Various
International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1
"They have also divers conjurations: one they made at what tyme they had taken Captain Smyth prisoner, to know, as they reported, if any more of his countrymen would arrive there, and what they intended; the manner of yt Captain Smyth observed to be as followeth: first, soe sone as daie was shut in, they kindled a faire great fier in a lone howse, about which assembled seven priests, takinge Captain Smyth by the hand, and appointing him his seat; about the fier they made a kynd of enchanted circle of meale; that done, the chiefest priest, attyred as is expressed, gravely began to sing and shake his rattle, solemly rownding and marching about the fier, the rest followed him silently untill his song was done, which they all shutt up with a groane. At the end of the first song the chief priest layd downe certaine graines of wheat, and so continuyed howling and invoking their okeus to stand firme and powerful to them in divers varieties of songs, still counting the songs by their graynes, untill they had circled the fier three tymes, then they devided the graynes by certaine number with little sticks, all the while muttering some ympious thing unto themselves, oftentymes looking upon Captain Smyth. In this manner they contynued ten or twelve howers without any other ceremonies or intermission, with such violent stretching of their armes, and various passions, jestures, and simptoms, as might well seeme stang to him before whom they so conjured, and who every hower expected to be the hoast and one of their sacrifice. Not any meat did they eat untill yt was very late, and the night far spent. About the rising of the morning starr they seemed to have finished their work of darknes, and then drew forth such provision as was in the said howse, and feasted themselves and him with much mirth."
Some part of this narrative reminds us of the conjurations of the Scandinavian prophetess—before she poured forth "the Runic rhyme," as related by Bartolinus; we wish the writer had mentioned whether they moved eastward or westward. The prophetess we have just alluded to, grasped her staff carved with Runic characters, all the time, and singing a low monotonous chant, she proceeded, contrary to the course of the sun, round and round the charmed fire. The coincidence is, however, striking.
The first book ends with a high eulogy on the capabilities of the country; the probability of its containing great mineral wealth, as well as the certainty of its yielding abundant produce, "for yt hath (even beside necessary helpes, and commodities for life) apparent proufs of many naturall riches." The second book gives a very interesting account of the various attempts to colonize this portion of America, from the time of the discovery to the expedition of Lord Delawarr,—of which Mr. Major has given an excellent epitome in his introduction.
Looking at the period when this work was probably written, and especially at the arguments used by the earnest writer, we cannot but think it likely that it may have aided the Pilgrim Fathers in their determination to seek on the farther shores of the Atlantic that freedom which was denied them here. Although in manuscript, it may have been well known; for we have several instances of copies being made of works not intended for the press. In this instance, two copies are still extant; and the circumstance of that in the Ashmolean Collection being dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley, Lucy Hutchinson's father, affords strong probability that it would soon become known to the Puritans, since the wife of Sir Allen,—as we learn from her daughter's delightful memoir,—was a warm adherent to their cause. The incidental benefits which Strachey anticipates for the natives by their intercourse with civilized and Christian people were strongly dwelt on by the exiles at Amsterdam; and the very motto on the title-page of the work before us—"This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord"—was so often used by them, that in the record of their settlement at Plymouth it might almost have been taken for their motto. If such were the case, if the book before us gave, indeed, the impulse to that devoted band of settlers, how mighty was its influence:—for seldom have greater destinies been enshrined in a frail bark than those that freighted the May-flower!—Mr. Major merits much commendation for his careful editorship and his illustrative notes: nor should the excellent etchings by his lady be overlooked, inasmuch as they give additional interest to a very interesting volume.
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[From the Times.]
THE GREAT LORD MANSFIELD
Lord Campbell has learned to take a broad and manly view of the Profession which his own erudition adorns. In his temporary retirement he paid homage to literature; and literature, as is her wont, rewards her worshiper by extending his vision and emancipating his mind. A more intimate acquaintance with the transactions and passions of the past, a disinterested and unbiased survey of the lives and triumphs of his illustrious predecessors, has prepared our present Chief Justice for his eminence by teaching him, above all things, that judicial fame does not arise from a dull though perfect knowledge of the technicalities of law, and that there is all the difference in the world between a splendid ambition and the groveling prosecution of an ignoble trade.
