460 Chancery Repmt. [May, 



Equity, however startling the phrase may sound — is revolting ; we 

 mean of course forensic equit}^ We read Mr. Peel's speech, the other 

 day, on the Criminal Laws, and observed these expressions : " There 

 are provisions in the criminal law of France, calculated no doubt in 

 individual instances to elicit truth, but which I should never wish to see 

 engrafted on the practice of this country." What does he mean ? The 

 examination of the criminal himself — the forcing him to betray himself? 

 But what propriety or consistency is there in applying this reprobated 

 principle to civil causes, and even criminal ones — essentially so — because 

 they are brought before an Equity, and not a law court. Let us open 

 our eyes, and look the fact in the face. 



We have still much — very much to say ; but we must stop somewhere. 

 We cannot, however, conclude without again acknowledging our obliga- 

 tions to the industry and frankness of the Commission. They have 

 taken unwearied pains ; and, in unfolding the practice of the court, 

 have not flinched from the disgusting task, nor blinked the corruptions. 

 But why have we not one single allusion to offices strictly sinecure ? 

 The report, we observe, professes to be examined with the record in the 

 Petty Bag, by the clerk of that office. We venture to say that officer 

 never saw the Report, or affixed his signature, or even knew any 

 thing of the matter, till he saw his name in print. His is a perfect 

 sinecm-e of £300 a year — and how many others are there ? 



FAMILIARITIES. — NO. II. 

 Quotations. 



" Drawn from the stars, and pliiltered through the skies." — Byron. 



Of all the many, and (thanks to a free-press) the ever-multiplying 

 blessings attendant upon the " glorious constitution" of literature, not 

 the least precious and profitable to a modern cultivator of s)^stems and 

 syllables, in pamphlets, magazines and folios, is the right of Quotation. 

 This is indeed a privilege so inestimable in itself, and so happily illus- 

 trative of the liberty of the literary subject, that we who live in the 

 nineteenth century (and have seen strange things !) may be allowed a 

 special note of admiration and marvel, that no prime-minister in the 

 parliament of letters has, at any time, ventured to introduce a bill for the 

 •apprehension of all vagrant inverted commas that xway be found trespass- 

 ing in the sunn)^ places of argument ; and to restrain the poaching pro- 

 pensities of authors in general, who are apt to stroll without a license 

 into the manors of other men's genius. All is still, however, free and 

 open ground, and the merest pretender that ever " thought" for a 

 breakfast, may quote Homer with impunity. Quotation is then a kind of 

 fairy-land estate, of which every man who can muster some half-dozen 

 volumes (besides a Shakspeare, which comes as it were of course) has 

 the title-deeds in his possession. In it, as in an ark, are the chosen of 

 many cantos congregated. Here shall we meet, in promiscuous commu- 

 nion, a type of all that can grace and diversify the physical and moral vrorld. 

 Here shall we find the cunning children of fiction nestling in the furrows 

 of matter-of-fact : sylphids nodcUng from the crest of Alexander ; grass- 

 hoppers and great men; the "green and golden basilisk" with the 

 " white and winged dove." Here " dolphins gambol in the lion's den ;" 

 while the lion himself is stretched 



" Beside the lamb as though he were his brother." 



