Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851

by Various

THE PAPAL AGGRESSION BILL.

We do not underrate the difficulty in legislating upon the Papal Aggression; but the acknowledgement of a difficulty is a confession of a danger. Legislation, therefore, is often the more necessary as it becomes less apparent what direction it should take; for every obstacle has its accompanying mischief. Nevertheless, the greater peril lies in suffering an evil to grow. The nature of the evil, and the principles from which all its action proceeds, must be examined, and thoroughly sifted. It is not the present magnitude which is so much to be considered, as its innate growth—its power of reproducing itself, even when apparently cut down to the ground. There are poisonous plants of such an obstinate root, that they will spread both on the surface and below it: and such is the Papacy. It is hard to overcome. Its one steady purpose is domination. It must either be a tyranny or a conspiracy. It is a religion without a religious obligation, for it professes to be the maker of the world's religion, and demands obedience to an individual will—the will of one man whom a superstition sets up—a will that is guided by no fixed rules; that, however varying and contradictory, claims infallibility. The inheritance it would assume is Satan's promise, "the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them." If the Papacy cannot take full possession, it is only because it is hindered, not by its own will, but by external resistance. It never has relaxed its demand of universal obedience, and, whenever and wherever it has had power, has enforced it. It would have an absolute jurisdiction over all the affairs of Christendom, as above all kings and princes, to judge them and depose them at pleasure. More than this: from being God's Vicar, the Bishop of Rome would be above his Master, and abrogate Divine laws and precepts; exercising absolute authority over the Scriptures, even to annul them, and to set up his own decrees as more divine; taking to himself the resemblance of him of whom it was said that he "should sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Yet with all his presumptuous titles, remembering that it is written that he that would be greatest among the disciples should be servant to the rest, he is also "servus servorum," that he may himself fill every office, and enlarge the view of his dignity, from the depth of that affected humility—measuring up to the highest from the lowest, himself usurping every space.

From the moment the Bishop of Rome usurped this sovereignty, then commenced the necessity of maintaining it, per fas et nefas. To abrogate one iota of his power was to abrogate the whole. He took upon himself and his successors a contention that can never cease, but with a universal submission. The whole history of the Papacy, from the day of its assumption, proves this. It does not come within the scope of our object to enter into the details of that history. They are well known: the remembrance of many and sore atrocities has been too deeply engraven on the minds of the people of England to be easily obliterated. When they hear of the Papal Aggression, they ask, When was the Papacy not an aggression? Neither are we very desirous to treat minutely of the Romish corruptions and apostacies, excepting where they evolve principles that will not amalgamate with any civil polity, or the laws and governments of nations. It is possible there may be religions that, being tolerated, would in practice not only destroy every other, but the very name of liberty. Even Thuggism professes to be a religion, and secret murder its duty. Would it be religious liberty to tolerate the Suttees and Juggernauts of India? We do not mean to make offensive comparisons: we only put the case strongly, to show how obvious it is that toleration must have its limits; if not, toleration may become a domination, and the thing be lost in the name. There must be in every state some agreement between religion and its social laws. The Mahometan may have his mosque in a Christian country, but could he be allowed to set at defiance the decency of Christian morals, on the plea of his religious liberty? We have "Latter-day Saints," believers in Joe Smith, and interfere not with them. We trust that they do not infringe the laws, nor break their civil obligations, or at least we do not know that they do so. We know nothing of mischief in their history, have no record of former doings, that should lead us to dread their principles. But to return to the Papacy: it stands apart from every religion, in its abhorrence, intolerance, and persecution of all that is not of itself. It will never cease to strive openly if it can, if not secretly, to subvert every other—to set up its own absolute authority. Persecution is its law, its creed, its necessity. Where it is quiet, it is undermining; where it is visibly active, it sows dissensions and rebellions, because they promote its own supremacy; where it has the smallest chance of success, it moves onwards. Besides, it has organisations wondrously adapted to its work. There is not only a large submission to the Pope throughout territories and kingdoms that are not his, but there is that especial order of obedience, the Jesuits, who bind themselves to have no will but that of their "Holy Father;" whose first religion it is to do his will, whatever it be—to have no conscience, with regard to what is good and evil, but the Pope's dictation;—a working army they may be called, that, though they seem dispersed and banished, are emissaries everywhere, and rise up in multitudes where it was thought there were none. They are allowed to assume whatever dress they please; for their better disguise, any occupation: they are in the highest and the lowest conditions, and have been known to appear as zealous members in conventicles.

Having constantly in view the firm establishment of its own power, as a foreign sovereignty the Papacy has communication, league, and intrigue with all the principal courts in Europe. It is therefore mostly dangerous to Protestant countries, as it naturally leagues with their enemies; and it is doubly dangerous in those countries where it has any large number professing themselves its subjects, organised by its authority, looking to Rome in preference to their legitimate governors. We need but instance Ireland, where that authority has borne its fruits in rebellions, and the sad, the continued degradation of the people. Are we at war with other nations?—the Pope's aid may be solicited by them to create distractions in Ireland. There is a sore that is never allowed to heal: it has paralysed and still paralyses the power of this great country. Hence it has been the arena of political warfare. For party purposes, the Church of Ireland has been discouraged, the Romish priesthood coquetted with, ten bishoprics of our Church annihilated to please them, and that fatal error Catholic Emancipation perpetrated. And here we are compelled to add, that one of the professed principles of Romanism has been made patent—that faith is not to be kept with heretics; for how ill the oath of doing nothing to the disparagement of the Church of England was kept by Roman Catholic members is too well known.

It may not be amiss here to make one remark. We remember the warnings given when the Emancipation was carried; we now see how just—how prophetic they were. But the remark we were about to make is this:—How little trust is to be placed in any prospective promises that Ministers at any time may make! They too often speak as if they had a prescriptive right to a perpetuity of office. We remember the Duke said, that, should the country be disappointed in their hopes of the peace, amity, and good faith of the Roman Catholics, he would be the first to come forward to annul the grant. He has been called upon to fulfil his promise. His reply is, that he is not in office.

It is admitted by the best advocates for leaving this aggression to itself, that the Roman Catholic religion is dangerous; that, if it could recover its political ascendency, another Marian persecution would follow. It is said that, although it never renounces anything to which it had once committed itself, that times and circumstances are changed; that the coercion which made it more dangerous has been relinquished by Governments. Emancipation, if it has not changed its character, has rendered it innocuous. And it is asked, What has occurred since emancipation? The question may well create surprise. What has occurred! Has Ireland acquired the promised peace, the absence of rebellions, the discontinuance of denunciations from altars, and murders, which a shamefully palliating press almost excuse by naming "agrarian?"

True, indeed, is it that the Papacy renounces nothing of all it ever claimed, however it has renounced its creeds. This obstinacy delayed Roman Catholic Emancipation twenty-five years, because the suggestion of allowing the Crown a veto in the nomination of bishops was treated with scorn. Every Popish priest, says Blackstone, renounces his allegiance to his lawful sovereign upon taking orders. That he may more substantially, more effectually do so, the attempt is made to substitute their canon law for the law of the land. And here we see one great object of the aggression. The so-called Cardinal Wiseman alleged that the object of the Pope's brief was to introduce the "real and complete code of the Church; that, for this purpose, the Roman Catholics must have a hierarchy; that the canon law was inapplicable under vicars-apostolic; that, besides, there were many points that required to be synodically adjusted; and that, without a metropolitan and suffragans, a provincial synod was out of the question." What are these points to be so adjusted—requiring this extraordinary organisation, but that this kingdom, in the fustian simile of the Cardinal, is to be restored as a planet to roll round the centre, the Pope? But this centre is no fixed sun, disseminating its certain and seasonable heat. The comparison will not hold with Popery, that is only the semper eadem in one course—that of perpetual aggression; of one only law—domination. Are its creeds one and the same consistent unerring faith from the beginning? Creeds have been thrown off that implied a submission, or even subscription, to the creeds of the ancient church, that were built upon the authority of the Scriptures and the Apostles. All things of doctrine and authority must have their real origin in, and arise primo motu from, the Papacy. St Peter himself, from whom the succession is claimed, is discarded; the inspired dictum of a present Pontiff is all-sufficient. There is a law now for all this, unknown to the Apostles, not sanctioned in the Gospels; they call it the law of "development." It is not a new doctrine this, but is now prominently brought forward, sanctioned, established. St Peter orders, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God;" that is, as the Holy Scriptures speak. They say, Let no man speak but the Pope; he is the only oracle of God. The Scriptures give the rule of faith. They say—No, the Scriptures are insufficient; the true faith is locked in the Pope's breast, and he delivers it out when and in such portions as he pleases. He is neither bound by antiquity nor Scriptures. Development is in him. It is true, many eminent divines of the Romish Church—as, for instance, Bossuet—have strenuously opposed this doctrine of development. But there is another progress besides Popery. Inquiry has its developments: the old foundations of Papacy have been shaken; antiquity and apostolic faith, it has been proved, it has departed from. It must, therefore, change its foundation. There was no resource but to this law of development. The Scriptures have failed the Papal doctrines. They have been hidden—they have been mistranslated—translation set aside for new translation, each more false—and Pope after Pope have declared their predecessors, and those who received these Bibles, heretics; till, it being impossible to remove the Scriptures altogether, a new doctrine is invented, that at least shall supersede them—and that doctrine is now in the greatest favour. It is the grateful and acceptable offering to the Court of Rome by the neophyte author of the Essay on Development—the convert Mr Newman. It is for this he has been graciously received at Rome, and welcomed on his way by the Archbishop of Paris, and flatteringly received by the Nuncio of the Apostolic See; lauded by the most eminent bishop of the French Church and the journals of France, and honoured by lectures on his essay by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Edinburgh. It may be worth while to look a little into this law of development, as declared in this essay of Mr Newman, and put forth as the doctrine to be received by the faithful of the Papal Church. It has been well sifted, perhaps by none more ably than by Dr Wordsworth, Canon of Westminster. And how, with such a comment, will it be received by the old members of the Roman Catholic Church!

"Mr Newman's conversion to Romanism," says Dr Wordsworth, "was accompanied, as I have said, by the publication of his Essay on Development, which is intended to declare the grounds of his change. But it so happens that, in this volume, he has inflicted a severe wound on the Papacy. Its very name is ominous against it. What is Development? The explication and evolution of something that was wrapped up in embryo. St Paul gives us a very pertinent illustration of this process with respect to doctrine. He speaks of a Mystery. What is a Mystery? A thing concealed, undeveloped. He speaks of a Mystery of Iniquity—or rather, of lawlessness (ἁνομἱα.) He says that this mystery is already at work, like leaven, secretly fermenting the mass in which it is; and he adds, that in time it will be developed.

"Let us apply this to the fundamental doctrine of Romanism, viz., the Pope's supremacy. 'On this doctrine,' says Cardinal Bellarmine, 'the whole cause of Christianity' (he means Romish Christianity) 'depends.' Let us now turn to the essayist. He allows (indeed, with his well-stored mind he could not do otherwise) that, in the first ages of the Church, this doctrine existed only in a seminal form; that is, it was a mystery. 'First the power of the Bishop awoke, then the power of the Pope,' (p. 165.) 'Apostles are harbingers of Popes,' (p. 124.) Again, (p. 319,) 'Christianity developed in the form first of a Catholic, then of a Papal Church.' So that, in fact, the primitive ages of the Church—the purest, the apostolic times—did not hold that doctrine on which the 'cause of your Christianity depends.' (Dr Wordsworth is writing to M. Condon, author of Mouvement Réligieux en Angleterre.) And thus you are brought into the company of those heretics of whom Tertullian writes, 'that they were wont to say that the Apostles were not acquainted with all Christian doctrine, or that they did not declare it fully to the world; not perceiving that, by these assertions, they exposed Christ himself to obloquy, for having chosen men who were either ill-informed, or else not honest.' Let me remind you also, my dear sir, of the words of a greater than Tertullian. Our blessed Lord himself says to his Apostles, 'All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you;' and that the 'Holy Spirit should teach them all things, and guide them into all truth, and bring all things to their remembrance, whatever he had said unto them.' And he orders them to proclaim to the world what they had heard from him: 'What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops.' 'Teach all nations all things whatsoever I have commanded you.' And accordingly, St John witnesses, that Christ's true disciples 'have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things;' and St Paul, as a faithful steward of his Lord's house, the church, declares that 'he has kept nothing back from his hearers;' that he 'uses great plainness of speech;' and 'not being rude in knowledge, has been thoroughly made manifest to them in all things;' and has 'not shunned to declare unto them all the counsel of God;' and he plainly intimates that he should not have been 'pure from their blood,'—that is, he would have been guilty of destroying their souls, if he had done so. And he warns all men against building 'hay and stubble on the only foundation which is laid;' and says that, 'though an angel from heaven preached unto them anything beside what he had preached unto them, and they had received from him, let him be accursed.'"

According to the theory of development, if a doctrine be said to be evolved from Scripture, it is not from the plain, but the mystic sense, from "the spiritual or second sense." Thus, any doctrine may be drawn from Scripture—and there is to be but one interpreter—the "one living infallible judge." Let us see a specimen of this honest interpreter. Pope Innocent III. (who dethroned our King John) thus explains the text of Genesis i. 14,—"God made two great lights." "These words" (says that Pope) "signify that God made two dignities, the Pontifical and the Royal; but the dignity which rules the day—that is, the spiritual power—is the greater light; and that which rules the night, or the temporal, is the lesser. So that it may be understood that there is as much difference between Popes and Kings as between the sun and the moon." Pope Boniface VIII. thus applies to himself the tenth verse of the first chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah—"See I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, to pull down, and to destroy." "Here," says the Pope, "the Almighty is speaking of the power of the Church, to create and to judge the temporal power; and, if the temporal power swerves from its duty, it shall be condemned by the spiritual; and since Peter said to Christ, 'Ecce duo gladii,' ('Lord, behold here are two swords,') therefore the Pope has both the temporal and spiritual swords at his command; and since also Moses writes—'In principio Deus creavit cœlum et terram,' and not in principiis, therefore there is only one princedom, and that is the Papacy." Be it remembered the Papacy has never receded from any claim of power.

If such be the interpretations from Scripture, the Fathers and Councils of the ancient Church are handled according to pleasure. Whatever they say in opposition to the Papacy is of no authority; and the power of "correcting them" is assumed. Directions are given for the "Index Expurgatorius," that passages shall be expunged; nay, the Fathers of the Church, it is said, should be grateful for the correction—for the Fathers of the Church are the children of the Pope, and when "the Pope revises the lucubrations of his children, and corrects them when it is necessary, he discharges an office gratifying to the writers, and useful to posterity, and, in good truth, he then performs a work of mercy to his sons." Neither Scripture nor ancient Church must stand in the way of the Pope's will. In them the mystery was in a "seminal state" undeveloped. There is, according to this theory of development, but one real authentic inspiration, and that in the breast of the present Pope. Nay, it is asserted, that though the Pope for the time being should decree that which his successor contradicts and interdicts, the falsehood was true at the time, and for the time, as is the new developed truth. Thus—dreadful blasphemy!—God may be false; but man, one man, must be infallible. To support this infallibility the development theory is necessary. Now, it is this theory reduced to practice which at once makes the Papacy dangerous and hard to deal with. We have no security as to what it shall decree—as to what it shall establish as Christian doctrine, built upon no really Christian foundation. It is possible it may retain the name, and forsake Christianity altogether. We can be sure but of one thing, that it will never cease to proclaim, and to endeavour to enforce, its own supremacy. It has two capacities, mutually involved, each brought into play as occasion serves; and each serving, subtending to the other. It is both political and spiritual. But times and circumstances, we are told, are changed. True, but is the Popedom changed? It only wants the power. Pius V., who pretended to depose our Queen Elizabeth, and ordered her subjects to rise in rebellion against her, is now worshipped as a saint. Gregory VII., who deposed the Emperor Henry IV., has still his festival-day; and these words are in the second Lesson (not taken from Scripture)—"He" (St Gregory) "stood like a fearless wrestler against the impious attempts of Henry the Emperor, and deprived him of the communion of the faithful and of his crown, and released all his subjects from their allegiance to him." Roman Catholic sovereigns have prohibited the printing this second lesson; but is it withdrawn? "As far as the Roman Pontiffs are concerned, it is read in every Church at this day." But, more than this; though formerly suppressed by the Parliament of France, 1729, it has found its way into the Paris and Lyons edition of the Roman Breviary of the year 1842. The Church of Rome, by eulogising these acts in her Liturgy, "shows her desire that they may be repeated."

But let us look to that which comes still nearer to us. The Church of Rome requires the oath of Pius IV., as declared in the Canon Law, to be taken by all her ecclesiastics. In the "Roman Pontifical," printed at Rome by authority, in the year 1818, the oath is thus given as required from the bishops:—"To be faithful and obedient to his Lord the Pope, and his successors; to assist them in maintaining the Roman Papacy and the royalties of St Peter against all men; to preserve, defend, augment, and promote its rights, honours, and privileges; to persecute and impugn, with all his might, heretics and schismatics, and rebels against his said Lord; to come when summoned to a Roman council; to visit the threshold of the Apostles (the city of Rome) once in every three years, to render an account to his Lord the Pope of all the state of his diocese, and to receive his Apostolic mandates with humility; and if he is unable, through any lawful impediment, to attend in person, to provide a sufficient deputy in his stead." Let us ask who are "rebels against his said Lord." Is it without design that the Papacy, which weighs nicely the force of words, in the recent brief speaks, not of the British Empire, but the "Kingdom of England?" Is no recognition intended of his claim to the disposal of the Kingdom of England, once surrendered to him? Does he not look upon all the Queen's subjects in England as rebels to him, "their Lord?" Can, we ask, a bishop taking this oath, and obeying its imperial mandates, and going to the "Roman Council," be said to owe any allegiance to his own lawful sovereign in England? Put the case, that it shall appear advisable to the "Roman Council" at which such bishop shall be summoned—either at the instigation of some foreign power, or with a view to promote the Pope's interests—that the Queen of England's council shall be thwarted, and that a rebellious spirit shall be encouraged and fostered in Ireland: to which sovereign shall the said bishop pay obedience? Will it not be that one whose "mandates" he has sworn to "receive with humility?" Is there any one at all acquainted with our politics of the last half-century who will doubt that mandates injurious to the interests of England have been received, and have been obeyed? Need we refer to the Irish Rebellion of 1795? We shall there find an account of one Dr Hussey, an Irish priest, who had been bred at Seville, and was recommended by Burke to superintend the recently erected College of Maynooth, how he frequented the camp at Schaunstown, and tampered with the soldiers. We need not refer to the notorious fact of priests in active rebellion. "Bartholomew massacres" are thought old wives' tales, and impossible in modern times. Impossible!—is human nature so changed, and in so few years? Many of us remember the first French Revolution, to say nothing of very recent most cruel revolutions. By the Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords in 1797, it appears that it was decided by the conspirators that all persons who, from their principles or situation, may be deemed inimicable to the conspiracy, should be massacred; and the first proscribed list was calculated by one of their leaders at 30,000 persons. We would not dwell upon these atrocities; but we entreat those who speak so confidently of altered "times and circumstances" to consider for a moment what times they have lived in, and are living in. It is true we in England have been mercifully spared; but while even we were boasting of peace, cruel revolutions were commencing throughout Europe, brutal assassinations performed, for a fanaticism which belongs to human nature, and may readily be called into action either by religion or politics. Nay, we say more, that, according to the "development" theory, we know not how much of religion political fanaticism may take up, nor how much of revolutionary politics religion may assume. The Roman Pontiff has had to fly for his life. Their boasted threshold of St Peter has been deluged with blood. We do not mean here to charge our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects with any of these diabolical intentions—far from it; but we must say that we do not see, in countries where their teaching has prevailed, any remarkable abhorrence of them. And we gather from the tenor of history that such atrocities grow out of events—and events of great importance grow out of creeds—and a struggle for religious supremacy (and the Papacy must ever strive to that end) always tends to persecution; and what shall we say, when persecution is a duty of obedience, and the consciences of the many are merged in the infallibility of a Pope? The history of the Popes shows a frightful list of these claimants of infallibility.

Few who speak or who write on this Papal Aggression approach the principle of toleration with any doubt; but surely toleration has its limits. "Civil and religious liberty:" under that banner we may have strange armies—destroyers.

Religious development is going on beyond the Popedom. The assumption of a kind of religion, or more properly a cant of religion, is the homage vice pays to virtue. The subverters of all social order are propagandists of a new religion. What are St Simonites? Even Red Republicans associate themselves to a kind of creed; and perhaps many take up one, purposely that they may demand a civil and religious liberty. We do not subscribe to the doctrine that "full and complete liberty" is to be given to every society that proclaims itself of a civil polity, or of a religious agreement. The principles of creeds should be ascertained, before full scope be given to them—and the principles of civil communities, before a state is justified in arming them with power. There are societies that can, and societies that cannot, live together peaceably, with equal power. There is a strong conviction in the public mind, (and certainly justified,) that if Popery can once reach an equality in visible power with the Church of England, or even with Protestant Dissenters, a system of persecution would commence.

The present aggression is of a two-fold character. It is against the Church, which it ignores; and the sovereignty of England, which it both insults and defies. It sets up bishop against bishop—altar against altar. It takes up a position of authority, and impudently declares that it neither can nor will recede one step. Hear the "Bishop of Birmingham" so styled, Dr Ullathorne. He thus writes to Lord John Russell:—"There is one point for your Lordship to consider—the hierarchy is established; therefore it cannot be abolished. How will you deal with the fact? Is it to force a large body of her Majesty's subjects to put the principle of the Divine law in opposition to such an enactment?" Here is obstinate defiance; but there is more. He proclaims that the Pope's brief is a "Divine law." Is not this the Pope's supremacy over the supremacy of England's sovereign? And if England's sovereignty maintains its own, what kind of warfare are we to have from Rome? Of course, the first step will be an Irish rebellion, or the attempt to raise one. Then is our Queen to be excommunicated—the old game played—the interdict, the absolving from allegiance, and the curse? Is the Pope, the foolish man, who has been driven from his Popedom, and just kept in it again by French bayonets, in his disappointment to enact the spite of a witch turned out of doors, and look back and spit, and take a revengeful pleasure in seeing the Canidian venom take effect? And of a truth it may be said Lord John Russell, Earl Grey, and some others of the Government, grow somewhat pallid from the poison; it has at any rate reached them. Lord John Russell thought it absurd to deny titles, which he now brings in a bill to interdict; Earl Grey would have the Roman Catholic Bishops sit in the House of Peers—and has given strange encouragement to them in the Colonies. Their titles have been smuggled into a Charitable Bequest Bill. It is a hard thing for a Minister to eat his own words, tainted too by the Pope's venom. But, besides this, there appears to have been a connivance with this aggression, or an unpardonable ignorance, on the part of the Ministry. Whence is the suddenly conceived indignation that breaks forth in the Durham Letter? The event had actually taken place long before. Dr Wiseman was gazetted, as Archbishop of Westminster, at Rome on the 22d January 1848; in the Gazette he is called, "His Eminence the most Reverend Monsignore the Vicar-Apostolic, Archbishop of Westminster." What was Lord John Russell doing then? Was he practising "mummeries" that, in his after mind, bore similitude to those of Rome? He had not then been exorcised by Dr Cumming! He has now, however, been tutored to make mighty preparations, to doings of large professions for little ends. If he has not done worse, he has made a burlesque for the page of history, and the age of his Administration ridiculous to posterity.

