heard of by any member of his family or by any former friend. All scent failed. No trace could be made out. Even love died out in the young milliner's breast, and she married the master of a trading vessel. In the course of time old Mr. Robinson died. William succeeded to the property, never married, and died in May, 1802. I mentioned that there were two sisters; their names, I think, were Elizabeth and Mary Ann. At the time of William's death they were both married to very respectable clergymen in this county. Twenty years had now nearly elapsed since anything had been heard of Nicholas, who was entitled to the property, if alive. They took possession, and for nearly twenty years more no claim whatever was made to disturb their enjoyment. But early in 1783, a young man, whose look and manner were above his means and station, made his appearance as a stranger at Liverpool. He called himself "Nathaniel Richardson." (You will observe the initials.) He procured a carriage and a pair of horses, and plied in the streets as a hackney coachman. He was civil and sober, prudent and prosperous. His hackney coach, after a short time, was converted into a diligence, which went to London, he driving it during certain stages. He married and had children. He gradually grew into a considerable proprietor, and bought and sold horses largely, until, having gone into Wales for the purpose of purchasing horses in 1802, and returning in July of that year, he was drowned by an accident in the Mersey, just two months after the death, as you will remember, of William Robinson. And now, in 1821, it was said that this Nathaniel Richardson was Nicholas Robinson; and his eldest son it was who claimed the property. How was this identity to be made out of Nicholas Robinson and Nathaniel Richardson? Nearly forty years had elapsed since any one had seen or heard of the former under that name. No witness could be produced who had seen the former in Cornwall, and the latter at Liverpool, and could say that they were the same persons. Yet it was made out conclusively, and the case presented a remarkable instance of the force of evidence of a vast number of small circumstances, all pointing to one conclusion, many of them of light weight taken by themselves, yet all, when added together, compelling the mind's assent to the proposition for which they were adduced. The Cornish witnesses and the Liverpool witnesses agreed in their description of the person his height, color of hair, eyes, general appearance and manner, some personal habits, such as biting his nails, fondness for horses and for driving, which made it possible that Nicholas would take up the line which Nathaniel was found to have adopted. The times were shown to agree, for the coachmaker of whom he had the first carriage, was brought with his books to the trial, containing the entry of the purchase; and that Nathaniel was a stranger when he was first seen at Liverpool, was proved by the singular circumstance that the waterman on the stand where he plied remembered his first appearance and getting on the box by his desire to show him the way to the first place he was hired to drive to. He was proved to have mentioned to his wife that his father's name was William, and that he had a brother of the same name, and two sisters. It was remembered in Cornwall that Elizabeth had been the favorite sister of Nicholas; Nathaniel called his first daughter by that name, and she dying, he called the second by the name; a third he called "Mary Ann." That he had made no claim on the property at his brother's death was sufficiently explained by his own death following so soon after, and that for some time previously he had been wandering in North Wales from fair to fair and place to place, purchasing horses, and was very unlikely to have seen any newspaper recording a death in Cornwall. But all doubt was removed by another remarkable circum

stance. Nathaniel's widow married again. Her furniture and effects of every kind were taken to her second husband's house. Among the articles was an old trunk, which he had always preserved with care, and which had never been opened. It chanced that curiosity was one day excited, and on opening it, a number of papers and letters and books of account were found. But for the most part they referred to a person of whom they had never heard — not "Nathaniel Richardson," but "Nicholas Robinson." Among the papers were the two admissions of Nicholas Robinson as attorney in the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas. There were also letters to him from persons in Cornwall. On the trial, his old master and other Cornish contemporaries proved the admitted handwriting of Richardson to be the handwriting of Robinson. And so the property was recovered. For the aunts had appeared the most eminent leaders on the circuit, and the prejudices of a special jury were naturally in their favor. A young man, William Adam, then just rising to a lead, was for the heir-at-law. I never shall forget how, in his opening speech, he unfolded in the most beautiful order, and with every grace of language, pronunciation, voice, person and manner, the facts which I have been compelled somewhat to huddle together. The little circumstance of nail-biting I remember he could not forego, yet he was puzzled how to deal with it, for the judge was himself a notorious nail-biter, and the mention of it might offend him. But he brought it in so as only to provoke a good-humored smile, and no offence was taken. The speech and the management of the case lifted him into the second place on the circuit, and he maintained himself in it until he was attracted to the committee business of the House of Commons; and, finally, was induced, by delicate health, to retire to the lucrative post of Accountant-General in Chancery. I was on several occasions his junior, and I owed much to his kindness, when it was of great value to me. It would have been of great value to me if I could have learnt to imitate the various excellences of his style and manner in pleading.

