nothing but a defect upon a defect. It was cumbrous and troublesome in its action wherever it had to be enforced. If money had to be raised by mortgage for the term, the security, according to present usage, was unsatisfactory and of a sale it was worse-frequently it did not answer its purpose at all, and the parties after all had often to incur the expense of going to the Court of Chancery for relief. The whole machinery would be rendered unnecessary if a charge gave a right to a receiver to secure the rents and profits, and to a sale, guarded, of course, with proper notices to the owners of the estate charged.

POSTSCRIPT.

THE appointment of Mr. Justice Shee to the puisne judgeship of the Court of Queen's Bench, vacant by the death, unexpected though not untimely, of the venerable Sir William Wightman, has justified the observations we made in our last Number, and does honour to the Lord Chancellor, who has thus vindicated his constitutional position. Mr. Justice Shee has been greeted with the acclamations of the whole Profession, and the LAW MAGAZINE may be allowed to offer its special congratulations on the promotion of the first orator and advocate of the Bar to the judicial honours so long and amply earned.

In France, where the Bar has always occupied so important a political position, the return to parliamentary life of her greatest forensic orator has attracted much notice. The recent speech of M. Berryer was worthy of his best days, and like all his famous efforts, was unsurpassable. It is truly remarkable that at the age of seventy-five, and after twelve years' retirement from the Legislative Chamber, he should have shown his oratorical powers unabated. We are not aware of any other such display under similar circumstances. Romilly, we believe, spoke to the end of his career with the same vigour and ability as had characterised its commencement; but then he died at sixty-one, and never was absent from public life. Lord Lyndhurst continued to speak in the House of Lords with his wonted ability till he was nearly ninety, certainly a wonderful exhibition of continued mental vigour; but then he, again, unlike Berryer, had never left public life, and was never out of the habit of debate. Lord Brougham is ten years the senior of the illustrious Frenchman, but he never allowed his oratory to rust. So that, taken on the whole, we repeat that this revival of Berryer's parliamentary eloquence is unique, and we are surprised that so little notice has been taken of it in this country. His abilities as an advocate are absolutely beyond exaggeration, and it may be doubted whether they have ever been surpassed. We know that Lord Brougham, who has had the advantage of hearing both, has constantly spoken of Berryer as on a level with Erskine, and as the only orator of whom, within his experience of the Bar, whether French or English, the same could be said. But as a parliamentary debater, the palm is clearly due to the French advocate. We have heard more than once of a project to invite M. Berryer to a banquet of the English Bar, and should be glad to know that the intention was about to be fulfilled.

A union has been happily accomplished of the Law Amendment Society with the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, upon terms mutually advantageous. The Law Amendment Society has done excellent service during its twenty years of existence, and has been instrumental in originating and furthering most of the important legal reforms that have taken place during that period. The nine Bills introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Brougham, soon after the foundation of the Society, were all either prepared or revised by its committees; and his lordship has often publicly acknowledged that the most important of those measures, the Bill to make parties to a suit competent

as witnesses, would never have been

carried but for the exertions of the Society. Its Mercantile Law Conference in 1857 would have been enough in itself to signalise its history, and the strenuous support afforded to the movement for reformatory schools laid the foundation of a great move in the administration of our Criminal Law. The Society, we find, has handed over to the Association its valuable library of reports and textbooks, which must be worth at least £1,000, and its furniture and other assets, on the conditions that its members shall retain all their present privileges, and that its outstanding liabilities shall be discharged. These latter, we believe, are far within the value of the library alone, so that the bargain may be considered a good one for the Association. We have no doubt, however, that the usefulness, and consequently the prosperity, of both Societies will be increased by their union, and we wish that the example they have set could be generally followed. The multiplicity of societies is becoming a positive nuisance in London, and the loss of time, labour, and money involved, is beyond calculation. Anything ought to be welcome that brings concentration and unity.