Dr Wiseman, it has been shown, was gazetted in Rome, January 1848. If the Government knew that fact, did they know, do they know, the exact position in which that ecclesiastic is? Mr Newdegate, in the House of Commons, very clearly shows this position, that "Cardinal Wiseman is a legate of the Pope—a legate à latere, armed with still wider powers than Dr Cullen, and who, as he (Mr Newdegate) believed, merely delayed interfering with our social, civil, and temporal affairs, until that House should have separated for the recess." He showed them "that, from the earliest periods of our history, it had been contrary to the constitution and common law of the country that a legate of the Pope, and especially a cardinal, should come into this country without the leave of the sovereign, and without an oath taken that he would attempt nothing against the realm and liberties of the people."—"He found that there was a meeting of the clergy of the Established Church, a few days ago, at Zion College, at which Dr M'Caul, quoting from a recognised authority of the Catholic Church, stated that the order of Cardinals was literally a part of the Papacy and constitution—the privy council, which was the body corporate of the Pope; and then gave an account of how the office and power of the cardinal was wielded throughout. From that account it appeared that the office of cardinal, when the Pope assumed the temporal attributes of the Emperor, was converted into that of privy councillor; and that the cardinals ought not to be absent from the Papal court, except by reason of being sent out as legates. Cardinal Wiseman, then, could only be there as legate. Van Espin, whose works were recognised at Maynooth, also said, that whatever might be the case with other legates, cardinal legates were called legates à latere, because they were taken from the side of the Pope. He believed that Cardinal Wiseman had been asked whether he had taken the oath of privy councillor, and that his answer was that he had not. But he had taken the oath of archbishop in full, and that would be an excuse for not taking the oath of privy councillor; but he (Mr Newdegate) could find no possible authority for the omission. However, the oath of the archbishop was strictly the oath of privy councillor, binding the party to discharge temporal functions; and with this remarkable addition, that for the recovery of such rights and property as had been alienated from the Romish Church he would do his utmost. He wanted to show that Cardinal Wiseman, by his own act as cardinal priest, adverted to that very function, of labouring to the utmost for the recovery of the goods of the Church. It was a very long time since there had been a cardinal legate in England; and for this good reason, that it was contrary to the ancient statute law of this realm that these temporal officers of a foreign potentate should reside among us. Even Cardinal Beaufort, the brother of Henry VI., had found it necessary to have a special statute enacted in his favour, before he could reside in England as cardinal legate. Cardinal Wolsey was appointed legate at the express instance of Henry VIII.; and Cardinal Pole, after he had been compelled to leave England because he resisted Henry VIII.'s proceedings with the temporalities of the Church, was appointed legate in England, not upon the motion of the Pope, but at the desire of Queen Mary. In the time of Elizabeth, the cardinal whom the reigning Pope had sent to England as nuncio, received in the Netherlands, whence he had sent to request permission to enter England, a prohibition from entering the realm, on the distinct ground that the ancient statutes of the realm declared that no legate from the Papal Court might reside in England. Happy would it have been for this country, (emphatically adds Mr Newdegate,) had the advisers of the present Queen emulated the firmness of those of Queen Elizabeth."

How much better would it have been to put in force an existing and old law, which can only be said to be obsolete because the offence against which it provided was obsolete, than to nullify it by a new and uncertain one, satisfying no one, and such as no one believes will, and perhaps the framer does not intend should, be obeyed. Sir Edward Sugden is of that opinion, and can there be a better legal authority? The people of this country have more confidence in old than new laws: they were made with more precision; and it was not then the practice to smuggle into them expressions for ulterior though hidden use. It is the boast of modern legislation, that a coach may be driven through our acts of Parliament. Queen Elizabeth, who would not suffer the legate to touch our shores, right royally said, "I will not have my sheep marked with the brand of a foreign shepherd." Modern liberality would be content to see Queen Victoria the Pope's sheriff. Is it to be borne, that a cardinal legate, whom existing laws exclude, should be allowed to organise a conspiracy of priests, all, not only virtually, but in word and deed, abnegating allegiance to their lawful sovereign? It is their business, it is in their bond, to persecute the majority of their countrymen as heretics, and to effect in the British dominions as much evil as shall so weaken their country as to make her unable to resist the foreign usurpation of their Pope, or even those of our enemies with whom he may be in league. It is surprising that Mr Gladstone should palliate the doings of the Synod of Thurles, and seem to justify them on the right of civil agitation allowed to other leagues. But surely the difference is great. Political agitators, bad as they often are, do not bring the authoritative dictum of a religious synod. The Synod of Thurles denounces with an authority more potent than the law of the land; they appeal not to reason, to policy, but to obedience. The law is given out by the legate, and enforced by the Synod. They know the danger of mooting questions between landlord and tenant; and it is the very danger which tempts them to it. It is in fact a threat, and the first move of its action. It is almost a declaration to this effect:—The Pope, and we in his name, have right to the land, to dispose of it as we please; and if you in the slightest degree resist or interfere with us, we will stir up those who shall take it from you. They know the threat extends to the life as well as property. All means with them are lawful for the one end. Do we, in all these fruits of the aggression, and of the Ministerial favour which created it, see the promised gratitude of the Roman Catholics? Every obstacle to the free exercise of their religion had been removed; and we were to have peace, but have it not, because, from the vantage-ground of their emancipation, a dominant supremacy was to be superadded. The hierarchy is not for the use of the Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, but for the Pope and his priesthood's power. Even the time it has been allowed to be here, while there was a law that might instantly have been put in force, is a submission to it. It is tampering with illegality and with insult; neither the one nor the other should be suffered to remain a day. The dignity of England is deteriorated by delay. And what has this delay—this sufferance of the evil done, but added to its growth? It is worse than ridiculous, it is mischievous to be furious against an enemy, as our Prime Minister was in his Durham Manifesto, and not to crush his power. All the fury and fierceness is made to appear cruelty for the time and weakness after; and thus the enemy gets more than he had before. The difficulties attending the dealing with this aggression now cannot be denied. They have been greatly enlarged by the mode of proceeding adopted. Parliament, or the executive, might have instantly demanded reparation for the insult, and the law have been as immediately enforced.

The difficulties now must not be denied; and they increase day by day, and will be sure to increase with new legislation. Suppose we have in the British dominions a Roman Catholic population of seven or eight millions. It is too vast a number to ignore, even though the "Protestant brotherhood" out of the Church should desire so to do. If we were a strong Government we might, and ought to do this—to enact that every Romish priest, having sworn obedience to a foreign potentate, has so far renounced his allegiance to his lawful sovereign, and therefore should be subject to a registration, and, with some limitation, be considered an alien.

We might abrogate "Catholic Emancipation," seeing that it was a compact broken by one of the contracting parties. But although we believe all this would be just and fair, and safe, and that one day or other—after, perhaps, frightful rebellions—it will be done, it is nearly certain we cannot do it now. The whole system of government is on another principle—it is called a "Liberal" one. It is that of reconciling to you those of whose dispositions you cannot be certain, if they will be reconciled; and you renounce the government of fear, of which you may be certain, and for which you need but consult your own breast. There is no general liberty where even comparatively a few evil-doers have no fear. The Government has put itself in the position in which it can scarcely do anything that is not mischievous; for if effectual suppression is out of the question, there is only left a something to do which will satisfy none, and will irritate beyond measure the Roman Catholics in Ireland. We can only look to a future day for the registration of the priesthood, and allowing them defined rights, and the imposing restrictions, by which they shall no longer denounce from altars and preach rebellion.

There are other evils, likewise, attending this hierarchy introduction, which require immediate remedy—the evil of their convents and nunneries. These are the real instruments of the Papal tyranny. How are they increasing! In 1847 there were in this country thirty-four convents—in 1848, thirty-eight; and in 1851, fifty-three.

The country is demanding, and well it might, a legal inspection of these houses. It cannot be borne that young inexperienced women of the most tender age, with the common feelings of nature undeveloped, ignorant alike of themselves and the world, should be entrapped, imprisoned in these so-called religious houses, perhaps for life, and their properties seized for the benefit of these religious establishments. Who knows anything of the inmates? If they are miserable, they are shut out from the notice of the world, which is ignorant of their lives and of their deaths—how they live or how they die—in regrets, in a repentance they believe sinful—broken-hearted. The recent disclosures, coming as they do unexpectedly, not as things got up, appear providential, offering, as they do a most wholesome check, as well as creating abhorrence, disgust, and, an active enmity to the whole system. These disclosures have not been without their effect on those who have seemed inclined to look upon the Romish Church not unfavourably.

In the case of Miss Talbot, is there one person concerned in that affair that does not appear implicated in a plot—from the bigotry of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury, to the perpetrations of the so-called Bishop of Clifton? Dr Hendren, unfit as he is to be the bishop of any church, is also a weak and vulgar-minded man—and from his weakness we learn something worth remembering. He avows that the Romish Church wants money; and his own letters show what methods, or rather what arts, are to be used to obtain it. That case is too well known to need farther comment now. We wish we could think Miss Talbot still protected. This is but one case out of many. The case of the two young women of the Black Rock convent tells the same story. They were, it was given in evidence, as much compelled to sign away their property as if a pistol had been held to their heads.

Money must be obtained for the Romish Church, and the end justifies the means. No sum is too small, and no large sum large enough. In the case of Carré, the poor man did not even receive that for which he had paid. The deed signed, he was suffered to die without the last offices. What does Mr Newdegate say of his own neighbourhood, in his place in the House?

"In his own neighbourhood there were convents, too many. From one of them, some years ago, a nun escaped. Unfortunately she was taken back. What did they know farther of that woman? Nothing: except that within a week afterwards fifteen hundredweight of iron stanchions were put up to barricade the windows, and convert the place into a perfect prison. Women entered there—they died. There was no account of their illness or their death. No coroner's inquest was held. They were utterly shut out from light and life, and, he would add, from the protection of the law."

We venture to extract a case from a Hereford paper, because the writer received the narration, as will be seen, from the best testimony:—

"We know a case where a young lady of wealth became an inmate of one of these 'Religious Houses.' It was here in England. She had not been so long, ere she began to write home for money for purposes of charity. Her requests were complied with at first, not unwillingly; subsequently, as the requests became more frequent, and in larger sums, with reluctance. At length the amount became so considerable, that her friends became uneasy, and felt it right that her guardian and trustee should have an interview with her, and remonstrate on the extent to which she was impoverishing herself. He did so, and discovered that not one shilling of the money had reached her. The applications were all forgeries. Apparently they were in her hand-writing; she knew nothing whatever of them! This, of course, led to a searching inquiry, which every endeavour was made to baffle; but the trustee was resolute. It turned out that one of the sisters in the nunnery was an adept at imitating handwriting, as was another in worming out of all new-comers the amount and particulars of their property. Between them—it is not difficult to understand how—the pillage was effected. What became of the money so obtained we know not. But the worst remains to be told. In order to save the character(!) of the superior, and of the establishment, the poor girl was prevailed upon—how and by whom may be imagined—to adopt the whole. There was, of course, an end of the investigation, and of the affair. The young lady became a nun herself, and is so, we believe, at this moment. Her guardian and trustee is a merchant of eminence in the city of London. We have given the facts as narrated by himself."

This case is so like others, that it may be said, without much reserve, Ex uno disce omnes. "Faith is not to be kept with heretics." Even saints of the Romish Church have declared that a lie may be, and ought to be, told for the good of the Church. Such maxim may be found in the works of the canonised Ligouri. We give Cardinal Wiseman credit for a high moral character, and learn that he is much esteemed; but we cannot acquit him of a suppressio veri, in a statement made recently by him, that the children of the person who had bequeathed (to him, we believe) a considerable sum for purposes of the advancement of the Romish religion, were in possession of the property. Now it was not even quite true, for they were only in possession of a life-interest in the property. Suppose the property to be £3000 per annum, what is the property of a life-interest, and what of the reversion? Whoever was in possession of the value of the reversion, was in possession of the larger amount. The children, therefore, were not in possession of the property. It is absolutely necessary that Mortmain should be applied to bequests of this nature. The item of purgatory in the Roman Catholic creed is too potent upon the fears of the dying, when weakness of body and of mind aids those fears, in providing, by bequests, a release from purgatorial pains. But there are legacies, gifts, or confiscations of another kind that must be looked to. The property of all who enter monasteries or convents for life should pass, excepting an annual portion, to the immediate relatives; in case of none, to the Crown. This would be a merciful provision, for it would be the surest protection, perhaps the only one. It is the temptation to possess their property which makes nuns. We are here supposing monasteries and nunneries still allowed to exist, and vows to be taken. But we confess we have another view. There are "illegal" oaths, and laws provided to take severe cognisance of them. It may be doubtful if there is not a treason against oneself, that ought to be illegal, as there is against a sovereign or a government. To take the vow of celibacy, of perpetual virginity, is a treason against nature, and against the first law of our Creator. It is a suicidal vow, and should be considered a crime; and we believe it would be sound legislation, though suiting not some notions of religious liberty, to put a stop at once to these vows in England. At all events, it is not according to civil liberty that either parents or guardians, or parties themselves, should be allowed permanently to bind their conscience down, and to inflict or to submit to a perpetual imprisonment, from which there is no possible subsequent escape.

It should be no matter of surprise if Christians, whatever be their denomination, unite in endeavouring to resist this growth of a power sworn to put down, to persecute to the utmost, as heretics and rebels, all who submit not in obedience to the Pope. "Cunningly devised" indeed must be that system which has, most unfortunately, shown itself to be a potent charm, working in the minds of too many of the clergy of the Church of England. We cannot imagine by what arguments they have been persuaded, either by themselves or others. It would seem to be impossible that they could bring themselves to forsake their first, and the first, Christianity, as restored at the Reformation, for the adoption of impostures so transparent, were it not that it often happens that the mind, bewildered in the fever of controversial curiosity, and wearied by the multiplicity and oscillation of its own thoughts, yields itself up, in despair of finding a solution of its own, to the name of an authority which promises rest from restless thought, and permanent quiet of conscience.

And yet we know not whether this aggression, even in the mischief it has done, may not in the end prove our strength. Under Providence, we may find in it a provocation to watch and guard more jealously the foundations of our Christian faith. It has led, and will further lead, to a full exposure of the Romish errors. They cannot escape the scrutiny of an inquiring world; and thus, even at the moment of its insolence and boasted triumph, the Popish religion may receive in this country a blow which may damage it in every part of Europe, and possibly precipitate it to its downfall. But it must no longer have a Government encouragement; that which has been given to it has, though not so intended, sufficed to evidence its character. It can never be trusted. If there had never been heresies, the pure faith might have been less a living principle. They have practically led to putting into effect and practice the divine command to "search the Scriptures." It is the will of Providence to bring good out of evil. Denial of false doctrines has been the illustration of the true. Received as Popery is now in this country, with, to the Papists, an unexpected hatred, with an undying suspicion, and manifested as it has been in some of its most offensive doings, it will indeed be our fault if it receive not more than discouragement—a combativeness which shall shake it to its foundation. Even now a wondrous change is taking place in all Roman Catholic countries. The Infallible is derided, some fall into the Protestant ranks, and, as a natural consequence of a long maintenance of superstitious errors, multitudes sink into utter infidelity. But in the British dominions a happier change is being effected. What are the few converts to Rome, of bewildered and dreaming ecclesiastics, to the large, the wholesale abandonment in Ireland of the Romish doctrines? The Pope and his cardinals cannot there any longer keep the Scriptures from the people, and they are sensible of the bondage in which they have been held. Perhaps this is one cause of the insolent endeavour to establish their hierarchy. The priesthood and the Roman Catholic press, with a double object—the keeping up their religion and rebellion—yet uniting in one purpose, see that any movement is more safe to them than peace, which is weakening their hold, and confirming the strength and power over the people's minds of the religion of the Reformation.

Under these circumstances, in that country particularly, it is most unadvisable to allow any new position to the Papal power. Let it have no quasi-State authority, which our Government of late years has laboured to give it. Allow fully religious liberty, but mark distinctly where religious liberty terminates, and falls into a civil incompatibility. Allow not an inch of ground to the anomalous mixture, a divided allegiance. Exact strictly that allegiance, whole and undivided, without which civil liberty is endangered. If there be any doctrine in a religion subversive of that, those who hold it ought to be content with the liberty of holding it, but they must be content also with restrictions which civil liberty demands. Popery can only gain strength two ways—by positive persecution, and by indifference as to its movements. By the latter it is gaining strength at this day in France. The Church has been shaken off by the State; the mass of religionists, therefore, are become thoroughly ultra-montane, and acknowledge no authority but that of Rome. Persecution, we trust, will never be the law of England, until, if this shall ever be, Romanism prevails; and, to prevent so dire a calamity, restriction should be our law.

We have not, as some do, spoken exultingly of our "Protestantism" through any doubt of the thing; for as in opposition to Rome we are thoroughly Protestant, we protest most solemnly against all its unscriptural tenets—against its worse than tenets, its insidious doings, and its innate incurable tyranny; but we confess we are shy of the unnecessary use of a term which gives, and has ever given, them a handle of advantage. It allows them to ask, "Where was your religion before Luther?" as if we should admit that Christianity began with Protestantism, and not with the Scriptures themselves, and the appointment of our only one infallible Head. Nay, we might fairly retort upon them, that if they will take the word, which we object not to in itself, in this sense, we have the best right to throw it back upon themselves; for theirs is the law of development—a law of perpetual change, a law of continual protest against themselves, against their doctrines of yesterday—protest against the doctrines of the Apostles, protest against the Universal Church's teaching before Popery was, protest against its own Popery at different times—it is a protest against what it establishes to-day as that which may be legitimately uprooted to-morrow. And this is what the "Unchanging" is doing by his infallibility. "The faith delivered to the saints" is not with the Papacy one faith; there is but one faith, the dictum of the one present Infallible—the Pope of Rome. By this they protest against their own best men, and most learned theologians, who have strenuously contended against this their law of development. What pen could put down a historical catalogue of all the "Roman variations," which yet they are pleased to call "one truth?"

The Index Expurgatorius is a curious document: it shows how the Infallible deals with authorities; what variations he makes—what subtractions and what additions. That made known by Zetsner, 1599, contains some curious specimens. The Roman Church did not publish this, but sent it to the prelates, to be by them distributed to a few fit—"quos idoneos judicabunt"—bibliopoles. Thus the Pope will alter these words of St Augustine: "Faith only justifies," "Works cannot save us," "Marriage is allowed to all," "Peter erred in unclean meats," "St John cautions us against the invocation of saints." The holy Bishop (says the Church of Rome) must be corrected in all these places. St Chrysostom teaches that "Christ forbids heretics to be put to death;" that "to adore martyrs is antichristian;" that "the reading of Scripture is needful to all;" that "there is no merit but from Christ;" that it is "a proud thing to detract from or add to Scripture;" that "bishops and priests are subject to the higher powers;" that the "prophets had wives." The venerable patriarch must be freed from all these heretical notions. Epiphanius affirms that "no creature is to be worshipped;" this is an error, and must be expunged. St Jerome asserts that "all bishops are equal;" he must be here amended. Such, and others of subtraction and addition, are the directions secretly and authoritatively given by the Roman Church to the venders and publishers of books. Nor let any be deluded by the idea that there is no Index Expurgatorius now. These are doings, not of a time, but of a continuation, as an inherent necessity of the Roman Church; which must, to keep its position, thus treat authority, whether of the Primitive Church, or of the Scriptures themselves. The above passages are taken by Dr Wordsworth from the Index Expurgatorius.

But this ever-variable Infallibility, which discovered purgatory at the time of the discovery of America, as if practically, by cruel inflictions, to show what its torments might be; this boasted one, yet ever-varying Infallibility, has, under Pope Pio Nino, now at length developed a new doctrine—not new, indeed, in invention, for it was mooted at the Council of Trent, and set aside as uncertain by that "certain" council, but new as an established authoritative dogma—the "immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary." It is no longer true, in the Roman Catholic belief, that there was but "one sinless." There is now a new exception; it is now no longer a truth that, Christ excepted, "the Scripture hath concluded all under sin." The Virgin Mary was, as the infallible present Pope decrees, born without sin; she was miraculously, immaculately conceived; and hence, what follows? Awful to contemplate is this most recently received dogma. She has an altar to her by the side of that to God the Father. The Roman Catholic Church is no longer Trinitarian—it is Quaternian; it sets up a Quaternity for that glorious Trinity, "three persons and one God." And where is all this development to end? Doubtless, it is in the wisdom above man's, that, like the serpent that was devoured by his own brood, it should be ultimately destroyed by its own inventions; for it makes "the Scripture of none effect" by its traditions and developments.

But to return to the present aspect of things, and the position of the Papal aggression. It will not do to leave the Roman Catholics the power of holding synods, and thereby doing such work as the legate, a member of the Pope's Council, shall dictate; and, at the same time, to fetter the Church of England, which has her legitimate Parliaments only as a mockery—to ordain that all religious bodies shall be free, and the Church of England not free. It is well known that there is a disposition, not confined to a few, to Germanise her Liturgy according to the rationalistic principle; and that advantage is taken of this aggression to promote that end. The movement for this object is on foot: without doubt, it is joined by many who do not see these ulterior views, and believe they can put down thereby practices which seem to lean to Rome, and there stop. They will have no such power. The majority in this movement are desirous of destroying all creeds—in fact, of repudiating the Church. It is well known that there is something very like a conspiracy to bring about this change in Established religion (originating in Germany) in every country. It is about five years ago since a great metropolitan municipal body addressed a memorial to the Sovereign of Prussia upon his throne, embodying principles which still, under the name of Christianity, are subversive of all Christian doctrines. They are, in fact, principles which make every man his own God. His own mind is Christianity—and is infallible. The divine authority of Scripture is ignored. They speak of the "Spirit of Christ," but only as a principle within their own minds; and that principle as the "Church." They, too, adopt the development theory—

"She finds in her foundation and in her history the clue that conducts her through the labyrinth of human error, and the rule of the development of her doctrine. Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows the development of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of thought and language, and adopts new systems of church-organisation, to which it gives expression and life. The Scriptures and the creeds are the witnesses of ancient Christendom. Being, however, the works of men, they express the faith of men; and their form bears the impress of the time in which they were made. It is not in them that absolute truth resides, but it is in the spirit of truth, holiness, and love, which animates mankind. He who revealed Himself to the world by the authors of the Scriptures, is in us, and by us. He interprets the same Scriptures, and judges of their truth."

Thus, according to this really atheistical disgusting verbiage, Christianity is a myth, "within us" and "by us." And we ask if Protestantism—the Protestantism of the Reformation, or the Protestantism after the Reformation, as it now exists in the Church of England or Scotland, or in sects of any Christian denomination—would not shrink with horror from a proposal to substitute this blasphemous farrago for the creeds, liturgies, and services in established use?

We have ventured upon this, it may be thought, delicate ground, because we think it intimately connected with this Papal aggression, and with modes of dealing with it. The Rationalistic aggression would be the most intolerant. It has a mortal hatred to creeds. It is of the Philosophy which, in the French Revolution, massacred priests and demolished churches. It claims its own infallibility, and would make it subservient to a tyranny. It would be as dominant as the Papacy, and denounce its heretics. If there be any that have a confidence in present times and present liberality, and believe that none of these things can come to pass in our country, we would only refer them to a few lines in the page of our recent history, wherein may be read that a furious mob centred itself from all parts in one of the most important cities of the kingdom, attempted to burn down the cathedral, did burn and tear and trample on the Bible, and burnt to the ground the bishop's palace, and eagerly sought the bishop's life.

"The holiness," and even the "love," "within us," that is not of the Christianity of the Scriptures, is an absolute deceit and falsehood; and will ever be, in operation, the most selfish cruelty.

It is an audacious impiety in man to claim infallibility: "humanum est errare." Rationalism and Popery are above humanity. What Cicero said of the smile, when augur meets augur, it may be thought may take place when the Pope meets his confessor. For the Infallible confesses—what?

There is but one infallible, the one Head of the Church which He made. He has given an infallible guide—the Holy Scriptures—all-sufficient, and which require no "development" to interpret them.

Upwards of five centuries ago, the great poet of Italy spared not the expression of his indignation against Popes, monkeries, and their mercenary distribution of "blessings," "pardons," and "indulgences," that fatten, as he terms them, the "swine of St Anthony." He refers all true doctrine to the directions given by the only Infallible, and as taught by the primitive Church.

"Non disse Christo al suo primo convento
Andate, e predicate al mondo ciance.
Ma diede lor verace fondamento."

