licentiousness, to dissipate superstition, to engraft refinement and morality on Barbarism and Vice. He would either, like De Wit, in an honest cause, and, through the most refined patriotism, fall beneath the fary of a bigotted people, or be doomed, like Foscari, to lament, in exile, the departed virtues of his country. What legislator indeed would be bold enough to promulgate a code without there being previously excited in the people a belief of its excellency? What people would be absurd enough to obey its enactments unless they deemed them calculated to promote their interests? With the mass of the community rests obedience: nor will they grant it without a certainty that it will tend to their immediate advantage, or a hope that it will benefit their posterity. If we wish not to screen offenders from public punishment; if we desire that the laws shall, in all times and under all circumstances, be obeyed, we must be careful to gain in their favour the prejudices of the people. Do we believe that the barbarism which we see pervading the world in all its provinces, and among its different inhabitants, proceeds from some defect in legislative systems? we must likewise conclude that these were more or less systematized according to the opinions moral, religious, and political, of nations.-How then are legislators to blame if they gave those laws, and those only, for which their states were prepared; or, what is the same, if the various codes of different nations have been adapted to the peculiar circumstances under which those nations fell? How are monarchs faulty if their people have been in successive ages Barbarians? Or how are clergy to blame if in past times men were ignorant enough to be deceived by the arts of the worst of their Predecessors? It was neither owing to Priests nor to Kings that feudal subjugation spread its misery through Europe: nor was it by their means that the most hase of mankind, veiling the worst of motives under the best of names, invoked the God of Mercy for the slaughter of his creatures, and devastated mankind whilst they pretended to enlighten it. It was through the gradual current of public opinion-through circumstances alone, that Europe was for so many ages involved in public warfare or struggling in domestic dissention. The codes of nations are forced to be fitted to their conditions. The statutes of Europeaus were barbarous because they themselves were uncivilized, and the public forms of their law rude and undefined with their public character.

Unfortunately for human nature and the world, it is long before science is disseminated through the mass of a people, or morality diffused. The faculties of states like those of

individuals develop themselves but slowly, and knowledge is only gained by the slowness of time and by the pain of experience. Even the most experienced have only given legislative systems, through tracing the defects which they have witnessed in different constitutions to the errors which produced them, and through carefully distinguishing between what is apparently and what is really beneficial. We may lament then the past as well as the present barbarism in Europe, but, situated as Europe has been in the ages before as well as subsequent to the Christian dispensation, it seems to have been impossible by any legislative wisdom to prevent it. The nature of man must have been previously changed, and (what is absurd) enlightened maxims been promulgated and adopted, amid the wildest anarchy and the most profound Barbarism.

All those, however, who exert themselves to diffuse more correct notions of legislation among the mass of the people, as laws are of primary importance to the happiness of man, deserve to be enumerated among the greatest benefactors to the species. Among these Mr. Bentham is very highly distinguished. His correctness of judgment and his acuteness of thought have led him to examine minutely into the recesses of the existing legislative systems, to appreciate their merits, and to point out their defects. As, however, the latter have considerably preponderated, and it is one of the properties of a mind that dwells on faults to become heated and intemperate, there is a causticity of thought about this writer which shews itself on every occasion. The present work relates solely to the projected reform of the Scotch chambers of civil judicature, and yet, in an abstract investigation of abstract questions, he has dexterously contrived to attack one of the most learned and, certainly the most modest, men in his Majesty's councils. The Keeper of the great seal however is as much superior to his sneers as we are to noticing them: we shall therefore pass on to that part of the work as most worthy of attention which does Mr. Bentham the most credit. We shall here content ourselves with the general principles as of more extensive utility, without adverting to the projected reform which gave birth to them.

One of the great objects for which the social union itself was effected is the promotion of Justice between man and man. Wherever this is facilitated although the nation. be not politically free, it is yet certain of good order and Happiness. The civil rights of individuals then can never be guarded with too much caution or strictness, and that legislation is defective that renders it the interest of any

class of the citizens, if they be violated, to delay their reestablishment. What then shall we say of the numerous technical proceedings in our law so pregnant with profit to Judges, Counsellors, Special Pleaders and those of the inferior orders of the profession, and so full of vexation and delay in their just rights to Suitors?-The technical part of the Jaw has chiefly proceeded from men professing that science, and we may assure ourselves that they have regarded in its formation not the interests of their clients but their own. What are the various written forms of rebutters and surrebutters and other minor parts of the " fee gathering system" but so many defiles that increase the profits of the legal prac titioners but delay Justice? Worse than this, injustice, being patronized by the tediousness of these proceedings and the indecision of the Judges consequent on them, is indirectly promoted.-The most natural mode of proceeding in Law as in all other sciences is the best. Let the debtor and the creditor each be summoned to appear before the Judge: in a well regulated family, if one Servant or Child prefer an accusation against another this is the line of proceeding usually adopted: let the creditor assert the amount of the debt, and the debtor either by his witnesses or by himself or by his Lawyer deny or diminish or destroy the charge. The Judge may then in a summary manner pronounce sentence and restore to either his just rights.

