here. But he seemed always to suppose that an address to a jury could be framed on the model of a special plea, or the counts of a declaration, only without the prolixity and repetition habitual with pleaders; and to forget that the surest way of hringing out the truth in any case is to let the conflicting feelings and interest of parties come into their natural collision. His impatience was thus very manifest; and had his nerves been in the same proportion firm as his dislike to declamation and illustration was strong, a struggle would have ensued in which the eloquence of the bar would either have been extinguished, or have silenced and discomfited the bench. In like manner, when, during the interlocutory discussions with the counsel, whether on motions in Banc, or on objections taken before him at Nisi Prius, he was uneasy, impatient, and indeed irascible, at nothing so much as at cases put by way of trying what the court had flung out. Being wholly void of imagination to supply cases in reply, and even without much quickness to sift the application of those put, he often lost his temper, and always treated the topic as an offence. But it was chiefly in obstructing cross-examination, which he wholly undervalued, from his utter incapability of performing his part in it, that his pleaderlike habits broke out. Had he been submitted to in this matter, cross-examination would have been only known as a matter of legal history. His constant course was to stop the counsel, by reminding him that the witness had already said so; or had already sworn the contrary, and this before the question was answered; to which it was natural, and indeed became usual, for the counsel to make answer that this was the very reason why the question had been asked; the object being either to try the witness's memory or to test his honesty.

It must be admitted that, in all these respects, the position of a judge while sitting at Visi Prius, is somewhat anomalous. He presides, indeed, over the whole proceedings; but the jury holds divisum imperium; and he sits there as the nominal chief while the advocate is sometimes dealing with the witness as if no judge were present, and sometimes addressing the jury, careless whether the judge hears him or not;-equally indifferent whether he approves or disapproves what he says. Princes, it is said, cannot allow any one to address another in their awful presence; nay, the code of etiquette has embodied this feeling of sensitive royalty in a rule or maxim. The ruler of the court has as little love of a proceeding which, in the prefatory words, May it please * your lordship,' seems to recognise his supremacy; but in the next breath leaves his lordship' as entirely out of view, as if he were reposing in his bed, or gathered to his fathers. Few

judges, accordingly, are so considerate as to be patient of eloquence, whether in declamation or in witty illustration; few regard these flights otherwise than as in derogation from the respect which is their own especial due. To address passions which they are forbidden to feel to contemplate topics that must be suited to any palate rather than theirs to issue jokes by which they ought not to be moved while all others are convulsed-seems incompatible with their station as the presiding power, or a violation of that respect which it ought to inspire. Lord Tenterden, more than most judges, appeared to feel this; and it was a feeling wholly founded in a forgetfulness of the very nature of jury trial, as it was unworthy of his solid sense and great sagacity. In the distribution of criminal justice the case is widely different. The anxiety necessarily attendant upon the judge's highly responsible office here leads him to court all help from the ingenuity of counsel. Before the addressing the jury was allowed in cases of felony, the chances of collision were of course more limited; but even now nothing of the uneasy feeling to which we have been adverting has been found to have taken place since the recent change of the practice in criminal courts.

It was a considerably greater fault than any we have noted, and proceeded from a much less creditable cause, that Lord Tenterden showed no little variety of firmness and of temper on different occasions, and towards different persons. Of him it might be said that he had a different measure of patience and courtesy for different classes,-even for different individuals. It could not be said of him that he was no respecter of persons. The bar felt this somewhat; the witnesses felt it more; the parties never felt it at all. Its scope was confined to the mere accident of outward behaviour and manners; nothing beyond that. When on one occasion he had, with some roughness, addressed to a witness, who was looking another way, an advice not unusual with him, and not very delicately couched, 'to hold up his head, " and speak out like a man,' it was amusing to observe the fall of both countenance and voice when the witness turned upon the judge the face of the Chairman of the Honourable East India Company.

If from this, and from his known opinions in Church and State, it should be inferred that he was obsequious to power, or made himself more an instrument of convicting libellers than all, or nearly all, have done who have filled his exalted station,-a great mistake would be committed. That he acted up to the general standard of dislike towards the licentiousness of the press; that he overstept with them the true bounds of that dislike, and with them confounded free with criminal license-is as

certain as that he did by no means outstrip them in his warm affection for tame and decorous writing. But although this is undeniable, it is equally certain that he performed his part more successfully than Lord Elienborough: because more skiltulty and more temperately; nor could any thing have been more uniortunate for the press in this country, than that, under nis administration of the criminal law, attempts should have been made to put it down by prosecutions; because few things which never happened can be more certain, than that he would have obtained many a verdict of conviction where nis venement predecessor would have failed.

