and conscience. But if, as God forbid, you should be resolved to remain always separated from me; I will send Sir William Ellis to inform you of the measures I shall take for your maintenance in a Nunnery, with the regrett of not being in a condition to suit that to my inclination, but to my powere ability. Whatsoever be the event, Madam, I shall have the comfort of having done my part, and complyd with my duty, since I omitted nothing that might prevent your misfortune, in the midst of which you shall always find in me, sentiments that are becoming a Christian, a Husband, and a King. (Signed)

'J. R.'

We cannot take our leave of Mr Ellis, without expressing a hope that this is only the prelude of other and larger compilations, to be drawn from the vast storehouses of the British Museum. Indeed, the work now before us cannot be regarded as more than a selection of specimens, intended rather to whet the appetite of the public, than to satisfy the cravings of an ardent student of English History; and, considering the prevailing taste for original and authentic papers of this class, we indulge the hope that Mr Ellis and his intelligent coadjutors will soon be called upon, and enabled to exhibit to the world a Collection of unpublished State Papers and Letters, worthy of the noble repository now under their care; and we trust that the worthy editor of these volumes will not impute it to a cavilling or hypercritical spirit, if we venture to recommend a little more care in the transcription of the documents that may enter into his future compilations. In these volumes, and more remarkably in the first of them, there are many errors which it would be absurd to ascribe to ignorance or inexperience, but which have an effect on the sense of the documents, which a little more pains would be well bestowed in avoiding. Of these, in our own justification, we hope to be pardoned for giving a few instances.

Thus, in a curious letter from John Ramsay, Lord Bothwell, to King Henry VII., in 1496, relative chiefly to the treatment of Perken Warbeck at the Scottish court, and which, by the by, had been already printed by Pinkerton, it is mentioned, among the concessions which that unhappy person had been urged to promise, in the event of his being placed on the English throne, that he should restore to Scotland the vii Hesdomis,' &c. Of this portentous word, the reader will look in vain for explanation in the Glossaries: it is palpably a mistake of the contracted word sefdomes' for sheriffdoms.-I. 26. In the same letter, where the writer is earnestly exhorting Henry to take advantage of the present posture of affairs, in order to give the young King of Scots a sound drubbing, he is made to say, and wat he avis weill snybbit, he wald be the better

avisit quhill he leuit; '-words unintelligible in themselves, but the true reading of which must be, and war he anis weil snybbit,' &c. that is, and were he once well snubbed, he would be the better, as long as he lived;-not 'till he leave it,' as Mr Ellis most erroneously expounds the last words. Again, in a letter from Margaret, Queen of Scots, to her brother King Henry VIII., in which, according to Mr Ellis, affection and irony are most amusingly blended,' it appears to us that the imputed irony rests on a false reading, and that the word friendly' should be fremdly,' or unkindly. In truth, the the letter is one of undisguised indignation at the mean and knavish denial of a legacy of jewels bequeathed to her by her father Henry VII.; and is characteristic enough of the temper of the writer, whose passions were, in general, greatly an overmatch for her discretion.-I. 64. In a letter from Thomas Lord Dacre to Cardinal Wolsey, in which he tells of his underhand dealing with the Master of Kilmawers, then an outlaw, whom he kept in his own house secretly, he adds, that if the threatened quarrel with the Scottish Regent should pass away, then should all these practices (meaning his own promises) be void and of non effect; and the said Maister of Kilmawers to be putte to his own feude at his libertie in secrete maner.' We cannot venture to guess what meaning Mr Ellis would here attach to the word feude; but to us it seems evident that the true reading is 'fende,' i. e. shift-meaning, that this useless tool should then be left to shift for himself.-I. 133. But enough of this minute criticism.

ART. VIII. Remarks on the Administration of Criminal Justice in Scotland, and the Changes proposed to be introduced into it. By a MEMBER OF THE FACULTY OF ADVOCATES. Edinburgh, 1825.

THE

HE Civil Jurisdictions of Scotland have, within the last eighteen years, been reformed by a greater number of more decided changes than were perhaps ever introduced by mere legislation into the judicial establishments of any country. A similar demand for some revision of our criminal system has been long growing. We have, on more occasions than one, * directed the attention of our readers to this subject; and have endeavoured to explain the actual grounds of

* No. LXXI. Art. 9. No. LXXV. Art. H. No. LXXVIII. Art. 5.

complaint, and to point out remedies that were at once specific, and easily attainable without endangering the general fabric of our courts, or of the law. In discharging this duty, we have had to enter into a very full exposition of the constitution of our criminal tribunals, and of that great office of Public Prosecutor, by which they are all put in motion.

