only that punishment was ever inflicted, -that we were savage in our threats, and yet were feeble in our execution of punishments,-that we cherished a system which in theory was odious, but which was impotent in practice from its very severity, that in cases of high treason, we involved innocent children in all the consequences of their father's guilt, -that in cases of corruption of blood we were even still more cruel, punishing the offspring when we could not reach the parent,—and that on some occasions we even proceeded to wreak vengeance upon the bodies of the inanimate dead? If the same person were told that we were the same nation which had been the first to give full publicity to every part of our judicial system,-that we were the same nation which had established the trial by jury, which, blameable as it might be in theory, was so invaluable in practice,—that we were the same nation which had found out the greatest security which had ever been devised for individual liberty, the writ of habeas corpus, as settled by the act of Charles II.,-that we were the same nation which had discovered the full blessings of a representative government, and which had endeavoured to diffuse them throughout every part of our free empire, he would wonder at the strange anomalies of human nature which could unite things that were in themselves so totally incompatible. If the same foreigner were, in addition to this, told that the abuses which struck so forcibly on his attention were the abuses of the olden time, which were rather overlooked than tolerated, he might, perhaps, relent in his judgment, and confer upon us a milder denomination than that of barbarians; but if, on the contrary, he were told that influence and authority, learning and ingenuity, had combined to resist all reformation of these abuses as dangerous innovations,-if he were informed that individuals, who, from their rank and talents, enjoyed not an artificial but a real superiority, rose to vindicate the worst of these abuses, even the outrages on the dead, and to contend for them as bulwarks of the constitution and landmarks of legislation, he would revert to his first sentiments regarding us, though he might, perhaps, condemn the barbarism of the present instead of the barbarism of the past generation.

"I must be allowed to say, that there is a peculiar species of legislative injustice, in the application of the punishment of death to many crimes. The punishment of death is the punishment inflicted upon the highest crime known; and it is impossible that it can be justly applied, unless it be reserved for crimes of the highest enormity. If equal punishment be inflicted on unequal crimes,-gross, scandalous, flagrant, notorious injustice must be the consequence; and it must be a fault in every system of legislation, if it do not confine the highest penalty to the highest crime. By acting upon the contrary system, we produce a disproportion between the punishment and the offence for which it is inflicted. This is the peculiar fault of British legislation, that it does not make a distinction between a crime of the first class and that of an inferior degree; and that a similar discrimination is not made in the punishment appropriated to each. To make myself better understood, I shall just refer to the case of imprisonment for debt. The punishment of imprisonment is called by some jurists a divisible punishment; that is, it may be divided into different proportions, and thus applied to different kinds of crimes; but that is not, and cannot be, the case

with regard to the punishment of death. Death is the highest punishment which can now be inflicted for any crime. The feelings of this latter age do not allow of the barbarous aggravations of death practised by our ancestors, and we hang alike the sheep-stealer and the parricide.

"I do not suppose that any man will justify the horrible aggravations and refinements of cruelty by which our ancestors increased the severity of the punishment of death; but as long as the present system of equal visitation for unequal guilt continues, we are the authors of the most crying injustice. If our ancestors inflicted more than mere death, by adding the cruelty of torture, at least they had the excuse that they thereby observed something like a scale of punishments. Our ancestors, even in the remotest times, endeavoured to make the punishment in some degree bear a proportion to the crime. It is true that, in times of barbarous feeling, they put men to death by cruel and detestable means; but in so doing, they provided a scale of crime and punishment. Though we have, thank God, abolished that savage and unchristian practice, we have failed to establish a descending scale; and since it is impossible now to inflict more than death for the greatest crimes, our only resource is to inflict less than death for offences of minor aggravation. There are various crimes placed at a great distance, both as to enormity and depravity, below the crime of murder; and yet the punishment of death is indiscriminately inflicted upon all

of them."

