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ness, his hoarse clamorous voice floating desolately into thie air, "like the voice of a man crying in the wilderness-whom no man heareth."

The appearance of the Judges, or Lords Ordinaries, themselves, next attracted my attention, and I walked round the hall to survey them, each in rotation, at his particular bar. Their dress is quite different from what we are accustomed to in our civil courts in England, and bears much more resemblance to what I have seen in the portraits of the old Presidents of the French parliaments. Indeed I believe it is not widely different from this; for the Court of session was originally formed upon the model of the Parliament of Paris, and its costume was borrowed from that illustrious court, as well as its constitution. The judges have wigs somewhat different from those of the Advocates, and larger in dimension; but their gowns are very splendid things, being composed of purple velvet and blue cloth and silk, with a great variety of knots and ornaments of all kinds. I could not see this vestment without much respect, when I reflected on the great number of men celebrated both for greatness and goodness that have worn it. It is the same gown in which the venerable Duncan Forbes of Culloden delivered judgment-in which Kaimes, and Hailes, and Braxfield, and Monboddo, and Woodhouselee-and later, perhaps greater than all, in which Blair was clothed. ** It struck me, that the Judges in the Outer Court were rather younger men than we commonly see on the Bench in an English Court of Law; but their physiognomies, and the manner in which they seemed to be listening to the pleaders before them, were in general quite as I could have wished to see them. At one end sat Lord G, brother to the excellent Historian of Greece, and Translator of Aristotle's Rhetorick and Ethics. He has at first sight an air of laziness about him, and seems as if he grudged the labour of lifting up his eyes to view the countenance of the person addressing him. But every now and then, he muttered some short question or remark, which showed abundantly that his intellect was awake to all the intricacies of the case; and I could see, that when the Advocates were done, he had no difficulty in separating the essence of the plea from all the adventitious matter with which their briefs had instructed them to clog and embarrass it. He has a countenance very expressive of acumen, and a pair of the finest black eyes I ever saw, although be commonly keeps

them half-shrouded under their lids and I have no doubt, from the mode in which he delivered himself, that he must have been a most accomplished debater when at the Bar. At the other extremity, the greatest stream of business seemed to rush in the direction of Lord Pittmilly's tribunal. This Judge has the most delightful expression of suavity and patience in his look and manner, that I ever saw in any Judge, unless it be our own venerable old Chancellor Eldon. The calm conscientious way in which he seemed to listen to every thing that was said, the mild good-tempered smile with which he showed every now and then that he was not to be deceived by any subtilty or quirk, and the clear and distinct manner in which he explained the grounds of his decision, left me at no loss to account for the extraordinary pressure of business with which this excellent judge appeared to be surrounded. Before these two Lords it was, that all the principal causes. of the morning appeared to be argued. I happened to be standing close beside Lord Pittmilly's Bar, when a pleading was going on for aliment of a natural child, at the instance of a servant-wench against an Irish student, who had come to Edinburgh to attend the Medical Classes. The native of the Emerald Isle was personally present in rear of his Counsel, arrayed in a tarnished green great-coat, and mruttering bitterly in his national accent. I heard him say to one near him, that he had been prevented from getting out of the way in proper time, by the harsh procedure of a grocer in Drummond-Street, whose account was unpaid, and who had detained him by what be called a "meditatione fugæ warrant." The poor girl's case was set forth with great breadth of colouring and verity of detail by Mr. Clerk, (a fine sagacious-looking old gentleman, of whom I shall speak anon,) and the Bar was speedily surrounded by close ranks of listeners. Mr. Jeffrey, who was of counsel for the son of Erin, observed that the exceeding rapidity with which the crowd clustered itself around did not escape my attention, and whispered to me, that cases of this kind are always honoured with an especial allowance of such honour-being regarded as elegant nuga, or tasteful relaxations from the drier routine of ordinary practice--somewhat like snatches of the Belles-Lettres in the midst of a course of hard reading. I could perceive, that even the grimmest and most morose-looking Men of Business would, in passing, endeavour to wedge their noses into the crowd, and after catch

ing a few words of the pleading, would turn away grinning like satyrs, with the relish of what they had heard still mantling in their opaque imaginations. Jeffrey also told me, that Irish cases of the sort above-mentioned are extremely frequent even in the Scottish courts; and, indeed, the great Phillips bimself seems never to enjoy the full command and swing of his powers, unless on the subject of a seduction; so that it may be said with truth of this wonderful man, and the gallant nation to which he belongs, that they mutually stand in much need of each other.

"Tis well that they should sin, so he may shine."

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.

