The Law School has just purchased a notable collection of portraits of eight famous jurists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These paintings will probably be hung in the new Langdell Hall addition.

The collection includes paintings of two Harvard men, famed as advocates in colonial times: Jeremiah Gridley, of the class of 1725, often called the "father of the Boston bar," and Benjamin Pratt, of the class of 1737, an eminent Boston lawyer and later chief justice of New York State. These two men were painted by Thomas Swibert of Boston, a famed American painter, ranked next to Copley in importance by many authorities on colonial artists.

Among the eight paintings, also are a portrait of the Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor under Charles II, of Justice Abney of the Court of Common Pleas under George II, and Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under William and Mary.

These men are painted in their robes of state, lending an interesting sidelight on the legal customs of the times. Justice Abney is shown holding the black cap in his hand which judges wore when they pronounced the death sentence.

Besides a large collection of true paintings the Law School has obtained a group of over 200 cartoons of various British legal lights. They range in importance from the police court magistrate of London, to the Lord Chief Justice, and Prime Minister Disraeli, but all are shown in positions neither dignified nor flattering. They were drawn for "Vanity Fair" by two cartoonists who called themselves "Ape" and "Spy." Proudly looking down on this "rogue's gallery" are oil portraits of Daniel Webster, of the class of 1804, John Marshall, Rufus Choate, of the class of 1845, and James Bradley Thayer, of the class of 1852, professor of Law from 1873 to 1902.