THE LATE LORD MANSFIELD "Praise undeferv'd is fatire in disguise." WARBURTON, late Bishop of Gloucefter; Newton, late Bishop of Bristol; the late Sir James Burrow; the late Samuel Johnfon; the late Wil liam Seward, Efq.; Markham, the prefent Archbishop of York; Hurd, the prefent Bishop of Worcester; together with John Holliday, Efq. Lord Mansfield's profeffed Biographer of the day; feem fome of the principal admirers of the late Lord Chief Juftice Mansfield's talents, learning, wit, taite, and eloquence: who, however, do not mention, among their qualifications of him, his impartiality, candour, patience, juftice, or indeed that degree of profeffional knowledge, fo neceflary for a Judge, a Privy Counsellor, and a Senator. These panegyrifts (more particularly the dignified tons of the Church), from their unparalleled encomiums on their friend and patron the Chief Justice, appear to have been totally actuated by perfonal favours, or to have been otherwife very improperly influenced by his allowed extraordinary endowments and accomplishments both of body and mind: motives arifing from fuch inducements, although extremely natural and most commendable in obliged friends, by no means become members of the republic of letters (much lefs profeffional men of the law) undertaking to delineate characters, which should always be described as near to life itself as poffible; and more fo, fuch as refpect the due administration of the public juftice of the kingdom: to draw fuch characters in colours not their own, is a palpable infult and injury to the whole ENGLISH pation at large; it is the very bane of biographical literature; and more efpe cially to dare to hold up to the public view the late Chief Juftice Mansfield as a paragon of virtue, in his judicial and political capacity. Shakspeare feems to allude to fuch friends, in the following animated description of fycophants, viz. "Thefe couchings, and these lowly cour tefies, Might fire the blood of ordinary men, POPE. And turn pre-ordinance and first decree Into the law of children; be not fond to think That Cæfar bears fuch rebel blood That will be thaw'd from the true -quality With that which melteth fools; I mean fweet words, Low crooked curtfies, and base spaniel fawning." Again, ་་ JULIUS CAESAR, A&t iii. Sc.r. -fuch smiling rogues as thefe, Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain, Which are too intrinfe t'unloofe: foothe That in the nature of their lords rebel; Again, "They flattered me like a dog, to fay ay and no to every thing I laid! ay and no too, was no good divinity."? KING LEAR, A&t iv. Sc. 6. Lord Mansfield's bofom friend writes thus on the fame subject: after describing men's worst enemies, the poet obferves, that "To foes like thefe, one flatt'rer's worse than all." POPE's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. This Chief Juftice's pernicious doctrines, inculcated on the Bench, particularly to Juries, in matter of Libel, tended to undermine and fap the very founda tion of that inestimable mode of trial, that palladium of ENGLISH Liberties; and befides, Lord Mansfield grofsly mifreprefented to them their important function, even in cafes wherein the lives, freedom, and property of their fellow fubjects, nay every thing dear to ENGLISHMEN, was not only concerned but actually at ftake: and his Lordship alfo • And, it might be added, his Biographer in our Magazine. See Vol. XXIII. p.163.— EDITOR. † Lord Bacon says a Judge ought rather to be learned in the law, than willy. See his Effays, No. LVI. Willymott's Engl. Transl, l. 337 VOL. XXXVII, FEB, 1800. P incessantly inceffantly laboured to perfuade this country (in the perfons of the jurors), by the proftitution of his eloquence, to act in a manner which, inftead of anfwering the great end of their original inftitution, viz. the prefervation of the meanett fubject from the fangs of rapacious minifters of fate, did, as much as in him lay, in order to prevent the primary intention of it, actually render them fubfervient to the arbitrary tyranny of the Crown: more over, this Chief Juftice's political as well as judicial conduct, in the Cabinet and Senate, was so very flagrant, and its fatal confequences fo univerfally dreaded, that Scotland and Ireland, as well as England, entered their feveral protefts against them; nay, the city of London was fo alarmed, that they had it in contemplation to instruct their members to move for a parliamentary impeachment in the national aflembly of the people. This was prevented by a very fingular circumftance, than which (as was justly obferved at the time) nothing could be more convincing of the neceffity of the meafure, and the probability of its fuccefs, inasmuch as the friends of the Chief Juftice made a point to prevent it; for I have heard that both heaven and earth were moved, in order to avert the intended proceedings: if there was no ground for them, there could be no reason to apprehend any ferious confequences from them. * It has been remarked, that the Chief Juftice more than once made a beautiful allufion to the breach of that precept of the Levitical law, which fays "Thou Shall not feetbe a kid in bis mother's milk," of which the received § interpretation is, that we fhall not ufe that to the deltruction of any creature which was intended for its prefervation. To a breach of that facred law, Lord Mansfield compared the two following inftances, viz. First, the cafe of the thiet takers, Macdonald, Berry, and others, who caufed innocent perfons to be convicted of rob. beries for the fake of the reward; and econdly, Priddie's cafe, an attorney who procured a perfon never in poffeffion of the premifes in question, or had ever been in receipt of the rents, to enter into the common rule in an ejectment caule, wherein he made himself