Opposition to offer if the proposed measure was rejected? had compared the Ministry to some host, who, having set before his guests an uneatable dinner with which they found fault, should ask them, 'What dishes can you dress yourselves?' and thus Lord Brougham took up the illustration:

My noble friend says that such an answer would be very unreasonable-for he asks, ingeniously enough, 'how can the guests dress a dinner, especially when they have not possession of the kitchen?' But did it never strike him that the present is not the case of guests, called upon to eat a dinner-it is one of rival cooks, who want to get into our kitchen. We are here all on every side cooks -a synod of cooks (to use Dr. Johnson's phrase) and nothing but cooks; for it is the very condition of our being-the bond of our employment under a common master-that none of us shall ever taste the dishes we are now dressing. The Commons may taste it; but can the Lords? We have nothing to do but propose the viands. It is therefore of primary importance, when the authority of two classes of rival artists is the main question, to inquire what are our feats severally in our common calling.

And in answer to the extreme and impossible case put by the Earl of Harrowby, of the population of an enfranchised borough of four thousand souls being all paupers, he said that he had a right to put an extreme case on the other side, to illustrate the nature of representation under the rotten borough system; and he instanced the case of the Nabob Wallajah Cawn Bahadur, who had actually his eighteen or twenty members bought with a price, and sent to look after his pecuniary interests as honest and independent members of Parliament.'

'Behold,' he said, 'the sovereign of the Carnatic, who regards nor land, nor rank, nor connection, nor open country, nor populous city; but his eye fastens on the time-honoured relics of departed greatness and extinct population-the walls of Sarum and Gatton: he arms his right hand with venerable parchments, and pointing with his left to a heap of star pagodas, too massive to be carried along, lays siege to the citadel of the Constitution, the Commons' House of Parliament, and its gates fly open to receive his well-disciplined band.'

But our limits compel us to stop. We shall be glad if anything we have said has the effect of making these speeches more generally read. We advise all who wish to qualify themselves as public speakers to study the orations of Lord Brougham. They will find them a storehouse of manly thought, of vigorous argument, and lofty eloquence upon all the great questions of his time. Few may hope to rival the orator who defeated the bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline, and snapped asunder the chain of Slavery; but none can fail to profit by the example. But above all

things, let no one imagine, that without taking pains and bestowing labour, he can rise to eminence as an orator. He may be a fluent speaker and an expert debater, but an orator he will not be, if he refuses to copy the example and follow the precepts of the great masters of the art. And of all auxiliaries to the tongue, the pen is the best. Cicero tells us, that stilus optimus et præstantissimus dicendi effector et magister; and, to use his own beautiful simile, the habit of writing passages in a speech will communicate aptness and force to extempore expression, just as the vessel retains her onward way from the impetus previously given, after the stroke of the oar has ceased. Let us, however, not be misunderstood. We by no means intend to advise a habit of writing out the whole of a speech, and getting it off by heart before it is delivered. Not only does this impose too great a load upon the memory, and render the chance of a break-down almost inevitable, when, from sudden nervousness or any other cause, some passage which forms a necessary link in the chain is forgotten ;-but it prevents a speaker from feeling, as it were, the pulse of his audience, and varying his style and tone according to the impression which he sees is made upon them. In most cases a written speech is a failure from this cause. But the subject matter should be beforehand well and thoroughly digested;-there should be the cogitatio et commentatio insisted upon by Cicero; and in addition to this, with respect to particular passages, the assidua ac diligens scriptura. By this means the speaker will have, laid up in the arsenal of his memory, a supply of weapons ready for any emergency that may arise; and it is almost a truism to say, that sentences considered beforehand in the laboratory of thought, and submitted to criticism and revision by being embodied in written composition, must be more likely to be effective than those which are thrown off hastily in the hurry of debate, when there is no time to pause for the best and most appropriate expression. But, indeed, the habit of composition will have the effect of suggesting to the speaker, at all times, the best word and the best sentence; and will thus assist him whenever the necessity occurs for unpremeditated reply. Cicero amongst the ancients, and Lord Brougham amongst the moderns, have shown with what

advantage familiarity with writing and practice in speaking mutually act and react upon each other.

