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you with such a truism; but the House will presently see the application I am about to make of it. Sorry am I to say that our system of judicial promotion sins in both these particulars. Government ought to fill the Bench with men taken from among the most learned lawyers and most accomplished advocates-men who have both knowledge of the depth of jurisprudence, and sagacity to apply it-men who from experience, as leading advocates, possess the power of taking large and enlightened views of questions, and of promptly seizing the bearings of a case. There cannot be a greater error than theirs who fancy that an able advocate makes a bad judge; all experience is against it. The best judges in my time, with the exception of the present Lord Chief Justice,* than whom no man can discharge his office more excellently and efficiently, have all of them been previously distinguished in the profession as advocates. But not only should the choice be unconfined by the legal acquirements and professional habits of the practitioner; there ought not to be, in choosing Judges from the bar, any exclusion or restriction. He alone ought to be selected, in whom talent, and integrity, and experience, most abound, and are best united. The office of Judge is of so important and responsible a nature, that one

*Lord Tenterden

should suppose the members of Government would naturally require that they should be at liberty to make their selection from the whole field of the profession-that they would themselves claim to have the whole field open to their choice. Who could believe that a Ministry would not eagerly seek to have all men before them, when their object must be to choose the most able and accomplished. But although this is obvious and undeniable, and although the extension of the Minister's search cannot fail to be attended with the highest public advantage, as well as the greatest relief to him in performing his trust, is it the case that any such general and uncontrouled choice is exercised? Is all the field really open? Are there no portions of the domain excluded from the selector's authority? True, no law prevents such a search for capacity and worth! True, the doors of Westminster Hall stand open to the Minister! He may enter those gates, and choose the ablest and the best man there, be his talent what it may, be his character what it may, be his party what it may; no man to whom the offer is made, will refuse to be a Judge. But there is a custom above the law-a custom in my mind, "more honoured in the breach than the observance," that party as well as merit must be studied in these appointments. One

half of the Bar is thus excluded from the competition; for no man can be a Judge who is not of a particular party. Unless he be the known adherent of a certain system of government,unless his party happen to be the party connected with the crown, or allied with the Ministry of the day, there is no chance for him; that man is surely excluded. Men must be on one side of the great political question to become judges; and no one may hope to fill that dignified office, unless he belongs to the side on which courtly favour shines; his seat on the bench must depend, generally speaking, on his supporting the leading principles of the existing Administration.

*

How can I, or any one conversant with the practice of the law, adequately express the benefits of having a cheap redress for petty wrongs, when we daily witness the evils of the opposite system! How often have I been able to trace bankruptcies and insolvencies to some law suit, about ten or fifteen pounds, the costs of which have mounted up to large sums, and been the beginning of embarrassment! Nay, how often have we seen men in the situation described by Dean Swift, who represents Gulliver's father as ruined by gaining a Chancery suit, with costs!

After Mr. Justice Blackstone had written his beautiful, and, in part, profound Commentaries, there occurred a case, which he published himself in his Reports, and which must, I conclude, have happened after the panegyrics were composed. I marvel much, however, that, when a subsequent edition of his Commentaries appeared, he did not correct the error into which he must then have been convinced, that he had been betrayed by his excessive admiration for the forms and technicalities of our common law. The case, as reported by himself, was in substance this: a gentleman of the name of Robinson, in Yorkshire, was minded to try the resources of the law in an action of trespass against some poor men, who lived near him. In the course of it, reference was made to the Master, to report by whose fault the pleadings in the action had extended to a most enormous and unprecedented length. The Master reported, that in the declaration there were five counts; that twenty-seven several pleas of justification were pleaded by the defendants, which, with replications, traverses, new assignments, and other monuments of pleading, amounted at length to a paper book of near two thousand sheets. He was of opinion, that the fault lay principally in the length and intricacy of the declaration, the action being only

brought to try whether the freeholders and copyholders of the Manor, whereof Robinson was Lord, were entitled to common in a ground called the inclosure. He likewise reported, that the declaration was so catching, by ringing changes upon the several defendants, and the several names of the ground, that it was necessary to guard every loop-hole; which made their pleas so various and so long, especially as Mr. Robinson had declared, that he had drawn the declaration in this manner" on purpose to catch the defendants, and that he would scourge them with a rod of iron." The Court was very indignant at this abuse of the technicalities of the law, and the book, says Mr. Robinson, appeared in propria persona, to shew cause against this report, no other Council caring to be employed for him." The Court ordered Mr. Sergeant Hewitt, and Mr. Winn, to settle an issue, which they did in a quarter of an hour, and in the space of a quarter sheet of paper, instead of two thousand folios. Talk of scourging with a rod of iron! Why should he think of it? The lash of parchment, which is applied to all suitors in our Courts of Law-that flapper, which keeps them awake to the course of justice, by the expense and anxiety it inflicts,-that truly parental corrector of human errors, manufactured in the engines of practice and pleading,

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