Can a sick man find strength and nerves to speak before a large assembly? can an ignorant man find words? can a low man find confidence? Is not he afraid of becoming an object of ridicule ?-can he believe that his expressions will be understood? How often have we seen a poor wretch, struggling against the agonies of his spirit, and the rudeness of his conceptions, and his awe of better-dressed men and better-taught men, and the shame which the accusation has brought upon his head, and the sight of his parents and children gazing at him in the Court, for the last time, perhaps, and after a long absence! The mariner sinking in the wave does not want a helping hand more than does this poor wretch. But help is denied to all! Age cannot have it, nor ignorance, nor the modesty of women! One hard uncharitable rule silences the defenders of the wretched, in the worst of human evils; and at the bitterest of human moments, mercy is blotted out from the ways of men!

Suppose a crime to have been committed under the influence of insanity; is the insane man, now convalescent, to plead his own insanity?—to offer arguments to show that he must have been mad?-and, by the glimmerings of his returning reason, to prove that at a former period that same reason was utterly extinct? These are the cruel situations into which Judges and Courts of Justice are thrown by the present state of the law.

There is a Judge now upon the bench, who never took away the life of a fellow-creature without shutting himself up alone, and giving the most profound attention to every circumstance of the case! and this solemn act he always premises with his own beautiful prayer to God, that he will enlighten him with his Divine Spirit in the exercise of this terrible privilege! Now, would it not be an immense satisfaction to this feeling and honourable magistrate, to be sure that every witness on the side of the prisoner had been heard, and that every argument which could be urged in his favour had been brought forward, by a man whose duty it was to see only on one

were thoroughly embarked in this partial exertion? If a Judge fail to get at the truth, after these instruments of investigation are used, his failure must be attributed to the limited powers of man-not to the want of good inclination, or wise institutions. We are surprised that such a measure does not come into Parliament, with the strong recommendation of the Judges. It is surely better to be a day longer on the circuit, than to murder rapidly in ermine.

It is argued, that, among the various pleas for mercy that are offered, no prisoner has ever urged to the Secretary of State the disadvantage of having no counsel to plead for him; but a prisoner who dislikes to undergo his sentence naturally addresses to those who can reverse it such arguments only as will produce, in the opinion of the referee, a pleasing effect. He does not therefore find fault with the established system of jurisprudence, but brings forward facts and arguments to prove his own innocence. Besides, how few people there are who can elevate themselves from the acquiescence in what is, to the consideration of what ought to be; and if they could do so, the way to get rid of a punishment is not (as we have just observed) to say, 'You have no right to punish me in this manner,' but to say, 'I am innocent of the offence.' The fraudulent baker at Constantinople, who is about to be baked to death in his own oven, does not complain of the severity of baking bakers, but promises to use more flour and less fraud.

Whence comes it (we should like to ask Sir John Singleton Copley, who seems to dread so much the conflicts of talent in criminal cases) that a method of getting at truth which is found so serviceable in civil cases should be so much objected to in criminal cases? Would you have all this wrangling and bickering, it is asked, and contentious eloquence, when the life of a man is concerned? Why not, as well as when his property is concerned? It is either a good means of doing justice, or it is not, that two understandings should be put in opposition to each other, and that a third should

decide between them. Does this open every view which can bear upon the question? Does it in the most effectual manner watch the Judge, detect perjury, and sift evidence? If not, why is it suffered to disgrace our civil institutions? If it effect all these objects, why is it not incorporated into our criminal law? Of what importance is a little disgust at professional tricks, if the solid advantage gained be a nearer approximation to truth? Can any thing be more preposterous than this preference of taste to justice, and of solemnity to truth? What an eulogium of a trial to say, 'I am by no means satisfied that the Jury were right in finding the prisoner guilty; but every thing was carried on with the utmost decorum! The verdict was wrong; but there was the most perfect propriety and order in the proceedings. The man will be unfairly hanged; but all was genteel!' If solemnity is what is principally wanted in a court of justice, we had better study the manners of the old Spanish Inquisition; but if battles with the Judge, and battles among the counsel, are the best method, as they certainly are, of getting at the truth, better tolerate this philosophical Billingsgate, than persevere, because the life of a man is at stake, in solemn and polished injustice.

