"Yes," added the stranger, "I used to bind books for him; and, one time, he gave me some books to bind, which I kept for a long time, not having the means to procure the materials to bind them. Calling one day to see if they were not finished, on my telling him they were not, he asked, 'What is the matter? Are you in want of money?' I said, Judge, you have hit the nail on the head.' He immediately handed me ten dollars with a pleasant smile, and left me. At that time I had not a cent to go to market with." This little incident was but a specimen of a thousand others of a like character, which illustrated his kindness of heart and his feeling of brotherhood towards those around him.

The person of Judge Bouvier was every way pleasing. In height he was about five feet nine inches, with dark complexion, and dark, soft, yet penetrating eyes. His manners happily blended dignity with courtesy, and no man could spend an evening with him without retiring with pleasant recollections of the instructive character of his conversation, carried on with unaffected ease. His judgment was evidently clear and correct, and his apprehension quick, at once taking a full comprehension of a subject, and all its correlatives. His intellect immediately penetrated any topic brought before him, which he intuitively analysed, reduced to first principles, and carried out into all its consequences. His friendships were cordial and affectionate, and were never influenced by mere caprice; and it has been well said of him that he never forgot a favor, and could easily forgive an injury.

While we write thus, we are not forgetful that society at large received from him benefits, of which the deprivation is not small. Without noise, and without even a momentary desire to be prominent, he was warmly attached to the great philanthropic institutions of the day. The temperance cause found in him one of its most cordial friends, and was served alike by the influence of his example, his purse, and his pen. He was for He was for many years a member and director, and, at length, President of the Apprentices' Library of Philadelphia, for the supply of useful reading for youth of both sexes while serving apprenticeship; and directly and indirectly was one of the greatest benefactors of this valuable institution. His philanthropy went even farther. While on the bench, he became deeply impressed with the fact that ignorance cherished crime, and

that useful knowledge discouraged it; and, on this account, he was assiduous in placing instructive books in the hands even of the prisoners, and, in several instances, it is known that this practice was not without good results.

Devoted as Judge Bouvier was to labor, there were moments when he could devote his pen to Fancy, and court the Muses. Not a few productions of imagination, in the shape of poetry, found a welcome home in one or two of the weekly journals of Philadelphia, indicating that had he cultivated literature as a pursuit, he might have taken his position on elevated ground.

The last illness of our friend was short, and of an affecting character. He left home one morning in his usual health, to visit his office, where he had been for several hours, when two friends called on him, and found him in his chair, stricken with apoplexy, and quite insensible to everything around him. He was immediately visited by the most eminent medical skill in the city, and as soon as possible removed to his home, but after living just one week he ceased to breathe. It is believed that his life was shortened by his extremely regular habits of persevering sedentary labor. Nature demanded occasional relaxation, and that he should sometimes recreate body and mind; but of this he could form no proper idea, and made the change of work his only relaxation. How rarely is such an impropriety committed! The man who acts in this way may well be forgiven, when so many thousands are ruined by an opposite course of conduct. The death of Judge Bouvier occurred November 18th, 1851, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and his remains were deposited in the cemetery of Laurel Hill, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, so long the city of his residence. Of this beautiful place of sepulture, his own pen has written :

"There is a spot beside fair Schuylkill's side,
Favored by nature and adorned by art,
Where pensive woe and plaintive grief abide,
And to the soui their solemn mood impart :
Where towering trees,

Fanned by the breeze,

With murmuring music soothe the mournful heart.
The rich and poor, the humble and the proud,

The old and young, each in his lowly bed,

The plain and gay, are all brought there to crowd

The city of the dead."

It scarcely need be added to this brief sketch, that Judge Bouvier was cordially attached to the government of the country whose laws he has so admirably illustrated, and several of whose offices he filled with so much integrity and talent. He left his native country, as we have seen, when very young, and never lost the charm which one's native village imparts to the mind. He never forgot the language of his country, nor the peculiar patois of Codognan; but, from the hour of his arrival on our shores, he considered the United States as his own adopted beloved country, the place of his life and death, and the scene of his grave. He visited his native land but a few years before his decease, and returned, not loving France less, but America more. Such men are at once the pillars and the ornaments of the country in which they live, which is enriched even by their dust yet lying in its midst.

"Although Judge Bouvier was by birth a Frenchman; and, according to our arrangement, should be ranked among foreign writers in America, we deem it not improper, for several reasons, to introduce him here. He went to the United States at an early age, but was not at first designed for the law. His mind, however, was peculiarly adapted to the legal profession, and he became an eminent Judge. His two books, "The Institutes of American Law," and "Dictionary of Law," are among the best works of their kind, and are so considered in Europe. The celebrated German jurist, Mettermeyer, recommends them to European lawyers, as the books they will have to look up to as the great authorities on American practice; and their wide circulation in the United States, and extensive use there, give them a position equal to the works of the ablest American jurists, among whom Judge Bouvier may justly be classed."*

From Trübner's Bibliographical Guide, London, 1859.

WILLIAM BRADFORD.

WILLIAM BRADFORD, the first printer in Pennsylvania, was the son of William and Anne Bradford, of Leicester, England, at which place he was born, in 1658. Being a Quaker, he emigrated to Pennsylvania, in 1682, and landed, where Philadelphia was afterwards laid out, before a house was built. He served his apprenticeship in London, with Andrew Sowles, Printer, in Grace Church Street, and married his daughter Elizabeth. Andrew Sowles was the intimate friend of George Fox, the founder of the English sect of Quakers.

The first work printed by Bradford, in Philadelphia, which has reached the present day, with a date, is "An Almanack for the Year of the Christian Account, 1687, by Daniel Leeds, Student in Agriculture; Printed and Sold by William Bradford, pro anno 1687."*

In the year 1692, much contention prevailed among the Quakers in Philadelphia, and Bradford took an active part in the quarrel. George Keith, by birth a Scotchman, a man of good abilities and well educated, was Surveyor-General in New Jersey, and the Society of Friends in this city employed him, in 1689, as the superintendent of their school. Keith, having attended to this duty nearly two years, became a public speaker in their religious assemblies; but being, as the Quakers asserted, of a turbulent and overbearing spirit, he gave them much trouble. They forbade him speaking as a teacher, or minister in their meetings. This and some other irritating circumstances, caused a division among the Friends, and the parties were violently hostile to each other. Bradford was of the party which was attached to Keith, and supported him; their opponents were the majority. Among them

* On the authority of H. Stevens, Esq., the bibliographer, he informs (a gentleman now in New York,-Mr. Menzies),-that he has the full title of a book printed by William Bradford. It is a small 4to. tract, of four or six leaves, printed in 1686. Mr. Stevens has not yet given a collation of it; he is probably reserving it for his work on "American Bibliography."