THE CHARTIST TRIALS.

I tried the somewhat famous Feargus O'Connor at York, and Bronterre O'Brien, both at Newcastle and Liverpool. The first trial, on which the latter was acquitted, I shall not easily forget. The court is a large one- a deep oblong- with a most expansive gallery reaching to the ground, and filling up full half of it. I do not remember that a woman was to be seen in court, but the gallery was entirely filled by dark, stalwart pitmen or miners, who seemed to have us entirely in their power, and not to want the will for an outbreak. We were obliged to sit on to a late hour by candle light, when it is always most difficult to preserve order in court. Most minds, however, were too much excited and interested in what was going on to be noisy. O'Brien, who is, I believe, still alive, made a very eloquent- very amusing very exciting and mischievous speech for himself. He had, however, a very unfavorable jury, for the chartists had contrived to frighten those who had anything to lose, and none in general were more opposed to them than the shopkeepers, tradesmen and farmers. But I thought him on the evidence entitled to an acquittal, and acquitted he was. I must say that the Chartists I had to deal with interested me a good deal. For the most part they appeared to be honest and misled enthusiasts. I have no doubt that had they not been repressed they would have been led on to plunder and havoc, and that blood might have flowed like water, for their occupation made them a hard-handed, stern race. But they begun intending to be loyal to the queen, whom they strongly distinguished in their feelings from the Lords and Commons, and to vindicate to themselves what they thought labor entitled to. It was

remarkable. A large number defended themselves. Their broad Lancashire pronunciation you would have found it as difficult to understand as strangers find it difficult to understand us; but they spoke pure English, with some old and good provincial words, and in correct grammar, and they quoted (some of them largely), not from "Tom Paine" or low books, infidel or seditious, but from Algernon Sydney, Sir William Jones, John Locke and John Milton. There were men among them who, after a day's work of fourteen or sixteen hours, had been diligent readers by the midnight lamp, and were better English scholars than many of their jurymen. It is usual in such cases, when the government has succeeded in convicting the ringleaders and a sufficient number to produce the effect of example, to deal gently with the remainder, and to release them on pleading guilty, without punishment. O'Brien and others had been convicted, and the Attorney-General for the County Palatine was taking this course, but had passed over a mere lad, whose name was "Walter Scott." Seeing his age, I said, "Oh, Mr. Attorney, surely you will not press upon Walter Scott for his great name's sake." My suggestion was instantly yielded to. The boy was called up, and I explained to him the lenient course proposed to be taken toward him. He was very indignant, and insisted on being tried. He had evidently come prepared to enact the martyr to his cause, and it took some time, and the interposition of his friends, before he would accept the proffered grace.

MURDER BY A BOY.

It is time that I should have done (Loud cries of "No, no,” and applause) but before I relieve you I wish to refer to my first circuit for the sake of one sad case at Gloucester, where I myself tried 127 prisoners. One of them was Edwin Jeffery, a lad in the employ of a butcher in a village near Stow-on-the-Wold, who was tried, convicted, and suffered for the murder of Francois Jacques Reus. This poor Frenchman had for some time lived on his small means, lodging at the house of a Mrs. Roper in the village. He was unfortunately the possessor of a gold repeater watch, a gold chain and two gold seals, which he was somewhat too fond of displaying. On the evening of 10th March, 1834, he left his lodgings for a stroll about half past seven o'clock, saying he should return to his tea at eight. About eight he was brought back in a wheelbarrow, a dying man, bleeding. His skull was shockingly fractured, his watch was missing, but not his purse. The lad Jeffery was one of those who assisted in bringing him home. It appeared that he had been found on the ground groaning, in a lane just out of the village. No suspicion at first pointed to any one as guilty, but very soon afterwards two strangers, who could give little account of themselves, were taken up. A number of witnesses were examined against them, and they were committed for trial. One circumstance was thought to press against them. One had a somewhat remarkable stick. The end of this was applied to a large dint in the poor deceased's skull, and was said exactly to fit it. The case was for trial at the summer assizes for 1834. My friend, the late Mr. Justice Williams, was the judge; a man of excellent common sense. He read the depositions, thought they made out nothing but a slight and dangerous suspicion, told the grand jury so, and the bill was thrown out. By the following spring it was clear that he was right, and the two prisoners perfectly innocent. Partly by the evidence, and partly by the lad Jeffery's confession, the following facts appeared: He had seen the Frenchman's watch-who had perhaps shown it to him, and let him hear the wonderful repeater withinhe was seized with an ardent desire to possess it, on which he suffered himself to dwell till the temptation to secure it, at whatever cost, was too strong to resist. He had waylaid the unfortunate owner, and with a wooden im