It is certainly not extraordinary that the life of the great Earl of Mansfield has been contemplated by his biographer until a sense of humility has been engendered, and eloquent admiration for transcendent intelligence evoked. From among a host this luminary stands forth. Faultless he was not, as we shall presently see; but his failings, whatever they may have been, in no way obscured the luster of a genius that gave sublimity to the most prosaic of pursuits, and, in the teeth of prejudice, vindicated law against the toils of the narrow-minded and the opprobrium of ages. What Bacon proved to philosophy Mansfield in his day became, in a measure, to his own cherished science; and, as Coke affected commiseration for the author of the Novum Organum, so the fettered slaves of forms and rules in later times pitied and reproached Lord Mansfield for his declared unconquerable preference for the spirit of justice to the unilluminated letter of the law.
Nature and education prepared William Murray for the very highest forensic distinction, and his career is chiefly remarkable for the certain, though gradual steps, by which he reached it. His success was the legitimate and logical result of the means sedulously taken to obtain it. Had William Murray failed to win his race, it would have been because he had dropped down dead on the course, or violent hands had forbidden his progress. The conditions of victory were secured at starting, in his own person, let the competitors be whom they might. The spirit of the boy was as ambitious of worldly glory as the spirit of the man looked for undying fame; from first to last, from the beginning of the century until the close of it, the same application, the same aptitude, the same self-devotion, and the same clear, unruffled, penetrating judgment, were visible in Mansfield's useful and protracted life.
The younger son of a poor Scotch lord, whose family favored the Stuart cause, William Murray quitted his school at Perth on the 15th of March, 1718, being then thirteen years of age, and started on the back of a pony for the city of London. His destination was the house of an apothecary, who, emigrating from Perth, had settled in London, and was now commissioned to see the son of his former patron safely deposited at Westminster School, where it was hoped the young student would win, in due time, his Oxford scholarship. Upon the 8th of May, just two months after the journey was commenced, the pony completed his task, and the rider resolutely began his own. He soon distinguished himself by his classical attainments, and, according to Mr. Welsby, "his superiority was more manifest in the declamations than in any of the other exercises prescribed by the regulations of the school." In May, 1723, after a severe examination, William Murray took his place as first on the list of King's scholars who were to proceed to Christ Church.
At Oxford the student determined to go to the bar, and through the generosity of the first Lord Foley, who supplied him with funds, he was enabled to follow a profession for which, as he himself said, he felt "a calling." He had not been at Oxford a year before he became a member of the Hon. Society of Lincoln's inn, although he did not begin to keep his terms there until he had taken his bachelor's degree. At college William Murray was as diligent as he had been at school, and, intent upon renown, he took care to make all study subservient to the one great object of his life. He read whatever had been written on the subject of oratory,—translated into English every oration of Cicero, and retranslated it into Latin, until every thought and expression of the illustrious example was familiar to his mind. He applied himself vigorously to original composition, and strengthened his intellect by the perusal of works which do not ordinarily fall within the college course. He was still at Oxford in 1727, the year of George the First's death, and became the successful competitor for a prize when the students of the University were called upon, in the name of the Muses, to mourn over the urn of the departed Cæsar,—"of that Cæsar," as Mr. Macaulay has it, "who could not read a line of Pope, and who loved nothing but punch and fat women." A rival poet upon this occasion was a lad from Eton. Disappointment and vexation at defeat, it is said, rankled in this boy's bosom, and opened a wound which closed only with life. Be this as it may, the classic rivalry begun at school between Pitt and Murray became fiery strife between Chatham and Mansfield, fit for a civilized world to witness and to profit by.
