5. When lineal descendants fail,
Collaterals the land may nail;

So that they be (and that a bore is)

De sanguine progenitoris.

6. The heir collateral, d'ye see,

Next kinsman of whole blood must be.

7. And of collaterals the male

Stocks are preferred to the female,

Unless the land come from a woman,
And then her heirs shall yield to no man."

Or this:

"A woman, having settlement,

Married a man with none:

The question was, he being dead,
If that she had was gone?

Quoth Sir John Pratt, her settlement

Suspended did remain,

Living the husband — but him dead,
It doth revive again."

(Chorus of puisne judges) :—

"Living the husband — but him dead,
It doth revive again."

Let no one scoff at such improving exercises. John Scott, afterward Lord Eldon, is said to have amused himself by turning pieces of poetry into the form of legal instruments, and actually to have converted the ballad of "Chevy Chase" into the shape and style of a bill of chancery. What would we not give to possess it?

Cowper's idea of "musical embellishment" would do very well if we were always sure of so mellifluous a reporter. As to the music which should accompany the decisions, a course of rules would naturally be adopted,

and the technical machinery of the law made to conform to the new state of things. In choosing the key, judgments upon the rights of infants would be set in the minor, and courts-martial would be conducted in the major. Causes involving small amounts of money should be dashed off in a presto movement; but large estates

especially where the costs come out of the fundshould be inquired into at the deliberate pace of an adagio. Personal actions — such as slander, assault and battery, and particularly breach of promise of marriage -ought to be treated in flats. Musical terms might be used to describe legal process and remedies. For instance: An order appointing a receiver might appropriately be indicated by a hold; a stay of proceedings by a rest; an order of arrest by a slur; while a re-argument might properly be called a repeat or da capo, - back to the beginning. The fund in litigation would generally be diminuendo, and the costs crescendo, to the end. The course of some litigations, in which one judge enjoins another, would be described by a passage full of accidentals. Famous music already written could be adapted to various necessities of the law. Thus, an argument on the law of descent could well be illustrated by the music of the opera of "Orpheus ; a trial for murder by poisoning could be preluded by the strains of "Lucrezia Borgia ; a bill of discovery would be adequately set to an air from "La Somnambula," in which groping in sleep and darkness is so thrillingly described; those pleas of insanity which inevitably accompany the defence of people who avenge their own domestic grievances, would fitly be conveyed in the harmonies of "Hamlet ;" and the ease with which the marriage rela

tion is dissolved in some parts of our favored country would be admirably set out by the melodious story of "Don Pasquale."

Cowper gives the following translation of a Latin poem by Vincent Bourne, entitled "The Cause Won:”—

"Two neighbors furiously dispute;

A field

the subject of the suit.
Trivial the spot, yet such the rage
With which the combatants engage,
'Twere hard to tell who covets most
The prize — at whatsoever cost.

The pleadings swell. Words still suffice:
No single word but has its price.
No term but yields some fair pretence
For novel and increased expense.

Defendant thus becomes a name,
Which he that bore it may disclaim;
Since both, in one description blended,
Are plaintiffs - when the suit is ended."

The same idea is expressed in the following:

"Unhappy Chremes, neighbor to a peer,

Kept half his lordship's sheep, and half his deer;
Each day his gates thrown down, his fences broke,
And injur'd still the more, the more he spoke;

At last resolved his potent foe to awe,

And guard his right, by statute and by law,

A suit in chancery the wretch begun,

Nine happy terms through bill and answer run,
Obtain'd his cause and costs, and was undone."

EDWARD MOORE

published "Fables for the Female Sex," in London, upwards of a century ago; and among his lucubrations is the following:

"Past twelve o'clock,' the watchman cry'd;
His brief the studious lawyer plied;

The all-prevailing fee lay nigh,
The earnest of to-morrow's lie.
Sudden the furious winds arise,
The jarring casement shatter'd flies:
The doors admit a hollow sound,
And rattling from their hinges bound,
When Justice in a blaze of light,
Reveal'd her radiant form to sight.

The wretch with thrilling horror shook,
Loose every joint, and pale his look:
Not having seen her in the courts,
Or found her mentioned in reports,
He ask'd, with fault'ring tongue, her name,
Her errand there, and whence she came ?

Sternly the white-rob'd shade reply'd
(A crimson glow her visage dy'd),
'Canst thou be doubtful who I am?
Is Justice grown so strange a name?
Were not your courts for Justice rais'd?
'Twas there of old my altars blaz❜d.
My guardian thee I did elect,

My sacred temple to protect.

That thou and all thy venal tribe

Should spurn the goddess for the bribe!

Aloud the ruin'd client cries

That Justice has neither ears nor eyes:

In foul alliance with the bar,
'Gainst me the judge denounces war,
And rarely issues his decree

But with intent to baffle me.'

She paus'd. Her breast with fury burn'd.
The trembling lawyer thus return'd:
'I own the charge is justly laid,
And weak th' excuse that can be made;
Yet search the spacious globe, and see
If all mankind are not like me.
The gownsman, skilled in Romish lies,
By faith's false glass deludes our eyes;
O'er conscience rides, without control,
And robs the man to save his soul.
The doctor, with important face,
By sly design mistakes the case;
Prescribes, and spies out the disease,
To trick the patient of his fees.
The soldier, rough with many a scar,
And red with slaughter, leads the war.
If he a nation's trust betray,
The foe has offered double pay.
When vice o'er all mankind prevails,
And weighty interest turns the scales,
Must I be better than the rest,
And harbor justice in my breast?
On one side only take the fee,
Content with poverty and thee?'

'Thou blind to sense, and vile of mind,

The exasperated shade rejoin'd,
'If virtue from the world is flown,
Will others' faults excuse thy own?
For sickly souls the first was made;
Physicians for the body's aid;