Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 68, No 422, December 1850

1

By the pounds Milanese, Giacomo means the Milanese lira.

2

Jeremy Taylor —Of Christian Prudence. Part II.

3

Ib.

4

This was well known in ancient times. "Corruptas," says Quintilian, "aliquando et vitiosas orationes, quas tamen plerique judiciorum pravitate mirantur, quam multa impropria, obscura, tumida, humilia, sordida, lasciva, effeminata sunt; quæ non laudantur modo a plerisque, sed quod pejus est, propter hoc ipsum, quod sunt prava laudantur." – Inst. Orat. ii. 5.

5

Cinna, Act ii. s. 1.

"Quelle prodigieuse supériorité," says Voltaire in his Commentaries on this passage, "de la belle Poésie sur la prose! Tous les écrivains politiques ont délayé ces pensées, aucun n'a approché de la force, de la profondeur, de la netteté, de la précision de ce discours de Cinna. Tous les corps d'état auraient du assister a cette pièce, pour apprendre à penser et à parler." – Voltaire, Commentaires sur Corneille, iii. 308.

6

Corneille, Attila, Act ii. s. 5.

7

Julius Cæsar, Act iii. s. 2.

8

Virginia, Act i. s. 3.

9

Agricola, c. 31, 32.

10

Sallust, Bell. Cat.

11

Sallust, Bell. Cat.

12

Quintilian, lib. iv. 2.

13

De Coronâ, Orat. Græc. i. 315, 325.

14

Thucydides, ii. § 32, 33.

15

Paradise Regained, iv. 268.

16

Burke's Works, vol. xvi. pages 415, 416, 417, 418, 420.

17

Brougham's Speeches, i. 227, 228.

18

Erskine's Speeches, ii. 263.

19

Grattan's Speeches, i. 52, 53.

20

Bossuet, Oraisons Funèbres.

21

Hist. Parl., xxxiii. 406.

22

Lord Brougham on the Eloquence of the Ancients. Speeches, iv. 379, 445, 446.

23

"Quis enim nescit, maximam vim existere oratoris in hominum mentibus vel ad iram aut ad odium aut dolorem meitandis, vel, ab bisce usdem permotionibus, ad lemtatem misericordiamque revocandis quare, nisi qui naturas hominum, vimque omnem humanitatis, causasque eas quibus mentes aut incitantur aut reflectuntur, penitus perspexerit, dicendo, quod volet, perficere non poterit. Quam ob rem, si quis universam et propriam oratoris vim definire complectique vult, is orator erit, meà sententri, hoc tam gravi dignus nomine, qui, quæcumque res inciderit, quæ sit dictione, explicanda, prudenter, et composite, et ornate, et memoriter dicat, cum quàdam etiam actionis dignitate. Est enim finitimus oratori poeta, numeris adstrictior paulo, verborum antem heentia liberior, multis vero ornandi generibus socius, ac pæne par." —De Oratore, hb 1 cap. 17.

24

"Postea mihi placuit, eoque sum usus adolescens, ut summorum oratorum Græcas orationes explicarem; quibus lectis, hoc assequebar, ut, cum ea, quæ legerem Græce, Latine redderem, non solum optimis verbis uterer, et tamen usitatis, sed etiam exprimerem quædam verba imitando, quæ nova nostris essent, dummodo essent idonea." —De Oratore, 1. i. 34. "All Mr Pitt's leisure hours at college were devoted to translating the finest passages in the classical authors, especially Thucydides, into English, which he did freely, to the no small annoyance of his tutors." – Tomline's Life of Pitt, i. 23.

25

"For the exercise of the student's writing, let him sometimes translate Latin into English. But by all means obtain, if you can, that he be not employed in making Latin themes and declamations, and, least of all, verses of any kind. Latin is a language foreign in this country, and long since dead everywhere – a language in which your son, it is a thousand to one, shall never have occasion once to make a speech as long as he lives, after he comes to be a man; and a language in which the manner of expressing one's-self is so far different from ours, that, to be perfect in that, would very little improve the purity and facility of his English style. I can see no pretence for this sort of exercise in our schools, unless it can be supposed that the making of set Latin speeches should be the way to teach men to speak well in English extempore. Still more is to be said against young men making Latin verses. If any one thinks poetry a desirable quality in his son, and that the study of it would raise his fancy and parts, he must needs yet confess that, to that end, reading the excellent Greek and Roman poets is of more use than making bad verses of his own in a language that is not his own. And he whose design it is to read in English poetry would not, I guess, think the way to it was to make his first essays in Latin verses." – Locke on Education, § 169, 174.

26

Spectator, No. 407; Addison's Works, iv. 327.

27

Observations, p. 158.

28

See Blackwood's Magazine, vol. lvii. p. 529.

29

Observations, p. 24.

30

The paternal care which our Government takes of agriculture leaves us to grope our way by mere guess-work in all statistical questions affecting it. For want of a better guide, we may refer to Mr M'Culloch's often-quoted estimates, according to which, it would appear, that there is one labourer to each 13½ acres of arable land in England, one to each 19 5⁄7 acres in Scotland – almost exactly the proportion assumed by Mr Laing.

31

Observations, p. 39.

32

Previous to Hardenberg's administration, the peasants enjoyed the dominium utile of their lands, (bauern hofe, as they were called,) but subject to the payment of a certain quit-rent or feu-duty to the superior lord; and the scope of the change was to make these quit-rents redeemable, by the cession of a certain fixed proportion of the land and to vest the absolute property of the remainder in the vassal. It is obvious, therefore, that there is not the slightest analogy between the case of the Prussian feuar (as we should call him in Scotland) and that of an ordinary tenant-at-will or lessee of land, and that the commutation we have described has no similarity whatever to the schemes of "tenant-right," of which we now hear so much.

