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Monthly Review of Literature, 



[[JUNE, 



plundered Pattison's house and carried him 

 prisoner some distance, for exclaiming, " they 

 might have foreseen their retreat, supporting, 

 as they were, the wicked and bloody House 

 of Stuart and the abominations of Rome." 

 Devoted to the doctrines and preachings of 

 the Cameronians, he frequently left his home 

 to attend their conventicles in Galloway, and 

 occasionally took with him small grave- 

 stones from the quarry on his little farm to 

 cover the dust of the righteous, till finally 

 he abandoned his family altogether, and on 

 the back of a little poney rode from place to 

 place, wholly absorbed in his occupation. 



The Heart of Mid Lothian was framed 

 from a few incidents communicated by a 

 lady of the name of Goldie, the wife of the 

 Commissary of Dumfries. Helen Walker 

 had been left an orphan, with the charge of 

 a sister considerably younger than herself. 

 This sister was 'unhappily proved guilty of 

 child-murder, and principally by the evidence 

 of Hannah. Though deeply distressed, she 

 refused to equivocate. But the very day of 

 her sister's condemnation, she got a petition 

 drawn up, expressive of some peculiar cir- 

 cumstances in the case, and that same night 

 set out on foot for London, and getting into 

 the presence of the Duke of Argyle, had the 

 good fortune to procure her sister's pardon. 

 This seems to have taken place about 1738. 

 Helen died in 1791, and had been seen by 

 Mrs. Goldie. Her rescued sister was married 

 by the seducer, and lived happily the greater 

 part of a century. Out of these slender and 

 naked materials, Sir Walter constructed the 

 beautiful tale of Jeanie Deans. 



Cabinet Cyclopaedia, vol. VI. ; Lawyers, 

 ly H. Roscoe, Esq In the Cabinet Cyclo- 

 paedia, which proceeds with unusual punc- 

 tuality, nobody, we observe, writes. Dr. 

 Lardner " conducts," and others "assist," 

 in conducting of course. His assistant in 

 the sixth volume is Mr. Henry Roseoe, a 

 younger son of the venerable historian of 

 the De Medici ; and we presume he has exe- 

 cuted the task assigned him according to 

 the terms of his commission : but what 

 guided Dr. Lardner or his assistant in their 

 selection of lawyers we cannot divine. We 

 can account neither for their concluding with 

 Romilly, nor for their commencing with Coke. 

 None of any mark it is true have died since 

 Romilly but Lords Ellenborough and Redes- 

 dale ; yet either of them was perhaps as 

 deserving of notice as some of those who 

 have actually had the honour. Several law- 

 yers of eminence occur before Coke; and 

 numbers again between him and Romilly of 

 more importance than Wilmot, for instance, 

 who, except in the memorable case of general 

 warrants, was remarkable for nothing but 

 his singular good fortune, and perhaps his 

 gentlemanly bearing on the bench. Dun- 

 ning again was more of a politician, and Sir 

 William Jones of a scholar, or a linguist, 

 than a lawyer ; and certainly both might 

 have been made to give way to such men as 



Coventry, Finch, Holt, Foster, Raymond, 

 Yorke, Kenyon, &c. If fourteen lawyers 

 only were to be set forth, surely the fourteen 

 most distinguished should have been selected ; 

 and certainly Jefferies was not entitled to 

 figure as one of that unaccountable number, 

 of whom Mr. Roscoe himself observes " his 

 acquirements as a lawyer were of a mean 

 order" concurring also, as he does, in Mr. 

 Justice Foster's censure, "as theworst judge 

 that ever disgraced Westminster-hall." 

 Lord Guilford again has left no memorial, 

 and would have been utterly forgotten but 

 for his very clever but spiteful younger 

 brother. The truth probably is, the fourteen 

 names, whose biography actually occupies 

 the volume, were found upon the whole to 

 be most accessible, and despatch was the 

 prime object. But it is lamentable that a 

 mere accident should for the most part have 

 decided in so important a point. What is 

 done, however, is well done for the popular 

 purpose, in good taste, and generally with 

 sound judgment in all things but the selection. 



Mr. Hallam,in his Constitutional History, 

 describes Coke as a " flatterer and tool of the 

 court till he obtained his ends." This was 

 said apparently on a hasty view of Coke's 

 character, or rather a partial one, with no- 

 thing in view indeed but Coke's asperity 

 towards Essex and Raleigh. Mr. Roscoe 

 thinks it difficult to say upon what particular 

 action of Coke's life this censure of Mr. 

 Hallam's is founded, and softens his own 

 refutation by complimenting Mr. H. as a 

 man who seldom makes an assertion without 

 a competent authority to sustain it. This 

 is true, remarkably so, of particular facts : 

 it is in his generalities that Mr. H. ventures 

 beyond his authorities ; and in his desperate 

 pursuit of a point he is ready almost to 

 sacrifice anything that stands in his way. Mr. 

 Roscoe defends Coke chivalrously enough, 

 but not altogether judiciously in the trials 

 of Essex and Raleigh, he forgets, Coke was 

 attorney-general, and certainly promoted the 

 views of the court, and apparently his own 

 interests. 



Baxter tells us that Selden would not 

 have Hobbes in his chamber while he was 

 dying, calling out " No atheists." We were 

 glad to observe that Mr. R. recollected Mr. 

 D'Israeli's statement from Aubrey's papers, 

 that Hobbes actually stood by the bedside 

 of his dying friend. Baxter was at all times 

 too heated and hurried to weigh the credi- 

 bility of reports, especially where they accord- 

 ed with his own feelings. 



Somers, as is well known, wrote a pam- 

 phlet in defence of grand juries, on the occa- 

 sion of the London jury ignoring the bill 

 against Shaftesbury. " In one instance," re- 

 marks Mr. Ro.-,coe, '' he appears to have push- 

 ed his doctrine to a faulty excess, when he 

 insists that grand juries are not to be guided 

 by probabilities only, since in fact all evi- 

 dence is reducible to a mere probability, as the 

 testimony of an eye-witness must depend 

 upon the probability of his speaking the 



