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whole state of the common law of the country was brought before the House. "Is it fitting or consistent with reason, or indeed with justice," said Mr. Brougham, "that merely crossing the river, or travelling a distance of some miles in this neighbourhood, should make so great an alteration in the law of real property, as that, to the eastward of us, all the sons inherit equally; to the westward, the youngest alone; and here, the eldest? But these rules of the Common Law, of Gavelkind, and Borough-English, are better known, and operate within more defined limits. What shall be said of the customary tenures in a thousand manors, all different from the common law that regulates freehold estates, most of them differing from each other? Is it, I ask, fit that this multitude of laws, this variety of codes-the relics of a barbarous age-should be allowed to exist in a country subject to the same general bonds of government?"-Lord Brougham's Speeches, v. 2.

Never was a passage more singularly misapplied than this one has been by Mr. Locke King. Mr. Brougham adverted to "the inconvenient differences in the tenures by which property is held, and the rules by which it is conveyed and transmitted in various districts" (p. 378); and went on to say, that the obvious remedy to be adopted in this case was to give to all parts of the country the same rules touching property, and therefore he would propose an assimilation of the laws affecting real estates all over England (p. 382).

Mr. Brougham's opinion is strongly in favour of the abolition. of peculiar tenures and customs, the inconvenience of some of which were pointed out in a late number of this Magazine;' but surely Lord Brougham must have been somewhat astonished at finding a passage, in a speech of Mr. Brougham, quoted in support of the abolition of the "right of primogeniture!" Lord St. Leonards' "Handy Book”—(which, by the way, is curiously stated by Mr. Locke King to have been published some years ago by the learned lord when Sir Edward Sugden!)—is next quoted in support of the bill. The passage is as follows:moment's reflection will show what serious consequences may follow from a neglect on your part; for suppose you purchase 1 See an article on Gavelkind, L. M. & R., vol. vi., p. 333. (Feb. 1859.)

VOL. VII. NO. XIII.

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an estate with the £10,000 in the funds, which you have given by your will to your younger children, and which constituted the bulk of your personal property, and should neglect to devise the estate, the money must go to pay for it, at the expense of your younger children, who would be left nearly destitute; whilst your eldest son, to whom the estate would descend, would have an overgrown fortune."

Now this case ought to have been provided for by the act (17 & 18 Vict., c. 113) already alluded to. It was supposed by some that the act would apply to it, and that a lien for unpaid purchase-money was a charge within the meaning of the act; but V. C. Stuart has held to the contrary (Hood v. Hood, 26 L. J., ch. 616). Mr. Locke King would do well to amend his act in this particular; but the case has nothing whatever to do with the present canons of descent.

We have shown that these canons do not work injustice on the higher and middle classes, and that the proposed change would be injurious to the lower classes. None of the arguments in favour of that change can bear strict investigation; for though at first sight they seem to be plausible, yet, upon mature consideration, they prove to be unsatisfactory and inconclusive.

The reforms usually advocated by Mr. Locke King are such as most sensible men would be glad to see well considered if not carried out. It is he who, by his repeated attacks, has forced successive governments to entertain and bring forward measures which, otherwise, would long have lain dormant. It is he who has continually urged the necessity of a reform of our statute law, and it is not his fault that none of his efforts in that direction have succeeded; and it is he, moreover, to whom reformers are indebted for the introduction, by government, of political reforms, to which a passing allusion only is permissible in our pages. In fact, Mr. Locke King has "done the state some service; " but his last proposed reform is one of that large spreading class of “ overbusy meddlings" alluded to at the outset of this article, and which my Lord Chief-Justice Hale doth quaintly but with good reason condemn, and against which it is our duty, in this publication, strenuously to protest.

ART. VI.-THE LIBRARY OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE.

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ASSENGERS on the river Thames will doubtless be struck

by the appearance of a new stone building now erecting on its northern bank, not far from the Essex-street pier. The building is destined to be the new library of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple; and, when completed, will doubtless, notwithstanding some unavoidable inconveniences in site, be one of the lions of the Temple, if not of the metropolis.

But it is not of this edifice, but of the valuable collection of books, which, having outgrown its present receptacle, it is intended to place there, that we are about to give a brief account.

