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EDINBURGH-HIGH COURT OF JUSTICIARY.

tremely valuable. There is no jury in civil cases in Scotland, and although many good reasons are adduced for this exclusion, there are others of greater weight against it. It must be admitted that jurymen are, in general, very incompetent in such cases, but publicity and oral evidence are secured thereby, and this outweighs any other consideration. Lord Stanhope made a motion in parliament a few months ago, for the introduction of the civil jury in Scotland, and said the Scotch people wished for it. This does not appear to me to be the case; and I have even heard the trial by jury in criminal cases, this palladium of English liberty, spoken of rather irreverently in Scotland. Lord Stanhope was answered, that the practice of the Scotch courts was so intricate, that the civil jury could not be adapted to it, and that, with the English jury, English laws should also be introduced, which was impracticable.

The Scotch judges have the reputation not only of great integrity and purity, but of attending as closely to their business as if they were wholly under the eye of the public, as the English judges are. This certainly does them great honour. I know, however, from experience, the inconvenience attending a system of cabinet judges. Masters of Chancery in England are members of a court of equity, of which the chancellor is the chief; their proceedings are entirely grounded

*The Court of Equity is considered by Lord Bacon, who himself held the office of chancellor, as instituted for the purpose of providing a remedy against the injustice of other courts, and supplying their defects. The learned and witty Selden says, that "Equity is a roguish thing; for law we have a measure,-know what to trust to. Equity is according to the conscience of him that is

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on written proofs and documents, and not carried on in public. I have certainly nothing to say

chancellor; and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. It is all one as if they should make the standard for measure a chancellor's foot. What an uncertain measure would this be! One chancellor has a long foot; another a short foot; a third an indifferent foot: 'tis the same thing in the chancellor's conscience!" Blackstone, on the contrary, says, "That the Court of Equity decides according to fixed rules and precedents; and that there is now, in that respect, but little difference between this court and the others." Bacon and Selden speak of what it was, and Blackstone of what it is; arbitrary decisions having become law. On the other hand, the courts of common law have extended their jurisdiction beyond its ancient limits; the improvements of the age have inspired them with a more liberal spirit, and have rendered their decisions more agreeable to the natural dictates of justice.-Millar's English Government.

Delolme agrees rather with Blackstone, than with Bacon or Selden; he calls it, however, an experimental court, which is again a little like the foot of the chancellor.

Although the Roman, or civil law, is repugnant to the English constitution, yet many of its singular forms have been adopted, by which the points in dispute are tortured into certain arbitrary classifications, under which alone pleaders can proceed. Pleaders and judges are so exact and nice in their rules, the object of which was originally simplicity and clearness, that pleadings are become a curious piece of art, in which the smallest derangement, the most trivial omission, stops all. However important the case may be, if the writ is not manufactured according to rules, the judge is deaf and dumb; and if the case should be so new, that none of the writs in use can possibly apply to it, and the chancellor and masters in chancery should not be able to agree upon one, recourse must be had to Parliament. (Cunningham's Law Dictionary.) To obviate this, the signification of writs is stretched to the utmost, under the name of fictions. A suit to recover the wages of labour, for instance, is introduced by a writ, purporting, that the defendant has entered forcibly the field of the defendant, broke down his inclosures, and committed other depredations. (Delolme.) It was by a fiction of that sort that Roman lawyers called a daughter a son; going farther than here, where it is received that Parliament can do anything, except make a girl a boy; and vice versa.

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against their integrity, and I know that several of them, and probably many of them, have as high a reputation as the Scotch judges, and deserve it. But all the lawyers of the capital of England, and many unfortunate clients, know the Emperor Paul,” and it is enough to name this dreaded personage to illustrate the danger of private judicial procedures. Mere integrity is no guard against the caprice or passion of a master.

The amusements and way of life in Edinburgh are, as may be supposed, as close an imitation of the customs and fashions of London, as relative circumstances of wealth, numbers, &c. can admit. London is the head-quarters of trade, of financial operations, and the focus of factions. Edinburgh is not only a stranger to trade and money-matters, but the only political party there is the party of obedience and loyalty. There are whigs, and I am told that the majority of the legal and of the literary men are of that party, but moderately so. You meet with few of the downright reformers among the good company of Edinburgh, and none among the lower people. A jacobin tradesman is here a phenomenon, and the individual generally a man of bad private character. I know this from a person distinguished in that party; he said the common people were all tories,-that among them whiggism was rank democracy. You hear as little here about political traffic as about commercial traffic; nothing is either bought or sold; none of

Plautus and Terence have furnished many words and forms to modern civilians, whose zeal has transplanted into their practice these precious remains of the advocates and attorneys of antiquity. An English poet has, in our days, made a similar bequest to posterity; a witty guide to the pleaders of future ages:

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those vile passions which elsewhere disfigure society have here an aliment. People live in comparative mediocrity, without fear of losing what they have, or much hope of improving their fortune otherwise than by prudence and economy;those who thirst for riches, must seek them else where. The result of all this is a certain general impression of peace and tranquillity, very striking to strangers; but this repose is not slumber,-a pursuit of sufficient interest remains, literature and the sciences, which are cultivated with zeal and success. As to what is called pleasure, there are here assemblies in the London style, made as numerous as possible; but, notwithstanding the efforts of a laudable emulation, the inhabitants of London being ten to one, Edinburgh routs cannot, by the nature of things, arrive at a perfection of crowds equal to those of the capital. It is often possible to sit and converse; cards, and even chess, are not quite excluded. You find generally one or two tables, with the pamphlets of the day, rare and valuable books carelessly heaped up, prints, drawings, and even children's play-things, which some are glad to take hold of, by way of appearing amused, when they are least disposed to be so: The piano is another play-thing, upon which a young and pretty hand is seen, but little listened to. I have observed that, in these numerous assemblies, music is the signal for a general dechainement of tongues; even those who were silent before, talk then, by the same sort of secret sympathy which swells the notes of the canary-bird in his cage to overpower conversation. A circle is formed round the instrument,-people press about the performer, talking, à qui mieux mieux. It is indeed

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most true, that, nine times out of ten, the performer and her instrument produce at best but a harmonious noise ;-the more execution, the less music. The hours are less late here than in London; they do not quite turn the night into day. Day indeed is little more than nominal: At twelve o'clock, the sun is so low, that the shadow of the houses across a very wide street, although only three stories high, cover the first story of the opposite side. There were people of quality in Greece at the period of its greatest luxury, who boasted that they had never seen the sun; if there is any merit in overcoming difficulties, they might have been vain of having seen it here. The climate of Scotland does indeed without sun better than any other; winter is neutralized by the surrounding sea, the thermometer is a little below freezing in the night,—just as much above in the day, there is no snow,-the grass is quite green, and we have frequently calm and clear days, wanting only a little duration. A fine morning,-a fine evening, follow each other, without noon; six or seven hours of light in the twenty-four.

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Mr Liston, known so advantageously in the United States (where I wish, for the sake of the two countries, he was still ambassador), has a very pretty residence in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where he has planted, (or rather Mrs L. has), an American garden, full of the natives of our fields, and of our woods, to which we find some difficulty in granting that degree of consideration due to their rank of exotics. These plants thrive remarkably well in their almost polar situ

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