ponement of this measure. We must now look forward to the benefits which it is fitted to confer upon the community; and these will be in proportion to the fitness of the persons who have been entrusted with the jurisdiction now at length created. Much objection has been made in the profession to their appointment being vested in the Government; that is, in the heads of the three departments- Treasury, Home Office, and Chancery-instead of being, as they are truly judicial offices, cast upon the undivided responsibility of the Great Seal. We entirely join in this view of the matter; but we believe that nothing in the least approaching to party or political bias has been shown in the selection which has been made. Professor Jones, a person of great learning and talents, well versed in business, as having for many years been a leading member of the Tithe Board, was also a most appropriate member of the new Commission, which has to dispose of so many questions relating to charities connected with the Church, he having been the Archbishop's nominee on the Tithe Commission. But his well-known liberal opinions, and his scrupulous love of justice, as well as of toleration, render his appointment in every way satisfactory. Mr. Erle, the Chief Commissioner, is a gentleman distinguished for his ability and learning as a conveyancer: and he is known to have drawn the Succession Duties Bill, certainly one of the most difficult tasks ever undertaken by a professional man, a task allowed by all to have been admirably performed on this there can, we apprehend, be no doubt, however much men may disapprove of the tax itself, which plunges us deeper than before in the prodigal course of living upon our capital, contrary to every rule of common prudence for an individual, or of sound policy for a State. Mr. Hill is known as a lawyer who has devoted much of his attention to the subject of charitable trusts, and as the author of the useful Book on Trustees. It is very possible that Lord Lyndhurst (than whom there never was a better Chancellor, nor a more useful, though perfectly unpretending friend to Law Amendment, both in and out of office) might have endeavoured to save the public money, by abandoning his own patronage, and prevailing on some of the retired Masters in Chancery (those whom Sir George Rose calls Masters after the possibility of reference extinct) to take these places, for which their previous habits peculiarly fitted them, as he had intended in his Bill of 1845 and 1846, and as he tried to make Lords Brougham and Cottenham take the newly-created

than probable that Masters after the possibility would have refused like ex-chancellors; and we therefore cannot very much blame those who abstained from making what they probably thought a desperate attempt.

The greatest defect in the plan is the limited number of inspectors. Only two of these most important functionaries to examine so many thousands of charities in all parts of the country, appears a preposterous arrangement; and we feel afraid of the consequence being to bring early discredit upon the working of the whole machinery. A discretion ought certainly to be vested in the Board, of appointing additional inspectors, if not permanently, at least for particular inquiries.

When we have complained of the delay in carrying this Bill, there is certainly no part of that delay imputed to Lord Truro. Whatever may at any time have been laid to his charge, of raising impediments in the way of Law Reforms, on the two great measures of Chancery Reform and Charitable Trusts, he stands not only unassailable, but entitled to the greatest commendation. His admirable conduct on the former subject we have more than once had occasion to explain and extol. It was no fault of his that the Charitable Trusts Bill, introduced and ably supported by him, did not pass in 1851. He carried it through the Lords, and it shared the fate of most other measures in the Commons, where, after months spent in wrangling and squabbling, and debates as endless as they are useless, a few weeks remain before the prorogation, within which the whole work of a Session of mere talk is crowded; and, of course, most of it is left undone. We implore the reader's reperusal of our discussion on this crying grievance in the sixteenth number of our Journal. It places the Constitution in real peril.

M. ARAGO.

THE irreparable loss to the scientific world of this illustrious philosopher can hardly be suffered to pass without remark even by a journal devoted to Jurisprudence, regard being had

' He added, “C'est que le vide, que certains hommes laissent après eux, est encore plus grand que nos craintes mêmes n'avaient pû nous le représenter, et que nous n'en découvrons toute l'étendue, que lorsqu'il s'est fait."

to the mutual relationship in which all the sciences stand towards each other.