33

We are glad to observe, in the recently published Report of the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Langdale, some indication of progress towards supplying the want of a system of Registry in England, – a want which, as the Commissioners truly affirm, operates as a heavy burden on land property, and a material diminution of its value.

34

Evidence of Lords' Committee on the Burdens affecting Land, p. 423.

35

Observations, p. 154.

36

Notes, p. 287.

37

Observations, p. 153.

38

Modern State Trials: Revised and Illustrated, with Essays and Notes. By William C. Townsend, Esq., M.A., Q.C., Recorder of Macclesfield. In 2 vols. 8vo. Longman & Co. 1850.

39

In one of Dr Johnson's various conversations with Boswell and others, on the subject of duelling, he said, "A man is sufficiently punished [for an injury] by being called out, and subjected to the risk that is in a duel. But," continues Boswell, "on my suggesting that the injured person is equally subjected to risk, he fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling." It will be remembered that, in previous conversations, the Doctor had endeavoured to do so, by various unsatisfactory and sophistical reasons; and one of his arguments, recorded by Boswell, was quoted by the counsel of Mr Stuart, when tried for having shot in a duel Sir Alexander Boswell, the eldest son of Boswell!

40

Townsend, vol. i. p. 170-171.

41

Ibid., p. 154-5.

42

Townsend, vol. i. p. 152.

43

Ibid., p. 162.

44

Ibid., p. 163.

45

Regina v. Young. 8 Carr and Payne, 644.

46

In opening the case against Lord Cardigan, at the bar of the House of Lords, the Attorney-General, (now Lord Campbell,) of course speaking from erroneous instructions, imputed to Lord Cardigan the utterance of a most unbecoming and offensive expression, – "Do you think I would condescend to fight with one of my own officers?" We are satisfied that no such language could have fallen from a British officer; and the evidence shows that it did not in point of fact.

47

Vol. i. p. 210.

48

It was called "the Waltham Black Act," as occasioned by the devastations committed near Waltham, in Hampshire, by persons disguised, and with blackened faces – "who seem" says Blackstone, "to have resembled the followers of Robert Hood, who in the reign of Richard I. committed such great outrages on the borders of England and Scotland." – 4 Black. Com. 245.

49

Mr Chitty. Townsend, i. p. 209.

50

4 Black. Com. p. 199.

51

1 Townsend, p. 215, 216.

52

Ibid. p. 210.

53

For misdemeanour, a peer has no such privilege, but must be tried by a jury.

54

20th February 1841.

55

The mode of appointing this high officer, and of constituting the court, will be found explained at length in Blackstone's Commentaries. – Vol. iv. p. 259, et seq.

56

The meaning of this observation is, that the privilege of not answering questions tending to criminate the witness belongs to the witness, and not to the parties wherefore the objection to such questions ought to come from the witness, and not from the counsel for either of the parties.

57

Townsend, vol. i. p. 229.

58

Townsend, p. 239, 240, 241.

59

Ibid., p. 238.

60

We are by no means sure, however, that he could have been compelled to answer the question, if he had stated that he believed his answer might tend to criminate himself.

61

1 Townsend, p. 211. Lord Campbell has included his opening address in Lord Cardigan's case among his published speeches, and thus deprecates the censures which had been passed upon him: "I was much hurt by an accusation that my address contained a defence of duelling, and had a tendency to encourage that practice. Nothing could be further from my intention… I continue to think that to engage in a duel, which cannot be declined without infamy, and which is not occasioned by any offence given by the party whose conduct is under discussion, whether he accepted or sent the challenge, though contrary to the law of the land, is an act free from moral turpitude… I consider that to fight a duel must always be a great calamity, but it is not always, necessarily, a great crime." Fully acknowledging the difficulties of the subject, we publicly and solemnly disclaim participation in these opinions, for reasons already laid before our readers. We give Lord Campbell full credit for the purity of his motives, and the sincerity of his convictions; but we must withhold our concurrence from opinions which ignore moral turpitude in a breach of the law of God!

62

Articles of War. Art 17.

63

The Defenceless State of Great Britain. By Sir F. B. Head, Bart. London. Murray: 1850.

64

The following is an extract from Cobden's speech at Wrexham, on 12th November last, as reported in the Times of 14th November: "He had no doubt that, in the volume written by Sir F. Head, (which had been referred to,) the author of Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau– and he dared say those bubbles were just as substantial as the facts in that volume, (cheers and laughter,) – but there was something in the antecedents of Sir F. Head, and his conduct in Canada, which did not recommend him to him (Mr Cobden) as a good authority in this affair of our finances. (Hear, hear.) But, no doubt, he should be told that we were in great danger from other countries keeping up large military establishments, and coming to attack us. Now, the answer he gave to that was, that he would rather run the risk of France coming to attack us, than keep up the present establishments in this country. He had done with reasoning on the subject. He would rather cut down the expenditure for military establishments to L.10,000,000, and run every danger from France, or any other quarter, than risk the danger of attempting to keep up the present standard of taxation and expenditure. (Cheers.) He called those men cowards who wrote in this way. He was not accustomed to pay fulsome compliments to the English, by telling them that they were superior to all the world; but this he could say, that they did not deserve the name of cowards. (Hear, hear.) The men who wrote these books must be cowards, and he knew nothing so preposterous as talking of a number of Frenchmen coming and taking possession of London."