the lesson to the master; and we believe that the boys, long before they came to the end of this series of books, would be able to do without their keys-to fling away their cork-jackets, and to swim alone. But boys who learn a language in four or five months, it is said, are apt to forget it again. Why, then, does not a young person, who has been five or six months in Paris, forget his French four or five years afterwards? It has been obtained without any of that labour, which the objectors to the Hamiltonian system deem to be so essential to memory. It has been obtained in the midst of tea and bread and butter, and yet is in a great measure retained for a whole life. In the same manner, the pupils of this new school use a colloquial liv. ing d ctionary, and, from every principle of youthful emulation, contend with each other in catching the interpretation, and in applying to the lesson before them. If you wish boys to remember any language, make the acquisition of it very tedious and disgusting. This seems to be an odd rule: but if it is good for Language, it must be good also for every species of knowledge-music, mathematics, navigation, architecture. In all these sciences aversion should be the parent of memory-impediment the cause of perfection. If difficulty is the cause of memory, the boy who learns with the greatest difficulty will remember with the greatest tenacity;-in other words, the acquisitions of a dunce will be greater and more important than those of a clever boy. Where is the love of difficulty going to end? Why not leave a boy to compose his own dictionary and grammar? It is not what is done for a boy, but what he does for himself, that is of any importance. Are there difficulties enough in the old method of acquiring languages? Would it be better if the difficulties were doubled, and thirty years given to languages, instead of fifteen? All these arguments presune the difficulty to be got over, and then the memory to be improved. But what if the difficulty is shrunk from? What if it puts an end to power, instead of increasing it; and extinguishes, instead of exciting, application? And when these ef fects are produced, you not only preclude all hopes of learning, or language, but you put an end for ever to all literary habits, and to all improvements from study. The boy who is lexicon-struck in early youth looks upon all books afterwards with horror, and goes over to the blockheads. Every boy would be pleased with books, and pleased with school, and be glad to forward the views of his parents, and obtain the praise of his master, if he found it possible to make tolerable easy progress; but he is driven to absolute despair by gerunds, and wishes himself dead! Progress is pleasure-activity is pleasure. It is impossible for a boy not to make progress, and not to be ac tive in the Hamiltonian method; and this pleasing state of mind we contend to be more favourable to memory, than the languid jaded spirit which much com. merce with lexicons never fails to produce. Translations are objected to in schools justly enough, when they are paraphrases and not translations. It is impossible, from a paraphrase or very loose translation, to make any useful progress-they retard rather than accelerate a knowledge of the language to be acquired, and are the principal causes of the discredit into which translations have been brought, as instruments of education. has afforded a conspicuous mark for the aim of his antagonists. I have said that each word is translated by its one sole undeviating meaning, assuming as an incontrovertible inciple in all languages that, with very few ece tions, each word has one meaning only, and can usually be rendered correctly into another by one word only, which one word should serve for its representative at all times and on all occasions." Now, it is probable that each word had one meaning only in its origin; but metaphor and association are so busy with human speech, that the same word comes to serve in a vast variety of senses. and continues to do so long after the metaphors and associat ons which called it into this state of activity are buried in oblivion. Why may not jubes be translated order as well as command, or dolorem rendered grief as well Mr. Hamilton has expressed himself as sorrow? loosely; but he perhaps means no more than to say, that in school translations, the metaphysical meaning should never be adopted, when the word can be rendered by its primary signification. We shall allow him, however, to detail his own method of making the translation in question, Translations on the Hamiltonian system, according to which this book is translated, must not be confounded with translations made according to Locke, Clarke, Sterling, or even according to Dumarsais, Fremost, and a number of other Frenchmen, who have made what have been and are vet sometimes called literal, and interlineal tran-lations. The latter are, indeed, interlineal, but no literal translation had ever appeared in any language before those called Hamiltonian, that is, before my Gospel of St. John from the French, the Greek, and Latin Gospels, published in London, and L'Hommond's Epitome of the Historia Sacra. These and these only were and are truly literal; that is to say, that every word is rendered in English by a correspondin part of speech; that the grammatical analysis