During this whole session Mr Pitt found occasion, in every debate, to confound the ministerial orators. His vehement invectives were awful to Murray; terrible to Hume Campbell; and no malefactor under the stripes of an executioner, was ever more forlorn and helpless than Fox appeared under the lash of Pitt's eloquence, shrewd and able in parliament as Fox confessedly is; Dodington sheltered himself in silence. We cannot refrain from one more extract while on this subject. On another occasion, immediately after he had finished a speech, in the house of commons, he walked out of it; and, as usual, with a very slow step. A silence ensued, till the door was opened to let him into the lobby. A member then started up, saying, 'I rise to reply to the right honourable member-Lord Chatham turned back, and fixed his eye on the orator,-who instantly sat down dumb: his lordship then returned to his seat, repeating, as he hobbled along, the verses of Virgil: Ast Danaûm proceres, Agamemnoniæque phalan ges, Ut videre virum, fulgentiaque arma per umbras, Every American has perused the speech of this noble orator on the employment of savages by the British during our revolution. The effect of this, when recited by an ordinary declaimer, is great; what must it have been from the lips of Chatham him self. Lord North, according to Mr Butler, was a gentleman, in the most extended sense of that comprehensive word. Without aspiring to the higher eloquence, he was a very skilful debater; but was most remarkable for a kind of good-natured and inoffensive wit, of which the following is a good specimen. The assault of Mr Adam on Mr Fox, and of Colonel Fullarton on Lord Shelburne, had once put the house into the worst possible humour, and there was more or less of savageness in every thing that was said:-Lord North deprecated the too great readiness to take offence, which then seemed so possess the house. One member,' he said, who spoke of me, called me, "that thing called a minister:"-to be sure,' he said, patting his large form, I am a thing;-the member, therefore, when he called me a thing, said what was true; and I could not be angry with him; but, when he added, that thing called a minister, he called me that thing, which, of all things, he himself wished most to be; and, therefore," said Lord North, I took it as a compliment.' The following parallel between the parliamentary talents of Pitt and Fox will be read with interest. It is difficult to decide on the comparative merit of him and Mr Pitt; the latter had not the vehement reasoning, or argumentative ridicule of Mr Fox: but he had more splendour, more imagery, and much more method and discretion. His long, lofty, and reverential panegyrics of the British constitution, his eloquent vituperations of those, It was prettily said by the historian of the Roman empire, that Charles's black collier would soon sink Billy's painted galley-but never did horoscope prove more false-Mr Fox said more truly-Pitt will do for us, if he should not do for himself.' earnest. Mr Fox had a captivating earnestness of tone and manner; Mr Pitt was more dignified than graceful; Mr Pitt's cannot be praised. It was an The action of Mr Fox was easy and observation of the reporters in the gallery, that it required great exertion to follow Mr Fox while he was speaking; none to remember what he had said; that it was easy and delightful to follow Mr Pitt; not so easy to recollect what had delighted them. It may be added, that, in all Mr Fox's speeches, even when he was most violent, there was an unquestionable indication of good humour, which attracted every heart. Where there was such a seeming equipoise of merit, the two last circumstances might be thought to turn the scale: but Mr Pitt's undeviating circumspection,-sometimes tended to obtain for him, from the considerate and concealed, sometimes ostentatiously displayed, the grave, a confidence which they denied to his rival:-Besides, Mr Pitt had no coalition, no India bill to defend. Much, that awes by power or charms by beauty, Fox spoke, his argument only was thought of; was heard in the harangues of both: but, while while Pitt harangued, all his other excellencies had their due measure of attention. Each made better speeches than Lord Chatham; neither of them possessed even one of those moments of supreme dominion, which, (he is sensible how very imperfectly,) the Reminiscent has attempted to describe. titions,—Mr Pitt by his amplifications. Mr GratBoth orators were verbose: Mr Fox by his repetan observed to the Reminiscent,-that no person had heard Mr Fox to advantage, who had not heard him before the coalition; or Mr Pitt, who had not heard him before he quitted office. Each defended himself on these occasions with surprising ability: but each felt he had done something that required defence:-the talent remained, the mouth still spoke great things, but the swell of soul was no these occasions, put the Reminiscent in mind of a more. The situation of these eminent men on remark of Bossuet on Fénélon,- Fénelon,' he said, has great talents: much greater than mine: it is his misfortune to have brought himself into a situation, in which all his talents are necessary for his defence.' 