A CARLYLE WILL IN AN AMERICAN COURT. BY OWEN B. JENKINS. THE possession of talent has been in some subtle and powerful way so con nected in the minds of men with the genealogy of its possessor as to give rank to his kin in most countries and honor in all. While it has been said that genius has no pedigree, men have uniformly acted on the contrary supposition, and have usually allowed merit to all branches of a family, any one of whose members has given them signal cause for esteem. Among the many illustrations of this tendency was the toil of the Scotch lawyer, Gracie, of Dumfries, whose genea logical labors set forth in a tree six feet high and two feet wide, prepared in 1862, traced the descent of Thomas Carlyle through ten generations from a certain Lord Carlyle of Torthorwald who died in 1745, and which the great Thomas said was " probably cor rect in essentials." Men recognized as alto gether fitting that one who did so much to ennoble the thought and life of his fellows should have been connected by blood with the nobility of tht past, and were not sur prised that excellence should have come from mediaeval ancestry likewise, pronounced ex cellent by its contemporaries. A side light on the vigor of the Carlyle constitution and the ability of those endowed with it to keep to the front is furnished by a glimpse of the life of Alexander Carlyle. He gives us a bit of biography in his will, which instrument, dated October 21, 1814, and signed at Philadelphia, where he resided, subsequently was submitted to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for construction. In it he says : " I was born in Castlebank near Ecclefechan, about ten miles from Dumfries in Scotland, which place I left when young and served my time in England in the trade of a tanner before I came to America."
Then, after making certain specific bequests, the testator gives the remainder of his estate to his nephew " John Carlyle, the grandson of William Carlyle, and his four children, namely, John, William, Alexander and Rachel Carlyle, and also William Renew, to be equally divided among them during their natural lives, and afterwards to revert to the male heirs in a lineal descent of my nephew John Carlyle whose male heirs are only to possess my estate in tail, and their male is sue who bear the name of Carlyle forever." The opinion of the court was delivered by Judge Duncan, himself of Scotch descent, who, in holding that the nephew of the tes tator took by devise in special tail male said: "There can be no good reason why the high constable of this good city should not be in dulged in the gratification of his family pride, equally with the proudest baron, and make what is very usual in his native country, Scotland, a Tailzie." It appears from this statement that Alex ander Carlyle, who had accumulated at the time of his decease personal property amounting to $5,000, and numerous houses and lands, was at the head of the constabulary of the then foremost city in the country, be ing in fact director of public safety. In 1810 the population of Philadelphia city was over 50,000 souls, and the surrounding county contained as many more, so that the position and influence of Carlyle were not insignifi cant, although the word constable has fallen from the high estate it occupied when worn by a De Lacy or a Montmorency. Among the purchases made by Alexander Carlyle was a lot of land near i oth and Race Streets in Philadelphia, bought in i"8l at public auction, held by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania pursuant to an action
