in times of war. The cost of this colossal | £83,000,000 sterling. But even these force is estimated-and the estimate is figures by no means represent the true considerably under the mark-at above cost. We have the sums as laid down in the various budgets, and drawn from the available income of the country. But were we to add the loans upon loans which have been and are being contracted to maintain these "uniformed obstructions" to the progress of the world, we should have a terrible and appalling total indeed. As it is, what a frightful incubus upon the healthy development of society is this vast organization of stagnant energy! what a menace to the peaceful daily pursuits of the quiet citizen! Look abroad upon the face of the Continent at the present moment, and see how it tyrannizes over the liberties of mankind, while it eats up the resources of even the wealthiest kingdoms, threatening nearly all with poverty and bankruptcy. Every nation, in fear of its neighbor, maintains a force totally incompatible with its revenues; £83,093,000 and as to a majority of the states, the forces they do keep up are really inadequate for their defense. Yet the mania for vast and expensive armies and armaments increases instead of diminishing, and the chief study nowadays is how to make war more horrible and destructive. How long this demoralizing and restless rivalry will continue, how long this game will be played before it is "played out," it is impossible to say. The peoples must wait long, we fear, before the ambitions of rulers will be satiated, or have substantail checks applied to them. Congresses may be convened, and plenipotentaries gather round a green table; but until another gospel is proclaimed than that preached by crowned heads and star-bespangled diplomatists, the idea of permanent peace and reduced armaments seems altogether hopeless and utopian. Ar the present period, when so much There were, and, I believe, still are, four of public attention, both at home and different modes of election-by inspiraabroad, is directed to the probable speedy tion, by compromise, by scrutiny, and by By inspiration, when several of election of a successor to Pope Pius IX., access. the following remarks from the pen of the the cardinals call aloud, as if on the imParis correspondent of the Times will be pulse of the moment, the name of the person whom they judge worthy of the read with interest: "In the eleventh century Pope Nicholas supreme dignity. It is, however, only conferred on the cardinals the right of di- after long and fruitless deliberation, and recting the election of the pope; and, in when there remains no chance of agreeaccordance with his statutes, the cardinals, ment by merely human means, that rewho had figured as a body since the eighth course is had to supernatural aid; and it century, were bound to demand of the has happened that the rest of the cardinals, Roman people and the Roman clergy the or a majority of them, unwilling to show ratification of their choice. To legalize decided opposition, or to be the last in the election it was indispensable that the giving their assent, at once concur in the same name should obtain two thirds at choice of inspiration. The election by least of the votes of the conclave, to- compromise is when, after equally long gether with the suffrages of the people and equally fruitless deliberation, they and the clergy of Rome. This mode of agree to lay aside their preferences and to proceeding, however, was found to be in- leave the nomination of the pontiff to one convenient. The elections gave rise to among themselves. It is related that it dissensions, revolts, and scandals of the was in this fashion John XXII. was gravest kind; foreign intrigue added to chosen. He got all the cardinals to pledge the confusion, and the consequence was themselves to accept the candidate he that both the clergy and the people were should propose, and, to their great surexcluded from all participation in the prise, he proposed himself. Taught by election. That revolution or reform took this example, for they had never meant to place in 1271, on the accession of Gregory elect him, the cardinals decided that this X. It did not, however, and could not, power should not again be intrusted to put an end to intrigue. In the conclave any member of the college, except on conwere cardinals belonging to dioceses in ditions which would render the recurrence all parts of the Catholic world, and each of such an event impossible. When the had his own candidate. The elections election of a pontiff is by scrutiny or balwere often prolonged beyond measure, so lot each cardinal writes his own name much so that pressure was sometimes em- with that of the candidate he proposes on Close con- a ticket. These tickets or bulletins are ployed to obtain a decision. finement and short commons were tried, deposited with much solemnity in the and if after three days' deliberation the consecrated chalice which stands on the cardinals did not elect a pope, one plate altar of the chapel where they sit; and of meat, or simply bread and wine, were each one approaching and leaving the served to them until they made their choice. The forms prescribed by the ancient statutes were subsequently modified, and before going into conclave the cardinals repeated this oath: 'I take to witness our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge me, that I will elect the person whom I ought to elect before God.' altar kneels and repeats a prayer. After a pause the tickets are taken from the sacred cup by officers named ad hoc from their own body; the tickets are compared with the number of cardinals present, and when it is found that any one of them has two thirds of the votes in his favor he is declared elected. If no one can show the 172 THE JUDGES OF ENGLAND. requisite number of votes, another proceeding is gone through. This proceeding is the election by access-so called because any cardinal has the right to accede to the vote of another by altering his ticket according to a prescribed form. The moment the election is declared, the tickets are