227 for one day, and you'll see which has the real superiority.'-Mr Fox never had the king with him, even for an hour. thought to have brought into the field, something Burke was inferior as a speaker, but greatly superior if judged by his speeches as they are published. In familiar conversation, the three great men, whom we have mentioned, equally excelled: but even the most intimate friends of Mr Fox com plained of his too frequent ruminating silence. Mr Pitt talked ;-and his talk was fascinating. A good judge said of him, that he was the only person he had known, who possessed the talent of condescension. Yet his loftiness never forsook him; still, one might be sooner seduced to take liberties with him, than with Mr Fox. With each the baton du général was in sight, but Mr Pitt's animation and playfulness frequently made it unobserved: this was not so often the case with Mr Fox. Mr Burke's conversation was rambling, but splendid, rich, and instructive beyond comparison. We shall conclude our notice of parliamentary eloquence, by an extract from the account of Lord Thurlow. At times, Lord Thurlow was superlatively great. It was the good fortune of the Reminiscent, to hear his celebrated reply to the Duke of Grafton, during the inquiry into Lord Sandwich's administration of Greenwich hospital. His grace's action and delivery, when he addressed the house, were singularly dignified and graceful; but his matter was not equal to his manner. He reproached Lord Thurlow with his plebeian extraction, and his recent admission into the peerage.-Particular circumstances caused Lord Thurlow's reply to make a deep impression on the Reminiscent. His Lordship had spoken too often, and began to be heard with a civil but visible impatience. Under these circumstances, he was attacked in the manner we advanced slowly to the place, from which the have mentioned. He rose from the woolsack, and chancellor generally addresses the house; then, fixing on the duke the look of Jove, when he has grasped the thunder ;- I am amazed,' he said, in a level tone of voice, at the attack which the nosiderably raising his voice, I am amazed at his ble duke has made on me. Yes, my lords,' congrace's speech. The noble duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer, who owes his seat fession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it in this house to his successful exertions in the prois as honorable to owe it to these, as to being the the language of the noble duke is as applicable and accident of an accident?-To all these noble lords, as insulting as it is to myself. But I don't fear to meet it single and alone. No one venerates the say that the peerage solicited me,—not I the peerpeerage more than I do,-but, my lords, I must age. Nay more, a peer of parliament,-as speaker of this right can say and will say, that, as honourable house, as keeper of the great seal,as guardian of his majesty's conscience, as lord high chancellor of England, nay, even in that character alone, in which the noble duke would think it an affront to be considered,--but which character none can deny me,--as a MAN, I am at this moment as respectable ;--I beg leave to add,--I am at this time, as much respected, as the proudest peer I now look down upon.' The effect of this out of them, was prodigious. It gave Lord Thurspeech, both within the walls of parliament and low an ascendancy in the house, which no chancellor had ever possessed; it invested him, in pubfic opinion, with a character of independence and honour; and this, although he was ever on the unpopular side of politics, made him always popular with the people. Alliance, the present state of Europe, and The author's speculations upon the Holy the prospects of legitimacy, are full of interest. Through the whole work he exhibits a constant and deep interest in the fate of his religion, and his strong bias in favor of every thing that is Roman Catholic. He even entertains hopes of the success of the impossible project of uniting the English and Roman churches. Very many of his publications have related to these subjects; and his interest in the Catholic question appears to have carried him so frequently to the gallery of the House of Commons. Of the Letter on Ancient and Modern Music, it is unnecessary to say any thing; it will be interesting only to the initiated; and on this subject even a reviewer may be permitted to acknowledge profound ignorance. Tales of a Traveller, Parts III. and IV. By Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Author of "The Sketch Book," " Bracebridge Hall,' "Knickerbocker's New York," &c. Philadelphia. 1824. 