of the Landed Estates Court, that fund is not likely to be at all as relatively productive as the corresponding fund in England. The rule of superannuation established for the officers of the Court of Chancery in Ireland is more favourable than that provided for clerks of the court by the same statute, it is also more favourable than the rule provided for officers of the superior courts of common law in England-these two classes of officers and clerks having been by statute placed on the ordinary scale of officers and clerks of the Civil Service entitled to superannuation. We have already recommended that the officers of the superior courts of common law in Ireland, who laboured under a disadvantage by being omitted from the provisions of the General Superannuation Act of 1859, should obtain the benefit of that Act, and be placed in the same position with regard to superannuation as the officers of the superior courts of common law in England. And we think that the same principle of uniformity of rule as to superannuation should be applied to the Court of Chancery in Ireland, and that the privilege of retiring at the end of twenty years should, as to future officers, be abolished, and that instead thereof the rules of the General Superannuation Act of 1859 should be substituted." The Commissioners propose the following changes in official establishments of the superior courts of common law : "It appears from the evidence before us that a considerable reduction can be effected in the number of masters and principal assistants, and that one master, with a principal assistant and clerk, could efficiently discharge the duty now performed by the three masters, and their assistants and clerks. A consolidation of the three masters' offices into one for the three courts would be in accordance with the precedent already established with regard to the taxation of costs, the issue of writs, and the registration of judgments, there being only one taxing office, one writ office, and one office for the registration of judgments for the three courts; and, as has been found in the case of the taxation of costs, the consolidation would also lead to a valuable result by producing uniformity of practice in the business devolving on the masters. This change would throw on the single master retained increased duties, for which we think he ought to receive an increase of salary. "The number of masters being reduced from one for each court to one for the three courts, the officers, now called clerks of the rules, would become the principal officers of each court. In Ireland the masters have not heretofore sat in court, and the court duties similar to those discharged by the masters in England have been, and are to be, performed by the clerks of the rules, who also attend the judges sitting in chambers. We therefore recommend that the clerks of the rules in Ireland should for the future be called 'registrars,' and, in consideration of their increased duties and responsibilities, should receive an increase of salary. "It appears from the evidence before us that it would be desirable to have a separate officer for the registration of acknowledgments of deeds by married women in the Common Pleas ; at the same time the number of acknowledgments to be registered would allow the officer time to discharge some other duties. The registration of bills of sale, now confided to the master of the Queen's Bench, might be advantageously taken from the Queen's Bench, and attached to the Common Pleas, and the two duties would afford sufficient employment for a separate officer. "The whole annual saving arising from the adoption of all the changes we recommend in the Common Law Offices would be as follows: "Reduction of two Masters, two Principal £ £ Assistants, and two Masters' Clerks 4,200 2,725 6,925 "Deduct consequent increase of salary to single Master and three Registrars - 800 "Registrar of Acknowledgements of Deeds by Married Women and Bills of Sale 300 The Irish Chancery Bill and Common Law Bill introduced by the late Government was founded upon the first report of the Commissioners. The first of these Bills was read a second time with the concurrence of Sir Hugh Cairns, and, as he took an active part in the inquiry and signed the second report, it may be expected to form the basis of legislation, under his auspices as attorney-general in the ensuing session of Parliament. The whole scope of the recommendation of the Commissioners proposing to extend to the Irish courts the benefit of the modern reform in legal procedure, and in the constitution of the offices of the second courts in England, seems calculated to promote a thorough assimilation of the laws in two important portions of the empire, and to establish, in the very extensive class of interests comprised in the subjects of inquiry, a more thorough union between England and Ireland. ART. IX.-EXTINCT PEERAGES. A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire. A New Edition. By Sir BERNARD BURKE, LL.D., Ulster King of Arms. Harrison, Pall Mall, 1866. IR Bernard Burke's very popular works, though belonging SIR to the heraldic class, have their legal side also; none more so than this book, which, if searchingly perused by those learned in, or even amateurs of the law, will unfold many a curious case-many a claim to honours or estate which, though long since forgotten, might raise up in a moment a host of competitors. The dormant and abeyant peerages recorded are far more numerous than we thought; and their very quantity makes us rejoice that the House of Lords must intervene before any of them can be properly assumed or borne. Unlike the open helmets of baronetcies, in their present anomalous condition, the coronets of dormant and abeyant peerages cannot be clapped on the heads of mere pretenders. The sovereign and the House of Lords have to be first satisfied; and in most instances, before the claimant can be ennobled, that very learned and interesting piece of litigation must ensue, known as a peerage case. Interesting indeed, though too much slighted by the public, peerage cases contain in their details more of romance, and of wonderful adventure, than any other kind of judicial investigation. The criminal courts, it is true, have their never-ending marvels, but they mostly deal with the lower class of men, and with facts humiliating and degrading. The sensation of a criminal trial comes often from the slums of humanity, so much so, that some urge, though wrongly, against the publication of their revelations. The Rev. Mr. Spurgeon, in one of his sermons, dilates eloquently against the reports of criminal trials being circulated. We cannot agree with him, but as to the objections he starts, peerage cases are usually free from them. A peerage case generally soars into a higher atmosphere, and with the same wand that is of such magic power in the hands of the able historical novelist, it brings nobles and princes, warriors and statesmen, bishops and judges, priests, politicians, and lawyers, all back upon the scene, far more forcibly and visibly, too, than can a Scott mingling history with fiction. Upon the deeds and records and writings, the words of the dead are produced in evidence from their chests and archives at the bar of a genealogical tribunal; the very men who wrote or were connected with them seem to burst their cerements and to be cast up again. In the Shrewsbury case, for instance, all who were present will remember the sudden awe that pervaded the House when was unfolded the mouldy enrolment of the patent which gave the earldom of Shrewsbury, more than four hundred years ago, to that valiant Talbot who beat the French in forty engagements, and whom Shakespeare called "the great Alcides of the field." Imagination might almost, at the moment, have traced the steel-clad hero about once more to take his seat among his peers. Again, the production of the register of St. Anne's, Soho, startled the audience, when it brought back a Talbot, who, in that parish, had passed away in poverty and oblivion, but who possibly might have left issue, whose representative, were he now to be found, would be senior earl of England. That Shrewsbury case, in all its bearings, was most marvellous and most mysterious. Such kind of peerage investigations are not, however, very frequent. Their rarity may in some measure be supplied by the book before us, replete as it is with lordly pedigrees, and lordly rises and falls. It affords not only salient memoirs, but it goes into all the curious minutia that hang around the family histories of some of the greatest men the world ever saw. An illustrious host of by-gone nobles in all their chivalry pass before us, each with his own attribute of excellence, whether in the Church or the Parliament or the State; whether in arms or law. To all connected with jurisprudence there is much to call for their attention in this work, whether it be as to the history of some of the greatest men of their profession, or whether as to the points and precedents of the law of pedigree which continually occur. Among the law points, we may cite the Willoughby of Parkham question; the Banbury case (by the way, General Knollys, Comptroller of the Household of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, is the present representative of that claim); the strange decision as to the office of Great Chamberlain in the De Vere family; the celebrated Purbeck case; the Montrose claim, &c. As to great lawyers, to the honour of the profession, the book abounds with them, whether as founding families themselves, or adding increased lustre to the high families to which they already belonged. First of all, we lawyers should know that "the blood of all the Howards," flows from a purely legal source, as the following extract will show "The first of this very eminent family (the Howards) mentioned by Dugdale, after a fruitless inquiry to discover a more ancient founder, was "Sir William Howard, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Com |