interest, and to excite attention; and if the agents employed on these occasions are enabled to produce a favourable opinion of their conduct throughout the country, they are at the same time conferring a lasting benefit upon the government which they represent in one most important particular. There were persons who affirmed at the time that the acquittal of Tooke and Hardy saved this country from revolution. We do not say that the circuits of the judges create an attachment to the constitution of their country, but, assuredly, they increase it. We are not indiscriminate panegyrists of the judges, nor do we mean to insinuate that they all deserve the encomiums bestowed upon Sir J. Bayley. In natural abilities,-in legal and other acquirements so necessary,-in manner, temper, and demeanour they must differ: - how should it be otherwise? But they have one common and prevailing recommendation; one never-failing passport to the respect and esteem of the country, a firm belief of, and confidence in their fairness and impartiality, and that, if any be committed, they are errors of inadvertence and not of design.

an

If these observations upon the general estimation of the judges and their services be well founded, a slight to say no more with which the whole body was recently treated, must occasion some surprise, if not regret. We allude to the rank conferred upon the two additional Vice-Chancellors; and in these remarks we are, of course, to be understood as intending nothing uncourteous to the very eminent and respectable individuals who were appointed, and who could have no concern in the transaction. But the office!office which, until tried, could have no peculiar claim to distinction, but possibly might earn it, an office of somewhat doubtful expediency and precarious existence, an office with no prejudice in its favour, but, on the contrary, connected with the most unpopular of all our civil institutions! Unceremoniously to lift the new possessors of this office of yesterday over the heads of the old established magistracy, "the judges of the land," their seniors in standing,

the judges entrusted with the administration of the Common Law, the favourite of the people of England, the judges, who, by virtue of the Queen's Commission, with which they are sent out, actually take precedence of every

subject of the realm, does seem to have been a step which, unless called for by some inevitable necessity, was inconsiderate and improper.

We cannot conclude this article without making some remarks, addressed especially to those who are entering upon the profession of the Law. The career of Sir J. Bayley must, of course, be considered as successful. It is true that he probably felt a certain degree of mortification when Lord Tenterden, then a junior judge of the King's Bench (by a precedent, without reference to him, of a very questionable tendency) was raised over him, to the Chief Justiceship of that Court; and some also, perhaps in a less degree and certainly with less reason, when Lord Lyndhurst was created Lord Chief Baron, he (Sir J. Bayley) then being the senior judge of the Exchequer. Yet his was a case of success obtained by industry and perseverance, in his instance not tardily rewarded; we say by industry, for he was not distinguished by any marked superiority of powers of speech, which, other things being equal or nearly so, must necessarily lead (and what wonder?) to reputation and ascendancy. There was in him nothing like distressing superiority to depress and discourage, but every thing to encourage hope and animate exertion. "Go and do likewise," may well be said, without any violence to probability, to every young man of fair abilities and resolute application. Instances there are, undoubtedly, unfortunate instances of failure; most of the cases, however, we suspect, admitting of some particular explanation and solution. As a general rule we affirm, as the result of much observation, that a fair share of attention and attainment does, in the Law, with reference to other professions and employments, produce a reasonable return and compensation. Be it, however, that success is uncertain and the pursuit difficult! what is there excellent of which the same thing may not be said? - what science or art worth knowing that can easily be acquired? what pursuit, in short, by which men can make "sui memores alios," except upon the condition attached to it by the philosophical poet, "merendo?" Let not our youthful readers deceive themselves: there is no royal road to distinction. Superiority

And if

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cannot be begged or borrowed; it must be earned. men have been found of that "clear spirit" which can delights, and live laborious days," with no expectation of present honour or advantage, but fed by the reversionary hope of a splendid immortality; how much more may exertion be expected, when the prize to be contended for is not dimly seen in obscure, because distant, perspective, but is set directly before the aspirant, and, as it were, within his grasp?

ART. X. THE LEGAL BUDGET.

INEQUALITY OF TAXATION AMONG SUITORS, AND IMPROVIDENCE OF ITS COLLECTION.

THE suitors at law and in equity are taxed to the judicial exchequer for the mere support of those establishments to the enormous extent of from 300,000l. to 400,000l. a-year. But in assessing this tax every recognised principle of public taxation is set at nought; and in collecting it there is an utter absence of all arrangement to secure the transmission of the money raised into the judicial or public purse: 300,000l. or 400,000l. a-year (there is no one who can by possibility know the precise amount) is assessed upon the suitors (that is to say, upon the subjects of the judicial empire), upon principles utterly abhorrent to all our first ideas of justice; and this enormous sum of money (and how much more is a mere matter of conjecture) is then collected by about 200 feebailiffs, and the 300,000l. or thereabouts is received from them in full for their receipts, without the slightest pretence of checking their accounts, and, as to two-thirds of them, without even requiring any affidavit or averment of the correctness of the amount. Thus recklessly is our poor dealt with! He not only has to pay, when he ought not to pay, to maintain the public judicial establishments, that from them he may get, by means of complicated, conflicting, and defective systems of procedure, the justice which the public interest in his person requires; but what he does pay is extorted from him on the most confessedly unjust principle of taxation ever yet invented-by a poll-tax; and when it is extorted, finds its way into the judicial exchequer, just so far as the conscience or the prudence of 200 uncontrolled feetakers may determine, no small sum doubtless staying somewhere by the way.

suitor

It is not our intention in this article to attempt to point out at length the cure for this disgraceful state of things. This can only be done by a more public and extensive in

vestigation of the subject than any private individual can give. We shall merely here attempt to detail the leading facts as they now exist, and also to state what we conceive are some of the governing principles which should be held in view by Parliament, or rather by the Judges, who, as to this matter, are the real legislators in legislating on this very important matter.

Let us remark, before going farther, that not only is immediate regulation of the public judicial fee-system imperatively due to the direct pecuniary interest of the suitor, as well as to the position and influence of the judicial institutions (which must be greatly impaired by every suspected dishonesty in the offices of justice); but also that such legal reform, as those we are now proposing are precisely the reforms which are all gain to the suitor. Unlike the rules and orders as to pleadings and practice which have as yet been almost the only fruit of the public demand for reform in legal procedure, such regulations as we are advocating cost the suitor absolutely nothing in carrying them into practice. Not so with our rules. A great outery is made against some or other obstructive regulation in pleading or practice. Acting as legislator, the judge makes a rule to remedy it. He reduces the rule into writing, promulgates it, and has it enrolled on the solemn records of the Court. Here he lays down his legislative power. The rule has next to be interpreted by him in his judicial capacity. He does this as if it were an Act of Parliament, which he had not seen before; an order from some power superior to himself and to his own sense of justice. Its generalities have now to be applied to some individual occurring ease. The judge, though he himself made the rule, conceives it right to suppose himself utterly ignorant of its object. He looks at it with great reverence, possibly with some superstition. It is no longer a formula subservient to the immediate ends of justice, and by the use of which he is to do justice. Justice now, on the other hand, must subserve to the rule, and is to be done, so far as done, "according to the rules of the Court." The records of the Court must be kept pure. The judge's own creation has grown at once into his master. The thing of form has become a thing of subHis own form of words has become a very monster,

stance.