leading men of his day, principle sat easy on him. Much addicted to regard all public men as scoundrels, his chief resolution was to make his way by clinging to either party as it seemed most suited to his advance; alternately trampling and caressing all parties: he had begun, like all poor aspirants, by being a patriot, allied himself to Lucas, lauded the Opposition, abused the Minister, and exhibited all the thews and sinews of a vigorous democrat. But the new reign of George III. opened new prospects. Townshend the viceroy intimated that his eloquence might be turned to better account, and the lawyer became suddenly enlightened. He cast off the ragged uniform of the populace, and equipped himself in the livery of the Castle. He was a rough, bold-speaking, unblushing retainer from that moment, and no man more unhesitatingly laughed at the affectations of political creeds. "My lord," he used to say to the Viceroy, a man singularly like himself in his contempt for the Phocions of the day" My lord, you have spoiled a good patriot."

But, notorious as his new conceptions were, no one thought of calling him to account for the change. There is, it is true, a general impunity allowed to lawyers on this subject; they claim largely the privilege of seeing both sides of a public question; and therefore, in England, they run the hazard of swamping the Constitution, as in Ireland they sold the country. But no one ever thought of questioning Jack Scott. His transition to the Treasury Bench was regarded as perfectly natural. If there had been a

But

Treasury Bench beyond that again, he would have crossed to it. No one would have wondered at it. The species is still professional, there are men among us at whose change no man wonders more than a naturalist wonders at the change of a worm into a dragon-flythe little creeping, writhing, slippery, subtle thing, into the bold, busy, swift marauder, ever on the wing, glittering in the sunshine, and devouring every thing. Scott had another important quality. If no great orator, he could bring an orator down by other means than arguments. He was a fearless swordsman and an exact shot. He changed his mode, finding his eloquence not irresistible, and "attempted to terrify. He attacked Flood; he supported Lord Townshend; he vindicated Lord Harcourt; he struck his breast-slapped his hat, appealed to his honour and laid his hand upon his sword!"

Next, after the actor, we have the democrat reformed. "His principles were arbitrary, his love of liberty cooled after he left the people. And if a question had arisen, he would probably have ordered the soldiers to fire upon the volunteers." In fine, this bold, forward, rude, and vigorous pursuer of power, rose to the Bench, where he was Chief Justice, obtained an earldom, and died, if report be true, worth L.30,000 a-year!

Mr Grattan's work is, on the whole, clever, amusing, and full of anecdote. But it is the work of a Republican degraded into a Radical, and even that Radical degraded into a joint of the tail.

"It is said, in Ireland v. Higgins, Cro. Eliz. 126, that the law takes notice of four kinds of dogs-mastiffs, hounds, spaniels, and tumblers; and that a man may justify a battery in defence of his dog. Yet the existence of property over dogs seems to have been admitted with great doubt and deliberation, see 12 Hen. 8, 3, 4, and now stands upon a very peculiar footing; for, by one of the nicest and subtlest of distinctions, dogs are a species of property, for which trespass or trover will lie, but in which felony cannot be committed. In this respect, however, they are in no different situation from that of the ancient villeins, which could not be stolen, Sir Edward Coke in structs us, because they were in reality' like a box of chartres."

In the reign of Henry VIII., it is stated that a vigorous attempt was made to put all dogs entirely out of the pale and protection of the law. Upon demurrer to a count in trespass, for taking a bloodhound, it was argued for the defender, (we translate the Norman French,) "that no action lay for a dog, for that no man could bring an action about a thing of no value or profit, and that a dog was of no value, but for pleasure." On the other hand, it was argued for the plaintiff, "that though a dog may be a thing for pleasure, yet it is profitable for my hunting or for my recreation. For, if I have a popinjay or thrush that sings and refreshes my spirits, that is a great comfort to me; and if any one takes it from me, he ought to be punished." The judges were divided in opinion-Brook, Pollard, and Brudnel holding the point good; while Eliot, who must have been a fool and something more, laid it down "that there could be no action for a dog, for a dog is vermin, and savage by nature, being called in Latin fera, and never jumentum nec armentum." Et adjudge fuist que il a vera action par ceo, et 6s. 4d. par damages et costes." Too little; but the pursuer did not prosecute vindictively. The dog had not been shot, merely kidnapped. The judgment settled the law as to theft; as to

