There was no occasion to revoke the Edict of Nantes. The Jesuits needed only to have advised a plan similar to what is contended for in the present case, Make a law to render them incapable of office, make another to punish them for not serving. If they accept, punish them (for it is admitted on all hands that the defendant, in the cause before your Lordships, is prosecutable for taking the office upon him)-if they accept, punish them; if they refuse, punish them. If they say yes, punish them; if they say no, punish them. My Lords, this is a most exquisite dilemma, from which there is no escaping. It is a trap a man can not get out of; it is as bad persecution as that of Procrustes. If they are too short, stretch them; if they are too long, lop them. Small would have been their consolation to have been gravely told, "The Edict of Nantes is kept inviolable. You have the full benefit of that act of toleration; you may take the sacrament in your own way with impunity; you are not compelled to go to mass." Were this case but told in the city of London, as of a proceeding in France, how would they exclaim against the Jesuitical distinction? And yet, in truth, it comes from themselves. The Jesuits never thought of it. When they meant to persecute by their act of toleration, the Edict of Nantes was repealed.

The professed design of making this by-law was to get fit and able persons to servo the office; and the plaintiff sets forth in his declara tion, that, if the Dissenters are excluded, they shall want fit and able persons to serve the office. But, were I to deliver my own suspi cion, it would be, that they did not so much wist for their services as their fines. Dissenters have been appointed to this office, one who was blind, another who was bed-ridden; not, I suppose, or account of their being fit and able to serve the office. No: they were disabled both by nature and by law.

We had a case lately in the courts below, of a person chosen mayor of a corporation while he was beyond seas with his Majesty's troops in America, and they knew him to be so. Did they want him to serve the office? No; it was impossible. But they had a mind to continue the former mayor a year longer, and to have pretense for setting aside him who was now chosen, on all future occasions, as having beer elected before.

In the case before your Lordships, the defendant was by law incapable at the time of his pretended election; and it is my firm persuasion that he was chosen because he was incapable. If he had been capable, he had not been chosen, for they did not want him to serve the office. This by-law, by which the Dissenters are to They chose him because, without a breach of be reduced to this wretched dilemma, is a by-law the law, and a usurpation on the Crown, he could of the city, a local corporation, contrary to an not serve the office. They chose him, that he act of Parliament, which is the law of the land; might fall under the penalty of their by-law, a modern by-law of a very modern date, made made to serve a particular purpose; in opposi long since the Corporation Act, long since the tion to which, and to avoid the fine thereby imToleration Act, in the face of them, for they posed, he hath pleaded a legal disability, ground knew these laws were in being. It was made ed on two acts of Parliament. As I am of opin in some year in the reign of the late King-Iion that his plea is good, I conclude with moving forget which; but it was made about the time your Lordships, of building the mansion house!! Now, if it could be supposed the city have a power of making such a by-law, it would entirely subvert the Toleration Act, the design of which was to exempt the Dissenters from all penalties; for by such a by-law they have it in their power to make every Dissenter pay a fine of six hundred pounds, or any sum they please, for it amounts to that.

"That the judgment be affirmed."

The judgment was accordingly affirmed, and an end put to a system of extortion so mean and scandalous, that it seems difficult to understand, at the present day, how an English community could have endured, or English courts have upheld, it for a single hour.

SPEECH

OF LORD MANSFIELD ON A BILL TO DEPRIVE PEERS OF THE REALM OF CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 9, 1770.

INTRODUCTION.

THIS speech is the best specimen extant of Lord Mansfield's parliamentary eloquence. It has that felicity of statement and clearness of reasoning for which he was so much distinguished, connected with an ardor and elevation of sentiment, that give double force to every argument he uses. The style is uncommonly chaste and polished. It has a conversational ease, and yet entire dignity throughout, which nave made it the favorite of all who love pure and simple English.

ting rebuke which follows. Nothing could be more mortifying to the citizens of London, among whom the fires of Smithfield had left a traditional horror

of Popish cruelty, than to be thus held out to the world as more cruel and Jesuitical than the detested persecutors of the French Huguenots

SPEECH, &c.