burnt. The present pope was elected by unanimity. "The functions of the cardinals are, then, highly important, and the past shows how necessary it is that the pope should be elected with a view to peace and conciliation. Every Catholic country is interested in it, and the cardinals are naturally supposed to be mindful of the interests of their respective countries. France, Austria, and Spain claimed, and, I believe, still claim, the privilege of demanding the exclusion of one cardinal each from the pontifical throne, but only when the majority of votes is not yet obtained by any one cardinal; and these powers are supposed to have friends or representatives in the conclave to maintain that right in their name. "The cardinals are, as every one knows, princes of the church. In the early ages the cardinals were the principal priests of the churches in Rome or deacons of districts. In the eleventh century they numbered but twenty-eight; in modern times they are as many as seventy. When assembled they form the Sacred College, "In the present condition of the Papal States it is supposed that the choice of the Sacred College is already made, and that the future pontiff will be proclaimed instantly on the death of Pius XI., without any meeting in conclave or the usual forms of election. This would be contrary to all previous usage; but were Rome at once invaded by the troops of Victor Emmanuel, with or without the permission of France, or were an insurrection to occur, the cardinals would not be bound to assemble in the Vatican; for whereever they assemble there is the conclave. It is not at all improbable that the Emperor of the French has already fixed on his candidate; but who the person is the Court of Rome has never been able to discover." From Fraser's Magazine. THE JUDGES OF ENGLAND. WE are about to attempt a sketch of of the judicial hierarchy, the judges of the Judges of England, and we are re- Westminister Hall, with whom princiluctantly compelled to begin with the ad- pally we have to deal in this place, mission that they do not stand so high in deficient in the personal qualities which the popular estimate, nor occupy a posi- should adorn and dignify the bench? tion of the same political and social im- Do they, although confessedly incorrupt portance, as in the olden time. Yet Eng- and impartial, want learning, accomlish justice was never more respected; plishment, elocution, or urbanity? Are and complaints of the administration of they of lower birth and breeding, or of the law are almost exclusively confined inferior general education to their predeto its costliness, which the best-intention- cessors? Such, certainly, is the more obed law-reformers have hitherto proved un-vious conclusion; but, before hastening to able to restrict within satisfactory limits. it, we must take into consideration sunAre, then, the most conspicuous members dry social changes which may have coöper ated in the production of the result by gradually lessening the comparative rank and influence of this venerable body, without presupposing any positive decline in its constitution or demerit in its chiefs. Now, on looking round, we see that not merely the legal profession, but the learned professions individually and collectively, have suffered in one sense from the diffusion of knowledge, the rise of the commercial and manufacturing classes, and the immeasurable intellectual advance of the landed aristocracy. It has been of late as difficult, if not as impossible, for lawyers to keep their vantage-ground, as it was for the clergy, so long the monopolists of cultivation, to prevent the laity from eventually overtaking or surpassing them. The alteration of manners and habits has operated in the same direction; for it would require an extraordinary degree of personal eminence to secure, for any set of dignitaries when mingling in the crowd, the same respect which is exacted from the mass of mankind by becoming seclusion or exclusiveness. Till after the commencement of the century, it was as much a matter of course for a judge to reside in or about Bloomsbury as for a barrister to have chambers in an inn of court; and James Smith used to say that when Lord Ellenborough set the present fashion, by removing from Russell - square to St. James's, the circumstance gave general dissatisfaction, and was a prominent topic in the newspapers for a week. Again, the distinctive dress was not entirely given up till a much later period. Sir James Allen Park stuck to the squarecut coat, the scratch wig, the three-cornered hat, and the black breeches and stockings, to his dying day; and he might have been shaking his head reproachfully, when told of the appearance of a dandified colleague, his equal or superior in every other judicial requisite, in a figured waistcoat and carrying a crush-hat at a ball. In the curious work entitled Armata, Lord Erskine gravely maintained that the judges should never be seen in the streets, going to or returning from the courts, without their official costume. "If the robes of justice do not inspire the multitude with an additional respect for the magistrates, why are they worn at all? and if they have that effect, why should the illusion be so abruptly overthrown, by exhibiting to the populace the very same men, looking, perhaps, from careless habits, more meanly than thousands who had but a moment before beheld them with salutary awe?" At present, the judges are scattered over all the most fashionable quarters of the metropolis; they frequent clubs; they live, dress, and visit like other people; and some of them affect the manners of men of the world, or even occasionally of men of wit and pleasure about town. Whether their ermine remains as white to the vulgar eyes-whether they do not lose, upon the whole, by descending to this description of social rivalry, may fairly be made a question. Lord Mansfield, the silver-tongued Murray, when young at the bar, drank champagne with the wits with impunity; but when Lord Loughborough (Wedderburne) tried the experiment at a more advanced period of his career, he failed signally. Foote asked, "What