Ir is a condition inseparable from exalted rank that its possessor should be exposed to general scrutiny, and that in a country like England the censure or animadversion which his conduct may deserve should be visited upon him without much ceremony. The rank of the lord chancellor, and the deep importance to almost every class of society that the duties with which he is intrusted should be properly discharged, have combined to make him, more perhaps than any other state functionary, an object of universal attention. The complaints, loud and deep, and frequent, of the manner in which the justice of his lordship's courts (for, like the fiend Legion, they are many') is administered, have been repeated until the ear is tired, and the heart sickens at them. In public and in private charges have been brought against him, and substantiated, or at least unanswered; in the House of Commons the abuses of the Court of Chancery have been detailed with the greatest minuteness, the censures of that House have plainly and unequivocally expressed, (whether tacitly or not, what does it matter?) and the voice of the whole nation, from one end to the other, has echoed back that expression, accompanied with a demand for redress of the wrongs thus acknowledged to exist. Now, if we were to stop here, and ask some stranger what he, thought had been the result of these steps, he would naturally conclude that the delinquent officer of justice had been suspended or removed; that the administration had been purged from the faults and vices which had been suffered to accumulate upon it; and that the House of Commons had proved that the eulogiums passed upon it, and upon the Constitution, which it is instituted to preserve, were deserved. Alas! how different is this from the fact! The influence of the lord chancellor is such that all other powers bend before him; the intelligence and public virtue, and consistency and common honesty

that is to say, so much of all these qualities as happens to be found in the House of Commons-are not strong enough when combined to encounter his gigantic power: but the whole force of the legislation lies spell-bound, as it were, at the feet of the mighty wizard, who rules as he pleases the destiny of this kingdom. The House of Commons did indeed listen to the complaints which were preferred against the lord chancellor ; alternate horror and ridicule prevailed while they listened to the tyrannical and superstitious enormities which are practised within it. Families plunged into poverty, and kept there for ages; individuals ruined by the equitable villainies of others, and then chained to the chariot of Lord Eldon, to grace his triumph over Justice and Common Sense, until death releases them from him and the world; wealthy revenues, which, at withering touch of his hand, have. sunk and dwindled to nothing: these are the objects which the most cursory glance at the Court of Chancery presents, and these were all told over and over again in the House of Commons, in the very face of the country; and no man among Lord Eldon's friends could be found to gainsay one of the allegations against him.

the

As common decency required that something should be done, a commission was appointed-but such a commission as the history of the whole world cannot show to have been ever before appointed for such a purpose. There was in it a large majority of the chancellor's creatures, and, when the number was completed, they were one and all delivered over, bound hand and foot, to that man upon whom their verdict was to be pronounced.

Time enough, and three times more than enough for the purpose, has elapsed, and no Report has yet appeared. As nothing can be expected to result from the Report of such a commission, it matters little how long it is delayed; in the mean time the fact of its delay furnishes another instance

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of the immense power which the chancellor possesses, and that he can not only have a commission of his own nominating, but can bind and loose that commission when and how he pleases.

It would be superfluous to do more than allude to the opposition which the lord chancellor has offered to Catholic Emancipation. Every body knows that he is the only real and formidable obstacle to that measure being carried, and that, if he should relax, all his myrmidons would follow his example, and from the first to the last-from the Duke of York to the Bishop of Chester-the whole show of opposition would melt away. We confess it is an enigma which we cannot understand-a riddle which we have not the skill to read-how such a man has come to have such power. That he is a man of ability no one ever attempts to deny; that his natural talents are good, and that age and experience, and the practice of a profession which helps more even than age and experience to make men cunning, have sharpened up his wits to a remarkable degree of subtlety, is admitted on all hands. Still this does not account for his being not only the most powerful man in the country, but that all the other powers combined are nothing like a match for him, and that there is only one power by which he is at all assailable that of public opinion.

By the power of the public opinion the only serious castigation which can reach Lord Eldon in his lifetime is inflicted. History will do justice to his name after his death; but, severe and bitter as that justice must be, he cannot feel it in the body. In the mean time, the public opinion visits upon him the punishment he has provoked in the shape of universal hatred and scorn, and that deepest and most acute of human feelings which arises from a consciousness of oppressing, and a conviction of the impracticability of being revenged on the oppressor. The public journals are only useful inasmuch as they keep up this tone of public opinion; their attacks may be answered if it be worth while, because the chancellor can have as many newspapers in his pay as he likes; nay, he can have them gratis;

that is to say, his advocates will leave it to his generosity to reward them; and, truth to tell, his generosity does most frequently pay them as they deserve to be paid. One newspaper article is as good as another to that part of the community to which it is addressed; but the public opinion can neither be contradicted, nor belied, nor bullied, nor stified, nor imprisoned for libel; but, like truth, every time it is attacked it gathers new strength, and the efforts of its enemies exhaust themselves while they confirm its power.

