Mr. C. Sinclair Cullen, in a passage of his proposed Reform of the Bankrupt Court, quoted by Eunomus, after accusing the lawyers of being infected with dandyism, and applying a quotation to those who concern themselves with legislation, that when they should be making of laws, they will be knitting of nets,' proceeds: 'When I read the criticisms of those who

Bounded by nature, narrowed still by art,

A trifling head, and a contracted heart,

attack the opinions and deride the style of Mr. Bentham, I am the more struck with his stupendous superiority of mind, and his enviable superiority of feeling. Men of ordinary capacities fancy there cannot be any great wisdom beyond their own narrow ken- that there can be no altitudes above their reach- - no depths which they cannot fathom-no world which they cannot hold in their dirty little hands. Such men are yet more shrunken in their capacities by the worldly interests and feelings which continually absorb and degrade their contemplations and faculties. The venerable Bentham has preserved the purity of his soul and the lucidness of his judgment by a hermit life-having early withdrawn himself from the sullying and corrupting assaults and seductions of that selfinterest which a worldly life presents to other men at every turn and at every moment; and, emancipated from their power and exempted from their taint, has calmly and almost superhumanly contemplated and judged the motives, and duties, and powers of men - dwelling with peace, and wisdom, and virtue, in the shrine of his renowned and noble seclusion. But I let my pen drop with humility; — suddenly ashamed at my presumption in fancying that I can offer any worthy homage to a person so celebrated in all quarters of the world as a benefactor to mankind.'

In the first of these letters of Eunomus, the writer undertakes to show that the state of parties in England is peculiarly unpropitious to reform; and of the profession, he says,

'I must also indicate the existing state of the learning of the Bar, as equally infelicitous; since, among the countless writers. who have taken up the pen since this reform was first announced, scarcely one has shown any claim to the character of a jurist. Of practical knowledge we have had much; of honest and manly desire to ameliorate the law still more; - but of real juridical learning, (with a very few exceptions,) none at all; and of general learning nearly as little; for the day is not now for that claim to be supported by an extract from Horace; or a reference to Diodorus Siculus, from Mr. Butler's note to Coke Littleton. In short,

sir, it is in vain to mince the matter;- so low are the literary attainments of the Bar, that of the writers on law reform not one in four has been guiltless even of bad English.'

In the second letter on the Court of Chancery, the state of the profession is again introduced, as one of the obstacles to reformation upon any liberal and comprehensive system:

"The public, sir, wholly unacquainted with the principles and theory of jurisprudence, believe to this hour that it is the constitution and business of Courts of Equity to administer some sort of notional right and moral justice between suitors, independent of pre-established and technical rules, and in defiance of them, if they would work apparent wrong. No one takes the trouble to show them the impossibility of such a state of things in the maturity of social existence, however practical and common it may be in its infancy. While this continues to be the case, all their notions and discussions respecting the state and defects of our judicial institutions will be infected with the same amount of radical error and fallacy which, thirty years ago, infected the popular notions and arguments on all the materia of political economy. The truth is that lawyers themselves do not understand the subject. They are, generally speaking, mere practitioners; neither the circumstances nor habits of the country having hitherto led them to the investigation of the rationale of jurisprudence. A 'crack' English lawyer, even the great mover of legal reform himself, placed by the side of a thorough-bred French, Belgian, or German jurist, would in half an hour have fairly come to the end of his whole stock of thought and information on the subject, and have made a great fool of himself into the bargain, although his companion might perhaps have too much address to let him discover it. It is in the nature of ignorance, whether it be found among the wise or the simple, to be marvellously unweening of what it has to learn, and of the vastness of its own negation; and so it is with the bulk of English lawyers, being utterly notionless of the vast strides that the human mind has been making on the rationale of jurisprudence all over the continent of Europe, they remain unmoved and stationary, wrapped up in the all-sufficiency of their own practical attainments. In return, the continent gazes at them with surprize and contempt, and exclaims with the writer in the Annales de Législation: -En Angleterre, la plupart des jurisconsultes renfermés dans leur greffes, et ne connoissant que leurs archives, paraissent à peine s'appercevoir du bruit de nos sectes; la loi n'est pour eux qu'une profession.'

One of the questions discussed in the second letter is, whether jurisdiction in equity and at law, should centre in the same tribunals, a question recently much agitated in England, and on which the friends of reform are divided. Eunomus says it is difficult to assign any satisfactory reason to the continental jurists, why these jurisdictions should be separated, for, say they, if the doctrines as to right and obligations are the same in both courts, why separate the administration? If different, then the community presents a very singular spectacle of two sets of laws in force at the same time, of which the plaintiff takes his choice when he seeks his remedy. This dilemma is the more perplexing, as the English treatises, as Eunomus justly says, afford no satisfactory definition of the powers and jurisdiction of equity courts, and he might have added, nor of any others. We defy any lawyer to point out any distinct and complete description of the jurisdiction and boundaries of the English courts. No person can examine the subject without being at once struck with the cloudy dubiousness that hangs over the confines of the admiralty and instance courts, in respect to those of the common law. Any one may satisfy himself of this by looking over the account of the different courts in Bacon's Abridgment. He will find himself directly lost in a wilderness of particulars; and seek in vain for the great outlines of a complete distribution of the entire juridical administration.

