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A PRACTICAL TREATISE on DISEASES of the SKIN, arranged with a view to their Constitutional Causes and Local Characters, and including the substance of the Essay on these subjects, to which the Royal College of Surgeons awarded the Jacksonian Prize. Second Edition, corrected and enlarged, by SAMUEL PLUMBE, M.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Royal Metropolitan Infirmary for Children, &c. Section 1. Comprehends the Description and Methods of Treatment of those diseases which affect and disfigure the Face, together with Ringworm, Scalled Head, &c. 2. Those marked by Chronic Inflammation, as Leprosy, Scaly Tetter, &c. 3. The Cutaneous Affections of Infants, and those of a salu. tary nature to the Constitution of Adults. 4. Impetigo, the Itch, Mercurial Disease, &c. 5. and 6. Those which depend on Debility of System, and deranged digestive Organs, &c. T. and G. Underwood, 32, Fleet Street, and the Author, 65, Great Russell-street, Bloomsbury. London: Printed and Published every Wednesday morning, by WILLIAM LEWER, at the Office, 147, Strand, near Somerset House. No. 34. London Literary and Critical Journal. LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, SKETCHES OF CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS. No. XIII.-Mr. James Mill. to the temple, not that we may listen to the on us. THE reputation which this writer has achieved is the strongest evidence of the practical character of English mind in the present age; that is to say, The world is sure enough to pay attention to its of our habit of thinking directly and immediately worldly wants. The necessities which we have in about practice, without considering at all that found-common with the beasts, will always be of at least ation of conscience, and enlarged experience, and sufficient importance in ordinary eyes. It should philosophical enlightenment, on which good pracbe the business of literature to preserve and distice can alone be built. Wisdom, in other countries, seminate truth, with regard to those subjects and in other periods of this country, has been held which belong peculiarly to man, which constitute to include in itself a moral tendency and power, and our essential humanity. To the philosopher is much also of which it is not the purport to bear committed this task of teaching his age that there in the first instance, on conduct, and many feelare many faculties in the mind besides those which ings and principles valuable not as instruments, are needful for the support of the body: that each but simply as being true and good. A philosopher, has its peculiar object, beauty, morality, religion, in the language of some generations, was a man truth; that to resolve any one into the other, is who drew from his own mind, and from the nature to destroy so much of man's inheritance; and yet of things, the laws of universal truth, whereby alone that, if any one be cultivated exclusively, instead phenomena can be explained. Nothing which is of independently, of the rest, the whole will nenot an end in itself can be at once both fact and cessarily be ruined. Not only for the purpose of reason; and the merely mechanical and subser- enforcing these truths is the philosopher appointvient requires something higher than it can ed, but also for keeping alive on earth the consupply, to manifest the idea, whereof it is the viction that, in the consciousness of these truths, outward realization. An idea of this kind has, and in devotion to them, resides the genuine hope in truth, the closest relation to men's feelings and glory of human nature: not for teaching and affections. It was in this way that the philo-religion, and religion in its highest and most persophy of Socrates gained its proper and distinc- fect form, Christianity, as a thing totally cut off tive renown. Not because it was a mere classify- from our daily feeling and habitual conduct, but ing of external facts, but because it was drawn as including every department of thought, and all from the living substance of the human mind, in- our duties, and those especially which are the stead of referring to abstractions and names, laws of our most precious powers, and which which have nothing to do with the actual proflow from our relation to God. cesses of our thoughts, desires, and convictions. A philosopher, in this sense of the word, Mr. It is, of course, possible to form scientific systems Mill is not. He does not profess to love wisdom, without reference to the testimony of conscious- but the consequences to which wisdom leads; ness; and, if these be sedulously and honestly and is, therefore, no more a philosopher than he framed, they will have a value of their own, as who weds for money is a lover. The only wisdom means and materials. But the purport of those which is of any value contains, in itself, the things, which are the subjects of the science, will means of moral as well as intellectual excellence. be utterly beyond its domain, unless that shall It is essentially different from prudence; and an have been traced out and subdued by a mind extended prudence is all which can be learned accustomed to meditate on itself. One kind of from the writings of this author, or is ever inculskill is requisite to put together the scattered cated in them. At the same time, he is often an leaves of Sibyl Nature, and arrange in connected acute and a laborious authority; and the range periods the piecemeal words and chaotic phrase- of his general acquirements appears to be ology. Another, absolutely different, and immea- highly respectable, while his benevolence is obsurably higher, is necessary to interpret the lan-vious and delightful, and evidently