instances, because his lordship, and those to whom his Reminiscences are particularly addressed, must have been most familiar with them. But the history of the English Bar, both in London and the provinces, abounds unhappily in cases falling within the same general description. The tyranny, too, of the ruling party generally, cannot be represented with truth to have differed much in Edinburgh from what prevailed in provincial towns both of England and Ireland. Of some, as Liverpool and Manchester, we can speak with the most absolute confidence. The state of the Scotch Bench gives rise to many of Lord Cockburn's most severe animadversions; and it is singular that he nowhere marks the real origin of all the great defects in the judicature; the preposterous number of the judges-twenty-one in the Supreme Courts, beside the judge ordinary of each countythe sheriff—with large jurisdiction. To supply such a number of well-fitted persons, the Bar was plainly inadequate; but the evil was still greater in the facilities afforded to appoint men of inferior capacity, and who were either the personal friends or the party adherents of the minister. A man of Lord Melville's extreme good-nature and social disposition was sure to gratify his personal friends, as he was likely from ambitious motives to advance his political adherents. But before we join the cry of his adversaries on the appointment of one or two men allowed to be unfit for their high station, let it be remembered that some sorry nominations have at different times called down the censures of Westminster Hall. We have all heard of the alleged origin of the judges in one of our courts, when one was said to take his place by operation of law (he being an excellent lawyer), and another by prescription (he being brother of a court physician); nay, when at another time the same Court was described as composed of one who was a gentleman and no lawyer; another, a lawyer and no gentleman; a third, both; and a fourth, neither. The joke and the epigram no doubt entered for something in the composition of such pictures; but all lawyers knew that there was too much foundation in the likenesses. That the Prince of Wales interposed directly both to obtain for a personal friend, wholly unfit for the office, the quasi judicial place of Master in Chancery,

Mr. Twiss has fully shown in his Life of Lord Eldon; but it is equally certain that he obtained by importunity the place of a Baron of the Exchequer for another ally many years before. Then as for political connection, what adherent of the Opposition ever ascended the English Bench during the times of which Lord Cockburn writes? Nay, was it not reckoned a great victory, long after, of Lord Ellenborough, that he could obtain the promotion of by far the greatest lawyer of the day, but one who had, though most quietly, and almost secretly, betrayed Whig propensities, the late Mr. Justice Holroyd; and this was marvelled at in Westminster Hall, though it happened long after the healing administration of Lord Sidmouth, and when all the heats engendered by the French Revolution had passed away; nay, had almost been forgotten.

But Lord Cockburn brings a much heavier charge against the members of the Scotch Bench, than the origin of their official promotion;-that they showed partiality in political cases, and that they ill supported the dignity of their high places, is the burthen of his song; and he illustrates the position by a great number of examples. Now we suspect that he will be found, in the first place, to err in confining one of these censures to the Scotch Bench; and next, to have, from the two causes already suggested-party prejudice and love of recounting anecdotes-in no little degree coloured and exaggerated the facts.

That in seasons of great political excitement, such as those to which the atrocities of the French Revolution gave rise, the judges, like the rest of the community, betrayed feelings which it was impossible not to have, and often difficult to restrain within due bounds, is altogether undeniable; that the English judges were wholly exempt from blame in this respect, cannot be pretended. Whoever has attended on the trial of ex officio informations for libel, must be aware of the scenes constantly exhibited, of contentions between the Bench and the Bar. But we need only ask, what kind of conduct must have been held by one judge, when so mild a nature as Erskine's, and so chivalrous in delicacy of speech, was betrayed into applying the word, "Scoundrel; it's false, and you know

it;" or, upon the trial for high treason in 1794, what must have been the glaring partiality of the presiding judge, when that illustrious advocate, the most unassuming of men, but, above all, the most habitually careless of his precedence as an earl's son, could push the Chief Justice aside on walking out of Court to the dining-room, and walk before him? But the fact is undeniable, that one judge tried a quo warranto case respecting a borough of which he was part-owner, as regarded the returning of the members. Lord Thurlow had this in his eye, probably, when he said that he had long hesitated between the intemperance of Kenyon and the corruption of Buller, but had decided to make Kenyon Chief Justice; adding, "Not that there was not a -deal of corruption in Kenyon's intemperance." Now Lord Cockburn, a collector of anecdotes, and not unfrequently taking things seriously that were spoken in jest, would probably have set down Kenyon as corrupt, almost equally with Buller. That the judges in England may, for the most part, have shown their political feelings with more decorum than was always displayed in Scotland, is possible, although our courts were not without scenes of another description; but in those days it was a very common observation that you could generally tell beforehand how a point would be decided, on which turned some important prerogative of the Crown. The judges, it used to be said, can always grind a little law as it may be wanted for the occasion. Let it be remembered, that we are very far from vindicating the Scotch judges for the violence which they are said to have shown; but we deny that they were among judges the singular case, and that all the prejudices-the honest prejudices-to be, if not severely reprobated, certainly to be deeply lamented as often as they cross the judicial mind-were confined to the judges of Scotland.