of the phrase is never departed from; and the mood, tense, and person of every verb, are accurately pointed out by appro priate and unchanging signs, so that a grammarian not un derstanding one word of Italian, would, on reading any part of the translation here given, be instantly able to parse it. In the translations above alluded to, an attempt is made to preserve the correctness of the language into which the different works are translated, but the wish to conciliate this correctness with a literal translation, has only produced a barbarous and uncouth idiom, while it has in every case deceived the unlearned pupil by a translation altogether false and incorrect. Such translations may, indeed, give an idea of what is contained in the book translated, but they will not assist, or at least very little, in enabling the pupil to make out the exact meaning of each word, which is the principal object of Hamiltonian translations. The reader will understand this better by an illustration: A gentleman has lately given a translation of Juvenal according to the plan of the above-mentioned authors, beginning with the words semper ego, which he joins and translates, "shall I always be"-if his intention were to teach Latin words, he might as well have said, "shall I always eat beefsteaks?"-True, there is nothing about beef-steaks in semper ego, but neither is there about "shall be:" the whole translation is on the same plan, that is to say, that there is not one line of it correct, I had almost said one word, on which the papil can rely, as the exact equivalent in English of the Latin word above it.-Not so the translation here given. As the object of the author has been that the pupil should know every word as well as he knows it himself, he has uniformly given it the one sole, precise meaning which it has in our language, sacrificing everywhere the beauty, the idiom, and the correctness of the English language to the original, in order to show the perfect idiom, phraseology, and picture of that original as in a glass. So far is this carried, that where the English language can express the precise meaning of the Italian phrase only by a barbarism, this barbarism is employed without scruple-as thus; "e le tenebre non l'hanno ammessa." Infandum Regina jubes renovare dolorem, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem infandum. Oh! Queen, thou orderest to renew grief not to be spoken of. 'Oh! Queen, in pursuance of your commands, I enter upon the narrative of misfortunes almost too great for ut--Here the word tenebre being plural, if you translate it dark terance. The first of these translations leads us directly to the explication of a foreign language, as the latter in sures a perfect ignorance of it. It is difficult enough to introduce any useful novelty in education without enhancing its perils by needless and untenable paradox. Mr. Hamilton has made an assertion in his Preface to the Key of the Italian Gospel, which has no kind of foundation in fact, and which ness, you not only give a false translation of the word itself, which is used by the Italians in the plural number, but what is much more important, you lead the pupil into an error about its government, it being the nominative case to hanno, which is the third person plural; it is therefore translated not darkness, but darknesses.' To make these keys perfect, we rather think there should be a free translation added to the literal one. Not a paraphrase, but only so free as to avoid any awkward or barbarous expression. The comparison between the free and the literal translation would im- Free Oh! Queen, thou orderest me to renew my grief, too great for utterance.' The want of this accompanying free translation is not felt in keys of the Scriptures, because, in fact, the English Bible is a free translation, great part of which the scholar remembers. But in a work entirely unknown, of which a key was given, as full of awkward and barbarous expressions as a key certainly ought to be, a scholar might be sometimes puzzled to arrive at the real sense. We say as full of awkward and barbarous expressions as it ought to be, because we thoroughly approve of Mr. Hamilton's plan, of always sacrificing English and elegance to sense, when they cannot be united in the key. We are rather sorry Mr. Hamilton's first essay has been in a translation of the Scriptures, because every child is so familiar with them, that it may be difficult to determine whether the apparent progress is ancient recollection or recent attainment; and because the Scriptures are so full of Hebraisms and Syriacisms, and the language so different from that of Greek authors, that it does not secure a knowledge of the language equivalent to the time employed upon it. desire to put strictly to the test the efficacy of the Hamiltonian system. The experiment was begun the middle of May, 1825, and concluded on the day of November in the same year mentioned in the extract, exactly six months after. The Latin books set before them were the Gospel of St. John, and parts of Cæsar's Commentaries. Some Italian bock or books (what we know not), and a selection of French histories. The visitors put the boys on where they pleased, and the translation was (as the reporter says) executed with an ease which it would be van to expect in any of the boys who attend our common