proceeds guage in which she writes, and expound her symbol characters. But in our day and land a man earns the reputation of philosophy by simply generalising on facts, and for that purpose taking away from them every thing which made them interesting to the agent. All the external business of the world has increased enormously in extent and activity. Experiment and mechanical invention have multiplied themselves in every department of industry. Earth, sea, and air, have given up their secrets, and enriched mankind with all their powers. Every resource that nature contains has been investigated and applied: till the land has become one vast manufactory; the sea one broad highway of nations; every nook is the domain of labour, and every shore an emporium. The mind of man is given up to these things and production, and accumulation, have become the vocation of the world. Literature, too, partakes of this character: and the research for truth is no longer considered important, except inasmuch as it conducts to profit. We crowd from a higher source, and is supported by a As mere compositions, they are marked by a niggard and dreary style, such that even the laurels of his fame will not suffice to conceal from a single eye the baldness they encircle. It seems to be the author's main effort to separate his subject into as many atoms as possible, and to put each of these into a sentence which will exactly hold it; and he takes a sedulous and perverse care to divest his little, lifeless, shapeless, fragmentary propositions, of every accompaniment of sympathy or association, even the most completely justified by what goes before; so as to secure the want of all unity of im pression from the whole. This is a great defect; and akin to it is another: Mr. Mill never brings before us his view of any point by an image; which may at once make the subject plainer than whole pages of mere argumentation, and by remaining fixed in the mind, may for ever serve to recal_the_reason which it has originally illustrated. Does Mr. Mill really believe that the column is the weaker or the less majestic, because the primroses grow around its base; that the armour is the more frail, because it is embossed with gold; or, that the Damascus sabre will smite the less surely, for its flowery fragrance? Like the fountain, which nourishes the roots of the oak, a feeling lies deep and fresh at the root of all valuable moral truths. It goes along with them in all their progress; and, if we find that which professes to be such a truth, unaccompanied by this inward life, we may be sure that it is either an error, or the produce of some other mind than that which presented it to us; even as if we saw a tree on a dry spot of the desert, we might be certain that it either was utterly useless, or had been brought thither from some more generous soil. In ethics, love accompanies intelligence; and when a man is writing on these subjects, affection will show itself, now in tracing out a thousand analogies; now in bringing rapidly together many particulars, all welded into one by the fervour of the soul; and, again, by perpetually recurring from the individual proposition to the general feeling which alone gives it importance. It is easy to say that all this is so much injury done to the logical excellence of the style: but to harmonise logical perfection with strength of sentiment, is the task and the prerogative of philosophers, and men of genius; and, moreover, if part of a composition brings every one, whose sympathies are healthy, into a certain state of consciousness, with which the tone of the remainder of the author's speculations is totally at variance, however fitted it may be to any arbitrary canons of the schools, human nature will trample on schools and scholars, and proclaim that the logic of rhetoricians is very different from the logic of the mind. Such seem to us the radical defects of Mr. Mill's style. On the whole, it wants both ease and strength. It is, as nearly as possible, the style of Euclid's Elements,' adapted to subjects for which Euclid never would have used it. Dry, harsh, and prickly, it would be utterly unendurable, but that there is enough of real information conveyed in it to compensate for much annoyance. Grapes do sometimes grow on thorns, and figs on thistles; though now and then the grapes are sour, and the figs, like those sold in the streets of Constantinople, are cried with rather excessive ostentation.+ There would, nevertheless, be something manly and simple in this writer's compositions, but for the affectation which is exhibited in many occasional phrases, a sort of Utilitarian coxcombry, and professorial pretension. Such modes of speech as 'the matter of evil,' and 'portion of discourse;' and the formulas, (they occur in every page of Mr. Mill's writings,) either a thing is white, or it is black. If white, then, &c., if black, then something else,' and so forth; all these are mere pedantries, worthy only of a school-boy, in We must be satisfied for the present to take Rhe toric in Dr. Whately's sense of Argumentative Com position.' + 'In the name of the Prophet, Figs!' Mr. Mill's Prophet, however, is not Mahomet, but Mr. Bentham. the lowest class of the Utilitarian Philosophy,―a Neophyte in the outer court of the Temple of the Economic Goddess. Yet we believe these absurdities may help to win admirers and proselytes. For when the merely getting by rote a few simple phrases and sentences of this kind, and the employment of them in all companies, will gain for any one the reputation of profoundness, it would be strange indeed if many did not avail themselves of so easy a Gradus ad Philosophiam? It has been said already, that Mr. Mill has knowledge