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careless and even distrustful; of the least deviation from the most beaten track, suspicious; of the remotest risks, an acute prognosticator, as by some natural instinct; of the slightest actual danger, a terrorstricken spectator. As he could imagine nothing better than the existing state of any given thing, he could see only peril and hazard in the search for any thing new; and with him it was quite enough, to characterize a measure as "a mere novelty," to deter him at once from entertaining it—a phrase of which Mr. Speaker Abbott, with some humour once took advantage to say, when asked by his friend what that mass of papers might be, pointing to the huge bundle of the Acts of a single session,-"Mere novelties, Sir William-mere novelties." And, in truth, all the while that this class of politicians are declaiming and are alarming mankind against every attempt to improve our laws, made judiciously and safely, because upon principle, and systematically, and with circumspection, they are unhesitatingly passing in the gross, and without any reflection at all, the most startling acts for widely affecting the laws, the institutions, and the interests of the country. It is deeply to be lamented that one endowed with such rare qualifications for working in the amendment of the Consistorial Law should have grown old in the fetters of a school like this. His peculiar habits of reasoning-his vast and various knowledge-his uniting with the habits of a judge, and the authority due to so distinguished a member of the Clerical Courts, all the erudition and polish of a finished scholar, and all the knowledge of the world and habits of society which are least to be expected in such dignitaries—finally, his equal knowledge of both the English and Scottish systems— seemed to point him out as the very person at whose hands this great branch of the jurisprudence of both nations might naturally have expected to receive its most important amendments.

DR. LAURENCE.

CONTEMPORARY with Sir William Scott, the leading practitioner in his courts, united to him in habits of private friendship, though differing from him in many of his opinions and almost all his habits of thinking, was Dr. Laurence, one of the most able, most learned, and most upright men that ever adorned their common profession, or bore a part in the political controversies of their country. He was, indeed, one of the most singularly endowed men, in some respects, that ever appeared in public life. He united in himself the indefatigable labour of a Dutch Commentator, with the alternate playfulness and sharpness of a Parisian Wit. His general information was boundless; his powers of mastering any given subject were not to be resisted by any degree of dryness in its nature or complication in its details; and his fancy was lively enough to shed light upon the darkest, and to strew flowers round the most barren tracks of inquiry, had it been suffered to play easily and vent itself freely. But, unfortunately, he had only the conception of the Wit, with the execution of the Commentator; it was not Scarron or Voltaire speaking in society, or Mirabeau in public, from the stores of Erasmus or of Bayle; but it was Hemsterhuysius emerging into polished life, with the dust of many libraries upon him, to make the circle gay; it was Grævius entering the senate with somewhere from one-half to two-thirds of his next folio at his fingers' ends, to awaken the flagging attention, and strike animation into the lazy debate. He might have spoken with the wit of Voltaire and the humour of

Scarron united; none of it could pierce through the lumber of his solid matter; and any spark that by chance found its way, was stifled by the still more uncouth manner.

As an author, he had no such defects; his profuse stores of knowledge-his business-like habit of applying them to the point-his taste, generally speaking, correct, because originally formed on the models of antiquity, and only relaxed by his admiration of Mr. Burke's less severe beauties; all gave him a facility of writing, both copiously and nervously, upon serious objects; while his wit could display itself upon lighter ones unencumbered by pedantry, and unobstructed by the very worst delivery ever witnessed, a delivery calculated to alienate the mind of the hearer, to beguile him of his attention but by stealing it away from the speaker, and almost to prevent him from comprehending what was so uncouthly spoken. It was in reference to this unvarying effect of Dr. Laurence's delivery, that Mr. Fox once said, a man should attend, if possible, to a speech of his, and then speak it over again himself: it must, he conceived, succeed infallibly, for it was sure to be admirable in itself, and as certain of being new to the audience. But in this saying there was considerably more wit than truth. The Doctor's speech was sure to contain materials not for one, but for half a dozen speeches; and a person might with great advantage listen to it, in order to use those materials, in part, afterwards, as indeed many did, both in Parliament and at the Bar where he practised, make an effort to attend to him, how difficult soever, in order to hear all that could be said upon every part of the question. But whoever did so, was sure to hear a vast deal that was useless, and could serve no purpose but to perplex and fatigue; and he was equally sure to hear the immaterial points treated with as much vehemence, and as minutely

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* The experiment mentioned by Mr. Fox has repeatedly been tried at the Bar by the writer of these pages to a certain extent and with success.

dwelt upon, as the great and commanding branches of the subject. In short, the Commentator was here again displayed, who never can perceive the different value of different matters; who gives no relief to his work, and exhausts all the stores of his learning, and spends the whole power of his ingenuity, as eagerly in dethroning one particle which has usurped another's place, as in overthrowing the interpolated verse in St. John, or the spurious chapter in Josephus, upon which may repose the foundations of a religion, or the articles of its creed.

It is hardly necessary to add, that they who saw Dr. Laurence only in debate, saw him to the greatest disadvantage, and had no means of forming anything like a fair estimate of his merits. In the lighter intercourse of society, too, unless in conversation wholly unrestrained by the desire of distinction, he appeared to little advantage; his mirth, though perfectly inoffensive and goodnatured, was elaborate; his wit or drollery wanted concentration and polish; it was unwieldy and clumsy; it was the gamboling of the elephant, in which, if strength was seen, weight was felt still more; nor was it Milton's elephant, recreating our first parents, and who, "to make them play, would wreathe his lithe proboscis ;"-but the elephant capered bodily, and in a lumbering fashion, after the manner of his tribe. Yet set the same man down to write, and whose compositions are marked by more perfect propriety, more conciseness, more point, more rapidity? His wit sparkles and illuminates, without more effort than is requisite for throwing it off. It is varied, too, and in each kind is excellent. It is a learned wit, very frequently, and then wears an elaborate air; but not stiff or pedantic, not forced or strained, unless we deem Swift's wit, when it assumes this garb, unnatural or heavy a sentence which would condemn some of his most famous pieces, and sweep away almost all Arbuthnot's together.

In his profession, Dr. Laurence filled the highest place. Practising in courts where a single judge decides, and where the whole matter of each cause is thoroughly sifted and prepared for discussion out of Court, he experienced no ill effect from the tedious style and unattractive manner which a jury could not have borne, and felt not the want of that presence of mind, and readiness of execution, which enable a Nisi Prius advocate to decide and to act at the moment, according to circumstances suddenly arising and impossible to foresee. He had all the qualities which his branch of the forensic art requires; profound learning, various and accurate information upon ordinary affairs as well as the contents of books, and a love of labour not to be satiated by any prolixity and minuteness of detail into which the most complicated cause could run-a memory which let nothing escape that it had once grasped, whether large in size or imperceptibly small-an abundant subtlety in the invention of topics to meet an adversary's arguments, and a penetration that never left one point of his own case unexplored. These qualities might very possibly have been modified and blended with the greater terseness and dexterity of the common lawyer, had his lot been cast in Westminster Hall; but in the precincts of St. Paul's they were more than sufficient to place him at the head of his brethren, and to obtain for him the largest share of practice which any Civilian of the time could enjoy without office.

The same fulness of information and facility of invention, which were so invaluable to his clients, proved most important resources to his political associates, during the twenty years and more that he sat in Parliament; and they were almost equally useful to the great party he was connected with, for many years before that period. It was a common remark that nothing could equal the richness of his stores, except the liberality with which he made them accessible to

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