8vo. ་ rated description of it, or, at least, to dwell before he visited the scenes described; for on it with an undue degree of fondness. A he has shown a remarkable insensibility to little travel is as dangerous as a little learn their most striking and interesting characing; and a deeper draught of it is as effica-teristics. We know how soon the newcious in sobering down the intoxication of ness of travelling wears away, and the exthe first taste. If Mr Irving had seen citement of the imagination gives place to France, Italy, and Switzerland, before writ-weariness and almost to disgust. Besides, ing about England, there would not have what is it gives fervor to the fancy, and inappeared in these writings, as we think terest to the observations of a traveller? It there now does, a marked inferiority to his is, that he is a stranger and a sojourner; other productions. He would not have that all around him is new and foreign, and twaddled about Roscoe and the green fields that he connects all this with the recollecand Christmas holydays of England, in a tions and feelings of a dear and distant style so much below that of the legends and home. But there is nothing of all this in descriptions of the New Netherlands. We the practised traveller; his observations do not mean that England is not highly are without enthusiasm or association. One worthy of the attention of the traveller in who travels to furnish his imagination with search of the interesting and beautiful, materials for its creative powers, should whether he chooses to observe the scenery travel fast, and not long. He should not or the people, as well as the country of all stay in any place until the homeliness of reothers the most advanced in the arts of life.ality breaks through the poetical mist that Perhaps it is only because it is so much hangs so beautifully round a strange land, in many points like our own, that it is not, nor continue his wanderings long enough On the whole, we are not satisfied with on the whole, entitled to a decided prefer- to familiarize his mind to strangeness. He these Tales. Some of them, indeed, are ence to every other in the eyes of the Amer-should do just the reverse of what might be quite respectable as productions of a light ican traveller. But, whatever be the en- recommended as the best mode of travelkind of literature; but, some how or other,' thusiasm with which the sea-sick stranger ling for information; for, as soon as he can as Dolph Heyliger says, the public have touches the shore of England, where he finds find his way well about a city, it is time for been led to expect better things as the re- himself for the first time in a foreign land; him to be gone to another; and whenever sult of Mr Irving's travels. It was some- a land of interesting recollections, and un- he begins to collect facts, it is high time for time since announced, that he was on the equalled verdure and beauty-let him ob-him to go home. No doubt, many of our continent, collecting materials for a new serve it well indeed, and treasure up the readers would think such travelling a clear series of publications, and every body ex-feelings it excites, for they can never be waste of time and money; but all have not pected to be delighted with such tales as excited again; but let him restrain the ex- the same tastes, nor the same paths of life; he could pick up, or invent, among scenes pression of his enthusiasm until he has and what would be idleness and trifling in of which every traveller reports new won- passed on to still stranger lands, where the some, is solid improvement to others. If ders, and which seem to increase in inter- modes of life seem to have had a distinct imagination was not given us in vain, we est by the lapse of every year. We do not origin, whose antiquities are of a higher have as good a right to devote ourselves to charge Mr Irving with having spread this class, and where, above all, a foreign lan- the cultivation of that faculty as of any expectation; for we are sure that he must guage throws a new hue over the whole other; and the feelings and images brought have been annoyed by being thus forestall- picture of man, and gives a new character from Europe by one traveller, may be as ed by the imaginations of his readers, and to all his thoughts and feelings. He will valuable, at least to himself, as the facts prevented from coming out before them know better how to speak of England accumulated by another. with the advantage of surprise. He knows without insensibility, and yet without exthat his name is established, at least for the travagance. He will then remember, present, and that he needs not the aid of perhaps as vividly as ever, the delight such annunciations to excite the public in- with which he first trod her shores; and terest. And he must know too, that it is will often, at least if he saw it under as faprejudicial to a popular author to have it vorable circumstances as we did, recur to known what he is about long before he ap-it as to a fairy tale of his childhood. But pears in print; unless, like the author of he will not find that his deepest or most Waverley, he can open to his readers a deep-valuable impressions were made there; he er source of interest by combining the value will find that he has learned more of man of history with the pleasure of fiction. and his own heart, in countries where the We have said that Mr Irving appears to be insensible to the interesting characteristics of the countries through which he has passed. We mean to apply the remark particularly to Italy; for