schools, even in their third or fourth year. From experiments and observations which have fallen under our own notice, we do not scruple to make the following assertions. If there were keys to the four Gospels, as there is to that of St. John, any Loy or girl of thirteen years of age, and of medeiate capa. city, studying four hours a day, and beginning with an utter ignorance even of the Greek character, would learn to construe the four Gospels with the most per tect and scrupulous accuracy, in six weeks. Some children, utterly ignorant of French or Italian, would learn to construe the four Gospels, in either of these languages, in three weeks; the Latin in four weeks; the German in five weeks. We believe they would do it in a class, but not to run any risks, we will presume a master to attend upon one student alone for these periods. We assign a master principally, he cause the application of a solitary boy at that age could not be depended upon; but if the cdulity of the child were certain, he would do it nearly as well alone. A greater time is allowed for Geiman and Greek, on account of the novelty of the character. A person of mature habits, eager and energetic in his pursuits, and reading seven or eight hours per day, might, though utterly ignorant of a letter of Greek, lean to construe the four Gospels, with the most punctilicus accuracy in three weeks, by the key alone. These assertions Extract from the Morning Chronicle of Wednesday, No-ably easy book of the same extent. We mean to be we make, not of the Gospels alone, but of any teler vember 16th, 1825.-Hamiltonian System.-We yesterday were present at an examination of eight lads who have been under Mr. Hamilton since some time in the month of May last, with a view to ascertain the efficacy of his system in communicating a knowledge of languages. These eight lads, all of them between the ages of twelve and fourteen, are the children of poor people, who, when they were first placed under Mr. Hamilton, possessed no other instruction than common reading and wriag. They were obtained from a common country school, through the interposition of a member of Parliament, who takes an active part in promoting charity schools throughout the country; and the choice was determined by the consent of the parents, and not by the cleverness of the boys. The keys hitherto published by Mr. Hamilton are the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and German keys to the Gospel of St. John, Perrin's Fables, Latin His toria Sacra, Latin, French, and Italian Grammar, and Studia Metrica. One of the difficulties under which the system is labouring, is a want of more keys. Some of the best Greek and Roman classics should be immediately published, with keys, and by very good scholars. We shall now lay before our readers an extract from one of the public papers respecting the progress made in the Hainiltonian schools. very accurate; but suppose we are wing-add 10, 20, 30 per cent. to the time, an average Loy of thirteen, in an average school, cannot construe the four Gesels in two years from the time of his beginning the lan guage. All persons would be glad to read a foreign lan guage, but all persons do not want the same scrupulous and comprehensive knowledge of grammar which a great Latin scholar possesses. Many persons may, and do, derive great pleasure and instruction from French, German, and Italian books, who can neither speak nor write these languages-who know that cer tain terminations when they see them, signify present or past time, but who, if they wished to signify present or past time, could not recall these terminations. For many purposes and objects, therefore, very little They have been employed in learning Latin, French, and latterly Italian; and yesterday they were examined by several distinguished individuals, among whom we recognized John Smith, Esq. M. P.; G. Smith, Esq. M. P.; Mr. J. Mill, the historian of British India; Major Camae; Major Thompson; Mr. Cowell, &c. &c. They first read different portions of the Gospel of St. John in Latin, and of Cæsar's Commentaries, select-grammar is wanting. ed by the visitors. The translation was executed with an ease which it would be in vain to expect in any of the boys who atten our common schools, even in their third or fourth year; ad proved, that the principle of exciting the attention of boys to the utmost, during the process by which the meaning of the words is fixed in their memory, had given them a great familtity with so much of the language as is contained in the books above alluded to. Their knowledge of the parts of speech was respectable, but not so remarkable; as the Hamiltonau system follows the natural mode of acquiring language, and only employs the boys in analyzing, when they have already attained a certain familiarity with any language. The same experiments were repeated in French and Italian with the same success, and, upon the whole, we cannot but think the success has been complete. It is impossible to conceive a more impartial mode of putting any system to the test, than to make such an experiment on the children of our peasantry." The Hamiltonian method begins with what all per scholar to become afterwards as profound in grammar sons want, a facility of construing, and leaves every as he (or those who educate him) may choose; whereas the old method aims