opinion. The very submission of these claims to arbitration is, in itself, the best possible proof of the power of public opinion and the influence of public law. It is because there is such a thing as a public sense of justice embodied in public law, that these two great States bowed to it by submitting to this arbitration. And the same mighty influence to which states and senates must yield, will bind both the Powers, unless the submission is fairly and promptly revoked for just cause, to carry out the arbitration in good faith. This requires that, in the absence of such a revocation, they will proceed fairly and in a straightforward manner; and that they shall obey that award which the majority of the arbitrators, after fair discussion, shall pronounce.

WE

VI.—MATTHEW DAVENPORT HILL.

E do not propose in this place to give an exhaustive biography of Mr. Hill. But such a work would be undoubtedly of the highest interest. For fifty years he associated with men whose names are amongst the brightest on the rolls of the nineteenth century, and the story of his life would be valuable, not only as the biography of a life spent in good work, but also as a record of the men he knew who have played an important part in the history of our time. We cannot, however, now do more than briefly record the leading events of his life; whilst in doing so we would venture to express a hope that Mr. Hill's literary executors will in due time give the world a more detailed and matured work.

Mr. Hill was born on the 6th of August, 1792, in Suffolk Street, Birmingham. His father, Thomas Wright Hill, was a man of considerable intellectual power, high principle, and great simplicity of character. When Matthew, who was the eldest child, was three years old, the family removed to Kidderminster, and thence to Wolverhampton. But as the father found that his income, which was very small, would not suffice to educate his children in the manner he would like, he determined to invest all he had in a school, in order that he might secure for them a good education. He therefore, in 1802, purchased a school in Birmingham, which fortunately proved a success. The sons-first as pupils, and then as masters-worked with the father, and in a few years the school was so prosperous that a larger building was required, and the new establishment made a considerable name as the Hazelwood School. The Hazelwood

system of education became celebrated, as a protest against the narrowness of the school system of that day, and was in a great measure the cause of the subsequent improvement in public school education. For several years two establishments were carried on; one at Birmingham, and the other at Tottenham. Finally the whole was united at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, where Mr. Arthur Hill, one of the sons, carried on the school for many years, and was succeeded in his turn by his son, who conducts the school at the present day. The assistance of his sons enabled Mr. Thomas Hill to devote a good deal of time to scientific pursuits, for which he had always a great taste, and he was an active member of the Astronomical Society in its early days. Even within a month or two of his death, when he was 89 years old, he was occupied in framing a system of nomenclature for the stars, and when he was 88 he went down with his telescope to the coast of Sussex, to observe an eclipse of the sun. He was also distinguished, at a time when Liberal opinions were rare and unpopular, for an unswerving adherence to the principles of civil and religious liberty. When Dr. Priestley's house was attacked by a furious mob on account of that gentleman's religious and political views, Mr. T. Hill strove to defend it, and the same spirit led his betrothed wife to refuse to utter the party cry of Church and King when the carriage in which she was riding was surrounded by a crowd of rioters.

The children of such parents could hardly fail to do the world good service, and the careers of the sons of Mr. Thomas Hill have proved his talents and love of liberty to be an hereditary possession of the family. The author of penny postage has won a name in history which needs no comment. The second son, Mr. Edwin Hill, has done good work as the head of the stamp department at Somerset House. Mr. Arthur Hill, who took the whole charge of the school when the other sons entered upon their various careers, has proved himself an able and successful educator. Mr. Frederic Hill, the youngest son, now Assistant-Secretary to the Post Office, was the first, when Inspector of Prisons in Scotland, to advocate and enforce those humane principles on which modern prison discipline is founded; and his work on crime is a standard authority for legislation. The eldest son, the subject of this memoir, assisted in the school, and gave lessons as a private tutor in neighbouring families until 1816, when he went to London to enter himself at Lincoln's Inn, and to prepare himself for the Bar. He was not one of those law students who seem to think that the periodical consumption of a certain amount of roast mutton and port wine in the legal atmosphere of an Inn of Court is sufficient in itself to fit a man for the strife of Westminster Hall. He studied hard and well, and thus acquired a

wide knowledge of the theory of the law, which stood him in good stead in after life, when the daily demands of a large practice made study of anything but the matter in hand almost impossible. He was called in 1819, and in the same year married Miss Bucknall, of Kidderminster, who made him an excellent wife for forty-eight years-dying five years before her husband. At this period of his life Mr. Hill had no resources but such as his pen furnished, and his early days necessarily were passed in the practise of the strictest economy. Like Lord Campbell, and other men afterwards eminent at the Bar, he worked for some time as a newspaper reporter, whilst his brothers added what they could to his store. He lived for some time in Boswell Court, now pulled down as part of the site for the New Law Courts, and whilst there he first thought of that district as an eligible site for a Palace of Justice, and he advocated the Carey Street site twenty years before it was actually chosen. Mr. Hill's first case at the Bar, which was argued during the term of his call, was an argument in the King's Bench, in King v. Borron, a memorable case arising out of what is still known as the Manchester massacre, when a troop of Yeomanry charged a harmless and unarmed crowd at Peterloo, near Manchester. Mr. Hill has given an amusing account of his first appearance before the judges, in an article entitled "My Maiden Brief," first published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine. The paper has been often reprinted, and has deservedly found a place in Knight's "Half-Hours with the Best Authors." Young barristers will there find the consolatory fact that a man whose composure in after days could not be shaken, was as nervous as the most timid beginner on the occasion of his first brief. The time when Mr. Hill first showed great forensic talent, was in the defence of Major Cartwright, at the Summer Assizes, at Warwick, 1820. He had only just joined the Midland Circuit, and owed the honour of selection as counsel for the defence to his private acquaintance with the major, whose friendship he enjoyed until the death of the latter, in 1824. The defendant was a retired navy officer and major of militia, brother to the inventor of the power loom for weaving, and a man of extreme political opinions. He had advocated the expediency for England of the independence of America, at a time when the nation felt sorely the failure to crush the revolted colonies, and he had urged the adoption of annual parliament and universal suffrage when such measures were considered absolutely revolutionary. The case in which Mr. Hill was called upon to defend him at Warwick was an ex-officio prosecution for having with others convened a public meeting at Birmingham, and there caused to be elected "a legislatorial attorney "-to use the phrase adopted by the major and his friends-to be returned to Parliament, as member for