sufficient to make him-in spite of these drawbacks-a valuable author. If we did not think him an influential writer, we should not now be examining the character of his works. But it is observable, that little of his knowledge is his own. He is not, indeed, one of the pedants who put their minds into their books, instead of putting their books into their minds. But neither is he one of the thinkers, who, instead of keeping books in their minds as they came from their authors, recompose them there with a thousand new illustrations, strong connections, and nice dependencies. Take the system of the human mind of Locke, the theory of religion of Hume, the principles of government and legislation of Bentham, and the political economy of Ricardo; deprive these of all which made them peculiarly the property of their inventors, of all their air of originality, of all their individual lineaments, and join them together in one mass, and you have the creed of the Historian of British India. But many of the doctrines which he holds have undoubtedly been stated by him more clearly than by any one else: and in his great work he has applied them to a wide range of subjects, and supported them in appearance by such a multiplicity of facts, that it certainly deserves to be held among the oracular books of the sect. The History of British India is clearly distinguishable, though not divisible, into two parts. The one relates to England and Englishmen, the other to India and its Natives. Of the former of these portions we need say but little. It is in general executed with ability and knowledge. For the author's system of human nature, though professing to be universal, is drawn from the circumstances of modern Europe; and the vesture fits tolerably well the form for which it was intended, -infinitely better at least than it would adapt itself to any other. His observations on commercial questions are commonly excellent: and his mode of analysing the different measures and institutions of British statemanship is full of acuteness. Even in these we could have wished for some more earnest enforcing of national duty, some stronger evidences of faith in the possibility of human virtue. But if there is any subject in discussing which the want of that faith is excusable, it is undoubtedly the recent history of English Parliaments and Ministers. His scalpel is practised in the laying open men's motives; and if he is too much predisposed to find the parts diseased, he is, at all events, an unsparing operator when they really are so. We should probably not be inclined to make the same use of Mr. Mill's political discoveries and demonstrations as he would do. But they are curious and valuable to every benevolent reformer who has accustomed his mind to trace and to lament the influence of bad institutions on national well-being. But with regard to that more difficult division of this writer's labours which refers to Hindoostan, we can give no such applause. It seems to us that his views on this subject are fundamentally and desperately wrong. He has, in no one instance, made the slightest approach to understanding of the Hindoo Polity. To comprehend the principles and mode of thought which prevail among any people, it is necessary to seize the idea on which their social system is founded. In every community which has antiquity and a national life of its own, such an idea has existed, the mould for the mind of the society, sometimes partially realised in institutions, sometimes partially mani- The more difficult and more interesting points knowledge and practice of sound political economy and in an improved judicial system,―to the entire exclusion of every thing which comes home to men's feelings, of all improvement in the sense of duty, in reverence for truth, in love to God and man. We are inclined to think that the majority of the political mistakes of this reasoner, though the natural outgrowth of an erroneous and unhappy system of human nature, could not have existed to such a degree without an inattention to the spirit of history, a kindred product on the same system. Is it not melancholy that an Essay on Government' should have been written, however concise and compendious, in which we find no more than one or two cursory allusions to the experience of nations? And is not this fact a symptom of a general tendency to turn away the eye from all that is necessarily different in the circumstances of different communities? To shut from our contemplation that inner life of society which is perpetually working outward, and flinging off the slough and decay of its body; and as constantly drawing in to feed itself with, and assimilate them to its own nature, the resources and materials that surround it? There is a growth and progress of a people which acts from an interior law of its own, and makes the application to it at any period, of a merely abstract theory, a folly and an impossibility. Any man who should directly assert, that the same institutions are applicable to all countries, at every time, to the North American Indians, to the Arabs, the Hottentots, the Chinese, the English,-would not be a man to be answered, but one to be put in a strait-waistcoat. Yet, the reasonings of the Essay on Government' are as universal as those of geometry, and if good at all, would be just as valid arguments for a Negro or an Esquimaux, as for a Parisian or a Prussian. To rest satisfied, therefore, with it, as with a sound political system, is quietly to repose on the pillow of an absurdity. The chapter of the History on the Literature of India, ought to have been one of the highest interest and value. There are few things of the kind more curious, than the absence of all history, the