the Bill subsequently introduced by Mr. Peel himself, declared that "he looked upon the proposed measure as leading by a broad and direct road to the overthrow of the Protestant Church." (Times, 6 April, 1829.) Suppose the Serjeant at Arms should thrust back Mr. O'Connell on his attempting to enter the House of Commons, or any other cause arise bringing up the Act. Were Lord Tenterden, as a Judge, to use any language of an unsatisfactory kind, he might be hurled from his seat by that very Legislature, which was induced to pass the Law. In the United States, the people have denied themselves this power. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall might move intrepidly on, where Lord Chief Justice Tenterden must yield or be sacrificed. Congress fairly and equally represents the whole country, yet it has not the power of a British Parliament to bring to bear on Judges what Paley calls" the displeasure of the people."

It is a subject of curious reflection that until the Constitution of 1688, or rather until the 13th year of Will. III. Judges were, as Paley remarks, the creatures of the Crown. The actual power of judicial appointment at present resides in Mr. Peel the Home Secretary. He has said that the Constitution of 1688, would be subverted by measures which he has since urged through Parliament; if so, the King has an unlimited 'power of making and unmaking Judges. Put that Constitution out of view, and Lord Tenterden may be dismissed in the same way as his predecessor Lord Coke was, in the time of James the First.

Captain Hall has sad misgivings, he tells us as to what will be our fate, if the Supreme Court should at any time falter in its duty, and consent to execute an unconstitutional law. Now there is, of course, no end to the hypotheses which an ingenious mind may frame as to the effect of derelictions of duty, by any department of a Government. The House of Commons may, as Paley remarks," put to death the Constitution, by a refusal of the annual grants of money to the support of the necessary functions of Government." So may the Judiciary commit some suicidal act. We have given to our Judges every motive to a high and fearless execution of their trust. The oath to support the Constitution,-absolute immunity,-and on the other hand, the infamy of judicial cowardice. Human precaution can go no further. But

E

where are we if all these securities prove ineffectual? Just where other countries are, which do not entrust to the Judge, the power of canvassing a Legislative Act. What was the history of our Revolution? Whilst we were a part of the British Empire an attempt was made to tax us in defiance of a Common Law principle. As the Courts stood ready to enforce these odious measures we were driven to arms. Lord Chatham declared us to be in the right. Mr. Fox has subsequently placed on record his opinion that our resistance preserved the integrity of the English Constitution, and Parliament itself has recognised the justice of our course by a definition of the true colonial principle. Our present position is this: We have placed our Judges in a situation far more independent than the same functionaries enjoy in England. We are a patient quiet people, and will submit to a great deal even of what we deem injustice, rather than put all these blessings in peril by violence: But finally, we hold in reserve for intolerable grievances what Blackstone describes, even in England, as the last resort.

It is the more to be regretted that Captain Hall should have exhibited an absurd ignorance on this subject, as he has thereby diminished materially the chance of our profiting by his criticism, even when better founded. A foreigner is often struck by errors to which the people, amongst whom they exist, are rendered insensible, and his candid and temperate exposure of them may lead to a reformation, which might have been struggled for in vain, by those whose motives were more liable to suspicion. Thus he very justly denounces the practice, in a few of the States, of rendering the Judges periodically elective-thinking that they are thereby exposed to, at least, a suspicion of servility to the Government. He thinks that they ought to be placed on the same footing with

and of the larger States. But

the Judges of the United States, unfortunately he has thrown away all his influence as an auxiliary by seriously pretending to refer these misguided people, in the most triumphant manner, to the case of England, when they are too well aware that an evil of the same character exists in that country, in a form infinitely more odious and alarming, and on a scale altogether stupendous.

The allusion is, of course, to the High Court of Chancery. There is a sum at stake in the litigation of that Court-nay, actually.

locked up awaiting its decisions-equal to the value of the feesimple of the States in question, and all their moveables into the bargain—a sum more than sufficient to pay off the whole National Debt of the United States several times over. Its jurisdiction is of the most diffusive character, and it may be said to reach in some way, either directly or indirectly, the interests or the sympathies of every individual in the community. As no Court presents so many temptations to indirect practices, so there is no one in which they may be so readily veiled. A year's delay, to obtain which, might be an object of sufficient importance to warrant an enormous bribe, would scarcely excite even suspicion in a Court whose procrastinating temper is proverbial. There is no jury to participate in its labours, or to check an improper bias; nor do its proceedings possess that kind of popular interest which attracts to them the supervision even of the readers of the newspapers. What is the tenure by which this almost boundless power over the anxieties and the interests of the Community is held? The will of the Minister of the day. His breath can make or unmake the Lord Chancellor. A Premier would instantly resign if his declared wish for the removal of this officer should be disregarded. Such a refusal would be considered as depriving him of an authority essential to the discipline of the Cabinet, and to that concert and cordiality on which the success of its measures must so greatly depend. When it is recollected that within the brief space of nine months, there stood at the head of affairs in Great Britain, four different individuals in succession, (Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning, Lord Goderich, the Duke of Wellington,) it will readily be conceded that the Chancellor can never consider himself as altogether safe, since he is liable to be sacrificed, not merely to any particular scheme of policy, which he is accused of thwarting, but even to those impulses of temper, on the one side or the other, through which Mr. Huskisson ceased to be a Minister. It seems to be universally agreed that Lord Lyndhurst must have gone out, as the Attorney-General did, had he not voted for the Relief Bill of Last Session.