we confess we should be at a loss to point out many good subjects for him in France; and should be unwilling to see him deeply interested in so unpoetical a people as the French. But here is a whole Number about Italy, the land of all that is most noble in art, most magnifiNor would we be understood to suppose cent in ruins, most sublime and interesting that these tales are really the principal in history, and most picturesque in scenery, fruits of Mr Irving's travels, or that to coland in the modes of actual life. And what lect materials for them was his main object. has Mr Irving given us of all these? A We have no doubt that he had other, and rareeshow of postillions in jack-boots, much higher views; and if these publicastout English gentlemen, vulgar English tions do no more than defray the expenses These are our own notions of the matter, women, a talkative landlord, ferocious robof his journey, the time will not have been and derived from our own experience; but bers, and a coquetish Signora,—but little of lost on his reflecting mind and feeling we confess we do not find them confirmed as scenery, and not one word of art, ruins, or reheart. The public will receive the benefit much as we could wish by any superior ex- collections. We begin at Terracina and end of it in his future writings more than in cellence in Mr Irving's tales of the conti- at Fondi, two of the most miserable villages these; for the general effect of travel on nent. We must except them from our in Italy, separated by a poste and a half of the taste and imagination, is of more im- remark on the inferiority of his English wild shore and mountain scenery indeed, but portance to an author than the materials he Sketches, for we do not think them gen- interesting for nothing else but the rogues collects. Indeed, we think it a pity that he erally so good; at least, those are not that infest it. And this is all we have of did not visit the continent before he pub- which particularly relate to the continent. Italy. What Mr Irving has told us here, lished his English Sketches. The first for And we sustain our theory, and account is very well in its kind, but not what we eign land we see, excites us so much that we for this falling off, by supposing it to pro-expected, nor the best that might fairly be are exceedingly liable to give an exagge-ceed from his having been too long abroad expected from his visit to Italy. We are aware that our author cannot reasonably be | Dragoon;" the indelicacy with which that the shortlived wonder of a stranger, and he expected to be always doing his best, more is slyly smothered in the description of has caught little of the spirit of France or than a lawyer or a preacher; but like Dolph Heyliger's mistress, which might Italy; but among the old Fraus and Mynthese, we expect him to rise with the occa- have been said openly without any breach heers, he seems as if he belonged to their sion; and, surely, Italy might have suggest of propriety; and finally, the shocking story age as well as country. His feelings soften ed better subjects than its vagabond popu- of the "Young Robber," where a scene the and his humour brightens, as he approaches lation and insignificant travellers. Let us be most revolting to humanity is twice unne- them, and all nature puts on a quiet and understood; we should not complain of cessarily forced on the reader's imagination. peculiar grace in harmony with their charthese things if we had reason to expect the We say unnecessarily, for how much more acters. others. But as Mr Irving has in the fourth truly tragical, as well as more decent, would number turned short round upon America, that tale have been, if the scene where Rowe presume he means to give us no more setta is left alone with the Captain had been of Italy; and if so, we take leave to say he omitted; and the "lot" had fallen on the has not given us the best of it. We won- unhappy lover who was so soon to be her der at this, indeed, more than we com- executioner. And yet these horrors are the plain of it; for we admit we have no right only incidents of the story to which we are to select subjects for him; and though indebted to Mr Irving's invention; at least, speaking in the plural number is the pleni- we have heard the tale ourselves, the same tude of our power, the only sanction we in every thing but these particulars. We could annex to our decrees, would be a hope not to be thought squeamish on threat not to buy or review his books; this subject; for we believe we have as which he well knows we neither care nor classical a taste in rude nature as is necesdare to perform. sary in literature or the arts. We apprehend that it is the part of true delicacy to look on nature dressed and undressed, with equal eyes. But we like neither jokes nor horrors built on such subjects. And why is it that this fault has grown so much upon Mr Irving since the publication of the "Sketch Book," which contains, as far as we remember, no traces of it? Can it be because that publication was addressed to the American public, and his subsequent works to the English! We have no doubt that the standard