general extravagance of the poetry, in connection with the occasional subtilty and sublimity of the philosophical doctrines, in the books of the Brahmins. Mr. Mill treats the whole subject as contemptible. His criticism on the Hindoo works of imagination is, probably, not much too severe, though it exhibits no evidence whatsoever of critical science. But it is scarcely conceivable by what extravagance of Voltairian empiricism he should have been led to write as he has done about Indian philosophy. We doubt not, that, with some exceptions, it is absurd and stupid; and that the better portions of it are little understood or cherished by the vast majority of the Brahmins. But how did the Vedanti theory ever arise among such a people? Mr. Mill pretends to bring evidence that refined abstract speculations have always flourished among rude nations; but he brings no testimonies, none, at least, the vagueThe one object of the long and elaborate chap-ness of which does not make it entirely nugatory, ters on the Hindoos, and of many subsequent casual allusions, is to determine the point in the scale of what the writer terms civilisation, at which the people he speaks of stood. But it is painful to feel, throughout, the impossibility of discovering in his pages any clear account of what civilisation' is. Many of those things which thinkers of all parties would regard as helping to constitute civilisation, are, by him, uniformly spoken of as being merely its evidences. Many which, in our eyes, are accidental peculiarities, are, in his, the strongest proofs of it; and those which are held for its essence and life, by the believers in man's religious and moral nature, are, by him, either totally omitted, or treated with some indication of careless contempt. It seems probable, that if all he has said on the subject were brought together, he would be found to place the good and beautiful of a nation in the to the existence of metaphysical science in any barbarous country, except, indeed, where it has been transplanted from the Athenian garden, or copied from the paintings of the Stoa. Nor can we be satisfied with the still more shallow device of asserting, that the propensity to abstract speculations is the natural result of the state of the human mind in a rude and ignorant age;' (History of British India, vol ii. p. 70, 8vo. edition ;) or with the ludicrous impropriety of the attempt to support this statement by the authority of Condillac, who merely says, that children early learn to class many objects together from observation of their outward resemblances. Mr. Mill pretends that the Vedanti doctrine is utterly despicable and worthless, both as given by Sir William Jones and by Sir James Mackintosh. It would be easy for Mr. Mill to say the same of Plato. But one assertion is worth just as much as another; and we confess we cannot conceive how such a belief can have arisen, except from the partial perversion of some early and holy tradition, or from the force of a powerful and subtle mind, long accustomed to brood over its own consciousness. Now the difficulty, and it appears in our eyes a great one, is, to discover in what way a theory so remote and transcendant, (however erroneous; and we are convinced, that if we have it in its integrity, it is erroneous,) can have been united to such gross and miserable follies as form the mass of Sanscrit learning. However, we can now pursue no further the examination of the chapter on literature, and must leave to the judgment of its readers, its heap of irrelevant, ill-arranged, and uncompared authorities, its careless condemnation of things which the writer has not taken the trouble to comprehend, and its grave quotation from Voltaire, of the precious opinion, that the poetry of the Old Testament is completely worthless. But we must turn, to say a few words of a chapter on religion, which is about as valuable, when compared with thet heology of Isaiah, as is the poetry of the Pucell, when weighed against the book of Job. We are very anxious that nothing we say should tend to excite a religious clamour against the writings now before us. To our fear of abetting this theological fury we would give up any thing, except candour. And we trust that we shall save ourselves from being accomplices in so odious a result, by premising, that so far as we have seen, this writer has never said any thing against the truth of Christianity. If he had avowed himself to be a Deist or an Atheist, we should still feel nothing but regret, and should endeavour, as earnestly as possible, to show the cruelty, the folly, the criminality, of persecuting any man's conscience. The author attempts to account for the existence of religion in the world (independent of revelation) by saying, that prior to experience and instruction, there is a propensity in the imagination to endow with life whatever we behold in motion; or, in general, whatever appears to be the cause of any event. A child beats the inanimate object by which it has been hurt, and caresses that by which it has been gratified.' Now, in the first place, is this conduct on the part of children any thing more than imitation ? If not, the analogy goes for nothing. But does the author really think that so universal and so permanent a power as (unrevealed) religion is to be accounted for by a sentence about a child whipping a foot-stool? And in the process which he describes, whereby from such an origin religion grows up, till at last the ingenuity of fear and desire' invents a higher strain of flattery,' and men find out the unity of God, (see History of British India, vol. i. p. 295, 8vo edition,) in this process, can a calm and candid mind discover causes sufficient to produce