If we look back to the history of this Court we shall see plainly what has been the practical consequence of this state of things. The mind involuntarily turns to Lord Bacon; the "greatest

wisest" of mankind, he became Lord Chancellor only to furnish to the poet a sad antithesis to these epithets. There is no where to be found a more mortifying rebuke to the pride of human nature than is furnished in witnessing the influence of circumstances over a mind so wholly without a parallel in modern times, whether we refer to original power and compass, or to extent of acquirement, His appointment, as appears by his own letters, was brought about by Buckingham, the favourite of King James. The abject sub jection in which he was held is thus stated by his biographer Mallet. "During the King's absence in Scotland, there hap pened an affair, otherwise of small importance, but as it lets us into the true genius of those times, and serves to shew in what miserable subjection the Favourite held all those who were in public employments. He was on the point of ruining Sir Francis Bacon, the person he had just contributed to raise; not for any error or negligence in their Master's service, but merely for an opinion given in a thing that only regarded his own family, Indeed such was his levity, such the insolence of his power, that the capricious removal of men from their places became the prime distinction of his thirteen years favour, which, as Bishop Hacket observes, was like a sweeping flood that at every spring-tide takes from one land to cast what it has taken upon another." And again, "Nor even thus did he presently regain his credit with Bucking ham; the family continued to load him with reproaches: and he remained long under that agony of heart which an aspiring man must feel, when his power and dignity are at the mercy of a king's minion, young and giddy with his elevation. They were, however, reconciled at last, and their friendship, if obsequiousness in one, to all the humours of the other, deserves the name of friendship, con tinued without interruption for some years; while Buckingham went on daily to place and displace the great Officers of the Crown, as wantonness of fancy, or anger, or interest led him; to recommend or discountenance every private person, who had a suit depending in any court just as he was influenced; to authorise and protect every illegal project that could serve most speedily to enrich himself or his kindred," &c.

At length his bribery and venality became so flagrant notorious, that it was found necessary to put him aside.

and

What brought about the dismissal of Lord Clarendon from the same high office? We are told that the gravity of his deportment "struck a very unpleasing awe into a court filled with licentious persons of both sexes;" certain false suggestions were in consequence got up, which "assisted by the solicitations of the ladies of pleasure, made such impressions upon the King, that he at last gave way and became willing, and even pleased to part both from his person and services." (Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary, art. Hyde.) Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty, in the reign of Charles II. thus refers, in his Diary recently edited by Lord Braybrooke, to the same transaction. "This day, Mr. Pierce, the Surgeon was with me; and tells me how this business of my Lord Chancellor's was certainly designed in my Lady Castlemaine's chamber; and that when he went from the King on Monday morning, she was in bed, (though about twelve o'clock,) and ran out in her smock into her aviary, looking into Whitehall Garden; and thither her woman brought her her night-gown; and stood blessing herself at the old man's going away."

Had he proved

Clarendon's integrity could not be overcome. weak as Lord Bacon, he would have been drawn into the same wretched thraldom to the male or female favourite of the hour. Influence, wherever lodged, would have been an object of dread; and the power of alarining the anxieties of the Chancellor have proved the best perquisite of the King's mistress. A magistrate thus debased would quickly come to understand that he might give as much offence by an honest decree as by the gravity of his deportment, and even should an exposure ultimately take place, it would be impossible to trace the taint of corruption through the vast and complicated business of the Court, much less to redress the mischief which had been done.

Coming into the next century, we find Lord Chancellor the Earl of Macclesfield, disgraced for bribery and venality.

The circumstances which more recently led to the dismissal of Lord Camden are thus stated, by the Earl of Chatham, in his speech explanatory of the pension granted to that illustrious magistrate, prior to his appointment as Chancellor. (See Gentleman's Magazine for 1770, p. 104.) "I recommended him to be Chancellor, his public and private virtues were acknowledged by all;