BAR ORATORY.

THE feeble growth or total absence of eloquence, before Lord Erskine, is a standing contumely against the English Bar. But however commonplace the reproach, there is something curiously anomalous in the fact. Civil liberty is not alone the noblest object, but the true source of legitimate eloquence. Yet France, with her absolute monarchy and corresponding institutions, produced respectable if not accomplished models of oratory in her courts, when England, with a free constitution and the most popular of tribunals, had not one advocate penetrated with the sacredness, or conscious of the dignity of his calling. This penury at the Bar contrasts still more curiously with the redundant eloquence of English poetry and prose. Hume has suggested as a cause, that the study of our law requires the drudgery of a whole life; that its genius is intolerant, if not incapable, of eloquence. But French jurisprudence, somewhat less technical, was quite as laborious. -embracing the learning of text-books and commentators, criminalists and civilians, to a vast extent. The example of France, therefore, refuted Hume's suggestion, even when he wrote. That of Lord Erskine, with some exceptions still nearer, deprives it of all colour at the present day. Successful practice at the Bar is compatible, perhaps even congenial, not with eloquence alone, but with liberal attainments and the highest range of knowledge, in public business, literature and science. This position, half a century ago, would scarce have been admitted to the dignity of paradox, or the honours of refutation. There is now no truth more conspicuously proved by living example.

But whence the singular phenomenon of a long and seemingly hopeless barrenness of oratory in our courts? Probably no single cause produced or can account for it. One seems to be that the sphere of oratory at the English Bar was greatly, and is still considerably, circumscribed. Up to the 7th William III. the law disallowed full defence by counsel, at least the judges did, in felony and treason; and it continues to be withheld in felonies even now. No such restriction ever existed in France. There the advocate escorted the accused through every stage and every step of the trial, upon the facts and circumstances as well as the law of the case. But the chief and blighting influence in England appears to have been the tyranny and insolence with which the judges and crown-lawyers abused justice and enslaved the Bar, on the one side-the corrupt and quailing spirit of the Bar itself, on the other.

The name of Lord Bacon is justly held the pride and glory of his country; but it were well for his country and his fame that he had never been chancellor, law-officer, or lawyer; this, without reference to the trite subject matter of his impeachment and disgrace. The sagacious spirit, rich imagination, and nervous style of Bacon, must be sought elsewhere than in his pleadings and judgments; or, if any traits be discerned, they are subordinate and rare. The disastrous servility and sordid ambition of this great man are truly mournful. He not only prostituted his conscience, but sacrificed his taste, in pure sycophancy to the pedant king. His reasoning power, in the philosopher supreme, degenerates with the lawyer to curious sophistry-his wit and learning to quaint pedantry and puerile allusion-his court panegyrics to flat

teries and conceits. Witness the arguments in support of imposts by prerogative, against the privileges of habeas corpus and bail; his speeches in the Star-chamber against law, liberty, and reason; and his various personal addresses and allusions to the sovereign. Presenting a petition of grievances, unwillingly, as organ of the House of Commons, to the Harlequin-Solomon on the throne, he says, "Only this, excellent sovereign, let not the sound of grievances, though it be sad, seem harsh to your princely ear. It is but gemitus columbœ—the mourning of a dove, &c." One of the pleadings least unworthy of him is his charge in the Star-chamber on the duelling case. But even here, though untrammelled by politics, he volunteers a servile homage to the insolence of aristocracy and power. The offenders, it should be observed, were not of the higher orders. "It is not," says he, "amiss sometimes in government, that the greater sort be admonished by an example made in the meaner, and that the dog be beaten before the lion." The sycophant lawyer, who thus violated British justice and vilified human nature, could never touch the eloquence of the Barwhich is essentially the eloquence of justice, humanity, and freedom. It would have even been a state-crime in the eyes of Lord Bacon. He denounced a barrister (Whitlocke) in the Star chamber, for the offence of presuming to give his opinion as counsel on a question of prerogative. But at last the most auspicious occurrence of his life-his disgrace, disenchanted and released him; and now, abandoning courts and kings and politics, for solitude, philosophy, and science, his genius assuming its proper stature and natural movements, produced those writings which have not merely immortalized his name, but redeemed or cast into shade the vices of his life and character.

