KENT, JAMES, ono of the most distinguished lawyers of America, was born at Fredericksburg, in the state of New York, on the 31st of July 1763. After passing through Yale College with groat credit, ho studied law under Mr. Benson, attorney-geueral for the state of New York; was admitted to practise as attorney of the supreme court of that state in 1785, and in 1787 as counsellor. During this time he had been prosecuting with exemplary diligence not only legal but general studies, and he began early to be regarded as one of the most promising of the rising public, men as well as lawyers of his day. From 1790 to 1794 he sat In the state legislature, but failing in securing his re-election, ho seems, about the latter year, to have with drawn from politics, and to have devoted himself to tho more profound study of the principles of jurisprudence. Elected professor of law in Columbia College, lie, io 1794, left Poughkeepsie, where ho had hitherto lived, for New York, in which city he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. In 1706 ho 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 LLD.; and a similar honour was subsequently conferred by Harvard and Dartmouth colleges. In 1800 lie was appointed, with Judge Radcliffe, to revise the legal code of New York—a work of some labour, and requiring great judgment, but one which was eo executed as to obtain general approbation. In 1804 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 he continued to occupy till the 1st of August 1823, when he became disqualified 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, be says 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 his lectures, and his observation of the workings of the law he had so long administered, in an eleberato work entitled ' Commentaries on American Law,' 4 vole. 8vo, 1826-30.. This work was at once received throughout the United States as a text-book, and speedily obtained general acceptance in this country as a standard work on the constitutional law of America, and time has amply confirmed the first favourable impreision. Retaining almost to the last his remarkable physical strength and mental activity, Chancellor Kent survived till the 12th of December 1817, when he died, amidst the general regrets of his fellow-citizens, in his eighty fourth year. Ho was a man of cheerful tomperameut, of methodical habits, great industry, and thorough integrity. In private life be was esteemed in no ordinary degree; while as a judge his 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.