smith, a project of a musket, of greater power and much less size than that in ordinary use, the gunsmith pointed out to him its defects, and observed, that

a Mr. Fearne, an obscure law-man, in Breame's "buildings, Chancery-lane, had invented a musket, "which, although defective, was much nearer to the at"tainment of the object."

Mr. Fearne had composed a treatise in the Greek language, on the Greek accents: another, on the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. He mentioned to the Reminiscent, that, when he resolved to dedicate himself to the study of the law, he burned his profane library, and wept over its flames and that the works which he most regretted, were the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom to the people of Antioch, and the Comedies of Aristophanes.

Of the transcendent merit of the Essay on Contingent Remainders, there is but one opinion: the Reminiscent's edition of it appears to have been favourably received: he cannot flatter himself that it has added to the intrinsic value of the work, unless it has been by pointing out its beautiful method and analytical arrangement, which, except by persons familiar both with the subject and the work, were, from the mode of its publication, seldom observed.

XI.

FORENSIC ELOQUENCE.

LORD MANSFIELD-LORD HARDWICKE-LORD CAMDENLORD THURLOW-LORD ROSSLYN-SIR WILLIAM GRANT LORD ELDON-LORD KENYON.

ANOTHER legal publication of the Reminiscent, if it deserve that appellation, is a short Essay on the cha

racter of lord Mansfield, composed by him at the request of the late Mr. Seward, and inserted by that gentleman in his Anecdotes. An insertion of part of it in this place, and an account of the forensic eloquence of some other distinguished personages of our times, may not be unacceptable to the readers of these pages.

XI. 1.

Lord Mansfield.

LORD MANSFIELD was sent, at the usual age, to the university of Oxford. He applied to the study of the classics, and afterward to the study of law, with great diligence. He mentioned to an uncle of the Reminiscent, that he had translated many of Cicero's Orations into English, and then translated them back into Latin. He also said, that, while he was a student in the Temple, he and some other students had regular meetings to discuss legal questions; that they prepared their arguments with great care; and that he afterward found many of these useful to him, not only at the bar, but upon the bench.

For some time after his call to the bar, he was without any practice. A letter from Mr. Pope refers to one received from him, in which he had mentioned this circumstance with good humour. A speech, which he made as counsel at the bar of the house of lords, first brought him into notice. Upon this, business poured in upon him from all sides; and he himself was heard to say, that he never knew the difference between a total want of employment and a gain of 3,000l. a year.

To this speech Mr. Pope alludes in the following lines:

"Graced as thou art, with all the power of words;

So known, so honoured, at the house of lords."

The second of these lines has been considered a

great falling off from the first.

They were thus paro

died by Colly Cibber :

"Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,

And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks."*

To the chambers in the King's Bench Walks, Mr. Pope has an allusion in one of the least read, but not least beautiful, of his compositions,-his imitation of the first ode of the fourth book of Horace :

"To Number Five direct your doves,

There spread round Murray all your blooming loves;
Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With every sprightly, every decent part:

Equal, the injur'd to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend.

He, with an hundred arts refin'd,

Shall spread thy conquests over half the kind;

To him, each rival shall submit,

Make but his riches equal to his wit."

The two last verses allude to an unsuccessful address made by his lordship, in the early part of his life, to a lady of great wealth. Mr. Pope adverts to it in the following lines:

*Few will defend "the house of lords," thus arraigned by Cibber-but,-in the verse,

Romanos rerum dominos, gentemque togatam,

is the last hemistich,

And, in the verses,

En hujus, nate, auspiciis illa incluta Roma
Imperium terris, animos æquabit Olympo,
Septemque una sibi muro circumdabit arces!

is the third,--more defensible?

"Shall one, whom nature, learning, birth, conspir'd
To form, not to admire, but be admir'd,

Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,
Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth?"

His lordship learned much of special pleading from Mr. Justice Dennison, and much of the law of property from Mr. Booth. He confined his practice to the court of chancery. His command of words, and the gracefulness of his action, formed a striking contrast with the manner of speaking of some of his rivals, who were equally distinguished by the extent and depth of their legal knowledge, and their unpleasant enunciation.

After he had filled, with great applause, the offices of solicitor and attorney-general, he was created chief justice of the king's bench, in May 1756, on the decease of sir Dudley Ryder. He held that high situation during two and thirty years.

On every occasion, he was equally attentive to the bar and the suitors of the court. In all he said or did, there was a happy mixture of good-nature, good-humour, elegance, ease, and dignity. His countenance was indescribably beautiful; none could behold it without reverence and regard. An engraving by Bartolozzi of a portrait of his lordship by sir Joshua Reynolds, presents a strong resemblance of him in a very advanced age. Nature had given him an eye of fire; its last lingering gleam is exquisitely exhibited in the engraving. His voice, till it was affected by the years which passed over him, was perhaps unrivalled in its sweetness and the mellifluous variety of its tones. There was a similitude between his action and Mr. Garrick's; and, in the latter part of his life, his voice discovered something of that gutturalness, by which Mr. Garrick's was distinguished.

He spoke slowly, sounding distinctly every letter of every word. In some instances he had a great peculiarity of pronunciation-" authority" and "attach"ment," two words of frequent use in the law, he always pronounced awtawrity and attaichment. His expressions were sometimes low; he did not always observe the rules of grammar; there was great confusion in his periods, very often beginning without ending them, and involving his sentences in endless parentheses; yet, such was the charm of his voice and action, and such the general beauty, propriety, and force of his expressions, that, while he spoke, all these defects passed unnoticed. No one ever remarked them, who did not obstinately confine his attention and observation to them.

Among his contemporaries, he had some superiors in force, some equals in persuasion; but in insinuation, he was without a rival or a second. This was particularly distinguishable in his speeches from the bench. He excelled in the statement of a case; Mr. Burke said of it, "that it was, of itself, worth the argument of any other "man." He divested it of all unnecessary circumstances; brought together all that were of importance; placed them in so striking a point of view, and connected them by observations so powerful, but which appeared to arise so naturally from the facts themselves, that frequently the hearer was convinced before his lordship began to argue. When his lordship argued, he showed equal ability, but it was a mode of argumentation almost peculiar to himself. His statement of the case carried the hearers to the very train of thought into which he wished them to fall, when they should attend to his reasonings. Through these he accompanied them, leading them insensibly to every observation favourable to the conclusion,