"Christ said not to his first conventicle
Go forth, and preach impostures to the world,
But gave them sure foundation."

And, a few lines after, he speaks contemptuously of the mummery, and promises, pardons, and buffooneries of the Popish preachers of those days; and adds that, if the gaping populace could but see "the dark bird that nestles in the hood," they would "scarce wait to hear the blessing said."

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THE BOOK OF THE FARM.[8]

There are some things of which a traitorous Parliament cannot deprive the agriculturist. His is the only industrial occupation that can be said to possess a literature of its own—a literature at once ancient, varied, extensive, and curious. In the Augustan era, the Romans could number upwards of fifty Greek authors who had contributed to illustrate the practice and science of agriculture; and we know, with much greater precision, how important a niche agriculture occupies in the existing library of ancient Rome. The curious and quaint lore of Cato the elder—the three works of Varro, the ripest scholar of his age, and evidently the very model of an accomplished Roman gentleman—the minute details of Columella—and the various but somewhat apocryphal information scattered throughout the writings of Pliny, with many lesser luminaries who have written de re Rusticâ, abundantly indicate the importance which the Romans, in the most brilliant era of their history, attached to the study and practice of agriculture. But in a literary aspect the poems of Virgil better demonstrate, than the professional writers just named, how deeply the love of agriculture was cherished by the finest intellects of classic antiquity. In the most original productions of his immortal muse, Virgil has embellished with the charms of divine poesy the arts of rural economy, and the habits of rural life. What other toil of weary mortals has genius enshrined in imperishable verse? Nay, what other industrial calling could wake the inspirations of genius? "The textile fabrics," as they are somewhat pedantically called, are now in the zenith of their popularity; but is Jute poetical, or is Calico propitious to the Muses? The Budge Doctors of the economic school will smile at the question. Although not embraced in their philosophy, it may nevertheless be an important feature in the occupation of a people that it furnishes meet themes to the poet's fancy, and is in harmony with the purer sympathies of the human soul. In such an avocation it may be inferred that there can be nothing innately vulgar or mean, nothing ancillary to low vice and coarse immorality. The ancient Romans seem to have thought that agriculture was the only profession in which a gentleman could engage without suffering degradation. The sentiment is still prevalent; and the professor of the Literæ Humaniores may yet betake himself to his Sabine farm without sullying the honour of the ancient dynasty of letters. One Roman writer speaks of husbandry as an art noble enough to occupy the attention of kings; and to this day we seem ready to acquiesce in the opinion. The Prince Consort fitly employs a leisure hour in observing the processes of agriculture carried on at the home-farm of Windsor; but the national taste would probably not allow it to be a regal employment to watch the spinning of cotton or the printing of calico. The Roman authors duly appreciated the moral influences which the employment of husbandry exerted on the mind. Omnium rerum, ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est Agriculturâ melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius. And Ceres, according to the poet, prima dedit leges. This was indeed the doctrine of the more ancient Greek writers; and the object of the Eleusinian mysteries seems mainly to have been intended to represent the importance of agriculture as the handmaid of civilisation. The mind insensibly catches a hue and complexion from the natural objects with which it is conversant, and the beautiful in nature may be friendly to the beautiful in morals.

.... "The soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without
Responsive."

The peaceful employments of the husbandman, and his daily converse with nature in her gentler as well as more solemn moods, can scarcely fail to be favourable to devotional feeling, and to the milder and more amiable virtues. Although this must be a matter of infinitely small moment to those in whose estimation the summum bonum of human life consists "in buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest," yet a wise statesman might not be uninfluenced by such a consideration in cherishing a branch of national industry—of vital moment, no doubt, in its economic results, but so peculiarly propitious to the growth of the peaceful and patriotic virtues, to the rearing of a virtuous peasantry, and of brave and loyal yeomen, who in every peril have proved the thews and sinews of the commonwealth. Although the statesmen of the Augustan age correctly appreciated the importance of agriculture as the surest basis of national prosperity, yet the neglect of husbandry, and the consequent dependence of the people for their daily food on imported grain, which occurred at an after period, largely contributed to the decay of the Roman empire. The history of ancient Attica reads us a similar lesson. The Athenian farmers, anticipating the recommendation of Sir James Graham, devoted their attention more to pasturage than agriculture. The necessary result was an immense importation of corn to provide for the subsistence of a population unusually numerous and dense. Demosthenes tells us that the quantity of corn annually imported from the Crimea alone amounted to 400,000 medimni—a medimnus containing about four of our bushels; and the peril of such stipendiary reliance for the staple article of the people's food on the caprice of neighbouring, or, it may be, hostile states, was bitterly experienced by the Athenians, and precipitated the crisis in which Grecian freedom and Grecian glory sank overwhelmed never to revive. But history has been written in vain for our modern statesmen, who are infinitely too wise to be instructed by the monitory lessons in the art of government which may be derived from the decline and fall of Greek and Roman greatness.

Without stopping to trace the history of British Agriculture, we venture to offer an opinion which we believe will be acquiesced in by those most familiar with the subject—that, while modern times have contributed not a little to our knowledge of the principles and theory of agriculture, they have done infinitely more to advance the improvement of the practice of agriculture.[9] We say so, without at all intending to disparage the discoveries of Chemistry and Vegetable Physiology. From these sources we expect much more important services, in advancing the art of husbandry, than certainly they have ever yet rendered.

We do not believe that there ever was a time in the history of this country, when so deep an excitement existed in the public mind regarding the present position and future prospects of our domestic agriculture. As the sun never attracts so much attention as during an eclipse, so it would seem to fare with British agriculture in the disastrous plight into which legislation has plunged her. Our litterateurs have all taken to "piping on the oaten reed," and to paying their devoirs at the shrine of Ceres—in whose temple, however, they are manifestly neophytes, and as yet but playing the part of postulants. We hope, indeed, that we may remark without offence, that sometimes they place strange fire on the altar of the goddess, and that they do not always exhibit satisfactory proofs of being very intelligent or well-informed worshippers. When Goldsmith meditated an exploratory journey into the interior of Asia—with the view of discovering useful inventions in the arts, and of adding them to our stores of European knowledge—Dr Johnson, assured of his unfitness for the task, grotesquely supposed that "he would bring home a grinding-barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement." One cannot help fancying that some of our most brilliant contemners of the importance of British husbandry, were they to make a tour of discovery into rural parts—would run some chance of picking up a three-pronged fork, and of reporting it as the veritable trident of the god Neptunus. Journalists, subject to commercial impulses and influences, are for the most part town-bred, and unacquainted with the habits of rural life, and with the theory and business of farming. Husbandry is too large a subject to be learned from the windows of an excursion train, or by the casual consultation of an agricultural cyclopædia. Unprepared by previous observation and study, it should not surprise us, when summoned to discourse Georgical lore to their readers, that our journalists should find it necessary to confine themselves to vague generalities, or political speculations on an agricultural question. We beg, however, respectfully to suggest that the writing of "Pastorals" has always been thought a somewhat difficult branch of the literary art. It is now abundantly proved that the agitation flowing from agricultural distress cannot be sopited by burning eloquence, or brilliant sneers, or sharp antitheses, or bold paradoxes; and the time would seem to have arrived when it becomes those whose duty it is to instruct others, and to consult for the good of the State, to inform themselves accurately on a branch of national industry so engrossing public attention, and to weigh maturely and impartially the infinitely momentous and vastly complicated interests involved in the prosperity or decline of British husbandry.

The position, on the other hand, of those actually engaged in the business of agriculture, is far too critical to permit them indolently to lie on their oars. Within the last twenty years, immense advances have been made to improve our knowledge of the theory and practice of husbandry in all its branches; and if the owners and occupants of land are ignorant of these,—if they are ill-informed in their own business—if lack of knowledge compels them to sit silent when the spruce merchant glibly taunts them for their ignorance of the lights shed on their profession by the torch of modern science—if they are unable to defend themselves, and to vindicate the important interests which they represent—let the existing race of proprietors and farmers know assuredly that, if they are to fall degraded from their present position, they will, in the case supposed, fall the unpitied victims of commercial rapacity and a vicious legislation. Whatever may be the ultimate phase in which agriculture shall emerge from the cloud now resting on it, it is evident that those whose interests, capital, and prospects are dependant on the produce of the soil, were never urged by so pressing considerations to acquaint themselves fully and accurately with the science and practice of their profession.

There never was a juncture, we venture to assert, in the history of British husbandry, that so loudly demanded the publication of a work on agriculture at once copious and minute in its scientific details—fully up to the mark of modern improvement—incorporating everything old and new likely to throw light upon the subject—and detailing faithfully the latest experiments and discoveries of chemical, physiological, and mechanical science; and we can honestly congratulate the British agriculturist, that, in the new edition of Mr Stephens' Book of the Farm, he truly possesses such a work.

We have, in our day, been not a little tormented with second editions. We have sometimes harboured the ugly suspicion that, in the matter of new editions, publishers and authors were in league to cheat the honest public; and, under the influence of this uncomfortable feeling, we have once and again vowed never to buy the first edition of any book whatsoever. On cool consideration, we feel constrained, however, to confess that the author of this work must have endangered, if not forfeited, the high position which he holds as an agricultural writer, had he not strenuously set himself to emend, and enlarge, and in great portions to re-write his book, when a new edition of it was demanded. It is not only that, on a subject so large, completeness in a first effort might have been naturally expected to baffle any knowledge, however comprehensive, and any industry, however indefatigable; but the brief period that has elapsed since the publication of the first edition has been so fertile in agricultural progress, and so rich in scientific inquiry and experiment, that not to have noted these, and embodied their results in this new edition, must have damaged not only the work, but the author, as implying an ignorance of, or a contempt for, the advancing tide of improvement. The present is undoubtedly a very superior work to the first edition; and it seems to us now to contain a complete institute of agriculture. We venture deliberately to affirm, that in no country or language was so perfect a work on agriculture ever given to the world before; and that no work on this subject, whether foreign or domestic, can for a moment come in competition with The Book of the Farm. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the work is the immense mass of varied information which it contains. The Book of the Farm is indeed a many-chambered storehouse of agricultural lore—a vast repertory of information on the subjects of which it treats. To prove the erudition of the work to those that may be yet unacquainted with it, it may suffice to state, that there are above fourteen hundred references to authors, ancient and modern, continental and domestic, who have written on the subject of agriculture, and on the allied branches of art and science. The references in the work are equivalent indeed to a Bibliotheca Agricolaris; and, by directing him to the authorities and sources of knowledge, will enable the educated agriculturist to prosecute his inquiries on any peculiar branch of his business in which he may desire more minute information than even the text embraces. The Book of the Farm is, in fact, another "Stephens' Thesaurus;" and the author must evidently be one of those robust geniuses, who can grapple with whole libraries, and reduce them to their service. Let it be understood, too, that the author's powers of assimilation are as excellent as his literary appetite; that the information is not heaped together in rude disorder, but is interwoven naturally with the texture of the narrative—every fact falling fitly and easily into the appropriate place, where it may best illustrate the precise point discussed. In nothing more than in this does the learned author show his complete mastery of the subject. We fancy that the tenant-farmer, in perusing this work, must often feel how much its author has dignified his art, by showing him how many sciences contribute to its advancement, and how many authors of great learning and talent have devoted their labours to advance the progress, and to vindicate the rights, of husbandry.

But all this learning may not be allied with practice; and the author of The Book of the Farm may, peradventure, be only a book-farmer—a species of impostor that has done a world of mischief in his day and generation. Quite the reverse. The author is enthusiastically practical, and his work is intensely practical. He seems, indeed, to look somewhat askance at any alleged improvement that is not likely to be profitable and beneficial; and we can fancy that he would abate the pretensions of an empiric boastful of some grand discovery, by asking, with an awful mildness, Cui bono? We can assure the agriculturist that, in Mr Stephens, he will find an instructor thoroughly and eminently practical. He is perfectly familiar with the processes of husbandry. He writes not merely as an eyewitness; for it would appear from his book that there is scarcely any one of the manual operations of farming which he had not learned, and, by continued practice, acquired expertness in performing. We believe that there is no author, living or dead, who has written any similar work on agriculture, of whom the same thing can be said. It is an unspeakable satisfaction and comfort to the practical farmer to walk in company with such a guide. We remember very well the impression made on our mind by the first perusal of The Book of the Farm. We at once learned that the author, from actual practice, knew perfectly the employments of the ploughman, the agricultural labourer, the cattle-man, groom, and shepherd. With the most minute and insignificant, as well as the most important operations of husbandry, he seems equally familiar. We soon discovered that his knowledge of the history, habits, diseases, and general management of stock, was as perfect as if he had studied nothing else. He writes as minutely about cattle as if he had spent half a lifetime in the cattle-court; and urges that their "comfort" should be attended to as earnestly as if he were consulting for his wife and family. When he discourses on the fleecy people, you conclude that he must be a mountaineer, and that he has tended his flocks amid the valleys of Clova, or on the slopes of the Cheviot. This idea, however, was speedily dispelled by finding our author quite precise on the piggery; in fact, a most learned and enthusiastic Porculator. We were delighted to find that he did justice to the porcine race, for long the best abused of all our quadrupedal domestics. He writes with a genial enthusiasm on pigs that would have delighted the gentle spirit of Charles Lamb, (see his dissertation on "Roast Pig,") and have won the regard of Southey, (see his poem, "The Pig,") and astonished the ignorance of Sydney Smith, (see his late work "On Morals,") and have caused a gracious smile to mantle o'er the benevolent countenance of the excellent Mr Huxtable. Pigs and poultry, in life and death, are natural allies; and it did not surprise us to find Mr Stephens intimately acquainted with the merits of the winged denizens of the homestead, and that brave chanticleer and his feathery harem were not dismissed without an accurate disquisition. By this time, however, we believed that the practical knowledge of the author was exhausted. But it was not so. He showed himself forthwith in new characters altogether, and proved himself to be a dexterous hedger, (no offence is meant,) no mean proficient in the veterinary art, and quite able to lend a helping hand to the blundering smith, carpenter, or mason; while, to complete the range of his attainments, Mr Stephens seems quite at home amid the perilous retorts and subtle agencies of chemical science.

The extraordinary extent and accuracy of our author's practical knowledge, is in some measure explained in the preface which accompanies the new edition. After a liberal education, he seems to have carefully trained himself for the business of farming by studying it in Berwickshire, "labouring with his own hands," as he tells us, at every species of farm work. He thereafter travelled through most of the countries of Europe, and thus obtained insight into the methods of Continental agriculture. Thus prepared, Mr Stephens commenced a practical farmer; and on a farm of three hundred acres, in Forfarshire, he executed a series of most successful improvements, some of them quite new, at the time—not only in the culture of the soil, but in the management of stock. Everything was done not only under his own personal inspection, but he scrupled not to put his own hand to the work; his object being, as he records, "that his mind and hands might be familiarised with every variety of labour appertaining to rural affairs." Since he relinquished farming, Mr Stephens has been an ardent student of his favourite science. If at any agricultural show a fine animal was to be seen, or if in any country or district or farm an improved mode of culture was alleged to exist, our author seems to have resorted thither to test its merits by accurate and patient observation. His position as editor of the Journal of Agriculture necessarily makes him familiar with the literature of agriculture, and with every new light which Continental and British discovery has shed upon the theory and practice of agricultural industry. To these opportunities of knowledge he conjoins an unbounded enthusiasm and an unconquerable industry. Never before in one person, probably, had there met such a combination of qualifications fitting him to compose a standard work on agriculture. And thus equipped and furnished, never, we believe, did any author devote his energies with more untiring and conscientious fidelity to the performance of his self-imposed task. No inquiry seems too minute or insignificant—none too gigantic or laborious, if it will add to the store of instruction which he desires to communicate. He gathers information from all authors, famous or obscure, and levies assistance from all sciences, that he may satisfy his reader, and present his work perfect and complete! And now we beg to congratulate the author on the completion of his great work, for a magnum opus it emphatically is; and to acknowledge, with gratitude, the infinite obligations under which he has laid the agricultural world.

The primary intention of the author seems to have been to compose a work that might prove a manual of instruction to young men who were studying agriculture, and preparing themselves for the practical business of farming. But, in reality, the work has outgrown the original idea; and it forms now a complete code of instruction not only to the learner, but to the experienced farmer, to the landowner, and, in fact, to every one whose interests are dependant on agriculture, or whose duties lie in any one of the multifarious departments of rural affairs. The plan of the work is perfectly original, (although old Palladius may have given the hint,) and seems to us peculiarly felicitous. Mr Stephens divides the year into the four agricultural seasons—not absolutely coincident with the chronological division, but sufficiently distinctive—each having its respective class of operations to perform. The work might, in this aspect, be described as the Farmer's Book of the Seasons, with the employments peculiar to each copiously described. There are undoubtedly cycles, recurring periods, if not of repose, at least of change, in the farmer's employment; and, by keeping in view these landmarks of nature, the author enables his reader to comprehend, step by step, the progressive advancement that takes place in the business of husbandry. We know no other work that affects even to do this, or from which it would be possible for the student to acquire an intelligible conception of the actual system of husbandry, in the natural and consecutive order in which her processes take place. It seems strange that, in preceding works, a similar plan had not been adopted. In learning a profession men begin at the beginning, and proceed gradually onwards through the curriculum of study and of practice. How should it have been thought that it could be otherwise in agriculture? Agricultural dictionaries and cyclopædias cannot possibly expound a system of husbandry; and it would defy any sagacity to frame one out of them. Their articles may individually be worthy of occasional consultation by the initiated; but they present to the student a bewildering and motley jumble of instruction, "beer" being found, perhaps, next neighbour to "beet," and "bones" in juxtaposition with "botany." Their prelections, written in different styles, and by authors differing oftentimes in opinion, resemble a multitude of loose, independent, and particoloured threads. In the Book of the Farm we find all rightly arranged, and woven by one artist into a web of continuous and consentaneous narrative. The concluding part of the work is entitled "Realisation," in which the author places his pupil on a farm of his own, pointing out the principles that should guide him in his choice of a farm, and teaching him how he should reduce his knowledge into practice. This is not the least valuable part of the work, and in the strongest manner indicates the superior value that the author attaches to skill, energy, and success in the actual practice of husbandry, in comparison with any knowledge of the "Book theoric," or any passion for experimental freaks. Having fairly embarked his agricultural alumnus in the business of life, Mr Stephens, as if loath to leave him, still accompanies him with invaluable directions, and continues to counsel him in kindliest strain regarding the duties which he owes his servants, his neighbours, his landlord, and himself. Upon the whole, there is something approaching to epic excellence and dramatic unity in the conception and execution of the work; and when the author, in his final paragraph, bids us adieu, and expresses a hope that his labours may prove profitable and instructive to his brethren, it is impossible not to feel that the curtain has fallen upon a complete performance.

Until we received the concluding part of The Book of the Farm, which only reached us lately, we were considerably nervous on one point—quite vital, in our estimation, as to the merits of the book. The older we grow, we attach the more value to an accurately arranged index. We hesitate buying any book of importance unfurnished with such an accompaniment; and if it is a book deserving to be re-read, and to which frequent reference must be made, as is the case with the work under review, we put it without compunction into the index expurgatorius of our library-catalogue, and would without pity place the author in the pillory. What a time-table is to a railway, or a guide-book to a traveller in a strange land, such is an index to an extensive work; and if our readers consider that The Book of the Farm contains 1456 pages of clear but close print, in double columns, and embraces the whole range of subjects connected with the conduct of rural life, they will see the imperious necessity of a carefully compiled index for such a work. From the beginning we saw that the book was well planned and paragraphed, (the paragraphs now numbering 6459;) but no excellence of arrangement could compensate for the want of an index. We are therefore happy to add that the value and utility of the work are consummated by the index appended. It is accurately digested and arranged, rendering reference easy and expeditious, and giving the reader a complete control over the voluminous contents. We have found it a prompt and sure guide to any particular point in the varied realms which the author surveys. We have narrowly tested its virtues; and having found it to fail but in one solitary case, and that only partially, we feel bound to approve of the judgment and labour bestowed upon this part of the work. We dwell upon this feature of it not only as momentous in itself, but because the possession of such an index gives The Book of the Farm all the advantages of an agricultural dictionary, while it has merits of its own to which such a work can never lay claim.

In describing the general character of the work, it would be grievous injustice to omit mention of the admirable manner in which it is illustrated. It is enriched with 14 engravings on steel, and 589 on wood, of the most exquisite quality. The portraits of the animals are not from fancy, but are faithful likenesses from life; and we know nothing more excellent or characteristic—not even Professor Low's elaborate and coloured plates of the domesticated animals. In one department the author has, with admirable success, called in the engraver's aid. We refer to the insects infesting that portion of vegetable and animal life in which the farmer is peculiarly interested. This is a province of agricultural instruction which, if not hitherto neglected, has certainly not been treated by any preceding author in a useful and intelligible, manner. Mr Stephens describes the insect-invaders of the farm with a precision that will satisfy scientific readers; but Mr Stephens does not demand, as seems to have been unreasonably done by his predecessors, that farmers shall be familiar with the tremendous terminology of entomological science. He places the little pests before us in vivid pictures true to the life, and evidently from it; so that, without determining the import of such startling vocables as "apterous," "coleopterous," and "orthopterous," the husbandman is at once able to detect the winged and creeping foes, so weak in single combat, but so devastating in legionary myriads—that ruin his crops and injure the health of his cattle, tormenting their patience, and by no means improving the sweetness of his own temper. The black woodcuts, too, depicturing the principal operations on the farm, are inimitably graphic. But when it is mentioned that the artists are Landseer, R. E. Branston, Gourlay Steell, and George H. Slight, the reader will understand that the choicest embellishments which the fine arts could render have been devoted to the illustration of The Book of the Farm. It was well thus to charm the young farmer, and to teach him through the medium of his eyes, by presenting him with portraits of the finest animals, and models of the best implements, and pictures delineating the employments in which he and his staff of servants must engage. We shall be bold to assert that no work on agriculture exists equal to this for the profusion, originality, and excellence of its illustrations.

