walls, men who possess only the show of justice, and who have condemned us to death contrary to law," &c. &c. The attorney-general opened the prosecution. His lordship conducted his defence himself. A petty fraud, he said, committed in his own family, had first drawn his attention to the laws against felony, when he found that it constituted a capital crime, though the sum taken was no more than eighteenpence. He then entered into a history of our criminal law, from the time of Athelstan, for the purpose of proving that code in its present state to be by much too sanguinary. This, he said, was a subject which struck his heart. He had communicated his ideas to Lord Mansfield, and to the Recorder, who had admitted their propriety, and to Judge Gould, who had desired him to put his thoughts on paper. This was all he had done in the present instance. His idea was only to enlarge the powers of the judges; though wicked lawyers had attributed to him another intention; and he assured the court, that if he had time to send for his books, he could show them that every word of his pamphlet was actually in the Bible! He complained very much of those vexatious prosecutions which were instituted against him. He quoted Blackstone's Commentaries, book iv. cap. 23, who says, "that informations filed ex officio, by the attorney-general, are proper only for such enormous misdemeanors as peculiarly tend to disturb or endanger the king's government, and in the punishment or prevention of which a moment's delay would be fatal." This, he said, had by no means appeared in his case, as one of the informations against him had been pending for ten, and the other for six months. This extraordinary mode was therefore a grievance on him, which was not justified, as it appeared, by any pressing necessity. He exhorted Judge Buller not to lose the present opportunity of instructing the jury on the disputed point, whether they were to judge of law as well as of fact. He then complained that spies had been set over him for several months; and concluded with repeating his declaration, that his object had been reformation, not tumult. The jury without hesitation returned their verdict, guilty.

A second information was then read, which stated, as libellous and seditious, two paragraphs which appeared in the Public Advertiser, relating the particulars of a visit paid by Count Cagliostro, accompanied by Lord George Gordon, to Monsieur Barthelemy, the French chargé des affaires, enlarging on the merits and sufferings of Count Cagliostro, and concluding with some severe reflections on the French queen as the leader of a faction, and on Comte D'Adhemar, the French ambassador, and Monsieur Barthelemy, as the insidious agents of the queen and her party. The attorney-general opened the case, by mentioning how necessary it was that all foreigners, particularly those in an official situation, should be protected equally in their property and character. The honour of the nation, he remarked, was concerned in this proceeding If it was not effectual, no foreigner of distinction would visit a country where he was exposed without resource to indiscriminate and unmerited censures on his private conduct and character. The present publication, he observed, bore with it such a palpable tendency to affect in a dangerous degree the amity existing be tween the two nations, that the French ambassador had of himself taken up the business, when it was properly determined by his ma

jesty's servants that it should be punished by an official prosecution. Lord George Gordon then entered on his defence, if such it could be called, as he contented himself with re-asserting and justifying every thing which he had written. There did, he said, exist a faction in Paris guided by the queen, and the Comte Cagliostro was actually persecuted for his adherence to the Cardinal de Rohan. Comte D'Adhemar, he proceeded to say, was a low man of no family, but yet pos sessed of some cleverness; in short, said his lordship, whatever Jenkin son is in England, Comte D'Adhemar is in France. (This allusion to Lord Hawkesbury created universal laughter.) The character of the French queen, he said, was as notorious as that of the empress of Russia. He was proceeding in this strain, until the court was again compelled to interfere. After a short charge from the bench, the jury instantly returned their verdict, guilty.

His lordship endeavoured to evade sentence by retiring to Holland, but he was sent back from that country to England, and apprehended at Liverpool while suffering under the initiatory rite of Judaism, which religion his lordship had seen proper to embrace. On being brought up to the bar of the court he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Newgate for the first libel; and to two years further, after the expiration of that time, for the second offence; also to pay a fine of £500, and find sureties for his good behaviour for the term of fourteen years. These sentences were perhaps unnecessarily severe; as his lordship's intellects were evidently impaired at the time, and he had ceased to be a formidable character as a public leader. They were however carried into execution, and his lordship was only relieved from imprisonment by the hand of death. He died in Newgate prison, after a delirious fever, on the 1st of November, 1793

John Hely Hutchinson.

BORN A. D. 1715.-DIED A. D. 1794.