Sir Edward Coke's is another name repeated by lawyers with something of idolatry. It is almost an impertinent truism to say, that he was profoundly learned in the law-that he even possessed stamina and acquirements which might have made an orator-a sagacity acute and clear, if slightly fantastical-valuable and varied reading-a minute acquaintance with the remains and models of antiquity. But these endowments were lost upon the groveling lawyer and servile politician. It is true, indeed, that as he had deeply imbibed, so he strenuously defended the principles of the ancient common law of tenures. But again, his conscience here was not tried very severely; and he seems governed not so much by a sense of regal right and enlightened justice, as by the crazy zeal of an antiquary for a favourite pursuit. In his capacity of a criminal and constitutional lawyer, he appears alike recreant to law and freedom. The Star-chamber jurisdiction was vindicated and praised by him. He justified the legality of benevolences, after having previously declared against them. He gave a shuffling approbation of imposts by the crown, and held that persons committed by warrant of the privy council, for secrets of state (arcana imperii) were not entitled to habeas corpus and bail. He read, it is true, a pitiable recantation of this last opinion in parliament, at a subsequent period, and in a succeeding reign, being now converted into a patriot by his disgrace at court! Defending himself with one of his habitual conceits, that "his decision was not yet twenty-one years old, but under age," and the still more revolting judicial reason, "that many traitors were confined per mandatum concilii at the time," he adds,

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with something between effrontery and naiveté, "I confess when I read Stamford and had it in my hands, I was of that opinion, at the council table; but when I perceived that some members of this house were taken away even in the face of this house, and sent to prison, and when I was not afar off from that place myself, I went back to my book, and would not quit till I had satisfied myself." No one at all versed in English history, is uninformed of his behaviour to Raleigh and Essex on their trials. After outraging the most accomplished scholar, the most gallant gentleman, and perhaps the truest patriot of his age with the rhetoric of such expressions, as "vile," execrable," ። odious," "viper," "traitor,”—and this, iniquitously breaking in upon the just defence of a man speaking for his life and honour; he says, "the king's safety and thy clearing cannot agree-go to, I will lay thee on thy back for the arrantest traitor," &c. At length one even of those unprincipled commissioners who condemned Raleigh, had the grace to blush at the scandalous ruffianism of the crown counsel. "Be not," said Lord Cecil, "so impatient, Mr. Attorney,-give him leave to speak."—" How!" exclaims Mr. Attorney, "if I be not patiently heard, you encourage traitors, and discourage us. I am the king's sworn servant, and must speak." The following note next follows in the report of the trial." Mr. Attorney now sat down in a chafe, and would not speak until the commissioners urged and entreated him. After much ado he went on and made a large repetition, &c. and at the repeating of some things, Sir Walter interrupted him, saying, 'he did him wrong! "Thou art," rejoins Mr. Attorney, "the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived."-" You speak," says Raleigh, "bar• barously, indiscreetly, and uncivilly." The demeanour of the illustrious prisoner throughout this singular contest presents a noble opposition of calm dignity, high breeding, and superior reason. The petulance of the court minion "sitting down in a chase" is a finishing trait of character. Eloquence, according to Longinus, is denied the political slave. The maxim applies equally to the political minion. He may be, like Sir Edward Coke, a pedant, a sophist,—at most, a rhetorician. It is denied him to be an orator. The foregoing are revolting proofs of his servility and insolence. The following still more curious morceau from his elaborate speech in the gunpowder treason case, may be taken as an example of his quaintnesses, conceits, and pedantries on the most solemn occasions-with the additional sin of buffoonery.

"S. P. Q. R. was sometimes taken for these words, Senatus Populusque Romanus; the 'senate and people of Rome:' but how they may truly be expressed thus,-Stultus populus quærit Romam-'a foolish people that runneth to Rome.' (Next comes the following apologue.) The cat having a long time preyed upon the mice, the poor creatures at last, for their safety, contained themselves within their holes; but the cat finding his prey to cease, as being known to the mice, that he was indeed their enemy and a cat, deviseth this course following, viz changeth his hue, getteth on a religious habit, shaveth his crown, walks gravely by their holes. And yet perceiving that the mice kept their holes, and locking out, suspected the worst, he formally, and father-like, said unto them, Quod fueram non sum, frater: caput aspice tonsum! Oh, brother, I am not as you take me for, no more a cat; see my habit and shaven crown!' Hereupon some of the more credulous and bold among them were again by this deceit snatched up: and, therefore, when afterwards he came as before to entice them forth, they would come out no more, VOL. X. No. 56.-1825.

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but answered Cor tibi restat idem, vix tibi præsto fidem. Talk what you can, we will never believe you; you have still a cat's heart within you. You do not watch and pray, but you watch to prey.' And so have the Jesuits, yea, and priests too, for they are all joined in the tails, like Sampson's foxes, Ephraim against Manasses, and Manasses against Ephraim, but both against Judah."