It would be utterly vain to attempt, by quotation, to give our readers any idea of the extent and variety of the contents of this work; but we may say that we would feel infinitely surprised if an inquirer into any subject touching the culture and drainage of the soil,—or relating to the management of stock,—or into any of the collateral arts and sciences, so far as they are connected with agriculture,—or into any duty or employment in which the owner or occupant of the soil may be called upon to engage,—or into any difficulty likely to overtake him in the discharge of that duty, and out of which a more perfect knowledge and skill may extricate him,—shall not find in The Book of the Farm the information of which he is in quest. In the parts of the work that are strictly theoretical, we conceive that much originality will be found in the author's exposition of the rationale of the feeding of animals, of the germination of seeds, and of the action of special manures. He states the result of every modern experiment worth noting. The present edition contains, in fact, a digest of every experiment, down to the present date, that has been tried in the cultivation of crops, and in the management and feeding of stock—not omitting Mr Huxtable's method of feeding sheep—and of every new light and discovery worthy of preservation made by agricultural chemists. We admire the excellent sense and discretion with which the author addresses the practical farmer regarding the reception which he ought to give to the discoveries of modern science. These are not to be instantly and obstinately rejected, because they may be not only true, but ultimately of great practical value; they are not to be fanatically entertained and temerariously adopted, for, if not scientifically untrue, they may be utterly abortive in application, and may conduct only to bitter disappointment, and, in the case of the tenant-farmer, to an unwarrantable waste both of time and money. Nothing, in point of fact, has more injured chemical science in its relations to agriculture, than the exaggerated expectations and promises that have been held out regarding its discoveries. While, in the chemist's room, the result of an experiment may be demonstrable, it should never be forgotten that, in the laboratory of nature, the elements and agents are not under our perfect control, and that the rise or fall of a few degrees in the thermometer may utterly nullify the most perfect manipulation of the most expert experimenter. Climatic, atmospheric, and physiological peculiarities effect strange differences on the constitution and habits of plants and animals; and although scientific research may sometimes be able to detect the causes, it may be utterly unable to assist us in removing them. The supralapsarian employment of our great progenitor was horticultural rather than agricultural; but while the art of husbandry dates from the sad exile from Eden, it seems to be forgotten that chemistry is scarcely half a century old, and that it is but as yesterday that she volunteered her services to agriculture. Nothing is easier than to sneer at the inveterate prejudices that cloud the agricultural mind, and that impede all agricultural progress; but it may be well to remember that chemistry itself was at a comparatively late period associated with alchemy—that its aims were empirical, the chief of them being the discovery of the philosopher's stone, and the transmutation of the baser ores into fine gold. It seems the special province and duty of landowners, who have the leisure and the means, to make experiments; but British farmers, previous to their adoption, are entitled to satisfy themselves that the discoveries of science are readily available by them, and are likely to be profitable. The most enthusiastic chemist will scarcely deny that the discovery of a very condensed animal manure in the islands of the Pacific has contributed more to the prosperity of agriculture than any modern discovery in his favourite science. We write this in the profoundest conviction of the importance of chemistry and the cognate sciences, and of the impetus they will yet give to agricultural progress; but as it is the present fashion to contemn the torpid and immovable understandings of British farmers, it may be well to remind our philosophers that they have been very long of thinking how their philosophy could advance the culture of the soil, or increase the supply of human food—a vulgar consideration, but not to be despised by philosophic sages, who must live like meaner mortals—and that, as yet, they have rather evolved principles, than shown Mr Hodge how he can profitably apply them. Of late, too, a most ridiculous rout has been made about liquid manures; and our urinary land-doctors would persuade us that they could liquify the whole face of the earth into a garden. To such hydropathic empirics we cry, pish! The value of liquid manures is undeniable, as seen in the watered meadows adjoining our cities; and on dairy farms the quantity may be such, that the application of it may not only be expedient, but profitable. When farmers generally, however, are abused for their ignorant neglect and waste of liquid manure, it is necessary to inquire into the justice of the charge. In the first place, it is certain that the litter in the cattle-court, if the court is rightly constructed and situated, will easily absorb all the liquid flowing from the animals in it and in the byres. Suppose the urine were collected as it passed from the animals, and were prevented from permeating and saturating the manure in the court, then, nearly pro tanto, the value of the manure would be deteriorated. This seems undeniable. The leakage from cattle-courts, when properly situated, arises exclusively from rain-water; and the overflow is caused by the want of rones to the buildings, and the waste of this diluted liquor arises from the want of tanks to contain it, so that both the leakage and the waste are the fault of the landlord rather than of the tenant. But what are the potent virtues of this liquor which escapes from the homesteads of our farmers, and the neglect of which has brought on them such a deluge of obloquy, and by the right use of which their plundered exchequer is forthwith to be replenished? M. Sprengel tells us that "it contains two per cent of manuring matter!" From the trouble, expense, and occasional delicacy required in administering it to the crops, we are quite satisfied that Sprengel is right in stating that any surplusage of liquid manure about a farm, from whatever cause it may arise, can be "most profitably employed in the preparation of compost." We are fortified in this view by the opinion of that skilful and judicious farmer, Mr Finnie of Swanston, as lately stated by him at a meeting of the Agricultural Society of Scotland. The fact is, that this cry about the untold value of liquid-manure proceeds from the city. The inhabitants of our large towns have for many a day been living immersed in a stercoraceous atmosphere, and have been inspiring the fetid fumes exhaled from their horrid sewers. Awakening to the discovery, they have been seized with a sanatory mania; and on the instant, with upturned nostril, they have proceeded to rate the rural population for not relieving them of their cesspools, and for not admiring with sufficient ardour the virtues of these turbid and odoriferous streams that meander amid their dwellings. The Free-trade philosopher, himself pretty much in the puddle, joins in the cry, and condemns scornfully the farmer's neglect of the fertilising properties of sewage water. If these gentlemen were civil, and did not deserve to be soused in one of their own fragrant ditches, it might be replied, that the moment they transport their liquid treasures to the country, the tenant-farmers, after having ascertained their value, will cheerfully pay the worth of them, per ton, in sterling money. It is quite true, no doubt, as Mr Stephens contends, that "it is wrong to permit anything to go to waste, and especially so valuable a material on a farm as manure;" but when practical farmers are denounced by ignorant parties, who have shown that they care not a jot for the agricultural prosperity of the country, but who may hope, by railing at those they so lately robbed, to divert attention from their own political misdemeanours, it seems but right that we should ascertain the value of the article neglected, and the origin of its waste, if waste there be, and perhaps even inquire into the motives of the new patrons of British husbandry who have floated themselves into public notice on the black sea of sewage water. At the same time, he would certainly be an unreasonable man who would try to prevent the Free-trade water-doctors of the soil from sweetening the atmosphere in which they live, and from cleansing themselves from all impurities.

When we remember the excitement and distress under which the agricultural community are now suffering, we fear that at this moment they may scarcely be in a humour to accept graciously our recommendation of The Book of the Farm. In the fever of critical emergencies, men have not patience to study their profession, and scarcely taste to read anything that does not bear on the one engrossing theme. Mr Stephens, no doubt, ignores the Corn Laws and Protection in his work—(we are under no such a vow)—but it should be remembered that there never was a time when it was more necessary for the cultivators of the soil to acquaint themselves with all the improvements and appliances of modern husbandry; and although good farming, nay, the very best, under present prices and rents must be unprofitable, that yet it may tend to the mitigation of present suffering, and to the postponement of coming disaster. But is there any occupant, or owner of land, with the smallest glimmer of sense, who really thinks—whatever he may affect—that the present condition of the British agriculturist can continue, and that his downward progress to destruction is not to be arrested? We do not believe it. It is because we anticipate that, ere long, justice will be done the tenant-farmers of the nation, and that they will be in a position soon to start upon a new career of agricultural improvement, that we earnestly urge upon their attentive study the stores of knowledge and instruction communicated in the pages of Mr Stephens' work.

Supposing the iniquitous competition and taxation to which the agricultural interests of the country are subjected were to remain permanent, we do not believe that any knowledge, or skill, or enterprise, can make the business of farming generally profitable. We think, however, that on casting the horoscope of British husbandry, many writers have predicted a speedier ruin to the tenant-farmer than the nature of his employments should lead us to expect. Everything connected with the processes of husbandry is slow and operose. There is only one harvest in the year, and there can only be one annual profit or loss upon the capital invested. A farmer cannot be ruined in a season. He may have a little spare capital; and, at all events, he has capital invested in stock, and by trenching upon the one or the other, he can for a while meet his losses. Agricultural capital has, however, been already so much impaired, that if, in present circumstances, a bad crop at home were to concur with a good one in the corn-growing countries of the Continent, the coincidence, we believe, would plunge immense numbers of farmers into bankruptcy. If any easy and apathetic landlord doubts this, let him ask the country bankers. It may be difficult to predict the ultimate issue of an unbending adherence to the present system. After a period of hopeless struggle, the capital of the present race of farmers will disappear, and, degraded and ruined, they must go. Who will succeed them? Most probably a race of servile cultivators, like the helots of ancient Sparta, or the ryots and serfs of modern Europe, who, content to subsist upon the meanest fare, shall deliver over to the lord of the soil the produce of the farm. We have heard that some patriotic lairds and discerning factors, taking time by the forelock, are looking out for such clodpoles—for the race is not extinct—to occupy their vacant farms, wisely concluding that men without capital, skill, or education, will live upon black bread, and surrender to them the whole proceeds of the soil. A curious comment this upon the high-farming theory, and a plan of operations highly creditable to the agricultural sagacity and patriotic benevolence of its discoverers! Or it may be that Sir James Graham's "pasturage" may be the dernier resort of a ruined agriculture, in which case we may have, as in the Australian continent, men living somewhat like gentlemen, and occupying extensive tracts of country with their flocks and shepherds. Such a result could, of course, only take place by approaches slow, insidious, and imperceptible. If it were possible, which it is not, that such a social revolution should be allowed to take place, it is plain that it must be spread over a large period of time. We think error has been propagated by anticipations of immediate disaster. It is conceivable that events may occur that will postpone the triumph of truth, and that may enable the Free-trade press a little longer to mystify their readers. A temporary rise in the price of grain would have this effect. Such a brief respite might lull even the fears of the sufferer, although, while the organic disease remains uncured, it is certain to destroy him. The inconsiderate, and those whose interest is to delude or to be deluded, think the question settled by individual farms letting higher than before, and point triumphantly to "grass parks" maintaining their value, or rising in rent. They are ignorant that, as far as farmers are concerned, they must, in many localities, take grass, whatever it may cost them, unless they are to alter and subvert their whole system of farm management, which would involve a loss more fatal than that which, with open eyes and under dire necessity, they are content to endure. There is some fragment of truth, too, in one part of Sir James Graham's speech on Mr Disraeli's motion—in several respects the most audacious oration ever spoken in the House of Commons. "Shopkeepers retiring from business," said the member for Ripon, "small merchants in country towns—(ironical cheers and laughter)—I repeat it, small traders of little capital in country towns, are now waiting the moment to make investment in farms."—(Times, 10th Feb.) Isolated cases of this kind may be occurring, as they always have done, and, generally speaking, after a brief career, the emeritus shopkeeper retires, impoverished and disappointed. The merchant, deluded with some poetical fancy about the charms of a country life, takes a farm, but, like Dr Johnson's tallow-chandler, who retired to the country, but could not keep from town on "melting days," his heart is not in his work, and he gets disgusted with the details of agriculture, and the affairs of his farm speedily fall into confusion. Is Sir James Graham serious in thinking that the prosperity of our domestic agriculture is to be recovered or maintained by "retired shopkeepers,"—that is, by men unbred to the business, strangers to its duties, and, of necessity, utterly destitute of any practical knowledge of agriculture? Mr Stephens anxiously prescribes a course of careful study and practice to his agricultural pupil; but Sir James Graham can, with his wand, metamorphose retired shopkeepers into extempore farmers. What elevated notions the Knight of Netherby must entertain of the qualifications of an English farmer, and of the importance of the agricultural art—an art that it had been hitherto supposed required great experience, and a knowledge of the elements of all sciences, to study and conduct it to perfection! But if retired shopkeepers are the men for the present emergency, has Sir James Graham an army of them sufficiently numerous to occupy the abandoned territory? For before Sir James Graham's remedy—if its application is to be coextensive with the malady—can come into operation, he presupposes the extermination of the present race of farmers. Let the tenant-farmers of the nation ponder his words. "Small traders of little capital in country towns are waiting the moment to make investment in farms." Waiting what moment? Why, the moment, gentlemen, when you are ruined, and are to be driven, with your wives and families, from your homes. Any sentiment more bitterly unfeeling, or more mockingly cruel, was never vented within the walls of Parliament; and, to our taste, it was made more loathsome by the oily compliments to English farmers with which it was garnished. The ex-Minister, however, is evidently deceiving himself, and he will find that retired shopkeepers are not such simpletons as he fancies. The "small traders in country towns," that very section of the mercantile community who are notoriously suffering most from the inroads of Free Trade, are to invest their remaining capital in farming, that particular business which has received the deepest wound from Free Trade! And this is the sheet-anchor of Sir James Graham's hope; and this is a sample of Free-trade wisdom from the lips of its greatest champion! No doubt there may be small traders with little capital in the commercial world who are fools; but we begin to believe that there may be great traders, with little principle, in the political world, who, wily though they be, may reveal the cloven-foot, and defeat their aspirations after place and power. Let us be thankful, whatever befalls us, the English O'Connell with his threat of rebellion cannot harm us, and the fate of the Grahamite faction is sealed! The retired shopkeepers, instead of adopting the disinterested advice, will more probably purchase snug villas; thus indulging their passion for the pleasures of a country life more innocently than by waiting for the ruin of the farmers; and thus we believe, too, that their "little capital" will be as safe as under the self-suggested guardianship of Sir James Graham.

Sir James Graham has no doubt of the present prosperity of agriculture, because his rents are paid. (See Times, 14th Feb.) This is enough for him, and the rest is all "but leather and prunella"—the mere constitutional croaking of the agricultural body. We should have liked better to have heard the views of Sir James Graham's tenantry on this department of the subject than his own. With the value of agricultural produce reduced thirty-five per cent, is the reward of his tenants' industry undiminished, and their capital unimpaired? What a draft upon the agricultural ignorance of the present House of Commons, and what a contempt for the understanding of his auditors, did this bold man evince by hazarding such an assertion! Any inquiry into the sources whence his rents were paid was not thought necessary by Sir James; and we believe that there are many more amiable men than the Laird of Netherby who are solacing themselves with the same view. Their rents are paid—their grass is letting—they are content—they eschew inquiry. The struggling farmer is pinching himself and his family, and is dipping his hand into the hard-earned savings of former years, in order that he may meet the factor. But examination would be unpleasant—dangerous; and any expression of sympathy even with the sufferer, would imply a distrust of the blessings following in the wake of the Free-trade policy. It might almost seem that many of our landed proprietors were set at present upon acting the part of the silly bird of the desert, which hid its head in the sand that it might not see the destruction that was coming. The Newark election, in which the nominee of the landlords was unceremoniously set aside by the farmers, and a man of their own choice selected, might have taught the owners of the soil that condign punishment may eventually await wilful ignorance or criminal neglect of the present duties of their station, and indifference to the condition of those whose prosperity is indissolubly associated with their own. If degradation from that position of influence and power which they have hitherto so justly and naturally possessed be thought no evil, we confess, that we would wish to see that great interest—whose importance to the welfare of the State we have ever vindicated to the best of our power—selecting a more graceful and magnanimous mode of self-destruction. The retention of an undiminished rent-roll Sir James Graham has set his heart upon, as is unblushingly implied in the speech already quoted—but this will not be allowed him; and if there be any meaning or sincerity in his own creed, he dares not ask it. The Free-trade press unanimously assert—and unanswerably upon their principles, and Sir James Graham's own—that the only and the necessary termination of agricultural distress must conduct to a reduction of rent; and the Free-trade press is stronger than Sir James Graham.

The Times contends (or rather did contend, for here a delicate attention to the use of the tenses should be observed) so earnestly for the reduction of rent as the only possible solution of the difficulty, that one must conclude that the journalist believes what he writes. We have not sworn at the altar to fight the battles of the landowners—but if it were possible so to arrange it, we have yet to learn upon what principle they are to be singled out as the sole subjects for plunder. But, as the Free-trade press have resolved upon the reduction of rent as the right settlement of the question, it may be well for a moment to consider what this position amounts to. It is usual to make a threefold division of the whole annual proceeds from a farm. One-third goes to the landlord in name of rent; one-third meets the expenditure connected with the farm; and the remaining third goes to the tenant, as the interest of his invested and floating capital, and as the reward of his industry. We believe this premise cannot be challenged as unfair. But it is universally admitted now, that the annual value of the whole agricultural produce of the farm is reduced immensely by the compulsion of an Act of Parliament. For the present, let us say that the reduction amounts to 30 per cent. Then, by what would seem an equitable distribution of this loss over the three parties, the rent of the landlord, the wages of the agricultural labourer and the other industrial classes dependent on agriculture, and the profits of the farmer, should each be 30 per cent less—that is, each of the three parties should have 30 per cent less to pay the taxes with, and to spend upon the home trade of the nation. This would seem the natural issue of the diminished agricultural revenue, and, when things find their level, to this pass they will infallibly arrive. But no: the Free-trade press have determined that the agricultural labourer shall not suffer, and that the profit and comfort of the tenant-farmer shall not be impaired. It is solely and exclusively a question of rent, say they. Well, be it so. Then, in that case, the rent must be reduced, not 30, but 90 per cent; for upon this condition alone can the agricultural labourer and the tenant-farmer be left uninjured. We defy Sir James Graham, or any Free-trade philosopher, to escape from this conclusion. The existing case may be illustrated in another way. Land at 40s. per acre should produce three rents, while inferior land, at 20s. per acre, as every competent judge will allow, should produce four rents. A farm of 200 acres, at 40s., gives a rent of L.400, and should produce a gross revenue of L.1200. Take wheat now as the test. The farm was rented, and the capital invested, when that grain averaged 56s. per quarter. But wheat has fallen one-third in price, and the L.1200 is reduced to L.800—that is, the rent has disappeared. On the poorer farm of the same extent, at 20s. per acre, with four rents to be raised, it will be found, upon the same data, not only that the rent has vanished, but L.67 in addition. The force of this demonstration can only be evaded by denying the premises upon which it is based; but, indeed, so impregnable is our case, that we might consent to any modification of the premises that the most besotted admirer of Free-trade results could dare to ask, without imperilling materially the strength of our position. And yet Free-trade proprietors are talking gravely of a revaluation of their acres, and of a readjustment of their rent, and of a relinquishment of some 10 or 15 per cent of their rentals, as the grand and all-sufficient remedy for all the sufferings under which the agricultural interest is now struggling, although even to this point of economic magnanimity Sir James Graham has not reached. The ex-minister must have been filled with amazement when he heard the Queen lamenting, not only that the occupants, but that the "owners of the soil" were suffering. His own experience refuted the rash assertion; and, had it been otherwise, we may conjecture that the orator would have spoken a different speech. Personal and pecuniary loss has been known to sharpen the wits and to clear the reasoning faculty in a remarkable manner. On the other hand, the Free-trade press philanthropically insist that the agricultural labourers not only are not suffering, but that they shall not suffer. It is necessary for the latter class to uphold this dogma; for if they admitted that the wages of the labourer must diminish, sooner or later, in proportion to the value of their work—that is, in proportion to the value of the produce, they are instrumental in raising—then instantly the popular delusion which they have so assiduously cherished would be exploded, and their fame as the friends of the poor would be dissipated. We are ready to admit that only in certain localities has the evil reached the agricultural labourer; and where it has not, of course the tenant-farmer is suffering not only his own share of the infliction, but that which should properly fall upon his dependants. It has been erroneously supposed by many that the agricultural suffering would quickly extend itself to the industrious poor: we never saw any good reason for supposing so. The farmer cannot, like the spinner of flax or cotton, stop his mills, and pause in his work, and dismiss his servants, or put them on short time; he must proceed, at whatever risk, and hire his labourers at what they can be got for. The fact that the agricultural labourers are not universally in distress is undoubtedly blinding many honest men to the real position of the country, while it is enabling Parliamentary orators, and Whig snipper-snappers from the hustings, to point to the present comfort of this class as a proof of the success of the Free-trade policy. But can these gentlemen be honest? Upon what principle of political economy or common sense can the farm-labourer continue to receive the same wages as formerly, when the value of the produce of his labour is reduced one-third? It is certainly a grievous trial of the patience to listen to Sir J. Graham lending his talents to the support of a delusion so very cruel, and so very palpable.

But a truce to this strain. A very pleasant book has most innocently led us into very unpleasant themes. Believing that the reign of delusion is drawing to a close, and that a spirit of juster legislation will soon prevail in the councils of the nation, and that the time draws nigh when the occupants and owners of the soil may prosecute their affairs with better hopes than they at present have, of enjoying a fair reward for their toil and enterprise, we again earnestly commend to their attentive perusal The Book of the Farm. To the landed proprietors it ought to be invaluable, if they wish to be qualified to discharge those duties which Providence has laid on them, and which they owe to their tenantry, to the agricultural poor, and to the nation. While the rights of every petty interest are pled in Parliament by parties who prove their intimate acquaintance with the disadvantages—fictitious or real—under which it labours, the ignorance prevailing, in the present House of Commons, on the subject of agriculture, and on its various bearings in reference to national prosperity, is so flagrant as to have excited universal remark. A large body, however, of that august assembly are country gentlemen, and the charge might imply a reflection on their education and attainments. But it would be base ingratitude to forget that patriotic band of country gentlemen in Parliament, as well as out of it, who, in the face of discouragements more disheartening than a great party were ever subjected to before, have fought the battle of just legislation so gallantly, patiently, and prudently—who have identified themselves with the suffering tenantry—and are now contending, with brighter hopes and revived energies, for a fair protection to native and colonial industry, as the only mode in which the labouring poor of the land can permanently enjoy the just reward of their industry, as that system of policy by which alone the taxes can be paid, the national honour kept untarnished, and the constitution and the monarchy saved from dilapidation. There are many others for whose return to their right mind we have waited patiently. We believe that in their case an ignorance of agricultural affairs may be the source of their present apathy. To all gentlemen, however, living in the country, although they may have no stake in its soil, we recommend Mr Stephens' work, as containing most agreeable reading. We do not say that, from such, a continuous perusal is required. They may intercalate an agricultural season from The Book of the Farm, now with the corresponding season from the "Bard of the Seasons," and now with an eclogue from Virgil. The pleasures of a country life will thus be infinitely multiplied; for, startling although the paradox may be, there are multitudes resident in rural parts who look ignorantly on rural sights, and have no knowledge of rural employments, and no sympathy with rural habits, and who know not in reality how to live in the country. Mr Stephens' work—or a better, if it can be got—ought, of course, to be in the hands of every factor and land-steward, otherwise they must be unfit for their business; and it ought to have a place in every parish library, that it may be accessible in the winter nights to the agricultural labourers. It is particularly, however, the tenant-farmer's manual, if he is to keep pace with the progress of his art. He may think it costly, but not with reason, if he considers that it comprises an agricultural library in itself. The thrifty and buxom housewives of our homesteads, too, will find admirable instruction in The Book of the Farm regarding the important branches of duty that fall to their charge. Mr Stephens is copious regarding everything touching the management of the dairy. Indeed, our author seems somewhat recherché on the matter of dairy produce. We acquiesce in his approval of the deliciousness of new-made, unwashed butter, churned from sweet cream—a luxury which our southern friends never tasted. "Such butter," says Mr Stephens, "on cool new-baked oatcake, overlaid with flower virgin honey, accompanied with a cup of hot strong coffee, mollified with crystallised sugar, and cream such as the butter is made from, is a breakfast worth partaking of, but seldom to be obtained." Most excellent sir! on such terms we shall breakfast with you on the morning of Saturday se'nnight, provided you add to your matutinal cuisine a veritable "Finnan" and a mutton ham of the true flavour, (if possible, let it be from one of the Keillor four-year-old Southdowns;) for we have long conscientiously entertained the opinion of a late ingenious professor of Church History in our metropolitan university, "that Edinburgh eggs are not to ride the water upon!"

---

AN EVENING WALK.
BY THOMAS AIRD.

The Patriarch mild, who mused at evening-tide,
Saw blessings come: they who with ordered feet
Go forth, like him, their blessings too shall meet,—
Beauty, and Grace, and Peace, harmonious side by side;

Whether the down purpled with thyme they tread,
Woodland, or marge of brook, or pathway sweet
By the grave rustling of the heavy wheat,
Singing to thankful souls the song of coming bread.

The restless white-throat warbles through the copse;
High sits the thrush and pipes the tree upon;
Cloud-flushed the west, a sunny shower comes on;
Up goes the twinkling lark through the clear slanting drops.

In straight stiff lines sweet Nature will not run:
The lark comes down—mute now, wings closed, no check,
Sheer down he drops; but back he curves his neck;
Look, too, he curves his fall just ere his nest be won.

Here stands The Suffering Elm: in days of yore
Three martyrs hung upon its bending bough;
Its sympathetic side, from then till now
Weeping itself away, drops from that issuing sore.

Dryads, and Hamadryads; bloody groans,
Bubbling for vent, when twigs are torn away
In haunted groves; incessant, night and day,
Gnarled in the knotted oak, the pent-up spirit's moans;

And yonder trembling aspen, never still,
Since of its wood the rueful Cross was made;—
All these, incarnated by Fancy's aid,
Are but extended Man, in life, and heart, and will.

Your eye still shifting to the setting sun,
The diamond drops upon the glistening thorns
Are topazes and emeralds by turns;
Twinkling they shake, and aye they tremble into one.

Clouds press the sinking orb: he strikes a mist
Of showery purple on the forest tops,
The western meadows, and the skirting slopes;
Down comes the stream a lapse of living amethyst.