of delicacy is higher in our country than in England; but we should be sorry to think that Mr Irving is willing to owe any popularity in that country to the greater laxity of its manners. He has been cordially received, and almost adopted there, but we trust he will still remember the country of his birth and education, in all things in which she can claim a superiority, as we think she can in this. We consider this much more than a mere matter of taste. Mr Irving needs not to be told, that to debase the literary taste of a country is no small step towards corrupting its morals. But we take great pleasure in bearing our testimony to the correct and valuable tendency of his writings in every particular but this; and even of this we should have spoken, perhaps, too harshly, did we not point our remarks rather at the nature than the degree of the offence. We like the model of these tales very much. Like "Bracebridge Hall," they consist of distinct stories strung together on a slender narrative that runs almost unperceived through the number, and is of little other use than to introduce and connect the episodes. This gives us the pleasure and variety of short stories, without the formality of separate introductions. Thus, the third number is made up of a description of several parties of travellers meeting at an inn in Terracina, who hear and tell various stories, and are robbed and rescued on the way to Fondi. The main story occupies about forty out of a hundred and thirty-five pages, and is altogether the least interesting part. Much depends, in this way of writing, upon the adroitness with which the adscititious stories are brought in; and we cannot say that Mr Irving is always happy in this. Too many of them are read from manuscripts accidentally in the possession of the principal personages, or are introduced by some phrase equivalent to the "that reminds me” of a confirmed story-teller. The next remark we have to make on Mr Irving's tales is a very serious one. We are bound to charge him with the vulgarism of indelicacy. This is a fault which seems peculiarly out of place in him; for he must owe any rank he may hereafter hold in our literature, to his refinement rather than to his strength. All his writings display a delicacy of perception that seems incompatible with a gross taste; but it is not only a gross, but a vulgar taste, that can be gratified by printing a coarse joke. Such things will pass through the minds of the most refined, and may sometimes slip out in conversation, and leave no stain behind; but it is a very different thing deliberately to put them down in irrevocable print, for the private eye of the young and innocent. If the truth of the charge be denied, we refer for proof of it to the description of the comic shape of the Strolling Manager's Clown; to the indecency drowned in the crack! crack! of the postillion's whip at Terracina; the innuendoes in the "Bold It is probably not known to all our readers, that "The Painter's Adventure" is, in the main, a true account of what befell an artist in the employment of Lucien Buonaparte a few years ago; and that "The Young Robber's Tale" is founded on a story that was actually told him by one of the gang that carried him off. The fourth Number returns to the banks of the Hudson, ground on which Mr Irving is always successful. His tales of the New Netherlands, of the queer simplicity of the ancient inhabitants, and their odd and wild superstitions, have the life and freshness of pictures from nature, with the mist and mellowness of age. To us, all his European sketches were cold and tame in comparison with these. His enthusiasm for England is A Summary of the Law and Practice of Soon after Professor Stearns took charge of the law department in the University, he prepared a course of Lectures upon the Law and Practice of Real Actions, the util ity of which he found greater than he had expected; and, at the request of some of his pupils and of friends learned in the law, the substance of these Lectures is now published in this form. We can say, without fear of contradiction, that the publication of this work has supplied a desideratum, which all, in any way conversant with the law, have acknowledgd, and which students and the younger members of the bar have especially felt. living in Westminster Hall, or in Boston, that Mr Chipman, and other men of equal or any where else, by his law, if he came ability, may be induced to make other books out of his grave tomorrow. Now, though of similar character. It is intended to be it may be true, that my Lord Coke, for a one of that class, of which the inimitable term or two after such resuscitation, might " Essay on Bailments," by Sir William be astounded at the novel appearance of Jones, was the prototype, and, as we hope, things, yet we do believe, that he would the precursor of many yet to come. To bring with him a knowledge of the law as use the language of the last mentioned it was, which would so aid him in learning work, "if all the titles, which Blackstone the law as it is, that his old supremacy professed only to sketch in elementary diswould shortly