From Christ Church to Lincoln's-inn was a transfer of abode, scarcely a change of habits or of life. Murray was four years nearer to his goal, but that goal had still to be reached, and could only be won by untiring, patient, and ceaseless endeavor. At Oxford he had attended lectures on the Pandects of Justinian, "which gave him a permanent taste for that noble system of jurisprudence." In his chambers he made himself thoroughly acquainted with ancient and modern history, applied himself diligently to ethics, to the study of Roman civil law, the foundation of jurisprudence, of international law, and of English municipal law. No drudgery was too laborious, no toil too dull. Expecting, from his northern connections, to be employed in appeals from Scotland, he made himself master of the law of that country, and when he was not engaged in these and similar pursuits, or at the Courts of Westminster listening to judgments, he would take his chief of all delights in the company of the juridical writers of France, "that he might see how the Roman and feudal laws had been blended in the different provinces of that kingdom." Not a moment was lost in making preparations for the victory which it was the purpose of his life to win.
Technical knowledge, however, came to enlighten and inform, not to burden and oppress. The mind of Murray rejoiced in freedom and exercised itself in light. Text-books were his handmaidens, he was not their slave. The exclusive labors of the great masters of his craft occupied his hours, but he still found time for other more interesting lore common to mankind. Craig, Bracton, Littleton, and Coke, all in their turns were trusty counselors and dear companions, but as welcome as any to his studious hearth was the living presence of Alexander Pope. Murray, while at Westminster, had been introduced to the great poet, and had been charmed by his exquisite powers of conversation. Pope was no less struck by the accomplished genius of the young Scot, "the silvery tones of whose voice," it is said, fell like a charm upon every ear. Pope, anxious for the success of the youth, visited him at his chambers, in order to teach him elocution. Once, says Lord Campbell, the young lawyer "was surprised by a gay Templar in the act of practicing the graces of a speaker at a glass, whilst Pope sat by in the character of preceptor." Teacher and pupil would spend hours together thus occupied. Mr. Pope, writes Bishop Warburton, "had all the warmth of affection for the great lawyer, and indeed no man ever more deserved to have a poet for his friend."
In 1730 Murray paid a short visit to the continent, and on the 23d of November in that year he was called to the bar in Lincoln's-inn hall. Never was lawyer better armed for the battle of life. How he had qualified himself for the practice of his profession we have attempted in our narrow space to show. With a rooted attachment to that profession, with a lofty ambition and noble desire to serve his country, and a consciousness of strength equal to the bravest undertaking; with a mind thoroughly imbued with the literature of Greece and Rome, as well as of his own country; with a perfect understanding of the codes of every civilized nation, ancient and modern; with an intimate knowledge and an accurate appreciation of the peculiarities of our mixed constitution; with a natural dignity of manner that commanded instant respect; with a clear persuasive power of oratory that never failed to win the sympathy of all to whom it was addressed; with a voice that in earlier days had been compared to the note of the nightingale; with almost every intellectual and physical gift which nature could confer, and with every gift gratefully received and assiduously improved, William Murray stood at the threshold of his career and waited calmly for his opportunity. It is sufficient to say that the opportunity came. Twelve years after Murray was called to the bar, he was appointed Solicitor-General by the Government which had risen upon the downfall of Sir Robert Walpole, and which knew how to estimate the value of so rare an acquisition.