THIS extraordinary character was a native of Ireland, and educated at the university of Dublin. In 1748 he was called to the Irish bar, and soon obtained a silk-gown, having assumed a leading place from his first appearance amongst his brethren of the long robe. He materially increased his influence by marrying a rich heiress, whose name of Hutchinson he added to his own. In the Irish parliament he distinguished himself as the great antagonist of the eloquent and patriotic Flood.

In 1774 he was appointed secretary of state for Ireland, and provost of Trinity college, Dublin. From this period until his death in 1794, his career was marked by unquestionable talent, but an unblushing and unbounded rapacity for office and emolument. At a time when he was already in possession of several lucrative posts, he applied for some further emoluments to Lord Townshend, who jestingly told him that he had nothing to offer him, but a majority of dragoons; which the secretary, it is said, unblushingly accepted; and had its duties performed by a deputy, to whom he allowed such a remuneration as left a considerable surplus out of the pay. On his first attendance at a levee, in

"That is your

England, the king asked Lord North who he was. majesty's principal secretary of state for Ireland," replied the witty premier, a man, on whom if your majesty was pleased to bestow the united kingdom, would ask for the Isle of Man as a potato-garden."

A contemporary says of Mr Hutchinson: "He was a leading man in the senate, and commanded attention whenever he spoke. He had the clearest head that ever conceived, and the sweetest tongue that ever uttered the suggestions of wisdom: but he had his faults, and was always deemed what is understood by the world, a rank courtier. When he was appointed provost of the university of Dublin, which situation, since the reign of Elizabeth, who founded the college, was always filled by an unmarried man, the Celibacy of Fellows, who were interdicted from conjugal rites, rose up in arms against him. Some of the best satirical writings, in prose and verse, that the Irish ever read, made their appearance on this occasion, in the daily prints, and were afterwards published by the title of Pranceriania,' Mr Hutchinson for many antecedent years bearing the name of Prancer. The conflict in the university was so great after he became provost, that he procured a decree permitting the fellows to marry. This, however, did not answer; a most formidable party was raised against him. The press teemed with pasquinades, and even the sizars of the house insulted him. "His power and his wealth gained him many adherents, and he stemmed the torrent of opposition with resolution and with success, as to strength of party; but on an examination for a fellowship, where he was to pass the first opinion, in respect to the answer given by one of the candidates to a question, he unfortunately said Bene, when all the senior fellows, who pronounced their decision afterwards, said Non omnino. In the university, as a man of literature, he was never esteemed; as a lawyer, an orator, and a good companion, he ranked highly in the estimation of his friends and the public.

"He was a man of high spirit and of undoubted courage, if setting no value upon life merits that honourable appellation. Although vested with an authority to superintend the education of the rising generation, and acting as provost, who ought to be a pattern of morality and virtue, he accepted of a challenge from a Mr Doyle, and fought him at a place called Summer Hill, a part of the suburbs of Dublin. No mischief ensued. Doyle was near-sighted, and the provost had a strong fit of the gout. The public papers, at this time, teemed with the most bitter invectives against Mr Hutchinson; and perhaps, in the annals of diurnal publications, even Junius not accepted, satire in its most pointed, classical, and beautiful dress, never came forward in greater perfection. The consequence of this was a pamphlet published by the provost, in which he defended his conduct; but this only served as food for his enemies. The pamphlet was turned grammatically into ridicule by an anonymous writer, under the signature of Stultifex Academicus, supposed to be Mr Malone the Shakspeare commentator, and a most humorous and excellent composition it was.

"The partizans of the provost, finding that this one particular daily paper, the Hibernian Journal,' then printed by a Mr Mills, was the particular vehicle of what militated against their patron, formed a plan, in which they succeeded, of forcibly taking this man from his house, and conveying him, at six o'clock in a winter's evening, to the univer

sity, in defiance of the police. This they did; and putting him into the trough under the college pump, gave him the discipline of what they called a-ducking. The young agents in this business were soon discovered. Some of them fled, but of those that remained was Mr Brown, now a member in the Irish parliament, who was tried and convicted as one of the most active persons on the occasion; and received judgment accordingly.

