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Reform of

law.

Sir Wm.
Grant.

of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men: who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge, which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence, and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."

In gradual reform of the law, his exertions were indefatigable. He suggested improvements both of the civil and criminal law: he proposed to reduce and compile the whole law; and in a tract upon universal justice, “ Leges Legum," he planted a seed which, for the last two centuries, has not been dormant, and is now just appearing above the surface. He was thus attentive to the ultimate and to the immediate improvement of the law: the ultimate improvement depending upon the progress of knowledge. "Veritas temporis filia dicitur, non authoritatis:" the immediate improvement upon the knowledge by its professors in power, of the local law, the principles of legislation, and general science.

So this must ever be. Knowledge cannot exist without the love of improvement. The French Chancellors, D'Aguesseau and L'Hôpital, were unwearied in their exertions to improve the law; and three works upon imaginary governments, the Utopia, the Atlantis, and the Armata, were written by English Chancellors.

So Sir William Grant, the reserved intellectual Master of the Rolls, struck at the root of sanguinary punishment, when, in the true spirit of philosophy, he said, "Crime is prevented not by fear, but by recoiling from the act with

horror, which is generated by the union of law, morals, and religion. With us they do not unite; and our laws are a dead letter." (a)

So too by the exertions of the philosophic and benevolent Sir S. Romilly. Sir Samuel Romilly, who was animated by a spirit public as nature, and not terminated in any private design, the criminal law has been purified; and, instead of monthly massacres of young men and women, we, in our noble times, have lately read that "there has not been one execution in London during the present shrievalty."With what joy, with what grateful remembrance has this been read by the many friends of that illustrious statesman, who, regardless of the senseless yells by which he was vilified, went right onward in the improvement of law, the advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of charity. (b) Such were Bacon's public exertions.-In private life he Private was always cheerful and often playful, according to his own favourite maxim, "To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting." (c)

(a) I was in the house when the observation was pressedly made by Sir William. It apparently fell still-born. I said to a friend who was with me, "These punishments are at an end."

(b) I never applied to him for an object in distress, but he thankfully opened his purse.

Of the reforms by the Lord Chancellor Brougham, it is not the proper time, nor, perhaps, am I the proper person to form a correct judgment. This will be the subject of future consideration.

(c) "His meals," says Dr. Rawley, "were refections of the ear as well as of the stomach, like the Noctes Atticæ, or Convivia Deipno-Sophistarum; wherein, a man might be refreshed in his mind and understanding no less than in his body. And I have known some, of no mean parts that have professed to make use of their note-books when they have risen from his table; in which conversations,

life.

Conversation.

The art of conversation, that social mode of diffusing kindness and knowledge, he considered to be one of the valuable arts of life, and all that he taught he skilfully and gracefully practised. When he spoke, the hearers only feared that he should be silent, yet he was more pleased to listen than to speak, "glad to light his torch at any man's candle." He was skilful in alluring his company to discourse upon subjects in which they were

and otherwise, he was no dashing man, as some men are, but ever a countenancer and fosterer of another man's parts. Neither was he one that would appropriate the speech wholly to himself, or delight to outvie others, but leave a liberty to the co-assessors to take their turns; wherein he would draw a man on, and allure him to speak upon such a subject as wherein he was peculiarly skilful, and would delight to speak. And, for himself, he contemned no man's observations, but would light his torch at every man's candle."

Fuller, in his life of Lord Burleigh says, "No man was more pleasant and merry at meals; and he had a pretty wit-rack in himself to make the dumb to speak; to draw speech out of the most sullen and silent guest at his table, to shew his disposition in any point he should propound. At night when he put off his gown he used to say, 'Lie there, Lord Treasurer,' and bidding adieu to all state affairs, disposed himself to his quiet rest.”

"And now the evening is come, no tradesman doth more carefully take in his wares, clear his shop-board and shut his windows, than I would shut up my thoughts and clear my mind. That student shall live miserably, which like a camel lies down under his burthen.”—Bishop Hall.

Plutarch tells us Democritus used to say, "That if the body and the soul were to sue one another for damages, it would be a doubtful question whether the landlord or the guest were most faulty.”

Plato's caution is very just, which is, "That we ought not to exercise the body without the soul, nor the soul without the body."

Plutarch, in his book De Præceptis Salubribus, which he wrote, as he declares himself, for the benefit of studious persons and politicians: "The ox said to his fellow servant the camel, which refused to bear part of his burden, In a little time it will be your turn to carry all my burden instead of a part.""

most conversant.

He was ever happy to commend, and unwilling to censure; and when he could not assent to an opinion, he would set forth its ingenuity, and so grace and adorn it by his own luminous statement, that his opponent could not feel lowered by his defeat. (a)

His wit was brilliant, and when it flashed upon any Wit. subject, it was never with ill-nature, which, like the crackling of thorns ending in sudden darkness, is only fit for a fool's laughter; (b) the sparkling of his wit was that of the

Query, whether the reasons of this are not, 1st, that the mind requires rest; and 2ndly, that the spirit which produces thought is required for digestion and exercise. Ramazini, on the Diseases of learned Men, says, "For while the brain is employed in digesting what the desire of knowledge and the love of learning takes in, the stomach cannot but make an imperfect digestion of the aliment, because the animal spirits are diverted and taken up in the intellectual service; or these spirits are not conveyed to the stomach with a sufficient influx, upon the account of the strong application of the nervous fibres, and the whole nervous system, in profound study. How much the influx of the animal spirits contributes to the due performance of all the natural functions of the viscera, is manifest from the decay of paralytic parts; for though these parts are supplied with vital juice by the perpetual afflux of the arterial blood, yet they dwindle and decay by being deprived of that nervous juice, or spirits, or whatever it is, which is conveyed to them through the nerves.”

(a) See note (c), ante, 471.

(b) Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts;
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain;
And therewithal, to win me, if you please,

(Without the which I am not to be won,)
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,

To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

precious diamond, valuable for its worth and weight, denoting the riches of the mine. (a)

He had not any children; but, says Dr. Rawley, "the want of children did not detract from his good usage of his consort during the intermarriage, whom he prosecuted with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts and endowments, besides a robe of honour which he invested her withal, which she wore until her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death.”

He was religious, and died in the faith established in the church of England. (b)

Bacon has been accused of servility, of dissimulation, of various base motives, and their filthy brood of base actions, all unworthy of his high birth, and incompatible with his great wisdom, and the estimation in which he was held by the noblest spirits of the age. It is true that there were men in his own time, and will be men in all times, who are better pleased to count spots in the sun than to rejoice in its glorious brightness. Such men have openly libelled him, like Dewes and Weldon, whose falsehoods were detected as soon as uttered, or have fastened upon certain ceremonious compliments and dedications, the fashion of his day, as a sample of his servility, passing over his noble letters to the Queen, his lofty contempt for the Lord Keeper Puckering, his open dealing with Sir Robert Cecil,

BIRON. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it.

(a) See ante, p. 28.

(b) Rawley.

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