He afterwards proceeded to observe on the degree of terror which, it is assumed, the punishment of death excites in the minds of criminals, and the feeling with which the spectators behold its infliction. "The philosophic criminal," said he, "may even imagine that at least there is something dignified in dying well, and that part of the infamy of his punishment may be compensated by the firmness of his endurance. He may feel that the infamy attached to it may be absorbed and extinguished in the blaze of a death boldly and patiently suffered, with a magnanimity and heroism worthy of a better cause. It is for that reason, among others, that I think the punishment of death ill adapted to the crime of forgery; and it is to be recollected that it is not mere justice, but manifest, signal, and conspicuous justice, which is necessary to satisfy the public. Hence it may be laid down as a maxim, with very few exceptions, that the acts to which the punishment of death should be applied, should not only be in the highest degree dangerous to society, but should be attended with circumstances of violence and blood, leaving a deep impression on the mind of the community, and reviving indignation at the offender at the recollection of his crime. It is only to such fearful offences that the punishment of death should be applied. I do not mean to undervalue the guilt of forgery; but I contend that, according to the general feeling of mankind, it is not that species of crime which, by subsequent reflection upon its circumstances, excites sentiments of indignation, or recalls a sense of the justice of the punishment."

Sir James's character as a parliamentary speaker was thus sketched by Mr Lytton Bulwer: "He never spoke on a subject without displaying, not only all that was peculiarly necessary to that subject, but all that a full mind, long gathering and congesting, has to pour forth upon

any subject. The language, without being antithetic, was artificial and ornate. The action and voice were vehement, but not passionate; the tone and conception of the argument of too lofty and philosophic a strain for those to whom, generally speaking, it was directed. It was impossible not to feel that the person addressing you was a profound thinker delivering a laboured composition. Sir James Mackintosh's character as a speaker, then, was of that sort acquired in a thin house, where those who have stayed from their dinner have stayed for the purpose of hearing what is said, and can, therefore, deliver up their attention undistractedly to any knowledge and ability, even if somewhat prolixly put forth, which elucidates the subject of discussion. We doubt if all great speeches of a legislative kind would not require such an audience, if they never travelled beyond the walls within which they were spoken. The passion, the action, the movement, of oratory which animate and transport a large assembly, can never lose its effect when passion, action, movement, are in the orator's subject,—when Philip is at the head of his Macedonians, or Catiline at the gates of Rome. The emotions of fear, revenge, horror, are emotions that all classes and descriptions of men, however lofty or low their intellect, may feel here, then, is the orator's proper field. But again; there are subjects, such as many, if not most, of those discussed in our house of commons, the higher bearings of which are intelligible only to a certain order of understandings. The reasoning proper for these is not understood, and cannot therefore be sympathized with, by the mass. In order not to be insipid to the few, it is almost necessary to be dull to the many. If our houses of legislature sat with closed doors, they would be the most improper assemblies for the discussion of legislative questions that we can possibly conceive. They would have completely the tone of their own clique. No one would dare or wish to soar above the common-places which find a ready echoing cheer: all would indulge in that vapid violence against persons which the spirit of party is rarely wanting to applaud. But as it is, the man of superior mind, standing upon his own strength, knows and feels that he is not speaking to the lolling, lounging, indolently listening individuals stretched on the benches around him he feels and knows that he is speaking to, and will obtain the sympathy of, all the great and enlightened spirits of Europe: and this bears and buoys him up amidst any coldness, impatience, or indifference, in his immediate audience. When we perused the magnificent orations of Mr Burke, which transported us in our cabinet, and were told that his rising was the dinner-bell in the house of commons,—when we heard that some of Mr Brougham's almost gigantic discourses were delivered amidst coughs and impatience,-and when, returning from our travels, where we had heard of nothing but the genius and eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh, we encountered him ourselves in the house of commons,-on all these occasions we were sensible, not that Mr Burke's, Mr Brougham's, Sir James Mackintosh's eloquence was less, but that it was addressed to another audience than that to which it was apparently delivered. Intended for the house of commons only, the style would have been absurdly faulty; intended for the public, it was august and correct. There are two different modes of obtaining a parliamentary reputation: a man may rise in the country by what is said of him in the house of commons, or he may rise in the house of com