The portrait of the founder of the Middle Temple Library hangs in the reading-room, but in so unfortunate a light, that the apartment might be entered a hundred times by the same person without the picture, which apparently needs cleaning, attracting attention. It represents a dark-haired, thin-visaged man, and (if the portrait be life-sized) of somewhat small stature. The artist's name is invisible, and, we believe, unknown.

This gentleman-Robert Ashley, Esq., an ancient member of the Honourable Society-dying in 1641, left his whole library, together with a large sum of money, to the Inn in which he had imbibed his legal education. This liberal example was promptly followed by several masters of the bench, and other distinguished Templars of the day; and the library of the Middle Temple was thus established.

It is difficult, in these tranquil times, for the imagination to figure the sensations of residents in the Temple in 1642-that most eventful epoch in England's history-and during the subsequent years of war and tumult. Within the recollection of the present generation, however, there did occur an extraordinary scene of excitement in the quiet regions of the Temple. We refer to the memorable 10th of April, 1848, when special pleaders became special constables-sergeants-at-law undertook the duty of

sergeants of police-briefs were forsaken for batons—and pupils ceased to ponder on the principles of Magna Charta, that they might rush forth to destroy the multitudinous Chartists.

We are assured by the solitary Swiss who guarded the Middle Temple Library on that remarkable occasion, that after the truncheoned battalions of Templars had been marched to their respective posts, and he was left "alone in his glory," he felt somewhat lonely and "hunkit," as country people say. For, although prepared to die, if need were, at his post, as became a man and a servant of the Honourable Society, yet death under such circumstances is much more heroic in act than agreeable in contemplation. Doubtless he would rather have figured amongst the Beaumanoirs and Bois-Guilberts whom he had seen pass from the gates, with hearts and sticks of oak, to anticipated combat; gallant brethren of his own, he knew, too, were amongst the Conservative bands. And thus his mind. would involuntarily, assuming a comparative mood, revert to the fate of the faithful few defenders of the Tuileries, who perished one against a host. They had the bayonet-he his books. But valuable support as is each of these weapons to constitutions under ordinary circumstances, even they will sometimes fail in crises, and he might perish surrounded by Blackstone and Coke, and might meet death at the hands of an illegal mob, whilst in his own he held a copy of Broom's legal maxims. That was only the danger of a day. But in the reign of the first Charles the library and its inmates were exposed for years to continual perils. Cavaliers or Roundheads, in present want of cartridges, might equally be expected to make free with the collection, and military as well as mob caprice might have spared us the agreeable labour of writing this article!

These troublous times have left their traces in the library, in a very ample collection of proclamations, manifestoes, ordinances, letters (the only then existing representative of the present newspaper), speeches, and pamphlets, emanating alike from king and parliament.

Although passing through this fiery period unscathed, the

library does not appear to have been materially increased until after the close of the civil wars. When it ceased to be entirely supported by voluntary contributions we know not; but the next benefactor upon a large scale was the Irish Lord Chief-Justice Pepys; and, in the succeeding two hundred years, the names (amongst others more or less well known) of Elias Ashmole, Bartholomew Shower, and William Petyt, may be found amongst its most liberal supporters. Yet, as we shall see presently, it has undergone several periods of strange, and, to us, unaccountable neglect, the effects of which were, till lately, very discernible in its weakness upon particular important subjects, and are not even yet entirely eradicated. For example-a complete series of the old reports was not to be obtained in it till late in the present century. That defect, however, is now supplied.

Sir Cresswell Levinz is stated,1 upon the authority of a MS. in the Harleian Collection, to have printed a very few copies of a catalogue of this library. We have been unable to discover any trace of it. The earliest extant that we know of, and which, we believe, to be also very scarce (only one copy existing in the library), was made by, or under the direction of, Sir Bartholomew Shower, then treasurer of the society, in 1700. It is classed with considerable minuteness, according to language, subject, and size; but in some other respects the arrangement is faulty, and the type is small.

We have already stated that at several periods the library has experienced much neglect, not easily to be accounted for, until some new impetus was given to its augmentation by publicspirited friends, or members of the Inn. But never has this neglect been so visible as during the long space of time from 1711 to 1826, during which few works appear to have been added to the collection, either by presentation or purchase. What were the guardians of the library about all that time?

"We know not, and it ne'er was known."

Nevertheless, a new quarto catalogue, in good type, with large 1 Gentlemen's Magazine, September, 1816.

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