" my health is good, my constitution unimpaired, but I am deeply impressed with the uncertainty of life. Let me prepare to follow the numerous friends who have left this world before me."-" The last stage of my residence on earth is approaching. Time is precious. I must not suffer it to be wasted in indolence, or thrown away on light amusements. I have endeavoured during the course of this day, to strengthen my mind with virtuous resolutions, and I hope my endeavours have not been useless." He then repeats the resolutions he had formed for the government of his life, among which is that of "letting no day pass without prostrating himself before the Supreme Being, in meditation, thanksgiving and prayer;" and he concludes his memorial by offer ing, as he expresses it, "with a grateful heart, his unworthy thanks to the almighty and merciful God, for past favours, far exceeding his merits," and by "imploring with all humility, that he would gra. ciously assist his weak endeavours to keep the resolutions he had made.”

He continues this review for several years, during which his strain is that of gratitude for constant benefactions: but in the year 1817, the clouds gath ered around him, the countenance of his beneficent

Creator seemed to be withdrawn, and the night of his old age was approaching, with the promise of but one feeble and ill-assured ray to relieve it from total darkness. He had been one of ten brothers and sisters, to all of whom he had borne the tenderest affection. He had been a husband, enjoying for a short time the happiness of that sacred relation. He had been the father of one child, devotedly loved for her intelligence, filial affection, and piety. Mark with what a celestial temper, if I may so speak, he records the flight of all these blessings. "I have now attained the age of sixty-one, and have survived parents, brothers, sisters, wife, and child. But few of my dearest connexions remain in this world. May this reflection induce me so to use the short remainder of my life, as may recommend me to thy favour, and procure me the happiness of once more meeting my departed friends, according to my confident hope. Lord thou hast taken away the child which thou hadst given me. I murmur not. Blessed be thy name."

Before the 12th of August 1820, that feeble ray which was promised to his declining days, was extinguished. The only child of his only daughter was taken from him. Yet observe how the light of the divine philosophy shone inward, and dispelled the gloom in which unassisted man would have sunk to despair. "Great God, during the last year, thou hast thrown me on the bed of sickness, and raised me up from it. Thou hast taken from me my last earthly hope. I submit to thy providence, and pray that thou will grant me fortitude under all my afflictions. I am sure that whatever is ordained by thee is right. May I never forget that thou art always present, the witness and judge of my actions and thoughts. My life is hastening to an end. May I, by thy gracious assistance, so employ the remainder of it, as not to be altogether unworthy of thy favour."

On the last anniversary that he ever saw, he begins his paper with the prophetic declaration, "this day completes my seventieth year, the period which is said to bound the life of man. My constitution is impaired, but I cannot sufficiently thank God that my intellects are sound, that I am afflicted with no painful disease, and that sufficient health remains to make life comfortable. I pray for the grace of the Almighty, to enable me to walk during the short remnant of life in his ways. Without his aid, I am sensible that my efforts are unavailing. May I submit with gratitude to all his dispensations, never forget that he is the witness of my actions and even of my thoughts, and endeavour to honour, love, and obey him, with all my heart, soul, and strength."

It is no longer wonderful that this venerated man performed his duties to universal acceptance, when we discern the spirit, better far than the genius of Socrates, from which he asked counsel. The ancients would have said of him, that he lived in the presence of all the deities, since prudence was never absent from him. The holders of a better faith must say, that it was to no poetical deity, nor to the counsels of his own mind, but to that "grace" which his supplications invoked, that he owed his

protection from most of the lapses to which fallible man is subject.

That "remnant of life" to which his last memorial refers, unfortunately for us, was short, as he had predicted; but he walked it as he had done all that went before, according to his devout aspiration. He continued to preside in the Supreme Court with his accustomed dignity and effect until the succeeding winter, when his constitution finally gave way, and after a short confinement, on Monday the 30th of April 1827, he closed his eyes for ever. It will be long, very long, before we shall open ours upon a wiser judge, a sounder lawyer, a riper scholar, a purer man, or a truer gentleman. [Extracts from an Eulogium delivered by Horace Binney, L.L.D.

TIMBALLIER, bay of Louisiana, extending. westward from the outlet of Lafourche river into the gulf of Mexico about thirty miles, with a width of from one to six miles. It has its discharge into Lafourche, and is only separated from the gulf of Mexico by a long, low, and narrow neck of land, or rather an island. It is a shallow sheet of water, with a muddy or sandy bottom. DARBY.

The surface of this county is composed of two inclined planes, the separating ridge or summit level extending from northwest to southeast. From the southwestern declination flow Pine Creek and Lycoming Creek, southwardly into the West Branch of Susquehannah river, and from the northwestern slope flow the various sources of Tioga river. The surface is broken, hilly, and partly mountainous, and may be regarded indeed as a new settlement, as in 1820 the population was only 4021, whilst in 1830 the inhabitants amounted to 9074, having gained 125 per cent in ten years.

By the post office list of 1831, besides Wellsborough, the county seat, there were post offices at Bloomsbury, Covington, Crooked Creek, Daggett's Mills, Dartmouth, Elk Land, Ingham, Knoxville, Lawrenceville, Liberty, Mainsburg, Mansfield, Nelson, Pine Creek, Rutland, Sullivan, Tioga, and Westfield.