mons by what is thought and said of him in the country. Some debaters have the faculty, by varying their style and their subjects, of alternately addressing both those without and within their walls, with effect and success. Mr Fox, Mr Pitt, Mr Sheridan, Mr Canning were, and Lord Brougham is of this number. Mr Burke and Sir James Mackintosh spoke to the reason and the imagination rather than to the passions; and this, together with some faults of voice and manner, rendered these great orators (for great orators they were) more powerful in the printed reports than in the actual delivery of their speeches. We ourselves heard Sir James Mackintosh's great, almost wonderful, speech upon reform. We shall never forget the extensive range of ideas, the energetic grasp of thought, the sublime and soaring strain of legislative philosophy, with which he charmed and transported us; but it was not so with the house in general. His Scotch accent, his unceasing and laboured vehemence of voice and gesture, the refined and speculative elevation of his views, and the vast heaps of hoarded knowledge he somewhat prolixly produced, displeased the taste and wearied the attention of men who were far more anxious to be amused and excited than instructed or convinced. We see him now! his bald and singularlyformed head working to and fro, as if to collect, and then shake out his ideas; his arm violently vibrating, and his body thrown forward by sudden quirks and starts, which, ungraceful as they were, seemed rather premeditated than inspired. This is not the picture which Demosthenes would have drawn of a perfect orator, and it contains some defects that we wonder more care had not been applied to remedy."

Sir James died in 1832. His literary productions consist of numerous articles, some of them very brilliant, in the Monthly and the Edinburgh Reviews; a Dissertation on Ethical science, prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica; a Life of Sir Thomas More; and two volumes of the History of England, in Lardner's Cyclopædia; and a posthumous historical volume on the English Revolution of 1688. As a metaphysician, Sir James was acute and sagacious beyond any of his contemporaries, but too refined and cautious in stating his conclusions; as a historical writer he rather acts the part of a commentator on what other historians have written than that of an original writer. His excessive cautiousness throws an air of doubt or inconclusiveness over his pages, which is by no means agreeable to the reader.

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"Sir James," says Mr Campbell, was, in his person, well-made, and above the middle stature. He was regularly handsome in youth, and even in the decline of life, and under afflicted health, was a person of prepossessing and commanding appearance. His countenance had a changeful mixture of grave and gay expression, a shrewdness combined with suavity, that heightened and accorded with the charm of his conversation. No man was a greater master of conversation; he overlaid you with monologue, but overpaid whatever you said to him with insinuating correction; or else, if he approved of your remarks, he amended them by rich and happy illustration. A certain thinness and sharpness of voice was the chief defect of his elocution; and sometimes there was, perhaps, an over-northern keenness and sharpness in his metaphysics; but still the world will. produce no such mental lights again."

II ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.

Hugh Blair, D. D.

BORN A. D. 1718.-DIED A. d. 1800.

DR HUGH BLAIR was born in Edinburgh, on the 7th day of April, 1718. His views from his earliest youth were turned towards the church, and his education received a suitable direction. After the usual grammatical course at school, he entered the humanity class in the university of Edinburgh in October, 1730, and spent eleven years at that celebrated seminary, assiduously employed in the literary and scientific studies prescribed by the church of Scotland to all who are to become candidates for her licence to preach the gospel. During this important period, he was distinguished among his companions both for diligence and proficiency; and obtained from the professors, under whom he studied, repeated testimonies of approbation. One of them deserves to be mentioned particularly, because, in his own opinion, it determined the bent of his genius towards polite literature. An essay

'On the Beautiful,' written by him when a student of logic in the usual course of academical exercises, had the good fortune to attract the notice of Professor Stevenson, and, with circumstances honourable to the author, was appointed to be read in public at the conclusion of the session.

At this time Dr Blair commenced a method of study which contributed much to the accuracy and extent of his knowledge, and which he continued to practise occasionally, even after his reputation was fully established. It consisted in making abstracts of the most important works which he read, and in digesting them according to the train of his own thoughts. History, in particular, he resolved to study in this manner; and, in concert with some of his youthful associates, he constructed a very comprehensive scheme of chronological tables, for receiving into its proper place every important fact that should occur. The scheme devised by this young student for his own private use was afterwards improved, filled up, and given to the public by his learned friend Dr John Blair, prebendary of Westminster, in his valuable work, The Chronology and History of the World.'

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In the year 1739, Dr Blair took his degree of A. M. On that occasion he printed and defended a thesis, De Fundamentis et Obligatione Legis Naturæ,' which contains a short but masterly discussion of this important subject, and exhibits in elegant Latin an outline of the moral principles which have been since more fully unfolded and illustrated in his sermons. The university of Edinburgh, about this period, numbered among her pupils many young men who were soon to make a distinguished figure in the civil, the ecclesiastical, and the literary history of their country. With most of them Dr Blair entered into habits of intimate connexion, which no future competition or jealousy occurred to interrupt, which held them united through life in their views of public good, and which had the most beneficial influence on their own im