To see the various ways in which this opinion displays itself is curious in every point of view, and satisfactory because it is universal. The two pamphlets, the titles of which we quote, are remarkable instances of this, different as they are in tone and spirit from each other. The first is a sermon by an Unitarian preacher. It will be remembered that the lord chancellor, when a bill for exempting the Unitarians from joining in the marriage ceremony, in its present form, was pending in the House of Lords, asked, in that tone of cool insolence which a consciousness of his own power has generated in him, whether somebody would tell him 'what a Unitarian was?' Mr. Robberds took an opportunity in the pulpit of explaining to his congregation exactly what a Unitarian is, so that, in case any body should ask them, they might, at least, be able to give an answer. To a person less respected by the nature of his function than this gentleman, the opportunity of replying to the lord chancellor would have been an excellent one; but Mr. Robberds contents himself with the explanation we have alluded to, and declines the vengeance which almost courted him. His mildness is perhaps the severest censure, as his Christian spirit forms the most striking contrast to the bigoted taunt which was contained in the chancellor's affected ignorance on the subject. He says, It may seem strange that a grave and learned and conscientious man, one too who thinks so much dependent upon the answer which he shall receive to his question, should call upon others for information, with which he must have had good opportunities of providing him

self as they. The philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics, who asked of Paul, "May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?" had, at least, the merit of addressing themselves to the proper person. Whatever might be the character of their curiosity, they went with it to the best source of information. The doctrine too about which they inquired was literally new. It did not as yet, probably, exist in books; at least, the very few writings which can be supposed to have been in circulation at that early period were not likely to have fallen into the hands of any but believers. But, in the twenty-fifth year of the nineteenth century, in a Christian and Protestant country, and after successive generations of far-famed disputants on the same great subject of controversy-the doctrine of the Unitarians cannot be so new, or the books which state and defend it so rare, or the lives and characters of its preachers and professors all so utterly obscure, as to leave our legislators in any unavoidable uncertainty on the question, "What is a Unitarian?",

The whole of this sectarian minister's reply to the chancellor is in the mildest and most forbearing spirit, and perhaps, therefore, it will not satisfy him. Still if he is really desirous of having an answer to his question, he can apply to his colleague, Lord Gifford, whom all the world knows to be a Unitarian; who, as common fame says, will one day succeed the lord chancellor; and who, while the mere fact of his being a Unitarian does not disqualify him for so eminent an office, will, we trust, remember that he who claims so wide an indulgence for himself, in matters of religious belief, ought to be among the first to concede the same indulgence to others. If the lord chancellor applied to us (which is an accident not likely to happen), we should tell him that we, not being Unitarians, and yet not being, or pretending to be, wholly ignorant of that which every body knows, could best explain it by its contraries. We should say a Unitarian is not a bigot, for he insists upon no man following his particular form of worship; that, while he doubts and differs from a large portion of

mankind upon subjects of equal gravity and interest to them all, he condemns and reviles no man, nor any form of religion; he pretends to no exclusive nor extraordinary piety; he denies to no man that liberty of conscience which he exercises himself; he makes no loud and public profession of his integrity; nor sheds tears, nor calls upon God to witness the truth of the protestations he makes, in the face of an admiring audience; he is neither a hypocrite (that is to say, by virtue of his religion), nor rapacious, nor covetous; but he tries to practise, as well as the infirmity of his nature will allow him, that religion, the votaries of which are distinguished (notwithstanding the differences of sects) by humility in their own persons, and by charity to all mankind; and with this explanation the lord chancellor might, at some leisure time, see the difference between a Unitarian's doctrines and his own.

While Mr. Robberds is, however, thus mild in his rebuke to the lord chancellor, the ancient Bencher of Lincoln's Inn is bitter enough for any two antagonists. If sage Jeremy be mad, as most people believe, there is a method in his madness which is truly enviable: it seems rather to be an antic disposition which he puts on than real insanity, because a merely eccentric man may, for his own purposes, assume the appearance of madness; but a real madman, an eligible candidate for Bedlam, could not write a pamphlet upon these indications.

The object of Mr. Bentham's book is to prove that Lord Eldon, on his coming into office, formed and began to execute a plan for screwing up the fraud and extortion then existing in the Court of Chancery to the highest possible pitch. He does this in a fair way enough, and if any person doubts it let them answer him. It is true he uses hard words; but bad deeds deserve hard words: it is true that his style is wild and fantastic; but, if the matter be true and important, we shall not care how incoherently it be uttered. The Sibyls' oracles were not couched in any clear and sober terms, but they were valuable and wise.

Mr. Bentham says that a system has been encouraged in the Court of