Why should it not be just as wise and equitable to leave the defendant without counsel in civil cases-and to tell him that the Judge was his counsel? And if the reply is to produce such injurious effects as are anticipated upon the minds of the Jury in criminal cases, why not in civil cases also? In twenty-eight cases out of thirty, the verdict in civil cases is correct; in the two remaining cases, the error may proceed from other causes than the right of reply; and yet the right of reply has existed in all. In a vast majority of cases, the verdict is for the plaintiff, not because there is a right of reply, but because he who has it in his power to decide whether he will go to law or not, and resolves to expose himself to the expense and trouble of a lawsuit, has probably a good foundation for his claim. Nobody, of course, can intend to say that the majority

of verdicts in favour of plaintiffs are against justice, and merely attributable to the advantage of a last speech. If this were the case, the sooner advocates are turned out of court the better-and then the improvement of both civil and criminal law would be an abolition of all speeches; for those who dread the effect of the last word upon the fate of the prisoner must remember that there is at present always a last speech against the prisoner; for, as the counsel for the prosecution cannot be replied to, his is the last speech.

There is certainly this difference between a civil and a criminal case-that in one a new trial can be granted, in the other not. But you must first make up your mind whether this system of contentious investigation by opposite advocates is or is not the best method of getting at truth: if it be, the more irremediable the decision, the more powerful and perfect should be the means of deciding; and then it would be a less opression if the civil defendant were deprived of counsel than the criminal prisoner. When an error has been committed, the advantage is greater to the latter of these persons than to the former;- the criminal is not tried again, but pardoned; while the civil defendant must run the chance of another Jury.

If the effect of reply, and the contention of counsel, have all these baneful consequences in felony, why not also in misdemeanour and high treason? Half the cases at Sessions are cases of misdemeanour, where counsel are employed and half-informed Justices preside instead of learned Judges. There are no complaints of the unfairness of verdicts, though there are every now and then of the severity of punishments. Now, if the reasoning of Mr. Lamb's opponents were true, the disturbing force of the prisoner's counsel must fling every thing into confusion. The Court for misdemeanours must be a scene of riot and perplexity; and the detection and punishment of crime must be utterly impossible: and yet in the very teeth of these objections, such courts of justice are just as orderly in one set of offences as the other; and the conviction of a guilty person just as certain and as easy.

The prosecutor (if this system were altered) would have the choice of counsel; so he has now with this difference, that, at present, his counsel cannot be answered nor opposed. It would be better in all cases, if two men of exactly equal talent could be opposed to each other; but as this is impossible, the system must be taken with this inconvenience; but there can be no inequality between counsel so great as that between any counsel and the prisoner pleading for himself. 'It has been lately my lot,' says Mr. Denman, 'to try two prisoners who were deaf and dumb, and who could only be made to understand what was passing by the signs of their friends. The cases were clear and simple; but if they had been circumstantial cases, in what a situation would the Judge and Jury be placed, when the prisoner could have no counsel to plead for him!'-Debates of the House of Commons, April 25. 1826.

The folly of being counsel for yourself is so notorious in civil cases, that it has grown into a proverb. But the cruelty of the law compels a man, in criminal cases, to be guilty of a much greater act of folly, and to trust his life to an advocate, who, by the common sense of mankind, is pronounced to be inadequate to defend the possession of an acre of land.

In all cases it must be supposed, that reasonably convenient instruments are selected to effect the purpose in view. A Judge may be cornmonly presumed to understand his profession, and a Jury to have a fair allowance of common sense; but the objectors to the improvement we recommend appear to make no such suppositions. Counsel are always to make flashy addresses to the passions. Juries are to be so much struck with them, that they are always to acquit or to condemn, contrary to justice; and Judges are always to be so biassed, that they are to fling themselves rashly into the opposite scale against the prisoner. Many cases of misdemeanour consign a man to infamy, and cast a blot upon his posterity. Judges and Juries must feel these cases as strongly as any cases of felony ; and yet, in spite of this, and in spite of the free permis.