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versal attention, both from liberals and conservatives.

He has

no crotchets and no trammels. His views are peculiar, and in some respects extremely radical. He has no veneration for traditions of any kind, either in church or state. He sincerely believes that cold logic and the iceberg of reason, unillumined and unwarmed by any ray of life or heat, are entirely adequate to solve all the perplexing problems of civil and ecclesiastical polity. And every word he utters is replete with good sense and good feeling, and commands the deepest, most earnest attention of all who come within the range of his voice. But just think of John Bright sitting down to compose a speech for the House of Commons, and then standing up for two hours to deliver it! He could not read five minutes before he would be coughed down, and if he could be patiently listened to by men laboring under the same infirmity of having to read their speeches, he could not possibly command any influence in the House, since all the power of a controlling mind in debate arises from turning the exigencies of the passing moment to account.

When the first great debate in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill was opened, in the early spring of 1867, we heard DISRAELI, GLADSTONE, BRIGHT, ROBERT LOWE, LAING, WALPOLE, and some ten or twenty others discuss the subject more or less in detail, and all within the space of three or four hours. If those men had attempted to do the same thing on paper, it must have required three or four days or even weeks instead of as many hours; and instead of the auditory remaining quiet and attentive listeners throughout the debate, nobody could be found stolid enough to sit through such a hearing. There are two leading speakers in the House of Commons, DISRAELI and LowE, whose speeches have much the appearance of having been, to some extent, and in considerable portions, pre-composed and learned by rote. And in regard to Mr. Lowe especially, there could be no question such is the fact to a considerable extent. But Mr. Lowe is not an effective speaker, merely as such. His great forte consists in the elaborate character and thoroughness of his exposition of all subjects he undertakes to discuss. Mr. Disraeli is a wonderful man in almost every point of view in which he is considered. He is a man of great sensibility to the opinions and feelings of others, and who reflects them with great accuracy; of great research and study, both of men and things;

of most amazing memory and power of illustration; and above all, he seems, in a very studied and artificial manner, to adapt his discourse to the demands of the occasion with most amazing wisdom and tact. So that, without being an eloquent man or a ready debater, he is really one of the most persuasive speakers of the

age.

It is perhaps due to the occasion to say that Mr. Gladstone is, at the present time, the most observed, the best abused, and the most able and skilled debater in the House of Commons. And he pushes straight on towards his point and main purpose with such directness of aim, and such energy, that one almost forgets the freedom and elegance of his manner, and the power of his eloquence, in watching the polished smoothness and beauty of his logical sequences. There are no jars, no breaks, and no pauses in his onward rush. And if he is not always in the right, he is sure to be most exquisitely captivating in all that he says; and there is such power and force in his logical deductions, that one is scarcely safe in listening to him, unless we adopt the theory of his absolute infallibility, which it is not quite safe to affirm of any one in these degenerate days, or unless one come to cavil, and then he is in great danger, of conversion.

If our readers will pardon the digression we would be glad to bear testimony here, to our own great admiration of Mr. Gladstone's genius, eloquence, and purity of purpose. It is certain that his history has developed the most surprising, and sometimes the most sudden and inexplicable, changes of opinion. This, in the case of a public man, and especially a great political leader, naturally leads to severe and often unjust criticisms. The theory of parties in free governments is that their dogmas are infallible, and consequently can never change. If, therefore, we find a man so far reversing all his early opinions, and especially upon religious subjects, as to find himself, as Mr. Gladstone has, passing from the association with the extreme high church into the cordial embrace of the extreme low church, and even the no church party in the realm, the conclusion is not unnatural that he must have acted largely upon the principle of expediency. But when it is considered that the times have changed far more than the man, and that the same opinions or the same remedies, which are now indispensable to maintain the quiet and good order of the kingdom, would have produced a convulsion thirty years ago, from

one border of the land to the other, we need not feel surprise at the apparently new attitude in regard to the church in which Mr. Gladstone finds himself. If there is any fatal fallacy in Mr. Gladstone's character, and one which has led him more astray than all others, it is the dogged determination to follow out all his theories and speculations to their logical consequences, wheresoever that may lead him. That is indeed a beautiful theory of character, and one that savors largely of nerve and consistency, and honest purpose; but there is no plan or purpose of life more fallacious. Every man is bound to test the correctness of his theories by their practical working, and to know and admit, that when this latter test fails, there must be some innate, although invisible, defect in his logic. If Mr. Gladstone has failed at all it has been in this respect, in following too implicitly the logical consequences of his speculative theories.

