52 Lord Brougham's Local Courts. [[JAN. 



rubbish of ' pleading,' and useless formalities will do wonders. What is 

 done now with difficulty at Westminster, may obviously be done with 

 ease, and a considerable reduction of delay and expense. And as to the 

 nisi prius of. the assizes, the existing obstructions may be obviated, partly 

 by a third assize, of which the chancellor himself has been an advocate, 

 in favour of criminal business, and partly by a different arrangement of 

 place, and an extension of time, in the circuits. Even with only two 

 assizes there is little need of remands ; for why should not the courts be 

 kept open till the cause-list is exhausted ? A complaint was made the 

 other day in the House of Lords, that the Norfolk spring assize never 

 gets but one judge, though two are of course appointed. The conse- 

 quence is, naturally, that much of the business is left unheard, for the 

 time is limited and every thing gives way, when that time expires. The 

 chancellor answered, that if he had any influence in the matter, and 

 chancellors usually had, the good people of Norfolk should have two in 

 future. To be sure and not only they, but every other circuit that now 

 gets only one. To be sure let the best let full use be made of the 

 existing judicial machinery, and little will be left to complain of, and 

 least of all, will any new court be required. 



MRS. JORDAN AND HER BIOGRAPHER.* 



THE Town is a monster. We are afraid that i all that can be said 

 upon the subject. But the monster must be fed. Anecdotes, private 

 histories, biographies of the weak, the wicked, the merry, or the wise, 

 are its favourite food ; and it will find feeders as long as there are those 

 who can make pence or popularity by the office ; and food, as long as 

 there are noble lords, or fallen statesmen, royal dukes, or clever actresses, 

 in the world. A part of this is according to a law of nature and must 

 therefore be submitted to as to any other necessity. But a part of it 

 belongs to that law by which a man sometimes thinks himself entitled to 

 make money in any mode that he can ; a law which we punish in the 

 case of highwaymen, the keepers of Faro-banks, quacks, and impostors of 

 all kinds. The quocunque modo rem has been the code of those 

 active classes from time immemorial, and they have been hanged, dun- 

 geoned, and banished accordingly. We by no means desire to see the 

 Biographical School extinguished, though unquestionably its prevalence 

 in the present day must make many an honest man shiver at the thought 

 of what is to become of him, when he falls into the hands of his friends 

 a week or two after he has lost the power of bringing an action for 

 defamation in this world. What is life good for, unless it be an easy 

 life ? and what life can be easy while a man is perfectly convinced that 

 some literary undertaker is waiting only for the moment the breath is 

 out of his body to pounce upon his " Remains ;" run away with his 

 tf Recollections ;" and by advertising his (< Life," the dearer part of him, 

 his reputation, justify a regret that the sufferer had not adopted the 

 anticipatory justice of taking his ? The whole process tends to the 

 treason against human nature, of giving an additional care to the cata- 

 logue of human cares. All life is at best but a field of battle, and what 

 soldier goes into the battle more cheerfully by knowing that he has, in 

 the rear of the line, a suttler who follows him with no other purpose 

 than to make the most of him when he is down, to strip him of coat 

 and waistcoat, and sell every thing saleable about him to the best bid- 



* The Life of Mrs. Jordan. By James Boaden, Esq. In 2 vols, 8vo. BulL 



