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    to shake its head . They ways on business was clearly to be protracted beyond the usual dinner hour . The modern judges _ those I mean who were made after 1800—never gave in to this ; but with those of the preceding generation , some of whom lasted several years after 1800 , it -was quite common- Black bottles of strong port were set down beside them on the beach , with classes , carafes of water , tumblers , and biscuits ; and this without the slightest attem pt at concealment . The refreshment was generally allowed to stand untouched , an if despised , for a short time , during which their Lordships seemed to be intent only on their notes . But iu a little , some water was poured into the tumbler , and sipped quietly , as if merely to sustain nature . Then a few drops of wine were ventured upon , but only with the water : till at last patience could endure no longer , and a full bumper of the pure black element was tossed over ; after which the thing went on regularly , and there was & comfortable munching and quaffing , to the great envy

    of the parched throats in the gallery . The strong-headed stood it tolerably well , but it t old p lainly enough upon the feeble . Not that the ermine was absolutely intoxicated , but it was certainly sometimes affected . This , however , was so ordinary with these sages , that it really made little apparent change upon them . It was not very perceptible at a distance , and they all acquired the habit of sitting and looking judicial enough , even when their bottles had reached the lowest ebb . This open-court refection did . not prevail , so far as I ever saw , at Circuits . It took a different form there . The temptation of the inn frequently produced a total stoppage of business ; during which all concerned—judges and counsel , clerks , jurymen , and provosts—had a jolly dinner ; after which they returned again to the transportations and hangings . Chalmers , says the Memorial , was an awkward preacher , with , a low , rou h , husky voice , a guttural articulation , a , whitish eye , and a large dingy

    countenance . " The magic lies in the concentrated intensity which agitates every fibre of the man , " suggesting Jeffrey ' s stupendous extravagance , that "he buried bis adversaries under the fragments of burning mountains . " Pulpit and bench were then alike the tribunes of the politician . Causes being few , arguments were proportionately long . Jeffrey said that , if there were but one cause in the world , it would last for ever . First , the relevancy of the indictment was questioned ; then , in every case , a long harangue to the jury was declaimed on both sides ; written verdicts were given , which produced an interminable discussion of technicalities ; the cross-examinations penetrated through and through , and round the evidence , without result ; and often the poor jurymen were kept standing for hours , while the judge delivered his charge : —

    That fifteen cases may be disposed of in eight hours , and that an advocate-deputy may do his duty well , and yet not address a jury once in fifty trials , and that prisoners' counsel may decline addressing in the great majority of cases , these facts with which we are now familiar would certainly be discredited if they were told to Braxfield in Elysium . Of the fifteen judges of the Old Circuit , Braxfield was the giant , Eskgrove the buffoon . Of Braxfield , Lord Cockburn tells few stories , because , fie remarks , he never heard but one of his that was not indecent , and that was " when a butler gave up his place because his lordship ' s wife was always scolding him . * Lord V lie exclaimed , ' ye ' ve little to complain o' : ye may be thankfu ' re no married to her . ' "

    He was accustomed to taunt the culprits whom he was sentencing to death in the fashion of Lord Karac , who had to try his friend Mathew Hay , the companion of Ids chess-games , * for murder . When the verdict was delivered , he looked up , and said triumphantly , " That ' s checkmate to you , Mathew . " But Eskgrove was the most laughter-moving savnge of the whole fifteen . A very common arrangement of his logic to juries was this— " And so , gentle-men , having shown you that the pannell ' s argument is utterly impossibill , I shall now proceed for to show 3-011 that it is extremely improbabill . " Meadowbank , who spent the afternoon of his marriage-day in composing

    a treatise " On Pains and Penalties , " disliked a dull technical advocate , and once rebuked one by throwing himself back in his chair , and shouting , " Declaim , sir ! Why don ' t you declaim ? Speak to me as if I were a popular assembly J " There was a geniality in Lord Cockburn ' s character winch gives a pleasant ^ inge to the gossip in this welcome volume . It is not all gossip , however . Besides being treasure trove for table-talkers , it is valuable as a private account of the distinguished men and important events that marked the progress of Scotland at the close of the last and in the lirst quarter of the present century .

