I cannot but observe the sort of scenick prepara tion with which this sad drama is sought to be brought forward. In part I approve it. In part it excites my disgust and indignation. I am glad to find that the attorney and solicitor general, the natural and official prosecutors for the state do not appear; and I infer from the absence, that his excellency, the lord lieutenant, disclaims any personal concern in this execra ble transaction. I think it does him much honour; it is a conduct that equally agrees with the dignity of his character and the feelings of his heart. To his private virtues, whenever he is left to their influence, I willingly concur in giving the most unqualified tribute of respect. And I do firmly believe, it is with no small regret that he suffers his name to be even formally made use of, in avowing for a return of one of the judges of the land with as much indifference and non chalence as if he were a beast of the plough. I observe too, the dead silence into which the publick is frowned, by authority, for the sad occasion. No man dares to mutter; no newspaper dares to whisper that such a question is afloat. It seems an inquiry among the tombs, or rather in the shades beyond hem. Ibant solâ sub nocte per umbram. I am glad it is so-I am glad of this factitious dumbness; for if murmurs dared to become audible, my voice would be too feeble to drown them; but when all is hushed--when nature sleeps Cum quies mortalibus ægris. The weakest voice is heard-the shepherd's whistle shoots across the listening darkness of the interminable heath, and gives notice that the wolf is upon his walk; and the same gloom and stillness that tempt the monster to come abroad, facilitate the communica tion of the warning to beware. Yes, through that silence the voice shall be heard; yes, through that silence, the shepherd shall be put upon his guard; yes, through that silence shall the felon savage be chased into the toil. Yes, my lords, I feel myself cheered and impressed by the composed and digni fied attention with which I see you are disposed to hear me on the most important question that has ever been subjected to your consideration; the most important to the dearest rights of the human being; the most deeply interesting and animating that can beat in his heart, or burn upon his tongue.-Oh! how recreating is it to feel that occasions may arise in which the soul of man may reassume her pretensions; in which she hears the voice of nature whisper to her, os homini sublime dedi cœlumque tueri; in which even I can look up with calm security to the court, and down with the most profound contempt upon the reptile I' mean to tread upon! I say reptile; because, when the proudest man in society becomes so the dupe of his childish malice, as to wish to inflict on the object of his vengeance the poison of his sting; to do. a reptile's work, he must shrink into a reptile's dimensions; and so shrunk, the only way to assail him is to tread upon him. But to the subject:-this writ of habeas corpus has had a return. That return states, that lord, Ellenborough, chief justice of England, issued a warrant reciting the foundation of this dismal transaction: that one of the clerks of the crown office had certified to him, that an indictment had been found at Westminster, charging the honourable Robert Johnson, late of Westminster, one of the justices of his majesty's court of common pleas in Ireland, with the publication of certain slanderous libels against the government of that country; against the person of his excellency lord Hardwicke, lord lieutenant of that country; against the person of lord Redesdale, the chancellor of Ireland; and against the person of Mr. Justice Osborne, one of the justices of the court of king's bench in Ireland. One of the clerks of the crown office, it seems, certified all this to his lordship. How many of these there are, or who they are, or which of them so certified, we cannot presume to guess, because the learned and noble lord is silent as to those circumstances. We are only informed that one of them made that important communication to his lordship. It puts me in mind of the information given to one of Fielding's justices: "did not," says his worship's wife, "the man with the wallet make his fidavy that you was a vagram?" I suppose it was some such petty bag officer who gave lord Ellenborough to understand that Mr. Justice Johnson was indicted. And being thus given to understand, and be informed, he issued his warrant to a gentleman, no doubt of great respectability, a Mr. Williams, his tipstaff, to take the body of Mr. Justice Johnson, and bring him before a magistrate, for the purpose of giv ing bail to appear within the first eight days of this term, so that there might be a trial within the sittings after; and if, by the blessing of God, he should be convicted, then to appear on the return of the posted, to be dealt with according to law. Perhaps it may be a question for you to decide, whether that warrant, such as it may be, is not now absolutely spent; and, if not, how a man can contrive to be hereafter in England on a day that is past? And high as the opinion may be in England of Irish undertsanding, it will be something beyond even Irish exactness to bind him to appear in England not a fortnight hence, but a fortnight ago. I wish, my lords, we had the art of giving time this retrograde motion. If possessed of the secret, we might possibly be disposed to improve it from fortnights into years. There is something not incurious in the juxtaposi tion of signatures. The warrant is signed by the chief justice of all England.