at making all more profound grammarians than three-fourths wish to be, or than nineteen-twentieths can be. One of the cnormous follies of the enormously feelish education in England, is, that all young men-dukes, fox-bunters, and merchants-are educated as if they were to keep a school, and serve a curacy; while scarcely an hour in the Hamiltonian education is lost for any variety of life. A grocer may learn enough of Latin to taste the sweets of Virgil; a cavalry officer may read and understand Homer, without knowing that comes from with a smooth breathing, and that it is formed by an improper reduplication.. In the mean time, there is nothing in that education which prevents a scholar from knowing (if he wishes to know) what Into the truth of this statement we have personally inquired, and it seems to us to have fallen short of the facts, from the laudable fear of overstating them. The lads selected for the experiment were parish boys of the most ordinary description, reading English worse than Cumberland curates, and totally ignorant of the rudiments of any other language. They were purposely selected for the experiment by a gentleman to all scepticism as to the fact. Two more candid and enlight who defrayed its expense, and who had the strongest | ened judges could not be found. We have left with the bookseller the names of two gentlemen who have verified this account to us, and who were present at the experiment. Their names will at once put an end 4 Geeek compounds draw back their accents. He may trace verbs in iu from polysyllables in , or derive endless glory from marking down derivatives in πτω, changing the of their primitives into iota. ε is a philosophical amusement: but whoever thinks of learning the grammar of their own tongue before they are very good grammarians? Let us hear what Mr. Locke says upon this subject: If grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already; how else can he be taught the grammar of it? This at least is evident, from the practice of the wise and learned nations amongst the ancients. They made it a part of education to culti vate their own, not foreign languages. The Greeks counted all other nations barbarous, and had a contempt for their languages. And though the Greek learning grew in credit amongst the Romans towards the end of their commonwealth, yet it was the Roman tongue that was made the study of their youth: their own language they were to make use of, and therefore it was their own language they were instructed and exercised in. But, more particularly, to determine the proper season for grammar, I do not see how it can reasona bly be made any one's study, but as an introduction to rhetoric. When it is thought time to put any one upon the care of polishing his tongue, and of speaking better than the illiterate, then is the time for him to be instructed in the rules of grammar, and not before. For grammar being to teach men not to speak, but to speak correctly, and according to the exact rules of the tongue, which is one part of elegancy, there is little use of the one to him that has no need of the other. Where rhetoric is not necessary, grammar may be spared. I know not why any one should waste his time, and beat his head about the Latin grammar, who does not intend to be a critic, or make speeches, and write despatches in it. When any one finds in himself a necessity or disposition to study any foreign language to the bottom, and to be nicely exact in the knowledge of it, it will be time enough to take a grammatical survey of it. If his use of it be only to understand some books writ in it, without a critical knowledge of the tongue itself, reading alone, as I have said, will attain that end, without charging the mind with the multiplied rules and intricacies of gram. mar.'-Locke on Education, p. 78, folio Thus in the Hamiltonian method, a good deal of grammar necessarily impresses itself upon the mind (chemin faisant), as it does in the vernacular tongue, without any rule at all, and merely by habit. How is it possible to read many Latin keys, for instance, without remarking, willingly or unwillingly, that the first persons of verbs end in o, the second in s, the third in t?—that the same adjective ends in us or a, accord.ngly as the connected substantive is masculine or feminine, and other such gross and common rules? An Englishnan who means to say, I will go to London, does not say, I could go to London. He never read a word of grammar in his life; but he has learnt, by habit, that the word go, signifies to proceed or set forth, and by the same habit he learns that future intentions are expressed by I will; and by the same habit the Hamiltonian pupil, reading over, and comprehending twenty times more words and phrases than the pupil of the ancient system, insensible but infallibly fixes upon his mind many rules of grammar. We are far froin meaning to say, that the grammar thus acquired will be sufficiently accurate for the first-rate Latin and Greek scholar; but there is no reason why a young person arriving at this distinction, and educated in the Hamiltonian system, may not carry the study of grammar to any degree of minuteness and accuracy. The only difference is, that he begins grammar as a study, after he has made a considerable progress in the language, and not before-a very important feature in the