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incurring an expense ruinous to any man of moderate fortune, he is honor ably acquitted by the Jury, but he is dismissed from the commission of the peace, and certainly it would be difficult to say upon what grounds. It is true, Lord Plunket stated in the House of Lords that he exceeded the limits of his authority, and unquestionably the opinion of a great constitutional lawyer (one too, who had made so powerful a defence for the Manchester magistrates when they called out the yeomanry, and cut down the mob who, by the way, had proceeded no farther than words,) is entitled to great respect, but surely if there be a case when the principle of "inter arma leges silent," should be admitted, it is in such a case as has just been stated, one in which a moment's delay, for the purpose of solving a legal crux, might have led to the massacre of the whole party as upon other occasions. Besides, a man of plain, common sense might ask, What are the yeomanry for? Is it for ornament? The tattered jackets and rusty accou trements of the poor fellows refute such an hypothesis as this. It is to be presumed then, it is for some use. They were called out originally, and " did the state some service" in the hour of rebellion. Now, what is rebellion, if not an armed insurrection against lawful authority, and really it would be difficult to discover any case to which the term could be more fairly applied.

Let us in the last place examine whether the insults and violence offered to the highest judicial authorities in England at the period I have mentioned; admit of any parallel in the present time. An Act of Parliament (the Reform) is passed, and, I believe it is generally admitted, that notwithstanding all the advances we have lately made in English style: we should go back to the days of the Edwards and Henrys to find any one Act that has been so prolific of doubts and disputations. One of our judges, a man of the highest legal information, experience and integrity, delivers his opinion upon one of its clauses. What is the consequence? I pass over the polished invectives of the gentlemen of the press. An honorable member of the House, a gentleman, who though well informed as to details, yet when he attempts to reason upon a general principle, reminds one of Curran's hit

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upon a brother barrister, when engaged in a nice law argument, "that it put him in mind of a fellow attempting to open an oyster with a rolling-pin," This honorable member, I say, is not content with inflicting the "rigidi censura cachini," a huge Caledonian grin upon the Irish judge's mistake of the English language, but actually expresses loud astonishment that he was not impeached. But let us consider the case of Baron Smith. There certainly is no one instance that could be adduced which points out in stronger colours the character of the present outrages, and of the persons who commit and justify them. Perhaps it would be difficult to select, amidst the great mass and vari ety of talents and attainments which at present distinguish the Irish bench a more highly gifted individual. When in the discharge of his judicial duties, he sets himself to deliver any exposition of a great legal principle, to correct any unsound view which interested cunning may have advanced or brutal ignorance swallowed; we are presented with something, to which the lectures of a Blackstone or the judgments of a Scott may have produced an equal but certainly not a superior. We feel at once, that we are listening to the opini ons of a refined metaphysician, whose acuteness is however always under the controul of common sense; to a great constitutional lawyer, whose mind, though familiarized to an habitual respect for all the formal dicta which precedents have established, is yet capable of ascending to what Bacon so justly calls the "leges legum," the great, transcendental and eternal principles of natural equity; the indications that our Creator has given to us," that we are a law in ourselves," the xava which seem innate in every wise and virtuous and religious mind; the great moral axioms from which no interpretation of mere human enactments should ever dissent; particularly when such interpretation carries along with it as its running commentary, outrage and robbery and murder. In fact if there be a man on the bench capable of discovering and explaining what may be called the physiology of the whole system of law; the working and uses of that apparently complex and cumbersome structure, of shewing that however there may appear to be occasional contradictions between what "time honoured" wis

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dom has bequeathed, and modern science has added; yet is there one uniform pervading spirit, a spirit transmitted from age to age, whose continuous identity from the days of our Alfreds and Edwards down to the present, can be traced by every honest and reflect ing mind, a spirit too, of which (to use his own admirable expression) "the letter is but the trustee, and too often the dishonest one." If, I say, there be such a man, that man is Baron Smith.