The pamphlet before us is the first regular Defence that has appeared of the whole existing order of things. It is an elaborate, and, to a careless eye, might at first sight seem a plausible performance-compiled with great industry-evidently got up by some one (probably more than one) personally connected with the administration of the system that is justified and distinguished by unusual moderation of language and of sentiment towards his opponents. There are some passages, to be sure, in which those who happen to differ from him are described as persons actuated by the desire of depreciating the institutions of their country,' and who are searching for grounds whereon to asperse the Scotch criminal law, '-which may seem somewhat inconsistent with this last praise. But these are probably only controversial phrases, thoughtlessly used; and, on the whole, it is a gratifying symptom of the progress which public opinion has already made on these questions, that they can be discussed upon their own merits, and that it is felt that it will no longer do to attempt to quash inquiry by injurious imputations or offensive epithets, The great defects of the Remarks are, that they are not pertinent to the real matters in controversy;-that (probably owing to some plurality of authorship) they are not always consistent -and, above all, that they are equally zealous and equally positive in defending every thing that exists, not even excepting the nomination of criminal juries by presiding judges, and the judicial legislation of criminal courts. These are touchstones of men's title to credit; and he who now wishes that his judgment on other points should be deemed weighty, must begin by letting it be known that he has banished such follies from his understanding. But the principal importance of these Remarks arises from their giving us the distinct, and almost the official, answer to the objections that have been stated to our penal policy. For, now that the grounds on which this policy is held to be defensible are disclosed, the discussion is reduced to a narrow and satisfactory compass; and there is no one so ignorant as not to be able to make up his mind on its different points with considerable confidence, and with very little trouble.

Those who are of opinion that the Scottish scheme of criminal

jurisprudence requires, and easily admits of, reform, have never said, so far as we know, that the scheme itself ought, for this reason, to be altogether abandoned-and still less that the English, or any foreign, one ought to be substituted in its place. On the contrary, though they have referred to the example of England, as to a rich field of precedents on every matter connected with legal experience and public liberty, they have professed a due horror of the forms and the principles of a code with which they have no practical acquaintance; and, on the other hand, they have uniformly explained and extolled various peculiar and valuable parts of their own Scottish system. But they state, that there are certain specific points of this system which are defective; and they maintain, that these defects might ensily be removed, not only without injuring, but to the effect of greatly improving, what remained. But, instead of confining himself to the examination of these proposed reformations, the author falls into a general error which pervades and swells every part of his work, and leads to discussions which are not only useless, but,-if evasion be a vice,-are somewhat worse. This error consists in representing those who are anxious for the improvement of our law, as smitten with a passion for every thing English, and with a hatred of every thing native; and its effect is to set him upon an eager search for imperfections in the English mode of administering criminal justice—a subject scarcely intelligible to those not practically versant with itsdetails, and plainly not at all understood in these remarks; and then, whenever he discovers what he conceives to be a defect there, he holds this to be a conclusive reason against any revision of the Scottish law; while, on the other hand, every peculiar excellence in the latter is displayed, as a virtual condemnation of the former. Thus, many pages are occupied in attempting to show, that it is an evil in England that there are no local Magistrates like our Sheriffs,-that there are no public prosecutors, responsible for almost every case,-that prisoners get no copy of their indictments, and that they have no counsel to address the jury in their behalf. From these evils we are free. And from these and such like facts, it is concluded that we ought to adhere to our own system in every thing, and utterly to disregard every part of theirs. In support of this view, the author even thinks it worth his while to enumerate the various moral and physical circumstances, which are supposed to distinguish the two countries; particularly their comparative wealth, population, waste or arable acres, extent of seacoast, &c. &c.; till at last we are informed (p. 7.), as a circumstance of much importance in this discussion, that the line at which cultivation becomes impracti

'cable with advantage in most parts of Scotland, is about six hundred feet above the level of the sea.'

We are satisfied that the author is often mistaken, both in the extent to which he blames the one system, and to which he praises the other. We would give, as an example of the former, his censure (p. 27.) of the English practice of ever allowing witnesses to be examined in presence of each other, which, in the ordinary case, is plainly the most effectual and natural mode of shortening and checking their statements. As examples of the latter, it is suflicient to mention the vast importance he attaches to the prisoner's being furnished with a list of his jurors fifteen days before his trial,-which, unless when combined with a more effectual power of excluding those whom he ascertains to be improper than Scotch prisoners have yet obtained, is almost immaterial; and the singular instances he gives, as grounds of encomium, of various things which are generally considered to be scandals on the law. He is so fond of every thing Scotch, that he seriously sets it forth as a recommendation of our penal law, that of those who are acquitted, though guilty, at least one half escape, from technical niceties,' (p. 54.) But, admitting all his opinions upon these matters to be quite sound, the inference which he draws from them is disposed of by two simple questions. In the first place, the English system may be bad; but will this make the Scotch one good? In the second place, is there any impossibility in our borrowing what is valuable from our neighbours, and at the same time keeping what we have already got that is valuable of our own?

Now, casting aside these inapplicable, and probably inaccurate, discussions; that is, casting aside above one half of the volume before us, we must be permitted to say, that there never was a more signal failure than the attempts that are made to give precise answers to the precise objections that have been taken to our law. In order to make this plain, let us run over those objections, in the order in which they may be expected to arise in the natural progress of a criminal case; and let us see to what the answers to them amount.

All prosecutions of importance are instituted and conducted by the Lord Advocate; whose duties have been officially stated in Parliament as being boundless,' he having the whole

executive government of Scotland under his particular care.' Now, it has been maintained to be a very dangerous and corrupting practice, that this officer, in whose candour the public

See No. LXXVII. Page 370.