Beauty for man, O glory! yet how vain,
Were there no higher love to correspond,
Lifting us up, our little time beyond,
Up from the dust of death, up to God's face again.

The Word apart: Nature ne'er made, in whim,
An organ but for use: our longing hope
Of life immortal, like our hand, has scope
To grasp the things which are: that life is thus no dream.

We tread on legends all this storied land:
Here flows a ferry through the mountains black
With pinewood galleries far withdrawing back;
Man's heart is also here, and dwarfs those summits grand:

The virgin martyrs, half the ferry o'er,
By ruthless men were plunged into the tide,
Singing their holy psalm; away it died,
Bubbling in death. The moon a blood-red sorrow wore.

And aye, they tell, when, wan and all forlorn,
Sickening she looks upon our world of wrong,
And would be gone for ever, far along
The mournful ferry dim that dying psalm is borne.

Yon peasant swarth, his day of labour done,
Pipes at his cottage door; his wife sits by,
Dancing their baby to the minstrelsy:
To temperate gladness they their sacred right have won.

Rest after toil, sweet healing after pain;
Repent, and so be loved, O stubborn-viced—
The Tishbite girt severe runs before Christ:
Such is the double law complete to mortal men.

Yon lordly pine bends his complying head
To eve's soft breath, and the stupendous cloud
Shifts silently: Man's world is fitliest bowed
By power when gently used: Force not, love thou instead.

One cool green gleam on yonder woodland high,
And day retires; grey twilight folds with dew
The hooded flowers; in gulfs of darkening blue
The starry worlds come out to Contemplation's eye.

Home now to sleep. No part in all man's frame
But has its double uses, firm to keep,
Help this, round that, and beautify: of sleep,
Complex of sweet designs, how finely 'tis the same.

Touched with the solemn harmonies of night,
Down do we lie our spirits to repair,
And, fresh ourselves, make morning fresh and fair;
Sleep too our Father gave to soften death's affright:

In sleep we lapse and lose ourselves away,
And thus each night our death do we rehearse.
O, at the last may we the oblivion pierce
Of death, as aye of sleep, and rise unto the day.

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MODERN STATE TRIALS.[10]
PART V.—THE ROMANCE OF FORGERY—Concluded.

"Alexander Humphreys, or Alexander, pretending to be Earl of Stirling," said Lord Meadowbank,[11] addressing his prisoner, on his being first placed at the bar, "you have been served with an indictment charging you with the crimes of forgery, and of feloniously using and uttering as genuine, certain documents therein described, and alleged to have been forged and fabricated, you knowing them to be so. Are you guilty, or not guilty?"

"Not guilty, my Lord," replied the prisoner, standing beside his friend Colonel D'Aguilar. But now occurs the question—how was he to be tried?—as a peer of Scotland, or as a commoner? If as a peer, the court before whom he stood was incompetent to try him; for he was entitled, by the Treaty of Union, as a peer of Scotland, to be tried as peers of Great Britain are tried—viz., in the Court of the Lord High Steward; and the mode of procedure is that prescribed in 1825 by Statute 6 Geo. iv. c. 66, which required the Scottish judges to be summoned and to sit with the English judges, and according to the law of Scotland, [pp. 5, 6.] This privilege, however, as will be presently seen, the prisoner waived. Then came another question: was he to be tried as a "landed man?"—by which is meant a landed proprietor. It is a very ancient privilege of landed men, by the Scotch law, that they should be tried only by their peers—i.e., their brother landed proprietors. In process of time, however, this right has been so far modified as to entitle the prisoner to a majority only of his landed brethren. This right also, as will shortly be seen, the prisoner waived—having probably no pretence to the possession of any lands in Scotland, except such as he claimed as Earl of Stirling. To meet any possible difficulty, however, on this score, two lists of assize had been prepared—respectively consisting of "landed men" and common jurors, and "special jurors" and common Jurors: the former to be adopted "if the said Alexander Humphreys claimed, and was entitled to, the privilege of a landed man;" the latter, "if he did not claim, or was not entitled to, the privilege of a landed man."

After the prisoner had pleaded not guilty, the clerk in court read aloud the defences which, according to the procedure in Scotland, had been lodged in court for the prisoner, signed by his two counsel. They were entitled "Defences for Alexander Alexander, Earl of Stirling,[12] against the indictment at the instance of her Majesty's Advocate."

These Defences were comprised in two paragraphs. The first stated that, as Lord Cockburn's interlocutor, though not final, had decided against the prisoner's claim to be the heir of the Earl of Stirling,[13] "he was advised that he was not in a condition to plead the privilege of peerage; but was bound to acknowledge the competency of that court to proceed under the indictment before it." The second proceeded thus:—

"The panel pleads not guilty of the libel generally; and, even particularly, he denies that he had the slightest ground to suspect that all, or any, of the documents libelled on were forged or fabricated. He produced them under legal advice, in the belief of their being genuine, and useful for the support of his interest."

"A third paragraph consisted of an application to postpone the trial, on the ground that the prisoner was not prepared for it, as one of his counsel and his agent had gone to London and Paris to make inquiry as to several of the witnesses for the Crown, and such further investigation as might be necessary for his defence." The words which we have placed in italics indicate a course of procedure altogether at variance with that adopted at the English bar.

As soon as their Defences had been read, the prisoner's counsel rose and said, "My lords, I do not mean to claim for the panel the privilege of a landed man; nor do we intend to state any objections to the relevancy of the indictment." By "relevancy" (a technical term in Scotch law) is signified "the justice and sufficiency of the matters stated in the indictment to warrant a decree in the terms asked;"[14] and, according to the criminal law of Scotland, this objection must be taken, if at all, before the trial. If it be not, the prisoner cannot make it the subject of arrest of judgment by the court, but must refer it to the law advisers of the Crown, after the sentence has been pronounced by them, to have such weight attached to it as may be deemed proper, with a view to pardon or mitigation of punishment.[15]

"Let the relevancy of the indictment be determined," said the Solicitor-General, "by your lordships pronouncing the usual interlocutor."

Lord Meadowbank.—"Alexander Humphreys, or Alexander, attend to the interlocutor of the court," which the clerk read as follows:—

"The Lords Commissioners of Justiciary find the libel RELEVANT to infer the pains of law, but allow the panel a proof in exculpation and alleviation; and in respect that the panel has by his counsel waived his right, if he any have, to be tried by a jury, of which the majority shall consist of landed men, remit the panel, with the libel as found relevant, to the knowledge of the ordinary assize."

Lists of all the witnesses and documentary proofs, on both sides, were, as it would appear, interchanged; and the trial having been postponed from the 3d to the 29th April 1839, on the latter day it commenced—not however, as in England, with a preliminary statement on the part of the prosecutor of the course of expected proof, but with the evidence itself in detail. After that on both sides had been adduced, the counsel for the Crown addressed the jury, and then the counsel for the prisoner; after which Lord Meadowbank summed up. We beg to say that we think the English course of procedure greatly preferable to the Scottish, in commencing the trial with a temperate and lucid statement of the case intended to be made out by the Crown, enabling both the Court and the jury—but especially the latter—to obtain an early clue through the labyrinth of oral and documentary proof, to see the drift of it, and appreciate, in going along, the significance of what is being done. In the present case, for instance, the jury were plunged instanter into a series of details of somewhat complicated legal proceedings, and legal and other documents: the Solicitor-General feeling the necessity many times of interposing, to intimate that "the object of this or that evidence was to show so and so," &c. &c. And, indeed, if the jury really saw their way with only middling clearness through the evidence, as it was being adduced, they were a far shrewder and more experienced jury than it has been our lot to see for many a long year, even at Guildhall or Westminster. In the present case, a half-hour's calm preliminary statement, by the Solicitor-General, of the points of the charge, and the application to them of the evidence, would have greatly assisted the jury, possibly even the Court, and, long afterwards, ourselves. In despair, we leaped out of the intricate evidence into the speeches of counsel, and the summing up of the judge, afterwards recurring to the evidence and appendices. At length we found ourselves on sure ground, and in a clear atmosphere; and grudged not the effort we had made to overcome the obstacles of which we have been complaining, and also the difficult technicalities of Scottish criminal law procedure.

It will be recollected that the indictment embraced three distinct classes of alleged forgeries—the excerpt charter of Novodamus, the Le Normand packet, and the De Porquet packet. To establish the "using" and "uttering" of these instruments, evidence was given of their having been adduced, on the part of the prisoner, in the various Scottish courts in which he had from time to time asserted, and endeavoured to maintain his claims. Lord Cockburn's important judgment of the 10th December 1836 was also put in evidence, as were also the examinations of the prisoner, some of his correspondence, and the instruments charged by the indictments to be forgeries. Let us take these latter in their order; and—

I. The Excerpt Charter of Novodamus of the 7th December 1639. Was this a genuine or a forged document? The acute and learned scrutiny to which it was subjected elicited remarkable and most decisive results. We know a little more than was disclosed to the Court—namely, that the mysterious discovery of this "excerpt" was communicated to the prisoner from Ireland by his indefatigable agent, Mr Banks, on the 17th March 1829. All that was proved before the Court was, that the prisoner delivered it in that year to his law-agents, who immediately commenced proceedings in the Scotch courts to "prove its tenor." Let it be observed, that "this most suspicious scrap of writing," as the Solicitor-General styled it,[16] professed to be only an "excerpt" of a lost charter of King Charles I., dated the 7th December 1639—not an entire copy, but only "an abridged copy;" and the exigencies of the prisoner's case had required that that identical excerpt should have been in existence at least as long ago as the year 1723,[17] since it bore an indorsement[18] by "Thomas Conyers," attesting its authenticity, dated the 10th July 1723. It will be impossible, however, to appreciate the force of the delicate but decisive evidence brought to bear upon this unlucky document, unless we have a distinct idea of the different stages of progress through which a royal charter would have to pass in the year 1639. They were explained at the trial by several learned and experienced officials; and we have taken some pains to clear away technicalities, and present their evidence briefly and popularly. The stages, then, through which a royal charter had to pass were three.

First came the Signature. This was not, as the word would ordinarily import, and in England, a mere name signed, or mark, but an entire document, constituting the foundation of the proposed charter, and containing its essential elements. It is drawn up in English by a Writer to the Signet, and brought by him, on a given day, to a Baron of the Exchequer to be examined, in order to ascertain that it is correct, especially as to the "reddendo," or annual feu-money due to the Crown. On being satisfied of its accuracy, the Baron marks the signature as "revised;" and in due time the sign-manual is affixed to it. It is then complete—is recorded in the Exchequer Record—and retained by the Keeper of the Signet. There is subscribed to it only the date, and the words, "At Whitehall, [ ] the day of [ ] ."

Secondly, Warranted by the possession of this revised "signature," the Keeper of the Signet issues a "Precept to the Privy Seal," which is simply a Latin translation of the English signature, and is recorded in the Privy Seal Office. That office then issues this precept to the Great Seal; and it is to be noted that this Privy Seal Precept has subscribed to it the words, "Per Signetum," which seems to be an abbreviation of the words, "per preceptum datum sub signeto nostro."

Thirdly, As soon as this Privy Seal Precept has reached the Chancery Office, the functionaries there draw up formally, and in extenso, the Charter, which is sealed with the Great Seal; the Privy Seal Precept on which it is grounded either remaining in the Chancery Office, or being lodged in the General Records of Scotland. This completed Charter, alone, has a testing clause; and it is the Privy Seal Precept only which bears, as we have seen, the words "per signetum."

See, then, the origin, progress, and completion of a Royal Charter in 1639—Signature; Privy Seal Precept; Charter; each having its appropriate depositary or record—the Signet Office, the Privy Seal Office, the Great Seal Office; to which, indeed, may be added a fourth, the Comptroller of Exchequer's Register, where also was recorded every instrument of the above description, to enable that officer to account to the Crown for the feu-duties. These four old registers, or records, are all completed from periods long anterior to the year 1639, down to the present day, with the exception of a hiatus of twelve leaves at the commencement of the fifty-seventh volume of the Great Seal Record; but the contents of these twelve leaves were clearly ascertainable from the indexes of other records. "It is the boast of this country," said Lord Meadowbank, in summing up, to the jury,[19] "and always has been, that its registers have been kept with a regularity unknown elsewhere."

If, therefore, there ever had been such a charter as that of which the document under consideration professed to be an excerpt, that charter ought to have been found in every one of the four records or registers above mentioned.[20] Add to this, that William Earl of Stirling was himself, at the time, the Keeper of the Signet,[21] and also "a man of talent, and attentive to his own interests—not likely to have received grants of such unusual importance as those contained in the charter in question, without seeing them properly carried through the seals."[22]

Now for the excerpt itself, and its aspect. It was written on several single leaves of paper, not numbered, apparently cut recently out of some book, and stitched together, the outside leaf being brought round and stitched down on the remaining leaves. The colour was a uniform deep brown—equally so underneath the margin covered over at the stitching. There were ruled red lines round the pages. The writing appeared "fresh"—at all events, not so old as the paper; and was not in a Scotch chancery-hand, or any hand used in the Register Office, but like that used in engrossing deeds in England and Ireland. The language of the excerpt was Latin—but such Latin! and it extended to about thirty English common-law folios, containing seventy-two words each. At the beginning of the charter, on the right-hand side, were the abbreviations, "Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII."—i.e., "Registrum Magni Sigilli, Liber LVII."

The only portion of the excerpt with which we shall trouble the reader in extenso, is the conclusion—the testing part—which (especially the part in italics) is worthy of the utmost attention; and we adopt the translation used at the trial:—"Witnesses: the most reverend father in Christ and our well-beloved councillor, John, by the mercy of God Archbishop of St Andrew's, Primate and Metropolitan of our kingdom of Scotland, our chancellor; our well-beloved cousins and councillors, James, Marquis of Hamilton; Earl of Arran and Cambridge; Lord Aven and Innerdaile; Robert, Earl of Roxburghe; Lord Ker, of Cesford and Casertoun, Keeper of our Privy Seal; our beloved familiar councillors, Sir John Hay of Barro, Clerk of our Rolls, Register, and Council; John Hamiltoun of Orbestoun, our Justice-Clerk; and John Scot of Scotstarvet, Director of our Chancery, Knights. At our Court of Quhythall, the 7th day of the month of December, in the year of God 1639, and of our reign the 15th year.

[Gratis]
Per Signetum."

On the back of this document was written—"Excerpt from the original charter to William, Earl of Stirling, 7th December 1639. T. C." [i.e., Thomas Conyers.] This indorsement was also alleged in the indictment to be a forgery. Here, then, we have an "excerpt" or "abridged copy" of a royal charter, dated the 7th December 1639, granted by King Charles I. to one of his most distinguished subjects, conferring high dignities and vast possessions; a charter yielded to the anxious importunity of the Earl in his old age, "when labouring under great dejection of spirits, after losing three of his sons, who had given him the highest hopes, and fearing, from the declining health of two of the survivors, that his honours might, at no distant period, pass to a collateral branch of his family."[23] And this Earl, too, the head of the office in which the charter originated. Now, First, the records of every one of the four departments above mentioned—viz., the Signature Record, the Comptroller of the Exchequer's Record, the Privy Seal Record, and the Great Seal Record—had been rigorously searched, and not the faintest trace of such an instrument appeared in any of, them!—it being sworn that, had it ever existed, it must have been found in ALL! "This might possibly have been accounted for," said the Solicitor-General,[24] "had there been but one register only; more especially if a blank had occurred in that register, through the obliteration, imperfection, or loss of a volume, or part of a volume. But where there are four independent registers, and these all concurring to supply, in the fullest detail, the necessary evidence as to all other charters, [of which various instances were proved at the trial,] and when you find that this charter is not recorded in any one of them, it is quite impossible to believe—it would really be asking too much of credulity itself to believe—that such a document could ever have existed." If this instrument were the handiwork of a forger, it may be reasonable to suppose him capable of appreciating the efficacy of the negative evidence which might be brought against him, and to endeavour to supply it. This brings us, Secondly, to the memorandum in the margin of the first page of the excerpt—i.e., Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII.—which meant that the charter itself was to have been found "in the fifty-seventh volume of the Register (or Record) of the Great Seal." We have already seen[25] that, in point of fact, twelve leaves, at the beginning of that volume, were amissing; and the suggestion, or rather assertion, of the prisoner, when he commenced his legal proceedings to prove the tenor of the missing charter, was, that it was to have been found in one of these twelve leaves, "which had perished, or disappeared—that being a matter of public notoriety, and was so observed by the Lords of Council and Session in their return of the 27th February 1740, to an order of the House of Lords of the 12th June 1719, respecting the state of the Peerage in Scotland."[26] Here, then, are only twelve leaves missing; and on referring to one of the writings indorsed on the map of Canada, (in the Le Normand packet,) the writer stated he had seen the charter, and "it extended over fifty pages of writing."[27] On this subject, Lord Meadowbank proposed the following question to the jury—"Putting aside the evidence of this index, could you have believed, when there is no evidence or trace of this charter in the volume where it should be found, that it could, out of its place, have been crammed into the twelve pages that are lost, when the prisoner's own evidence tells you the charter extended to fifty-eight?"[28] To proceed, however—What will the reader suppose was proved at the trial? First, two ancient indexes of the missing twelve pages of vol. lvii. were produced, unerringly indicating the charters which had stood recorded there, and among which was not the charter in question, but only those of date subsequent to the year 1639; while all the charters of that year 1639 stood regularly recorded in the previous—the fifty-sixth volume; and among them, also, was not to be found the charter in question. Mr George Robertson, one of the Joint-Keepers of the Records, thus certified on oath: "I have searched the principal record of the fifty-seventh volume of the Great Seal Register, and at the beginning of the said fifty-seventh volume, twelve leaves have been destroyed or lost. The charters originally recorded in these missing leaves are, however, ascertained with precision from two ancient indexes of the Great Seal Record. I have examined these, and can state as the result, that the twelve leaves now lost did not contain any charter, diploma, patent, nor other grant, in favour of William, Earl of Stirling, nor of any Earl of Stirling, nor of any person of the name of Alexander." Still further, however: the words on the margin, "Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII.," purported to have been written there by the framer of the excerpt, in the year 1723; and three experienced official gentlemen declared their confident opinion, that no such marking was coeval with the making of the excerpt itself. It was established at the trial, that this mode of referring to the Great Seal Records was quite a modern one, commencing with the year 1806 only: a fact proved by the very author of the arrangement, and his assistant; by whom, in the latter year, the Records were re-bound, and the titles made uniform, for facility of reference, in lieu of the loose and discordant methods of reference till then in use! Other experienced officials proved that till the year 1806 no such mode of reference as "Reg. Mag. Sig." existed, and they gave specimens of the former mode: e. g. "Chart. in Archivis," appeared in a law book of 1763; and in a subsequent edition, in the year 1813, the reference was altered to "Mag. Sig." If, therefore, the "excerpt" were a modern forgery, it would almost appear as if the fabricator, aware of the missing leaves of Vol. LVII., but not knowing how very recent was the lettering on the back—"Reg. Mag. Sig."—had taken it for granted that it was coeval with the original formation of the volume, or at least had been there for a century—viz. since 1723. But if this reference—"Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII."—were a forgery, it must have been a very modern one, necessarily later than the year 1806, the date of Mr Thomson's rebinding of the Record, and changing the titling. But we have seen that the prisoner had accompanied his father to France in the year 1802, and did not return to England till 1814; and in the subsequent year told his own agent, Mr Corrie, that he had no documents to support his claim. Is it a fair inference from these dates that, down to at least the year 1815, the famous excerpt was not in existence—or at least unknown to the prisoner? So much for the negative evidence that any such genuine document as the alleged Charter of 7th December 1639 had ever existed. But,

Thirdly, the excerpt itself seemed to furnish a most conspicuous and glaring demonstration of spuriousness: we allude to the alleged attestation of the Charter by Archbishop Spottiswoode, in the capacity of "our Chancellor" of the kingdom, and as such, keeper of the Great Seal. Spottiswoode, the Archbishop of St Andrews, was undoubtedly for a considerable period Chancellor of Scotland; and his name is found in the Records as an official witness to all Charters from the Crown, passing the Great Seal of Scotland during the time that he held it. In the excerpt Charter, he appears in that capacity at the alleged date of the instrument—viz, the 7th December 1639; but, behold! not only had he ceased to be Chancellor on the 13th November 1638, but he had actually died on the 26th November 1639—that is, eleven days before that on which he was made to attest the alleged Charter of Novodamus! These facts were proved, beyond all doubt, both directly and collaterally, as, for instance, by an instrument of a nature similar to that before the Court, dated only four days afterwards—namely the 11th December 1639—a Charter in favour of the City of Edinburgh, and attested, &c., not by "John, Archbishop and Chancellor," but by his successor, the Marquis of Hamilton, (whose appointment on the 13th November 1638 was proved,) and this very "William Earl of Stirling and Canada," and others: all of whom were also witnesses, on the same day, to another charter, to Heriot's Hospital. Here, then, was a great Charter, making under the Great Seal magnificent grants to a Scottish nobleman, and attested by a non-existent Chancellor, whose temporary successor had been installed in office thirteen months previous to the date of the Charter! Mr Swinton acutely points out[29] the source of this blunder, assuming the excerpt to be altogether a forgery. Archbishop Spottiswoode, as has been seen, ceased to be Chancellor on the 13th November 1638, and died on the 26th of the ensuing November—i.e. eleven days before the date of the alleged Charter. Now, from the date of the Archbishop's resignation, till the appointment of the Earl of Loudon as Chancellor in 1641, the Great Seal was in commission, the head commissioner being the Marquis of Hamilton. But it singularly happens, that, in the catalogues of the Scottish Chancellors appended to Spottiswoode's History, and other works, the list during the reign of Charles I. and the Commonwealth, is given as follows:—

"1622, George Hay, Earl of Kinnoul.
1635, John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St Andrews.
1641, John Campbell, Earl of Loudon.
1660, William Cunninghame, Earl of Glencairne."

——no mention being made, nor any notice taken, of the interval between the resignation of the Archbishop and the appointment of the Earl of Loudon. From this it may be inferred that the fabricator of the document, if it were fabricated, took it for granted that from 1635 to 1641, and consequently in the year 1639, falling within that interval, the Archbishop was Chancellor of Scotland. But again—Is there any reason assignable for the supposed fabricator having pitched on the particular date of 9th December 1639? Yes! In Crawford's Life of the Archbishop, the death of that prelate is erroneously alleged to have occurred on the 27th December 1639!—i.e., just eighteen days after the completion of the alleged Charter.[30] These really seemed rather awkward facts! But,

Fourthly, there was apparently another great blot pointed out by the lawyers. Immediately after the above-mentioned testing clause, followed the words "Gratis.—Per Signetum."[31] Now, it has been seen that the testing clause is the conclusion of only a completed Charter. This "excerpt," therefore, if taken from any document, must have been taken from a completed Charter. It could not have been taken from the Signature, nor the Signet Precept, nor the Privy Seal Precept, for in none of these instruments could such a clause appear. But in addition to this testing clause, appear the words "Per Signetum!" which are never to be found in any charter at all, but only in the Privy Seal Precept! So that here was a document containing, on the one hand, words (the testing clause) which are to be found in only a completed charter, and which could not exist in a Privy Seal Precept; and, on the other hand, certain other words (Per Signetum) never to be found in a completed charter, but only in a Privy Seal Precept! It was accordingly sworn unhesitatingly by all the professional witnesses, even on the strength of these conclusive elements of intrinsic evidence alone, that the document before the Court could not be an excerpt, or copy, of any authentic writ of any description whatever, known in the law of Scotland. There seems some little force in the Solicitor-General's observation on this part of the case: "Gentlemen, is there not here, then, the clearest and most satisfactory evidence that this is not, and cannot be, an excerpt from any real or genuine document? There is an incongruity about it, which shows it could not have been copied from any document that ever existed. The writer of it—whoever he was—may have had a sort of glimmering of what it ought to have been; but still, in his ignorance, he has made a monster of it. It is utterly impossible, looking merely to the intrinsic evidence, that it could be the document which it professes to be."