all the different religions of the world, and all the strange varieties, Idolatry, Pantheism, and pure Theism?' No; whatever may be said as to natural religion, by those who exaggerate what needs no adventitious importance, the value, namely, of revelation, or by those who depreciate it from indifference to religion of all kinds, there must be at the root of the human mind a propensity, the strongest and best portion of our birthright, to believe in something higher and earlier than nature. The trouble is not to account for the existence of religion, but for the imperfection of it. And nothing can solve the difficulty but our knowledge of the feebleness of all the faculties of savages, and of the slightness of any tendency among them to refer particulars to universals, and exchange notions for ideas. To prove that religious feeling often exists in no shape but that of debasing superstition, is not to prove that man had better be without religion, but that his whole nature stands in need of improvement. Improve mankind, and pure religion grows up along with their moral growth, and is its most perfect and precious produce. It strikes us as extremely curious that Mr. Mill should not have been more impressed and interested by the strange mixture of true and false, of good and evil, found in the books of Indian theology, from which he quotes so largely. There are fragments of the most sublime Deism, and others of a beautiful Pantheism, mixed in wonderful confusion and in melancholy contrast with all that is vilest and meanest in a miserable system of idolatry. How did these heterogeneous particles coalesce? How did the dust of corruption and the Spirit of God thus meet together? Whence this mingling of life and death? No such question as this occurs to the writer. It never suggests itself to him, that a great truth cannot have been the contemporaneous produce of the same mind as a host of errors, all of which that truth excludes. He does not inquire; he does not hesitate; he starts no hypothesis; much less does he search diligently till he has found the original key to the mystery. But he carelessly throws aside the whole matter with the observation, that improvement in the language of religion is no evidence of improvement in the idea: and most certainly it is no evidence with regard to those who employ it, but the strongest with regard to those who invented it. Had we space at command, could we publish a tithe of the pages in one of Mr. Mill's volumes, we would willingly consider these subjects at far greater length. As it is, we must now quit them; and we should much regret if, in doing so, we were to leave our readers under an impression more unfavourable to this teacher than is our own. It is natural, in examining literary works of a speculative character, to dwell on those points with regard to which we differ from the author. But we beg our readers to remember, that we have judged Mr. Mill by the very highest of all standards, namely, by contrasting his performance with ideal excellence. He is obviously a person of unwearied diligence, of great acuteness, of a well-compacted and highly-disciplined intellect; and, above all, of a strong and large benevolence. The last of these merits we perhaps estimate at least as highly as some of those who would be louder and more indiscriminate in their applause. Nor do we overlook the merit of this writer in opposing himself, amid such a system as that which now prevails in England, to the many misdeeds of power. But such is our impression of the importance of principles, and of the principles more especially with regard to which we differ from Mr. Mill, that we should have outraged the strongest sense of duty, by concealing or qualifying our dissent from his doctrine. And no fear of being called what we should most abhor to be, persecutors, that is, and bigots, shallp revent us from raising our voices against a system which, in our view, would make reason, imagination, truth, and benevolence, mere instruments for supplying those wants which we have in common with the brutes, instead of their being the powers which wear the image of God, and are designed to raise us towards Him. REVIEWS OF BOOKS. COOPER'S PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS. A Brief Account of some of the most important Proceedings in Parliament, relative to the Defects in the Administration of Justice in the Court of Chancery, the House of Lords, and the Court of Commissioners of Bankrupt; together with the Opinions of different Statesmen and Lawyers, as to the Remedies to be applied. By C. P. Cooper, Esq. 8vo., pp. 436. 12s. Murray. London, 1828. THE tone of independence in which the junior ranks of the Bar are in the habit of speaking of the legislative system and judicial institutions of the country, is one of the best indications of the times, and gives us reasonable hope that the hour of reform, however postponed by individual interests, is not far distant. Among those who have distinguished themselves by diligent examination, and fearless exposure, of existing defects in the law, is the gentleman whose work is now before us; which follows so quickly on the success of his first essay, that we may anticipate further fruits of his assiduity and habits of research. Our readers will remember that, in our review of Mr Parkes's History of the Court of Chancery,' (not yet concluded,) we have drawn attention to the general use and abuse of Courts of Equity. We shall not, therefore, observe on this part of Mr. Cooper's book, but pass at once to the two other branches of which he treats-the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords and the Court of Commissioners of Bankrupt, and even these subjects we