P. M.

DEAR WILLIAMS,

THE walls of this Outer House are in general quite bare for the few old portraits hung here and there, are insufficient to produce any impression in the general view; but the Hall has lately received one very important ornament—namely, a statue of the late Lord Melville by chantry, which has been placed on a pedestal of considerable elevation in the centre of the floor. As a piece of art, I cannot say that I consider this statue as at all equal to some others by the same masterly hand, which I have seen elsewhere. I am aware, however, that it is seen to very little advantage in the situation where it is placed; and, moreover, that no statue can be seen to its utmost advantage, when it is quite new from the chisel of the sculptor. It requires some time before the marble can be made to reconcile itself with the atmosphere around it; and while the surface continues to offend the eye by its first cold glare of chalky whiteness, it is not quite easy for an ordinary connoisseur to form a proper idea of the lines and forms set forth in this unharmonious material. Making allowance for all this, however, I can scarcely bring myself to imagine, that the statue of Melville will ever be thought to do honour

to the genius of Chantry. There is some skill displayed in the management of the viscount's robes; and in the face itself, there is a very considerable likeness of Lord Melville→→→ which is enough, as your recollection must well assure you, to save it from any want of expressiveness. But the effect of the whole is, I think, very trivial, compared with what such an artist might have been expected to produce, when he had so fine a subject as Dundas to stimulate his energies. It is not often, now-a-days, that an artist can hope to meet with such a union of intellectual and corporeal grandeur, as were joined together in this Friend and Brother of William Pitt.

This statue has been erected entirely at the expense of the gentlemen of the Scottish Bar, and it is impossible not to admire and honour the feelings, which called forth from them such a magnificent mark of respect for the memory of their illustrious Brother. Lord Melville walked the boards of the Parliament House during no less than twenty years, before he began to reside constantly in London as Treasurer of the Navy; and during the whole of this period, his happy temper and manners, and friendly open-hearted disposition, rendered him a universal favourite among all that followed the same course of life. By all true Scotchmen, indeed, of whatever party in church or state, Melville was always regarded with an eye of kindliness and partiality. Whig and Tory agreed in loving him; and how could it be otherwise, for although nobody surely could be more firm in his political prin ciples than he himself was, he allowed no feelings, arising out of these principles, to affect his behaviour in the intercourse of common life. He was always happy to drink his bottle of port with any worthy man of any party; and he was always happy to oblige personally those, in common with whom he had any recollections of good-humoured festivity. But the great course of his popularity was unquestionably nothing more than his intimate and most familiar acquaint ance with the actual state of Scotland, and its inhabitants, and all their affairs. Here in Edinburgh, unless Mr. W exaggerates very much, there was no person of any consideration, whose whole connexions and concerns were not perfectly well known to him. And I already begin to see enough of the structure of Scottish society, to appreciate somewhat of the advantages which this knowledge must have placed in the hands of so accomplished a statesman. The services

which he had rendered to this part of the island were acknowledged by the greater part of those, who by no means approved of the general system of policy in which he had so great a share; and among the subscribers to his statue were very many, whose names no solicitation could have brought to appear under any similar proposals with regard to any other Tory in the world.*

In the two Inner Houses, as they are called, (where causes are ultimately decided by the two great Divisions of the - Court,) are placed statues of two of the most eminent persons that have ever presided over the administration of justice in Scotland. In the hall of the Second Division, behind the chair of the Lord Justice Clerk, who presides on that bench, is placed the statue of Duncan Forbes of Culloden; and in a similar situation, in the First Division, that of the Lord President Blair, who died only a few years ago. The statue of Culloden is by Roubilliac, and executed quite in his usual style as to its detail; but the earnest attitude of the Judge, stooping forward and extending his right band, and the noble character of his physiognomy, are sufficient to redeem many of those defects which all must perceive. The other statue-that of Blair, is another work of Chantry, and I think, a vastly superior one to the Melville. The drapery, indeed, is very faulty-it is narrow and scanty, and appears to cling to the limbs like the wet tunic of the Venus Anadyomene. But nothing can be grander than the attitude and whole air of the figure. The Judge is not represented as leaning forward, and speaking with eagerness like Forbes, but as bending his head towards the ground, and folded in the utmost depth of quiet meditation; and this, I think, shows the conception of a much greater artist than the Frenchman. The head itself is one of the most superb things that either Nature or Art has produced in modern times. The forehead is totally bald, and shaped in a most heroic style of beautythe nose springs from its arch with the firmness and breadth

* As one little trait, illustrative of Lord Melville's manner of conducting himself to the people of Scotland, I may mention, that to the latest period of his life, whenever he came to Edinburgh, he made a point of calling in person on all the old ladies with whom he had been acquainted in the days of his youth. He might be seen going about, and climbing up to the most aerial habitacula of ancient maidens and widows; and it is probable he gained more by this, than he could have gained by almost any other thing, even in the good opinion of people who might themselves be vainly desirous of having an interview with the great statesman

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