plement, which he had used in stunning calves that were to be killed, had felled him to the earth in his solitary walk. The watch he instantly secreted, and then with wonderful coolness took part in helping to carry his victim home. At first he hid his treasure in the garden underground; but he could not then see it often enough to gratify his desire, and he carried it to the hayloft. As time wore away and no suspicion existed, he became bold enough to carry it on his person under his frock, and very soon, as might have been expected, put it out of order-it ceased to go. In September -the summer assize having passed - he was bold enough to take it to a tailor, who sometimes mended watches, to be repaired. He represented that he had bought it of his brother John, a gentleman's servant at Leamington. The tailor found the watch of a construction beyond his skill or experience, told him so, adding that it would never answer his purpose, and offered him a common metal watch worth forty shillings in exchange, as more likely to be of use to him. This was no very honest proceeding on the tailor's part, and might have brought him into great trouble, for it was accepted; and now the tailor, desirous of getting the watch into a perfect state, repaired with it to a superior watchmaker, the very man to whom the poor deceased had been in the habit of taking it when it required repair, and who on one occasion had been obliged to send to London for a particular movement to replace that which was out of order, and the like to which he had not in his own store. On examination he found the particular piece of work still in the watch. He knew it, and inquired of the tailor how he came possessed of it, and the inquiry led to the apprehension, the examination, and finally the confession of the unhappy lad. A witness who saw him immediately after this, asked him how he felt? 'He began to cry," said the witness, and answered, "All that I have to do is to pray to God to forgive me; since I saw Mr. Ford, and made my confession I am much happier," and this, indeed, we may well believe. I have repeated to you this story, as strongly illustrating how dangerous it is to allow the mind to dwell upon forbidden objects-how a just Providence often interferes to detect the committer of a great crime. Months had passed away- no clue seemed to exist for tracing out the murderer -- no suspicion rested on his head. Probably the majority who thought about it at all still believed in the guilt of the two men first apprehended, and blamed the judge for dismissing them. But the watch is brought to the only watchmaker who knew it, and he could not have sworn to it, but that he had placed in it a piece of workmanship, strange to himself, but so remarkable and marked, that he knew it again.

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INTELLIGENCE AND MISCELLANY.

PRACTICE IN BANCO-INTERRUPTIONS FROM THE BENCH.-The most formidable moment in the Advocate's life is the first argument before the full Court. It wants the excitement which sustains the unpractised man before a jury. There is an awfulness in the hush of the Court, in the gravity of the four ermined figures before him, that ties the tongues of many a man who could face a jury without fear. Then there is the consciousness that all your audience are not only critics, but competent ones, and that any blunders into which you might fall will be detected, possibly reproved publicly-certainly ridiculed privately. On the other hand there is something to set-off against these sources of discomfiture. You are sure to be heard patiently, if you do not talk nonsense, whatever the imperfections of your style. If you have anything to say, it will be accepted at its worth, and if you can say nothing to the point, there is no need to say anything at all, as with a jury, who too often construe silence as incapacity. The judges are invariably kind to a beginner; they are always ready to make allowance for diffidence and all those surface faults which time and practice will cure.

There is one trouble in banco against which it is necessary to warn youthe interpellations of the judges, who are apt to disturb the course of your argument by a cross-fire of question and answer, extremely perplexing always, and often inextricably entangling the links of your reasoning. You have come to the work with a chain of argument by which you purpose step by step to educe a certain conclusion. In the midst of it one of the judges interposes some hypothetical case, and asks you how you reconcile your preposition with that. If you have sufficient self-command and self-confidence, you pause to answer it; but then another of the judges throws in another suggestion, and a debate arises upon the by-point, and by the time it is concluded you are in danger of forgetting at which part of your argument you left off, and with the consciousness that the connnection of the various links has been rendered very indistinct and uncertain. It is a habit of the Bench much to be deprecated, but, I must admit, difficult to avoid; for, when a judge sees, or thinks he sees, a fallacy in a proposition, or an error in a citation, it is a natural impulse to interpose the objection that he feels, and, as it were, to clear the argument as it goes. But it is not the less a practice inconvenient, and even unfair towards counsel, who cannot be expected to come prepared for more than the case in hand. Even the acutest mind cannot always, when its attention is fixed upon a certain chain of reasoning, leap aside on the moment and survey another point suddenly presented, and so calmly turn it on all sides as to answer then and there analogies of differences. Only long practice enables an advocate to parry these side-blows without disrespect, and yet without permitting himself to be thrown by them out of his own pathway. I am inclined to think that the best mode of meeting them, especially by a beginner, is, with all respect to decline to answer any hypothetical case