ment, is deemed to have relinquished all right to the benefit of his charge or security; and, by the 18th section of the same act, the decrees and orders of Courts of Equity in respect of costs operate as judgments. It was therefore contended that the solicitor who had obtained an order at the Rolls for payment of his costs had, by executing an attachment against his client, lost the benefit of his lien. V.C. Wigram:-"The effect of the statute (s. 16.), as I understand it, is only to deprive the creditor of all the benefit which the statute gives him; the consequence of which is, that he is remitted to, or rather left in, possession of the rights he had independently of the Act. . . . I was, however, referred to the effect of a judgment at law, to which, it was said, the order of this court is now, by s. 18. of the Act, made equivalent. . . . A mortgagee, who recovers judgment on his bond or covenant, cannot, so long as the judgment remains in force, sue his debtor upon the same bond or covenant: but he does not thereby lose his collateral security.... If the argument be well founded, that the execution against the person of the debtor is for all purposes a complete satisfaction of the creditor's demand, it might be difficult to stop short of the conclusion, that a mortgagor, against whose person execution had issued for the mortgage debt, might, when in prison, redeem the mortgage, although the debt was unpaid."

The death of the client before the fruits of the judgment are reduced into possession, will not defeat the solicitor's lien on the fund. It was attempted, without success, to establish the contrary proposition in Lloyd v. Mason'; but, notwithstanding the decease of the client, the lien was sustained by the court. V. C. Wigram : "It was said, that in consequence of the death of Thomas Lloyd, the solicitor must go in as a creditor against his estate, and could not recover his debt in a summary way, without regard to the claims of other creditors of Thomas Lloyd. . . . That argument, if admitted, would go to this, that a solicitor in all cases loses his lien upon a fund, although recovered by his diligence, if his client should happen to die before his costs are paid. Such, I apprehend, is not the course of courts of justice in such cases;

14 Hare, 132.

nor is there any reason in principle for it. The lien of the solicitor, like a charge in favour of any other person, gives the solicitor an interest in the fund itself; and the proper party to protect the fund against any excess of claim in both cases is the executor. A creditor, having a security for his debt, may, if he pleases, file a creditor's bill against the executor of the debtor; but he may, if he pleases, confine his suit to realising his own security. The only difference between that case and the present is, that in this case the solicitor has a summary remedy; but that does not alter the principle."

Neither will the lien of the solicitor on the fund be postponed to the claims of his client's specialty creditors. This was decided in the case of Turwin v. Gibson1, where the plaintiff in the original cause having died, his personal representative insisted that the solicitor had no right to be paid out of the sum decreed for the plaintiff in preference to his bond-creditors. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke:-"I am of opinion that a solicitor, in consideration of his trouble, and the money in disburse for his client, has a right to be paid out of the duty decreed for the plaintiff, and a lien upon it, before the bond-creditors of the deceased plaintiff; and it is constantly the rule of this court; neither can the administratrix controvert this rule, by insisting upon applying the assets in a course of administration."

Neither will the bankruptcy of the client affect the lien of his solicitor upon the fruits of a judgment previously recovered. This point arose in Griffin v. Eyles2, which was an action against the warden of the Fleet for the escape of one Jaques, a prisoner in execution at the plaintiff's suit. The plaintiff having recovered judgment against the defendant for 2521., sued out a fi. fa., directed to the sheriff of Surrey, who made a levy to that amount on the defendant's goods. Soon after, the defendant gave notice to the sheriff to retain the money levied, stating that he should make an application to the court to set aside the proceedings for irregularity. On the receipt of this notice, the sheriff refused to pay the money

to the plaintiff's attorney: in consequence of which the attorney obtained a rule to show cause why the sheriff should not pay the money, with interest, from the time of the levy, on an affidavit which stated that the whole sum was due to him for his bill of costs as attorney for the plaintiff; viz. part for the debt for which Jaques was taken in execution (which was the amount of costs taxed in an action brought by Jaques against the present plaintiff in the Exchequer), and the remainder for the costs of the present action for the escape. On the part of the sheriff it was urged, that, after the judgment, the plaintiff had become bankrupt. But the court of Common Pleas, on the authority of Turwin v. Gibson1 and Welch v. Hole2, made the rule absolute.