Fifthly, Not satisfied with these rigorous assaults upon the genuineness and authenticity of this unfortunate document, the Scotch lawyers detected, as they considered, several serious intrinsic evidences of spuriousness. First, the alleged charter professed to convey estates which had never belonged to the Scottish Crown—viz., lands, provinces, and territorial rights in New England. "It is not possible," said Lord Meadowbank, and the professional witnesses supported him, "that a charter granted by a king of Scotland could convey—or be granted, as if it had conveyed any property not belonging to the Crown of Scotland. That such a Signature should have passed the Barons of Exchequer, and their officers, is beyond all belief:" for it must be remembered, that the "Signature" is, in its first stage towards a charter, submitted to a Baron of Exchequer, to be "revised," before the sign-manual is affixed to it. This is, undoubtedly, a fact lending great weight to any really inconsistent or objectionable provisions in the "Signature," or subsequent charter. Secondly, In Crown charters of resignation, to which that in question professed to belong, it was proved that the dates of the resignation were "invariably given:" here were none—and this objection also must have escaped the somnolent Baron of the Exchequer of 1639. Thirdly, The "Charter" stated a resignation to have been made by a grandson of the Earl of Stirling, in the Earl's lifetime; which resignation the grandson had no title to make; and till he had, having nothing, he could resign nothing according to the law of Scotland; and such could never have passed the Exchequer. Fourthly, The alleged charter professed to convey the titles and dignities of the earldom; the Earl professed to resign his earldom, which the king, by that deed, was made to reconvey, with precedency from the date of the first grant. "This," said Lord Meadowbank, and the evidence supported him, "I believe to be altogether unprecedented. It was totally unnecessary—the precedency conveyed following as a matter of course. I have seen many such grants, and never such a dignity reconveyed, with such a stipulation." Fifthly, While the invariable practice, in Royal Charters to Peers, is to address the one concerned as "consanguineus noster," and never to give that title to a commoner, the alleged charter in question twice applied that title to Alexander, the son of the peer, (consequently a commoner,) and not to the Earl himself!

Lastly, As to the structure and aspect of the "Excerpt." It had red lines round the margin, which (said the principal witness, Mr Thomson, the Deputy-Clerk Register,) "were not introduced till the year 1780: at least it has not come under my notice at an earlier period." Then, again, three gentlemen, "the most experienced," said Lord Meadowbank, "as to old writings that are to be found here or anywhere else," stated that, at looking at the document, they had at first sight not the least doubt or difficulty in saying, that they did not believe it to be genuine, but of recent fabrication. One of them, the Mr Thomson above mentioned, declared that the paper was older than the ink in which the words on the face of it were written; that where the paper was folded over and stitched down, it was of the same tinge with the body of the paper which had been exposed to the air, and which could not be, had it been folded for any length of time. Here it must have been so folded for at least a century. That the "excerpt" appeared to consist of separate leaves recently cut from a book—all of them half-sheets detached from each other; and that where, under the cover, the paper should have been whiter, through non-exposure to the atmosphere, it was not of a different colour from the rest of it. Two eminent professors of chemistry were engaged by the Court to make experiments on a portion of the paper, in order to ascertain whether the dark colour of the paper was the natural result of age, or of artificial means used to obtain that result. The doctors, however, came to opposite conclusions; and their evidence, therefore, was properly discarded from the case. Finally, As to the character of the handwriting, one of the most experienced of the professional witnesses, Mr Mackenzie, a Writer to the Signet of thirty-six years' standing, made, in the opinion of Lord Meadowbank, "a very striking remark:" that the writing was in a peculiar hand, in imitation of old hand, which was altogether different from the Chancery hand in which charters in Scotland are written; that he had never before seen a copy made like the one in question, in old hand; and that a person sitting down to make a copy of such a charter, would do it in the running-hand of the country where it was written. "It is my duty to observe to you," said Lord Meadowbank, "that impressions made by such appearances," as the above, "on the minds of persons of skill, at first sight, are often of great weight.... I leave this part of the case with this single observation—that the impression of these witnesses, when they first saw it, was to the prejudice of the genuineness of this document, as an excerpt from a genuine charter. Whether it was a writing somewhat older, or only thirty years old, seems to be very little to the purpose; but they said it appeared to be a document of recent formation—that that was the first impression made upon their minds, when it was submitted to their inspection." The Solicitor-General had thus closed his remarks on the subject of the above excerpt charter: "These considerations make the absence of all explanation as to the history of this document a most suspicious circumstance in the prisoner's case; so much so, with submission, that the possession of the deed must be accounted for by the prisoner in some way or other, before he can shake himself free from the charge that is now made against him."

The following is the substance of the answer to this portion of the case, offered by his eloquent and ingenious advocate. Unable to struggle against the bulk of the professional evidence tending to impeach the genuineness of the excerpt, and to disprove the existence of the alleged charter from which it was taken, Mr Robertson admitted that there were the great distinctions which had been alleged, between a completed charter and the instrument which preceded it; that the words "per signetum" could not properly appear on a completed charter; that the document under consideration purported to be an excerpt of such completed charter; that the abbreviations "Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII." could not appear on an excerpt of the date assigned by the prisoner to that which he had brought forward before the Scottish courts; that it was proved that no such charter as that of the 9th Dec. 1639 was entered on record; and that Archbishop Spottiswoode could not have attested such an instrument, having undoubtedly ceased to be chancellor, and died previously to its date. But he said that there was a vast difference between a genuine, though erroneous copy, and a forged principal; and also between a forgery (if such it were) so palpable as to challenge everybody's notice, and one so skilfully executed as to have been capable of deceiving all the Scottish law functionaries, and the prisoner's own law advisers, and himself, for a period of ten years, during which it had been courting examination, without forgery having been suggested till that prosecution. But was the excerpt proved to be a forgery? The statement in the Lord Ordinary's judgment, relating to Hovenden's affidavit, showed that there was evidence—or something like it—in that proceeding, to establish the existence of the excerpt in 1723. The document was not a copy of the alleged charter, but only an excerpt or extract; and so might be explained the absence of some matters which would be in the original. And as to the admitted errors, the excerpt was made in Ireland, not in Scotland; was "an old Irish bungled copy"—a "blundered Irish extract"—"an Irish excerpt of a copy of a deed"—"an Irish copy." The marking "Reg. Mag. Sig. Lib. LVII." in the margin may have been an ex post facto addition by some third person, who may be the person who had invented the story of Cromwell carrying off the records of Scotland. "Consanguineus noster," and the attestation of the Archbishop, were both Irish blunders. "And on such evidence," said Mr Robertson, "this bungled excerpt is to be held proved to be a deliberate forgery!"[32] Before leaving this part of the case, let us remind the reader of the fact mentioned in our former Number, that it was Mr Thomas Christopher Banks who, according to his own letter, discovered this challenged "excerpt" in Ireland, and transmitted it to the prisoner; that the prisoner's council elicited at the trial that this Mr Thomas Christopher Banks had been seen, by a witness, alive, at Edinburgh, a few weeks before the trial, and at the office of the Crown Solicitor; and that Mr Banks was not called as a witness by either side.

Was then this "excerpt charter" a forgery, or a genuine document? The reader has before him the same materials for forming a judgment which were presented to the Edinburgh jury. Let us proceed now to—

II. The Le Normand Packet—i. e., the French evidence. It now lies before us, in the large facsimile, nearly a yard square, (one prepared for use at the trial,) prefixed to Mr Swinton's Report, representing eight different inscriptions or indorsements, on the back of an old French map of Canada. Six of them are written on the paper itself of the map, and two on two other pieces of paper, which were afterwards pasted on the back of the map. We beg to repeat emphatically the observation made in our last Number,[33] that "we doubt whether such an extraordinary document, or series of documents, as this map, with its accompaniments, has ever, before or since, challenged deliberate judicial investigation." It is at once fearful and ludicrous to regard these documents as forgeries, expected by their fabricators to be received as genuine, and intrepidly submitted to competent scrutiny. So, at least, we own it would have appeared to ourselves; but, after all, there is nothing like a jury for deciding upon conflicting testimony. We cordially concur in the following admirable observations of Lord Brougham, delivered on a very important occasion, when he was sitting as Lord Chancellor,[34]—"The best tribunal for investigating contested facts is a jury [of twelve men] of various habits of thinking, of various characters of understanding, of various kinds of feeling, of moral feeling—all of which circumstances enter deeply into the capacity of such individuals.... The diversity of the minds of the jury, even if they are taken without any experience as jurors, their various habits of thinking and feeling, and their diversity of cast of understanding, and their discussing the matter among themselves, and the very fact of their not being lawyers, their not being professional men, and believing as men believe, and acting on their belief, in the ordinary affairs of life, give them a capacity of aiding the court in their eliciting of truth, which no single judge, be he ever so largely gifted with mental endowments, be he ever so learned with respect to past experience in such matters, can possess." Without presuming therefore to express, or even to suggest or insinuate, anything like dissatisfaction with the conclusions arrived at by the jury with reference to the class of facts now before us, but more fully laid before them, we request the reader to imagine himself a juryman, under a sacred obligation to resist prejudice and guard against first impressions.

It is proper to remind the reader that the very essence of the prisoner's pedigree, as he endeavoured to establish it before Lord Cockburn, consisted of proof that the Reverend John Alexander (John No. 3)[35] was the son of John of Antrim, (John No. 2;) and that this John No. 2 was the son of John of Gartmore (John No. 1.) "The whole of the case," said Lord Cockburn on the 3d December 1836, "depends upon the genuineness of these two descents."[36] And his judgment, as has been seen, demolished the case which had been set up before him, for he pronounced "that the evidence, whether considered in its separate parts or as a whole, was utterly insufficient."[37] Now, if the writings on the back of the map were genuine and authentic, they exactly established, beyond all possibility of cavilling, the case which it was the prisoner's object to establish; going, moreover, far beyond the exigencies springing out of the adverse judgment of Lord Cockburn. For, first, those writings were designed to demonstrate not only that John No. 3 was son of John No. 2, and the son of John No. 1; but also, secondly, that the original Charter of Novodamus, of the 9th December 1639, was bodily in existence in the archives of Canada in the year 1702—as indubitably attested by those who had seen and examined it, and made copies and extracts from it!—as testified by right reverend, noble, and royal personages, two very eminent bishops, a marchioness, and a king of France—all under their own hands. These singular writings, eight in number, were given in extenso and verbatim, but translated into English in our last Number;[38] and we hope that the reader will take the trouble of referring to, and carefully reading them, before he proceeds further with the present paper. We promise him that his trouble shall be amply repaid, by disclosures which he will then, and then only, fully appreciate.

I. First comes the statement, written on the back of the map, of a certain "M. Mallet"—supposed to be a Canadian French gentleman—who simply makes the memorandum in question, without signing it, or mentioning his own name, but heading it, "Lyons, 4th August 1706." He states that in the year 1702 he was residing in Acadia [Nova Scotia.] "His curiosity had been excited by what he was told of an 'ancient' charter, preserved in the archives of that province—it is the charter of confirmation, De Novo Damus, of date 9th December 1639." He says, "My friend Lacroix gave me a copy of it, which I took the precaution of having duly attested. From this authentic document I am about to present some extracts, in order that every person who opens this map [the one in question] of our American possessions, may form an idea of the vast extent of territory which was granted by the King of England to one of his subjects. If the fate of war, or any other event, should replace New France and Acadia under the dominion of the English, the family of Stirling would possess these two provinces, as well as New England, as well as—" and then he quotes the "passages," as from the original charter. He proceeds, "The order of succession! to this inheritance is as follows:" and gives the entire of the new limitations of the alleged charter in extenso!—concluding, "Thus the King of England has given to the Earl, and has secured to his descendants in perpetuity, enough of land to found a powerful empire in America." So much for M. Mallet. Opposite his important memorandum was the following autograph memorandum, forming No.—

VIII. in our series, of Louis XV! "This note is worthy of some attention, under present circumstances; but let THE COPY of the original charter be sent to me." Subjoined to M. Mallet's memorandum was another—

II. Signed "Caron Saint Estienne," and dated "Lyons, 6th April 1707," announcing the sudden death of the aforesaid M. Mallet, whose loss was, it seems, an irreparable one to his friends, from his "good qualities and rare understanding." He it was who "first procured M. Saint Estienne a perusal of the charter—an extraordinary document extending over fifty pages," and the "unclassical Latin" of which shocked the accomplished reader. He says that "the above note of M. Mallet is precious—giving in few words an extremely correct idea of the wonderful charter in question." "As to the copy," which M. Mallet had "taken the precaution of having duly attested," M. Estienne informs us by whom it had been attested—viz. by the Keeper of the Records, and the Acadian witnesses—and it, (the copy) must be in entire conformity with the register of Port Royal."—"M. Mallet had foreseen," observes his friend St Estienne, "that the copy would not make the charter known in France, hence he conceived the idea of writing, on one of the beautiful maps of Guillaume de l'Isle, a note which all the world may read with interest. Had he lived long enough"—poor soul—"he could have added to this interest; for he wished to obtain information in England as to the then situation of the descendants of the Earl who had obtained the charter; and all the information which he might have received respecting them, he would have transferred to this very map." M. St Estienne, however, concludes with the consolatory assurance—"But, after all, with the two documents [i. e. the duly attested copy, and his own memorandum on the map] "which he has left to us, no person in France can question the existence of such a charter." Here then were two gentlemen who had been actually favoured with a sight of the ipsissima charta; had obtained a copy of it from a third (M. Lacroix)—himself, doubtless, similarly privileged; had taken the precaution of having that copy officially attested; and had given accurate extracts of its essential provisions. We are, however, under still farther obligations to the solicitous vigilance of St Estienne; for two months afterwards he procured no less a person than Flechier, the eminent Bishop of Nismes, to add the sanction of his eminent name to the authenticity of his—St Estienne's—memorandum. Accordingly, the obliging Bishop wrote on the map the following certificate:—

III. Signed "Esprit, Ev. de Nismes," [i. e. Esprit Flechier, Bishop of Nismes] and dated, "Nismes, 3d June 1707." The Bishop had been shown by St Estienne the "copy" of the charter, and thus chronicles the event—"I read lately at the house of Monsieur Sartre, at Caveyrac, the copy of the Earl of Stirling's charter. In it I remarked many curious particulars, mixed up with a great many uninteresting details, [what a natural observation!] I think, therefore, that the greatest obligations are due to M. Mallet for having, by the above note, enabled the French public to judge of the extent and importance of the grants made to the Scottish nobleman. I also find that he has extracted the most essential clauses of the charter; and, in translating them into French, he has given them with great fidelity (!) Monsieur Caron St Estienne has asked me to bear this testimony. I do so with the greatest pleasure." Courteous and venerable Bishop of Nismes! But you must now make your exit, for an Archbishop approaches, and that no less a personage than the great, the good, the justly revered Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, who, in the ensuing autumn—viz., on the 16th October 1707—on the solicitation doubtless of St Estienne, and other zealous friends of the excellent deceased M. Mallet, condescended to write the following memorandum round the margin of a letter presented to him for that purpose, and forming No.—

V. "The friends of the late Mr. Ph. Mallet will doubtless read with great interest this letter of a grandson of the Earl of Stirling's! M. Cholet, of Lyons, setting out to-day, 16th October 1707, on his way home, will have the honour of delivering it to M. Brossette, on the part of Madame de Lambert. To authenticate it, I have written and signed this marginal note. Fr. Ar. Duc de Cambray." "Nec Deus intersit," says our ancient astute adviser, "nisi dignus vindice nodus." Who, thinks the reader, was the writer of the letter thus solemnly authenticated by so distinguished a witness? Who but (the very man of all others on earth that was wanted)—John of Antrim—John No. 2—John Alexander, grandson of the first Earl of Stirling!

IV. This was a letter of John Alexander, dated "Antrim, 27th August, 1707,"—i. e. five years only before his death—addressed to a certain Marchioness de Lambert, a lady of fashion, whose splendid hospitalities he therein commemorates. He there thanks her ladyship for having, through the good-natured interposition of the Archbishop, favoured him so soon with a copy of "the note respecting 'my grandfather's charter.'" "I shall preserve with care the interesting note of M. Mallet. The charter was at one time registered in Scotland, as well as in Acadia: but during the Civil War, and under the usurpation of Cromwell, boxes containing a portion of the records of that kingdom were lost during a storm at sea; and, according to THE ANCIENT TRADITION of our family, the REGISTER in which this charter was RECORDED was amongst the number of those that perished! Such, madam, is all that I can say in reply to your questions; for it is impossible, in this country of Ireland, to obtain any other information with regard to the registered charter. I believe that MY GRANDMOTHER" [i. e. the first countess] "gave the ORIGINAL CHARTER (which she brought from Scotland, when she came to take up her abode in Ireland) to her son-in-law, Lord Montgomery, in order that he might preserve it carefully in Castle Comber, where he resided. I shall ascertain what this family have done with it; and I shall have the honour of acquainting you with any discovery which I may make." He proceeded to give a remarkably neat and succinct account of that state of the pedigree which the Lord Ordinary had so ruthlessly annihilated; particularly explaining that John of Gartmore (John No. 1) had had a second wife, named Maxwell, "the mother" of the communicative writer. The benevolent and indefatigable Marchioness de Lambert seems to have pushed her inquiries, even after the death of her correspondent; for we have, constituting No.—

VII. A memorandum, though without signature or date, showing that "this lady had not ceased to bestow on the son," the Rev. John Alexander, (John No. 3,) "of this distinguished man," (John No. 2) "marks of her good-will and friendship. This son is favourably known in England as a Protestant clergyman, and a learned philologist.... He is at the head of a college for the education of young clergymen, established at Stratford, in the county of Warwick." But this memorandum contained, as the first sentence, one of infinite significance—"This inscription has been communicated by Madame de Lambert!" And that was document

VI. Forming the inscription on the tombstone of John of Antrim,[39] whom it stated to be "the best of husbands, the most indulgent of fathers; as a friend warm, sincere, faithful; a man of such endowments, &c.; and universally respected for his piety and benevolence." But what was vastly more to the purpose, as far as concerned his descendants, he was also the only son of the Hon. John Alexander! who was the fourth son of William Earl of Sterline! and "married Mary, eldest daughter of the Rev. Mr Hamilton of Bangor," by whom he had issue a son, John, who "at this present time is the Presbyterian minister at Stratford-on-Avon, in England." There could not be a doubt as to these facts, seeing that a certain "W. C. Gordon, junior," of Stratford-on-Avon, certified, on the margin of a copy of the inscription, that it "was a faithful copy!" Here, however, occurred a somewhat disagreeable fact. The figure "7" in the date, "Oct. 6th, 1723," was originally a figure "8" [i. e. 1823] "made into a 7." This swore Mr Lizars; on which "a juryman asks, Has there been an erasure?—A. No. It has been a different figure, corrected, and made into a 7. Lord Meadowbank.—Look at it again, Mr Lizars. Are you sure it has not been a blot? The witness, (having carefully examined the document with a glass.)—No, my lord, it, has been decidedly a figure. There are both the top and middle of a figure here, my lord."

Such were the documents indorsed on and attached to the map of Canada; and a perusal of them suggests a few questions. First, According to them, the original charter of the 7th December 1639 was, in the year 1702, in Acadia, "in the archives there." How did it get thither, and why was it sent? According to another part of the prisoner's case before the Lord Ordinary, the first Earl, grievously dejected by the death of three of his sons, and fearing, from the declining health of two of the survivors, that his honours might, at no distant period, pass to a collateral branch of the family, obtained the new charter in question in 1639. This charter conveyed large estates in Scotland as well as in America: "but," as Lord Meadowbank observed, "while the former were within reach, and easily accessible, those in Canada and the State of Maine, being" [then, i. e. in 1639, the original grants having been made in 1626 and 1628] "in the hands of the French, were altogether out of the reach of the grantees. In these circumstances, you are required to believe that the Earl, in place of retaining this charter in Scotland, and getting it recorded and perfected there, where he might have got something by it, carried it to Canada, and had it recorded, where he could get nothing; and where, except as a matter of curiosity to men like Monsieur Mallet and his friend Lacroix, it was altogether a piece of waste paper.... I again put it to you, is it credible that, if the Earl had really got such a charter, and had wished to change the destination of his estates—and we know that he was a person of no ordinary talents—he would have omitted taking means for preserving in his own country the evidence of what he had done?" But, secondly, again, the original charter was, in 1702, in Nova Scotia. Now, we have seen that, in 1723, this 'original charter' was, on the 10th July 1723, in Ireland, in the hands of a Mr Thomas Conyers, of Carlow, who "permitted" Mr Hovenden "to see it, and he did most minutely examine the contents:" and on the 20th of that month, in the same year, the son of the aforesaid Conyers certified that that charter "had been trusted to his late father, in troublesome times, by the deceased Mary, Countess of Mount Alexander." At that time the fifth Earl was living. When, then, did the charter return from Acadia to Scotland, and go thence to Ireland? According to the letter of John of Antrim on the map, his grandmother, the first Countess, took it to Ireland to her son-in-law, Lord Montgomery, to be taken care of. That son-in-law died in 1670. What did he do with it? Did he send it to Canada?—and why? What were the three Earls of Stirling about, that they did not get possession of this document, the very foundation of their fortunes and honours? It gets, however, to Canada in 1702; is back again, and in Ireland, at all events, in 1723; and then gets placed in uncomfortable circumstances, and encounters queer adventures. It found its way into the hands of the Rev. John Alexander, (John No. 3,) in the lifetime of the fifth Earl of Stirling; and on his death, in 1743, it gets into the hands of his widow, who took it to Birmingham when she went to reside there; whence it was stolen, in 1758, by an emissary of the then claimant of the peerage, William Alexander, who took it off to America, and either suppressed or destroyed it, the latest trace of it existing in 1806 or 1812, when it was presumably destroyed. All this was the original official statement of his case, by the prisoner himself, in 1829, in the process of "proving the tenor."[40] Thirdly, In 1702, this M. Mallet speaks of the charter as "an ancient one;" whereas it was then only sixty-three years old—its date being 1639. Fourthly, It having been thus a dead letter for sixty-three years, owing to the altered ownership of the territories included in it—they having become the undisputed property of France, and so continued for half a century afterwards, namely, till General Wolff's conquest of Quebec in 1760: yet we have a Frenchman, in 1702, represented as calmly speculating in the year 1702, without anything to suggest such an idea, on the possibility of the territories being reconquered from France by the English, and in that event the charter becoming an object of great interest! Fifthly, We have him also giving himself very particular concern with the limitations and family destinations of the tenures of the foreign grantees claiming under this "ancient" dead letter—then a mere useless piece of parchment, likely to attract the eye and attention of none but some curious antiquarian. Who was this M. Mallet? There is no suggestion that he was acquainted with any member of the family, or had ever been concerned in any way with them. Why, then, should he feel it necessary to "take the precaution" of having the copy which he had made "duly attested?" Who, again, was Lacroix? What was there then to interest any one in France or America in the fortunes of the noble Scottish family of the Alexanders? Why was it to be expected that "all the world would read with interest" the note which M. Mallet had so quietly written on his map, and then committed it to his bureau? Sixthly, In 1702, and 1706, and 1707, Acadia was in the hands of the French, and consequently its archives or registers were under their control; and a copy of any instrument deposited there could be easily obtained. Why, then, was not the command of Louis XV. obeyed, and a copy procured for his Majesty? Again, what became of the solemnly-attested copy spoken of by M. Mallet, Lacroix, and St Estienne? No account whatever is given of it, nor any reason why it was necessary to set such store by a brief epitome of one or two of the clauses to be found in that copy! Why, therefore, was the "Note" of M. Mallet so "precious," when those interested in the matter to which it related could have so easily seen the original of which it spoke, and obtained a verbatim copy of the whole? The "Note" of M. Mallet might, indeed, be precious in the eyes of his suddenly-bereaved survivors as an autograph memento of their deceased friend, but not otherwise. Seventhly, Why should there be, in 1707, in the family of John of Antrim, a tradition, and that, too, an "ancient" one—i. e., forty or fifty years old—concerning the loss of the record of a copy of the charter, when the original was in existence in the archives of Acadia? Lastly, Why is the great shade of the author of Telemachus evoked? Simply to "authenticate" the letter of John Alexander to the Marchioness De Lambert, to whom that letter was then on its way! This much for the intrinsic indication of genuineness or spuriousness afforded by the indorsements on the map of Canada, which we have hitherto been considering. We have now to record a remarkable incident which occurred at the trial, in open Court. As already stated, one of the two documents pasted on the back of the map was the alleged tombstone inscription. As the map was lying on the table of the court, owing to either the heat of the densely crowded Court, or some other cause, one of the corners of the paper on which the inscription was written curled up a little—just far enough to disclose some writing underneath it, on the back of the map. On the attention of the Solicitor-General being directed to the circumstance, he immediately applied to the Court for its permission to Mr Lizars, the eminent engraver, then present, to detach from the map the paper on which the tombstone inscription was written. Having been duly sworn, he withdrew for that purpose, and soon afterwards returned, having executed his mission very skilfully, without injury to either paper. That on which the inscription was written proved to be itself a portion of another copy of the map of Canada, and the writing which it covered was as follows, but in French:—