Hamiltonian system, and a very great improvement in the education of children. The imperfections of the old system proceed in a great measure from a bad and improvident accumulation of difficulties, which must all, perhaps, though in a less degree, at one time or another be encounter. ed but which may be, and in the Hamiltonian system are, much more wisely distributed. A boy who sits down to Greek with lexicon and grammar, has to mas. ter an unknown language-to look out words in a lexicon, in the use of which he is inexpert-to guess, by many trials, in which of the numerous senses detailed in the lexicon he is to use the word-to attend to the inflections of cases and tense-to become acquainted with the syntax of the language-and to become ac quainted with these inflexions and this syntax from contrahuntur in omnibus, ut yoos yous, &c. 'Odiyorati, qua 'Nomina anomala quæ contrahuntur sunt, ‘'Оλømaðñ, quí books written in foreign languages, and full of the in paucioribus casibus contrahuntur, ut substantiva Barytonis most absurd and barbarous terms, and this at the ten-in up. Imparyllatria in ovp,' &c. &c. derest age, when the mind is utterly unfit to grapple with any great difficulty; and the boy, who revolts at all this folly and absurdity, is set down for a dunce, and must go into a marching regiment, or on board a man of war! The Hamiltonian pupil has his word looked out for him, its proper sense ascertained, the case of the substantive, the inflexions of the verb pointed out, and the syntaxical arrangement placed before his eyes. Where, then, is he to encounter these difficulties? Does he hope to escape them en tirely? Certainly not, if it is his purpose to become a great scholar; but he will enter upon them when the character is familiar to his eye-when a great number of Greek words are familiar to his eye and ear-when he has practically mastered a great deal of grammar-when the terminations of verbs convey to him different modifications of time, the terminations of substantives different varieties of circumstance -when the rules of grammar. in short, are a confirmation of previous observation, not an irksome multitude of directions, heaped up without any opportunity of immediate application. In the Eton Grammar, the following very plain and elen:entary information is conveyed to young gentlemen utterly ignorant of every syllable of the language : From the Westminster Grammar we make the fol lowing extract-and some thousand rules, conveyed in poetry of equal merit, must be fixed upon the mind of the youthful Grecian, before he advances into the interior of the language." finis thematis finis utriusque futuri est Post liquidam in primo, vel in unoquoque secundo, w circumflexum est. Ante o finale character Explicitus de primi est implicitusque futuri w itaque in quo quasi plexum est solitu in σw.' Westminster Greek Grammar, 1814. Such are the easy initiations of our present methods of teaching. The Hamiltonian system, on the other hand, 1. teaches an unknown tongue by the closest interlinear translation, instead of leaving a boy to explore his way by the lexicon or dictionary. 2. It postpones the study of grammar till a considerable progress has been made in the language, and a great degree of practical grammar has been acquired. 3. It substitutes the cheerfulness and competition of the The real way of learning a dead language, is to Lancasterian system for the dull solitude of the dicinitate, as much as possible, the method in which a tionary. By these means, a boy finds he is making a living language is naturally learnt. When do we ever progress, and learning something from the very be. find a well educated Englishman or Frenchman em- ginning. He is not overwhelmed with the first apbarrassed by an ignorance of the grammar of their pearance of insuperable difficulties; he receives some respective languages? They first learn it practically little pay from the first moment of his apprenticeship, and unerringly; and then, if they choose and look and is not compelled to wait for remuneration till he back and smile at the idea of having proceeded by a number of rules without knowing one of them by heart, ex being conscious that they had any rule at all, this is out of his time. The student having acquired the great art of understanding the sense of what is written in another tongue, may go into the study of the lan guage as deeply and as extensively as he pleases. The old system aims at beginning with a depth and accuracy which many men never will want, which disgusts many from arriving even at moderate attainments, and is a less easy, and not more certain road to a profound skill in languages, than if attention to grammar had been deferred to a later period. In fine, we are strongly persuaded, that the time being given, this system will make better scholars; and the degree of scholarship being given, a much shorter time will be needed. If there is any truth in this, it will make Mr. Hamilton one of the most useful men of his age; for if there is any thing which fills reflecting men with melancholy and regret, it is the waste of mortal time, parental money, and puerile happiness, in the present method of pursuing Latin and Greek. COUNSEL FOR PRISONERS. On the sixth of April, 1824, Mr. George Lamb, (a gentleman who is always the advocate of whatever is honest and liberal), presented