species." But was that the question? Was it necessary to prove that there are a hundred other species of animals not more happy than the savage? Nevertheless, Rousseau's inevitable reply obtrudes: "L'espece humaine n'est pas, en cet égard, de pire condition que toutes les autres." The human species, in that regard, is in no worse position than all other animals.

A more serious difficulty presents itself: What, in his oldage, becomes of the man of nature? Rousseau tells us that, among old men who work but little, and perspire scarcely at a", the necessity to use food diminishes with the power to procure it, and that lie in such cases passes away almost imperceptibly. Old men, it is ue, among civilized races, work but little, for the reason that their wants a ́e generally provided for, and because they are no longer capable of labor; Lut in a state of nature are they, less than younger men, obliged to undergo fatigue to repulse danger, or to defend themselves, naked and without a 'ms, against their enemies and the beasts of prey? Is it less ne essary for them to jump, to run, to climb? Do they find the lions and the tigers less ferocious? If, instead of a hauuch of vension, the old savage is able content himself with a rabbi, should he therefore be less swift of foot?

One of the prominent characteristics which Rousseau recognizes among the savages, is improvidence-the facility with which they yield to first impressions; and at the same time he indicates the absence of vice as the principal cause of their happiness. This is a manifest contradiction; a vice is nothing but the giving one's self up to an act which affords immediate pleasure, the evil of which being, generally, more or less distant. Besides, is the absence of vice among savages less contradicted by facts than many other o? the assertions we have occasion to examine?

The attachment which savages have shown to their mode of living, has been, by some, received as a proof of the superiority of a state of barbarisn over that of civilization. By this mode of reasoning, there is no vicious habit of which we can not prove the excellence; for where is the man to be found who does not cling to the vices with which he is infected? Men have left civilized life to dwell among savages; and this fact has moreover served as an argument against civilization; but we have no certain means of ascertaining the causes which have determined the conduct of individuals in all such cases, and if we are to credit the testimony of many travellers, it will be found difficult to reconcile their statements to any proof of the advantages of a savage over a civilized life. According to many authorities,* such Europeans as have been found living among the savages, had been generally attracted by the lascivious habits which, in that state, could be, without restraint, indulged. We have accounts, also, of transported convicts, who, after having escaped, have returned to resume their labors and their chains,

* Charlevoix, Volney, De la Rochefoucauld, etc.

notwithstanding the severe punishment which is invariably the penalty of their running away. Their return under such circumstances, does not prove much in favor of barbarism.

For the present, we shall not continue the examination of this subject. If enough has not already been said to convince those who are the admirers of a savage life, we are confident that for those whose judgments are not influenced by the glitter of style or by the harmony of words, but rather by the truths conveyed, we have already said too much.

Atrocious Judges. Lives of Judges infamous as Tools of Tyrants and Instruments of Oppression. Compiled from the Judicial Biographies of Lord JOHN CAMPBELL. Edited by RICHARD HILDRETH. New-York and Auburn: MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN. 1856.

NOTHING can be more instructive than an examination of the working of England's system of judicature. So much of our own is drawn from it; we are so deeply indebted to the example of its errors, in teaching us to throw around our own new safeguards for the liberties of the people, that every exhibition of the sins of that system, is of immense value to us. True, we are in no danger of intimidation from frowning kings and tyrants; our judges may sit calmly on their benches, dispensing even-handed justice without the fear of a Plantagenet or Stuart. Knights of the bloody hand, or mer cenary ruffians, at some king's command, may not now stalk into the audience-chamber and relieve the judge of all doubt on the subject of his decision, by informing him what the king his master wishes him to decide. The day of brute violence has passed away, but we have a more fearful, because a more insidious and more omnipresent tyranny, to dread at the present time-the tyranny of public opinion-public opinion manufactured by mad fanatics for a mad purpose, and threatening to overthrow all law, under the insidious disguise of love to man and his rights, and devotion to man's well-being in the care, by law, of his morality. In view of this danger, the more deadly because it insidiously puts on the disguise of

liberal principles, we recommend this partial reprint from Lord Campbell's Lives of Chancellors and Judges of England.