We are not sufficiently familiar with the debates in the Corps Legislatif in France to be able to speak with much confidence of the mode of preparation. We believe it is more elaborate than in the British House of Commons. But we did not learn that anything at all approaching the slipshod and slovenly mode practised in our Congress ever obtained there. If speeches are sometimes precomposed for debates there, the offence of reading them is never attempted. There is far more action in French public speaking, both at the bar and in the Corps Legislatif, than in England or here, and public speaking becomes effective there as much on account of the manner as the matter.

In preparing cases for argument, in the French courts of justice, the practice is far more like the American, than in the English courts. And from considerable opportunity to watch the progress of trials both in the French and English courts, we have felt compelled to give in our adhesion to the latter. The trial of civil causes in the French courts conforms very nearly to that of the Roman civil law, and is somewhat analogous to that which is pointed out in the New York code of civil pleading and practice, and which has been largely adopted in a considerable number of the other states, with more or less modification. It consists of a general declaration, bill or plaint, setting forth briefly the cause of action. Then comes the answer, which consists mainly of denial, but sometimes introduces new matter of defence, as tender, payment, set-off, the Statute of Limitations or lapse of time, arbi

tration and award, former recovery, &c., &c. The testimony is then taken, presumptively, before the court, but in practice, before a prothonotary or commissioner, and often, as in our chancery proceedings, is very voluminous and somewhat difficult to digest, in such a manner as to be readily understood.

The practice is in the French courts for the counsel to prepare and print, if they choose, which is commonly the case, what is there called a Mémoire, a memorial, or brief, rehearsing the important testimony on either side, with the arguments and legal precedents to which it is desired to refer the court. This sometimes extends to fifty or a hundred or more large quarto pages, and is thus, in itself, a laborious study. And after all it is not the case, but only a partial and one-sided statement of it. There is no doubt room for the exercise of great skill and ingenuity in getting up such a brief. And in many cases it may become of very essential aid to the court where it desires to obtain a thorough understanding of the cause. But even in that case, the only reliable course is for the court to examine the original papers and carefully read them. In any other course the judge is not only exposed, but almost sure, to be misled by the partial or imperfect statements on either side. The result generally is, that the court never attempt thoroughly to master the cause. The reading of the testimony is often wholly omitted, and the court depend upon the statements of the counsel, and even that is often omitted to be read at length, the counsel con tenting himself by referring the court to the statements upon his brief. And every one who has had much experience in these matters knows how very irksome it is to the court, after an argument is closed, and the papers bundled up and laid aside, to recur to it again. There is then a direct temptation, in the mind of the court, to study to have the cause turn upon some issue, not of the essential merits of the cause, but which may be raised upon the concessions of counsel, or upon the admitted and well-known facts in the case, without the necessity of examining the testimony in detail. We have known complicated and voluminous cases in the American courts to share this fate, and we have been credibly informed, from the most reliable sources, that the same thing often. does occur in the French courts.

Indeed it is fair to say we have known it to occur there. During an important trial in the Court of First Instance of the

city of Paris, a court of the most extended civil jurisdiction, although not final, there being an appeal to two higher tribunals in succession, the Imperial Court, and the High Court of Cassation, which is the final arbiter in all matters, whether civil or criminal, we noticed the judges sitting in quiet indifference, hour after hour, while the counsel on either side read most elaborate and inconclusive essays both upon the law and the fact. And it was evident to the slightest observation that the court were really obtaining or tending towards, no definite opinion of the merits of the cause. The argument was indeed closed by a very pertinent, and, as usual with that distinguished advocate, M. Berryer (it was one of his last great efforts at the bar), a most eloquent- appeal on behalf of the plaintiff, which the court felt predisposed to reject on the ground of its political bearing. For the administration of justice in France is essentially political, by which we mean that it is virtually, and indeed formally, a department of the imperial cabinet, the Minister of Justice being constantly present by him self or deputy in the trial of all civil actions. And the cause just referred to being an action on behalf of the United States Government against a citizen of France, somewhat prominent in civil position, and a member of the Corps Legislatif, for the recovery of property of a public character, deposited in his hands by the late so-called Confederate States for purposes hostile to us during the late rebellion, naturally called into exercise the feelings engendered in France during the civil war in America; and as naturally roused the eloquent M. Berryer to a most graphic exposition of his cause, and the injustice attempted to be inflicted upon the United States by fitting out ships of war in France to prey upon

our commerce.

The effect of this eloquent exposé of the wrongs attempted upon the old established national government, by the defendants in the action, in building privateers or piratical craft, to burn and destroy our mercantile marine, although a very natural thing for M. Berryer to do, and a very pleasant thing for a patriotic American to listen to, did not prove equally advantageous, in procuring the favorable ear of the court on our behalf. For, the moment M. Berryer had closed his pungent and rather damaging harangue, so far as the defendants' general conduct was concerned, the Minister of Justice gave notice to the court, that at their next session he should feel it his duty to submit some considerations bearing upon

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