354 LETTER TO 



the law as adequate securities for his acting 

 justly, when he is tempted to act otherwise by 

 interest. The judges of our superior courts of 

 law are selected from a profession, the conduct 

 of whose members is more open to public in- 

 spection, and is consequently better known, than 

 that of the members of any other. No mistake, 

 therefore, can well occur with respect to the 

 characters they possessed before their elevation 

 to the Bench, more especially as few receive 

 that honour before they are past middle age; 

 and every one admits, that, in modern times at 

 least, they have been very generally, if not 

 always, chosen by the executive power with 

 the purest intentions. When they afterwards 

 appear to the world in the exercise of their pe- 

 culiar functions, the eyes of all men are fixed 

 upon them. Every part of their conduct is 

 scrutinized with the utmost care ; by some 

 whom education and habit have particularly 

 fitted for this purpose; by others, whose dearest 

 interests lead them to turn their whole atten- 

 tion to this single point, and whose disappointed 

 hopes naturally suggest some fault in those, 

 who have dissipated their gay dreams, and have 

 awakened them to poverty and disgrace. Yet 

 even these men, so formed to their stations, se- 

 parated by their retired life from many causes 

 of bias to human opinion, venerated by their 