"Soon after Mr Hutchinson obtained the situation of provost, he quarrelled with the then attorney-general, Mr Tisdal, a gentleman about seventy years of age, and sent him a challenge. Mr Tisdal replied by moving for an information against Mr Hutchinson, in the court of King's bench, and a rule nisi was granted. Some of the ablest men at the bar offered their services to the attorney-general on this occasion, and the pleadings began. The provost undertook his own defence, and speaking for three days successively, when the term ended, the further consideration was adjourned to the following term, which was that after the long vacation. This business, however, never came on again, the attorney-general dying within the time, and the proceedings of course finally stopping.

"He was extremely severe on his enemies in the university; and having a particular dislike to a Mr Shewbridge, one of the then junior fellows, he absolutely refused him leave of absence to go into the country for the benefit of his health. The consequence of this (at least the scholars of the university reported it so) was, that in a short time after Mr Shewbridge died, and the college was in an uproar on the occasion. The provost gave orders that the great bell should not toll, and that the corpse should be privately interred at 6 o'clock in the morning, in the Fellows' burial-ground. The students immediately posted up placards, insisting that the great bell should toll, and that the funeral should be by torch-light, at night; and they carried their point. Almost every student in the university attended the corpse to the grave, in scarfs and hat-bands, at their own expense: and when the funeral oration was pronounced, one spirit of revenge, in the manner of electricity, ran through them all; and they flew like lightning to the provost's dwelling-house, bursting open his doors, and smashing to pieces all that obstructed their fury. Fortunately the provost had intelligence of this intended outrage, and he and his family had removed, in consequence, to his country-seat, about four miles from the metropolis, some hours antecedent to this business. It was several weeks before the tumult entirely subsided and the young gentlemen returned to their studies; but the fate of Shewbridge rankled in their bosoms for many years afterwards, although the faculty declared that this gentleman could not have survived, whether he went to the country or not, his disorder being of that nature which set all possibility of prolonging life at defiance.

66

Mr Hutchinson was at one and the same time a privy-councillor ; reversionary secretary of state; major of the 4th regiment of horse; provost of Trinity college, Dublin; and searcher, packer, and gauger of the port of Strangford !"

Edmund Burke.

BORN A. D. 1730.-DIED A. D. 1797.

EDMUND BURKE was a native of Ireland. His father was an attor. ney first in Limerick and afterwards in Dublin. Edmund, his second son, was born in the Irish capital on the 1st of January, 1730. After receiving some preliminary education in his own vicinage, he was sent to Ballytore, and placed under the tuition of Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker of considerable celebrity. At this respectable school several years of his life were spent; and the attachment of the master, and the gratitude of the pupil, reflect honour on both. The former lived to see his scholar attain a considerable degree of reputation; and the latter regularly spent a portion of his annual visit to Ireland at Ballytore. From this provincial seminary, Edmund was sent to the university of Dublin. Here, however, he does not appear to have been very highly distinguished either for application or talents. He is said, however, to have been fond of logic and metaphysics; and to have early planned a refutation of the systems of Berkeley and Hume. He indeed is said to have been a candidate in early life for the professorship of logic at the university of Glasgow. The immediate reason of his failure is not known; his youth, and the obscurity of his name and attainments, were such as to afford him no rational prospect of success.'

After this, he repaired to the English metropolis, and enrolled his name as a student in the Inner Temple. It appears from his speeches, his writings, and his conversation, that he must have studied the grand outline of our municipal jurisprudence with particular attention; but it may be doubted whether he ever entered into the minuter and technical branches of the profession. The state of his finances called for immediate supplies, and instead of perusing the pages of Bracton, Fleta, Littleton, and Coke, he was obliged to write essays, letters, and paragraphs, for the periodical publications of the day. But if these pursuits turned his attention from graver studies, they also conferred a facility of composition, and a command of style and of language, which proved eminently serviceable to him in his future life. Though Mr Burke, by the death of his elder brother, was to have succeeded to a very comfortable patrimony, yet, as his father was living, and had other children, it could not be supposed that his allowance was very ample. His first production we cannot exactly state; we have been informed that it was a poem, and that it was unsuccessful. This may seem paradoxical to some, considering the extent and variety of his talents, and above all the copious imagery with which his subsequent works and speeches abound; but history, and a closer observation of mankind, will furnish us with many cases in point. His first known publication was a work of much greater consequence, not only when we consider it as a work of fancy, but as an imitation of a first-rate original,—we allude to the

'It has been said that he quitted college without a degree: this, however, is eontradicted by his biographer, Prior, who states that he commenced A. B. in February, 1747-8, and proceeded A. M. in 1751.