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give their attendance here again on the first day of the ensuing term.' An old lady, very lately deceased, a daughter of Mr. Justice Blackstone, who was a puisne judge of the Common Pleas, and lived near Abingdon, used to relate that the day after term ended, the family coach, with four black long-tailed horses, used regularly to come at an early hour to Sergeant's Inn to conduct them to their country house; and there the judge and his family remained till they travelled to London in the same style on the essoin-day of the following term. When a student of law, I had the honour of being presented to the oldest of the judges, Mr. Justice Grose, famous for his beautiful seat in the Isle of Wight, where he leisurely spent a considerable part of the year, more majorum. To his question to me, 'Where do you live?' I answered, I have chambers in Lincoln's Inn, my lord.' 'Ah!' replied he, 'but I mean-when term is over?"" (p. 23.) It does not appear, however, that young Campbell was prepared then to give any further information as to his domicile or his means of livelihood, and the conversation dropped.

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In the "good old days," when judges used to drive away from Sergeant's Inn with a coach drawn by "four long-tailed horses," the leading counsel too were wont to exhibit equipages in great style in the same neighbourhood. We have often heard that Mr. Shadwell (the great conveyancer, and the father of the late ViceChancellor of England) used also to have his "carriage and four' driven up to Boswell Court, to carry him to his country seat. In these degenerate days a leading Queen's counsel, if he does not hire a Hansom, contents himself with being "fetched and carried" in a neat brougham, probably jobbed by the month, and which "his lady" uses for shopping purposes in the morning.

Another promiscuous remark made by Lord Campbell in this page, relates to the word attorney-it is offered apropos of the passage where Rosalind recommends Orlando "to die by attorney." Whereupon the critic observes, "I am sorry to say that in our times the once most respectable word, 'attorney,' seems to have gained a new meaning-[that of]—a 'disreputable legal practitioner,' so that attorneys-at-law consider themselves treated discour

UNIVERSITY OF

Shakespeare in the Queen's Bench CHIGAN

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teously when they are called 'attorneys.' They now all wish to be called solicitors, when doing the proper business of attorneys in the courts of common law. Most sincerely honouring this branch of our profession, if it would please them, I am ready to support a bill to prohibit the use of the word attorney, and to enact that on all occasions the word solicitor shall be used instead thereof." We observe the motive for Lord Campbell's support to such a bill, viz.—-that of pleasing attorneys of high character. But, in point of fact, though there may be some weak and vulgar practitioners who dislike the title of their calling from some foolish vanity, and all may occasionally have a sense of shame at belonging to a profession where now and then a great rogue or extortionate firm is detected (and is not struck off the rolls by the tender court of Queen's Bench); yet, we infer, the objection to the professional name is not sufficiently common to produce a popularity sufficiently "loud" to justify the noble lord in following the magnanimous course he professes himself ready to take.

Lord Campbell's literary attempt in connection with Shakespeare's history, has at least been of advantage in one respect. It has enabled the present chief of the Queen's Bench to do himself justice in a certain particular-by entering upon a piece of autobiography. This has reference to the Irish chancellorship— that creditable operation of the Whig party, which at the time excited so great an admiration both of the government and the person appointed. As Lord Campbell has here seized the appropriate opportunity of recording the following fact in his judicial career, it is but fair to him to repeat it in our pages:

"In several successive lives of Lord Chief-Justice Campbell, it is related that, by going for a few weeks to Ireland as chancellor, he obtained a pension of £4000 a-year, which he has ever since received, thereby robbing the public; whereas, in truth and in fact, he made it a stipulation on his going to Ireland, that he should receive no pension-and pension he never did receive; and, without pension or place, for years after he returned from Ireland, he regularly served the public in the judicial committee of the Privy Council, and in the judicial business of the House of

Lords. This erroneous statement is to be found in a recent life of Lord C., which is, upon the whole, laudatory above due measure, but in which the author laments that there was one fault to be imputed to him which could not be passed over by an impartial biographer, viz.—that he had most improperly obtained this Irish pension, which he still continues to receive, without any benefit being derived by the public from his services. Lord C. ought to speak tenderly of biographers; but I am afraid that they may sometimes be justly compared to the hogs of Westphalia, who without discrimination pick up what falls from one another.” This latter simile is very elegant as well as forcible; but its chief merit consists in the honest support which the author here gives to the doctrine, that for a writer of biography to plagiarize "without discrimination" is swinish conduct-i e., dirty and selfish. We may carry the remark still farther, and express equal distaste to pirating with discrimination; a process sometimes described as borrowing without acknowledgment.