be reestablished. The chan- courses, were filled up with exactness and A full and long review of this excellent ges of the law have been gradual,-never perspicuity, Englishmen" (and we as the work would be interesting to but few of our very violent, never per saltum. Its course descendants of Englishmen, and co-heirs readers; we must, however, in justice to has been progressive, but not interrupted; with the present race of the better part of our professional brethren, state to them and an actual, an important connexion ex- their admirable system of law) "might with some distinctness, the objects and uses its between its various conditions in various hope, at length, to possess a digest of their of a book which is made for them at no in-periods. Only the last links of the chain are laws which would leave but little room for considerable expense of time and labour. felt by us; they not only bind together the controversy, except in cases depending on The Introduction, which extends to the interests, and properties, and rights of all, their particular circumstances." 47th page, explains with great clearness and form them into one beautiful structure; and accuracy the fundamental principles of but they are held fast to an unbroken sethe Law of Real Property. The technical ries, which goes far backwards into the terms are translated into more common depths of almost forgotten ages. Cases language, and their meaning defined and are now perpetually recurring, which are illustrated. The first chapter treats of the deeply affected by a reference to cases that remedies for those injuries to real property occurred centuries ago. Let any one run which amount to an ouster; and in this through a volume of Pickering's Reports, chapter, the great diversity and intricacy and he will see how often court and counof practice which prevails in England, with sel are compelled, by a necessity they respect to these remedies, is strongly con- cannot evade if they would, to call upon trasted with the simplicity and directness of obsolete law, to help them to the right the practice adopted in Massachusetts. The understanding and administration of actual second chapter treats of Real Actions, and law. No doubt, students are sometimes their incidents; the third of Warranty, embarrassed and exposed to some tax of Covenants, and Voucher; the fourth, of time and labour, by the negligence of auWrits of Entry, and the proceedings there- thors whose works are put into their hands, on. In this chapter the Writs of Entry in in not stating with sufficient distinctness how the Quibus and in the Post, which are so much of what they are reading is directly, common in the practice of this State as to and how much is indirectly applicable to the have almost superseded all other forms of law of the present day. But this fault can Real Actions, are very fully and clearly il-in no wise be charged upon Professor lustrated; there is also an interesting Appendix to this chapter, upon the origin and nature of Mortgages, and the Chancery Jurisdiction respecting them. The fifth chapter treats of Writs of Dower; the sixth, of Writs of Formedon; the seventh, of Writs of Right, and the eighth and last, of the Action of Trespass for the Mesne Profits. There is added an Appendix containing one hundred and one Precedents in Real Actions, and a number of ancient records of proceedings in the courts of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts, for the recovery of Real Property, during the seventeenth century. All the subjects treated of in the work are discussed and explained as fully as was practicable, without enlarging its size to a cumbrous and very inconvenient magnitude. Some of his readers may think that too large a proportion of his work relates to ancient law; to forms, and even principles, which are now neglected and ought to be forgotten. The law of to-day is doubtless a very different thing from the law of three hundred years ago; and it is with actual living law that students and practitioners should be most conversant. But this is only one side of the case. We once heard an eminent jurist, we may say, the most eminent jurist of this country,-declare, that in his opinion, Coke could not earn a Stearns; indeed, his clearness and precis- It is due to Professor Stearns to remark, Mr Chipman's Essay was published some time since, so long, perhaps, that it may be thought almost beyond our reach. We notice it, however, because we should be glad to make it better known to our lawyers, not only for the good it may do them, but The administration of the laws of our author's own State, is, indeed, judging from the account he gives of it in his Preface, in a woful case. The Legislature, he tells us, in effect, consists of but one branch only; the judges are annually elected by this legislature; Justices of the Peace have jurisdiction to the amount of one hundred dollars; “statutes are multiplied, and settled rules of the common law are set aside by statutes, and those statutes frequently altered, amended, explained, or repealedand frequently, from a supposed wrong construction of a statute by the