defendant, in order to defraud the leffor of the plaintiff of his eftate; and this the Court held to be ftrictly within the letter of the faid + rule; however, the Chief Justice ordered an attachment against the attorney for fo notorious a contempt, in endeavouring to pervert the facred rules of a Court of Justice. But can any one think, though this anecdote had not exifted, that mankind were not perfectly fatisfied the Chief Juftice Mansfield well knew it to be a great violation of his oath of office, a great breach of his duty, to torture * the law, that it might torture men; and therefore does not the relation most for. cibly apply to the Chief Justice's own conduct towards Juries; whom the wifdom of our ancestors established for the fole and noble purpofe of guarding every thing dear to us against the inroads of tyranny and oppreflion; whereas Lord Mansfield prostituted his eloquence to mislead the Jury, by generally endeavouring to perfuade them, in a fallacious and injurious interpretation of the law, to bring in falle, corrupt, illegal verdicts; verdicts totally contrary to common fente, and to all reason, as well as against their oaths and confciences; and that too for the avowed purpofe of ruining the innocent. The Jury were indeed cajoled by thinking they might tafely confide in Lord Mansfield's honour as a peer of the realm, in his profeffional knowledge, integrity, and fincerity, as a Judge, and in his own natural feelings as a man; all thefe they prefumed would undoubtedly hallow his directions to them from the Bench; none of them had to learn, no more than his Lordship, that he, as well as themielves, was bound under the highest fanction to act impartially to all-to the Jury-to the Crown-to the prifonerand, in thort, to himfelf; yet, instead of * Flectere fi nequeo fuperos Acheronta moveto.-Virg. Æn. vii. 312. + Cafes of circumftantial evidence, 109, 8vo. Edit. 1781. Exodus, Chap. xxiii. Verfe 19. Chap, xxxiv. Verse 26. Deut. Chap. xiv. Verfe 23. St. Tr. x. 417. The prefent writer has paid M'Donald fuch reward; his father being under-fheriff at the time. Richardfon's Pract. B. R. i. 109. tSee Lofft's Rep. 622. Which my Lord Bacon remarks is an bard cafe, in his " De Augment Scient." Lib. viii. Cap. 3. Aphor. 13. See Lord Bacon's Works, tolio edit. 1740, and his "Effay on Judicature," No. ivi, St. Tr. xi. 3. cautioning cautioning them against a breach of their oaths, he traitorously infinuated himself into their good graces by his fafcinating eloquence, to cause them to break their oaths, for the horrid purpose of enflaving their country; and thus involved them, as well as himself, in the dreadful fin and crime of direct perjury. Lord Mansfield's doctrines and conduct were cenfured and condemned by every rank of the profeffion in the three kingdoms. This univerfal oppofition to the Lord Chief Justice was made, from fuch a multitude of his Lordship's determinations being drawn from the Roman Law, the Civil Law, the Law of Scotland, and the peculiar Law of Nations; from the Refolutions of the Star Chamber, and indeed from almost every known law but that which the Chief Juftice had fworn to obferve; and above all, from this Prefident of the King's Bench, the fu. preme court of criminal jurifdiction in this country, generally assuming the difcretion to act arbitrarily, and according to his own will and private affection, in his high judicial office; it was declared by Sir Jofeph Jekyll, that learned Master of the Rolls, from the Bench, and that too of a court of EQUITY, that fuch affumed difcretion" tended to contradict and overturn the grounds and rudiments of the Common Law; which was a difcretionary power that neither the Court of Chancery, or any other Court, not even the HIGHEST, acting in a judicial capacity, was by the Constitution † entrusted with.' This difcretion a great lawyer has thus emphatically defcribed, viz. "The difcretion of a Judge is the law of Tyrants; it is always unknown; it is different in different men; it is cafual, and depends upon conftitution, temper, and affection: in the beft, it is oftentimes caprice; in the worst, it is every vice, folly, and paffion, to which human nature is liable." Thefe remarkable words have been cited by Charles || Fearne, Michael ¶ Dodfon, and by Capel + Lofft, Efqrs. all eminent barrifters at law, in their refpective arguments, profeffedly delivered in arraignment of Lord Mansfield's il legal and unconftitutional doctrines, maintained by him in his feat of juftice. N. R. TO THE EDITOR OF THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. Te "Melli'um venenum blanda oratio," was the motto of one of the Emperors. + Will. Peare Will. Rep. ii. 615. paft, from the conviction that a human being existed nearly as unfortunate in life as myself. Like Uxoris, I have had the misfortune to marry a whole family, and like him, I hope my complaint not altogether unworthy your notice; for if there are others equally unfortunate with ourfelves, they may perhaps derive the fame degree of confolation from mine, that I have experienced from that of Uxoris: your infertion may likewife prove the means of creating a greater degree of i. e. Sweet words are honied poison. This Sir Charles Pratt, Chief Justice of the Bench, afterwards Lord Chancellor and Earl Camden. § See the Chief Justice's Argument in the cafe of Doe v. Kerfey, Eafter Term, 5 Geo. 3. A. D. 1765, in C. B. printed by the present writer from a genuine manuscript, in the year 1766, p. 53. In hs "Effay on the Learning of Contingent Remainders and Executory Devifes," 3d Edit. 1776, p. 429. In the Life of his Uncle, the late Mr. Juftice Sir Michael Fofter, in the cafe of M.d. winter and Sims, in Biogr. Brit. Kipp. Edit. vi. 261. In his Effay on the Law of Libels. *‡ See Vol. XXXIII, P. 83. P 2 caution |