haps the profession will ultimately decide the lesser part of his claims to its gratitude. His book on "Covenants for Title," published as early as 1852 and passing through five editions in his lifetime, will continue an enduring title of honor to him as long as clearness of legal perception, soundness of judgment, and profound learning in dealing with a technically difficult subject shall be estimated at their true value. A work upon so important a branch of the law, the merits of which are attested by the number of editions through which it has already passed, was liberal payment of the debt which the lawyer is supposed to owe to his profession; but much as it was, it was only a discharge in part of the claim which our friend believed himself to be under to it. His treatise on "Equity in Pennsylvania," emitted in the year 1868 in the form of a lecture before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, is an admirable view of the subject which it discusses; and the synopsis found in it, with the Registrar's Book of Governor Keith's Court of Chancery, contained in the appendix, which Mr. Rawle's labors unearthed from its unknown hiding-place among the archives of the State at Harrisburg, greatly enhance the value of the essay. It is not too much to say that, taken as it should always be with the "Essay on Equity" in Pennsylvania, by Anthony Laussat, Jr., the remarkable production of a student of law, there is presented to the inquirer into this head of jurisprudence a most favorable view of the mode in which equitable relief has been and continues to be administered in Pennsylvania, presenting a system well worthy of imitation and adoption.
Mr. Rawle's intellectual activities did not stop here. He was a ready and graceful writer upon general subjects, and two of his occasional addresses are so admirable that it would be a grave omission to pass them over. His address upon the unveiling of the statue of Chief-Justice Marshall, delivered at Washington in the month of May, 1884, is remarkable for its freshness, its neatness, the absence of commonplace in dealing with a hackneyed subject, and the beautiful compendium of the official life of the distinguished subject of the eulogy. The address upon "The Case of the Educated Unemployed," made at Harvard, June 25, 1885, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, abounds in admirable advice to the young and aspiring, conveyed in polished, sometimes epigrammatic phrases; and a vein of commonsense runs throughout the whole of it. It is one of the best of the many addresses delivered at that time-honored institution of learning.
Although not a frequent speaker upon the occasional gatherings of the profession, either for social purposes or more frequently to pay the tribute of respect to departed associates, some of Mr. Rawle's remarks at such meetings show with what ease and success he handled such subjects. Two of these may be here referred to as good illustrations of his style,—the first his remarks at the Bar Meeting held to take action upon the death of Henry Wharton on the 15th of November, 1880; the other, upon the occasion of the reception given by the Bar of Philadelphia to Chief-Justice Sharswood upon his retirement from the Supreme Court on the 20th of December, 1882. No one who heard or who now reads these addresses can fail to be delighted with the exquisite taste, the happy catching of and adaptation to the tone of the occasion, the nice discrimination of praise awarded to the subjects of the speeches, the high professional tone, and the thorough good-fellowship and sympathy with the members of the profession, exhibited throughout. The only regret upon reading them is that they were not more frequently delivered. But Mr. Rawle's sensitiveness shrank at all times from public deliverances, except in the way of professional work, and a little pressure was necessary to be exerted upon him, except where the outwellings of affection and sympathy flowed spontaneously from his lips.
From this short sketch it will be seen that