We may here notice an observation of Lord Hardwicke in Barnesley v. Powell3, that "if a solicitor prosecutes to a decree, he has a lien on the estate recovered, in the hands of the person recovering, for his bills; but if the client should die, the solicitor has no such lien on the estate in the hands of the heir-at-law, unless it should be necessary to have the suit revived, and then the lien will revive too." It is presumed that his Lordship referred to the death of the client before a decree for costs was pronounced. Otherwise, we apprehend, that on the principles already discussed in this article, the heir succeeding to an estate affected by the lien would take the inheritance cum onere. 4

13 Atk. 720.

* Ambler, 102,

(To be continued.)

* Doug. 226.

Lloyd v. Mason, 4 Hare, 152.

FEW members of the legal profession in either country have left behind them a higher or a purer fame than the distinguished personage of whom we are now to speak. To talents of an exalted order as a lawyer and a judge, he added the gift of a masculine understanding, powerful over whatever subject its strength might be exercised; and though deficient in the portion of an advocate's qualifications which connects itself with the mere acting graces of manner, and even the more ordinary and easily acquired gifts of eloquence, he yet showed his great powers even as an advocate, surpassed though these were by the extent of his learning and the weight of his opinion. His success too, was commensurate with these endowments and acquirements; his station might always have been far higher had he chosen to sacrifice his ease, or been actuated by a more vulgar and bustling ambition; and he nevertheless closed his life in the first legal station on the Bench, after having for several years been placed by the unanimous choice of his brethren at the head. of the Bar. To record the history of such a man is performing the duty of a work like ours.

Robert Blair was the third son of the Reverend R. Blair, well known as the author of a very popular poem, "The Grave;" a clergyman of learning as well as genius, and son of David Blair, King William's chaplain at the Hague, while yet stadtholder only, afterwards one of the ministers of Edinburgh, grandson of Robert Blair, chaplain of Charles I. a distinguished leader of the Covenanters, in which capacity the ghostly warrior bore the standard of the Scottish host at the famous battle of Marston Moor, where he joined his brethren in employing "the king's authority against his person." This remarkable individual had been some time settled at Bangor in Ireland, where he was the founder of the Ulster Synod. In Baillie's letters frequent mention is made of him, and from his high attainments, polite accom

plishments, and dignified deportment, he was deemed a fit person to superintend the education of the royal children, in case the extremity of the struggle had been delayed, or it had ended in a compromise. It is not improper to note these particulars, because they enable us to trace through a succession of forefathers, not every capacity, but the peculiar species of capacity by which the subject of this memoir wast distinguished; for it is easy to perceive the lineaments of the same masculine and lofty character both in the chaplain of William, evidently settled in Holland in order to escape the compliances required by the Charleses and the Jameses; and in the covenanting chief, who could both fill the pulpit and wield the sword in defence of his cherished principles.

The poet was settled at Athelstonford, in East Lothian, by a singular coincidence the same cure which was afterwards held by John Home, author of Douglas. He married Isabella Law, of Elvanston, one of the celebrated family of Law of Lawriston. The great lawyer had thus an hereditary title to the decision of character and firmness of purpose which ever marked him, whether we regard his paternal or his maternal descent.

He was born in 1742. His father died three years after his birth; and he was at first placed in the grammar school of Haddington with the celebrated Henry Dundas, first Lord Melville, an accident which laid the foundation of an intimate friendship that continued with unabated affection through both their lives, both ending within a few days of each other; for Lord Melville died the night before his ancient comrade's remains were consigned to the grave. From Haddington he was removed to the High School at Edinburgh, and became Dux, or head by merit, of the Rector's class, at the time of his leaving that celebrated seminary.

That he pursued his studies, both at school and college, with assiduity and with success, we have irrefragable proof in those tastes for classical learning which ever remained with him, and those habits of learned, reading which he intermingled with his professional studies, though somewhat less continually indulged than his inclination would naturally have prompted, in consequence of an indolent turn of mind and body which led him, when the fatigues of the day were