We may learn from it how fatal to the liberties of our country it will be, when our judges forget that they sit to administer the laws of the land, as they stand on the statute-book, unterrified by the bullying, and unseduced by the siren flatterers of manufactured public opinion. The extracts from Lord Campbell commence with a sketch of Brabacon, a Judge under Edward I., in the thirteenth century. The only remarkable feature in this judge's career seems to have been his employment by Edward to contrive some legal scheme for the assertion of that monarch's claim upon the neighboring kingdom of Scotland.

"Edward I., arbitrator by mutual consent between the aspirants to the Crown of Scotland, resolved to set up a claim for himself as liege lord of that kingdom, and Brabacon was employed, by searching ancient records, to find out any plausible grounds on which the claim could be supported. He accordingly travelled diligently both through the Saxon and Norman period, and-by making the most of military advantages obtained by kings of England over kings of Scotland, by misrepresenting the nature of homage which the latter had paid to the former for possessions held by them in England, and by blazoning the acknowledgment of feudal subjection extorted by Henry II. from William the Lion when that prince was in captivity, without mentioning the express renunciation of it by Richard I.-he made out a case which gave high delight to the English court. Edward immediately summoned a Parliament to meet at Norham, on the south bank of the Tweed, marched thither at the head of a considerable military force, and carried Mr. Justice Brabacon along with him as the exponent and defender of his new suzeraineté.

"A public notary and witnesses were in attendance, and in their presence the assumed vassals were formally called upon to do homage to Edward as their suzerain, of which a record was to be made for a lasting memorial. The Scots saw too late the imprudence of which they had been guilty in choosing such a crafty and powerful arbitrator. For the present they refused the required recognition, saying that they must have time for a deliberation, and to consult the absent members of their different orders.' Brabacon, after advising with the king, consented that they should have time until the following day, and no longer. They insisted on further delay, and showed such a determined spirit of resistance, that their request was granted; and the first day of June following was fixed for the ceremony of the recognition. Brabacon allowed them to depart; and a copy of his paper, containing the proofs of the alleged superiority and direct dominion of the English kings over Scotland, was put into their hands. He then returned to the south, where his presence was required to assist in the administration of justice, leaving the Chancellor Burnel to complete the transaction. Although the body of the Scottish nobles, as well as the body of the Scottish people, would resolutely have withstood the demand, the competitors for the throne, in the hopes of gaining Edward's favor, successively acknowledged him as their liege lord, and their example was followed by almost the whole of those who then constituted the Scottish Parliament."

The text of this work, as might be expected from Lord Campbell's station and ability, contains much entertaining and instructive history. Mr. Hildreth, the editor, wishing to relieve the tedium of dry history, puts in, in the shape of footnotes to the page, the most delightful lot of comicalities we have seen since Hood's. Being intended as comicalities it is not to be expected that they should be either so elegant or dignified as history. For instance to the last sentence quoted above, he appends this funny note: "Just like our Northern candidates for the Presidency, and the dough-face (?) politicians who contrive to get chosen to Congress by Northern constituencies, whose rights they may barter away and betray." Apropos of the Bruce's splendid victory at Bannockburn mentioned in the text, Mr. Hildreth notes thus: "May the pending attempts of the Southern States, countenanced and supported by the Federal Judges, to establish a superiority and direct dominion over the North, be met and repelled with similar spirit and success!" Shade of Bruce; what bathos! Poor Lord Campbell little thought his "Lives" would ever furnish Yankee editors with matter for such stupendous jokes.

One of the biggest judicial rascals, undoubtedly, of whom Lord Campbell has given an account was William Scroggs. He was as remarkable for his ability as he was infamous for his venality and baseness. "With honorable principles and steady application he might have left an historical reputation. * *He could both speak and write our language better than any lawyer of the seventeenth century, Francis Bacon alone excepted.

