BOUVIER, John, jurist, born in Codogno, Italy, in 1787; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 18 November 1851. His family, who were Quakers, settled in Philadelphia in 1802. He was employed for several years in a book-store, and then went to Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where he published in 1814 a newspaper called the "American Telegraph." He afterward studied law, and during his studies made a complete analysis of Blackstone's "Commentaries." He was admitted to the bar in 1818 at Unionville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where he published, from April 1818, till July 1820, "The Genius of Liberty and American Telegraph." In 1823 he began practice in Philadelphia, was recorder of that city in 1836, and in 1838 became associate judge of the court of criminal sessions. He published a "Law Dictionary adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America" (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1839 ; 15th ed., revised, 1886). On this work he had spent ten years of labor, and it was highly praised by Chief Justice Story, Judge Greenleaf, and other noted lawyers. In 1841 he began a new edition of Bacon's "Abridgment of the Law," consisting of ten octavo volumes, and finished it in four years. Two months before his death he published his greatest work, the "Institutes of American Law" (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1851 ; new edition by died A. Gleason, 2 vols., 1870). This is a compendium of American law, based on Pothier's system, for which Judge Bou vier had a great admiration.