the following petition from several jurymen in the habit of serving on juries at the Old Bailey : tion, not the result of solicitation-and we have no reason to doubt it—it is a warning which the legisla ture cannot neglect, if it mean to avoid the disgrace of seeing the lower and middle orders of mankind making laws for themselves, which the government is at length compelled to adopt as measures of their own. The judges and the Parliament would have gone on to this day, hanging, by wholesale, for the forgeries of bank notes, it juries had not become weary of the continual butchery, and resolved to acquit. The proper execution of laws must always depend, in great mea sure, upon public opinion; and it is undoubtedly most discreditable to any men intrusted with power, when, the governed turn round upon their governors, and say, Your laws are so cruel, or so foolish, we cannot and will not act upon them.' The particular improvement, of allowing counsel to those who are accused of felony, is so far from being unnecessary, from any extraordinary indulgence shown (EDINBURGH RE- to English prisoners, that we really cannot help sus pecting, that not a year elapses in which many inno indeed, that it can be otherwise? There are seventy cent persons are not found guilty. How is it possible, the assizes, who have lain in prison for some months; or eighty persons to be tried for various offences at and fifty of whom, perhaps, are of the lowest order of the people, without friends in any better condition than themselves, and without one single penny to employ in their defence. How are they to obtain witnesses? That your petitioners, fully sensible of the invaluable No attorney can be employed-no subjana can be privilege of jury trials, and desirous of seeing them as com- taken out; the witnesses are fifty iniles off, pernapsplete as human institutions will admit, feel it their duty to totally uninstructed-living from hand to mouthdraw the attention of the House to the restrictions imposed utterly unable to give up their daily occupation to pay on the prisoner's counsel, which, they humbly conceive, for their journey, or for their support when arrived at have strong claims to legislative remedy. With every dis- the town of trial-and, if they could get there, not position to decide justly, the petitioners have found, by experience, in the couse of their attendance as juryinen in knowing where to go, or what to do. It is impossible the old Bailey, that the opening statements for the prosecu- but that a human being, in such a helpless situation, tion too frequently leave an impression more unfavourable must be found guilty; for, as he cannot give evidence to the prisoner at the bar, than the evidence of itself could for himself, and has not a penny to fetch those who have produced; and it has always sounded harsh to the pe- can give it for him, any story told against him must titioners to hear it announced from the bench, that the be taken tor true (however false); since it is impos counsel, to whom the prisoner has committed his defence, sible for the poor wretch to contradict it. A brother cannot be permitted to address the jury in his behalf nor reply to the charges which have, or have not, been substan- or a sister may come-and support every suffering and tiated by the witnesses. The petitioners have felt their sit-privation themselves in coming; but the prisoner uation peculiarly painful and embarrassing when the prisoner's faculties, perhaps surprised by such an intimation, are too much ab-orbed in the difliculties of his unhappy circumstances to admit of an effort towards his own justification, against the statements of the prosecutor's counsel, often unintentionally aggravated through zeal or miscon ception; and it is purely with a view to the attainment of impartial justice, that the petitioners humbly submit to the serious consideration of the House the expediency of allow ing every accused person the full benefit of counsel, as in cases of misdemeanour, and according to the practice of the civil courts.' With the opinions so sensibly and properly expressed by these jurymen, we most cordially agree. We have before touched incidentally on this subject; but shall now give to it a more direct and a fuller examination. We look upon it as a very great blot in our over-praised criminal code; and no effort of ours shall be wanting, from time to time, for its removal. cannot often have such claims upon the persons who have witnessed the transaction, nor any other claims but those which an unjustly accused person has upon those whose testimony can exculpate him-and who probably must starve themselves and their families to do it. It is true, a case of life and death will rouse the poorest persons, every now and then, to extraor dinary exertions, and they may tramp through mud and dirt to the assize town to save a life-though even this effort is precarious enough: but imprisonment, hard labour, or transportation, appeal less forcibly than death,-and would often appeal for evidence in vain, to the feeble and limited resources of extreme poverty. It is not that a great proportion of those accused are not guilty-but that some are not-and are utterly without means of establishing their innocence. We do not believe they are often accused from wilful and corrupt perjury: but the prosecutor is himself