In that pure spring the bottom view,
Clear, deep, and regularly true,
And other doctrines thence imbibe
Than lurk within the sordid scribe;
Observe how parts with parts unite
In one harmonious rule of right;
See countless wheels distinctly tend
By various laws to one great end;
While mighty Alfred's piercing soul
Pervades and regulates the whole.
Then welcome business, welcome strife,
Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,
The visage wan, the pore-blind sight,
The toil by day, the lamp at night,
The tedious forms, the solemn prate,
The pert dispute, the dull debate,
The drowsy bench, the babbling Hall, —
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all!
Thus, though my noon of life be past,
Yet let my setting sun at last
Find out the still, the rural cell
Where sage Retirement loves to dwell!
There let me taste the home-felt bliss
Of innocence and inward peace:
Untainted by the guilty bribe,
Uncurs'd amid the harpy tribe,
No orphan's cry to wound my ear,
My honour and my conscience clear,
Thus may I calmly meet my end,
Thus to my grave in peace descend."
The same agreeable poet wrote Prayer: "
"Ordain'd to tread the thorny ground,
Where very few, I fear, are sound,
Mine be the conscience void of blame,
The upright heart, the spotless name,
The tribute of the widow's pray'r,
The righted orphan's grateful tear!
To Virtue and her friends a friend,
Still may my voice the weak defend!
Ne'er may my prostituted tongue
Protect th' oppressor in his wrong,
Nor wrest the spirit of the laws
To sanctify the villain's cause!
Let others, with unsparing hand,
Scatter their poison through the land,
Enflame dissention, kindle strife,
And strew with ills the path of life;
On such her gifts let Fortune shower,
Add wealth to wealth, and power to power:
On me may favouring Heaven bestow
That peace which good men only know,
The joy of joys by few possess'd, ·
The eternal sunshine of the breast!
Power, fame, and riches I resign —
The praise of honesty be mine,
That friends may weep, the worthy sigh,
And poor men bless me when I die!"
I suspect, hints at the state of the law of libel under Mansfield, and at Mansfield, when he says, in "The Whore of Babylon,"
Complaints are libels, as the present age
Are all instructed by a law-wise sage,
Who, happy in his eloquence and fees,
Advances to preferment by degrees;
Trembles to think of such a daring step
As from a tool to Chancellor to leap:
But lest his prudence should the law disgrace,
He keeps a longing eye upon the mace."
He at any rate referred to Mansfield in the following passage from the same poem:
"And who shall doubt and false conclusions draw
Against the inquisitions of the law,
With jailors, chains, and pillories must plead,
And Mansfield's conscience settle right his creed.
Is Mansfield's conscience, then, will Reason cry,
A standard block to dress our notions by?
Why, what a blunder has the fool let fall, –
That Mansfield has no conscience, none at all."
in "The Seasons," makes an occasional and not flattering reference to law and lawyers: -
"Let this through cities work his eager way,
By legal outrage and established guile,
The social sense extinct.
Insnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord, and perplexing right,
An iron race!"
"The toils of law (what dark insidious men
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen simple justice into trade),
How glorious were the day that saw these broke,
And every man within the reach of right!"
in "The Beast's Confession," says,
"The lawyer swears (you may rely on't)
He never squeezed a needy client;
And this he makes his constant rule,
To which his brethren call him fool:
His conscience always was so nice.
He freely gave the poor advice,
By which he lost, he may affirm,
A hundred fees last Easter term;
While others of the learned robe,
Would break the patience of a Job.
No pleader at the bar could match
His diligence and quick dispatch;
Ne'er kept a cause, he well may boast,
Above a term or two at most."
The law of libel in England, under Lord Mansfield, reached an extremely unjust and unpopular interpretation. In pursuance of the idea, "the greater the truth, the greater the libel," juries were instructed that their province was the question of publication alone; and a great deal of judicial bullying was resorted to for the purpose of extorting verdicts on this question, which although consonant with evidence, jurors felt would be the foundation of unjust and excessive judgments. The poet Churchill loses no opportunity of rebuking Mansfield for producing this state of the law. For instance, he speaks of one who prayed a judge
"That some new laws he would provide
(If old could not be misapplied
With as much ease and safety there
As they are misapplied elsewhere),
By which it might be construed treason
In man to exercise his reason;
Which might ingeniously devise
One punishment for truth and lies,
And fairly prove when they had done,
That truth and falsehood were but one;
Which juries must indeed retain,
But their effects should render vain,
Making all real power to rest
In one corrupted, rotten breast,
By which false gloss the very Bible
Might be interpreted a libel.”
in his "Hymn to the Pillory," has the following fine passage on law :
"The first intent of laws,
Was to correct the effect, and check the cause;
And all the ends of punishment
Were only future mischiefs to prevent.
But justice is inverted when
Those engines of the law,
Instead of pinching vicious men,
Keep honest ones in awe."
And the following, not so fine, on lawyers:
"Next bring some lawyers to thy bar,
By innuendo they might all stand there:
There let them expiate that guilt,
And pay for all that blood their tongues have spilt.
These are the mountebanks of State,
Who, by the slight of tongues, can crimes create,
And dress up trifles in the robes of fate;
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