than for dissertation; and the greatest speech he ever made-nor was there ever one more eminently striking and successful delivered in Parliament-the speech on the Foreign Enlistment Bill in 1819-although abounding in the most profound remarks, and the most enlarged views of policy and of general law, clothed in the happiest language, and enlightened by the most felicitous illustration, was exposed to the criticism of some judges of eloquence, as defective in the grand essential of argument, and of that rapid and vehement declamation which fixes the hearer's attention upon the subject, making the speaker be forgotten, and leaving his art concealed.

Against the purity of this eminent person's public conduct, no charge whatever was ever fairly brought. Few men, indeed, ever made greater sacrifices to his principles while his party was excluded from power, or were less rewarded for them when that party was admitted to office. He had early joined with those whose sanguine hopes led them to favour the French Revolution, and kept them blind for a season to the enormities of its authors. His "Vindiciæ Gallicæ," a work of consummate ability, was the offering which he then made on the altar of the divinity whom he worshipped. With most good men, he afterwards agreed in repudiating indignantly, and as if ashamed of his former friendship, all alliance with the Jacobin party; nor, although he perhaps went somewhat farther in his recantation than others who never had bowed at the same shrine, could he be said ever to have swerved from those liberal principles which were the passion of his early and the guide of his riper years. Upon his return from India, he at once refused

the most flattering offers of place from Lord Liverpool's government; and he persevered, with the Whig party, in a long and apparently hopeless opposition to the end of the war, and through fifteen years of the ensuing peace. At length the party for which he had sacrificed so much succeeded to power, and he, though among the very first of its most distinguished members, was almost entirely passed over, while men of little fame, others of hardly any merit at all, and not a few of Tory principles till the moment of the government being formed, were lifted over his head; and planted in the cabinet of the Whigs. In that cabinet, indeed, there must have been some who could not with a steadycountenance look down upon him thus excluded, while they were admitted to unexpected power. His treatment, accordingly, has formed one of the greatest charges against the whole arrangements then made; but justice requires that Lord Grey should be acquitted of all blame in this respect; for he had never been in any habits either of personal or of party intercourse with Sir James, and might be supposed to share in the coldness towards him which some of the older Foxites unjustly and unaccountably felt. But even those members of the government, who lived with him in constant habits of friendship, have much more to urge in explanation of this dark passage in the history of the party than is commonly imagined; for the objectors do not sufficiently consider, that, while Sir James Mackintosh's health, and aversion to the habits of business required by certain offices, excluded him from these, others are, by invariable practice, given to high rank. The occasion of his being here mentioned, is the invaluable service which he rendered to the cause of Law Reform; a service that must endear his memory to all enlightened statesmen, and all good men, independent of the other assistance for which the rapid progress of liberal principles has to thank him; a progress so beneficial to mankind, so profitable to the Whig party at large, so advantageous to a select few of the Tories, now mingled with that Whig party, but so utterly barren of all benefit whatever to Sir James Mackintosh himself.

After the defects in our legal system had been for many years fully exposed, and the principles upon which their correction should be undertaken had become familiar with the reflecting portion of the community, although some highly valuable improvements had been effected by Sir R. Peel, (perhaps as many as his position allowed, surrounded by those who held Reform cheap, and those who held it in abhorrence), these alterations had been chiefly confined to digesting the Criminal Code, and there seemed no prospect of the great work of general reformation being commenced, unless the attention of Parliament should be seriously directed towards it. The motion of Mr. Brougham for a Commission to investigate the whole subject originated in this conviction; and the following is the speech with which it was introduced. The view chiefly taken of the subject was intended for practical purposes, and the immediate correction of manifest defects. The evils, inconsistencies, and absurdities of the system of civil procedure were therefore singled out as the principal object of attack, the rather because, in Mr. Bentham's writings, the other branches of the mighty subject had been more copiously handled, and because it seemed manifest that the radical improvement of the Remedies administered by the Courts of Law must lead to the universal reformation of our jurisprudence, while it afforded, in the meanwhile, substantial benefits to the community, and won over new converts to the great cause of Law Reform. The abuses in courts of equity had already attracted the attention of Parliament, under the truly able advocacy of Mr. Williams; * and a Commission issued in consequence of his exertions had led to a useful though hitherto a sterile report. The defects in our Criminal Law had, since the labours of Sir S. Romilly and Sir J. Mackintosh, ceased to find defenders in any quarter. The present motion produced the immediate appointment of the two great Commissions of Common Law inquiry, and inquiry into the Law of Real Property, from whose labours have proceeded all the important changes recently made in our legal system; and in the course of a very few years the Reform of the Criminal Law, and the general subject of Codification was committed to the jurisdiction of a third Commission, whose reports have led to all the Mitigations lately effected in the enactments of our Penal Code.

The Notes appended to the following speech will show how far the defects which it points out have

already been remedied, and will consequently enable us to observe what admitted imperfections still remain to be removed. It appears that of about sixty capital defects pointed out, about fifty-five either have already been removed in whole, or in by much the greater part, by Act of Parliament, or are in the course of being removed by Bills now before Parliament, and which are quite certain to pass during the present Session.

The speech upon Local Courts which follows, was delivered on bringing in the Bill for 1830. That Bill was then read a first time; and, early in the next Session, Mr. Brougham having been removed to the Upper House, he introduced it there. The subject of Parliamentary Reform engrossing the whole attention of Parliament and the country during the two next Sessions, the Common Law Commissioners were directed to consider the subject, which they fully investigated, and illustrated by a valuable body of evidence, from both professional and mercantile men, adding the sanction of their own high authority to the measure. It was, accordingly, pressed upon the attention of the House of Lords, in the Session of 1833; and, having undergone full discussion on the second reading, and in the Committee, where its details were all settled, it was unfortunately thrown out by a majority of two, on the third reading.

The Common Law Commissioners were originally, Messrs. Bosanquet, Parke, Alderson, and Sergeant Stephen. Upon the three first being raised to the Bench, Messrs. F. Pollock, Starkie, Evans, and Wightman were added to the Commission.