ART. V.-Speech on the Laws relating to the Property of Intestates, in the House of Commons, February 17, 1859. By P. J. LOCKE KING, M.P. London: Ridgway, 1859.

ORD CHIEF JUSTICE HALE hath observed in his essay touching "Amendment of Lawes," Cap. I. :-" An overbusy meddling with the alteration of lawes, though under the plausible name and pretence of reformation, doth necessarily introduce a great fluidness, lubricity, and unsteadiness in the lawes, and renders them upon every little occasion subject to perpetual fluxes, vicissitudes, and mutations. When once this law is changed, why may not that which is introduced be changed, and so onwards in perpetual motion? So, possibly in the period of an age or two, the law of a kingdom, and with it its government, may have as many shapes as a silkworm hath in the period of a year; so that

they that now live cannot project under what lawes their children shall live; nor the child or grandchild understand by what lawes the kingdom was governed in the time of their father or grandfather; and thereby the constitution of the government, the rule of property, and all things that are concerned to have the greatest fixedness that may be, shall become as lax and unstable as if every age underwent a new conquest from a foreign state."

In quoting the above passage in connection with the publication placed at the head of this article, we are far from wishing to imply that all the measures for the reform of the law, introduced by Mr. Locke King during his parliamentary career, are open to the objections alluded to by Sir Matthew Hale. Indeed we admit, as most will admit, that some enactments which owe their parentage to Mr. Locke King's parliamentary energy, have effected real and beneficial reforms, and have removed from our laws absurdities which it is only surprising should have been left so long untouched, and which it is still more surprising should have been swept away, not at the instigation of a legal member of the legislature, but at that of a layman.

It is to Mr. Locke King's zeal and perseverance that we are indebted for the act (17 & 18 Vict., c. 113) which renders real estate in the hands of an heir or devisee primarily liable to the payment of all mortgage debts with which it is charged; and also for the act (19 & 20 Vict., c. 94) which abolished the special customs of London, York, and other places, concerning the distribution of the personal estate of intestates. Of these measures Mr. Locke King seems to be, and may justly be, proud. But the remarks of Lord Chief Justice Hale are, nevertheless, peculiarly applicable to the proposed alteration in the law of descent of real estate, unless better reasons and more sufficient grounds than we have yet met with can be adduced for its introduction. We will, however, proceed to consider the arguments which have been used on behalf of the proposed reform.

Mr. Locke King states that the law which regulates the descent of real property "is a perfect chaos, inconsistent with itself, and generally admitted to be oppressive and unjust wherever it comes

into operation." We were not aware, until after we had had the advantage of reading Mr. Locke King's speech, that the present canons of descent were particularly chaotic and inconsistent; but confusion and inconsistency, if they exist, can be remedied without abolishing the present principle of descent; and the propriety of a change in that principle must depend solely upon the question whether it is unjust, oppressive, or inexpedient.

The rule of descent is thus laid down by Mr. Locke King:-"Where a parent dies intestate, leaving a widow and children, if his estate be freehold land the whole of it descends to the eldest son, and the remaining children and the widow are, under the sanction of the law, left destitute." As regards the widow the above statement is erroneous, for she is always entitled to her dower, of which she cannot be deprived, except with her own consent, or by her own election; or, as regards a widow married on or before the 1st January, 1834, by the usual uses in bar of dower; or, as regards a widow married since that date, by a disposition by, or the express declaration of, the husband.

Mr. Locke King mentions a case of peculiar cruelty to a widow, which had been brought under his notice :-"A small tradesman married a woman with some money; no settlement was made on the marriage; he would not invest her money in his business, lest it should run any risk of being lost. After they had lived very happily together for some years, the house they resided in was for sale ; he told his wife that it would be a very good investment for her money, and accordingly he bought it. He died intestate, ignorant of the law; his own nephew, his heir-at-law, claimed and took the house, and the widow is now destitute-a menial servant."(P. 10.)

The case, no doubt, is one of hardship; but there are also many other rules of law which, in particular cases, work great injustice. For instance, how often it has happened that the benevolent intentions of a testator have been frustrated because he was "ignorant of the law," and did not execute his will with the required formalities; and so his property has devolved upon his next of kin, whom he perhaps never saw, or who had no

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