MY LORDS,-When I consider the importance | der it self-evident. It is a proposition of that of this bill to your Lordships, I am not surprised nature that can neither be weakened by arguit has taken so much of your consideration. It ment, nor entangled with sophistry. Much, inis a bill, indeed, of no common magnitude. It is deed, has been said by some noble Lords on the no less than to take away from two thirds of the wisdom of our ancestors, and how differently they Legislative body of this great kingdom, certain thought from us. They not only decreed that privileges and immunities of which they have privilege should prevent all civil suits from probeen long possessed. Perhaps there is no situ- ceeding during the sitting of Parliament, but likeation the human mind can be placed in, that is wise granted protection to the very servants of so difficult, and so trying, as where it is made a members. I shall say nothing on the wisdom of judge in its own cause. There is something im- our ancestors. It might perhaps appear invidplanted in the breast of man so attached to itself, ious, and is not necessary in the present case. so tenacious of privileges once obtained, that, in I shall only say, that the noble Lords that flatter such a situation, either to discuss with impartial- themselves with the weight of that reflection, ity, or decide with justice, has ever been held as should remember, that, as circumstances alter, the summit of all human virtue. The bill now things themselves should alter. Formerly it was in question puts your Lordships in this very pre- not so fashionable either for masters or servants dicament; and I doubt not but the wisdom of to run in debt as it is at present; nor formerly your decision will convince the world, that, where were merchants or manufacturers members of self-interest and justice are in opposite scales, the Parliament, as at present. The case now is very latter will ever preponderate with your Lord- different. Both merchants and manufacturers ships. are, with great propriety, elected members of the Lower House. Commerce having thus got into the legislative body of the kingdom, privilege must be done away. We all know that the very soul and essence of trade are regular payments: and sad experience teaches us that there are men who will not make their regular payments without the compulsive power of the laws. The law, then, ought to be equally open to all. Any exemption to particular men, or particular ranks of men, is, in a free commercial country, a sole cism of the grossest nature.

Privileges have been granted to legislators in all ages and in all countries. The practice is founded in wisdom; and, indeed, it is peculiarly essential to the Constitution of this country, that the members of both Houses should be free in their persons in cases of civil suits; for there may come a time when the safety and welfare of this whole empire may depend upon their attendance in Parliament. God forbid that I should advise any measure that would in future endanger the state. But the bill before your Lordships has, I am confident, no such tendency, for it expressly secures the persons of members of either House in all civil suits. This being the case, I confess, when I see many noble Lords, for whose judgment I have the greatest respect, standing up to oppose a bill which is calculated merely to facilitate the recovery of just and legal debts, I am astonished and amazed. They, I doubt not, oppose the bill upon public principles. I would not wish to insinuate that private interest has the least weight in their determination.

This bill has been frequently proposed, and as frequently miscarried; but it was always lost in the Lower House. Little did I think, when it had passed the Commons, that it possibly could have met with such opposition here. Shall it be said that you, my Lords, the grand council of the nation, the highest judicial and legislative body of the realm, endeavor to evade by privilege those very laws which you enforce on your fellowsubjects? Forbid it, justice. I am sure, were the noble Lords as well acquainted as I am with but half the difficulties and delays that are every day occasioned in the courts of justice, under pretense of privilege, they would not, nay, they could not, oppose this bill.

I have waited with patience to hear what arguments might be urged against the bill; but I have waited in vain. The truth is, there is no argument that can weigh against it. The justice and expediency of this bill are such as renL

But I will not trouble your Lordships with ar guments for that which is sufficiently evident without any. I shall only say a few words to some noble Lords, who foresee much inconvenience from the persons of their servants being liable to be arrested. One noble Lord observes, that the coachman of a peer may be arrested while he is driving his master to the House, and consequently he will not be able to attend his duty in Parliament If this was actually to happen, there are so many methods by which the member might still get to the House, I can hardly think the noble Lord to be serious in his objec tion. Another noble Lord said, that by this bill one might lose his most valuable and honest servants. This I hold to be a contradiction in terms; for he neither can be a valuable servant, nor an honest man, who gets into debt, which he neither is able nor willing to pay till compelled by law. If my servant, by unforeseen accidents, has got in debt, and I still wish to retain him, I certainly would pay the debt. But upon no principle of liberal legislation whatever can my servant have a title to set his creditors at defiance, while, for forty shillings only, the honest tradesman may be torn from his family and locked up in jail. It is monstrous injustice! I flatter myself, however, the determination of this day will entirely put an end to all such partial proceedings for the future, by passing into a law the bill now under year Lordships' consideration

I now come to speak upon what, indeed, I | would have gladly avoided, had I not been particularly pointed at for the part I have taken in this bill. It has been said by a noble Lord on my left hand that I likewise am running the race of popularity. If the noble Lord means by popularity that applause bestowed by after ages on good and virtuous actions, I have long been struggling in that race, to what purpose all-trying time can alone determine. Lord means that mushroom popularity which is But if the noble raised without merit, and lost without a crime, he is much mistaken in his opinion. I defy the noble Lord to point out a single action in my life where the popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on my determinations. I thank God I have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct the dictates of my own breast. Those that have foregone that pleasing adviser, and given up their mind to be the slave of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity. I pity them still more if their vanity leads them to mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of their fame. Experience might inform them that many who have been saluted with the huzzas of a crowd one day, have received their execrations the next; and many who, by the popularity of their times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have nevertheless appeared upon the historian's page, when truth has triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty.