The success of Murray in the House of Commons justified the reputation which the new Solicitor-General had already attained at the bar. His first speech, as member for Boroughbridge, fixed his position. He maintained it for fourteen years, when he quitted the lower house upon his elevation to the bench. When Murray accepted office under the Pelhams, another much more ardent and unscrupulous politician already in the House of Commons was writhing under the vexation of neglect. The Solicitor-General had met the ambitious youth before, and the recollection of their last parting was hardly likely to insure a cordial or a friendly recognition. Murray's first task in Parliament was to defend the employment of Hanoverian troops, 16,000 of whom had recently been taken into British pay. Pitt, at the head of the "Boys," as Walpole called the burning patriots whose services he had himself respectfully declined, and hounded on by the Jacobites and Tories, denounced the steps as "illegal, unconstitutional, a sacrifice of British to electoral interests, and a prelude to the introduction of despotism into this country." Pitt was created to denounce, Murray to defend. Overwhelming as the torrent of declamation and invective might be which Pitt knew so well how and when to pour forth, the barrier set up against it by the calm dignity, the perfect reasoning, the marvelous self-government, the exquisite tones, and conciliatory manner of Murray, was more than sufficient to protect him against submersion. A division taking place upon the Hanoverian question, Government found themselves in a large majority. Murray was pronounced to be a match for his rival, and George II. became suddenly as attached to the one as he had long hated and feared the other.
On the 3d of March, 1754, Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister, died, and, had Murray's ambition soared in that direction, he might at once have stepped into the vacant office. He had long been the prop of the Ministry in the House of Commons, and was by far the most sagacious member of the Government. Throughout his Parliamentary career, what has happily been called his "clear, placid, mellow splendor" had suffered no tarnish, and had not been obscured by a single cloud. Always ready, well informed, lucid in argument, and convincing in manner, he had virtually assumed the leadership in the House of Commons, and his elevation would in no way have altered the aspect or proceedings of that assembly. The nation respected him, and the monarch regarded him with more than common favor. Murray, however, coveted not the prize. Mr. Macaulay, referring to this period in one of his masterly essays, attributes the conduct of the Solicitor-General to moral infirmity. "The object of Murray's wishes," he says, "was the judicial bench. The situation of Chief Justice might not be so splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury, but it was dignified, it was quiet, it was secure; and therefore it was the favorite situation of Murray." Lord Campbell states the case more creditably, and, as we think, more fairly to Lord Mansfield. "From a high feeling," says the biographer, "that his destiny called him to reform the jurisprudence of his country, he sincerely and ardently desired to be placed on the bench, and the especial object of his ambition was to be Chief Justice of England." We remember that, whilst a lad, and destined by his parents for the church. Murray, of his own motion, dedicated himself to the study of the law, feeling a "calling" for that profession. Why Lord Mansfield had resisted every temptation in order to secure the eminence for which, it is not too much to say, he was in all respects better fitted than any who have won it, became evident enough within a year of his appointment to the bench. Moral courage he lacked; something nobler than its want led him to renounce the Premiership.
What Murray rejected the less capable and not over nice Duke of Newcastle Greedily seized. The Attorney-General, Sir Dudley Ryder, was elevated to the bench, and Murray, gaining a step in professional rank, was by so much nearer to the consummation of his hopes. Never was Ministry so thoroughly weak and so wretchedly unfortunate. The whole burden of defending it rested in the House of Commons upon the shoulders of the Attorney-General, and the feebleness of the Government was all the more painful from the manifest strength of the great master of sarcasm and invective, their unflinching opponent, growing in favor throughout the country, merciless in his attack at all times, but terrific in his onslaughts upon a foe worthy of his hatred, and capable of defense. Imagination cannot linger upon a finer picture than is presented in the persons of these mighty combatants; nor is the effect diminished by the fact that of their great achievements little remains beyond the bare tradition. We know that by a word, a gesture, a glance of his eagle eye, Pitt awed the House of Commons, and chilled it into death-like silence. We have heard how like a torrent his unpremeditated and impassioned oratory rushed into the hearts of men, expelling rooted convictions, and whatever else possessed them at the moment; how readily he spoke on all emergencies, how daring were his strange digressions, how apposite his illustrations, how magnificent and chivalric the form and structure of his thoughts—how madly spirit-stirring his high and stern appeals. We have read of the proud bearing of the austere yet gentle commoner, to whom it was a matter of sublime indifference whether in a debate he rose late or early, first or last, and who ever contented himself with simply following the current, and obeying the fine instinct of his own rapt mind, regardless of the speakers who had gone before, or were about to follow him. We have pictured to ourselves the commanding countenance, the characteristic action, the patrician manner that belonged to William Pitt as exclusively as his own wild and wayward genius; but records are wanting to establish all that we feel and know. Fragments of Pitt's oratory only have reached us, and of these but few can be pronounced wholly authentic. What that oratory must have been we learn from its effects. More is not vouchsafed us. What remains to us of Murray's speeches in Parliament is equally meager and unsatisfactory, but we may judge of his power by reflecting upon the character of the assailant with whom he successfully wrestled. There must surely have been wonderful capability of argument, vast knowledge, a faculty of persuasion irresistible in its winning grace, all combined in the man able, by the mere force of quiet intellectual skill, to bear the brunt of an assault which threatened demolition in its furious advance, and to turn aside blows intended for annihilation. Lord Chesterfield addressing his son, points to Pitt and Murray as to two great models for imitation. Contemporary history assigns to them the highest place among their fellows.