"There has just been shown to me a letter of Fenelon, written in 1698, having reference to this grandson of Lord Stirling, who was in France during that year, and with regard to whom he expresses himself as follows:—'I request that you will see this amiable and good Irishman, Mr John Alexander, whose acquaintance I made some years ago. He is a man of real merit, and whom every one sees with pleasure at Court, and in the best circles of the capital.'" These were the initials, as far as they are legible, "E. Sh." This was represented by the Solicitor-General as palpably an incohate abortive forgery; and Lord Meadowbank pointed out to the jury the evident and partially successful effort which had been made to tear off that portion of the surface of the map on which the above had been written. That effort failing, said he, "the only precaution that remained to prevent its appearing was to cover it over; for which purpose the parties used the inscription. But then the apprehension of its appearing, if the map were held between the light and the eye, seems to have come across the minds of the parties engaged in the operation, and hence, with a very singular degree of foresight, expertness, and precaution, they used for their cover that by which the eye of the inquirer might be misled in his investigation; for you have seen that the lines and words of the map forming the back of the inscription were exactly such as would naturally fall in with those on the front of the map of Canada, from which the extract from the pretended letter of Fenelon had refused to be separated. Accordingly the invention, it would appear, had proved hitherto most successful; for though this map has been examined over and over again by persons of the first skill and talent, and scrutinised with the most minute attention, the writing which was thus covered up escaped detection, till, by the extreme heat of the Courthouse yesterday, or some other cause of a similar nature, a corner of the inscription separated from the map, and revealed to our observation that which was hidden below. Gentlemen, it is for you to consider the effect of this revelation; but I must fairly tell you, that, in the whole course of my experience, I have never seen more clear and satisfactory evidence than has hereby been unexpectedly afforded, of the progress of a palpable and impudent forgery." The reader will bear in mind these observations against the time when we apprise him of the finding of the jury. The reason suggested by Lord Meadowbank for the abandonment and concealment of this sub-inscription was, that it was of such a nature as could not acquire credit from any one, as Fenelon was therein made to speak as if he were a courtier, familiar with the gay scenes of the court and the capital; whereas it was notorious that he lived more at his diocese than at Paris. Mr Lizars stated that this newly discovered writing did not resemble that of the letter signed "John Alexander." "How the Crown counsel would have chuckled," said the prisoner's counsel to the jury, "if the marvellous new discovery had resembled that of Mallet or Alexander!" And that was his only remark on the subject. To us the handwriting of these three manuscripts appears certainly different: all those on the map, indeed, appear different; but an obvious suggestion occurs, that, if they were really forgeries, those perpetrating them may have taken the precaution of employing distinct writers. Let us now come to the extrinsic evidence, to determine the genuineness or spuriousness of these multifarious writings. First, as to the ink and character of the writings. Two eminent French witnesses, (MM. Teulet, joint-secretary of the archives of the kingdom of France, and Jacobs, geographical engraver attached to the Institute of France at Paris) peculiarly conversant with the art of making fac-similes of ancient writings, solemnly and confidently pronounced their opinions that all the documents on the back of the map were false, that they were written with ink generally used for that purpose—viz., a composition of China ink, yellow and carmine, or red; and the paper afforded visible indications of little red splashings, or spottings, the result of accidents in using that composition.

"Q.—'M. Teulet, from what you know, are you of opinion that these writings on the back of the map are authentic writings of the dates they bear?'

A.—'I have considered them; and say, on my conscience, that all the writings on the back of that map are false.'

Q.—To M. Jacobs.—'Forming a judgment from the ink alone, and the appearance of the writing itself, is it your opinion that these are genuine or false documents—documents of the dates they bear?'

A.—'I should think them false.'"

Mr Lizars also stated that "there was a very great resemblance between the ink in the writing signed 'Ph. Mallet' and the letter signed 'John Alexander,' and it was 'like common water paint.'" He said that "if he were to make any conjecture, it would be that the ink was composed of sepia and amber." But on being asked—"Suppose the ink were made of a mixture of China ink, yellow, and carmine, might the carmine come out at the edge?" He answered—"It would be sure to do it: a bungler only would use such a mixture, as the carmine would certainly precipitate: it were much better to use sepia and amber." This gentleman also stated that he had compared the writings on the back of the map with those of the prisoner and Mademoiselle le Normand, but found no resemblance between them. He also stated, that he thought the writings in question genuine, and written in a natural, not a feigned hand.

We come now, however, to an astounding fact, rendering all such speculations and surmises superfluous. It will have been observed that all the writings on the back of the map, by Mallet, Estienne, John Alexander, Bishop Flechier, and Archbishop Fenelon, bore date in the years 1706 and 1707; that of Mallet only being in the former year. What will the reader say on being told that it was proved beyond all possible doubt at the trial, that the map on which these various indorsements were written, was positively not in existence till eleven years afterwards—viz., 1718; and, moreover, that Bishop Flechier had died in 1711, and Archbishop Fenelon in 1715? Proof so complete and crushing as that establishing these facts, scarcely ever before came under our notice; and the circumstance which had led to this result would have ensnared the most cautiously astute into the belief, that the true date of the map's coming into existence was that which it appeared to bear—viz., 1703—and with relation to, and in consistency with which, all the above five dates had evidently been selected.

Guillaume de l'Isle was the greatest French geographer of his day, and his maps were held in the highest repute for their accuracy and beauty. Amongst others was a very elaborate one of Canada: and the copy of that on which the memorable indorsements were made bore the following printed description, or title, on the back. We give it verbatim et literatim, and beg particular attention to the vacant space following the name Guillaume De l'Isle, which is indicated by brackets, and the italic words "et Premier Geographe du Roy" in the line but one following, and which is unduly close to the one before, as we shall endeavour to represent:—

"Carte

Du Canada

ou de la

Nouvelle France

et des Decouvertes qui y ont été faites

dresseé sur plusieurs Observations

et sur un grand nombre de Rélations imprimées ou manuscrites

Par Guillaume De l'Isle [ ]

de l'Academie Royale des Sciences

et Premier Geographe du Roy

A Paris

chez l'Auteur sur le Quai de l'Horloge a l'Aigle d'Or

avec Privilege de sa Maj^te pour 20 ans

1703."

The date at the foot, "1703," and which had so cruelly misled the gentlemen who prepared the indorsements on the map, was the date, not of the publication of that edition of the map, but of the original publication, from which dated the twenty years' copyright granted by the king as above stated. When that impression of the map was originally printed, in the year 1703, the printed title varied from the above, by having the word "Géographe" occupying the vacant space above-contained in brackets; and by the absence of the line "et premier Géographe du Roy," so evidently interposed subsequently between the preceding and subsequent lines. And the fact was, that on the 24th August 1718, fifteen years after the original publication of the map, De l'Isle had received the high appointment of "Premier Géographe du Roi." M. Teulet, one of the keepers of the "Register of the Secretary of State" in France, a "register of the greatest possible authenticity,"—"the only register of authentic documents in which the commission of Guillaume De l'Isle could be found," produced an "extract made after the most authentic manner in France, certified by the keeper of the register, and by the seal of the archives of France,"—an "extract which would have all possible authenticity in a court of justice in France," and which extract M. Teulet "had compared twice over, word for word, and letter for letter, with the record," and swore that "it was correct." The extract was as follows:—

"Du vingt quatre Aout mil sept cent dix huit

"Brevet de Premier Géographe du Roy pour l S^r. De l'Isle." The entry runs thus in English:—

"This day (24th August 1718) the king being in Paris, having authentic proofs of the profound erudition of the S. Guillaume de l'Isle, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, in the great number of geographical works which he has executed for his Majesty's use, and which have been received with general approbation by the public, his Majesty, by the advice," &c. &c., "wishing to attach him more particularly to his Majesty's service by a title of honour, which may procure him at the same time the means of continuing works of such usefulness, has declared, and declares, wishes, and enjoins, that the said S. de l'Isle be henceforward ['DORESNAVANT'] his first geographer," &c. &c. This appointment was signed by the king, and countersigned by the Secretary of State. It was distinctly sworn by M. Teulet and M. Jacobs, than whom there could not have been higher authorities on such a subject, that they had carefully examined the map in question—and that, till the 24th August 1718, there never was a map of De l'Isle thrown off having on its face the title of "Premier Géographe du Roi;" but that, after that date, this designation was invariably added to his name;—and though the period of printing was later than 1718, it was necessary to retain the original date of the map, 1703, in order to secure the copyright; because the privilege of printing it, as recited on the map, extended to only twenty years from the time of the map being originally published. Thus was clearly and most satisfactorily explained the erasure of the word "Géographe" after the name of Guillaume de l'Isle, and the contemporaneous interpolation of the new title of dignity—Premier géographe du Roy—between the next line and the one following. All the three witnesses (MM. Teulet, Jacobs, and Mr Lizars) swore, and gave conclusive reasons for doing so, that the same copperplate was used in making the engravings—that De l'Isle was in the habit of retouching his plates, and making alterations in them from time to time; and great numbers of his plates were produced, showing that, in the maps dated anterior to 1718, the words "Premier Géographe du Roy" were interpolated; and in the one before the court, the interpolated line was much "fresher" than the rest of the inscription. In those subsequent to 1718 there was no such interpolation, the words being always regular with the other part of the title." In addition to this, it was proved, that the word "Géographe" had been mechanically effaced from the copper; for, on carefully examining the under side of the copper, there were "evident traces of hammering, which had been done to fill up the spaces where the words had been effaced." Nothing could be more lucid and decisive than the evidence given by the eminent M. Teulet on these points; the result being a downright demonstration, as far as the nature of the case admitted of demonstration, that the copy of the map in question could not have been, and was not, in existence, till after the 24th August 1718. The prisoner's counsel, fearfully pressed by these considerations, frankly—but necessarily—admitted, that "if the map were not in existence till 1718, the writings on it purporting to be dated prior to 1718 were forgeries." But he contended that, though "he should be ashamed to deny that there were strong reasons for supposing the fact to be so, there was not conclusive evidence that the copy of the map in question was not in existence till 1718; for the Crown had not proved a search of the Records of France prior to 1718, and it might be, that the commission which had been proved, was not the first in favour of De l'Isle—there might have been a previous one." "But this," said Lord Meadowbank, unanswerably, "was a strange supposition, refuted by the patent proved before the jury. Had any former grant existed, it must have been there referred to; notice of it could not have been omitted." One other suggestion was offered, faintly, from a sense of its hopelessness; that the alterations on the title of the map, might have been effected by the use of double plates; the additional line having been inserted by a second impression on the same sheet of paper. Such a process, however, could not have effaced the word "Geographe," or effected the changes which appeared in the statement of De l'Isle's residence—the words "à l'Aigle d'Or" being manifestly engraved on the site of only partially-obliterated previous letters. That this, in point of fact, had been the process, was distinctly sworn to by those who had seen the original plate. Before quitting this part of the case, we shall quote a very critical section of the evidence given by the Crown—that of Pierre François Joseph Leguix, a print and map seller at Paris, whom the prisoner's counsel made a very desperate effort to exclude from the witness-box. He said, "My print-shop is in the Quai Voltaire, Paris. I remember in the winter of 1836-7 a person coming frequently to my shop in search of maps. I think he was an Englishman. The maps he sought for were maps of Canada. He came during the length of five or six weeks. I sold him several maps of Canada. He wished to get one map of a particular date. It was the date of 1703. I sold him a map of 1703. It was procured by me after considerable search. He came to my shop no more after getting that map. It was similar to this [the one in question]. There were no writings then on the back of it. He did not explain who he was, nor say why he wished to have that map. He inquired chiefly for a map of 1703.

"Q.—'Have you seen the prisoner before?'

A.—'Yes.'

Q.—'It was not he?'

A.—'No, Sir.'"[41]

What a moment for the prisoner!

In a letter written to the prisoner by Mademoiselle Le Normand, dated Paris, 8th January 1839, occurs the following passage, (read in evidence at the trial) which may possibly relate to the facts above deposed to. "... Seulement on a découvert l'homme du Quai; on veut le faire partir pour l'Ecosse; il déclare que voilà 18 mois il a vendu une Carte du Canada à un Anglais, qui plusieurs fois est venu chez lui, on lui a dit: le reconnaitriez-vous? je le crois."

Finally, M. Teulet proved that Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, died at five o'clock in the morning of the 7th February 1715, by the following examined extract from the Register of the Chapter of Cambray—"Feria 2, die vii Januarii 1715.—Hodie circa quintam matutinam obiit illustrissimus Dominus Franciscus de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, Archiepiscopus et Dux Cameracensis, sacri Romani Emperii Princeps, Comes Cameracensis, etc. Requiescat in pace."[42]

The death of Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, in 1711, was also proved by M. Teulet, who produced an examined copy of letters patent for the installation of the successor of Flechier, dated the 26th February 1711; and one of the witnesses, M. de Pages, stated that the Bishop died in the year 1710. Notwithstanding, however, this evidence, M. de Pages, (a nephew of the Marquis de Valfour, and attached to the Historical department in the King's Library, and possessing some little familiarity with ancient manuscripts,) having brought over some alleged writings of Louis the XV. and Flechier, said "that the writing on the map attributed to Louis was exactly like the specimens of his writing which the witness had brought;" and of that attributed to Flechier he said, "I think it is the same as the writing of his which I produce." On this, one of the Judges (Lord Moncrieff) put this acute question:—

"Q.—'If you were assured that that map had no existence till 1718, would you still say that the writing on it was Flechier's?'

A.—'Wherever it might be placed, I find it conformable to the writing of Flechier.'

Lord Moncrieff to the Interpreter.—Remind him that he said Flechier ceased to be Bishop of Nismes in 1710, and then ask him the question again. [This was done.]

A.—'It would be not the less like.'"

Lord Meadowbank, it may be observed in passing, regarded the writings brought over by M. de Pages as "important," and handed them to the jury, on their retiring to consider their verdict.

The signatures of Louis, Fenelon, and Flechier were attempted to be proved also by certificates from M. Daunou, M. Villenave, and other eminent French antiquaries; but as they were living, such certificates were of course rejected. If these writings, then, were forgeries, they must have been most skilfully executed; and, in fact, the question as to their genuineness or spuriousness excited—as we learn from Mr Swinton,—great interest and much discussion in Paris. It may also be here mentioned, as a somewhat singular circumstance, that, a few years previously to this trial—as we also learn from Mr Swinton—a series of portraits and autographs of illustrious Frenchmen, published by Delpech, (Quai Voltaire, Paris,) contained fac-similes of the writing of Louis XV., Fenelon, and Flechier, exactly resembling the writings on the map attributed to them;—and in the specimen given in that work of the writing of Louis XV., which was taken from the collection of M. Villenave above-mentioned, occur the very two expressions, and similarly spelled, which are found on the map—"les cerconstances presentes"—and "oregenale." Mr Swinton speaks of this coincidence as "remarkable;" but to us it appears not at all so. What is easier than to conceive that, if the writings on the map were forgeries, the fabricator had before him at the time these very fac-similes, and astutely determined to introduce the expressions in question, with the peculiar spelling?

Let us now recur for a moment to the excerpt charter of the 7th February 1639. On the assumption that it was a forgery—what becomes of the writings on the map of De l'Isle? They then speak of—are bottomed on—a document of which there is no earthly trace whatever, except in a forged extract! If the excerpt be annihilated, so is the charter! And if so,—in the name of holy truth and ordinary common sense, how comes it, but by a double forgery, that we find on the map of De l'Isle, produced for the first time in 1837, all the essential elements of that charter, as far as sufficed to further the interests of the prisoner—viz., the altered destination of the titles and property, set forth verbatim et literatim, in conformity with the terms of the forged excerpt? "How, but through the evidence of one in the possession of this first forgery of the charter," asked the Solicitor-General,[43] "could the persons who executed the second arrive at such a close and perfect correspondence with the terms and effect of the former, as has been exhibited through the whole contents of the last?"

The prisoner's counsel said, in defence to this serious section of the charge—the map is not pretended to have been forged; nor is the date "1703" false. Who Ph. Mallet, or Caron St. Estienne, was, "at the distance of one hundred and thirty years, no one could tell." Flechier was alive in 1707, and therefore might have written the note attributed to him in that year, and so with Fenelon. "Now, gentlemen," said Mr Robertson, "what is the case of the Crown on the map? I think it rests entirely on the appointment of De l'Isle as premier géographe du Roi," which was unquestionably the true—the inevitable—issue on which to put the case; and he proceeded to contend, on grounds which we have already indicated in passing, that the Crown had not established the act of forgery, by clear, irrefragable, irresistible proof.

What, then, says the considerate reader, we ask, as we did in the former instance—were these writings on the map of Canada—any or all of them—genuine or spurious?

III. The De Porquet Packet. With every disposition to treat this item of evidence with the gravity and impartiality befitting quasi-judicial investigation, we acknowledge feeling extreme difficulty in doing so. To us, as English lawyers, intense would seem the simplicity of those expecting any rational being to give credit for an instant to the contents of this astonishing packet, as genuine. Two months after the judgment of the Lord Ordinary, pointing out the fatal flaw in the prisoner's pedigree—(viz., the non-proof of two particular steps in that pedigree—that John No. 3 descended from John No. 2, and the latter from John No. 1,) a sensitive and conscientious thief died—viz. in March 1837—in the exact nick of time, having kept by him till that sad event a packet which he had purloined from his employer in 1798[44] i. e. for forty years; and which packet contained four family documents, of vital moment, applying themselves with miraculous exactness to the deficiency in the pedigree aforesaid! We are here stating shortly, but correctly, the effect of a document under this head of the charge, set forth in the indictment. That document we gave verbatim in our last Number.[45] Messrs De Porquet, London booksellers, received a packet by the penny post, on opening which they found one addressed to Lord Stirling, accompanied by a note from a "Mrs. Innes Smyth," (of whom no one has hitherto seen, heard, or known anything whatever,) requesting them to send it to his lordship; whose son happening in the month of April 1837—i. e., a few weeks after the opportune death of the mysterious thief—to call at Messrs De Porquet, they gave him the packet addressed to his father. Instead of at once forwarding it to him, the young gentleman instantly took it to his solicitors; and after an exciting colloquy as to what this packet might contain, (the idea never occurring to him, that it would be the proper formal course to send it off to his parent according to its address,) it is arranged that they should go on the ensuing morning to a notary public, and open the packet in his presence! This was done; on which they discovered the interesting document above referred to, explaining the theft of the packet which it accompanied, cased in parchment, sealed with three black seals, "evidently," said the young Alexander, in his letter to the prisoner, "my grandfather's seals—not like those we have"—and with the following words, also instantly recognised as being in his grandfather's handwriting, on the packet—"Some of my wife's family papers"—that wife being the prisoner's mother, Hannah, daughter of John No. 3 (the Rev. John Alexander,) the "person of such great humility, and so perfectly unostentatious," according to her daughter's statement,[46] "that she did not take upon herself the title of Countess, though she often told her children that they had noble blood in their veins;—that she had two brothers, 'John' and 'Benjamin,' who had fully intended assuming their peerage honours, but for their premature death—unmarried!—whereby she," the lady aforesaid, "believed herself the last of the family of Alexander who were entitled to be Earls of Stirling!" The sheet of paper accompanying this mystic parchment packet had a black border, "owing to the death of the thief!"—who "had never dared to break the seals"—the threefold seals of the packet—"which accounts for the admirable state of preservation" in which the contents were after this forty years' interval!!![47] This inner packet the modest notary felt to be of too solemn a character to be opened in his presence; and recommended its being taken for that purpose to a functionary of commensurate solemnity—to wit, a proctor.[48] No sooner said than done: away they went to the proctor, with whom they were closeted five hours; and in whose presence—and that "of four witnesses"—the young gentleman ventured to cut the parchment over the middle black seal—and there appeared four enclosures which completely settled the business in favour of the claimant of the Stirling peerage. Never was anything so beautiful in aptitude. First, was a genealogical tree—thus:

John, Eldest Son, born at Dublin, 1736, heir to the title and estates (!)		Benjamin, Second Son, born at Dublin in 1737.		Mary, Eldest Daughter, born at Dublin, 1733.		Hannah, Second Daughter, born at Dublin in 1741.
		John, Sixth Earl of Stirling, (dejure,) died at Dublin, Nov. 1st, 1743, buried there.				Mary, Eldest Daughter, born 1683, died unmarried.		Elizabeth, born 1685, died 1711, leaving issue.
			John, Married Mary Hamilton of Bangor; settled at Antrim! after living many years in Germany! Died 1712. Buried at Newtown.					Janet, only surviving child of the heiress of Gartmore!!!
"Part Of the Genealogical Tree of the Alexanders of Menstry, Earls of Stirling in Scotland, Shewing only the Fourth and now-existing branch (!) Reduced to pocket size, from the Large Emblazoned Tree in the possession of Mrs Alexander, of King St., Birm. By me, Thomas Campbell, April 15, 1759."					John, Fourth Son—marry'd (1.) Agnes Graham, the heiress of Gartmore! (2.) Elizabeth Maxwell!!! of Londonderry; settled in Ireland in 1646; died 1665.
					William, 1st Earl of Stirling—born 1580—m: Janet Erskine. Had issue, 7 sons and 3 daurs. Died 1640. Buried at Stirling."

Secondly, came a letter from the above-mentioned "Benjamin" to the above-mentioned "John," his elder brother, (John No. 3,) speaking of the tombstone, and giving many interesting particulars concerning John of Antrim—his portrait, his education at Londonderry under his maternal grandsire Maxwell! his travels abroad, and "visiting foreign courts," (as indeed Fenelon would seem to have testified, as well as the aforesaid John himself, on Madlle. le Normand's map.) Thirdly, a letter to the same "John," (No. 3,) from a certain "A. E. Baillie," certifying as to the missing tombstone, who had written the inscription, (which was given at length in Madlle. Le Normand's map,) and assuring "John No. 3" that the writer had "always heard that your great-grandfather, the Hon. Mr Alexander, (who was known in the county as Mr Alexander of Gartmoir,) died at Derry, but 'the Papists of the north' had unfortunately destroyed the parish registers." Lastly, "a beautiful miniature painting of John of Antrim!"

Such were the contents of the De Porquet packet; and we must here add, that the superscription on the parchment, "Some of my wife's family papers," was clearly proved to be really the handwriting of the prisoner's father.