Why, then, the noble Lord can think I am ambitious of present popularity, that echo of folly and shadow of renown, I am at a loss to determine. Besides, I do not know that the bill now before your Lordships will be popular. It depends much upon the caprice of the day. It may not be popular to compel people to pay their debts; and in that case the present must be an unpopular bill. It may not be popular, neither, to take away any of the privileges of Parliament; for I very well remember, and many of your Lordships may remember, that not long ago the popular cry was for the extension of privilege. And so far did they carry it at that time, that it was said that privilege protected members from criminal actions; nay, such was the power of popular prejudices over weak minds, that the

¡1770.

very decisions of some of the courts were tinctured with that doctrine.' It was undoubtedly an abominable doctrine. I thought so then, and think so still. But, nevertheless, it was a popular doctrine, and came immediately from those who were called the friends of liberty, how deservedly time will show. True liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when justice is equaily adminis tered to all-to the King and to the beggar that protects a member of Parliament more than Where is the justice, then, or where is the law, any other man from the punishment due to his crimes? place nor employment to be a sanctuary for The laws of this country allow no crimes; and, where I have the honor to sit as judge, neither royal favor nor popular applause shall ever protect the guilty.

ployed so much of your Lordships' time; and I I have now only to beg pardon for having emam very sorry a bill, fraught with so good consequences, has not met with an abler advocate; but I doubt not your Lordships' determination will convince the world that a bill, calculated to contribute so much to the equal distribution of justice as the present, requires, with ships, but your Lord very little

support.

The act was finally passi.

1 This refers to the case of r. Wilkes, who was libel on the King. He was taken before the Court arrested under a general warrant for a seditions of Common Pleas by a writ of Habeas Corpus, and at their head, unanimously decided, that members there pleaded his privilege against arrest as a member of Parliament. The court, with Lord Camden were free from arrest in all cases except treason, felony, and actual breach of the peace. Whatever may have been the merits of this case, it was unworthy of Lord Mansfield to sneer at Lord Camden and his associates as "weak minds." ities then stood," says Lord Campbell, “I think a "As author. court of law was bound to desde in favor of privi lege in such a case." This, is believed, has been the general sentiment of the English bar; while all agree that this extension of privilege to criminal erly set aside a short time after, by a joint resola cases was wrong in principle, and was very prop tion of the two houses of Parliament.

JUNIUS.

STAT NOMINIS UMBRA.

THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS have taken a permanent place in the eloquence of our language. Though often false in statement and malignant in spirit, they will never ccase to be read as specimens of powerful composition: For the union of brilliancy and force, there is nothing superior to them in our literature. Nor is it for his style alone that Junius deserves to be studied. He shows great rhetorical skill in his mode of developing a subject. There is an arrangement of a given mass of thought, which serves to throw it upon the mind with the greatest possible effect. There is another arrangement which defeats its object, and renders the impression feeble or indistinct Demosthenes was, of all men, most perfectly master of the one; the majority of extemporaneous speakers are equally good examples of the other.

Junius had evidently studied this subject with great care; and it is for the sake of urging it upon the young orator that some of the ablest of his productions will now be given. Happily, the selection is easy. There are ten or twelve of his letters which stand far above the rest for strength of thought and elegance of diction. These will be found below, with the exception of his Letters to Lord Mansfield, which, though highly finished in respect to style, are now universally condemned for their errors, both in law and fact, and their unmerited abuse of the greatest of English jurists. In regard to his treatment of others, it is hardly necessary to say that the statements of Junius are to be taken with great allowance. He was an unscrupu

lous political partisan; and though much that he said of the Duke of Grafton and the other objects of his vengeance was strictly true, they were by no means so weak or profligate as he here represents them. We might as well take Pope's Satires for a faithful exhibition of men and manners in the days of George II.