Among the numerous questions which present themselves for earnest consideration by the profession and the public, there are two subjects which appear to us to have pre-eminent claims on the immediate attention of the Legislature. We allude in the first place to the law relating to copyrights, the present unsatisfactory condition of which has been often demonstrated, and of which there appears, at last, in near perspective, some view of a thorough amendment. Mr. Adam Black, the able, experienced, and thoroughly practical M.P. for Edinburgh, has taken the matter up in the House of Commons, and he is a man not likely to let it drop till something real be done. In the Law Amendment Society, Serjeant Burke (author of many copyright works) read, last year, an elaborate paper on the evils of our copy

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right jurisprudence which roused much general attention, and which led to the Society's appointing a committee for fully discussing and reporting on the actual state of the copyright law, with a view to its condensation, codification, and complete amendment. That committee is now sitting, and it is to be hoped, will soon bring its labours to a tangible shape. The reform they are likely to propose will no doubt have the powerful aid of Mr. Black in the one House and of Lord Brougham in the other, and will, if carried, prove of inestimable value to all the sons of genius, whether authors, dramatists, musicians, lecturers, painters, or otherwise engaged in the noble works of art.

The other important matter to which we have alluded as calling for immediate reform, is the law relating to landland, in reference to its title by inheritance or purchase, its possession, use, enjoyment, and disposition. This important subject has been brought under our notice at this time by circumstances relating to the actual state of the law, which may be said even to lend some degree of interest to, and to encourage the expectation of benefit from, the recent controversy between Mr. Cobden and the Times. As lawyers and law-reformers-and as such exclusively we desire to be known and understood in this MAGAZINE-we should be careful to avoid the exhibition in our pages of any particular political sympathies or antipathies-we are of all parties, and we believe, and indeed we rejoice to know, that our Legislature includes good, wise, and learned men among all sections, who, with every advantage to the public good, may be indifferently consulted where the improvement of the law is sought for. Without, therefore, identifying ourselves in any way with the opinions held by Mr. Cobden himself, or with the party of which he is so powerful a supporter, we must candidly avow that his recent speech, which gave rise to his dispute with Mr. Delane, and which provoked so much general criticism, is, in the aspect of law amendment, entitled to very serious, and, we would hope, unprejudiced, consideration. Whether Mr. Cobden's language justified the meaning that has been put upon it, we need not here inquire. We would rather give credit to Mr. Cobden's own express repudiation of any revolutionary intention, and avail ourselves, as law reformers, of such a reasonable construction of his speech as the dispassionate perusal we have given it has satisfied us may be adopted. Thus quietly regarded, the substance of Mr. Cobden's complaint was, that the distribution of the land, in the way of ownership, was not in due proportion to the population of the country, and he suggested that sound views of public policy were unfavourable to the exclusive possession and control of large tracts of country by particular individuals or families, to the prejudice of the community at large, who would, if they had the opportunity, be too glad to avail themselves of a more liberal commerce in land than the present state of the law affords facilities for, to say the very least. We have no right to search the depths of Mr. Cobden's mind and conscience. We would rather, even if he had not repudiated, as he did, any revolutionary intention, give him the benefit of that favourable and friendly presumption to which, as a conspicuous politician, and as a gentleman of great respectability of character, he must be allowed to be entitled, and read what he said rather as a suggestion for the amendment of the law, than as an incitement to political convulsion.

Mr. Cobden's intention may have been, and indeed probably was, to suggest such a change in the law as would give greater freedom to commerce in land, and enable persons, who, on the one hand, were willing to sell, and on the other, who had money with which to acquire, a certain portion of the soil, to make and conclude their contracts in safety and in peace-and he may have been further of opinion that in order to effect this object, it would be desirable to borrow from the law of France, and to abolish our law of primogeniture. These certainly are not our own opinions; but they are opinions held by many excellent and intelligent persons; and they are undoubtedly fair subjects for public discussion. Mr. Cobden's expressions, there

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