Wellsburg, the county seat, is situated on or near the head of a small branch of Crooked Creek, Branch of Tioga, about 50 miles a little W. of N. from Williamsport, on the west branch of Susquehannah river, about 100 miles, following the road

northwestward from Wilkesbarre, and by post road 147 miles a little W. of N. from Harrisburg, and 253 miles in a nearly similar direction from W. C. As laid down in Tanner's Pennsylvania, the latitude is 41° 44' N., Lon. 0° 36′ W. from W. C.

TIPPERARY, a county of Ireland, in the province of Munster. It is about 74 miles long from N. to S., 240 from E. to W., and contains 1591 square miles, or 21,018,240 acres, which are divided into 12 baronies and 186 parishes, of which 116 are in the united sees of Cashel and Emly, 4 in that of Killaloe, and 32 in that of Waterford. It is separated from Clare and Galway by the Shannon, and from Waterford by the Suir.

The surface of this county is diversified with mountains and fertile plains. The mountains occur chiefly at the boundaries of the county, and the most important of them are the Galtie and Knockmeledon. The plains form the principal part of the county, and are remarkably productive, particularly what is called the Golden vale and the tract in which the town of Tipperary is situated. There is an extensive tract of bog in the east of the county, forming a part of the great bog of Allen, about 36,000 acres of which might be reclaimed.

The principal rivers are the Shannon and the Suir. The Shannon expands into the fine lake of Lough-derg. The Suir, after running south, takes an eastern course by Clonmel and Carrick, and, after its junction with the Barrow and the Nase, falls into the sea.

The coal district lies to the south of the bog above mentioned, between the town of Killenaule and the county of Kilkenny. The coal is the carbonaceous or stone coal, known by the name of Kilkenny coal. It is wrought on the borders of Queen's county. Lead and copper veins have been wrought near the Sliechbloom mountains, and fine millstones have also been quarried here.

The climate of Tipperary is very mild. Vegeta tion is seldom checked by the winter frosts, and the cattle remain out on the pasture grounds during the whole year.

The lands of the county are chiefly occupied in grazing, every variety of pasture land being found in the county. The cattle, which are long horned, are reckoned among the best in Ireland; and Mr. Wakefield is of opinion that many of the flocks of long-woolled sheep are not inferior to those of Leicestershire. Tillage farms are generally of small extent, one of 90 Irish acres being thought large. A species of flax, which grows to a great height, is raised on the rich lands, and seems well fitted for sail-cloth. The graziers in this county have often leasehold properties of much greater value than the freeholds. The estates in Tipperary are of various sizes. There are some from £10,000 to £15,000 per annum, and many from £4000 to £6000. Lord Landaff is the chief proprietor.

The principal towns in Tipperary are Clonmel and Carrick, both upon the Suir, Cashel, Fethard, Cahir, Thurles, Roscrea, Nenagh, and Tipperary. Carrick has a manufacture of ribbons. Fethard was

once a walled town, but is now in a state of decay. Thurles is a long straggling town of one street, with a neat modern church and barracks. Roscrea is a neat thriving place, with an ancient church, near which is one of the largest round towers in Ireland, all built with square stone. Nenagh was formerly defended by a strong castle. Tipperary is in a ruinous condition. See our articles CASHEL, Vol. V. p. 471, and CLONMEL, Vol. VI. p. 535, for an account of these towns.

Tipperary sends four members to parliament, two for the county and two for each of the burghs of Cashel and Clonmel. There were about 12,000 freeholders in this county under the old act.

The trade of Tipperary, which consists principally in its cattle, and beef, and corn, is facilitated by the river Suir, by which it has access to Waterford and the sea on the south, and by the Barrow and Nase, and a branch of the Grand Canal, by which it communicates with Dublin on the east. In 1792, the number of houses in the county, according to Dr. Beaufort, was 30,073, and reckoning 3 persons to a house, the population will be 169,000, or according to Mr. Bushe, if we give 6 to each house, the population will be 190,000. By the census of 1821, the population was found to be 353,000. The number of protestants is very small: in some places not above one in a hundred. See Wakefield's Statistical Account of Ireland, passim, the Statistical Account of the Parish of Carrick in 1815. Dr. Beaufort's Memoir of a Map of Ireland, and the article IRELAND, in this work.

TIPTON, county of Tennessee, bounded N. by Dyer, E. by Haywood, S. E. by Lafayette, S. W. by Shelby, and W. by the Mississippi river. Length 30, mean breadth 23, and area 690 square miles. Extending in Lat. from 35° 23' to 35° 48' N., and in Lon. from 12° 32′ to 13° W. from W. c. The declivity of this county is westward towards the Mississippi. Big Hatchee river, rising in the state of Mississippi, enters Tennessee, traversing Hardiman and Haywood into Tipton in a northwestern direction. In the latter, the stream deflects to westward, but with a northern curve falls into the Mississippi above the Second Chickasaw Bluff, dividing Tipton into nearly equal sections. Forked Deer river also, after traversing Madison, Haywook, and Dyer, curves into and falls into the Mississippi in the N.W. angle of Tipton, immediately above the First Chickasaw Bluff.

Except the flats along the Mississippi, the surface of Tipton county is hilly, with good soil. Staple, cotton.

By the post office list of 1831, there were post offices in Tipton at COVINGTON, the county seat, Branch, Durhamville, Fulton, Hartfield, Randolph, and Richland Grove.

Covington, the seat of justice, is situated on a small branch of Big Hatchee, about 40 miles N.N.E. from Memphis on the Mississippi, in Shelby county, and by post road, 197 miles S. W. by W. from Nashville. Lat. 35° 32′ N., and Lon. 12° 47' W. from W. C.