But besides the claims to public res pect which such high powers constitute there other points in his character sufficient (one would have thought) to screen him from mob violence. The first is, that in his political sentiments he has been always a decided liberal; a warm advocate of what will go down to posterity as the most felicitous instance of Hibernian catachresis, viz. the HEALING measure. The next is, that if there be a defect in his judicial character, it is what some consider a reprehensible lenity in criminal cases. And indeed I believe it must be admitted that there is some truth in the charge, that perhaps the "quality of mercy" has been sometimes "strained" in his character, and that (to borrow the rhetorical and classical allusion of Parr) if a Baos Exsou stood in the vestibule of the Judgment Hall as in that of the Areopagus; he certainly need not wince as he approached the hallowed spot. Now, one would have thought that amongst the members of a church which draws so wide a distinction between mortal and venial sins, and which also allows of such a comfortable set-off of merits against offences, that the Baron's previous political sentiments and lenity of character might have pleaded in extenuation of any little slip by which he had offended the majesty of the Brehon law, and roused the anger of its Druidical dispensers, Again, it might have been supposed that amongst " a nation of people, than whom under the sun there is none that doth love equal and indifferent justice

better," such a man as I have described might have been allowed to deliver his opinion upon the correctness of a practical principle which had been boldly put forward as the law of the land, and as boldly acted on. This principle was the far-famed one of

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passive resistance," one which (tho' announced with all the pomp of an original discovery) appeared to vulgar eyes to be nothing more nor less than a revival in a compendious form of the moral maxim set forth in Rob Roy's song "Those may take that have the power, and those may keep who can." The great propounder of this principle however, had in his evidence before parliament, stated it as a just and logi cal deduction from admitted premises. He certainly admitted that it required some metaphysical aid to appre hend its full force, but that its truth was as undoubted as any proposition ever put forward by "the irrefragable Doctor," or "the Master of Sentences." Now this was a subject exactly for Baron Smith. The happy antithetical condensation of the expression seemed to strike his fancy. It was probably (if not a version) a brilliant flash suggested to some Maynooth Classic by Horace's "strenua inertia." The Baron however could not fail to discover, that in all such figures of speech (which are I believe, called by rhetoricians, ozymorons,) there is generally some equili brium observed between the two parts which make up the compound and upon the nice counterpoise of which the beauty and felicity of the expression depend. But he saw that in the present instance the resistance part quite ran away with the passive; and that whilst every person concerned in enforcing the law was robbed or murdered, all those who were concerned in the pas sive part actually suffered nothing. He accordingly took the first opportunity when he went on circuit, of exposing the wickedness and absurdity of this principle; and if there was a feeling excited in court by his masterly expo

Metaphysical aid. "The expression is a remarkable one. If I mistake not, it is used by the wife of the Scottish Thane, when stimulating him on to the "golden round" of his ambition. But (as well as I recollect) she did not rely upon this merely, but called in murder to her assistance, Probably the " boys" finding the Doctor's metaphysics a little too crabbed, and determined to take as short a cut as they could, borrowed the hint from her ladyship.

sure, except that of mingled abhorrence and contempt for its author, it was a regret that such a man should be called from the higher duties of his solemn office, to brand such insolent and elaborate dishonesty; that he whose opening charge was generally the finest Lay Sermon," that he who should have been employed in instructing all descriptions of persons, from the Grand Juror down to the humblest peasant in their respective duties; in setting before them the wholesome provisions of our admirable laws for the suppression of crime-in showing them (in the words of old Hooker) that of law it must be acknowledged that her seat is Si the bosom of God; and her voice the harmony of the world;" that he, I say, should be employed in removing such rabbish from the avenues of justice, or in exposing certain moral positions, which, though they might have done very well in a dialogue between such $ pleasant fellows as Mat o' the Mint and Bob Booty, never could have been seriously entertained for one moment by any person of common honesty or Christian principle.

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A rejoinder of course appeared from the same grave and learned authority by whom the principle had been first advanced; and what was the consequence?-we will not say effect; as philosophers are yet undecided as to the true nature of the connexion between cause and effect. It may be worth attending to, particularly by some of our neighbours at the other side of the channel, who shudder at the intro duction of any measures into Ireland, inconsistent with the free spirit of the British constitution. It may be worth the attention also of the Right Reverend Divine himself, by whom this discovery in Ethics was made. It may prove to him the truth of a position which indeed, I wonder how any luminary of the Romish Church (as he undoubtedly is) can be ignorant of, viz., that too much knowledge is not always to be imparted to the laity; that though a principle may be true and even useful in the schools where there are none but the educated and the "metaphysical" to receive it, yet, as the meteoric iron is not found to answer in the smith's forge, so that same principle may be totally useless, if not dangerous in the hands of the vulgar. It was a maxim of Fontenelle's "that a wise

