found an asylum in these legal hospitals. There ought certainly to be a Greenwich and a Chelsea for the maimed in the law. But if the state must provide easy-chairs for veterans, they ought never to be placed on the bench, where it is unseemly to see men dozing. Useless judgeships hurt the useful ones in the public eye. The general judicial respectability is impaired, by any of its portions being exhibited in a state of insignificance; and they greatly hurt the bar, by alluring crowds to it who are neither qualified nor inclined for its real duties, but who snuff other quarries which lead them away from the proper studies and the fair competition of the profession.

2. When trial by jury was applied in Scotland to civil causes, it was found necessary to trust the experiment, which prejudice made a most delicate one, to a separate court, whose reputation and existence were staked on the success of the measure. But it was always contemplated that, after due training, this form of trial should be practised in the ordinary Supreme Court; and it is thought that the time has arrived at which this may be safely attempted. It is accordingly proposed that the Jury Court shall be abolished, and that its duties shall be transferred to the Court of Session.

If this, which is by far the most important of all these measures, were an open question, it would not be difficult to suggest doubts well calculated to make the friends of trial by jury pause, at least with respect to the mode in which trials are to be conducted for some time after the union shall be effected. This was the only subject on which the members of the late Commission differed; and no minority was ever entitled to greater deference. The general principle, of making the use of juries a part of the ordinary practice of the Supreme Court, is unquestionably sound; for, independently of all considerations of economy and convenience, the combination of the trial of facts with the decision of law, seems to be essential to each. One court deciding law, but never trying facts, and another trying facts but never deciding law, are like two men standing on one leg, or seeing with one eye, each. Pleading will never be precise-nor law capable of being purely given-nor judges self possessed,-till both be united. Our doubts, therefore, are not in the least as to the ultimate measure, but solely as to the time. We refrain, however, from urging them, for two reaIn the first place, the junction seems to be resolved on ; and this being the case, it is better to give it every chance, by expressing our earnest wishes, as we do, for its success, than to arm those who may still be hostile, with objections which may not have occurred to them, and which, after all, may be groundless. In the second place, our fears, even though they were

sons.

well founded, rest on views which are only temporary; and, therefore, it is perhaps needless to be anxious about risks which every hour is diminishing. Much will depend on the manner in which the judicial functions shall be discharged during the period that must still elapse, before the Court of Session is thoroughly imbued with the feeling, and with the practice, of trial by jury.

One thing is certain ;-which is, that if jury trial is either to fail, or is not to work sweetly, as mechanicians say, this cannot now be ascribed to any thing in the nature of the institution. When this mode of trial was first introduced into Scotland, the strongest and most confident predictions were announced of its utter and speedy failure. It would not do with Scotch law; the serving on juries would be an intolerable oppression on country gentlemen; unanimity implies perjury, and perjury would be odious to a pious people; there were no jurors like judges,— skilful in evidence-in private causes, where no party was opposed to the crown, and, therefore, required protection; trial by jury was, in itself, a bad thing, and nothing but idolatry made it a favourite in England; but it was made ten times worse, when it came attended, as it necessarily must, by its long and complicated train of checks and correctives, in the shape of bills of exception, new trials, &c :-All these objections were urged confidently and clamorously. The experience of the last fifteen years has silenced them all; and has most fully demonstrated, not only that there is nothing in the circumstances of Scotland repugnant to jury trial, but that it is in the very situation in which this mode of trial is chiefly required. The time of the Court of Session, and of the House of Lords, has been wasted on no cases of mere evidence;—such cases have been satisfactorily tried, or have been saved from the necessity of trial, by one or both of the parties discovering, when the matter in dispute was brought to a precise point by an issue, that there was nothing to try;-there has not been one moment's demur with any one jury;-there have not probably been above a dozen of new trials, and not half a dozen of successful bills of exception;-such progress has been made in the science of issues, that very few cases can now occur for which the right one, and this commonly a general one, is not prepared; and whatever inconveniences have occurred, have arisen from the novelty of the institution, and not from any thing essential to it.

It has perhaps not realized all the fancies of the visionary; and still less has it gratified the wishes of some who seem to have thought that it was to prove an exact remedy for each evil under which they or their causes were labouring, and who accordingly have never felt a rub without abusing jury trial. But

it has more than answered the expectations of all reasonable men. Accordingly, although there be a thousand different opinions as to the mode in which it should be continued, we now hear no opinion against the institution itself. On the contrary, there are some who think that we cannot have too much of a good thing, and who insist on extending it to sheriffs and to other inferior magistrates. When we look back to the year 1808, when the very idea of it raised a ferment that proved fatal to it for the occasion,-and to the year 1815, when it was at last only tolerated with a grudge, and was given with a niggardliness, which, if not relaxed, must soon have extinguished it;— and consider, that now it has so completely triumphed over all avowed or respectable opposition, that its friends think it safe in the Old Court, and the Old Court is anxious to receive it ;-we see how good measures work their own way, and how necessary it is for intelligent governments not to be deterred by temporary clamour, but resolutely to do what is right, and to reap their reward in the result. We envy the feelings of the head of the court, to whom the conducting of this experiment has been chiefly intrusted; and who, on retiring, can survey such a termination of such labours. If that venerable and excellent person had even done no other good, he would still have done enough to entitle him to the gratitude of his country, as he has already earned the affection of the whole profession of the law, by the perfect example which he has always exhibited, and often amidst trying scenes, of judicial urbanity;-by his honest anxiety for the success of his court,—and, above all, by his earnest solicitude for the proper discharge of his own duties.