can note but cursorily: many volumes have been written on each, and the subjects appear to be yet unexhausted. It is probably unknown to many even of our professional readers, that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords is founded in usurpation; that such usurpation was, at one time, warmly contested by the Lower House of Parliament; but that the subject was finally dropped by the Commons, when they found, that, if they succeeded in rescuing the jurisdiction from the Peers, it would inevitably fall into the more dangerous hands of the Crown. We speak of the time of the Stuarts; for the interference of the Lords was revived in the reign of James the First, that busy intermeddler with all matters, civil and ecclesiastical. In the present day, we should be tolerably safe from royal interference, and might as well expect to hear, that St. Louis had resumed his ancient seaf of justice, under the ancient oak in the forest ot Vincennes, as that his most gracious Majesty, King George the Fourth, was hearing a suit in Chancery on the banks of Virginia Water. Our ancestors, however, were right it was, in their time, infinitely safer to trust the administration of the law to the ignorance of the Lords, than to the corruption and cupidity of the courtiers and favourites of the House of Stuart. Therefore, what the House of Peers seized by usurpation, and were suffered to retain from po licy, they still hold, in spite of the evident absurdity, both theoretical and practical, of allowing persons notoriously ignorant of the law, to sit in judgment on the decisions of those who have made it their professional study, and have been supposed to have been raised to the dignity of Judges in consideration of their proficiency. So absurd, indeed, is this system, that even Lord Redesdale, than whom there is not a more pertinacious stickler for the vias antiquas, has published a pamphlet, almost every page of which demonstrates the defects of this jurisdiction. There are, on the other hand, apologists for this, as for every other existing institution; and they rest their defence on the presence of the law Lords, and the occasional assistance of the Judges, without adverting to the necessary deduction, that, if these be the security, these should be the Court, without resorting to the surplusage of the bishop who reads prayers, and one or two Peers*, sum * It is singular, that, while the rules of the House require some fifteen or twenty Lords to be present in Committees of Privilege, when they are investigating a question of Peerage, three members are deemed sufficient to decide the most intricate appeals; and of these three, unless they be law Lords, the custom is that two of these are not to speak, and only vote as the Chancellor or Lord-Deputy suggests. The inconveniences of this method were very forcibly pointed out by Lords Caernarvon, King, and Holland, in the debates: the former said: 'It would, he maintained, be derogating from their Lordships' dignity, and attended with inconvenience to the suitors. Three peers were to sit one day, and be succeeded by three others on the next. He would suppose an appeal commenced on one day; a part of it would be heard by the three peers who sat on that day, the next day three others of their Lordships would have to hear its continuation, who had not heard a word of the opening: three others would have to hear another part of the case on the ensuing day; and the three peers who might have to decide after the whole had been gone through, would have to give judgment on, perhaps, a most important matter, of which they moned under a penalty to hear half a cause, which it may not be in their turn to decide, or to adjudicate in one which they have never heard. It is no defence of this most palpable defect, to say that the lay Peers never interfere: they may-what would be the consequence if they did? Let us suppose the possibility of two Noble Lords, confident as lords usually are in their hereditary wisdom, outvoting the Chancellor. There would be only one remedy,- -a resort to the original nature of the appellate jurisdiction, a reversal of the decree by Act of Parliament. The following quotations from the work before us will illustrate our statement. "The Rolls of Parliament, from the time of Edward the First down to the end of the reign of Henry the Fourth, are, as it is well known, full of judicial proceedings; but, after that period, we find no trace of the Parliament having exercised jurisdiction in civil suits, until some time after the accession of James the First. During the early part of that reign, the Lords exercised, without scruple, an appellate jurisdiction over common law suits, but under the delegation of writs of error issued by the Crown, authorising them to adjudicate the particular case; and it is remarkable that they then thought they had no power to exercise an appellate jurisdiction over decrees in Equity, upon a petition presented to themselves; and a Committee, appointed to investigate the subject, reported that there was no precedent of the exercise of jurisdiction by the Lords over Equity decrees, except under the authority of some writ, commission, indorsement of petition, or other act emanating from the Crown. Towards the end of the reign of James the First, the Lords appear, however, frequently to have adjudicated between party and party, on original petitions of complaint presented to themselves, where the matter in dispute had never been discussed before any inferior tribunal; and yet they forebore from assuming upon such petitions the right to examine Equity decrees; and the usual mode of impugning the Chancellor's judgments seems to have been to procure a commission from the