MR. JERVIS AND MR. RAINE.

Nomen habet, et ad magistri
Vocem quisquis sui venit citatus.

Mart. L. 4. E. 30.

WITH respect to the two gentlemen whose names stand at the head of the present article, I am much in the situation of the person of whom Montaigne speaks, when he says (Essais, L. II. chap. 14) "C'est une plaisante imagination de concevoir un esprit balancé justement entre deux pareilles envies ;" for it is really a matter of some difficulty with me to decide with which of them 1 shall begin : the same lively and facetious author goes on to illustrate what he advances, by supposing a man between a ham and a bottle, avec egal appetit de boire et de manger; which is again something like my case; for one of the individuals, whose merits. or defects are under

discussion, in several particulars may be said to resemble a ham, and the other a bottle, if not of small beer, assuredly not of the briskest and brightest Champaigne. For instance, Mr. RAINE may be considered both salt and savoury, though now and then too coarse and too high; and Mr. JERVIS is not unlike a bottle of table-ale, with but little body and fulness, but with much of the spirit and uppishness, if I may so say without any refer ́ence to temper, belonging to more generous and intoxicating liquor: at the same time, the flavour is not unpleasant, and it may and does go down very well in places where they are more thirsty, or have tastes less sophisticated, than in the metropolis, or (to quit my simile) where speeches are not so plentiful. But the question is, with whom I shall begin, and though the usual course is to eat before we drink, I shall here reverse the order of things, and commence with Mr. JERVIS, because he claims precedence on the ground of seniority:

Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc, illuc impellitur.-Ter. Andr. A. 1, Sc, 5,

He obtained a silk gown, by patent of precedence, when his uncle, Lord St. Vincent, was at the head of the Admiralty, and from the mere mention of this circumstance, it will perhaps be concluded that Mr. JERVIS'S merits only did not entitle him to this distinction-a distinction which very few King's Counsel enjoy; for the patent of precedence gives him an advantage over his rivals, because he can undertake the defence of a person accused of any crime and prosecuted by the Crown, without the expensive licence that must otherwise be obtained. It is to be taken for granted, indeed, that a little ministerial and family influence was employed, since the talents and qualifications of Mr. JERVIS are by no means such as to enable him to extort honours and command business. Yet let me in the outset make a remark, in which I shall be confirmed by nearly the whole Bar, that he has always had to work up hill in the profession: he never has possessed the car of the Court of King's Bench, and if he has ever succeeded in convincing the minds of

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the Judges, it has been by overcoming difficulties and repelling objections quite as frequently started and supported by the highest authorities, as by the Counsel who were opposed to him: that both sides have been heard cannot be denied; but one side was heard principally from the Bench, the other from the Bar. Mr. JERVIS, however, possesses both patience and perseverance, and if he be not the closest reasoner in the world, he can make an argument intelligible; and without shewing disrespect to the Court, I have sometimes seen him much more laudably pertinacious, than men of higher talents but of more timidity. I have several times had occasion to protest against the tame submissiveness which some advocates are not ashamed to expose in public; but this praise is, I think, above all due to Mr. JERVIS, that he more correctly than any other man draws the line between that deference which is due to superiors, and that mental degradation which is due to no man. Whether the unusual obstacles he experienced in the Court

of King's Bench led to the determination, or whether it was induced by a prospect of additional business, I know not; but within the last three or four terms he has confined his practice almost exclusively to the Court of Exchequer, where, in consequence of his patent, he is enabled to conduct the defence of such persons as, chiefly in revenue causes, are prosecuted by the Attorney-General. For this reason, his name is not now so familiar with the public as it used to be when he sat in that Court, the proceedings of which are almost exclusively reported in the newspapers: he only appears there now, when his presence is required in consequence of some proceeding arising out of country business.

On the Oxford circuit, however, there is no man better known or better liked: his chief rival was Mr. Dauncey, of whom I spoke in a preceding article; and if the latter were thought the abler man, the former was considered by far the most gentlemanly advocate, and was much more approved if not admired $ 2