It is, therefore, only as an orator-for such he undoubtedly was in public life, and such he truly is in these letters-that we are now to consider him. In this character his writings are worthy of the closest study, especially in respect to the quality alluded to above. Each of these letters was the result of severe and protracted labor. We should have known it, if he had not himself avowed the fact, for we see every where the marks of elaborate forecast and revision; and we learn, from his private correspondence with Woodfall, that he expended on their composition an amount of anxiety and effort which hardly any other writer, especially one so proud, would have been willing to acknowledge. Yet it is certain that by far the greater part of all this toil was bestowed, not upon the language, but on the selection and arrangement of his ideas. His mind, in early life, had clearly been subjected to the severest logical training. Composition, with him, was the creation of a system of thought, in which every thing is made subordinate to a just order and sequence of ideas. One thought grows out of another in regular succession. His reasonings

This celebrated motto was taken from the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia, line 135. The poet there speaks of Pompey, when he entered into the war with Cesar, as having his name, or reputation, chiefly in the past; and adds, in reference to this idea, "Stat magni nominis umbra" — He stands the shadow of a mighty name. When the author of these letters collected them into a volume, he beautifully appropriated these words to himself, with the omission of the word magni, and a change of application. He placed them on the title-page, in connection with the word JUNIUS, which "stands the shadow of a name," whose secret was intrusted to no one, and was never to be revealed

often take the form of a syllogism, though usually with the omission of one of the terms; and we never find him betrayed into that careless diffusion of style so common with those who are ignorant of the principles of logic. In this respect, the writings of Junius will amply repay the closest study and analysis. Let the young orator enter completely into the scope and design of the author. Let him watch the under-current of his thoughts and feelings. Let him observe how perfectly every thing coincides to produce the desired impression-the statement of principles and the reference to facts, the shadings of thought and the colorings of imagery. Let him take one of the more striking passages, and remark the dexterous preparation by which each of its several parts is so shaped that the leading thoughts come forward to the best advantage; clear in all their relations, standing boldly out, unen cumbered by secondary ideas, and thus fitted to strike the mind with full and undi vided force. Such a study of Junius will prepare the yourg reader to enter into the Logic of Thought. It will lead to the formation of a severe intellectual taste, which is the best guard against the dangers of hasty composition, and the still greater dangers of extemporaneous speaking. Such speaking can not be dispensed with. On the contrary, it is becoming more and more essential to the success of public men in every department of life. It is, therefore, of the highest importance for the student in oratory to be familiar with models which shall preserve the purity of his style, and aid him in the formation of those intellectual habits without which there can be neither clearness, nor force, nor continuity of thought in extemporaneous speaking. One of our most eloquent advocates, the late William Wirt, whose early training was of a different kind, remarked, in an address delivered not long before his death, that here lay the chief deficiency of our public speakers-that the want of severe intellectual discipline was the great want of American orators.

There is also another lesson to be learned from Junius, viz., the art of throwing away unnecessary ideas. A large proportion of the thoughts which rise to the mind in first considering a subject, are not really essential to its clear and full development. No one ever felt this more strongly than Junius. He had studied in the school of the classics; he had caught the spirit of the Grecian oratory; and he knew that the first element of its power was a rigid scrutiny of the ideas to be brought forward, and a stern rejection of every form of thought, however plausible or attractive, which was not clearly indispensable to the attainment of his object. He learned, too, in the same school, another lesson of equal importance, in relation to the ideas selected for use. He saw how much could be done to abridge their statement, and set aside the necessity of qualifying terms and clauses, by such an arrangement of the leading thoughts that each should throw light upon the other, and all unite in one full, determinate impression. Our language is, indeed, poorly fitted for such purposes. It is a weak and imperfect instrument compared with others, whose varied inflections and numerous illative particles afford the readiest means of graceful transition, and of binding ideas together in close-compacted masses. Such as it is, however, Junius has used it to the utmost advantage. In his best passages, there is a fine compression of thought, arising from the skillful disposition of his materials, which it is far more easy to admire than to imitate. Not an idea is excluded which could promote his object. It is all there, but in the narrowest compass. The stroke is a single one, because nothing more is needed; and it takes its full effect, because there is nothing in the way to weaken the force of the blow. He has thus given us some of the best specimens in our language of that "rich economy of expression," which was so much studied by the great writers of antiquity.

There is only one more characteristic of Junius which will here be noticed. It is the wonderful power he possessed of insinuating ideas into the mind without giving them a formal or direct expression. Voltaire is the only writer who ever en