mistaken. The crime has been committed; and in his thirst for vengeance, he has got hold of the wrong man. The wheat was stolen out of the barn; and, amidst many other collateral circumstances, the witnesses (paid and brought up by a wealthy prosecutor, who is repaid by the county), swear that they saw a man, very like the prisoner, with a sack of corn upon his shoulder, at an early hour of the morning, going from the barn in the direction of the prisoner's cottage! Here is one link, and a very material link, of a long chain of circumstantial evidence. Judge and jury must give it weight, till it is contradicted. In fact, the prisoner did not steal the con; he was, to be sure, out of his cottage at the same hour-and that We must always except the Catholic question. Mr. also is proved-but travelling in a totally different Peel's of inions on this subject (giving him credit for sinceri-direction,-and was seen to be so travelling by a stage ty), have always been a subject of real surprise tɔ us, It coachman passing by, and by a market gaidener. An must surely be some mistake between the right honourable attorney with money in his pocket, whom every mo gentleman and his chaplain! They have been travelling together; and some of the parson's notions have been put ment of such employ made richer by six-and-cight up in Mr. Peel's head by mistake. We yet hope he will re- pence, would have had the two witnesses ready, und turn them to their rightful owner. lat rack and manger, from the first day of the assize; We have now the benefit of discussing these subjects under the government of a home secretary of state, whom we may (we believe) fairly call a wise, honest, and high principled man-as he appears to us, without wishing for innovation, or having any itch for it, not to be afraid of innovation, when it is gradual and well considered. He is, indeed. almost the only person we remember in his station, who has not considered sound sense to consist in the rejection of every improvement, and loyalty to be proved by the defence of every accidental, imperfect, or superannuated in stitution. If this petition of jurymen be a real bond fide peti : and the innocence of the prisoner would have been established but by what possible means is the destitute ignorant wretch himself to find or to produce such witnesses? or how can the most humane jury, and the most acute judge, refuse to consider him as guilty, till his witnesses are produced? We have not the slightest disposition to exaggerate, and, on the contrary, should be extremely pleased to be convinced that our apprehensions were unfounded: but we have often felt extreme pain at the hopeless and unprotected state of prisoners; and we cannot find any answer to our suspicions, or discover any means by which this perversion of justice, under the present state of the law, can be prevented from taking place. Against the prisoner are arrayed all the resources of an angry prosecutor, who has certainly (let who will be the culprit) suffered a serious injury. He has his hand, too, in the public purse; for he prosecutes at the ex. pense of the county. He cannot even relent; for the magistrate is bound over to indict. His witnesses cannot fail him; for they are all bound over by the same magistrate to give evidence. He is out of prison, too, and can exert himself. erally wrote his Commentaries late in the evening, with a bottle of wine before him; and little did he think, as each sentence fell from the glass and pen, of the immense influence it might hereafter exercise upon the laws and usages of his country. It is' (says this favourite writer) not at all of a piece with the rest of the humane treatment of prisoners by the English law; for upon what face of reason can that as sistance be denied to save the life of a man, which yet is allowed him in prosecutions for every petty trespass? Nor, indeed, strictly speaking, is it a part of our ancient law; for the Mirror, having observed the necessity of counsel in civil suits, who know how to forward and defend the cause by the rules of law and customs of the realm, immediately subjoins, and more necessary are they for defence upon indictment and appeals of felony, than upon any other venial crimes.' To the authority of Blackstone may be added that of Sir John Hall, in Hollis's case; of Sir Robert Atkyns, in Lord Russell's case; and of Sir Bartholomew Shower, in the arguments for a New Bill of Rights, in 1652. In the name of God,' says this judge, what harm can accrue to the public in general, The prisoner, on the other hand, comes into court, or to any man in particular, that, in cases of Statesqual d and depressed from long confinement-utterly treason, counsel should not be allowed to the accused? unable to tell his own story from want of words and What rule of justice is there to warrant its denial, want of confidence, and is unable to produce evidence when, in a civil case of a halfpenny cake, he may for want of money. His fate accordingly is obvious; plead either by himself or by his advocate? That -and that there are many innocent men punished the court is counsel for the prisoner can be no effectu every year, for crimes they have not committed, ap- al reason; for so they are for each party, that right pears to us to be extremely probable. It is, indeed, may be done.'