Lord Cockburn dwells with much severity upon the conduct of the Scotch Court in the trials for sedition, 1793 and 1794. It no doubt strikes Englishmen, and even English lawyers, with astonishment, that men should have been sentenced to fourteen years' transportation for what in England is only punishable with fine and imprisonment; but there can be no question that the law of Scotland visited sedition with that heavy

penalty, until it was altered in the reign of George IV. But suppose the Crown had only prosecuted for sedition in 1794, instead of high treason, of which the defendants were with some difficulty acquitted, a conviction would have been easy, and a matter of course; nor can we doubt that sentences of fine and imprisonment would have been pronounced, not far short of transportation in severity. This we know, that long after the heats of party had subsided, with all alarms about revolution, two years' imprisonment was the lot of men who had written disrespectfully of the Prince Regent, and three years, somewhat later, for attending a seditious meeting. We will furthermore venture to ask, whether our English Courts, sitting under the alarms of 1793 and 1794, would have hesitated to send men convicted of sedition to exile in Australia, if it had happened that the law of England armed them with the power of inflicting this heavy punishment ?

It may be well to recollect in what terms the administration of the English law by the juries and the judges of 1794 was spoken of by the more zealous friends of the Constitution, those most under the influence of the alarms spread abroad by the horrors enacted in France. Two years after the treason trials, and when time had been given for reconciling them to their disappointment in its result, we find them complaining of the course of justice having been obstructed,-nay, of those who had the office of administering it, siding with the enemies of the Constitution. Mr. Burke places this evil at the summit of all the greatest calamities that have befallen us, and the greatest dangers that beset us. "Great reverses of fortune there have been, and great embarrassments in council; a principled regicide enemy possessed of the most important part of Europe, and struggling for the rest; within ourselves, a total relaxation of all authority; whilst a cry is raised against it, as if it were the most ferocious of all despotisms. A worse phenomenon,—our Government disowned by the most efficient member of its tribunals, ill-supported by any of their constituent parts; and the highest tribunal of all, deprived of all that dignity and all that efficiency which might enforce or regulate, or, if the case required it, might supply the want of every other court." (It is

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probable that he here refers to the House of Lords having acquitted Mr. Hastings; but also to its being unable to supply the defects of the ordinary tribunals, to which what follows plainly alludes.) "Public prosecutions are become little better than schools for treason, of no use but to improve the dexterity of criminals in the mystery of evasion, or to show with what complete impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth, with what safety assassins may attempt its lawful head."-(Regicide Peace, Works, viii. 94.) Such is Mr. Burke's deliberate opinion of the acquittal from a charge of high treason, which it took ten hours for the public prosecutor to explain before the Court and jury. We may be permitted to question the assertion of his son, in a letter to Sir Philip Francis, respecting the extravagances in his book on the French Revolution :-"I tell you his folly is wiser than the wisdom of the common herd of able men." (Corresp. iii. 133.) But be this as it may, we conceive that we have shown sufficiently how strongly the feeling that guided the Scotch Courts prevailed among alarmists in those days; and all were alarmists, even the handful of Whig partisans scattered thinly over the country. Thus, while under the influence of party feelings, Lord Cockburn denounces the Scotch judges and juries as having sacrificed their duty to their political feelings, in punishing too severely, Mr. Burke complains even more bitterly of the English Courts for suffering the same class of persons to escape; and it may be observed that neither of these censors rests satisfied with denouncing mere errors of judgment; both inveigh against the tribunals as guilty of injustice. If we wanted any further illustration of the effects of party bias on the judgments of men assuming to give historical statements, we might cite the manner in which such portions of contemporary events as we have been considering are dealt with in a work like the Annual Register. Compare the account of French affairs in that well-known work before it came into the hands of the Dissenters in 1793, and after that time. One instance may suffice. In 1795 the revolution of Thermidor is recounted, and the trials of those who were in consequence brought to justice. The most atrocious by very far of all the enormities which had been committed during the