judiciary, an explanatory statute has been passed, of more doubtful construction than the statute which they attempted to explain ;"—" and it has often been made a question whether the law should be altered, or a judgment set aside by an act of the Legislature, and the judges displaced." Such a state of things must sooner or later work its own cure, and no palliatives can prolong the time when the people must, for their own protection, provide for a permanent judiciary, and less fluctuation in their laws. Our author proposes, as remedies, the publication of all decided cases, and of such Essays as his own. Their books of Reports would probably resemble Southard's New Jersey Reports, where five sixths of the cases are on certiorari from Justices of the Peace, and more than one half terminate with the ominous words, "Let judgment be reversed." Besides, of what service would the Reports be, if the Legislature, taking offence at the decision of one set of judges, remove them, and appoint others for the very purpose of overturning the prior decisions. If numerous essays as good as the one before us be published, and every abstruse title be by them plainly elucidated, still, though the judges of one year take the law of these essays for their guide, the next year's judges, from a spirit of contradiction, may forbid their being read in the courts. Such a course of things cannot go on. Mr Chipman's proposed forms of declaring and pleading in actions on contracts for the delivery of specific articles, and his observations on what ought to be the legal effect of the verdict, and on the measure of damages, seem to us sound and just; and we hope that the system which he recommends, that I could plainly discern the form and position of the several stones which compose it;-and yet I must confess to a secret feeling of disappointment; but it was all my own fault; I either had forgotten, or did not correctly know, their true size; and foolishly expected, I believe, to find each particular stone as tall as a church tower. I speedily reasoned myself, however, into a proper mood, and disappointment then gave place to continually increasing admiration. For the remainder of the three miles we kept it in full view, still growing and growing, as we gained upon it, till at last we quitted the beaten road, and driving over the short dry turf, stopped immediately beneath it. may be adopted in practice. We fully a well established and legal practice both concur with him in the observation which in England and in this country. In this he makes in his Preface, that the law on this Commonwealth it is expressly authorized subject cannot be settled by statutes; "that by statute even in so important an instrua volume of laws might be enacted on this ment as a will. If we were to use the same single branch of jurisprudence, and still liberty with Mr Chipman that he has taken leave the system imperfect;-the law must with the ancient English judges, we should be settled by a course of judicial decisions." guess, that his secret reason for assailing Before we conclude, we think it our duty this practice was a little infection of the to animadvert upon one passage in this fondness for legislation with which, in his book, which is wholly gratuitous, and which remarks upon the case of Weld vs. Hadley, we were very sorry to see. It occurs on he charges his fellow citizens of Vermont. We hope the author will meet with the pages 22, 23, and is this: success that he deserves, and be encouraged to write other essays as clear and logical as this, upon the subjects which he enumerates in his Preface. Though not intended So many of the stones have fallen, that for the profession, we doubt not that in the whole seems at first sight to be a contheir hands they will be most useful; few fused assemblage of enormous masses of people can afford to purchase law books at rock; bnt after a while you discover three the high price which they must necessarily concentric circles of upright stones, and in bear; and we hope the picture of an igno- the centre a single stone lying imbedded in rant lawyer, which is drawn by Mr Chipman the ground, which is called the altar. The with so much force in his Preface, is not a most remarkable of these circles is the inpicture of a majority of the profession interior one, composed of huge blocks about Vermont; we are sure it will represent twenty feet high, seven feet wide, and three very few indeed in Massachusetts. feet thick; every two of which formerly supported a third, of nearly the same size, which has been called the impost, and which is rudely fastened to its two supporting pillars by a ball and socket joint. The three together, have received the appellation of trilithon. In this circle there are only two of these trilithons remaining entire. The second circle is composed of stones which are no more than seven feet high, and are separate pillars. But in the outward circle they rise to the height of fourteen feet, and are again formed into trilithons, several of which are standing and perfect. I know it is very common for a person who can write to request a by-stander to put his