nessed; the bench applied to him for information (for it is not to be expected that even the judges, with the general legal learning required of them, should be masters of such a subject); his elucidations were singularly erudite; and, when he finished, a murmur of approbation circulated throughout the court; and Lord Ellenborough deviated so far from ordinary observances, as to pronounce an eulogium as elegant and honourable, as merited. From that hour, Gifford's fortune and fame were assured.

Did Preston say nothing?

He begged for time, and it was granted. A week was given; and at the expiration of it he prefaced his observations by saying, "My Lords, for three days and three nights I have not closed my eyes;" and no one could refuse him belief; he was careworn and humbled; and peccavi was written in forcible characters on his countenance. stead of a tyro he had found a master.

I never heard the anecdote before.

In

Sir, the case was entitled "Mogg and Mogg," a vulgar amputated name for so great a concern. From that moment, as I said, his reputation was confirmed, and he rose rapidly. In less than seven years afterwards, he was the presiding judge of the highest tribunal of the realm; a peer of England; and showed himself there as well acquainted with the law of Scotland as with that of his own country.

I do not think he cut any great figure in the Queen's business. No, it was not suited to him; its details were foreign to his habits. As for Copley, his colleague, never was a man less adapted for such a disgusting process. A perfect gentleman in mind and manners, he entered upon the performance of his duty, with zeal no doubt; but his taste and principles must have revolted at the odiousness of its nature. It was making a hangman of a high sheriff. Brougham made a better thing of it. As for the Common Serjeant, it was to him merely an affair a few degrees more dirty than the dirtiest concern of the Old Bailey.

Was not Lord Gifford destined for the seals?
It has been always supposed so.

He would have made an excellent judge; perhaps he would not have troubled the cabinet much, or meddled greatly with politics; no great harm either perhaps; for he knew his forte lay not that way.

They did not like him in the Common Pleas, as I have heard.

66

Perhaps not; the serjeants had got the upper hand there; but he brought them to their level. "Such is not the practice in this court, my Lord," pertly observed Brother Lawes, Really!" was the sarcastic reply. "It has never been so, I assure your Lordship," repeated the Serjeant more warmly. "Then it shall be," coolly answered Lord Gifford; and the affair was settled, at once, as quietly as by the "Hold your tongue, Sir; or I shall commit you," of Lord Ellenborough, when a gallant and renowned admiral, Sir Sidney, after giving evidence, interrupted the court in wishing to indulge in a little quarter-deck logic. It was the only broadside that ever silenced him. A growl of the Emperor Paul himself could not have had a more instantaneous effect.

The Emperor Paul?

Yes, Stratford the master; I thought every one knew him by his title.

Old Lord Thurlow, in one of his fits of hatred against all mankind, inflicted him upon the profession; for no other reason, that I could ever find out, except that, next to his lordship, he was the very worsttempered man in it; yet the Chancellor made it up afterwards in some degree by appointing as a master the late Mr. Stanley, who was in all respects the reverse of his arbitrary colleague. On the death of the former, some poor devil of a clerk, who had suffered by the latter,

wrote

« Oh dear! Mr. Death, it was very unmanly

To leave Emperor Paul and take poor Master Stanley”—

a sentiment, which, I doubt not, was entertained by all who were acquainted with the two.

I suppose the Vice-Chancellor will succeed poor Lord Gifford at the

Rolls?

Just as much chance of it as Brougham of a silk-gown. Why, Sir, he is in more "mauvaise odeur" than ever Dick Plowden himself was. No! he may take his fill at Naples; for I see, by the papers, he is on a visit to the Lazzaroni: figuring at San Carlos, or sauntering along the Chiaja. What a treat to see him eating his raviola under the gallery of the Città di Parigi; contemplating at the same time the fiery head of Vesuvius, some degrees less crimson than his own; or eating shell-fish with the Signorine of Santa Lucia! He is a perfect rake. The very wards of his court are not safe with such an irreclaimable fellow. There is as little hope of reform in him as there is of a dinnerparty at Eldon's; of old the cursitor's paying his creditors;

of an oath from the Lord Chief Justice, or the want of one from B- ; the resignation of the bench by Baron Graham, or a grand jury charge to the purpose from Lord Norbury. The Chancellor must absolutely take him in hand.

Talking of the Barons of the Exchequer, what was that Jekyll said of them?

That was in the time of the late Lord Chief Baron Richards, whom he characterized both as "a lawyer and a gentleman;" Baron Graham, as "a gentleman but no lawyer:" Wood, as "a lawyer and no gentleman;" and Garrow, as "neither gentleman nor lawyer." Indeed Jekyll had a peculiar taste for making that lazy court his butt; for when old Hotham retired, he used to call Sir Archibald Macdonald (whose taste for rappee you know) "snuff-box;" Baron Thomson, "band-box," for he was as neat as a Sunday-milliner; and Graham, "chatter-box." They were all three, however, excellent men; and it was perfectly a pattern-court for courtesy from the bench.