It will be observed that in this concise mode of conducting a civil trial, we have made no mention of that usual topic of declamation among English Lawyers-a Jury. In criminal prosecutions, backed as they are by the whole weight and influence of the crown, and sometimes undertaken for oppressive ends, the trial by Jury may well be considered as the most invaluable privilege of Englishmen.

But where the contention is between Subject and Subject the reason of its foundation ceases, and if (as is the case) it promotes delay, it becomes absolute bigotry to retain it.One purpose it may indeed serve, although that in some degree presupposes the prejudices we are now combating; it affords additional security to one or the other of the suitors that Justice will be impartially administered. In this case let it be granted if required in the manner of an Appeal. Thus all the benefit arising from Jury trial will be gained, and none of its disadvantages encountered, and besides a variety of cases may be adjudged which it is impracticable at present to bring under its controul. Numerous are the causes that receive their decision from arbitrators, in some instances without litigation, in others after litigation, in the re

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gular mode. "Whenever this happens the mass of evidence is not unfrequently of such a bulk as to be incapable of being delivered in less time than several days, perhaps even weeks." Jury trial in this case may really be said to be "prudentially impracticable." Again many are the causes which in defiance of our present forms it is highly ineligible to bring before a jury. Such are those that require time for consideration, and which (as the same jury cannot resume its sittings) would inevitably be transferred to some other twelve at some other time, with an equal chance of another reference-This indeed occasionally happens in our courts of jus tice, and the delay, vexation, and expence which it occasious to suitors, are incalculable. Moreover, for want of its being taken at an earlier period much of the evidence, which but for this second trial would have been obtained, is in all probability lost its "freshness" at any rate impaired: time given for collusion, evasion, and fraud.

The mode adopted in our courts of Justice of receiving testimony is a consequence of the Trial by Jury, and should be altered or changed with its retrenchment or rejection. It was discovered by the fee-gathering tribe that whilst the rejection of the testimony most interested in the suite tended to promote its length and their profits, the variety of witnesses requisite to expedite the proof would afford entertainment for Man and Horse. The persons however who are principals in and therefore most privy to the transaction, are surely the best competent to testify it. If it be said that they are interested in the suit and, on that account, always to be suspected, collateral evidence may be allowed to fortify their testimony; but as this is at best only a secondary species of evidence it should only be called in to aid the first. The English law of Evidence is so radically defective in civil cases that the lawyers themselves are forced daily in practice to modify and alter it. Why not at once adopt new principles if the old are shewn to be faulty, and if the corrections daily made in them by Judges are precedents dangerous to our Laws and our Liberties.-The greater the number of courts of ciyil judicature, the greater the competition among those who attend them, and the better will the rights of the suitors be promoted. Let each court however possess but a single judge. Where responsibility is shared it is diminished, as each is willing to thrust off on his partner the blame which belongs to himself. Add to this that men possessing nearly the same learning, and trained up to a litigious profession, are le likely to yield in opinion one to the other, where there is a question which may admit of a contest. The con

sequences are vexation, delay, and expense, to those who seek their just demands;-triumph, and self-gratification to those who have denied them.

All this reasoning may appear just and correct in the abstract, but it will be said by those who think little, and care not to examine what they have not experienced, that it is not proved decisive by practice.-Such men, whilst they demand practice or experience for every thing with which they are unacquainted, meanly reject every species of reform. All that is at present excellent in science or in art, must originally have been new, and experience presupposes former ignorance. To reject a system or theory merely because it is untried is to destroy the end of experience itself-which whilst it leads us to the detection of ancient errors, prompts us to the discovery of new truths. The arguments however of our Author will be the best answer to these Champions of Absurdity. Let the enemies of reform know that the plan he proposes for the amendment of our civil courts of Justice has for years been carried into effect in our courts of Conscience. -In Edinburgh the causes tried by courts similar in their proceedings to these amount yearly to 59,540: the causes tried by the other courts to 4,550. Mr. Bentham answers a supposed objection urged against this system, that the attendance will occasion vexation to the parties of the suit, by asking

1. "The vexation which you Grudge not to impose on 59,540 Persons shall you grudge the imposing it on 4,550 ?”

2. "The vexation which does not preponderate against the advantage in so many other shapes where the value at stake is no more than £5 (the sum which is the limit of the Jurisdiction of the Scotch Small debt courts) shall it preponderate where the value at stake is 10, 100, 1000 times as much?"

3. "The vexation which you never grudge imposing upon a man where the cause he is to attend upon is one in which he has no concern (I speak of extraneous witnesses) shall you grudge the imposing it upon him where the cause is his own?"

4. Thus the matter would stand between one man in the character of a party, and another man in the character of a witness. But who does not know that frequently the appearance of a single man in the character of a party, will save the appearance of any number of men in the character of witnesses?"

5. "The vexation attached under natural procedure to the personal attendance of a party before the Judge is less than that portion alone of the vexation attached to Technical Procedure, which consists in the attendance necessary to be paid to his own Lawyers." 6. "Vain and groundless will be seen to be every use that can be made of the article of vexation in the character of an objection to natural as opposed to technical procedure, when it is considered