is his doctrine of parliamentary representation:-"To fix the era when the Commons began is perilous and destructive; to fix it in Edward's or Henry's reign is owing to the idle dreams of some whimsical, ill-judging antiquaries; but this is a point too important to be left to such wrong-headed people. When did the House of Commons begin? When, my Lords? It began with the constitution. There is not a blade of grass growing in the most obscure corner of this kingdom which is not, which was not ever, represented since the constitution began. There is not a blade of grass which when taxed was not taxed by consent of the proprietor."

It may easily be imagined that he was no sooner freed from the trammels of office than a spirit so congenial to that which animated Lord Chatham would burst forth. He accordingly joined him in denouncing as a violent outrage on the constitution the vote of the Commons incapacitating Wilkes from sitting in parliament, because he had been expelled after his election. This celebrated vote, the soundness of which Charles Fox, such is the force of early prejudices, maintained to his dying day, appears to have staggered even Lord Mansfield, who, when Lord Chatham moved an address to the Lords, declaring it unconstitutional, seemed through almost his whole speech to be arguing against it and in favour of the motion. He said, that he should regard himself as the greatest of tyrants and of traitors were he to be moved by it in his judicial capacity, though he added, mysteriously, "that he had never given his opinion upon it, and should probably carry it with him to the grave. But he considered that if the Commons had passed an unjustifiable resolution, it was a matter between God and their own consciences; and that the Lords could not carry up in an address a railing accusation to the throne, thereby exciting a flame between the two Houses, not easily allayed." Lord Chatham and Lord Camden held that all the arguments of Lord Mansfield being in favour of their amendment, his vote should have accompanied his speech; and Lord Camden was so much impregnated with his illustrious friend's sentiments, that though he would not quite go so far as to exclaim, "Let discord reign for ever," he yet declared "that to the voice of the people he would join his feeble efforts, and the louder he heard them cry, the better should he be pleased." After Lord Chatham's death, in 1778, rather from loss of

his great leader than from any infirmity of increasing age, he rarely took any part in debate. That the latter was not the cause of his inaction, we may well suppose from the great excellence of the speeches which he occasionally delivered. One of these must have possessed extraordinary merit, that on Lord Shelburne's amendment to the address, 27th of November, 1781; for it extorted from the most niggardly dispenser of praise perhaps the only panegyric of which he was ever guilty. Lord Thurlow said, "he never had heard a more able discourse within these walls; that the premises were distinct and clear, while the deductions followed without constraint or false colouring." "In thus speaking of the noble Lord's very great abilities," said the eminently dyslogistic Chancellor, "I trust he will receive it as my real sentiments, not being at any time much disposed to travel out of the business before the House for the purpose of keeping up the trivial forms of debate, much less to pay particular personal compliments to any man."

When the disasters of the American war, more than the attacks of the opposition, had driven Lord North from the helm, Lord Camden became President of the Council in the Rockingham Administration, and quitted that office when the Coalition ministry was formed next year, having consistently remained in the cabinet of Lord Shelburne and Mr. Pitt, when the personal and factious violence of the Whigs led them to oppose the peace, and finally to overthrow the ministry that made it, by a Coalition which ruined the Whig character and influence for nearly a quarter of a century. Upon Mr. Pitt triumphantly defeating the Coalition, Lord Camden resumed his office, and kept it to his death.

Between the close of the American war and the regency in 1788, with the exception of delivering an admirable speech against Mr. Fox's India Bill, and one or two others during the same struggles, he seldom bore any part in debate. But on the King's illness being declared to Parliament, he took the lead in all the proceedings connected with that event, Lord Thurlow being evidently little trusted by Mr. Pitt, who had discovered his intrigues with the opposition and Carlton House. Lord Camden in particular argued, and with great learning and ability, the constitutional questions which arose from time to time during the fierce controversy of that day, and he was perhaps never

heard to greater advantage than in the debate on the Heir Apparent's right, and Mr. Fox's incautious assertion of it, a doctrine which met with its most formidable adversary in the veteran champion of our popular constitution. Nor must it be forgotten, that he had now reached his 75th year.

It does not appear that the lapse of four years more had either impaired his faculties or extinguished his love of liberty: for he it was who, a leading member of the Government, in the face of the unanimous opinion of all the Judges, supported as they were in the House itself by Lord Thurlow, Lord Kenyon, and Lord Bathurst, maintained the rights of juries in libel cases by the law of England, and carried through, in spite of a most formidable opposition from those law Lords, the celebrated measure of Lord Erskine, which is commonly, though erroneously, called Mr. Fox's Libel Act.

