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From the Edinburgh Review.

LIVES OF EMINENT LAWYERS.

1846.

and plate-glass, has not hitherto been excessive, they surely more than compensate for any comparative saving in these articles 1. The Lives of Eminent English Judges by advertisements; and no class of traders of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cen-speculate more rashly on a demand to be turies. By W. N. WELSBY, Esq., M.A., created, or rush into madder competition at Recorder of Chester. 8vo. London: the first glimpse of an opening or new field for capital. With them, it never rains but it pours; single misfortunes (meaning bad books) never come alone; and when we get a good thing, it speedily becomes so parodied and travestied by imitators, that we often end by wishing we never had it at all. For example, the historical novels of the last fifteen or twenty years are a heavy setoff against our debt of gratitude to the author of Waverley; and as to the fashionable novels, we are tempted to address the only surviving founder of any note in the words of Mrs. Cole :-'Oh, Lord N., Lord N. ! where do you expect to go when you die?"

2. The Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges of the Last and of the Present Century. By WILLIAM C. TOWNSHEND, Esq., M.A, Recorder of Macclesfield. Two volumes. Svo. London: 1846.

In an Essay on Gin-Shops, published in the first volume of Essays, by Boz,' will be found some curious remarks on the liability of certain trades to run mad in concert, or contract epidemic disorders of a very distressing and eccentric kind; the most remarkable symptoms being an enormous outlay in decorations and aunounce- At the same time, it must be admitted ments, or an unaccountable eagerness to that the prolonged duration as well as frecreate a demand for commodities by over- quent recurrence of the madness or disstocking the market with them. The writer ease, is in no small degree owing to the rementions gin-shops, shawl-shops, and drug-missness of the critical portion of the press; gists as familiar instances; but we should for it is obvious that a good slashing article be inclined to name booksellers as the sever- might operate as beneficially as shaving the est sufferers from such maladies; for though head and blistering; and a coxcombical their expenditure in plaster pillars, gilding writer held up to merited ridicule, would be VOL. IX. No. IV.

as incapable of communicating infection as a bale of goods rinsed in vinegar and fumigated, according to the approved laws of quarantine. To show what may be done in this line, we have only to refer to the sudden and beneficial check given to the multiplication of lady-travellers by our chief southern contemporary. Far be it from us to say that the highborn dames in question were superfluous on the field of literature, but their copyists would be; and even of fair originals, we had assuredly enough. Just so -to come to the class of productions whose threatened influx has frightened us into the foregoing train of reflection-far be it from us to say or insinuate that Mr. Welsby and Mr. Townshend are to be received as unbidden and unwelcome guests, or that there is no room for them at our table; but we honestly think we have now as much legal biography as we shall want till another generation of lawyers has died away; and we trust the trade' will take due notice of the fact. The works before us, with Mr. Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon and Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors (when completed), will make about twelve thick closely-printed octavos; which is as much as an enlightened public can masticate, and more than it can digest, of any given subject within two years.

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We have already borne willing testimony to the very high merits of Mr. Twiss's and Lord Campbell's works; and it is no slight praise to say, that Mr. Welsby's and Mr. Townshend's are in all respects worthy to be placed alongside of them. Here, however, we must distinguish.

Mr. Welsby's publication contains a great deal of valuable matter and agreeable writing; but seven out of the sixteen memoirs are not his own; and there is internal evidence that, as regards these at any rate, the volunteered duties of editor have been somewhat hastily performed. The notice of Hale is a mere reprint of a Magazine article on the face of it.

Mr. Townshend felt more respect for the public, or had not the same reasons for hurrying into the field. From a consideration of delicacy due to relatives, (so runs the Preface,) the biographer has, in every instance where there were immediate descendants surviving, requested and obtained permission to publish these memoirs. To the Earl of Eldon, to Lords Kenyon, Alvanley, Redesdale, and Tenterden, and to the Honorable Thomas Erskine, his acknowledgments are especially due for the courtesy

with which the permission was conceded. For the accuracy of the facts and justice of the comments he is alone responsible. A third of these volumes is new.' A statement of this kind adds incalculably to the value of such a work.

The lives included in Mr. Welsby's volume are those of Whitelock, Holt, Lord Cowper, Lord Harcourt, Lord Macclesfield, Lord King, Lord Talbot, Lord Bathurst, and Lord Camden, by Mr. Welsby himself: Hale, by Mr. H. Merivale; Blackstone, by a writer not named; Lords Nottingham, Hardwicke, Mansfield, Thurlow, and Ashburton, by the late Edmund Plunkett Burke ;—a man never mentioned without expressions of the warmest regard and highest admiration by his contemporaries. He accepted the appointment of Judge in the West Indies in 1832, and was killed in a hurricane in 1835. The Lives contributed by him are more than ordinarily attractive; independently of the variety of racy anecdotes scattered through them, they derive a peculiar charm from the genial humor of the writer.

Mr. Townshend's twelve forensic or judicial Cæsars are-Lords Loughborough, Kenyon, Ellenborough, Tenterden, Alvanley, Erskine, Redesdale, Stowell, and Eldon; Mr. Justice Buller, Sir William Grant, and Sir Vicary Gibbs. The general character and tendency of his volumes are stated in a striking passage of the preface:

'In the biography of these revered magistrates, whose contemporary course reflects light upon each other, and illustrates the legal annals of our times, there are comprehended records of eloquent debate, and able statesmanship, and useful legislation; many bright passages of national history; reports of those eventful trials which move the feelings, and stir the blood; the struggles and triumphs of advocacy; the narrative of early disappointments and severe privations; of persevering diligence, determined fortitude, and unwearied hope; of the lucky chance and crowning victory; the clouded opening of their fortunes and its serene close; the mode and manner, so well worth studying, in which these intellectual prize-men, bankrupt of health and prodigal of ease," achieved wealth, titles and fame. We trace the gradual ascent of the surgeon's boy, and the barber's son, up the rugged steep, and rejoice over the course of the brothers Scott, working their way from the coalfitter's yard at Newcastle, to the height of civil greatnessteaching the valuable lesson, fraught with neither lowliness of birth, nor absence of forcourage and constancy, to the profession, that tune, nor delay of opportunity, is sufficient to crush or subdue the progressive and expanding force of talent and industry.'

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