can he mean by coming amongst us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others;" and Johnson remarked of him to Reynolds, "This man has now been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it. I never heard any thing from him in company that was at all striking." Lord Grenville used to say that he liked dining in company with lawyers, because the chances were that some good topic would be rationally discussed; and Sir Walter Scott sets down in his Diary in 1828: "We dined at Richardson's with the two chief barons of England and Scotland (Sir William Alexander and Sir Samuel Shepherd), odd enough, the one being a Scotsman and the other an Englishmanfar the pleasantest day we have had. I suppose I am partial; but I think the lawyers beat the bishops, and the bishops the wits." Both the statesman and the poet, however, were speaking of the best specimens of the old school: and, prior to their time, some causes of deterioration were at work. One is mentioned by Blackstone in his first Vinerian lecture; where, arguing in favor of university education, he deprecates "the custom, by some so very warmly recommended, of dropping all liberal education as of no use to students in the law, and placing them, in its stead, at the desk of some skillful attorney," rightly contending that no general rules can be drawn from the anomalous success of "some geniuses formed to overcome all disadvantages." One such genius was the Chancelor | gentleman by descent." And those were Lord Hardwick, himself the son of a days when the unauthorized assumption Dover attorney; he was placed in the of name, crest, or shield, subjected the office of an eminent London attorney, who self-dubbed armiger to severe penalties. boasted of having had among his clerks At present, one of the most marked feator pupils, and about the same time, ures of what is called the higher branch Jocelyn, afterward Lord Chancelor of of the profession is its family or blood Ireland; Parker, who became Chief Baron connection with the lower-in other words, of the Exchequer; and Strange, who rose the number of barristers who are more or to be Master of the Rolls. Kenyon and less related to attorneys. There is hardly Dunning (Lord Ashburton) received the an eminent firm in town or country, some same training, and their mode of life is partner in which has not a son, brother, described by Horne Tooke, a fellow-stu- nephew, cousin, brother-in-law, or son-indent at the Temple. Out of term, they law at the bar. The result was pointed used to dine at an eating-house near out by Mr. Justice Talfourd in one of his Chancery-lane, at the charge of seven most eloquent essays. No rule of etiquette, pence halfpenny a head. "Dunning and as he justly remarks, however strict, and myself," added Tooke, "were generous, no feelings of delicacy, however nice and for we gave the girl who waited upon us generous, can prevent men who have cona penny apiece; but Kenyon, who always nections or intimate acquaintances of this knew the value of money, sometimes re- sort, from possessing a great advantage warded her with a halfpenny, and some- over their equals who have none. "Withtimes with a promise." out industry and talent they could have done little; but perhaps with both these they might have done less, if their early fame had not been nurtured by those to whom their success was a favorite object, and whose zeal afforded them at once opportunity and stimulus which to more elevated adventurers are wanting." This is tantamount to saying that these more elevated adventurers have hourly less and less chance of obtaining the higher prizes; and so have all who, before securing a firm hold on the dispensers of briefs, have acquired a name in literature. The author of Ion was the leader of his circuit, and a sergeant, before he ventured to announce himself as the author of a popular drama; and on the first night of its performance the stage-box was exclusively occupied by his brethern of the coif. Another curious example may be read in a familiar letter of the poet Cowper, who writes: "I did actually live three years with Mr. Chapman, a solicitor; that is to say, I slept three years in his house; but I lived, that is to say, I spent my days, in Southampton-row, as you may well remember. There was I and the future lord chancelor (Thurlow) constantly employed from morning to night in giggling and making others giggle, instead of studying the law." Instead of placing young men intended for the bar in the office of an attorney or solicitor,* it is now, we believe, the almost universal practice for them to pass a year or two in the chambers of a special pleader, equity-draftsman, or conveyancer; but it may be made a question whether any marked improvement has taken place in the practicing section of the bar-the class from which the judicial body must be supplied. Most assuredly its claims to superior gentility have materially declined since 1601; when (as we learn from Dug. dale), more by way of confirming an existing state of things than as an innovation, a royal ordinance, countersigned by Bacon, provided that "none should be admitted of an inn of court that is not a * When Jekyll was asked the difference between an attorney and a solicitor, he said, "About the same as that between a crocodile and an alligator. A solicitor is a chancery attorney; and the two characters are commonly combined in the same person." There is one road to promotion, much trodden of late years, which renders the bench more easily accessible to the higher class of aspirants, and so compensates in one way for the mischief it is supposed to work in another. When a preference is given to members of parliament, and party services are allowed to do duty as makeweights, what is lost in technical knowledge and professional experience may be regained in ready eloquence, in general accomplishments, in bearing, and in tone. All these are valuable, if not essential, requirements in a judge, who has to go circuits and try causes, as well as to sit in banco and deliver judgments on points of law. It is an obvious advantage that he |