the bar of which he was a member, when it met in the end of the month of April of this year to show respect to one of its best men, was entirely within the just limits of mortuary eulogy when it asserted that William Henry Rawle "was in himself an example of the best qualities which go to form the character of a sagacious adviser, a high-minded and capable advocate, and a useful citizen, and [that] his death is a loss not only to the bar but to the community at large."
THE GREAT SEAL.
THE office of "Chancellor of the Kings of England" has existed from the most remote antiquity. Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Chancellors," says: "The almost fabulous British king Arthur is said to have appointed a chancellor. The Anglo-Saxon monarchs from Ethelbert downwards certainly had such an officer; but although the office then existed, centuries elapsed before it assumed the functions of a court."
The king has ever been considered the fountain of justice. In very early times, as he could not himself in person decide all controversies and remedy all wrongs, tribunals were constituted, over which deputed judges presided to carry the law into execution. Still, applications were made to him personally by injured parties for redress; these were to be referred to the proper forum, and process was to be made out for summoning the adversary, and directing that after both sides had been heard the appropriate relief should be administered. To assist him in this department, the king employed a secretary, on whom, by degrees, it was entirely devolved; and this officer, on a statement of facts by the complainant, framed writs or letters, in the king's name, to the judges, by which suits were instituted. Forms were adopted, to be always followed under similar circumstances; and a place was named to which all suitors might resort to be furnished with the means of obtaining justice. This was the officina justitiæ, called Chancery; and the officer who presided over it was called Chancellor.
Again, grants of dignities, of offices, and of lands were made by the king. The writs above referred to, and these grants were in the earliest times verified merely by signature. The art of writing being then but little known, seals became common; and the king, according to the fashion of the age, adopted a seal with which writs and grants were sealed. This was called the Great Seal, and the custody of it was given to the chancellor.
It has generally been supposed that Edward the Confessor was the first English sovereign who used a seal; but Dugdale shows that there were some grants under seal as far back as King Edgar.
At first the chancellors were selected from the ecclesiastical order. The king always had near his person a priest, to whom was intrusted the care of his chapel and who was his confessor. This person, selected from the most learned and able of his order, and greatly superior in accomplishments to the unlettered laymen attending the court, soon acted as private secretary to the king, and gained his confidence in affairs of state; and to this person was assigned the business of superintending writs and grants, with the custody of the Great Seal.
The first layman intrusted with the keeping of the Great Seal was William Fitzgilbert, who was appointed chancellor by Queen Matilda; and from his time no other layman was appointed until the reign of Edward III.
The Great Seal has ever been considered the emblem of sovereignty,—the clavis reg-
