10. Bearding Parliament, by openly declaring its incapacity to render unpunishable anything to which the Judges, with the words Common Law in their mouths, shall have been pleased to attach punishment, or take on them to punish-thus, by the assumed authority of himself, and those his creatures, keeping men under the rod of punishment for habits of action, which, in consideration of their innoxiousness, had by Parliament been recently exempted from it as if Parliament had not exempted men from declared and limited, but for the purpose of subjecting them to unconjecturable and unlimited punishment. Witness the Unitarians, and all others, who will not, at his command thus signified, defile themselves with insincerity to purchase the common rights of subjects. 11. Doing that which even Parliament would not dare to do, and because Parliament would not dare to do it: doing it, with no other warrant, than this or that one of a multitude of words and phrases, to which one import as well as another may be assigned at pleasure. Witness libel, blasphemy, malice, contra bonos mores, conspiracy, Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land: converting thus at pleasure into crimes any the most perfectly innoxious acts, and even meritorious ones: substituting thus to legislative definition and prohibition an act of ex post facto punishment, which the most consummate legal knowlege would not have enabled a man to avoid, and as to which, in many an instance, perhaps, it was not intended that it should be avoided.' 'But Parliament-contempts of its authority all the while thus continually repeated—what does it say to them? Say to them? why nothing at all to be sure: Cabinet, by which the wires of Parliament are moved, desires no better sport. Chancellor,-by whom the wires of Cabinet are moved, and by whom the acts of contempt are committed or procured,looks on and laughs in his sleeve. Contempt of Parliament indeed! Parliament desires no better than to be thus contemned: and, to be assured of this, observe whether, of the indications given in these pages, it will suffer any, and what use to be made. Contempt of Parliament! Why, all this is the work of Parliament itself. That which, with its own forms, it could not do without a world of trouble -what it might even be afraid to do-(for, where guilt abounds, so does cowardice)-it does by simple connivance, without a particle of trouble. But why talk of fear? On each occasion, whatever is to be done, the object with all concerned is to have it done with least trouble to themselves. By the hand of a Judge, those by whom Parliament is governed do, without any trouble, that which without trouble in abundance could not be done by the hand of Parliament. In flash language, Common Law-in honest English, Judge-made Law-is an instrument, that is to say, Judges are instruments-for doing the dirty work of Parliament: for doing in an oblique and clandestine way, that which Parliament would at least be ashamed to do in its own open way. All this-which, under a really existing constitution, grounded on the greatest-happiness-principle, would furnish matter for impeachment on impeachment, furnishes, under the imaginary matchless one, matter of triumph, claim to reward, and reward accordingly. 12. Poisoning the fountain of history, by punishing what is said of a departed public character on the disapproving side-while, for evidence and argument on the approving side, an inexhaustible fund of reward is left open to every eye: thus, by suppression, doubling the effect of subornation of evidence. This by the hand of one of his creatures: his own hand, without the aid of that other, not reaching quite far enough. The title Master of the Abuses which occurs in page 49, may perhaps have been thought to require explanation. It was suggested by that of Master of the Revels, coupled with the idea of the enjoyments in which he and his have for so many years been seen revelling by the exercise given to the functions of it. The Mastership of the Revels being abolished, or in disuse,-the Mastership of the Abuses appears to have been silently substituted; and Lord Eldon presents himself as having been performing the functions of the office, as yet without a salary: with his Masters in Chancery, serving under him in the corresponding capacity, and on the same generous footing, on the principle of the unpaid Magistracy. A subject for calculation might be-at what anno domini, the business of all the denominated Offices, possessed by those Masters and their Grand Master respectively, will have been brought into the state, into which, under his Lordship's management, that of the Six Clerks has already been brought, together with that of the Six Offices, with which the future services of his Honorable Son have been so nobly and generously remunerated? -at what halcyon period these offices will, with the rest, have been sublimated into sinecures, and the incumbents apotheosed into so many Dii majorum, or Dii minorum gentium of the Epicurean heaven? Nor, for the allotment of these parts, is any such labor as that of concert or direction necessary. Nothing does the purpose require that an English Judge should do, more than what in his situation human nature and habit effectually insure his doing: giving, on every occasion, to his own arbitrary power every possible extent, by all imaginable means. While this is going on, so long as what he does suits the purposes of his superiors, it is regarded of course with that approbation of which their silence is such perfectly con- · clusive evidence. On the other hand (to suppose, for argument sake, an effect without a cause), should he ever in any the smallest degree obstruct their purposes, any the least hint would suffice to stop him. "What could any Judge do-what could even Lord Eldon hope to do-against the will of Monarchy and Aristocracy in Parliament ? To help conception, a short parallel between the Noble and Learned Lord and his Noble and Learned predecessor Jefferies, may be not altogether without its use.-General Jefferies had his one "campaign:" General Eldon, as many as his command lasted years. The deaths of Jefferies's killed-off were speedy of Eldon's, lingering as his own resolves. The deaths of Lord Jefferies's victims were public-the sufferers supported and comforted in their affliction by the sympathy of surrounding thousands : Lord Eldon's expired, unseen, in the gloom of that solitude which wealth on its departure leaves behind it. Jefferies, whatsoever he may have gained in the shape of royal favor-source of future contingent wealth,-does not present himself to us clothed in the spoils of any of his slain. No man, no woman, no child did Eldon ever kill, whose death had not, in the course of it, in some way or other, put money into his pocket. In the language, visage, and deportment of Jefferies, the suffering of his victims produced a savage exultation: in Eldon's, never any interruption did they produce to the most amiable good humor, throwing its grace over the most accomplished indifference. Jefferies was a tiger: Eldon, in the midst of all his tears, like Niobe, a stone. Prophet at once and painter, another predecessor of Lord Eldon -Lord Bacon, has drawn his emblem. Behold the man (says he) who, to roast an egg for himself, is ready to set another's house on fire! So far so good: but, to complete the likeness, he should have added-after having first gutted it. One other emblemone other prophecy. Is it not written in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments ?-Sinbad the Sailor, Britannia: Old Man of the Sea, the Learned Slaughterer of Pheasants, whose prompt deaths are objects of envy to his suitors. After fretting and pummelling, with no better effect than sharpening the gripe,—the Arabian slave, by one desperate effort, shook off his tormenting master. The entire prophecy will have been accomplished, and the prayers of Britannia heard, should so happy an issue, out of the severest of all her afflictions, be, in her instance, brought to pass. |