would not scruple to espouse any cause which he should be paid for defending, and reprobated in the strongest terms such unworthy imputations. He asserted the reluctance of his nature to such practices. It was an aggrava tion of the affliction he felt that the cause of it should originate with one, to whom the nation had so long looked up A wound from him was doubly painful; like Joab, he gave the shake of friendship, but the other hand held a dagger, with which he despatched the constitution. He then made an apology for alluding to any thing recorded in sacred writ, and read some verses in different chapters of the book of Revelations, which seemed to express the intended innovations in the affairs of the English East India Company. 'And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns. And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.' "Here," said Mr. Scott, "I believe there is a mistake of two months." 'And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, to receive a mark in their right hands or in their foreheads.' "Here, places, peerages, and pensions, are clearly marked out." And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the Great (plainly the East India Company) is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean bird.' Mr. Scott, after this somewhat profane waggery, quoted a passage from Thucydides, who remarked that injustice was more irksome to men than violence. He repeated that passage in Othello where Desdemona cries out:

"Kill me not to-night, my lord;

Let me live but one day -one hour."

To this singular display of pedantic pleasantry, the House listened in mute amazement; and Sheridan retorted with such point and wit on the absurd jumble of Scripture and Shakspeare, in the mouth of a lawyer, that he never ventured on a repetition of similar topics. According to the common fate of lawyers, he made less impression on the House than might have been anticipated from his previous reputation. There was a want of that warmth and animation, that bold, declamatory vehemence, which distinguish the senatorial from the forensic orator. His speeches were always shrewd and clear, addressed to the understanding rather than the fancy, impressive, but not sufficiently energetic. He displayed great skill of fence, and dexterity in the use of his weapon, but had not sufficiently the spirit of a gladiator for the arena he filled, to give entire satisfaction to a classical audience, for he drew no blood. The special pleader refined and subtilized and elaborated nice distinctions, but wanted the hardy assertion, the caustic repartee, the biting, scoffing sarcasm, which are so popular with that amusement-loving and excitable assembly. He spoke as if habited in forensic costume, and addressing a domestic forum. The maxim of the schools, "Pectus est quod disertum facit," was so perseveringly pursued, in his addresses to the House, that we constantly meet with such figures as these: "He would rather have the gown stripped off his back than be guilty of double dealing." "He felt as if he had set his foot on a viper, being accused of misrepresentation." To these expressions of feeling, the sincerity of which is far less questionable than the taste, and other peculiarities in his style of oratory, Mr. Francis, a keen partizan of the fallen ministry, alluded, in a fierce philippic, which, mixed with much injustice, contains many discriminating points of character.

The favor of Mr. Pitt to the rising lawyer, and his able

support of that minister's East India measures, furnished the venom to this bitter invective. But the confidence of the discerning statesman in Mr. Scott increased with every fresh opportunity of testing his judgment; and, on the first vacancy that ensued, in June, 1788, he was chosen, almost without a rival, solicitor-general, and knighted, much to his own annoyance. He pleaded ancient precedents, but the new attorney-general having stooped down without objection for the usual accolade, the king cut short the murmurs of the junior with saying, "Pooh, pooh, kneel down! You must be both served alike." On the royal illness, which shortly followed, sir John Scott drew the regency bill, and, with sound advice, far superior to the discretion of lord Loughborough, enabled Mr. Pitt to gain a complete victory over his rival in the subsequent discussions. Strengthened by habits of official connexion, his intimacy with the prime minister soon grew into close and confiding friendship. None knew better how to choose his friends; and Mr. Wilberforce mentions the many pleasant social days gaily spent at Wimbledon, in the company of Pitt, Dundas, and Scott. "I saw much of sir John Scott," he writes, in his Diary, "and it is no more than his due to say, that, when he was solicitor and attorneygeneral under Pitt, he never fawned and flattered, as some did, but always assumed the tone and station of a man who was conscious that he must show he respected himself, if he wished to be respected by others."

In February, 1793, a dark and stormy epoch, on the promotion of sir Archibald Macdonald to the office of chief baron of the exchequer, sir John Scott assumed the arduous duties of attorney-general, and, very soon afterwards, commenced the state prosecutions, the most important of any in the annals of criminal jurisprudence.

Whilst we heap our willing tribute of praise to the admirable conduct of the attorney-general in the progress

of the state trials, we cannot refrain from hinting a suspicion that some of them might have been safely dispensed with. On seditious libels, in particular, he seems to have looked with an eye somewhat blood-shot, and to have wholly differed with the republican soldier, in his fearless notion, "If my government is made to stand, it has nothing to fear from paper shot."

A similar system of rigor may be discovered and deprecated, some years later, in the prosecution of the Courier newspaper, for publishing a libel on the emperor of Russia, the madman Paul. The paragraph which drew down. the terrors of a criminal information on its unlucky proprietor, is of the following harmless and almost patriotic character: "The emperor of Russia is reudering himself obnoxious to his subjects by various acts of tyranny, and ridiculous in the eyes of Europe by his inconsistency. He has now passed an edict prohibiting the exportation of timber, deals, etc. In consequence of this ill-timed law, upwards of one hundred sail of vessels are likely to return to this kingdom without freight." Surely, such well-founded murmurs might have been uttered without censure; but, in this instance, sir John Scott did not follow his own impulse. He filed the information by command.

Whatever the misgivings of others might have been on his unsheathing the sword of the law so frequently, he never felt any compunctious visitings himself for the supposed excess, but always spoke of his official conduct with the complacent bearing of one who knew that he had done the state some service that he had performed his duty, and no more.

Whether or not a wise and humane system of policy would have adopted this war of extermination against the herd of libellers, will be always a moot question, and open to much conflict of opinion. Having escaped the danger,

the bands of conspirators being routed, and the spirit of mischief laid at rest, it is not impossible that we may scrutinize with too jealous caution those vindictive measures, that were deemed necessary by statesmen best acquainted with the exigencies of their times, and for some few of which, necessity, the tyrant's plea, will afford the best justification.

That sir John Scott acted conscientiously there can be. no doubt. Of his readiness to resign office, rather than swerve a hair's breadth from the nicest principles of honor, we are acquainted with a remarkable instance, not generally known. Immediately on the rupture between Pitt and lord Thurlow, the premier communicated to the solicitor-general his interview with the king, and the chancellor's dismissal, expressing his wish to be himself the first bearer of the intelligence, and his anxious hope that the circumstance would make no difference in their mutual relation to each other. Sir John Scott replied, that he was under greater obligations to lord Thurlow than any other man living; that he could not retain office under an administration to which that nobleman was opposed; but that, as his own political principles accorded entirely with. those of the government, he should resign at once his situation and seat in parliament. The prime minister combated this resolution warmly, and at length extorted a promise that he would confer with lord Thurlow before taking these decisive steps. The ex-chancellor deprecated his resignation with equal ardor, saying that, "against Pitt, personally, he had no complaint to make. He had tripped up his heels, indeed, and he would have tripped up his rival's, if he could; but he had never thought the king would have parted with him so easily. His course was done, and for the future he should remain neutral; but his young friend should on no account resign. He would not listen for a moment to such an idea; they would look