Account of 

 Lord Prefident 

 Miller. 



70 HIS TORT of the SOCIETY 



But in reciting his qualifications as a Judge, we mud not 

 forget one y which was in him amongft the mod eminent of any, 

 and on no occafion forfook or milled him, — the natural recti- 

 tude and pure honour of his own mind, — which, in the nu- 

 merous clafs of caufes that depend on the judgment to be 

 formed of the character and conduct of men, directed him 

 with certainty to whatever was faulty in either, and enabled 

 him to (how (which he did with much- energy and feeling) 

 what the conduct of a truly honeft man would there have been. 

 Indeed, upon fuch occafions, where the intereft of morality, 

 or the purity of judicial proceedings, was concerned, he was 

 fometimes led to expatiate at a length which juft tafke might 

 perhaps have been difpofed to blame, had it been a lefs warm 

 and pleafing proof of his native integrity and cordial attach- 

 ment to the caufe of virtue. 



With all thefe powerful aiTiftances, which fo well qualified 

 him to judge with firmnefs and decifion for himfelf, he pof- 

 fefied the ftill more rare, and in a Judge ineftimable endow- 

 ment, of the mod perfect candour, in liftening to and weigh- 

 ing the fentiments of others ; which virtue was in him fo con- 

 fpicuous, that it might with truth be faid of him, that he had 

 no predilection for any opinion, merely becaufe it had once 

 been his own : So ready was he to reconfider his judgment, the 

 moment he faw any caufe to doubt it, and with fuch perfect 

 opennefs and indifference did he abandon it, however firm his 

 former perfuafion, upon being (from whatever quarter) con- 

 vinced of an error. 



These were his acknowledged merits as a Civil Judge. And 

 his zeal for the public fervice as Prefident of the Judiciary, was 

 no lefs confpicuous and fuccefsful, as appears from more than 

 one reformation, which the forms and practice of the Court un- 

 derwent, during the period of his fitting at the head of it. Of 

 thefe, the mod remarkable was the fuller eftablifhment of the 

 distinction in our law between culpable homicide and murder ; 



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