3. The raising of the salaries is no necessary part of these schemes; and, indeed, it has not yet been formally announced that they are to be raised. But it is certain that this is the grain of mustard-seed from which all these revolutions have grown; and if the judges be underpaid, the propriety of increasing their allowances is connected with these changes in justice. The result of the other measures will be greatly to increase the duties of the judges, and at the same time to throw loose funds out of which an addition may be made to their pay, and yet money saved to the public after all. The only question, therefore, is, whether their present pay be too low? There are some who settle this by saying, that a Scotch judge has little to do, and that their hire is ample enough to make it certain that the offices will never stand vacant. The first of these statements is not true; -the second is.. If a Scotch judge does his duty, (which is the only case we talk of,) nobody acquainted with the facts can doubt that he has a laborious office even now; and he will have a much more laborious one hereafter. And it is notorious that their pay

is so inadequate, that men at the head of the Bar, whose services have been required as judges, have refused, or delayed, to quit their profession; and that such men often do not look towards the Bench till they begin to feel their hold of practice getting feeble. Nevertheless, candidates, and these not always very ill qualified, will certainly be found for the office, though the salary be not only not raised, but greatly lowered. Who doubts that Chief Justices and Lord High Chancellors, and all other public officers, decently fit for the situations, could be got at a half, or tenth part, of the prices that are now paid for them? There was a respectable Scotch clergyman, a few years ago, who offered to discharge the whole functions of the monarch for L.300 a-year, and to find good security for their due performance. The penny-saving statesman would have closed with him, because his principle is, that the cheapest thing is always the best. But this is an error. It is very often the worst. principle is, that if supreme judges are useless, they ought to be abolished;-but that, if there be a certain number of persons who, the state is of opinion, ought to be maintained as supreme judges, it ought to give them the means of so maintaining themselves.

Our

Now, is the sum of L.2000 a-year-which is the pay of a puisne Scotch judge-sufficient to maintain him in due respectability? This is a mere matter of domestic arithmetic. It is the housebook that must decide it. Our views are very simple, and perhaps very vulgar, for they are merely these:-give a judge the fullest course of judicial existence,-put him on the Bench at forty, and keep him there till eighty,-and let him live as shabbily as a supreme judge ought to live,-with one house and no carriage,-only one wife, and no more than a competent number of children,-all lawful,-when he dies, he must leave his family unprovided for. If his judicial life shall last only fifteen or twenty years,-which is above the average, he must leave them destitute. We defy a single instance—or at least more than one-to be produced, in which the salary of a Scotch judge has, within the last forty years, enabled him to leave his family even moderately provided for. Accordingly, it is notorious that a Scotch judge, who has had nothing but his salary, very rarely dies without its being felt a matter of public decency, to give a pension to his widow and children;-a degrading and dangerous corrective.

We do not deny that many a man eats and drinks well, and is warmly clad, every day, and then dies, and though never blessed with any thing like L.2000 a-year, leaves a large family in comfortable circumstances. But how did they live? If decent sustenance and accommodation, merely, be all that the public requires for the dignity of the judicial station, let this be announ

ced, and L.500 a-year may be enough. But is it not rather the opinion of the public that a supreme judge should keep a carriage instead of trundling in a hackney coach? If duty or health require him to go to London, does the public feeling really prescribe, that he ought to be boxed up in the mail, and exposed to the many things he may hear in the traveller's room? Is it right that he should withdraw himself from secular interests, and look to his duties and their appointed reward alone? If these, and many similar points be rightly settled, it is needless to talk of L.2000. With the existing salary, there are degrading and dangerous practices which a Scotch judge is not only entitled to follow, but absolutely bound. However painful, they are his duty; and they must continue to be his duty, so long as the existing salary is not increased by one third at the very least. It has been asked, how they did thirty years ago, when they had much less than they have now? to which we answer,-1st, That it was perfectly notorious, and loudly and justly complained of, that they had a great deal too little then. 2dly, That the relative emoluments of professional men, and of public officers, have all increased in a much greater proportion since. Accordingly, the Scotch judges are in danger now, not at all because their case is groundless, but merely because it has been brought accidentally forward at an unlucky time. If their situation had been considered when that of the English judges was, nobody would have said a word against improving it. But the times happen to be sparing, and their claim, irresistible in itself, is therefore likely to be not only disregarded, but contemned.

As to the general measures, our greatest gratification, in observing such efforts to improve the administration of the law, arises from our conviction that they must tend to confirm the law itself. There are some to whom it will appear an odd sentiment, that there is any thing in the Law of Scotland worth confirming; for there has of late been a foolish disposition in certain quarters, to undervalue every thing connected with it. It is not very difficult to explain the cause of this feeling. It is the result of mere ignorance, and of that impatient disdain of every thing different from their own which distinguishes all men who have no standard for any thing except that which they happen to have been accustomed to. A matter connected with the Law of Scotland comes before Parliament. Of course, it is utter darkness and insignificance to English or Irish members. system of representation makes it impossible for Scotland to be always fully represented there; and the bar has never been represented at all. The situation of Scotland is, in this vital circumstance, completely different from that, not only of