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    MASSON ON THE ENGLISH TOETS . Essays Biographical and Critical : chiefly on English Poets . By David Masson , A . M ., Professor of English Literature in University College . Macmillan and Co . Professor Masson was certainly justified in rescuing from the fugitive periodicals , to which during the last ten or twelve years he has been 11 distinguished contributor , these Essays on English Literature . They were all remarkable and remarked , as they severally appeared in the North British and British Quarterly Jiei : ian 7 and they will probably excite still more attention in this collected and connected form , presenting as they do not only a series of biographical studios , but in some sort a philosophic history of luighsh Alexander Smith have noticed almost

    Poetry froin Shakspeare to . Wo every one of these as they appeared , which must forbid our recurring to them . Two of them we did not notice , one on Milton ' s , Goethes , and Luther ' s conception of the J > evil ( which was published in Fraser before ; the leader was born ) , and the miniature Biography of Chatterton , winch we regard on the whole as the « om of the volume . A very ingenious and suggestive essay is llmt on the I he lhreo Devils , tracing the cJiflbront shapes which the conception of a supernatural being whose function is to create evil took in three pre-eminent minds at throe different epochs ; and every reader will be struck with the originality of Professor Masson ' s view of Henhiatonheles as the being into which feutnn

    has dwindled after six thousand yeairs . After analyzing the Prologue in lleaoent Professor Masson says : — And is this tho Satan of the Paradise Lost ? la this the Archangel ruinod ? In this tho being who warred against tho Almighty , who lay floating many a rood , who shot upwards like a pyramid of fire , who navigated spaco wherever ho choue , speeding on his errands from atur to atar , and who finally conceived tho gigantic 8 che . no ol assaulting the universe where it was weakest , and impregnating the new creation witn

    the venom of his spirit ? Yes , it is he ; but oh , how changed ! For six thous&m years he has been pursuing the walk he struck out at the beginning , plying his self selected function , dabbling devilishly in human nature , and abjuring all interest i the grander physics ; and the consequence is , as he himself anticipated , that his nature once great and magnificent , has become small , virulent , and shrunken , " Subdued To what it works in , like the dyer ' s hand . " As if he had been journeying through a wilderness of scorching sand , all that wa left of the Archangel has long since evaporated . He is now a dry , cold , shrivelled-up tWhen

    scoffing spiri . , at the moment of scheming out hi 3 future existence and deter mining to become a Devil , he anticipated the ruin of his nature , he could not helj thinking with what a strange feeling he should then appear before his old co-equals Raphael , Gabriel , and Michael . But now he stands before them disgustingly unabashed , almost ostentatious of not being any longer an Archangel . Even in the days of his glory he was different from them . They luxuriated in contemplation ; he in the feeling of innate all-sufficient vigour . And lo , now ! They are unchanged , the servants of the Lord , revering the day's gentle going . He , the scheming , enthusiastic Archangel , has been soured and civilized into the clever cold-hearted Mephistopheles .

    The essay on Chatterton is indeed a miniature Biography , the best biography beyond all comparison we have had of the " marvellous boy that perished in his pride , " and only wanting a little expansion here and there , with more copious extracts froin the Letters , to become one of the best literary biographies in our language . Professor Masson paints the proud , unruly , wilful , boastful boy of genius , struggling with , many saddening obstacles both of position and disposition , strangely environed in that murky and prosaic Bristol , which the Biographer so graphically sets before us , still more strangely environed in the great world of London , where he was so insignificant a figure until a ghastly halo of interest surrounded his young

    corpse ; and in these pages for the first time , we read not only an intelligible story of the boy ' s life as that of a struggling boy of genius , but also an intelligible story of his relations to others . Every person in the narrative stands out with picturesque individuality ; every spot of ground becomes a picture . Profound sympathy with the boy ' s sorrows , gentlest pity for his errors , and that clear insight into his situation which biographers have hitherto failed to gain , make Professor Masson ' s story touching and instructive . Taking the recorded facts , he has clothed the skeleton with flesh and blood ; and even when indulging in pure imagination , he is guided by analogy as in the following passage : —

    Chatterton spends the morning in reading and writing , while Mrs . Walmsley , Mrs . Ballance , and the niece are slatterning about the house ; and generally , as the forenoon advances , he goes out for his walk towards the places of London resort . Along Norton Folgate , and Bishopsgate Street , passing crowds of people and hackney-coaches , and glancing , with the eye of an antiquarian and a connoisseur in old architecture , at such buildings of antique aspects as were and are conspicuous in that thoroughfarethe old church of St . Helen ' s , the old church of St . Ethelburga , and that much-admired remnant of the civic architecture of the fifteenth century , Crosby Hall , or Crosby Place , mentioned in Shakspeare ' s Richard III .: let the metropolitan reader distinctly figure this as the usual direction followed by Chatterton . in his walks from