Crown, directed to certain Lords or Judges to review them, or to reverse them by a Bill brought into Parliament for that purpose. In one case, towards the close of this reign, a remonstrance was made against the exercise by the Lords of appellate jurisdiction over an Equity Order upon a petition to themselves; and they acquiesced in the validity of the objection, and obtained a commission from the Crown, to enable them to review a particular case. The first direct petition from an Equity decree, and the first Order of the Lords, reversing an Equity decree upon such petition, without any authority delegated to them by the Crown, are stated by Lord Hale to be in the year 1640, during the sitting of the Long Parliament, in the time of the Commonwealth. Lord Hale, if I recollect right, observes, that the trouble of the times caused parties to throng to the House of Lords upon all occasions; and the Lords were induced, from the difficulty the suitors at that time experienced in obtaining relief in the ordinary tribunals, to extend had only heard the concluding part. How was it possible that strict justice could be done by such a mode of administering it? But it might be said, that the Speaker, or the individual to fill that office, would be acquainted with the whole of the circumstances of the case. That might be; but, he not being a peer, could only give his opinion at the desire of the peers present; and then what would it amount to ?-that the decision would not be that of their Lordships, but of the individual who had heard the case. This mode of proceeding would, he contended, be most unsatisfactory to the public, and highly derogatory from their Lordships' character, as constituting the highest Court of Appeal. It was said, that the attendance of their Lordships to these hearings should be compulsory. He could understand the justice of that principle, if the same Lords were obliged to hear the whole of one case; but he could not understand it, when three Lords were to hear one part, and three other Lords were to decide upon that which they had not heard. According to this rew plan, three of their Lordships were to be brought by compulsion from distant parts of the kingdom, from their local duties, to act a part in the most ridiculous farce that ever was thought of. If he had not heard the very solemn manner in which this proposition was introduced by the noble Earl at the head of his Majesty's Government, he should have believed that it was intended to satirize and ridicule their Lordships' Privileges.'-Pp. 203, 204. the exercise of their jurisdiction, both original and appellate, beyond all former limits; and he argues, that Orders made by the House, during a period of general anarchy, when every Member of the Legislative body was disjointed, ought not to be drawn into precedents for future times; and, indeed, if the Acts of the Long Parliament are to be cited as examples, they would first prove that the Lords had inherent in them the privilege of exercising the judicial functions in almost every case, and, in the next place, that the order of the peerage did not exist as a component part of the Legislature. 'Little seems to be known as to the judicature in Parliament from the abolition of the Regal office and the House of Peers until the Restoration. Cromwell appears to have seen the absurdity of a Court whose members were ignorant of the law they were to administer; and it is conjectured that the ordinary mode of examining judgments and decrees of the Courts of Law and Equity, was by issuing writs of errors and commissions, delegating to particular persons authority for that purpose. The ordinance, however, for regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery already mentioned, gave a very satisfactory appeal from the decisions of that tribunal, by granting the privilege of a rehearing before the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, joined by six Judges, of whom two were directed to be taken out of each of the three great Common Law Courts, and of whom also one was to be a chief justice or chief baron. In the great case of Skinner and the East India Company, the Lords claimed the right to adjudicate between party and party in the first instance, and not by way of appeal. The votes of the House of Commons, however, soon proclaimed to the people of England, that the exercise by the Lords of original jurisdiction in civil causes was an usurpation. The case of Skinner and the East India Company ended in a compromise between the two Houses; but such a termination of the contest was a blow fatal to the claim of the Lords, and they have ever since relinquished the exercise of original jurisdiction in civil causes. In the fourth session of the Long Parliament of Charles the Second, a new quarrel of the two Houses arose on another branch of judicature, and the event was different. The great question in this dispute was respecting the appellate jurisdiction exercised by the Lords over decrees in Equity, upon a mere petition presented to themselves; and the House of Commons came to a determination that the Lords had no such privilege as they claimed, and passed a Resolution, that any person soliciting, pleading, or prosecuting any appeal against any Commoner of England before the House of Lords, should be deemed and taken a betrayer of the rights and liberties of the people of England, and should be proceeded against accordingly. After such a resolution, it may seem extraordinary that the Lords have been left in quiet possession of this privilege; but, the King siding with the Commons, the latter began to open their eyes to the consequences of their depriving the Lords of appellate jurisdiction over Equity, which would be a return of such jurisdiction to Commissioners named by the King, whose decision would be final, unless the entire Parliament interfered as the Court of last resort. The Commons, therefore, seemed to have thought they had done enough for the public weal by securing a victory over the claims of the Lords to original jurisdiction in civil suits; and that, however unfounded their claim to appellate jurisdiction over Equity decrees might be in principle, it was rather an affair between the King and the Lords than between the Lords and the Commons, and that to gain a victory over the Lords on this point would be only to win a prize for the Crown, under circumstances which made it more safe for the Constitution that the power should continue with the Peerage.'