tion of the untried. The next modification of solitary confinement is its infliction for short periods, unaccompanied by employment. The enforcement of solitude and silence changes altogether the character of prison labour, which is no longer regarded as a penalty but as an alleviation of the greater punishment. Employment of some kind is indispensable to the maintenance of silence, but the case is different in respect to solitude. The last degree of severity consists in solitary confinement for a long term, and for which labour is absolutely indispensable.

"4thly. That every prisoner should have a separate sleeping cell.

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5thly. Where the preferable system of solitary confinement is not adopted, silence should be rigidly maintained by day as well as by night. Silence is the nearest approximation to solitude, and is indispensable to the good government of a prison.

"6thly. That in the confinement of prisoners in association, the convict, when employed, should be required to pursue his work with downcast eyes, take his meals alone, be kept apart when not actually engaged at labour, and at all times prohibited from holding any intercourse with another prisoner.

"7thly. That for the maintenance of solitary confinement for lengthened periods, as well as of silence, it is necessary that prisoners subjected to either plan of prison discipline should be habitually employed. Objections have, I know, been urged against the employment of criminals at any trade, on the ground that the practice tends to diminish the demand for the labour of the honest and industrious: but the same may be said of the introduction of labour into a parish workhouse. Every man, whether convict or pauper, is entitled to his fair share in the productive employment which the country affords; nor does he forfeit the right of earning his subsistence by becoming either the tenant of a poorhouse or a gaol. The law does not doom the criminal to idleness as well as to imprisonment. If the individual were previously engaged in habits of industry, his employment during confinement cannot diminish the demand for the labour of others. Should this not have been the case it becomes the duty of society, by the application of such

means as may be essential for the purpose, to render the idle industrious, in order to convert him into a honest man.

"8thly. That provision be made for establishing a more efficient system than at present prevails of communicating religious instruction. The vice and depravity to be found in every gaol has led to an impression, by far too general, that most criminals are beyond the reach of reformation. Whatever may be the fact, I feel assured that the trial in few prisons has been fairly made.

"9thly. That the mere classification of prisoners fails to prevent corrupt intercourse.

10thly. That the rigour of imprisonment should be equal, certain, and unremitted. The best system of gaol management will be ineffectual if its salutary terrors are to be impaired by indulgences of any description. It is not less unjustifiable to mitigate than to aggravate the penalties of justice.

11thly. That there should be an uniformity in the discipline of prisons throughout the kingdom. Nothing can be more vague than a sentence of imprisonment and hard labour. A convict is adjudged to both; but neither the discipline of the prison, nor the nature of the employment, on which the severity of the sentence principally depends, is in any manner defined; nor is the court, in many cases, aware of the actual punishment which it awards.

"12thly. That the sentence of the law should not be abridged by recommendations for pardon, in consequence of good conduct during imprisonment.

"13thly. That the gaols under corporate jurisdiction be abolished, (with the exception of those employed for temporal purposes only), the magistrates of which have not complied with the provisions required by the 5 Geo. IV., c. 85, and who refuse to avail themselves of the power which the law has given to them of making arrangements for the committal of their prisoners to the county gaols.

"14thly. That increased attention be paid to the character and ability of the subordinate officers of prisons.

"15thly. The last suggestion which I take the liberty to offer, is that arrangements should be made for enabling the convict on his discharge to earn an honest subsistence. The

best system of prison discipline must necessarily be ineffectual if the offender on his liberation be unable to procure employment by which to earn a creditable livelihood."

Mr. Crawford proceeds to make some other remarks on this interesting but difficult question, which we propose to consider at a future period, in a separate article on the treatment of discharged convicts. We shall postpone to the same occasion the account of the American Houses of Refuge for young offenders, which forms the remaining part of Mr. Crawford's valuable report. It appears to us that the method of solitary confinement, with labour, has completely solved the problem of a good secondary punishment; that is, a punishment, short of death, which shall be an object of terror to the community at large, which shall prevent the possibility of additional corruption for the convict, and shall offer a fair chance of his moral reformation. In the difficult questions of police and judicial procedure before the punishment, and of the means of disposing of the convict after his discharge, there is a wide field still open for inquiry. The latter of these questions offers less difficulties in the United States, where labour is plentiful and where there are large tracts of unappropriated and uncultivated land in England, however, an old settled country, where every branch of industry is overloaded with competitors for employment, it is far less easy to find the means of affording to discharged convicts the option (which now is frequently not offered to them) of leading an honest life, without at the same time offering a premium to idleness. The advocates of transportation probably have had an indistinct vision of its advantage in this respect, though they have insisted chiefly on its influence in getting rid of criminals; but while we admit that transportation can be defended on this ground with some show of reason, we think it a wholly inadequate one and at any rate transportation ought to be considered not as a punishment, but as a means of providing for convicts whose punishment has expired.