In conclusion, we may add, that the value of this collection of Lord Brougham's speeches is enhanced by the historical introductions written by himself, and prefixed to several of them, explaining the occasions on which they were delivered, and the subjects to which they refer. The style of these introductions is excellent-clear, vigorous, and correct-and they are in themselves a very useful contribution to the history of the nineteenth century.

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE IN SCOTLAND AND

ENGLAND.1

'Edinburgh Review,' October, 1858.

DIFFERING as Scotland and England do in many national characteristics, there is nothing in which these differences are more conspicuously shown than in their respective systems of Jurisprudence. By merely crossing a stream, or passing a bleak range of hills, an Englishman will find himself in a part of his native island where civil rights and social status, where questions of liberty and life are determined by laws totally different from his own. That which is mere concubinage in England may amount to a legal marriage in Scotland. What is bigamy in the one country, owing to the non-recognition by the English Courts of a Scotch divorce in the case of an English marriage, may be a lawful second marriage in the other. A child who would be a bastard in England may be legitimate in Scotland. Contracts which could not be enforced south of the Tweed are binding north of that river. In England it is impossible to perpetuate an entail by the mere force of a deed of settlement: in Scotland there are entails which cannot be broken except by Act of Parliament. If a crime be committed, it must be detected, and proved, and punished in a different manner. The verdict of an English jury is unanimous in Scotland the verdict in criminal cases is decided by a majority. In England, when a man is put upon his trial, he is declared to be either Guilty or Not Guilty in Scotland the charge may be declared to be Not Proven.

These are a few only of the differences in the jurisprudence of the two countries; but they are sufficient to show how great

1

1. Report of the Trial of Madeleine Smith, before the High Court of Justi ciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857. By ALEXANDER FORBES

IRVINE, Advocate. Edinburgh: 1858.

2. Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Prosecutors. May, 1856.

a contrast exists between them, and it would be interesting to compare them in a variety of details. This, however, would require a volume; and in the present article we propose to confine our attention to some salient points of contrast in their respective systems of criminal procedure; and we shall avail ourselves for this purpose of the report of a recent trial, which must be fresh in the recollection of our readers, and in which the difference between the two was conspicuously shown.

Such an inquiry may be not without use. For the object of the forms of criminal procedure in both countries must be the same, namely, the protection of the innocent, and the discovery and punishment of crime. To these great ends all rules and formulas ought to be subordinate. To exclude any suspicion of partiality or unfairness, as little as possible should be left to the discretion of those who administer the law. It is therefore necessary that general rules should be laid down and adhered to, however hard their operation may seem to be in particular cases; and it is also of the last importance that these rules should be such as are likely to provide most effectually for the ends in view. On a comparison between the Scotch and English systems, it might perhaps be difficult to decide which of the two, taken separately, is the best adapted for the defence of innocence and the detection of guilt; but we think it is not at all difficult to show that in each there are deficiencies that might be supplied, and faults that might be corrected, by the example of the other; and that from a judicious amalgamation of the two might be formed a system of procedure superior to either as it now stands.

The case to which, for the sake of illustration, we shall chiefly make reference in the following pages is that of Madeleine Hamilton Smith, who was tried at Edinburgh, in July, 1857, for the alleged murder, by poisoning, of Pierre Emile L'Angelier. This has become one of the causes célèbres of Great Britain. The relations between the prisoner and the deceased-her former passionate attachment to him-her age, sex, and social position-her unparalleled letters the dark and impenetrable mystery in which his death is still shrouded, after an investigation which exhausted every possible means of arriving at the truth-the remarkable ability displayed both on the side of the prosecution and the side of the defence-