TABLE OF CONTENTS. The Bench and Bar,.. Epistolary Gossipings of Travel, (Nos. 17 and 18,). Schiller's Piccolomini,....... The Twins of the Hôtel Corneille, (Chap. 1,). Lines, Benton's Account of the Rupture between Jackson and Calhoun, Major-General Smallwood,.... My Ball Tablets,...... Rolla; or, The Siege of Malta,.... The Actress in High Life, (Chap. 18,)...... 289 298 308 311 317 318 327 331 336 355 EDITORS' TABLE. "The Westminster Review;" its importance and value as a Literary Organ.— The Modern Poets and Poetry of Italy, &c.-Silvio Pellico, Ugo Foscolo, &c.— Poerio, Manzoni, &c.-"The New York Crayon," and its Notices of Tennyson and "Silvia's World."-Washington Irving; his character as a man and author, his unexampled literary career, his death." The Richmond Enquirer;" its Editor's opinion of the poetical claims of William Cullen Bryant.-"The Fire Fiend.""Greenway Court," a new novel, by John Esten Cooke.-The authorship of "The Pilgrim's Progress." LITERARY NOTICES. Simms' History of South Carolina.-The Fool of Quality.-Poems, by Anne Whitney; Poems, by Susan Archer Talley.-The Money Ring, &c., by John G. Saxe.-Poems of Rural Life in "the Dorset Dialect," &c.-Orations and Speeches by Edward Everett.-Carolina Sports.-Goethe's "Correspondence with a Child," &c.-"The Great Tribulation."-A Good Fight and Other Tales, by Charles Reade.-Women Artists, &c.-Books Received, &c. STEAM POWER PRESS OF CHARLESTON. It would, in all probability, be a sore puzzle to any but very severe students of ancient jurisprudence, to say who was Andrea Alzate, or, to give him his sonorous and scholastic name; who was Andreas Alceatus? And yet, there have been few men more famous or more fortunate in their day and generation. At the age of twenty-two he was a Professor in the learned school of Pavia, and had published a great legal work-Paradoxa Juris-not even yet entirely forgotten. At twenty-nine, he was the most eminent jurist of his time; called, by his friends, the greatest orator among lawyers, and the greatest lawyer among orators; was dragged by kings, and dukes, and princes, from Pavia to Avignon, from Avignon to Bourges, from Bourges back again to Pavia; was made a Count Palatine by the Emperor, and refused to be made a Cardinal by the Pope. Although oppressed by great labours, he passed through life in very troublous times, with a cheerful spirit and a capital digestionenjoying, always, a good jest and a good dinner-and finally, in 1550, at 58 years of age, tormented, not by his conscience, but by the gout, he departed from this world, full of grace and Lacrymæ Christi. "He worked hard, lived well," but did not "die poor."* Permanent fame has not generally been the reward of legal eminence; and yet, we think it clear that in no department of mental effort is there the same scope for, nor has there been the same expenditure of, the very highest intellectual force. We are speaking, however, let it be remembered, of lawyers-not of judges-for their fields of achievement are very dif ferent, and it requires other, larger, and in some respects, higher quali * As we are not "severe students of ancient jurisprudence," our knowledge about this great lawyer is taken from the life of his friend, Jerome Cardan, by Henry Morley. fications to make a good advocate tion of difficulty, ready device of than it does to make a great mag- remedy, and an almost impossible istrate. combination of alertness and patience; then the rare philosophical power which makes every individ ual case the application of a universal principle-necessary to the justice which all men need, and yet, never abstracts the principle so far from the immediate case as to separate it from the sympathy which attaches to its personal bearings; and finally, the great and wondrous gift of expression, which enables the advocate to sum up all the result of this vast and varied labour, in language which shall soften or provoke the prejudices, convince or confound the reason of his hearers, and, by its dramatic power, so identify him with his client as to combine the passionate interest of the one, with the cool, practiced intellect of the other. And this exercise of great powers under our system of public justice, has made the Court House a school of popular instruction, and given to the Bar an immense popular influence. But the reputation achieved by the profession lives but a little beyond term time. From all this learning, and ingenuity, and eloquence, the judge extracts the spirit and a technical formula, recording his decision for future litigants, sums up the result of great genius, and long trials, and large fees. Tradition preserves the memory of a few great speeches, and young students and old clerks keep alive the succession of venerable anecdotes. But not only every generation, but every county court has its leading lawyers," and while every year, in our country especially, the Bar is becoming a more powerful institution, individual eminence is becoming absorbed in the influence of the profession. Just after Mr. Webster's death, a writer in one of the northern newspapers-the Times, we think-after referring to the various spheres in which his great intellect had been exercised, said: "But in our judgment, there never was a place where he has been so thoroughly aroused, where he has come so near his possibility of effort, as when standing before twelve jurors, in an individual case that touched his sympathies, and, fired by the immediate antagonism of able adversaries, he has put forth his energies to defend some hunted right, or to pursue some grievous wrong." And this opinion, whether correct or not, in the individual illustration, is, we believe, true generally. We know of no other condition of circumstances calculated to call into play all the varied capabilities of the intellect, so well as a really important jury case. There is the laborious and scientific knowledge which underlies all great mental effort; the clear, analytical comprehension of the facts necessary to the special case; the subtlety of perception which connects separated and apparently isolated circumstances into a logical narrative; then the entirely different series of mental efforts, including the practical knowledge of human nature, which is applied to the examination of witnesses; the faculty so dangerous, and yet so necessary, to the purposes of justice, of controlling or developing testimony according to the requirements of the case; the technical manipulation, so to speak, of the lawyer's instruments —a skill which can only be perfected by long experience, and the professional instincts of a lifetime; then an altogether separate class of faculties, embracing quick percep These rather desultory remarks have been suggested by the publi cation of Judge O'Neall's "Bench and Bar of South Carolina;" and we propose, while thanking this amiable and excellent magistrate for his labour of love, to say a few words in review, of the influence and condition of the Bar of the State. We regret, that Judge O'Neall had not done what he is so competent to do-prefaced his biographical sketches with a history of our judicial system, and its various modifications, which, we think, have had a very marked in fluence upon the character of the profession. We shall refer to these volumes for such facts as we may need, and as by this time we feel assured that the book is in almost everybody's hand, we need only say that it is a kind and worthy effort, not only to preserve the memory of the eminent judges and distinguished advocates who have done honour and service to the State; but a memorial of many, who, without great distinction, have achieved great usefulness, and deserve to be gratefully remembered. That Judge O'Neal is the author, is sufficient indication of the manner in which the work has been performed. from all Seignorial Courts to the royal tribunals, until they had created-in that spirit of centralization, which is so essentially French -a great central judicial power, is marvellous and admirable. But their work, although in destruction of the feudal system, was carried on in a strictly feudal spirit, and terminated not so much in the protection and elevation of individual right, as in the construction of another privileged class, whose superior prerogative was to be the work of the pen, as the great military aristocracy was the work of the sword. The creation of "La Noblesse de la Robe" alongside of "La Noblesse de l'Epee," was certainly a great achievement; and the history of the French Parliaments, as their great judicial authority came to be called, is full of interest and instruction for the student of constitutional law; but their value has fairly been summed up by Sir James Stephens, in his dissertation upon the influence of the judicial upon the monarchical system of France: "Among the judges of the Parliaments of Paris were, at times, There are very few subjects more many of the best, the wisest, and worthy of careful study, than the the greatest men, who have ever developement of our modern judi- acted on the theatre of public afcial systems; especially as those fairs in France. They acted, howsystems, springing from one com- ever, on too wide a theatre. They mon feudal law, diverged and per- appeared there in characters so nufected themselves into the widely- merous, incompatible, and even disdifferent institutions of English and cordant, that the weight of their French jurisprudence. There is judicial authority was over-balanced more unity, and a great deal more by the weight of their other funcdramatic incident, in the progress tions. They could not have fought and expansion of the French sys- successfully the battles of the contem; but all the superiority in re- stitution of the realm, and the fransult belongs to the English. The chises of the people, even had such ingenuity of construction, by which been their wish; because they were the French lawyers applied the at every moment compelled to deprinciples of the Civil Law to feu- fend their own very questionable dal circumstances, and gradually pretensions; nor if success in such extended the power of appeal a contest had been probable, would . they have really wished to engage in it. The aristocracy of the robe had no alliance with any democracy of the jury-box, and had no tendency either to promote or to defend democratic claims, in the triumph of which, their own overthrow was evidently and unavoidably involved.'* The English system was developed under other influences and in a higher direction; and it is the just and proud boast of English justice, that it has been, and still is, the stronghold of individual rightthe guardian of constitutional liberty-the strong tower of a great people's defence against the invasion of class-privilege, or the oppression of royal power. All through that gradual progress of human liberty, which dignifies and elevates the record of English history, its leaders and champions are to be found in the great lawyers of each succeeding generation; and it is a very significant, as well as a very striking fact-a fact unparalleled in any other history-that the stages of this onward and steady progress can be marked and certified by the great trials at Westminster. Almost every great constitutional question has been decided in a court of justice; and in the palace of Westminster, as you pass the arched doorway which opens from the Hall of William Rufus into the courts, on your way to the grand gallery which conducts to the House of Commons and the House of Lords, you cannot but feel the symbolic justice of the situation which places at the very threshold of that august legislature the guardians and administrators of that broad and massive system of common law upon whose solid and equal principles rests the whole superstructure of England's national greatness. Originally founded by the same English race, bringing with them the same common law, the history of our own judiciary would naturally run a parallel course. But the peculiarities of both our social and political organization have introduced some not unimportant modifications. In the first place, it is evident, that the less directly the people are concerned in the work of legislation, the more important to them is the interposition of an able and independent Bench and Bar; for the power of administering and construing the law of the land, in conformity to the well-known principles of popu lar liberty, would be a powerful protection against legislative injustice-under such circumstances, sometimes the result of intention, sometimes of ignorance. Now, it is well known, that before the Reform Bill, direct popular will, in our sense of the word, at least, was not brought to bear upon Parliament. For a great many years—years, we admit of great prosperityspeaking roughly from Anne to George IV., including the whole Hanoverian dynasty-England was governed by an oligarchy, "The Great Revolution families," as the elder Pitt called them, when he avowed to the king, that he could not govern the country without them. Any one who will study the History of England about the accession of George III.—the time of Lord Bute, and Wilkes, and Junius, the period of "great family" intrigues-Pelhams, and Bedfords, and Grenvilles, and Graftons, and Granbys, and Rockinghams— will be struck with two things: 1st. The great influence of the Lords, directly through their own House, and indirectly through the House of Commons, where they filled an incredible number of seats-(Lord * Lectures on the History of France, by Sir James Stephen, p. 228. |