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ART. III.-LIFE OF SIR VICARY GIBBS.

DEVONSHIRE has been from early times distinguished as the nursing mother of eminent lawyers. It was long since remarked by Fuller, that this county seems innated with a genius to study law, none in England (Norfolk alone excepted) affording so many legal men. "Cornwall, indeed," he says, "hath a famine, but Devonshire makes a feast of such, who by the practice thereof have raised great estates." These occur among other great names:-the two Fortescues, Aland, an able judge, Sir W. de Bathe, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir John Dodderidge, Sir John Maynard, and Peere Williams. Another century has added to this proud array the still more noble names of Camden, Dunning, Buller, Lord Chancellor King, Gifford, Heath, and Gibbs, the four last of whom are natives of Exeter. Nor is the race of legal worthies likely soon to degenerate or become extinct, since the Coleridges and Folletts are even now claiming fresh forensic honours for this highly favoured county.

Sir Vicary Gibbs was born at Exeter in 1751, in the Cathedral close, within a few doors from the birth-place of John Heath, his future colleague on the bench. He was the son of a surgeon and apothecary, who had practised in that city for many years, and laboured hard-such is the common lot of his profession-for a small competence. The acuteness of young Gibbs, which early developed itself, tempted his father to incur the expense of sending him to Eton, then under the able care of Dr. Barnard, the reputation of whose talents had already raised the number of scholars from 300 to 500. The great public schools have been always especial favourites with ambitious parents, from the facilities which they afford to the establishment of eligible friendships. But the character of the young Etonian was ill adapted to further any such scheme of promotion. "The boy's the father of the man," and he proved himself both too independent and too testy to become a tuft-hunter. He formed intimacies, indeed, with many who like himself pushed their way in afterlife into high stations, amongst whom may be mentioned Dr. Rennell; Plomer, the Vice Chancellor; Cornwall, Speaker of the House of Commons; Dr. Goodall, and Mr. Justice Dam

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pier: but he sought no patrons, and found none. cary's son had neither sprightliness nor humour to atone for deficiencies of birth, and that aristocratic little community made no allowance for the waywardness of a plebeian fag. He soon gained distinction, however, by that test of elegant scholarship, the composition of Latin verse. A pretty classical collection, the Musæ Etonenses, contains some pleasing specimens of his proficiency, but shows at the same time the mechanical skill without the mind of a poet, and proves to demonstration that there was no "sweet Ovid lost" in Gibbs. At sixteen he was elected scholar of King's College, Cambridge, on Lord Craven's foundation—a scholarship "passing rich" with 251. a year. The value is inconsiderable, but the repute which these scholarships hold in the University may be collected from the fact that the scholar who preceded young Gibbs was Seale, and his successor Richard Porson. King's College in his time enjoyed the privilege, if it may be termed a privilege of its fellows taking their degrees without a public examination; a boon to the slothful, a privation to the emulous. A syndicate has lately abolished this injudicious exemption, and permits the ambitious scholar to win that distinction in the Senate House, of which our young student justly thought himself defrauded. He took his bachelor's degree in 1772, and was elected a fellow of his college, but did not reside long, being eager to enter himself at Lincoln's Inn and study for the bar. The tradition of his excellence as a Greek scholar still lingers in the University.

To a student just graduated at Cambridge, who has rejoiced in classical themes and classical associations, the first study of the law is scarcely less repulsive than the atmosphere of the dissecting-room to a noviciate in medicine fresh from the purity of country air. The art and mystery of special pleading, however logical and inviting scrutiny in its present amended form, appears at first to substitute an uncouth jargon for the ancient models of thought and style—to have no sympathy with the feelings or fancy, and to dispense with all literary acquirements. The system was darkened with vain and unprofitable subtleties, with unmeaning fictions, infinite minuteness and wearisome prolixity. The technical terms colour, continuance, negative pregnant, certainty to a common intent, duplicity, common bar, and a thousand others.