I should have rather chosen the Irish Chancery, for they have Manners there.

Or, what do you think of their Common Pleas Court, where they have More?

Was not the late Lord Ellenborough imperative in his tribunal? No; I think not. It is true that a high personage declared that "he should be sorry to be tried by him;" but that had reference to his parliamentary conduct. You remember his "false as Hell;" but he was more polite on another occasion, when, apologizing for his warmth in addressing the House, he expressed the hope that he

might be pardoned, as he was led away on that occasion by the idea he was still in the exercise of those duties he had so frequently to perform, of condemning criminals in another place." He was, however, a great lawyer; but with the decline of life his irritability increased. It was more constitutional than otherwise. It is said that during his last illness he presented an affecting picture to his friends; for, at times, his powerful and comprehensive mind was wholly unstrung, and childishness came upon him; but at intervals it would revive in all its former vigour, and thus his faculties had their ebb and flow until he died. Some assert that he never recovered Hone's trial.

Was he not an admirable orator?

It is said he was so at the bar, and that the tones of his voice were as melodious as distinct; but after he ascended the bench his speech became thick; although his manner was eminently suited to his station.

God bless me! how time has slipped away, Ashley. forget our engagement for a sail on the Lake with past the hour.

We must not
It is already

I am at your service. We must contrive to get him to dine with us to-morrow, Morris; and see what he can furnish in the way of conversation. Come, I am ready.

TO DECEMBER.

The passing year, all grey with hours,
Ends, dull month, with thee;
Chilled his summer, dead his flowers,
Soon will his funeral be;

Frost shall drink up his latest breath,

And tempests rock him into death.

How he shivers! from his age
All his leaves have faded,

And his weary pilgrimage

Ends at last unaided

By his own sun that dims its ray,

To leave him dark in his decay.

Hark! through the air the wild storm bears

In hollow sounds his doom,

While scarce a star its pale course steers
Athwart the sullen gloom,

And Nature leaves him to his fate,
To his grey hairs a cold ingrate.

She goes to hail the coming year,

Whose spring-flowers soon shall rise

Fool thus to shun an old friend's bier,
Nor wisely moralize

On her own brow, where age is stealing,
Many a scar of time revealing :-

:

Quench'd volcanoes, rifted mountains,
Oceans driven from land,

Isles submerged, and dried up fountains,
Empires whelmed in sand,

What though her doom be yet untold,-
Nature like time is waxing old!

SKETCHES OF PARISIAN SOCIETY, POLITICS, LITERATURE. Paris, November 18, 1826.

In the first place, it is impossible not to be astonished at finding Bossuet rushing at once into the highest regions of mysticism. The prelate, who thundered against Fenelon, in writing to Madame Cornuau borrows the tone of tenderness and deep but restrained love with which the Archbishop of Cambray addressed Madame Guyon. Bossuet thus wrote to the lady:

"My daughter, if you retain any sensitive tastes, do not check, do not repress them; yield gently to their influence; let them take their course, as you take yours towards God from the bottom of your heart and soul:—that is every thing."

Much as curiosity is roused on opening this little volume, its excitement is kept up in the perusal. We are inade acquainted with the pretty toys with gold and silver ornaments, which young female penitents of quality used to present to their spiritual guides at three periods of the year; that is to say, on the reverend gentleman's birth-day, his saint's day, and the anniversary of his ordination. Bossuet at first refused these presents, or immediately returned them; but at last he accepted them, in remembrance of the delicate hands which had prepared them, and a suffering soul which he was labouring to save. We here meet with a circumstance which is very singular, and altogether inconsistent with the ideas which are entertained of auricular confession and the sacrament of penitence in Catholic countries. Bossuet, as bishop and spiritual director, takes upon himself the responsibility of certain faults of his penitent, and orders her not to speak of them to her ordinary confessor. Bossuet, in his letter, No. 32, goes the length of saying

"My daughter, let not your heart be troubled with anxieties. Live in the holy liberty of a spouse whom love emboldens, and who reposes, like St. John, on the bosom of God. Surrender yourself blindly to the operations of the Word, who permits his virtue to flow upon you."

I should occupy too much space were I to extract all the passages of this kind, or to transcribe Letter 124, which treats of the "Feu de l'Epouse: comme il embrasse l'Epouse," &c. We here find the sublime and severe author of the "Oraisons Funèbres," and the "Histoire Universelle," indulging without restraint in that mystical application of amorous phrases, for which he so bitterly reproached the mild and elegant Fenelon! Bossuet was at this time a man of ripe age, and obliged by his situation to observe the strictest prudence; but, when he ventured to write in this style, what may he not have said in private conversation? In fine, how is the folly of the Abbé Bossuet in printing such epistles to be accounted for? Do not fail to read these Letters; you never met with any thing so amusing.