-Pp. 150, 157. The author, however, comes to the conclusion that it is too late to question their jurisdiction; and we also are ready to admit, that, in law as in politics, a certain term of usurpation must be understood to constitute legitimacy. 'The resolution of the House of Commons, in the year 1675, that any person soliciting, pleading, or prosecuting any appeal against any commoner of England, from any Court of Equity, before the House of Lords, should be deemed and taken a betrayer of the rights and liberties of the people of England, and should be proceeded against accordingly, has never been rescinded; but there has been too long an acquiescence both of the Crown and the Commons in the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords over Equity decrees upon a mere petition to themselves, to admit of that jurisdiction being now called in question; and, indeed, several Acts of Parliament have been passed, which must be taken to acknowledge that the House of Lords are fully entitled to the privilege they enjoy. It is not with the remotest notion of raising any doubt as to the right of the Lords to exercise the appellate jurisdiction over Equity decrees in the manner in which they now do, that the foregoing narration is made, but with the view of diminishing the force of some objections urged against the proposal that has been made to effect no less a change in our judicial system than that the Lords should divest themselves of the appellate jurisdiction, and the same should be conferred on a tribunal composed of judges versed in the laws which they are called upon to administer.Pp. 161, 162. The constitution of the Court of Commissioners of Bankrupts, is a question of more immediate popular interest, and accordingly there have been numerous discussions and many publications on the subject, all of which tend to the conclusion that the system now pursued is most defective in theory, most expensive in practice, and highly injurious to the commerce of the country. Mr. Cooper states, and we believe correctly, that of the Commissioners themselves, all the bestinformed, and certainly all who have published on the subject, are hostile to the existing jurisdiction, and most especially to that part of it which allows parties to choose their own judges as is the case in Country Commissions. We concur in the opinion, that 'When cases of bankruptcy were rare, it might have been expedient to commit then to the jurisdiction of occasional commissioners; but since that class of business had become sufficiently considerable to furnish ample occupation to regular tribunals, he did not think the employment of temporary judges any longer reasonable. The same objection attached to many branches of our jurisprudence. We had commissioners of lunatics, commissioners for taking answers, commissioners for examining witnesses, and various other purposes, all which would be better executed by permanent, and, therefore, more experienced and competent officers. He mentioned this, because he believed the present time to be peculiary fitted to the consolidation of the dispersed jurisdiction; the business of bankruptcy and insolvency, for instance, might be fairly united under one Court. He wished to be understood,, that in imputing great defects to the existing practice, his wonder was, that they were no more considerable. The system wanted connection, it was disjointed into parts, having no mutual relation or control. The Lord Chancellor had, indeed, a nominal superintendence over the whole, but it was merely nominal; for it was only in extreme cases the parties would be at the trouble and expense of applying to him. The commissioners, the solicitors, and the bankrupt office, were independent powers, without check upon each other. The messengers also were independent of the commissioners, and generally looked to the solicitors for their directions. He had considered the subject, and, among many plans, he thought that the constitution of regular local or provincial Courts, which might combine the jurisdiction of bankruptcy and insolvency with other objects of jurisprudence, would be the most beneficial.'-Pp. 311, 312. Against such a proposition, however, a fearful host of interest is arrayed; for, if Provincial Courts were established for this purpose, they would be demanded for many others, and the petty jurisdictions, which are a real nuisance to the country, would speedily be absorbed, if not immediately abolished. The enormous costs of Commissioners of Bank rupt as now issued will appear from the following estimate, the two first items being from a Parliamentary return, and the two last very considerably understated. 1825. £. s. d. 16,176 11 5 84,777 17 9 To this must be added messengers' and solicitors' bills, which, on two thousand Commissions, would amount, up to the third meeting under each, to above 150,000l. Mr. Montague calculates that the annual loss to creditors, from the mal-administration of the |