    Mr . Walmsley ' s , in Shoreditch . Beyond that , his wanderings may be various ; frequently , of course , along the main line of Cornhill , past the Bank , as it then was , and the then new Mansion House , into Cheapside ; thence slowly along the purlieus of St . Paul ' s , with a peculiar lingering among the book-shops of Paternoster Row ; and further , down Ludgate Hill , and up Fleet Street , towards Temple Bar and the Strand . Visits of business were , we may bo sure , not neglected : and , in achieving his transits from one place to another , Chatterton , like the rest of us , may have been guilty of the egregious folly of attempting short cuts , and so may have bewildered himself among mazes of mean streets , proving their populousness by swarms of children , yet never to be seen by him , or by anybody else , more than once . literaradventurer t

    Oh ! the weariness of these aimless walks of a young y , withou a purse or a friend , in the streets of London ! The perpetual and anxious thought within , which scarcely any street-distraction can amuse ; the listlessness with which , on coming to the parting of two ways , one suffers the least accident to determine which way one will take , both being indifferent ; the vain castle-building in sanguine moments , when thousands of pounds seem possible and near ; tho utter prostration of spirit at other moments , when one inspects the shivering beggar that passes with new interest , as but another form of one ' s self , and when every glimpse of a damp , grassless churchyard through a railing acts as a horrible premonition of what may be tho end ; the curious and habitual examination of physiognomies met n 3 one goes along ; the occasional magic of a bright 03-0 , or a lovely form , shooting a pang through tho heart , and calling up , it may be , tho imago of a peerless one , distant , denied but unforgottcn , till tho soul melts in very tenderness , and all the past is around one again ; the sudden start from such a mood , tho Hush , the clenched hand , the set teeth , the

    resolve , the manly hope , the dream of a home quiet , and blest after all with one sweet presence ; and then , after that , the more composed gait , and the saunter towards tho spots one prefers , till the waning day , or the need to work and cat , brings one back fatigued to tho lonely room ! And so from day to day a repetition of tho same process . Ah , London , London ! thou perpetual home of a shifting multitude , how many a soul is there not within tlieo at this hour , who , listening to that peculiar roar of tiiine which shows the concourse of myriads in thec , all co-operating for their ends , and yet feeling excluded , like an unclaimed atom , from the midst of thy bustle , might cry aloud to thco , and say , " I , too , nui strong ; I am young ; I am willing ; I can dosomething ; leave mo not out ; attend to me ; make room for mo ; devise the means of absorbing me , and such as me , within thy just activity ; and defer not till I and they make thee hearken with our shrieks ! " But London rolls on ; and men , young and old , do demand impossible things ! If it defies us to make the medium without conform , Home nower , is at least left , to wlmpo and rule tho spirit within ! London with and resolute spirit

    Chatterton , wo believe , came to as practical a as any literary adventurer before or since . Ilia excitement with his change of position , his confidence in being able to make his way , ami his activity in availing liimsolf of overy means of doing so , seem to have been really prodigious . Hence , probably , his first walks in London were as little listless as was possible in tho circumstances . Instead of idle and aimless sauntoringn , such art -we have described , many of his London walks during the first week or two of his stay at Shoreditch must have been direct visits from snot to spot , and from person to person . JJy no means diflulent or bashful , and ho far an we can sen , perfectly heart-whole art regarded all tho Bristol beauties ho lmd loft he probably wasted lens timo than many others with less genius would lmyo wasted ' in uhoIcss regrets and pointless reveries . Compared with life position at Ilrwtol , " uh the miserable drudge of a lawyor ' a office , , hia present life , m a free literary rover in London , appeared to him , doubtless , all but paradisaic , lo work in tho inorniiiff in life lodging in Shoreditch , vith sometimes a aaucy word for his landlady ¦« niece though not so «« iucy by half ub the slut would have liked ; then to go out to

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    had al wine and biscuits the bench when the June 14 , 1856 . ] TEE LEADER , 569

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1856, page 569, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2145/page/17/