*

With the notorious Jeffreys our readers are probably very well acquainted. We shall, therefore, confine our extracts from this work to such as relate to Sroggs, of whom

"It was positively asserted in his lifetime, and it has been often repeated since, that Scroggs was the son of a butcher, and that he was so cruel as a judge because he had been himself accustomed to kill calves and lambs when he was a boy. Yet it is quite certain that this solution of Scroggs's taste for blood is a pure fiction, for he was born and bred a gentleman. His father was a squire, of respectable family and good estate, in Oxfordshire. Young Scroggs was several years at a grammar school, and he took a degree with some credit in the University of Oxford, having studied first at Oriel, and then at Pembroke College. He was intended for the Church, and, in quiet times, might have died respected as a painstaking curate, or as Archbishop of Canterbury. But, the civil war breaking out while he was still under age, he enlisted in the king's cause, and afterwards commanded a troop of horse, which did good service in several severe skirmishes. Unfor tunately, his morals did not escape the taint which distinguished both men and officers on the Cavalier side. The dissolute habits he had contracted

unfitted him entirely for the eclesiastical profession, and he was advised to try his luck in the law. He had a quick conception, a bold manner, and an enterprising mind; and prophecies were uttered of his great success if he should exchange the cuirass for the long robe.

"He practised in the King's Bench, where, although he now and then made a splashy speech, his business by no means increased in the same ratio as his debts. 'He was,' says Roger North, 'a great voluptuary, his debaucheries egregious, and his life loose; which made the Lord Chief-Justice Hale detest him.' Thinking that he might have a better chance in the Court of Common Pleas, where the men in business were very old and dull, he took the degree of the coif, and he was soon after made a King's Sergeant.

"What was of more importance to his advancement, he was recommended to the Earl of Danby, the reigning prime minister, as a man that might be useful to the government if he were made a judge. In consequence, on the 23d of October, 1676, he was knighted, and sworn in a justice of the Court of Common Pleas."

To forward certain schemes of the Court party, Scroggs having been knighted, was sworn into the office of Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, and soon earned his bloody fame.

"The first of the Popish plot judicial murders-which are more disgraceful to England than the massacre of St. Bartholomew's is to France-was that of Stayly, the Roman Catholic banker. Being tried at the bar of the Court of King's Bench, Scroggs according to the old fashion, which had gone out during the Commonwealth, repeatedly put questions to the prisoner, attempting to intimidate him, or to involve him in contradictions, or to elicit from him some indiscreet admission of facts. A witness having stated that he had often heard the prisoner say he would lose his blood for the king, and speak as loyally as man could speak,' Scroggs exclaimed, 'That is when he spoke to a Protestant! In summing up, having run himself out of breath by the violence with which he declaimed against the Pope and the Jesuits, he thus apologised to the jury:

"Excuse me, gentlemen, if I am a little warm. When things are transacted so closely, and our king is in great danger, and religion is at stake, I may be excused for being a little warm. You may think it better, gentlemen, to be warm here than in Smithfield. Discharge your consciences as you ought to do. If guilty, let the prisoner take the reward of his crime, for perchance it may be a terror to the rest. I hope I shall never go to that heaven where men are made saints for killing kings.'

"I must not run the risk of disgusting my readers by a detailed account of Scroggs's enormities on the trials of Coleman, Ireland, Whitebeard, Langhord, and the other victims whom he sacrificed to the popular fury under pretense that they were implicated in the Popish plot. Whether sitting in his own court at Westminster, or at the Old Bailey in the city of London, as long as he believed that government favored the prosecutions, by a display of all the unworthy arts of cajoling and intimidation he secured convictions. A modern historian, himself a Roman Catholic priest, says, with temper and discrimination: 'The Chief-Justice Scroggs, a lawyer of profligate habits and inferior acquirements, acted the part of prosecutor rather than of judge. To the informers he behaved with kindness, even with deference, suggesting to them explanations excusing their contradictions, and repelling the impu