reason to believe a charge preferred by an attorney known to him was groundless, but on which the man suffered imprisonment till the grand jury threw out the bill preferred, but not until the prisoner and his family were ruined, the attorney complaining of the letter as a libel instead of bringing his action, when Mr. B- as well as himself might have been examined, proceeded by indictment, when of course he himself told his story, and Mr. B-'s mouth was shut. The consequence was a conviction and sentence of imprisonment.

The only objection of the least weight ever urged against giving the defendant his option was that if from weak nerves or other cause he declined to avail himself of it, the suspicion would arise that he was conscious of guilt. No doubt the judge ought to explain to the jury that this did not follow. But it was suggested by Lord Campbell that we ought to begin by confining the measure to cases of misdemeanor on which the prosecutor was a private individual and tendered himself for examination. To this proposal I acceded, and last session presented a Bill with this restriction; and I have every reason, from what passed on B-'s petition, to believe that this measure will be successful, those who had been strongly against the option in all cases being quite disposed to give it in this instance where the want of it works such manifest injustice.

But it is impossible to view this subject from any point and not be greatly struck with the great defect in our criminal procedure-the want of a Public Prosecutor. Our mode of proceeding is perfectly barbarous, and not only throws a burthen on the party injured by the offence, but gives no security for the offender being prosecuted at all. The exertions of Mr. Phillimore, when he was in the House of Commons, were entitled to great commendation, and he met with but scanty support from friends to the improvement of the law. Surely it is time at length to make the experiment (as I had in 1834 arranged with Duncannon, Home Secretary), in the Central Criminal Court, the Treasury to employ experienced counsel to prepare Bills and superintend the collection of evidence, as is generally done in some counties, the West Riding of Yorkshire for example. Not that a great deal more is not required to place England upon the same footing as Scotland. In this important particular, if my excellent and truly learned friend Mr. Napier, ex-Chancellor of Ireland, had succeeded in obtaining the appointment of a minister of justice, as he repeatedly attempted, and at last succeeded in obtaining an address of the Commons in favour of the measure, it is certain that the want of a public prosecutor would not continue to render our criminal procedure at once inconsistent and inefficient.

The loss of Lyndhurst, my oldest friend, yourself and Glenelg excepted, was a severe, though not unexpected blow, during the late Congress at Edinburgh. Of his great and good qualities I need say nothing, but of his admirable conduct in regard to Law Amendment I am here bound to speak. His firmness and candour were above all praise. When we differed, as upon my Local Courts Bill, which he threw out by a very narrow majority in its last stage, he afterwards, upon further consideration, came round to the necessity of the measure, and by his powerful assistance the great improvement of establishing County Courts was carried. On another measure next in importance, the admission of Evidence of Parties, he was beset by high judicial authorities, including the Chancellor (Truro) himself;---but he turned a deaf ear to all their objections, and but for him, I verily believe, I should not have carried the Bill. The loss of such a man, on all matters of importance, on none more than the Amendment of the Law, is truly irreparable. He was opposed, and firmly opposed, to its worst enemies-those who will hear of no change, and those whom no change will satisfy."

Oct. 20, 1863.

T

POSTSCRIPT.-MR. SERJEANT SHEE.

THE Profession have been much surprised that Serjeant Shee has been again passed over, on the occasion of the • recent vacancy in the Judicial Bench. The fact that Serjeant Shee has more than once gone circuit as a judge had strengthened the hope that his pre-eminent position at the Bar, a position due as much to his high character as to his great gifts of oratory, would have at length received the tardy recognition of the Crown. It had begun to be believed that as far as the appointments to the Bench at Westminster were concerned, the days of political bias, party influence, and religious bigotry, had passed away. Unhappily it would appear that the belief was too sanguine; and that even if the maxim detur digniori is allowed to sway in other instances, the advocates of Catholic Emancipation are resolved that the full benefits of that measure are not to be extended to the Bench and Bar.

It is rumoured that the Lord Chancellor has been coerced in this matter, and if it be so we are bound to say that his lordship has abdicated. For it is wholly beyond question, that with him rests the appointment of all puisne judges, and of the Chief Baron, and it is of the utmost importance that he should exercise this high trust without any communication whatever with his colleagues. The rule, we can say without fear of contradiction, is that until he takes the Sovereign's pleasure, he mentions the person he proposes to no one; and this is absolutely necessary to prevent all political interference, and to make the Chancellor's responsibility entire and undivided. This rule has been observed by former Chancellors, and it is much to be regretted if, on this occasion, as is generally believed, it has been broken through.