the town, which was not then a parliamentary borough. The profession of Liberal views was not at that time a stepping-stone to success: the Bench and the Bar were Tory almost to a man ; and Mr. Hill was warned that if he accepted the brief, he would ruin his prospects at the Bar; but he regarded the acceptance of the brief as a public duty, and never through life departed from what he felt to be his duty for fear of possible injury to his prospects. He failed to carry the verdict ; but the manner in which he conducted the defence won general admiration, and was the foundation of a life-long friendship with Lords Brougham, Truro, and Denman, who were still at the Bar, and had taken much interest in the case.

The prophets of evil, who had said that the conduct of the Cartwright case would be Mr. Hill's ruin, were fortunately proved wrong by the event. From that time forth Mr. Hill's business slowly but steadily increased. He was without connection; he had no attorney in the family; he was a poor man. He had not a wide circle of friends, where A tells B that C is an able man, and so C gets gradually pushed into fame. He succeeded purely on his merits; he worked hard, and made the most of his legitimate opportunities; and his success is another proof that connection is not so all powerful and indispensable as it is the fashion to maintain at the present day.

In 1820, when Mr. Hill had hardly been a year at the Bar, he received a junior brief to attend a Parliamentary committee, in support of a Bill to empower the Commissioners of Police of Manchester to light that town with gas. Mr. Hill's leader, Serjeant Adams, was a man of eminence at the Bar, with a large circuit practice; and the second brief was held by Mr. Wilde, afterwards Lord Truro, who had already a considerable business. Contrary to expectation, the Bill did not come before the committee until the summer circuit began. The leader and first junior, unwilling to give up their circuit, returned their briefs. Thus Mr. Hill, an unknown junior of a single year's standing, was left alone, and time hardly admitted of the instruction of other counsel. It must be added that the difficulty of the case was much increased by the fact that a new principle of political economy was involved in the issue. This was the first application from a municipal body for leave to apply public funds to the carrying on of a manufacturing business for the benefit of the public. The Bill was opposed on the ground that it would give the commissioners a monopoly, whilst public interest required competition, in order to ensure a supply of gas at the lowest prices, and the best quality. The solicitor to the commissioners came to Mr. Hill, and asked to be allowed to see his notes for his address to the committee. Mr. Hill thought the circumstances of the case justified this unusual request, and he complied with it. The solicitor was so

highly satisfied that he confidently left Mr. Hill to fight the case single-handed. Mr. Hill was entirely successful, and carried the Bill through Parliament, against a powerful opposition. In consequence of this success, he acted as standing counsel for the commissioners until this office was abolished on the incorporation of the town. As regards the economical question, Mr. Hill argued, that although private companies might compete with each other for a time, they were sure, at last, to see their true interest in a combination against the public, which would result in a far more injurious monopoly than any that could be maintained by the town. In the one case there would be the interest of several capitals, and the expense of several undertakings to pay, without any check upon quality or price, whereas in the other the town's own delegates would administer the concern, and all profits would return to the community in the shape of improvement of the town and decrease of the rates. The success of the Manchester Gasworks has fully justified Mr. Hill's contention, and we hope to see the principle some day applied to all undertakings of a like nature, and even extended to the railway system of the country.

Whilst his work at the Bar was increasing, he found timeas, indeed, he did at his busiest moments-for much other useful work. In 1822, in conjunction with his brother, the present Sir Rowland Hill, he wrote a book on the principles of education, entitled "Public Education," with illustrations drawn from his experience at his father's school. This work first set forth, in a clear light, many rules of training and instruction, which have since that time gradually worked themselves into general acceptance. It was elaborately reviewed by the Edinburgh Review, and other periodicals. The work so pleased Jeremy Bentham that he sought out the author, and from that time honoured him with his friendship. When Bentham shunned society, and denied himself to almost all who sought him, Mr. Hill was one of the few who were still admitted, and had many pleasant reminiscences of the tête-à-tête dinners, which the great legist held to be the only rational mode of enjoying company. Mr. Hill was associated with Bentham and Brougham in the establishment of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He took an active part in its proceedings, and suggested many of its most successful publications. It was owing chiefly to his exertions that the art of illustration, which had fallen into neglect, was introduced again to public use, and much extended and improved by the publications of this association. He was a frequent writer in the Penny Magazine, the first penny illustrated paper, which was one of the greatest successes of the society. At one time its weekly circulation rose to 170,000, and for a long time it was over 100,000. It had the advantage of three or four woodcuts in each number, and its extraordinary