murder, it would seem as if some thought the law unsettled even at this day; at least so late as the autumn of 1837. Mr Moile adds well_" More modern decisions have borne variously with greater or less severity, upon this species, between which and our own, as may be said with no less truth than Cicero said of between man and the elephant, or than jurists say of mankind with each other, THERE EXISTS SOMETHING LIKE A SOCIAL COMPACT." In shooting a dog-unless he be a sad dog indeed-a man cruelly violates a social compact. Yet you may not illegally tread on a dog's toes. For "in Smith v. Pelah, the Chief Justice ruled that if a dog has once bit a man, and the owner, having notice thereof, keeps the dog, and lets him go about, or lie at his door, an action will lie against him at the suit of a person who is bit, though it happened by such person's treading on the dog's toes, for it was owing to his not hanging the dog in the first instance, and the safety of the King's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered. The scienter is the gist of the action.' 2 Etrange, 1263." A housekeeper is justified in shooting a housebreaker; but hardly so, we should suppose, if at the time the housebreaker be breaking out of the house-say, escaping by the window. But what is to be said of the following judgment? "In Morris v. Nugent, it was ruled that to justify shooting another person's dog, he must be actually attacking the party at the time; therefore, when the defendant was passing the plaintiff's house, and the plaintiff's dog ran out, and bit the defendant's gaiter, and on the defendant turning round and raising his gun, the dog ran away, and he shot the dog as he was running away, it was held that the defendant was not justified in so doing."

The decision was right; for the defendant having been frightened first out of his wits, and then out of his temper, was incapacitated by his own mean passions, to mark the distinction_ not surely a very nice one-between his gaiter and the calfof his leg; and, moreover, was blind and deaf which no Christian can be to the strong symptoms, if not of remorse and penitence, certainly of fear and a converted mind in the dog, which ought to have saved him, not from stone or cudgel, but from ball or even slugs. Nevertheless, as men are but men, just as dogs are but dogs, we should, in such a case, have advised the jury to give moderate damages-say twenty pounds. Let us now turn from the notes to the preface:

"To me, sitting in my chambers, and revolving in my mind the advantages and inconveniences of the legal profession, doubts are wont to occur, whether there be more quaintness or error-in the well-known complaint of Sir Edward Coke-that while the husbandman and mechanic could con. sole their labours with the accompaniment of song, and their work be even prospered by some self-pleasing tune, the law admits of no such assistance or diversion, but requires application of the whole faculties both of body and mind, excluding every expression of cheerfulness or refreshment. To question this remark I was first moved, by the frequent perusal of that great laywer's Commentary upon Littleton's Tenures, done into English metre; the charms of which have been ever grateful to an ear, not adverse in leisure moments to the lighter recreations

of the muse, nor insensible to the pecu'iar

melody of our earlier versification. And what student, indeed, has not felt the gravity of the Poor Laws enlivened, and the sterility of settlement cases agreeably refreshed at that flower of poesy, thrown by Sir Jas. Burrows into his report of Shadwell v. St John's, Wapping:

"A woman, having a settlement

Married a man with none;
The question was-he being dead,
If that she had was gone?
Quoth Sir John Pratt-Her settlement

Suspended did remain,
Living the husband-but, him dead,
It doth revive again.'

Chorus of Puisne Judges.
'Living the husband-but, him dead,
It doth revive again.'

"The indelible impressions made by those verses on the memory, the pleasing accordance of their rhythm and metre with a grave and useful question of sessions' law, and the picturesque description of unanimity, which so happily prevailed on the bench at that decision, seem to evince, that, by further pursuing the same device, similar assistance and recreation might be extended to other points, and other divisions, of learning.

Indeed, the advantages of verse for instruction upon all subjects appear to have been too little regarded in modern education; and the peculiar facility with which rhythm and rote may be enlisted into legal studies, is now made little available, even in

elementary learning, though it was thus that the youth of Rome acquired the laws of the twelve tables-relics of which may prove, not only the antiquity of verse, and even rhyme, but also their peculiar adaptation to jurisprudence.

"Neither in this, nor in any other respect, can the civil law claim superiority to our own. Many of our ancient, and not a few modern, and even some living, writers in the profession have sufficiently shown, that their own genius, as well as their subject, possessed all other qualities of poetry in so eminent a degree, that the absence of verse has not concealed them from the closer observation of a kindred mind. What, for instance, can be more reverend or majestical than Sir Edward Coke's impersonation of the two grand pronouns, Meum and Tuum; antagonists, never effete, as the Pope and Pagan, giants of Bunyan, but like the good and evil Principles, still mingling with and perplexing all the actions and passions of man? What can be more beautiful than his tracing the secret affinities of our law with the divine inspirations of the great Latin poet? The many classical citations and allusions of that eminent lawyer, his splendid illustrations, his comparisons, his imagery, his ingenuity in derivations and definitions, and that fervour and vigour of conception and expression, peculiar to the Elizabethan age, suffice to show, that the compliment of " How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost" - has been merited by more than one of the profession. For my own part, if I dared say it, I am often struck with the palpable resemblance of the poetry of Comyn's Digest to the works of some authors, whom it would be invidious here to mention:-but for admission into whose class I avow me to be here offering my humble pretensions; -partly encouraged by, and partly dissenting from, the example set by several of my learned friends, who have transferred to law literature poetical lucubrations, which, there is every reason to regret, were not, like my own, employed in illustrating the doubts, and describing the contests, of Meum and Tuum,