We have omitted to mention one quality that eminently distinguished Lord Tenterden; and the omission has been designed. We allude to the regularly correct, succinct, and appropriate language in which his statements and ns repors were clothed. la this kind of diction he was surpassed by none; and hardly equalled by any. No doubt his success in expressing his ideas was in part owing to his avoiding al. large or venturous matters; and confining himself within limits not difficulty surveved and scanned. But within that range his diction was extremely happy. When he, for the first time, appeared in politica. affairs, this distinguishing excellence was shown with considerable effect. The judges attending the scandalous mockery of justice, falsely palled the Queen's Trial, in 1820, were represented by ChiefJustice Abbott, he not then having been raised to the peerage. Many occasions arose for putting questions to those learned persons, and their answers were returned through their learned chief. The correct and luminous language in which these opinJons were conched drew forth universal applause; the soundness of some of the opinions may well be dounted; nor can the most remarkable decision to which the cause gave rise that upon questioning a witness as to what he had before written, without showing him the paper, if any there were*—be defended apon any principle, or regarded as otherwise than founded on a gross Tallaby. This seems now to be pretty generally admited, alThough unfortunately the rule is still acted upon as law by all the judges.

Ifore began and here ended the success of this eminent lawyer in political life. When raised to the peerage in 1827, he took no part in public affairs, beyond entering his strong protest in the dehate, and giving his vote in the division against the Reform Bill.

of were there no other argument against the rule laid down, dadrays its foundation.

But he was the author of some improvements of much value in that important part of the law which relates to limitation of actions. By two bills which he introduced and carried through, the statute which limits actions, has first received a truly beneficial application, a new promise in writing, being required to evade the statute; and the claims of the church were, by his other bills, for the first time, made subject to any limitation at all. Other rights are also required to be prosecuted within a specific time; though the structure of this portion of his second bill is liable to many objections. It is known that he particularly valued himself upon his skill and diligence in framing statutory enactments. His title to the latter praise is unquestionable, for he bestowed on his draughts the greatest pains. His skill is much less conspicuous; although one might have expected him to display uncommon excellence in this department, who had pronounced so severe, and, it must be admitted, so just a sentence upon the works of the legislature, as to declare that though not inops concilii, it seemed to be magnas inter opes inops.'

It is not possible to find a more marked or a wider contrast between two men in any department than was presented by the two succeeding Chief-Justices of England, one of whom we have just been endeavouring to describe; and the task of describing his predecessor, is in consequence of this great diversity far easier. Instead of the cautious circumspection which we have been tracing in all its forms and consequences, Lord Ellenborough despised even much of what goes to form ordinary discretion; and is so much overrated by inferior natures as the essence of wisdom, but so justly valued by calculating ones as the guarantee of success. Of compromise, whether regarding his opinions or his wishes, he knew not the meaning; of fear, in any of its various and extensive provinces, he knew not even the name; or, if he saw its form, yet he denied its title, held its style in mockery, and would not, even for an instant, acknowledge its sway. Far, indeed, from cradling himself within the details of a subject, he was wholly averse to such narrow views of particulars; and took a large and commanding survey of the whole, which laid open before him all its parts and all their relations. Bred a pleader, he, however, on coming to the bar, early showed that he only retained the needful technical knowledge which this preparatory practice had bestowed on him; and he at once dashed into the leading branch of the profession. The famous case of Mr Hastings-the opprobrium of English justice, and, through mismanagement and party violence, the destruction of the greatest remedy afforded by our constitution,- soon opened to Mr Law the highest walks of the bar. He was the defendant's leading counsel; and his

talents, both as a lawyer and a speaker, shone forth conspicuous even upon that great occasion of oratorical display;-the only fruits produced by this proceeding, so costly to the country, so much more costly still to the free constitution of England. He soon rose to the unrivalled lead of the Northern Circuit, to which, by birth, he belonged; his father being Bishop of Carlisle, and himself born at the village of Salkeld,* in Cumberland. In Westminster Hall he had also good success, though he never rose there into the first lead; having indeed to contend with able advocates, and among them with Erskine, the greatest of all. Lord Kenyon, whose favour for this illustrious ornament of his court we have already had occasion to remark, was supposed, or was felt by Mr Law, to be partial more than became him to this formidable antagonist; and a quotation to which this feeling gave rise, is often cited, and justly, as singularly happy. Mr Erskine had been, somewhat more than was his practice with any adversary, triumphing over him, when Mr Law, first addressing him and then Lord Kenyon, thundered forth these fine, and expressive, and singularly applicable lines, with the volume of tone which he possessed beyond most men

--Non me tua fervida terrent
Dicta ferox; Di me terrent et Jupiter hostis.

Here he bowed sarcastically to the Chief-Justice, while he dwelt and paused upon the name of the heavenly archetype.

As a lawyer, without being very profound, and confining his learning to the ordinary matters of common law, he yet knew quite enough for ordinary occasions; and afterwards, as generally happens with able men, greatly extended his information when raised to the bench. As an advocate he was vigorous, impressive, adventurous; more daring than skilful; often, from his boldness, not a safe leader; always despising the slow progress, the indirect avenues to victory, which the rules of art prescribe;-always preferring to vault over obstacles, follow the shortest line, and cut the knot rather than waste time in untying it. But he could powerfully address the feelings, whether to rouse indignation at cruelty, or contempt at fraud, or scorn at meanness. For his own nature had nothing harsh in it, except his irascible temper, quickly roused as quickly appeased; his

This village is now remarkable as the residence of Mr Gaskin, a man of the most sterling merit as an astronomer and maker of exquisite telescopes; father of the tutor of Jesus College, Cambridge, so well known for his mathematical accomplishments.