We need hardly say that no such interference with the prerogative of the Great Seal was ever permitted by Lord Lyndhurst, whose recent death, though at the extreme term of life, has been the subject of deep feeling among the profession. We hope that on some early occasion we may be able to devote some space to his eventful life, and also to that of another ornament of the bench who has passed away since our last publication, Sir Cresswell Cresswell.

Notices of New Books.

[*** It should be understood that the Notices of New Works forwarded to us for Review, and which appear in this part of the MAGAZINE, do not preclude our recurring to them at greater length, and in a more elaborate form, in a subsequent Number, when their character and importance require it.]

A Popular and Practical Introduction to Law Studies, and to every Department of the Legal Profession. By Samuel Warren, D.C.L. Third Edition. In 2 Vols. London: Maxwell, 1863.

THERE can be no doubt that, to whatever branch of our profession a student of the present day should propose to betake himself, he would be advised to commence very early operations on either Stephen or Blackstone. There can be as little that, of whichever of these treatises he may make choice, he will have worked into his mind, at the close of his study, but a very small part of what is really contained in either. This cannot arise from the inherent dryness of the subject, for law is not drier, at any rate, than conic sections: it certainly is not from the repulsiveness of the manner in which it is presented to him, for Blackstone's style has been said to cloy with sweetness: nor is it, either, that Blackstone is unhappily defective in system and logical arrangement, for the result we have noted is equally observable after the study of Stephen. Without any of these causes to account for it, it is, we believe, a truth, that an honest student commencing his law studies with Blackstone or Stephen must undergo more labour and with less at the end to show for it, than appears to be at all consistent with the emphatic eulogium of Lord Mansfield.

The case is, we apprehend, that, invaluable as these Commentaries are for the view which they present of the whole field of law, and universally recognised as they have been, both for their authority and their not over-minuteness, as the fittest first book for a student, they are neither of them properly an introduction to law studies. They presuppose a large amount of knowledge to be already in the reader's mind-an amount, indeed, fatal to their own usefulness if they were to attempt to supply it. The acknowledged First Book still wants an Introduction.

Has Mr. Warren supplied this want?

Mr. Warren is entitled, it appears to us, to claim on his side the evidence of mercantile success-a test to which we, for our parts, acknowledge that we are disposed to pay very considerable deference. His book is now in its third edition, and has doubled its original size, and it has reached this stage at a rate not much less rapid than is expected of an ordinarily successful text book intended for daily practice. So far it appears evident that Mr. Warren has clearly supplied a want, and the only question is, if he has also supplied the

want.

In acknowledging frankly that we do not think he has, we are not going to treat our readers to the oft-repeated objections on the surface which Mr, Warren has already survived. No doubt it is possible to imagine a considerably better book: probably it would not be difficult, especially with Mr. Warren's mistakes before us, to write one. No doubt, too, the book does seem to exhibit a larger share of vanity than is usually expected to be seen in public. But we are not sure that this is so serious a defect. An earnest student will be too busy to attend to it; a half-earnest one may be kept amused by it. Mr. Warren is free, too, from the affectation of deeming certain matters "beneath the dignity of history," and tells the student all about his roast mutton in the Temple as freely as he explains-and this he does well-how to study his cases in pupils' chambers. What Mr. Warren has proposed to do we think he has done very fairly, at too great length, to our thinking, but, in general, with quite adequate skill and judgment in the use of his materials.

But still the question recurs to us-Will the student make more of his Blackstone or Stephen if he begins first with Warren, than he would without him? and we certainly do not see how we can say that he will.

Mr. Warren gives the student a much too long chapter, some sixty pages altogether, on the formation of the legal character; the essentials of which are, according to him, very numerous, but not distinguishable, as far as we can perceive, from those which are required in other avocations besides the bar. A respectable turnpike-keeper, we venture to think, would have a right to be grievously offended with us if we denied him the possession of a "capacity of sustained attention," "clearness of perception," "rapidity and flexibility," "calmness," "patience," "tact," or "presence;" meaning by this latter, in full accord with our author, "port, air, and demeanour."

We also do not think that the student will be particularly advanced, at the outset of his studies, by the lengthened parallel between law as it was and law as it is, however interesting and valuable at a later period; we think a somewhat more learned development of the same