But Eunomus, in the letter in question, speaks only of the Court of Chancery, and remarks very justly, that the obscurity and confusion respecting the limits of the law and equity jurisdiction, perplexes the discussion of the question just stated, why the two should not be assigned to the same tribunals. He then points out what are the characteristics of the chancery jurisdiction, as distinguished from that of common law, and in doing this he rejects the too common error of supposing two sets of doctrines or rules of right, and in support of his rejection of this distinction, he cites the authority of Blackstone, and it is really surprising to find that many lawyers in this country as well as in England, who have studied the Commentaries, no doubt very faithfully, but forgotten much of what they have studied, still cling to the now old error, though it was once in some degree a truth, that equity and law are administered from different codes. He enumerates, as the distinguishing characteristics of this jurisdiction, what all jurists who will take the trouble of giving any attention to the subject will agree to be such, namely, a difference in the process and pleadings; in the mode of proof; and the remedy. The doctrines as to rights and obligations, are the same in law and equity,

but equity has a different mode of coming at the facts and administering relief, and it administers relief in cases which cannot be reached by the forms of proceeding at common law. And why should not courts of common law be invested with power to proceed according to principles of equity, where the case requires it? Eunomus gives but one reason which is applicable in England, but not so at least in all of the United States, namely, that the amount of business renders it necessary to make some distribution, and he introduces the doctrine of the division of labor, as the only just ground of the distinction of the jurisdictions. As the modes of proceeding in chancery and at common law are different, by separating the profession into distinct bodies, devoted respectively to these different modes of practice, the labor of acquiring adequate professional skill is abridged, and the chance is, that the professors of each will be more accomplished in their particular branch of practice, than they would be in both branches, if pursued by the profession in common.

This reason will apply very well in the metropolis of England, where the ultimate jurisdiction throughout the kingdom, and indeed throughout the empire, centres. But the reason is less applicable to any part of the United States, and we do not see that there is any advantage whatever in separating the jurisdictions in this country. New York and Pennsylvania would be the only states to which the reason given by Eunomus would apply in any degree. In the latter state the equity jurisdiction is very sparingly introduced, and though in New York it is distinct, we have never understood that there is any distinction of practice in the profession.

The author proposes in his next letter, in reference to this question, to examine the practice in those of the United States in which the two jurisdictions are united in the same tribunal. We look for this letter with some interest. We are not without apprehension that the writer may fall into the common error of his countrymen of not sufficiently understanding the subject, in writing upon any thing relating to this country, owing to the imperfect means of obtaining the requisite information in England, and, also, not unfrequently, to mistaken notions of our institutions. We are glad to learn, however, that some English jurists have recently taken measures to supply themselves with our juridical literature, which, independently of the reports, it must be confessed, lies, as yet, within a very narrow compass. But we are certain, from the specimens already given, that whatever the author shall say upon the subject, will be characterized by comprehensiveness of thinking, vigor, and acuteness.

219

INTELLIGENCE AND MISCELLANY.

Shipper's Lien on the Ship for Damage to the Goods. The following very important case has been recently decided by Judge Ware, in the District Court of the United States, in Maine.

By the marine law the cargo is bound to the vessel and the vessel to the cargo. The master has a lien on the merchandise for his freight, and the merchant has a lien on the vessel for the damage he may sustain from the non-delivery of his goods, and for any injury they may have received from the fault of the master or the

crew. Crane v. The Rebecca.

He may enforce his lien by process in rem in the admiralty. 1b.

Cases in the General Court of Virginia, November, 1830. A correspondent has obligingly furnished us with notes of the principal decisions of the General Court of Virginia, at the November term, 1830: Present, Justices Stuart, Brockenbrough, Johnston, Smith, Allen, Daniel, Semple, Upshur, Field, May, and Lomax; as reported in the Richmond Enquirer, of November 26th, from which the following abstracts are made.

A party being indicted and convicted under 1 R. C. p. 428, c. 3, s. 30, for carrying four slaves named II. S. P. and Hyat, the property of E. D. and one named G. the property of L. J. D. out of Virginia, without the consent of said owners, and with the design of depriving them of their said slaves; a writ of error was petitioned for, on the ground that, at the Examining Court, the defendant was, as appeared by the record, examined for so carrying away four slaves, named H. S. P. and Harriet, and one slave named G. belonging to such owners respectively. The petition was rejected by the Court unanimously. Thomas v. The Commonwealth.

A justice of a County Court, who leaves the state with the intention of settling in another state, but after staying nine months in such other state, without, however, having any established residence there, returns to Virginia, thereby loses his office of a justice of the County Court. Poulson v. The Justices of Accomach. See also Chew v. The Justices of Spottsylvania.

A writ of error will not be granted to reverse a judgment against the defendant, in an indictment for nuisance, by raising a mill