&amp;gt; OTE C C. 



he may perhaps, when he is awake, find not only his injunction dissolved, but 

 his cause dismissed.&quot; 



The caution of an anxious judge, in avoiding hasty decision, may be seen in 

 the following anecdote respecting Chancellor D Aguesseau : &quot; The only fault 

 imputed to D Aguesseau was dilatoriness of decision. We should hear his own 

 apology. The general feeling of the public on this head, was once respectfully 

 communicated to him by his son : My child, said the Chancellor, when you 

 shall have read what I have read, seen what I have seen, and heard what I have 

 heard, you will feel, that if on any subject you know much, there may be also 

 much that you do not know, and that something, even of what you know, may 

 not at the moment be in your recollection. You will then, too, be sensible of 

 the mischievous and often ruinous consequences of even a small error in a deci 

 sion ; and conscience, I trust, will then make you as doubtful, as timid, and 

 consequently as dilatory as I am accused of being.&quot; 



The nature of dispatch, as it is called, in the administration of justice, may 

 be seen in the following translation by my dear friend, Samuel Tayler Coleridge: 

 The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, 

 Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes 

 The lightning s path, and straight the fearful path 

 Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 

 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 

 My son ! the road the human being travels, 

 That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow 

 The river s course, the valley s playful windings 

 Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines, 

 Honouring the ho!y bounds of property 



there exists 



An higher than the warrior s excellence. 



WALLENSTEIN. 



Of Judicature. The next essay, which contains observations upon the ad 

 ministration or improvement of justice, is his Essay on Judicature, which will 

 be found in vol. i. page 179. It contains most valuable observations : 1st. in 

 general. 2nd. In particular. 



1. As to the parties. 3. The officers. 



2. The advocates. 4. The sovereign. 



I must content myself with referring to the essay, and the following Observa 

 tions in the Edinburgh Review upon Bacon s Essay on Judicature, April, 1830. 

 &quot; The bench of Scotland contains bright-names ; men, under whom the duty of 

 carrying judicial reformation into practice has as favourable a prospect as devo 

 tion to the cause, and great legal accomplishment, can ever give it. The bar, 

 besides professional learning and talent, is as splendidly adorned by general 

 literature and by public virtue as any bar upon earth. Criticisms have been 

 made on the manner of both. We cannot venture to say how far either the cen 

 sure or the praise of these criticisms is just. Probably both, at times. They 

 must not be judged of merely by a standard taken from the accidental fashion or 

 custom of any other place, but by their approximation to, or recession from, the 

 things that form the universal excellences of the judicial manner. In a well 

 regulated place of justice, the court room is orderly and noiseless. The bench 

 attends; or appears to do so. When it does not, the failure neither proceeds 

 from indifference nor from impatience. There is much consultation before judg 

 ment; little conversation during debate. The judges recollect, that the vices of 

 counsel must always be generated by themselves, because they are only prac 

 tised from their supposed influence with the bench, and from seeing that the 

 opposite virtues fail. The bar venerates good taste, the only corrective of the 

 defects naturally connected with the exercise of that profession. It therefore 

 grudges the laurels that are sometimes bestowed by the ignorant on certain 

 vulgar qualities, such as pertinacity or vehemence, which, though they may 

 accompany success, can never, in a right court, be the cause of it. On ordinary 

 occasions, when there is no call for a higher flight, it appreciates brevity, calm- 