-(Somer's Tracts, vol. ii. p. 568.) In scarcely possible it should be otherwise: and, as if to the trial of Thomas Rosewell, a dissenting clergyman, prove the fact, every now and then, a case of this for high treason in 1684, Judge Jeffries, in summing kind is detected. Some circumstances come to light up, confessed to the jury, that he thought it a hard between sentence and execution; immense exertions case, that a man should have counsel to defend himare made by humane men; time is gained, and the self for a twopenny trespass, and his witnesses be ex innocence of the condemned person completely estab-amined upon oath; but if he stole, committed murder lished. In Elizabeth Caning's case, two women were capitally convicted, ordered for execution-and at last found innocent, and respited. Such, too, was the case of the men who were sentenced ten years ago, for the robbery of Lord Cowper's steward. I have myself (says Mr. Scarlett) often seen persons I thought innocent convicted, and the guilty escape, for want of some acute and intelligent counsel to show the bearing of the different circumstances on the conduct and situation of the prisoner.'-(House of Commons Debates, April 25th, 1826.) We were delighted to see, in this last debate, both Mr. Brougham and Mr. Scarlett profess themselves friendly to Mr. Lamb's motion. or felony, nay, high treason, where life, estate, honour, and all were concerned, that he should neither have counsel, nor have his witnesses examined upon oath.'-Howell's State Trials, vol. x. p. 207. There have been two capital errors in the criminal codes of feudal Europe, from which a great variety of mistake and injustice have proceeded; the one, a disposition to confound accusation with guilt; the other, to mistake a defence of prisoners accused by the crown, for disloyalty and disaffection to the crown; and from these errors our own code has been slowly and gradually recovering, by all those struggies and exertions which it always costs to remove folly sanc. tioned by antiquity. In the early periods of our history, the accused person could call no evidence:-then, for a long time, his evidence against the king could not be examined upon oath; consequently, he might as well have produced none, as all the evidence against him was upon oath. Till the reign of Anne, no one accused of felony could produce witnesses upon oath; and the old practice was vindicated, in opposition to the new one, introduced under the statute of that day, on the grounds of humanity and tenderness to the pris oner! because, as his witnesses were not restricted by an oath, they were at liberty to indulge in simple filsehood as much as they pleased;-so argued the blessed defenders of nonsense in those days. Then it was ruled to be indecent and improper that counsel should be employed against the crown; and, there fore, the prisoner accused of treason could have no counsel to assist him in the trial. Counsel might indeed stay in the court, but apart from the prisoner. with whom they could have no communication. They were not allowed to put any question, or to suggest any doubtful point of law; but if the prisoner (likely to be a weak unlettered inan) could himself suggest any doubt in matter of law, the court determined first if the question of law should be entertained, and then assigned counsel to argue it. In those times, the jury were punishable if they gave a false verdict against the king, but were not punishable if they gave a false verdict against the prisoner. The preamble of the Act of 1696 runs thus- Whereas it is expedient that Nothing can be done in any discussion upon any persons charged with high treason should make a full point of law in England, without quoting Mr. Justice and sufficient defence. Might it not be altered to Blackstone. Mr. Justice Blackstone, we believe, gen-persons charged with any species or degree of crimal But in how many cases has the injustice proceeded without any suspicion being excited? and even if we could reckon upon men being watchful in capital cases, where life is concerned, we are afraid it is in such cases alone that they ever besiege the secretary of state, and compel his attention. We never rememany such interference to save a man unjustly condeinued to the hulks or the treadmill; and yet there are certainly more condemnations to these minor punishments than to the gallows; but then it is all onewho knows or cares about it? If Harrison or Johnson has been condemned, after regular trial by jury, to six months' treadmill, because Harrison and Johnson were without a penny to procure evidence-who knows or cares about Harrison or Johnson? how can they make themselves heard? or in what way can they obtain redress? It worries rich and comfortable people to hear the humanity of our penal laws called in question. There is talk of a society for employing d's. charged prisoners: might not something be effected by a society instituted for the purpose of providing to poor prisoners a proper defence, and a due attendance of witnesses? But we must hasten on from this disgraceful neglect of poor prisoners, to the particular subject of complaint we have proposed to ourselves. The proposition is, That the prisoner accused of feloly ought to have the same power of selec'ing counsel to speak for him as he has in cases of treason and misdemeanour, and as defendants have in all civil actions. |