appointment of Mr. Lomax to the chair of law at the university. From the beginning of his career as a lawyer, Mr. Lomax had been a close and ardent student of its principles. He went to the bottom of its foundation, searching among the hard, clean gray stone, or the dust and debris, for the reason of things and was never satisfied until he found them. The common law of England, its history and growth, the statutes ameliorating, enlarg ing and defining its principles, the rise and progress and controlling power, the remedial action of the courts of chancery, had all been subjects of research and critical ex amination. He lived to see these unfold, apply themselves to the vast change and development brought about by science and mechanical invention in the first six decades of the eighteenth century. It was his proficiency of learning that enabled him to throw a search light upon recondite doctrine and as a lecturer to give a rational cast to " the most subtle dogmas of the common law," and amid dry details to illustrate by some graphic picture of mediaeval times, in whose rigid customs the law took its rise, to be broadened under the influence of a later and higher civilization. In 1830, Mr. Lomax resigned the chair of law in the University to accept the .posi tion of judge of the circuit superior court of law and chancery, and was assigned to the third district and fifth circuit, com posed of the counties of Spottsylvania, Caro line, Richmond, King George, Westmore land, Lancaster and Northumberland. This constituted him a judge of the general court, with appellate jurisdiction in certain cases. This judicial appointment compelled his return to Fredericksburg, which continued to be his home for the rest of his life. His circuit was the territory familiar to him from boyhood. Every county contributed some relative or friend at whose fireside he was a guest of welcome, and whose hos pitality he enjoyed.
In 1848 a special court of appeals was formed, composed of five judges of the gen eral court, the oldest of whom was Judge Lomax, to relieve the Supreme Court of the appellate business, which had accumulated on its docket, and to try and determine such cases as might be assigned. In addition to his judicial labor, Judge Lomax taught, during the winter months for many years, a law school at Fredericksburg to which many young men resorted for in struction. Among these were the Hon. Wm. S. Barton, Henry A. Washington, Pro fessor of Law in the College of William and Mary, Howard Shackelford and Robert Montague. If he had been deservedly popu lar as a lecturer during his professorship at the University of Virginia, he in the same kindly intercourse and fatherly interest in the students of his classes never failed to attach them to him personally. It may be said in this connection that to Judge Lomax and the second Judge Tucker, more than to any other two men, may be ascribed the credit of molding and educating the young men of their day for the Virginia bar — many of whom later on attained the highest rank in the legal profession. Although interested in the political move ment of the time he did not aspire to or seek to gain office. He was eminently the scholar. The honors reaped by him were confined to his profession. In 1844 the degree of LL.D. had been conferred upon him by his Alma Mater. His " Digest of the Laws of Real Property," published in three volumes in 1839, brought him to the attention of Professor Greenleaf of the Law School of Harvard. These men became friends, and no doubt Professor Greenleaf in stigated another honor, for in 1847 the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Judge Lomax by the University of Harvard. The convention which framed and amended the constitution for Virginia in 1851, on application of the members of the bar practicing in his circuit, struck out the pro