"Habent quoddam commune vinculum."-Cic. Pro Arch.

a

But M. Arago was a statesman also; he both held a most eminent place among politicians, and had at one period a foremost position among the rulers of his country, period marked by important measures connected with the system of the Law. In that capacity his scrupulous integrity, the absolute purity of his whole conduct, and, above all, the perfect disinterestedness with which he devoted himself to the service of the State, as far removed above the very shadow of suspicion of sordid motives, as ever was an old Roman in the best times of the Republic,- have been often the subject of unstinted praise, even from those whose opinions most widely differed from his, and who were the most opposed to his government. He was, in fact, a thorough Republican in his principles, and conscientiously attached to that scheme of polity. But he was, because of his honest and sincere devotion to those opinions, tolerant of the opposite principles, and incapable of oppressing those who held them.

This is not the place for recounting his achievements in science, which, with his dignified character and his kindly disposition, had at once established his influence among his brethren in the Institute, and endeared him to them. His loss was a blow which, though dreaded for months, fell as heavily as if it had been unforeseen, according to the striking remarks of his truly distinguished colleague, M. Flourens, in the eloquent and touching oration pronounced at his grave.1 But we must advert to one part of the Provisional Government's conduct, often made the subject of very unfavourable remarks, that regarding the removal of Judges, because it is very possible that M. Arago agreed with his colleagues, certainly took no steps to evince a difference with them on this important matter. Whatever sound general principles may dictate as the rule, the inferences not unnaturally drawn from the conduct of Judges during the successive changes in the French Government, must be allowed to have almost unavoidably influenced the sentiments of practical statesmen, and will easily explain their deviation from the line traced by rigorous theory. The great majority of persons in judicial stations had worn the aspect of Buonapartists before the Revolution; had then been noted for

gotten Charles X. while the Orleans family ruled; and without any revived recollection of Napoleon, had loudly hailed the Republic which set aside all Bourbon branches; and were possibly supposed ready to forget the Republic, and even once more remember Napoleon, in case a further change should come over the face of affairs! We certainly hold by our fixed opinion, that nothing can justify any inroad upon judicial independence; but we are bound in candour to make allowances for the different feelings of those who had so often witnessed how little that independence had proved able to sustain the stern virtue of the Judge.

Certainly it must be admitted that M. Arago had more than most persons a right to feel disgust and scorn at the changes so often witnessed in so many of the more distinguished members of French society in its various departments—he who had never been in any season the courtier of the powers that be. His noble conduct very early in life, when he successfully resisted the base attempt made to remove the illustrious Carnôt from the Institute at the Restoration, will be for ever borne in remembrance by the world of science and of politics. The youngest member of that body, by his gallant proceedings, saved it from a stain with which older and time-serving philosophers would have tarnished its name. Napoleon, to his great honour, rewarded that act of virtue with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, though it must have cost him a pang when he reflected that he had himself, at the same time of life, not scrupled to take Carnôt's place (who had been his patron), when the tyranny of the other Directors had proscribed their great colleague, and the slavish Institute had expelled him, truckling to the despots of the day.

It may well be added to this note, regarding the judicial proceedings of the Provisional Government, that they received the sanction of a much respected magistrate, Dupont de l'Eure. We are far from asserting that this was sufficient to justify them; but it certainly could not have been expected that, in the face of such professional authority, any one unconnected with the magistracy should have opposed them.

Oct. 28. 1853.

ART. I.-A MEMOIR OF LORD PLUNKET.'

THE subject of this Memoir may well show us the change that has recently come over our estimate of public men in this country, but more especially of great lawyers, in one important particular. If we look to the leading men, now in either House of Parliament (and those connected with Ireland are certainly no exception), we shall find them all more or less distinguished as Reformers of the Law. No lawyer, indeed, can pretend to the great offices of the State without making good his claim to some distinction in this department of statesmanship. The day of the mere lawyer is over; something more is now required even for Attorney Generals and Chief Justices. This was not so "when good Lord Eldon ruled the land." No such requirement was made when Lord Plunket carried away the great prizes of life, and bore down in Ireland all before him. It is not, then, as a Law Reformer that we call attention to his life and character; but as a great orator, a consistent statesman, a most able advocate, and an eminent judge, Lord Plunket deserves some notice in these pages. He lived a long life in an eventful period, and he took a prominent part in many important passages of history.

William Conyngham Plunket was the second son of a Presbyterian Minister, of Scotch extraction. His father was the pastor of a congregation, first at Enniskillen, and after

'The name was frequently spelt with a double t. We believe, however, the spelling as above to be more correct.