In 1756 Sir Dudley Ryder died, and Murray immediately claimed the vacant Chief Justiceship. The Duke of Newcastle was panic-stricken by the announcement. It has it said that from the beginning the Attorney-General had been the mainstay of the Government; but at this particular crisis his adherence was essential to its life. The nation was discontented and sullen, as well it might be. War, carried on in almost every part of the world, had resulted in lasting disgrace to England. Minorca had been lost to her through the folly or cowardice of an English admiral, and elsewhere ignominious defeat had attended her arms. Addresses from the Throne poured in, intimations of stopping the supplies were thrown out, and unmistakable references made to the conduct of the chiefs of the Government. Fox, the only capable Minister, resigned his office in fear and disgust, and, at the very moment when Newcastle turned to Murray as to his last hope and refuge in the coming storm, that cautious and resolute official respectfully demanded the promotion to which he had a right. Alarmed for his place and his head, the Duke promised the Attorney-General enough to make the fortunes of six if he would but forego his purpose. He should have the Duchy of Lancaster for life, tellerships and reversions without end for himself and his nephew, Lord Stormont; if he would only stay in the House of Commons until the address was carried he should have a pension of 6,000l. a-year; offers rose as Murray showed himself more firm. Temptation came in vain. Murray averred that he "would on no terms agree to remain in the House of Commons for one session longer, or one month, or one day, even to support the address;" he "never again would enter that assembly." If he could not be Chief Justice he would not be Attorney-General. That peremptory avowal was enough. To keep Murray from opposition, Newcastle conferred upon the country the only great boon he ever bestowed upon it, and made the Attorney-General Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The poor Duke gained little by the move. Forced in his naked helplessness to resign, he was succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire, who took care to appoint Pitt Secretary of State, and to give him the lead in the House of Commons.
Upon the 8th day of November, 1756, Murray was sworn in before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, and created a peer by the title of Baron Mansfield, of Mansfield, in the county of Nottingham, and three days afterward he sat for the first time in the Court of King's Bench. "Over that great court," says Lord Brougham, "he presided for thirty years, and his administration of its functions during that long period shed a luster alike upon the tribunal and the judge." During that period, too, but two cases occurred in which his opinion was not unanimously adopted by his brethren; and of the many thousand judgments which he pronounced but two were reversed. In all his time no bill of exceptions was ever tendered to his direction, and "all suitors sanguine in their belief of being entitled to succeed" were eager to bring their causes to be tried before him. There were drawbacks to Murray's complete success in the House of Commons; there were qualities which he lacked whilst practicing at the bar. Mansfield wanted nothing to make up the perfect portrait of a British judge. In the Legislature he was helpless in attack; and both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords he exhibited on more than one occasion a want of moral courage as humiliating to his friends as it proved profitable to his foes; at the bar, learned and able though he always was, yet wary circumspection even there cramped his powers and deprived him of the transcendent reputation which other advocates have earned. On the bench there was neither fear nor hesitation, neither undue caution nor lack of energy, to impede his great intelligence. There he sat, as above the common passions of humanity, surveying its doings with a mind unobscured by prejudice, as wide in its grasp as it was masculine it capability. His clearness of apprehension, his perspicuity of statement, his perfect self-command, his vast knowledge of every kind, were amongst the least of his qualifications for his high station. More preeminently than all was his heroic and almost chivalric devotion to the judicial office; his stern and unflinching love of justice, as distinguished from "the puny technicalities of an obscure walk;" his superiority to the favors of the great or to the clamors of the many, and his unquestioned spotless integrity. During a portion of his lengthened judicial career Lord Mansfield held a seat in the Cabinet, but nobody thought of questioning the purity of his judgments on that account. Toward the close of his judicial life Lord George Gordon was tried for Inciting the rioters who set fire to Lord Mansfield's house and destroyed his property. Lord Mansfield was the presiding judge on that memorable occasion, and it was upon his exposition of the law of high treason to the jury, and after his summing up, that Lord George Gordon was acquitted.