I must now say a word on a Neapolitan publication, which has greatly interested such of the resident Diplomatists at Paris, as are of the retrograde party. It is entitled "Della influenza della Religione Catolica." The author is the Prince of Canossa, a man of wit, very eccentric, and aged about 60. This pamphlet, which is printed at Naples, advises his Neapolitan Majesty, Francesco, to exile, and, if necessary, to exterminate all Neapolitans who have not been constantly and blindly devoted to the House of Bourbon. Now it is well known that there have been, since 1799, no less than three Anti-Bourbon Revolutions, namely, the Republic in 1799, the establishment of Joseph Bonaparte as King in 1806, and lastly, the Liberal Revolution in imitation of that of Spain. This Prince of Canossa, therefore, wishes King Francesco to exile nine-tenths of the men of property who inhabit his dominious. But this is not all. One of the things of which the Neapolitans are most proud is, that, even under the Spanish domination, the Inquisition never was introduced amongst them. The Prince of Canossa, however, urges the King to establish the Inquisition, as the only means of putting a stop to the progress of constitutional principles. In this opinion I suspect the Prince is not far wrong!

What I have already told you is not, however, the best part of the story which is now related in diplomatic circles. The Prince of Canossa employed a friend to submit his manuscript anonymously to the Censor. The Censor indorsed the manuscript thus:-"A work of the most dangerous tendency, calculated to provoke civil war, and the printing of which ought to be severely prohibited." Nevertheless the Prince procured a printer; but the police, being informed of what was going on, arrested the printer, and conveyed him to prison. The printer, who was well paid, laughed in his sleeve, and told the police that he should soon be released. In the mean time the Minister Medici hastened to the King, and addressed him, it is said, in nearly these terms: The whole of your Majesty's financial resources rest on the maintenance of public credit. Any credit which we possess in Europe is entirely owing to the belief that the country is tranquil; and yet, notwithstanding the strict prohibition of the police, a pamphlet which tends to revive our civil troubles has just been published. I propose to your Majesty that the printer, who is now in prison, shall be severely punished." I leave you to judge what must have been the minister's astonishment, when he heard the King say "Set the printer at liberty immediately-that is all.”

Next day Signor Medici, who had hitherto always been opposed to the absurd measures which were agitated, changed his party to preserve his place, and put himself at the head of the retrograders. In the diplomatic circles it is generally believed, that the value of the Neapolitan funds on the Exchanges of London and Paris depends upon the life of Signor Medici. Were he to die or to be dismissed, the Neapolitan paper would fall rapidly.—I have just read a manuscript copy of Canossa's pamphlet. I think it very cleverly drawn up. The original is extremely rare at Paris. The retrograde members of the Diplomatic corps dread the chance of seeing such a work exposed to the pleasantries of the Liberal journals.

A Paris bookseller, who lately sent some copies of Lafontaine's Fables to Naples, has had them returned to him, with an intimation that nobody in that country now read such a revolutionary poet.-This revolutionist has been dead just 131 years!

The Duke de Fitz-James, who is alike distinguished for good taste and exalted rank, when travelling in Italy about six years ago, met with a fine picture in the study of a young artist named Schnetz. Notwithstanding his German name, M. Schnetz is a Frenchman, and he may be truly regarded as the hope of the French school. The Duke de Fitz-James sent this picture to the exhibition, which is at present open for the benefit of the Greeks. It has proved extremely attractive. It represents a Peasant woman of the Campagna di Roma in adoration before a Madonna. The woman, whose complexion is tanned by the southern sun, is accompanied by her daughter, a girl of about 12 or 15, who presents the most perfect freshness of colour. The girl, overpowered by the heat, has fallen asleep. The picture contains only two figures:-the woman piously gazing on the Madonna, and the sleeping girl, on whose arm she leans. There is, therefore, no action; and the only means by which the painter could produce effect, was by giving to the countenances of his two figures precisely the sort of expression which suits them. In this, and in beauty of colour, M. Schnetz has succeeded in a most extraordinary degree.

At the same exhibition there is a picture representing the Retreat of Moscow, by M. Scheffer. It is comparable to some of the best pages of M. Philippe de Segur's history; and this is saying not a little in its praise. M. Scheffer's picture is about to be engraved for the frontispiece to a superb edition of the Compagna di Roma, by M. de Segur. The principal figure in this tragical picture is a portrait of the unfortunate Marshal Ney. That great General is represented as vexed, but not discouraged, by the disaster he witnesses. He has seized a French standard, which he endeavours to rescue from the enemy. In M. Scheffer's picture there is no Napoleon, and no object which calls to mind the enthusiasm which we cherished for that extraordinary man.