Much would be expected from the new impulses and improved English style which marked the reign of Charles I. But not a man appeared at the bar to burst its fetters or so much as clank its chains, even during those stirring moments when the vindication of principles and the shock of parties unmannacled the genius of the nation and of liberty. Lord Clarendon (then Mr. Hyde) has left a striking sketch of what the ministers of English law were at this period. "It is," he says, "no marvel that an irregular, extravagant, arbitrary power, like a torrent hath broke in upon us, when our banks and our bulwarks, the laws, are in the custody of persons who have rendered that study and profession, which in all ages had been of an honourable estimation, so contemptible and vile, that it would tempt men to that quarrel with the law itself, which Marcius had to the Greek tongue, who thought it a mockery to learn that language, the masters of which lived in bondage." The ship-money case, a spectacle of animating and sublime excitement, failed to exalt the counsel to the level of the subject. As dry technical law arguments, their speeches prove ability and research-no more. Mr. Halborne, one of the counsel for Hampden, after "hoping his Majesty will excuse them" for arguing the case at all, throws out a timid, tampering allusion to the bearings of the case as a matter of state and government. “If,” he says, "any matter or consideration of state come in my way, I will tread as lightly as I can. I shall be very wary and tender." But the Chief Justice (Finch) soon rebukes him by saying, "It belongs not to the Bar to talk of government." Even the ambitious daring spirit of St. John, also counsel against the crown, reposed in a disquisition purely technical and legal. This may be explained upon either of two suppositions-that the more active and independent of the Bar disdained it as a theatre for their ambition; or they despaired of a struggle on such unequal terms with profligate and all-powerful judges. The House of Commons was, in truth, the only arena, where that first and dearest liberty-the liberty of speech, wrestled for existence. It was there the champions of power and liberty, of monarchy and the people, the ambitious and the faithful, the patriot, the zealot, the courtier, the demagogue, respectively arrayed themselves. There was displayed the sage yet inspiring eloquence of Pym, who felt from his advanced years, only the precious advantage of grave authority and maturer counsel, together with that rare and still more precious disregard of death and danger-the essential spring of all great enterprise-which a spirit above the common order derives from the reflection, that he stakes but a few sad years of remaining infirmity and age, against his country's freedom and his own glory. There shone forth the noble ambition and gallant patriotism of Hampdenthe dark, ardent, subtle, daring and dangerous spirit of St. John— the generous faith and honest hatred of Holles-the artful, sagacious,

yet enthusiast genius of the younger Vane-and, it should not be omitted, the respectable virtue of Clarendon, and the classic patriotism of Falkland.

During the Commonwealth the Bar continued barren and degraded as before. The Judges, indeed, used their absolute authority with some appearance of decorum, and sometimes an eloquent appeal to the obvious sense of the laws-the rights of Englishmen—the sacredness of justice—the common feelings of humanity, rang in the courts, to the very hearts of the people. But it is the accused, not the counsel, who is inspired to a passing movement of eloquence. Colonel Lilburne, a remarkable person of that period, addresses the jury on his trial in the following bold, eloquent, and affecting strain :—

"And therefore, as a freeborn Englishman, and as a true Christian that now stands in the sight and presence of God, with an upright heart and conscience, and with a cheerful countenance, I cast my life, and the lives of all the honest freemen of England, into the hand of God, and his gracious protection, and into the care and conscience of my honest jury, who, I again declare, by the law of England, are the conservators and sole judges of my life, having inherent in them alone the judicial power of the law, as well as fact: you judges that sit there, being no more, if you please, but cyphers to pronounce the sentence, or their clerks to say amen to them; being at the best, in your original, but the Norman Conqueror's intruders. And therefore, you, gentlemen of the jury, are my sole judges, and keepers of my life, at whose hands the Lord will require my blood. Therefore I desire you to know your power, and consider your duty both to God, to me, to your own selves, and to your country. And the gracious assisting spirit and presence of the Lord God Omnipotent, the Governor of Heaven and Earth, and all things therein contained, go along with you, give counsel and direct you, to that which is just, and for his glory!"

The following note is subjoined to this passage in the record of the trial:

"The people with a loud voice now cried amen, amen, and gave an extraordinary great hum; which made the judges look something untowardly about them, and caused Major-general Skippon to send for three more fresh companies of foot-soldiers."

After the Restoration, too, when the Bar, more oppressed by the judges, became still more barren of virtue, eloquence, and reputation, the regicides, so called, and others upon whom the reaction fell, defended themselves in person, with an eloquence of peculiar and striking character-fervid, redundant, figurative, and sincere ; but so tinged with sectarian bigotry and fanatical inspiration-so over charged with huge metaphor and Scriptural allusion, as to be alike alien to the business of the world and the principles of taste. Vane defended himself with capacity as well as enthusiasm-vindicating triumphantly his innocence of the particular treasons, but glorying in a cause, the sanctity of which he was prepared to seal with his blood.* The trials of Russell and Sidney are memorable as atrocious mockeries of justice and the law. In a word, Jeffries was the judge. Lord Russell, according to

The verdict and the sentence against Vane were notoriously illegal; and Charles promised to interpose his prerogative of mercy. But, as if for the sake of sharing the infamy of the court and jury, he violated his royal word. There is another party, in retrospect, to this base transaction :—it is Hume, who has disingenuously slurred it over in his History.