Nothing can be more refreshing to the lovers of liberty, or more gratifying to those who venerate the judicial character, than to contemplate the glorious struggle for his long-cherished principles with which Lord Camden's illustrious life closed. The fire of his youth seemed to kindle in the bosom of one touching on fourscore, as he was impelled to destroy the servile and inconsistent doctrines of others, slaves to mere technical lore, but void of the sound and discriminating judgment which mainly constitutes a legal, and above all a judicial, mind. On such passages as follow, the mind fondly and reverently dwells, thankful that the pedantry of the profession had not been able to ruin so fine an understanding, or freeze so genial a current of feeling, and hopeful that future lawyers and future judges may emulate the glory and the virtue of this great man.

"It should be imprinted," he said, "on every juror's mind that, if a jury find a verdict of publishing and leave the criminality to the judge, they would have to answer to God and their consciences for the punishment which by such judge may be inflicted, be it fine, imprisonment, loss of ears, whipping, or any other disgrace." "I will affirm," added Lord Camden," that they have the right of deciding, and that there is no power by the law of this country to prevent them from the exercise of the right if they think fit to maintain it. When they are pleased to acquit any defendant, their acquittal will stand good until the law of England shall be changed." "Give, my Lords," he ex

claimed, "give to the jury or to the judge the right of trial. You must give it to one or to the other, and I think you can have no difficulty which to prefer. Place the press under the power of the jury, where it ought to be."

On a future stage of the bill, 16th May, 1792, he began a most able and energetic address to the House in terms which deeply moved all his hearers-because, he said, how unlikely it was that he should ever address them any more. After laying down the law, as he conceived it certainly to be, he added, "So clear am I of this, that if it were not the law, it should be made so; for in all the catalogue of crimes there is not one so fit to be determined by a jury as libel." "With them leave it, and I have not a doubt that they will always be ready to protect the character of individuals against the pen of slander, and the government against the licentiousness of sedition."

The opinions of the judges were overruled, and the act was of purpose made declaratory and not enactive after the opposition of the law lords had thus been defeated. The Chancellor, as the last effort to retain the law in judicial hands, asked if Lord Camden would object to a clause being inserted granting a new trial in case the court were dissatisfied with a verdict for the defendant?" What," (exclaimed the veteran friend of freedom) "after a verdict of acquittal?" "Yes," said Lord Thurlow. "No, I thank you," was the memorable reply,-and the last words spoken in public by this great man. The bill immediately was passed.

Two years after, he descended to the grave full of years and honours, the most precious honours which a patriot can enjoy, the unabated gratitude of his countrymen, and the unbroken consciousness of having through good report and evil firmly maintained his principles and faithfully discharged his duty.

In the whole of Lord Camden's life there is no passage more remarkable or more edifying than his manly adherence to his own clear and well-considered opinion, in spite of the high professional authority by which it was impugned. There are many professional men who, after having long quitted the contentions of Westminster Hall, and been for a great portion of their lives removed from a close contact with their legal brethren, feel nervous at the idea of exposing themselves to be decried for ignorance or despised for hete

rodoxy, by the frowns of the legal community, adjusted to the solemn authority and example of those set in place over them. It was the only mark of declining vigour which Lord Erskine betrayed, that in the course of the Queen's case he dreaded to come in conflict with the judges, even on some points which there is now no reason to doubt were wrong decided, and which he accurately perceived at the time were erronously determined.* At a more advanced age, Lord Camden retained the full vigour of his faculties, so as boldly to announce his deliberate opinion; and that it was in no degree biassed by any party leaning, or any hunting after popular applause, will appear manifest from the circumstance of the Libel Bill being passed by him in the manner we have just been contemplating during the most vehement period of the controversy upon sedition that began the French Revolution, and in the same year in which the proclamation against seditious writings was issued, and the first prosecutions for libel instituted by the government of which Lord Camden was so conspicuous a member.t

In close connexion with the most remarkable passages of Lord Camden's life, was the conduct and in general the

* For example of misdecision, take the rule laid down, that no question on cross-examination can be put to a witness, the answer to which may refer to a written document, without producing the document and placing it in the witness's hands, whereby the test applied whether to his veracity or to his memory is defeated.

It is very gratifying to me that I can mention so valuable a step towards improvement in the law of slander and libel as my learned and esteemed friend Lord Campbell has recently succeeded in carrying through Parliament, with the entire concurrence of the other law lords. The bill which I brought into the Commons twice, first in 1816 and again in 1830, on the eve of my quitting that House, embraced this and also other changes in the law, which I doubt not will now soon follow, and I most cheerfully resigned the subject into my colleague's hands. The measure was matured ably and judiciously under his auspices in a committee over which he presided; and in which, beside their report recommending the bill, a valuable body of evidence and opinions was collected. It must, however, be added, that a great loss to the reform of the law is incurred by leaving out the most valuable portion of my former Bills, that which protected political or public libel to the extent of allowing evidence of the truth. The Report of the Criminal Law Commissioners on this question, and on the whole subject, is elaborate and full of interest.