sessed taxes in Ireland, and, which is of far greater importance, to admit of such alterations in the distillery laws as might render them no longer a fruitful source of that utter derangement of the social system in Ireland, which the Right Honourable Gentleman (whom we were so happy as to hear on the occasion) described and lamented with a benevolent warmth which must raise him in the estimation of every good man in the Empire. Since those intentions were expressed, they have been to a great extent carried into effect: bills for the repeal of the assessed taxes, and for establishing a temporary composition and a permanent commutation of tithes, in Ireland, have been introduced; and, at the moment at which we write, are in progress through the House of Commons.Another gratifying occurrence is the declaration of one of the Secretaries of State (Mr. Canning) in his place in parliament, that His Majesty's Government approved the conduct of the illustrious Viceroy of Ireland; which declaration was followed up by a promise on the part of the chief Secretary to propose the extension to Ireland of the provisions of the English act of 1799, proclaiming the illegality of secret societies of every description.

Such are the ingredients of our hope that ere long the condition of Ireland will at least be rendered less deplorable. May that hope be realized! and may England speedily begin to reduce that debt to her unhappy sister-country which, it is perhaps not too much to say, her utmost efforts will never enable her wholly to liquidate!

It

ART. XVIII.—Memoir of Sir Samuel Romilly.

T has been remarked by an accurate observer of human life, that the most amiable and beneficent qualities are not unsusceptible of energy, and that when it does invigorate their exertions, they rise far above their opposites. The life of the amiable man' of whom we wish to present a slight sketch to our readers fully illustrates this remark. To the contemplation of his beneficent exertions we shall principally devote our attention. We shall detail the events of his life, and dwell upon his conduct as a friend to humanity, and a constitutional statesman. For his acts, and opinions on the mere political events which passed during his parliamentary career, we would beg to refer the reader to Mr. Peter's memoir, and to the valuable collection of Sir Samuel Romilly's speeches to which that memoir is prefixed.

The subject of this memoir was born in Frith Street, Westminster, in the month of March 1757, and was the youngest son of a large family. His grandfather was one of those emigrants, who quitted

France

France on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and found an asylum in this country, where they could enjoy liberty of conscience. His father was born in this country, and exercised the trade of a jeweller. Samuel Romilly was brought up at a private school in Westminster, from which he proceeded to the office of Mr. Lally, an eminent solicitor and clerk in chancery. But at the period when he might be considered qualified to commence practising as a solicitor, he was induced, as much by the strong aspirations of his own mind as by the recommendations of his friends, to venture on a different path in the profession, requiring indeed inore courage and talent, but in some respects perhaps less irksome to the feelings, and where success would be accompanied with higher rewards and furnish opportunities of more extensive utility. He entered himself a member of Gray's Inn in the year 1778. His attention, even at this early period of his life, seems to have been much excited to the subject of punishments. In one of his letters written March 1782, he comments on the subtility and fondness for abstract reasoning, observable in the admirable treatise of Beccaria; and in a letter written in February 1783, he animadverts on some positions in M. Sirven's work; and contrasts them with the views of Burlamaqui and other writers on the laws of nature. The following remarks on inchoate crimes contained in that letter are not unworthy of his judgement, even when reflection and experience had most fully matured its powers. "He (M. Sirven) thinks that an inchoate crime (if that expression may be allowed) ought to be punished with equal severity as where it is complete; and he blames our law, because, with a very few exceptions, (and treason is almost the only one,) they are not considered in the same light, But surely common sense tells one, that there is much less guilt in forming a criminal design, than in persisting in it to its execution. There are many men who, in the heat of resentment, form the worst resolutions, but who would afterwards find it impossible to execute them; and the law must be very unjust indeed, which treats with the same severity the man who repents of his crime, while it is yet time, and before the mischief of it has taken effect, and him who long broods over his bloody purpose, deliberately plans it, and remains impregnable to pity or remorse, even to the moment when he strikes the fatal blow. At the same time, one must agree, that where the criminal has done every thing to give his purpose effect, and is disappointed merely by accident, his crime is as great as if the attempt had been successful. A man, who having mixed poison for another (when he sees the fatal cup raised to his lips, and when all the dreadful consequences of his crime, which, till then, the violence of passion had concealed from him, rush upon his imagination) suddenly repents, and dashes the cup

against

against the ground, is surely less criminal than one whose victim has escaped his vengeance, merely because the poison was too weak, or his constitution vigorous enough to overcome its effects: and though I agree, that the criminal, in this latter case, is to all intents a murderer, I yet doubt the policy of punishing even him as such, because to punish a mere attempt is to put it in the power of false accusers to ruin any innocent man against whom they have conceived an enmity*.

"It is hardly possible for men malevolently to charge an innocent person with murder, because that crime must be proved, not merely by oral testimony, but by its own evidence, by the evidentia rei; and it is scarcely practicable by any perjury to fix the circumstances of a murder on one who is innocent of it. But where an attempt may be punished, what can be more easy than to fabricate evidence in support of a long train of imagined facts, not one of which may be true?-If you object that our law is, then, unjust in punishing a mere attempt in the case of treason, I answer, that, if treason cannot be punished before it be complete, it cannot be punished at all; since its success overturns the established Government, and that by our law, the positive testimony of two persons is required for a conviction of treason, though the testimony of one is, in general, sufficient to prove any other crime.Besides, if the mere intentions of men are to be punished, where is the line to be drawn? What act is to be deemed a sufficient manifestation of a criminal purpose?