name to a note; but such trifling with written instruments ought not to be permitted; it is a practice wholly unknown to the common law. Written contracts, in law and reason, hold a higher place than mere verbal contracts, not only as to the certainty of the precise terms of the contract, but as to the degree of certainty that the contract was entered into by the parties. But set aside the evidence of hand writing, and written contracts would fall below verbal contracts as it respects the certainty of their execution. Admit as proof of the execution of a note, that the defendant directed a by-stander to put his name to it, and proof of a consideration is dispensed with, as also proof of the contract on which the note was given, and should the witness be guilty of perjury, it could not be easily detected; beside, men are distinguished by their hand writing, with the same degree of ease and certain ty, as by their countenances; hence, a higher degree of certainty in the proof of hand writing than in the proof of a verbal contract. The law does not, therefore, admit evidence that a third person was directed to put the defendant's name to the note, to be substituted for the more certain evidence of the hand writing of the defendant. There is no necessity for the admission of such testimony, for if the plaintiff fail of proving the execution of the note, yet if he can prove the contract on which the note was given, he may still recover his demand. With great deference to Mr Chipman, we must be permitted to state, that we thought the practice which he reprobates quite well known to the common law, so well indeed, that a maxim supporting it had been established from time immemorial, to wit, "Qui facit per alium facit per se." Mr Chipman admits that this is a common practice, which, alone, would, we think, be an argument in its favour. He urges the danger of perjury, and the superior certainty afforded by the evidence of handwriting. If the note were signed by an agent with his own name and the promissor's, which Mr Chipman allows to be valid, is the evidence of handwriting greater or the danger of perjury less? In such case parol proof must be given of the agents authority, which is exactly the danger against which he wishes to guard. It is not necessary in declaring on a promissory note to aver that the hand of the promissor is subscribed thereto; but in one case it was so declared, and the evidence being that it was signed by a third person in the presence and by the direction of the person whose name was written, Lord Ellenborough was inclined that the proof was sufficient to support the declaration, though if it had purported on the face of the instrument to have been signed by an agent, the variance would have been fatal. We believe that this is We ought perhaps in justice to state,-a See 2 Camp. 405, Helmsley vs. Loader, and 5 MISCELLANY. A VISIT TO STONEHENGE. round Eddying within its vast circumference, Wordsworth's Excursion. September 11, 1820. STONEHENGE lies about eight miles from Salisbury; and it would have been a pity and a shame if I had left this part of the country, without visiting so remarkable an object. So this morning I jumped into a post-chaise for the purpose. Our course was to the northwest, and soon brought us to a wide, chalky, desert tract, called Salisbury Plain. The day was hot, and the atmosphere clear; and from one of the undulating eminences which alone diversify this barren waste, I could plainly distinguish, at the distance of five miles, what I knew must be Stonehenge. The appearance was like a number of small black dots, or like a flock of sheep when they are at the distance of a mile or so from the spectator. I then lost sight of it; but from another rising in the ground, which the post boy said was three miles from it, I caught it again. It was now so distinct There have been many theories started with respect to the purpose and origin of this monument, a number of which have been collected together and printed at Salisbury in a small pamphlet. The two most prevalent are, the one, that it is a military trophy of the ancient Britons, and the other that it is a Druidical temple. But the truth is, that there is no authentic history relating to it; and it is next to an impossibility that any thing should ever be ascertained of its design or erection; but there it stands, the gloomy monarch of this lonely plain-the hoary record of an age that has no chronicle-the mighty work of nameless men-the scene and the witness of events that have long since gone down to oblivion;-there it stands, and there it has stood, while centuries of suns have poured their fiercest beams upon it, and winter after winter has brought the driving snow, and the pelting rain, and the sweeping wind, to help time on to its destruction;-but there it stands, and there it will stand, a wonder and a monument, when our histories, like its own, are forgotten. At the distance of fifty or sixty yards to the northeast of the main structure, and leaning towards it, is a large single stone, sixteen feet high, called the Friar's heel. This name is connected with the popular |