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into the hands of a few professional members of the Upper House will be, at last, to assimilate their proceedings to those of the parliaments of France, especially those superior courts called lits de justice. Now, these were soft down to the people, while they checked the crown, the nobility, and the priesthood, but when they ceased to favour the discontented, or were subservient to the crown, they met with the usual popular return, and were despised and hated by all.

Then what followed? The Crown beguiled the people, got rid of all wholesome parliamentary control, ruled for a time alone, and when, at last, it was compelled to establish a legislative assembly, went into the extreme of democratical license, and reeling onwards under the storm, from shock to shock, passed, as a necessary consequence, under the usual changes of anarchy, despotism, and ruin.

We do not predict a consequence like this, as a sequel to the late decision, but we do affirm that the impression produced by it on the European world, now intently watching the proceedings of that august assembly, will be, that this is the first symptom of a disorder soon to become chronic, and ultimately to produce dissolution.

The very essence of the prosperity of England at this moment depends upon a proper exercise of governmental control. Now, if the questions put before the House of Lords by the judges of the land involved points of law, fact, and policy, it became the duty of the Ministers to exert all the just means within their power, to compass the proper decision of these points. The first was that O'Connell's practices were dangerous to the State, and the law officers were directed to see that "ne quid detrimenti res publica capiat." This was done, the case

tried, and a verdict against him obtained. Now, could it have been proved that, from undue zeal on the part of the Crown lawyers, a sentence had been procured against evidence, then the whole subject might have been treated as one merely professional, and left to the learned in the law. But as it stood, sifted, weighed, stamped by the approbation of the sages of the law, then the question, propriâ jure, or, as Blackstone would say, propriá manu, came before the House of Lords, as much a matter for the servants of the Crown to direct, as was that of Queen Pomare, or of Tangiers and Mogador.

Let us look at it in another light. Suppose Lord Denman's opinion to be well founded: where will be another unfortunate who, having suffered from some special jury, can, like Mr. O'Connell, take the opinion of the judges of the land, arrest the prorogation of Parliament, shield himself under the bucklers of the political lawyers of the day, and so find safety. None but the rich and lavish of their wealth, or those who can be profuse of the gold of others, and impoverish a deluded people, to purchase thereby their escape from merited punishment. Thus, the very decision of the House of Lords, the very manner of that decision, is a violation of even-handed justice, an overthrow of the sound principles of jurisprudence, a proof that impunity can be procured by the unlimited application of money, aided by the political partizanship of the learned in the law, who are unblushingly opposed to those whose ermine is unspotted by the taint of party, or by the prejudices from which their brethren in Parliament are not exempt.

We view this course with bitter regret. For, as Napoleon said of the overthrow of the Directory, "the

pear was not yet ripe," and the people of England are not yet alive to the errors that affect our civil jurisdiction, more so than our criminal jurisprudence.

We know, from experience, that both are indeed defective; for whilst the criminal law is often amended, by being in its modern practice opposed to its theory, the civil law is fettered by obsolete rules, continued always by the learned in the law, and still unwisely retained, when reforms have been attempted from time to time. History attests this fact, that from Lord Bacon to Lord Clarendon, and from the latter to Lord Eldon, all promised much; and, in what was done, kept the whole practice of the courts within the control and at the sole discretion of the learned in the law-for appeals generally find their way to the House of Lords from the Court of Chancery; and so in these days, an unfortunate suitor who gets there, and tries to come out through the appellant jurisdiction of the House of Lords, is like the poor girl in Chaucer's poem, who goes to the fair, and loses what cannot be restored, when all the fair, instead of consoling her, inquires what she did there at all.

Let any one read the Discourse on the Laws of England, by Nathaniel Bacon, and edited by Selden, and he will find the civil law complained of then, as now, but he will also discover that the criminal law is infinitely improved. How comes it, then, that the example of civil law, recently displayed in the House of Lords, has been brought there at all; or that this House should exercise its appellant jurisdiction, as it is accustomed to do, and as it is advised by Lord Wharncliffe? We think the spirit of history shews it to be only one of those usurpations of common law

rights, which it was the intention of the legislature to destroy altogether when it overthrew the Star Chamber. For it is utterly contrary to any principles of the Constitution, or of the Bill of Rights, to call together any body of men to decide judicially on a subject, as a collective assembly, and leave the fact, as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, to professional opinions only, setting aside the judgment of those so convened, who constituted the greatest part of that illustrious

court.

It never can be contended that a Minister can absolve a legislative assembly from its judicial functions, by advising them to take no part in such discussions, although the House was formally met, and the prerogative of the Crown arrested in the highest exercise of its power, save that of dissolution. This was exactly the great grievance of the Star Chamber. The Crown appointed judges and high officers "quamdiu si bené placitur," but in 1688, "si bené gesserint." Thus, while it was "si bené placitur," both with the lords and judges, the former were mute, and the latter obedient. As in the late case, it is quite clear, at least, that the law lords wonderfully accommodated their legal reasonings to their political sentiments; while the Government made a woful error in believing that men of high legal attainments, because they were in the House of Lords, would remember only their duties as legislators, and forget their passions and their politics as men.

'The whole matter then is resolved into a gross error of judgment, on the part of Her Majesty's government, in supposing that a house of legislation can ever become a pure house of judicature, or that a question, such as

that affecting Mr. O'Connell, can ever be discussed on its dry legal merits, because it is submitted, without any annexed responsibility, to legal functionaries, however high their rank, when they stand committed already to political opinions, connected, in some measure, with the case they have met to try.

This fact is strongly illustrated by the political events which, for upwards of half a century, have been the means of calling into the House of Lords law peers. It is not for us to question the legal talents that commanded the early success of the late Lord Eldon, and which transferred him from the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas to the highest dignity of Lord Chancellor. But history clearly points out that the noble lord maintained his high honours as Keeper of the Seals, owing mainly to political considerations and his aptitude for turning the secrets of the state to his own benefit; and we think that this is fairly demonstrated to the public by perhaps a not very well-judged history of the learned lord's life, illustrated by extracts from his posthumous papers.

It is clearly set forth in this history (what, however, we very well knew before), that, having abandoned Mr. Pitt, when Lord Sidmouth formed his administration, and the public opinion of the country having called again for Mr. Pitt's return to office, to which George the Third acceded, it was not the legal acquirements of Lord Eldon that retained him in office, as forming a part of Mr. Pitt's government then to be created, but that his re-assumption, in the new administration, of the Great Seal, arose from his intimate connexion with the King's family, and the knowledge possessed from that connexion of the malady even then afflicting the mind of the Sovereign.

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