-In musick, the ear is reconciled to strong transitions of key by a preparatory resolution of the intervening discords; but here, alas! there is nothing to break the fall: the august title of Ellenborough is followed by the unadorned name of brother Bell, the sponsor of his lordship's warrant. Let me not, however, be suffered to deem lightly of the compeer of the noble and learned lord. Mr. Justice Bell ought to be a lawyer; I remem ber him myself long a crier,* and I know his credit * This gentleman was formerly crier to the late baron Hãmilton, when the baron went circuit as a judge. with the state; he has had a noli prosequi. I see not therefore why it may not fairly be said "fortunati ambo!" It appears by this return, that Mr. Justice Bell indorses this bill of lading to another consignee, Mr. Medlicot, a most respectable gentleman; he describes himself upon the warrant, and he gives a delightful specimen of the administration of justice, and the calendar of saints in office; he describes himself a justice and a peace officer-that is, a magistrate and a catchpole; so that he may receive informations as a justice; if he can write, he may draw them as a clerk; if not, he can execute the warrant as bailiff; and, if it be a capital offence, you may see the culprit, the justice, the clerk, the bailiff, and the hangman, together in the same cart; and, though he may not write, he may "ride and tie !" What a pity that their journey should not be further continued together! That, as they had been "lovely in their lives, so in their deaths they might not be divided!” I find, my lords, I have undesignedly raised a laugh; never did I less feel merriment.-Let not me be condemned-let not the laugh be mistaken.-Never was Mr. Hume more just than when he says, that "in many things the extremes are nearer to one another than the means." Few are those events that are produced by vice and folly, that fire the heart with indignation, that do not also shake the sides with laughter. So when the two famous moralists of old beheld the sad spectacle of life, the one burst into laughter, the other melted into tears; they were each of them right, and equally right. Si credas utrique Res sunt humanæ flebile ludibrium. But these laughs are the bitter ireful laughs of honest indignation, or they are the laughs of hectick melancholy and despair. It is stated to you, my lords, that these two justices, if justices they are to be called, went to the house of the defendant. I am speaking to judges, but I disdain the paltry insult it would be to them, were I to appeal to any wretched sympathy of situation. I feel I i VOL. II. I am above it. I know the bench is above it. But I know, too, that there are ranks, and degrees, and decorums to be observed; and, if I had a harsh communication to make to a venerable judge, and a similar one to his crier, I should certainly address them in a very different language indeed. A judge of the land, a man not young, of infirm health, has the sanctuary of his habitation broken open by these two persons, who set out with him for the coast, to drag him from his country, to hurry him to a strange land by the "most direct way!" till the king's writ stopt the malefactors, and left the subject of the king a waif dropt in the pursuit. Is it It is Is it for nothing, my lords, I say this? without intention I state the facts in this way? with every intention. It is the duty of the publick advocate not so to put forward the object of publick attention, as that the skeleton only shall appear, without flesh, or feature, or complexion. I mean every thing that ought to be meant in a court of justice. I mean not only that this execrable attempt shall be intelligible to the court as a matter of law, but shall be understood by the world as an act of state. If advocates had always the honesty and the courage, upon occasions like this, to despise all personal considerations, and to think of no consequence but what may result to the publick from the faithful discharge of their sacred trust, these phrenetick projects of power, these atrocious aggressions on the liberty and happiness of men, would not be so often attempted; for, though a certain class of delinquents may be screened from punishment, they cannot be protected from hatred and derision. The great tribunal of reputation will pass its inexorable sentence upon their crimes, their follies, or their incompetency; they will sink themselves under the consciousness of their situation; they will feel the operation of an acid so neutralizing the malignity of their natures, as to make them at least harmless, if it cannot make them honest. Nor is there any thing of risk in the conduct I recommend. If the fire be hot, or the window cold, turn |