man, even when his hand was full of truths, would often content himself with opening his little finger," and after what we have seen, we most humbly implore his Right Reverence, if he has many such truths in his possession, to keep his fist as tightly closed as possible. But to return to the " passive resistance" lads-they were all indignation upon hearing of this controversy between the judge and the bishop

that the favourite article of their creed should be so attacked-that any man (be his rank or station what it might) should be indifferent to the force and the beauty of the prayer so fervently breathed over them; viz., “that their hatred of paying their just debts might be as lasting as their love of justice" appeared to them to be an offence that blood alone could expiate. Accordingly, in the midst of a county boasting, in proportion to its extent, of as large a portion of resident gentry as any in Ireland; an armed band of ruffians, without any disguise upon them (except what whiskey might have produced) breaks into the judge's demesne. Fortunately he was not at home; as," though a man of high spirit, his frame was not exactly of that gigantic mould that could outlive the rude concussion of a Whiteboy. They tear up his plantations, assail his house,-smash doors, windows, &c., and commit every species of atrocious outrage, and finish by giving him regular notice to quit. That interesting personage whose merits and sufferings have been held up to such sympathy and admiration by a popular poet, leaves word for him, "that they had no business with him and his law," and that he and his friends were determined to revive the proud boast of their ancestors, viz., "that law never came to the west of the Barrow"

Through Ulster, Leinster, and through
Munster
Rock's the boy to make the fun stir

Such is, I believe it will be admitted, a very obvious parallel, between the state of England in 1819, and that of Ireland at present. I trust we may be able before long to carry it further, and to add, that the same wisdom and energy which were exerted, and successfully exerted, to save the former country in her hour of need," have been as effectively used in behalf of

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ON GERMAN SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. *
BY HERR ZANDER, PROFessor of GERMAN LITERATURE.

Of all modern countries there is perhaps, none, that with regard to either classical literature and science, or to general diffusion of knowledge, is more entitled to universal attention than Germany.-Without wishing to detract anything from the merits of the eminent scholars of Great Britain and Ireland, it must be admitted, that they cannot sustain a comparison with the Germans, neither with regard to number, nor with respect to the collective mass of solid and valuable productions. The different Latin and Greek Grammars, translated from the German, and the numerous German editions of Roman and Greek Classics, daily used in these countries, would, even without any reference to scientific works, furnish ample proofs for our assertion. The reason of this literary activity may be found not only in the great assiduity and perseverance which form part of the German character, but more particularly in the great number of learned institutions which that country pos

sesses.

In the year 1348, the Emperor Charles IV. founded at Prague, the first German University, after the model of that of Paris. This example was soon imitated by different German Princes, and even before the end of the fourteenth century, similar establishments arose at Vienna, (1361), Heidelberg, (1386), Cologne, (1886); and Erfurt, (1392); and shortly after also at Würzburg, Leipzig, Ingolstadt and Rostock. The division into many small states had always been injurious to the political strength of Germany, but with regard to science,

the case is different. This was a field where the pettiest prince could successfully enter the lists even with the mightiest, and such an honourable emulation, could not but produce the most favourable results. Thus we see at present no less than twenty-two rival Universities in the different kingdoms and principalities of that country, and Prussia alone can boast of sir. The plan upon which those establishments are founded, differs entirely from that usually pursued in Great Britain and Ireland. Classics and Science are completely separated in Germany; the former are studied in Schools or Colleges, the latter form the exclusive province of the Universities into which no student is admitted, unless he have previously completed his education in the "humaniora," as they are termed. The comparatively few classical Lectures at the Universities are intended merely for the more profound critics, and frequented only by those students who wish to devote themselves more especially to philology, in order to obtain afterwards a professorship in some College, or a chair in one of the Universities.

To enable our readers the better to form a correct view of the merits or demerits of all the different establishments, we shall begin with the Schools.

These may, according to their functions, be divided into two classes, Elementary or Grammar Schools, and Latin Schools, † as they are termed. The former, usually finish the education of boys intended for business, and at the same time serve as preparatory estab

Some accounts of German Schools and Universities have lately appeared in the Journal of Education, published by the Society for the diffusion of Useful Knowledge, but they contain so many partial and erroneous statements, that we strongly suspect these Publishers of useful Knowledge are less wanting in presumption than in information.

They are called Gymnasia, Lycea, Athenaea, Princes' schools, Pædagogia, &c. but for convenience sake we shall always style them Latin Schools, which is the old and more general term.

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