"The pure poetry of our whole system of pleading has long been a subject of frequent remark, and is scarcely to be accounted for but by the belief that pleas were originally the actual speeches of counsel, while proceedings were ore tenus; and being preserved as the choicest specimens of ancient eloquence, became, by no unnatural excess of admiration in after days, the very models of exact imitation, and finally of literal repetition. This will explain that very touching appeal to the passions, which forms the peroration of the ordinary counts in trespass and assumpsit, and which, though often more diffusely, is seldom more moving

ly, put in the modern addresses of advocates to the jury. This too will explain-(according to the difference of style and character, which may well be supposed to have existed in the serjeant or apprentice by whom such an action was first conceived or perfected to its present form) -the peculiarly business-like view which our pleadings take of the actions for crim. con. and seduction. The conversion of these injuries into a species of property, the value of which is to be ascertained and compensated in the common measure of all prices, is, perhaps, a distinctive characteristic of the most commercial of nations: but the exquisite and refined dissimulation with which the property alleged to have been injured is described-in order to give its appreciation the requisite certainty and uniformity-exhibits the most splendid instance of a continuous figure in obliquity and indirection, which, perhaps, no poetry has ever equalled. Were ever fictions more beautiful or more amiable than those on which are founded the actions of ejectment and of trover? In the former of which the injury done and suffered is entirely transferred to ideal personages; and in the latter, as also is so justly said of the institution of marriage, the law has improved and interpreted for the better the commonest instinct of human nature. What could better exemplify the strong affinity of our laws for poetry, than the fond discretion with which all this and the like imagery has been preserved in the unsparing cutting away of other matters less useful and brilliant? Indeed, the very name given in common to the whole of these proceedingsForms-(in the civil law, carmina)-sufficiently indicates the faculty of the mind to whose exercise their origin is due, and with whose literary productions their use is to be classed.

"In further illustration of these resources of the law, it may be expected that I should refer to a sometime popular treatise, called the Pleader's Guide: but that work, in my opinion, has not always treated its subjects with the gravity they deserve; and tends rather to estrange pupils from the science; upon which, however, the book otherwise must be allowed to contain much profitable instruction. But some of the richest mines of legal poetry remain still to be explored. The strong analogy of criminal trials to tragedy has been ingeniously remarked by my learned friend and competitor, Mr Jardine: and the resemblance of many nisi prius cases to comedy can have hardly escaped the most superficial observer; and something of it is curiously preserved by the Reports, for the benefit of posterity. The action of replevin, indeed, has already engaged the labours of both painters and dramatists; under the name of The Rent Day, it has drawn

tears from thousands at our national theatres; and the pencil of a Wilkie has proved a common-law or statutable distress may become of all others the most pathetic. But though, in both those works, the declaration and avowry are admirably delineated, there can be no doubt that the whole of the pleas in bar would be bad on a general demurrer. Succeeding artists may avoid this fault:and the design give rise to an emulation no less noble than that of Timanthes and Parrhasius to delineate the trial of the controversy for the arms of Achilles."

You see that we are introducing to you no common man-a quaint and acute prose writer and you already anticipate good, perhaps great things in his verse. He goes on to ask, that if the art of painting succeeds so well in judicial subjects, can they prove less congenial to poetry? And where else is the real character, both of individuals and of their age, either better observed than in the proceedings, or better preserved than in the records of a court of justice ?

"And, at the same time, what scene is more august, or-except only man's public endeavours to propitiate and commune with his Maker-what action is more exalted-what more worthy of poetic description, than human labours to supply, what Heaven seems to have omitted, a form of civil government-or than human efforts to execute what the Deity undoubtedly wills, the dis.. tinction and retribution of right and wrong -or than human daring to usurp, perhaps, a prerogative which God himself forbears, the solemn adjudication and infliction of the punishment of death ?

"But, in order to embellish the commentary, and extend also the sphere of its application, it was difficult to forbear occasional citations from those kindred volumes, which, ever forming part of a lawyer's library, serve to attest and perpetuate the intimate association of classical and professional literature, feeling, and character. This is an association, however, which the severe taste and rigid style of judicial eloquence among us tends unfortunately to obscure. In this respect the House of Commons is more favourably disposed. How is it, that quotations, which are thought so reverend and graceful in the senate, must appear so puerile and pedantic at the bar ? Or by what singularity of factitious taste does it happen that, even in Parliament, citations, though little restricted in length, are in selection to be confined to a single dead language, and commonly to a few of its principal authors? The overwhelming effect of Sheridan's addition to a Greek quotation