"But to consider the question in another, and, I think, its most important point of view, I mean with regard to what is, or ought to be, the only object of human laws, the prevention of crimes, how will the punishment of a mere attempt to commit a crime attain that end? Either a failure of success is a case which will never enter into the contemplation of the criminal, who means, undoubtedly, to carry his designs into full effect; or, if in his contemplation the law must warn him to make sure of success, to take every anxious precaution that his designs may not be frustrated, and that he may not incur the penalty of the law without completely attaining his end, and satisfying those passions for which he braves its vengeance. The effect of such a law, then, seems rather to be that of multiplying than diminishing the number of crimes."

In 1783 Mr. Romilly was called to the bar. His letters on that occasion eminently display the modesty of his nature; and evince at the same time a sense of dutiful resignation, which may deserve the attention of those youthful aspirants, who though not blessed with

The attempt to poison has been made felony without benefit of clergy by 43 Geo. III. c. 58, A. D. 1803.

his talents or likely to rival his eventual career, may yet learn from his early feelings to do their best to qualify themselves for success, and then to acquiesce, whatever may be the result. Indeed, unless our observation misleads us, such views might be suggested usefully to many, who are so wrapt up in weighing the chances of life, and considering the ends of their profession, as in the mean time very much to neglect the means, and who waste the time that should be devoted to preparatory studies, in moping over imaginary neg→ lect and anticipated disappointment. In another point of view these letters are painfully interesting, as indicating the variations of spirits and consequent alternations of hopes and fears, which are perhaps inseparable from that constitution of sensibility, which medical men vainly flatter by terming it the temperament of genius. Such a temperament, however, it was the fate of the subject of this memoir to experience; and if it gave poignancy to his apprehensions and to his sufferings, let us at least thankfully and gratefully acknowledge that it contributed the like intensity to his enjoyments and satisfactions: that it filled him with ardour, and inspired his exertions of patriotism and beneficence with genuine enthusiasm. In one letter to his brother-in-law, Mr. Roget, he says, "The nearer I approach the term which I have formerly so often wished for, the more I dread it. I sometimes lose all courage, and wonder what fond opinion of my talents could ever have induced me to venture on so bold an undertaking; but it too often happens (and I fear that it has been my case) that men mistake the desire for the ability, of acting some very distinguished part."

In another letter he says-" It would seem, my dear Roget, by your last letter, that you thought I had affected doubt of succeeding in the way of life on which I am to enter, only to draw from you such praises as might encourage me in my pursuit. I assure you I had no such wish, and that what I wrote to you was but a faithful transcript of what I felt. Could I but realize the partial hopes and expectations of my friends, there would be no doubt of my success almost beyond my wishes; but in myself I have a much less indulgent censor, and in this perhaps alone I cannot suffer their judgement to have equal weight with my own. I have taught myself, however, a very useful lesson of practical philosophy, which is, not to suffer my happiness to depend upon my success. Should my wishes be gratified, I promise myself to employ all the talents, and all the authority I may acquire, for the public good-Patria impendere vitam. Should I fail in my pursuit, I console myself with thinking that the humblest situation of life has its duties, which one must feel a satisfaction in discharging,-that, at least, my conscience will bear me the pleasing testimony of having intended well, and that, after all, true happiness is much less likely to be found in

the

the high walks of ambition, than in the secretum iter et fallentis semita vita.'-Were it not for these consolations, and did I consider my success at the bar as decisive of my future happiness, my apprehensions would be such that I might truly say, "Cum illius diei mihi venit in mentem, quo mihi dicendum sit, non solum commoreor animo, sed etiam toto corpore perhorresco."

From this period Mr. Romilly not only regularly attended the courts of equity in Westminster, but for fifteen years attended the assizes on the midland circuit, and, for some years, though probably a much shorter time, visited the quarter-sessions at Warwick. During this course of attendance, before the Judges of the common law and the magistrates, he acquired an intimate experience in the administration of the English criminal law. He contemplated in daily practice the mischiefs resulting from a code which denounces punishments disproportionate to offences. He witnessed the evasions, the subterfuges, the pious perjuries, which the humanity of grand-juries, of witnesses, of judges, of petit-juries, compelled them to have recourse to when a prisoner had been guilty of some trifling offence, and the law declared that if found guilty, his life must be the forfeit. He sometimes saw the culprit acquitted in defiance of evidence; and at other times, when convicted, saw the dismal sable assumed as if it were a mere ceremony; and the awful sentence of death (though at the moment never intended to be put into execution) solemnly pronounced, as if in mockery of truth. He was convinced that laws of inordinate severity are every way mischievous; that, if not executed, the evasion is effected by something like fraud in the courts of justice, and procures impunity to the offender; that if executed, they either tend to brutalize the community by destroying the distinctions between offences of different natures, or excite all its sympathies in favour of the criminal, against the laws, and against both those who administer them, and those who execute their decrees. When society is in an advanced state of civilization, the resolutions of the legislature, however supported by force or consecrated by opinion, cannot twist about the hearts or remodel the moral feelings of the mass of the community; and there surely can be no sound policy in introducing or continuing enactments which thwart the judgements of a people in proportion as that people are well educated, and outrage their feelings in proportion as they are humane.

Mr. Romilly saw that the proper remedy in such a case was the repeal of laws of undue severity, and the adoption of a scale of punishment proportioned to the scale of offences; but that until such remedy was applied, the laws themselves were frequently innoxious only so long as they were rendered inoperative, and could

be