"The benefits conferred by this accomplished judge upon the Court and upon its suitors," says one of his biographers,—
"Were manifold and substantial. He began by at once so regulating the distribution of the business, as to remove all uncertainty of the matters which should be taken up each day, and to diminish both the expense, and the delay, and the confusion of former times. He restored to the whole bar the privilege of moving in turn, instead of confining this to the last day of the term. He almost abolished the tedious and costly practice of having the same case argued several times over, restricting such rehearings to questions of real difficulty and adequate importance." The benefits conferred upon the country were far greater. Burke, once quoting an argument of Solicitor-General, Murray, said that "the ideas of Murray go to the growing melioration of the law by making its liberality keep pace with the demands of justice and the actual concerns of the world—not restricting the infinitely diversified occasions of men and the rules of natural justice within artificial circumscriptions, but conforming our jurisprudence to the growth of our commerce and our empire."
The statement is just, and a finer panegyric it were impossible to write. Our limits, unfortunately, enable us only to indicate the achievements of Chief Justice Mansfield; but such indications must be given, however briefly. He found the common law of England a reproach, and, according to Professor Story, "he put England, America, and the whole civilized world under the deepest obligations" by the permanent improvement which he effected in the system. During the reign of George II. England had become the greatest manufacturing and commercial country in the world, but her jurisprudence had, in the meanwhile, made no provision whatever for the regulation of commercial dealings. When questions arose affecting purchases and sales, the affreightment of ships, marine insurances, bills of exchange, and promissory notes, it was impossible to decide them; there were no cases to refer to, no treatises to consult. Lord Mansfield grappled with the difficulty and overcame it. His judicial decisions supplied the deficiencies of law and became themselves law. His mode of procedure was as philosophical as it was bold. From every case that came before him he extracted a general principle of universal application, and availed himself of it not only to rule the particular case under consideration, but to serve as a guide in all similar cases hereafter; and he would enlarge upon the principle thus brought out until, as his contemporaries declare, all listeners were lost in admiration at the strength and stretch of his understanding. Lord Campbell tells us that the common law of England which Lord Mansfield had to administer upon his elevation to the bench, "was a system admirably adapted to the condition of England in the Norman and early Plantagenet reigns, whence it sprang up." As high an authority in America declares that
"Wherever commerce shall extend its social influences, wherever justice shall be administered by enlightened and liberal rules, wherever contracts shall be expounded upon the eternal principles of right and wrong, wherever moral delicacy and judicial refinement shall be infused into the municipal code, at once to persuade men to be honest and to keep them so; wherever the intercourse of mankind shall aim at something more elevating than that groveling spirit of barter in which meanness, and avarice, and fraud strive for the mastery over ignorance, credulity, and folly, the name of Lord Mansfield will be reverenced, not only for adapting the inefficient system which he found to the exigencies of his own age in his own country, but for furnishing forever the great laws founded upon everlasting truth and justice to the whole family of man."