The Solicitor-General, partly from the intrinsic preposterous absurdity of this whole transaction, and partly from his extended and very able analysis of the two former heads of evidence, dealt rather summarily with the De Porquet packet. "This packet, too," he observed, "was received through the post-office. We have not, therefore, had the same means of tracing these documents as we possessed in regard to the map."[49] His commentary, however, though brief, was cutting, particularly on the "absurd solemnity" of the "opening" of the packet by the prisoner's son, the "death of the thief in the very nick of time," and the mysterious unknown "Mrs Innes Smyth." "I admit," said he, "that there is no direct evidence as to these English documents. But it must be taken into account how closely the whole case is here riveted and dovetailed together; so that I think the documents produced are all parts and portions of the grand machinery of forgery which has been set agoing here, to meet the effect of the Lord Ordinary's interlocutor setting aside the panel's title."[50]

The prisoner's counsel prudently dealt still more briefly with this part of the case. The very little that he did say, however, was excellently said. He dwelt on the proof that the superscription, "Some of my wife's family papers,"[51] had been proved to be genuine. "Yet a verdict of forgery is demanded on that paper, and all the documents contained in that parcel are said to be forged—the one, because we have proved it to be genuine; the others, because the Crown has proved—nothing at all. That is the plain English of it, gentlemen, and I leave it in your hands."[52]

Lord Meadowbank dealt with this portion of the case at considerably greater length, and very carefully. He remarked on the absurd improbability of so notable a discovery being made at the precise moment of difficulty, and in the manner alleged, by the son of the prisoner—a packet full of most critical documents, sent anonymously—exactly as in the case of the Le Normand packet, in both respects—the one in April, the other in July next, after the Lord Ordinary's judgment had indicated the hiatus in the proof which these two windfalls exactly filled up. The two letters enclosed in it—viz., from Benjamin Alexander to his brother John, (No. 3,) and from "A. E. Baillie" to the same person—Lord Meadowbank regarded as "deserving the most serious consideration of the jury, not so much for the sake of the letters themselves, as from being a part of that great mass of evidence which bore upon the whole question of the authenticity of these various productions."[53] He remarked strongly on young Alexander's letter announcing to his father the discovery of the packet—his going to a notary and proctor to have it opened, instead of at once sending it on to his father. "For aught his son is supposed to have known, or could possibly tell, it was strictly confidential to his father, and he had no right to make any conjectures as to the contents of it. Did you ever hear a more extraordinary story than he tells? I leave it to you to consider whether such a proceeding can be accounted for on any rational principle. Did you ever hear of such a thing as this being done before? For my own part, the proceeding is altogether incomprehensible upon any supposition but one—and that is, upon the notion that the contents of the packet were not unknown to some of the performers in the drama, before ever it [the packet] entered the shop of De Porquet." Lord Meadowbank laid great stress on the following certainly very significant passage in this letter, relating to the "inscription" mentioned in the two letters of "Benjamin Alexander" and "A. E. Baillie,"—"You will see that the inscription is now made a good document, being confirmed by the letters of B. Alexander and A. E. Baillie. The cause is enrolled to be heard on the 31st day of May." The son was writing on the 23rd April. "The better to appreciate this letter," continued Lord Meadowbank, "let me recall your recollection to the map of Canada. You have thus three letters, and that inscription confirming another inscription (as stated in young Alexander's letter) fixed on the map; and if you do not hold the map or the papers upon it to be genuine, you will consider how the two sets of papers are affected by each other—the one produced at the same moment to confirm that which had been produced before." As for the superscription, "Some of my wife's family papers," the "writing on the cover," said Lord Meadowbank, "may be genuine, while the documents said to be contained in it may be forged; original enclosures may have been withdrawn, and others substituted."—"If you have arrived at the conclusion that the documents at the back of the old map are forgeries, (and how you are to do otherwise it is difficult for me to imagine,) I think you will not find it very easy to disconnect this reference to the inscription, and to the alleged genealogy of the persons with whom it was the object of the prisoner to connect himself, from these documents, or to entertain any reasonable doubt that both are in pari casu—were fabricated with the view of bolstering up one another, and must be alike liable to the imputation of forgery: both sets of documents were exactly calculated for making up those defects in the chain of evidence pointed out by the Lord Ordinary. I shall conclude what I have to say upon this matter with an observation which will have occurred to yourselves—that if you hold the excerpt charter a forgery, and that the documents written and pasted upon the back of the map are forgeries, it will be difficult for you not to hold that this must affect in a most material degree the evidence relating to the other documents, which the public prosecutor avers to be also forgeries. In other words, if you are satisfied that the proof is clear that any of these sets of documents are forged, but that the evidence with respect to others is not so conclusive, you will have to make up your minds whether, considering that the whole are so connected with and bear upon each other, there can be any good reason for fixing a character upon the one which must not also belong to the other."

We have been thus particular in laying before the reader the just and able observations of Lord Meadowbank on this last portion of the case, chiefly because of the result at which the jury arrived. It seems to us not a little singular that one material enclosure in the De Porquet packet escaped the notice of both the counsel for the Crown and the prisoner, and also the judge: we allude to the Genealogical Tree, professed to be certified by "Thos. Campbell, 15th April 1759," and forming one of the charges in the indictment. If this be really a forgery, it seems one of extraordinary impudence.

Again, then, as in the two former instances, we ask the reader, weighing well the evidence, and particularly the above observations upon it of Lord Meadowbank, to say Ay or No to the question, Were the documents contained in the De Porquet packet genuine or spurious? Bearing in mind that all three were the contributions of anonymous informants—the excerpt charter, sent to Mr Banks by—he knew not whom; the Le Normand papers, by—an exceedingly mysterious and exalted personage; and the De Porquet packet, by—a third mysterious unknown: the first sent to the confidential agent of the prisoner in Ireland; the second to one of his oldest and most confidential friends at Paris; the third to his bookseller in London. It may also be worth mentioning that neither Mr Banks, nor Mademoiselle Le Normand, nor either of the prisoner's sons, nor his sister, "Lady Eliza Pountney," was called as a witness by the prisoner, nor by the Crown.

There remains to be determined, however, a question of infinite moment to the prisoner—whether, in the event of the foregoing documents, or any of them, being pronounced forgeries, he was guilty of either having forged them, or having used and uttered any of them, knowing them to have been forged? "This," said Lord Meadowbank, with an air of deepening solemnity, "is the heaviest part of the charge against the panel; and I assure you, gentlemen, that in the whole course of my life I never addressed a jury with greater anxiety than I do at present."

Let us pause, however, for a moment, to see how this very grave question was first dealt with by the counsel for the Crown, and then for the prisoner.

I. The Solicitor-General, it will be observed, according to the Scottish mode of criminal procedure, had only one opportunity of addressing the jury—and that after the whole evidence on both sides had been laid before them, and immediately before the speech by the prisoner's counsel. In England, the counsel for the Crown speaks also only once, but that before the evidence has been adduced, unless the prisoner call evidence—in which event the counsel for Crown "has the last word," as it is called, "to the jury." This difference may perhaps account for the earnestness with which the Solicitor-General, in the case before us, appears to have "pressed for a conviction"—such is the phrase used on such occasions in England. We are bound, however, to say that, in our opinion, the Solicitor-General did not exhibit any undue or unseemly eagerness; nor approach even towards unfairness, or exaggeration, misrepresentation, or suppression. The prisoner, said he, is at all events, de facto the utterer of these various documents, and the presumption is always against the utterer—especially when, as in the present case, these documents were calculated to advance his own direct personal interest exclusively. The onus lay on him to prove that he innocently uttered, having been deceived by others. Could the jury, in the face of such a marvellous coincidence of times, of means, of objects, believe that a number of different persons were concerned in promoting the prisoner's objects and interests, and he all the while profoundly ignorant of what was being done? The documents are all proved forgeries; and these he utters, and for the advancement of his own interests alone! In the agony of his difficulty—the crisis of his fate—he goes to France clandestinely, and is proved to have been in constant intercourse with Mademoiselle le Normand, and to have incurred immense pecuniary liabilities to her at that very period; giving, however, a most contradictory account of his relations and transactions with her! Up to the hour of his trial, he had given no explanation whatever of his doings at Paris, whither he went immediately after Lord Cockburn's adverse judgment, and returned so shortly after the discovery of the Le Normand and the De Porquet packets! And Leguix is found selling a map of Canada, of 1703, exactly at the time of the prisoner's being at Paris; and Mademoiselle Le Normand writes to him—"They have found the man on the quay!"

II. The prisoner's counsel made an ingenious, eloquent, and judicious address—very brief, and directed vigorously and steadily towards the strong parts of the defence, and leaving untouched the formidable points arising out of the prisoner's correspondence with Mademoiselle Le Normand, and the conflicting accounts of his movements and transactions given in his judicial examinations. All the forgeries are charged on, or supposed to be, the act of one man—the prisoner; yet not only does no single witness trace the faintest resemblance, in any of the alleged forgeries, to the handwriting of the prisoner, or Mademoiselle Le Normand, but an able witness for the Crown, Mr Lizars, negatives such a fact. Well might the prisoner be deceived—if the documents were forgeries—when his counsel, his agents—the Lord Advocate, and the Judge Ordinary, every one concerned during the ten years' litigation—was so deceived, and never once suspected it. Why did not the Crown produce Mademoiselle le Normand? And as to the purchase of the old map of Canada from Leguix, on the Quai Voltaire, he explicitly stated that the prisoner was not the man! But there was no evidence of the forgery, and therefore the guilty knowledge, using, and uttering, fell to the ground. If even there were doubts on the subject, the prisoner was clearly entitled to the benefit of them: his character "was everything;" for he had received as high as man could give. In an early part of his address, Mr Robertson averred that he saw in the countenances of the jury "the cheering light of an acquittal—so that he could almost stop there;" and his last sentence was one which would be deemed highly objectionable on the part of counsel, under such circumstances, in England—"On my conscience I believe him innocent of the crimes here charged, and to have been merely the dupe of the designing, and the prey of the unworthy!"[54] So solemn an expression of belief could not, of course, have been made by a gentleman if he were not sincere; but it is certainly not a part of the duty of counsel to make such protestations; and in doing so he trespasses beyond his province upon that of others, and that one the confines of which ought to be most jealously and sacredly guarded—we mean the province of the witness, and that of the jury. Bating a little wilful blindness to ugly facts, which is occasionally to be found elsewhere than in Scotland, the address of Mr Robertson was as fair as can be expected from a prisoner's advocate, and calculated to make a strong impression upon the jury.

III. Lord Meadowbank's summing up was long and elaborate: stern and uncompromising from first to last in the expression of a very hostile view of the whole case, as against the prisoner, but still never straining the proved facts. It is the charge of an upright yet severe judge, not ambitious of replying to the prisoner's counsel, but vigorously expressing his own conscientious opinions.

It is evident that Lord Meadowbank regarded the advantage derived by the prisoner from the presence in the dock of his distinguished friend Colonel D'Aguilar, and also from the very flattering testimony to character which he had received, as likely to prove a disturbing force to the jury in forming their estimate of the case. He therefore, in the first instance, addressed himself with a very evident air of anxiety to this section of the evidence. "That of Colonel D'Aguilar," said he, "of the gallant officer now seated with the panel at the bar,[55] was not more creditable to the panel than it was to the witness. It proved that his feelings of obligation, long ago conferred, had not been obliterated by the lapse of time; and it was given with an earnestness which, if it told on your minds as it did on mine, must have been by you felt as most deeply affecting.... But in weighing this evidence to the character of the prisoner, you must attend to what that proof really amounts."[56] He proceeded to point out the chasm of thirty years in their personal intercourse; and then exhibited, in lively colours, by way of set-off, the conduct of the prisoner in raising large sums of money on false representations as to his resources—"raising a sum of £13,000 on bonds granted by him for £50,000. All this, gentlemen, is, to say the least of it, a most discreditable proceeding on the part of a person bearing the high character which has been given the prisoner.... It is for you, gentlemen, to consider if the evidence which has been given as to the character he once bore, be or be not counterbalanced by these disreputable proceedings at a later period."[57]

The "evidence of the prisoner having uttered the whole of the instruments and documents charged in the indictment to be forgeries has not been called in question by the prisoner's counsel, he not having said one word on the subject. For my own part, I see no ground for disputing that the whole were uttered by the prisoner, and I shall content myself with referring to the evidence of the official witnesses, who received them from the agents of the prisoner; who again, in so producing, and so delivering them, acted under his authority, and were the mere instruments for carrying into effect those acts for which he alone can be responsible." Shortly afterwards, Lord Meadowbank gave a blighting summary of undisputed facts.

On the 10th December 1836, the Lord Ordinary issued his note, pointing out the evidence that was deficient: "The prisoner admits that he left the country immediately afterwards, and went to Paris. Where he went to then, he does not tell; under what name he went, he does not tell; where he got his passport has not been discovered, because he concealed the name under which he travelled. He continued in Paris till the ensuing August, when he returned, as he says, to Scotland, to be present at the Peers' election, and there he voted. He then despatched his son to Paris, and he returned with the map (which you are now, in considering the case in this view, to assume to be a fabrication) in the month of October, having all these documents written or pasted upon it." Lord Meadowbank proceeded to point out a circumstance "of the last importance to this branch of the case," which "had been lost sight of by the prisoner's counsel, and had not attracted the attention of the counsel for the Crown." And certainly the judge was right. This was the "circumstance" in question. One of the documents pasted on the back of the map was a portion of the envelope in which the supposed letter of John of Antrim (John No. 2) had been enclosed; and on this envelope was the impression of a seal. Now, in the prisoner's judicial examination before the Lord Ordinary, (the step admitted by Mr Swinton to have been "unusual,") he was shown the parchment packet contained in the De Porquet packet, indorsed, "Some of my wife's family papers;" and the seal attached "was an impression of his grandfather's seal (John No. 3); he had not seen that seal later than the year 1825; it is in the possession of my sister, Lady Elizabeth Pountney." The judge then pointed out to the jury a fact which he had himself discovered, that the impression of the seal on this packet and that on the envelope on the map were identical—a fact, indeed, which the prisoner himself had admitted in another part of his examination. "Now, gentlemen," continued Lord Meadowbank, "supposing there was not another tittle of evidence in the case to connect the prisoner with these proceedings, see what this amounts to. You find a link in his pedigree wanting in December 1836. Immediately after this has been pointed out he is in Paris, and stays there till August. During this short interval he is brought into immediate and close connection with this mass of fabrications, of fabrications of no earthly use or moment to any human being but himself, and having among them the impression of that seal which he admits to be in the possession of his own sister. Gentlemen, suppose that the name of Mademoiselle le Normand had never been heard of in this case, I leave it to you to consider, whether the irresistible inference be not, that that seal could have been appended only by the person in possession of it, and, at least, that that person was within his own domestic circle!"

Next followed some weighty remarks on the evidence of Leguix as to the purchase, by an Englishman, in the winter of 1836-7, of the map of Canada of 1703; and then Lord Meadowbank pointed out certainly a most serious contradiction in the prisoner's statements, under his different "examinations," as to the period of his becoming acquainted with Lord Cockburn's judgment of December 1836. When first examined, on the 18th December 1838, in answer to the direct question when he first knew of that judgment, he declared that "it was not till the month of March or April following, [i. e. 1837,] that he was made acquainted with that or any part of his Lordship's judgment or proceedings, except as to their general import, which he had learned from a letter addressed to him by his own family." Then he was asked whether he had not been made acquainted with Lord Cockburn's judgment in the same month of December in which it was pronounced. He declared "that he had not, and even then, [i. e., 18th December 1838,] he knew nothing of the particulars of that judgment." On the 14th February 1839, however, on being again examined before the Sheriff, he declared that, "when in Paris, in March or April 1837, he heard that Lord Cockburn had pronounced an unfavourable judgment in his case; and at that time a copy of the printed papers of the judgment and of the note was sent him by his family from Edinburgh, and until that time he was not aware that Lord Cockburn had formed an unfavourable opinion of his case!" "Here are declarations of the prisoner, contradictory on matters as to which there could be no error in point of recollection,—an important contradiction, and one testifying a desire of concealment of the truth, which, in all cases like this, has ever been deemed greatly to affect the innocence or guilt of a party." Again, "if these declarations establish the prisoner's knowledge of what had been done by Lord Cockburn, you are bound to consider whether that knowledge does not materially affect the evidence of the fabrication of these documents, as having been known to him, to whom alone they could be useful."

Then Lord Meadowbank came to the prisoner's visits to Mademoiselle le Normand—his having trafficked with her as far back as 1812, since which time he said, "she had been in the constant habit of advancing money to himself and his wife;" and yet her existence, even, was not known to his most intimate friends! Then he admits that he and his wife "desire her to institute a search for documents and charters to support his claims;" that he had never dreamed of searching in France for documents illustrative of his own pedigree; and it was with the greatest surprise he afterwards learned that they had been discovered! Then Lord Meadowbank contrasted the prisoner's statements as to the paucity of his visits to this old lady with the evidence of one Beaubis, the porter at the hotel where she resided, and who stated that the prisoner "saw her every night." Infinitely more serious, however, were the conflicting answers given by the prisoner, as to the nature and amount of his pecuniary liabilities to Mademoiselle le Normand, which Lord Meadowbank pronounced to be "a mass of contradictions." At one time he stated that he had given her his bond for four hundred thousand francs!—then only two bonds for 100,000 francs each, sent by him to her in 1837!—"payable, palpably, on the event of his succeeding in his claims on the Earldom of Stirling. This," continued Lord Meadowbank, "perhaps affords a pretty good key for solving the mystery of the interest that this woman has taken in these productions!" Having adverted to various portions of this old lady's correspondence with the prisoner, which had been seized at his house—certainly containing matters pregnant with violent suspicion—Lord Meadowbank said, "These are the circumstances from which you are to infer, or not, the guilty knowledge of the panel, and of his being, or not, art and part in the forgery of these documents. Remember, it is not said or proved that he forged them with his own hand; the question is, whether he had a knowledge of the forgeries that were going on at Paris during his stay there.... You will judge whether his obligation to Mademoiselle le Normand for 400,000 or 200,000 francs was or was not given for the fabrication of that document. And in looking to that document itself, [i. e., the map with its indorsements,] you will see his statement as to the seal on the back of it; and consider whether he be not thereby brought into immediate contact with the fabrication of that document, in consequence of the impression of the seal on its back, which he admits was in the possession of a member of his family." Lord Meadowbank proceeded to advert briefly to "the exculpatory evidence," and said that the fact of the fabricated excerpt charter having escaped the notice of the Lord Ordinary, and also of Mr Lockhart, was "no doubt a strong circumstance in favour of the prisoner," if that excerpt charter had been the only case against him; but it was altogether a different matter when regard was had to the great number of other documents alleged to have been forged, or knowingly uttered as forged, by the prisoner. "Gentlemen," said Lord Meadowbank, "the prisoner may have been a dupe in all these transactions;... but you have it clearly made out that the only person who enjoyed the fruits of the imposition was the prisoner himself!... Gentlemen, I have now laid before you the whole case as it occurs to me. I have never bestowed more pains upon any case than I have upon this; and in none have I ever summed up the evidence with greater pain.... Our business is to do justice, and you, in particular, have to weigh the evidence calmly and deliberately; and, should you doubt of that evidence being sufficient to bring the present charge home to the prisoner, to give him the full benefit of that doubt. But, to entitle you to do so, these doubts must be well considered, and the circumstances on which they are founded deliberately weighed. To doubts that are not reasonable, you have no right whatever to yield. You are not entitled to require from the Procurator direct proof of the facts laid in his charge. The circumstances laid in evidence must be put together; and it is your duty, then, to consider what is the reasonable inference to be drawn from the whole of them: in short, whether it be possible to explain them upon grounds consistent with the innocence of the party accused; or whether, on the contrary, they do not necessarily lead to a result directly the reverse."

The jury, thus charged with their solemn responsibility, withdrew to consider their verdict; and as they were absent for FIVE HOURS, we have time to ask the reader what would have been his decision, as one of that jury, on this deeply interesting, this most serious and remarkable case.

First, Were any or all of these documents forgeries?

Secondly, If they were, did the prisoner forge them?

Thirdly, If forgeries, though not by the prisoner, did he use and utter them with a guilty knowledge of their being forgeries?

We regard Lord Meadowbank's summing up as a dignified and righteous one, blinking no responsibility, and making difficult matters plain to the humblest capacity, and leaving no excuse for an inefficient performance of duty. At length, however, after their long absence from Court—a torturing five hours' absence—the return of the jury is announced; the four judges resume their seats with stern gravity and expectation; the agitated prisoner, still accompanied by his chivalrous friend, Colonel D'Aguilar, appears at the bar; the anxious crowd is hushed into silence; and the chancellor (or foreman) delivered in the following verdict:—

I. "The Jury UNANIMOUSLY find it proved that the excerpt charter is a forged document; and, BY A MAJORITY,[58] find it NOT PROVEN that the panel forged the said document, or is guilty art or part thereof,—or that he UTTERED it, knowing it to be forged." [Here arose a burst of applause from the audience, in consequence of which the Court immediately ordered the gallery to be cleared.]

II. "Unanimously find it proved that the documents on the map are forged; and by A MAJORITY find it NOT PROVEN that the panel forged the said documents, or is guilty art and part thereof, or that he UTTERED them, knowing them to be forged."

III. "Unanimously find it Not Proven that the documents contained in De Porquet's packet are forged; or were uttered by the panel as genuine, knowing them to be forged."

IV. "Unanimously find it Not Proven that the copy letter to Le Normand,[59] in the fifth and last charge of the Indictment, is either forged, or was uttered by the panel as genuine, knowing it to be forged."

As soon as the chancellor of the jury had finished delivering the above verdict the prisoner swooned, and was carried out of court insensible. On one of his counsel certifying to the court, on the authority of a medical gentleman in attendance on him, the continued indisposition of the prisoner, and that it would be dangerous to bring him back into court, his further attendance was dispensed with, the Public Prosecutor consenting; and as soon as the verdict had been formally approved of and recorded, the Court pronounced the following sentence:—

"The Lords Commissioners of Justiciary, in respect of the foregoing verdict of Assize, assoilzie the panel simpliciter, and dismiss him from the bar."

By the law of Scotland a verdict of "Not Proven" has the same effect as a verdict of "Not Guilty," with reference to liability to a second or subsequent trial on the same charge.

Thus ended, on Friday the 3d May 1839, this extraordinary trial—than which we know none more so on record. That the jury found the slightest difficulty in pronouncing the excerpt charter, and the Le Normand map, with its indorsements, to be forgeries, no one can think probable; but we own our very great surprise at finding them of opinion, and that "unanimously," that the forgery of the De Porquet packet, and the letter accompanying the Le Normand packet, had "not" been "proven." One thing, however, is perfectly clear, that these forgeries could not have been committed by lawyers, either Scottish or English; for the slightest smattering of legal knowledge would have sufficed to show the stark staring absurdity of imagining that such "evidence!" could be received or acted upon, for a moment, by any court of justice in a civilised country. In an English court, the De Porquet packet would have been hailed, but for decorum's sake, with a shout of laughter. A single rule of English law, that documents offered in evidence—especially ancient ones—must be proved to have come from the proper custody, would have disposed of the whole matter in a trice.

On what grounds proceeded the verdict of "not proven," with reference to the charge against the prisoner of forgery, or guilty uttering of forged documents, we know not, and it were almost idle to speculate. We doubt not, however, that Colonel D'Aguilar played the part of a guardian angel to his friend throughout his ordeal, and think that the jury attached the utmost weight to the suggestion with which the prisoner's counsel skilfully concluded his address, that "the prisoner had been merely the dupe of the designing, and the prey of the unworthy."[60] He may, indeed, have been a weak and insanely credulous person, and may have unconsciously encouraged others to be guilty of forgery, in imaginary furtherance of his own ambitious objects, by the promise of liberal recompense in the event of his being successful—as in the case of Mademoiselle le Normand, to whom he had given a bond for four hundred thousand francs.

In conclusion, we have to express our obligation to the accomplished and learned editor of the report of this trial, Professor Swinton, for the fulness and fidelity with which he has placed it before us. It is a valuable and deeply interesting addition to the records of Scottish jurisprudence; and it is also well worth the while of an English lawyer to procure and study it. Nay, even the novelist may find it well worth his while to ponder its marvellous details.

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