may enjoy ample leisure to luxuriate; and they are placed in each other's society, so that their polluted minds may more effectually avail themselves of their leisure in communicating their experience to each other, and cultivating, by example and precept, the propensities into increased energy and more extensive activity. The proper treatment would be, to separate them as much as possible from each other; and while they are in each other's society, to prevent them, by the most vigilant superintendence, from communicating immoral ideas and impressions to each other's minds. In the next place, they should be all regularly employed; because nothing tends more directly to subdue the inordinate activity of the animal propensities than labor. It occupies the mind, and physiologically it drains off, by the muscles, the nervous energy from the brain, which, in the case of criminals, is the grand stimulus to their large animal organs. The greater the number of the higher faculties that the labor can be made to stimulate, the more beneficial it will be. Mounting the steps of a treadmill exercises merely the muscles, and acts on the mind by exhausting the nervous energy and producing the feeling of fatigue. It does not excite a single moral or intellectual faculty. Working as a weaver or shoemaker would employ more of the intellectual powers; the occupations of a carpenter or blacksmith are still more ingenious; while that of a machine maker stands. higher still in the scale of mental requirement. Many criminals are so deficient in intellect, that they are not capable of engaging in ingenious employments; but my proposition is, that wherever they do enjoy intellectual talent, the more effectually it is drawn out, cultivated, and applied to useful purposes, the more will their powers of self-guidance and control be increased.

Supposing the quiescence of the animal propensities to be secured by restraint and by labor, the next object obviously is, to impart vigor to their moral and intellectual faculties,

so that they may be rendered capable of mingling with society at a future period, without relapsing into crime. The moral and intellectual faculties can be cultivated only by addressing to them their natural objects, and exercising them in their legitimate fields. If any relative of ours possessed an average development of the bones and muscles of the legs, yet had, through sheer indolence, lost the use of them and become incapable of walking, should we act wisely, with a view to his recovery, by fixing him into an arm-chair, from which it was impossible for him to rise? Yet, when we lock up criminals in prison, amidst beings who never give expression to a moral emotion without its becoming a subject of ridicule, when we exclude from their society all moral and intelligent men calculated to rouse and exercise their higher faculties, and when we provide no efficient means for their instruction, we do in fact as effectually deprive all their superior powers of the means of exercise and improvement, as we would do the patient with feeble legs, by pinioning him down into a chair. All this must be reversed. Effectual means must be provided for instructing criminals in moral and intellectual duty, and for exercising their moral and intellectual faculties. This can be done only by greatly increasing the number of higher minds that hold communion with them; and by encouraging them to read and exercise all their best powers in every practicable manner. The influence of visiters in jails, in ameliorating the character of criminals, is explicable on such grounds. The individuals who undertake this duty are, in general, prompted to it by the vivacity of their own moral feelings; and the manifestation of them towards the criminals excites the corresponding faculties in them into action. On the same principle, on which the presence of profligate associates cultivates and strengthens the propensities, does the society of virtuous men excite and strengthen the moral and intellectual powers.

By this treatment the offender would be restored to society with his inferior feelings tamed, his higher powers invigorated, his understanding enlightened, and his whole mind and body trained to industrious habits. If this should not afford society a more effectual protection against his future crimes, and be more in consonance with the dictates of christianity than our present treatment, I stand condemned as a vain theorist; but if it would have these blessed effects, I humbly intreat of you to assist me in subduing that spirit of ignorance and dogmatism, which represents these views as dangerous to religion and injurious to society, and presents every obstacle to their practical adoption.'

1 The prisons in the United States of America are conducted in a manner greatly superior to those of Great Britain and Ireland; but even they admit of improvement. I shall add some remarks on them to the next lecture.

Since my arrival in the United States, in September, 1838, an extraordinary number of instances of frauds, committed by men holding high official situations, have been announced in the public prints, and a vast extent of individual suffering has been the consequence. Such occurrences reflect disgrace on the society under whose institutions they so extensively prevail. The remarks on p. 107, are far more applicable to the United States, than even to Britain. [January, 1840.]

ART. VI.-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BENJAMIN LYNDE.

BENJAMIN LYNDE was the first educated lawyer who was promoted to the bench of the superior court in Massachusetts. This was in 1712, when he was forty-six years of age.

He was descended from a family in Dorsetshire, England, and was born in Boston, in 1666. He was prepared for college under the tuition of "Master Cheever," and as a member of Harvard College sustained the reputation of a fine scholar. He was graduated in 1686.

The period at which he left college, it will be recollected, was one of the darkest in the history of Massachusetts, so far as the prospects of a young man were concerned. The colony was in a transition state between the surrender of their former charter and subjection to the arbitrary rule of an over-bearing viceroy. The country was in a ferment, and whoever dared to indulge the feelings of a free man, was marked by the minions of prerogative, as an object of jealousy and hatred.

How the first years after leaving college were passed by judge Lynde, does not appear, but he was probably engaged in study, for in 1692, he went to England to complete his education as a lawyer, and became a student at the Middle Temple. He remained there until he was called to the bar as a barrister. He returned to Massachusetts in 1697. Before leaving England, he received a commission from the lords of admiralty as advocate general of the court of admiralty for the provinces of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

In 1699, he removed to Salem, where he resided during the remainder of his life. As early as 1703, he entered public life, and ever afterwards continued to take a leading part in public affairs. After representing the town of Salem several years in the general court, he was chosen to the council, of which body he was a leading member for the term of twenty-four years.

He married a daughter of the Hon. William Brown, of Salem, one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the province. He had been a judge of the court of common pleas, and a member of the council, and was the father of Samuel Brown, chief justice of the same court, and ancestor of judge William Brown, of the superior court, at the time of the revolution. His own son Benjamin, as will appear, was at one time chief justice of the superior court, so that his family connexions seem to have shared liberally in the favor of the government.

Judge Lynde was appointed to the bench of the superior court, as successor of Walley, in July, 1712, on which occasion judge Sewall, in an address to the jury, alluding to the appointment, expressed the hope "that they would hereafter have the benefit of the inns of court education, superadded to that of Harvard College."

There had been twelve judges appointed to this court, previous to judge Lynde, not one of whom had either studied or practised law.

Upon the resignation of chief justice Sewall, in 1728, the subject of this article was promoted to the place he had vacated, and held the office until his death, January 28, 1749. He died at the age of seventy-nine, and closed a life of usefulness and honor.

The time during which judge Lynde was upon the bench forms an important era in the history of the administration of justice in Massachusetts.

The court for the first time was constituted of men, competent and willing to give form and character to legal and judicial process. Judge Thomas, one of his associates, though not an educated lawyer, had been a practitioner at the bar; chief justice Sewall had become somewhat familiar with legal forms; and Paul Dudley, a learned lawyer, in his character as attorney general, contributed to give an increased respectability to the practice of the law.

It was, however, still in its infancy, though the impulse which it received at this time, aided, as it was, by the influence of Read, Gridley, Pratt and the Auchmutys, as well as of others, who were their cotemporaries, introduced improvements, and established regular forms in practice, which have been recognised ever since by the courts of Massachusetts, as safe guides to the profession in matters of precedent.

What part in this reform was taken by chief justice Lynde, does not now appear. Few or no reports of the ju