The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-05 00:00:00

by such intercourse is the best, the only secure gua-
rantee for the peace and liberty of liuropc.

TT was on Northumberland that WALTER SCOTT,
with his unerring felicity of discernment, drew fur
the rich and glowing materials of that ever-living
and Diming picture of a di on ken, foolish, fox-hunting
and his booby worthless family, the Oshat
distorts, %Lich will, to the end of literature, remain
the chief delight of the talc of " Rob Roy." It was
in Northumberland that the rash and wicked rebel-
lion of 1714 first broke out ; there, too, Jacobitism
lingered longest in England.
Nor is all changed yet; greatly altered and
vastly improved, as the agriculture, the politics, and
the society of Northumberland have been during the
last century ; though its rents have risen and its
criminal statistics have fallen ; though Queen Vle-
xouta can now sleep in safety at Ilowick, some
twenty miles from Rothbury, where rebellion raised
its standard against the First GEORGE; though
Northumberland can now— thanks to one fer-
tile family ! provide the House of HANOVER
with a trace of Secretaries of State at once,
and with a race of youngsters equal to any
public employment, and almost numerous enough
for all, mid furnish India with a general who,
when upwards of seventy, wheeled about in his
chair, very deaf and nearly blind, is, nevertheless,
—such is the ability of the noble house of HOWICK
competent to command the great army of Bombay,
and willing to accept of 10,000 t a year for com-
manding it. Much, however, as the spirit of modern
improvement and of Whig government have done for
North umbra land—almost reversiog, in the county, the
relative position of the Cl::,,iv and the l'imetxs—
the old spirit and manners of its squirearchy me not,
it would seem, quite extinct vet; and, if Mr. Baron
PLArr is to be credited, there is still a park here
and there of that disloyalty to the reigning family
which once formed the staple of county politics.
Northumberland appears yet to pot:sess its Ostnthini•
tons of romance and its Ranti.vErts of reality :
fine relics of the list ; and they figure otf, just
where their encoders suffered most—at the county
assizes, before the Queen's Judges of ()yer and Ter-
miner.

Perhaps it is that a dislike of the due administra-
tion of justice is still hereditary in these border
families; or it may be, seeing that twenty years ago
the judges went but once a year into those distant
parts, the Northumberland proprietors (like the
Durham jurors who return " verdicts for Mr.
GRAINtiEIt n have not even yet become familiarised
with assize requirements, the frowoing dignity of
Barons of the Exchequer, or with a due sense of their
own important*. when High Sherilb. But, whatever
the cause, certain it is that the Northumberland As-
sizes are beeoming famous fur "scenes," in which
the county tomes off only second best. Two years
ago, the County. Justices of the Peace, by
the mouth of an honourable baronet who once repre-
sented them in parliament, claimed the right, under
a statute of the realm, of treading on Mir. Justice
WiliturnaN's toes in crossing from one room of the
Moot Ilan to another; which claim, or, it might be,
the trespass on his tots, so roused the usually placid
temper of that excellent judge, that he taught the
rash baronet the true state of the law and good man-
ners at the same time. And now, on Saturday
last, another Northumberland baronet so swamis
the solemn feelings of Mr. Baron Pharr, that that
sedate and sententious personage, implicated the
locally of Sir lion vet'. Si. Part.. Now, if such
be the baronetcy of Northumberland, what must be
its squirearehy It is dreadful to think of.
The theory of assizes is, that the Sovereign sends
the royal judges into each county by a separate com-
mission, there to deliver the gaols of such offenders
as local justice has filled them with. (hi the borders of
each county the Sovereign's local representative, the
high Sheriff of the one comity is suppmed -a), and down
to the days of railways actually did, hand over the
Royal judges to the high Sheriff of the other; and
the receiving High Sheriff, in pomp and state, sur-
rounded by the county magnates, whom he had in-
vited and fweasionally primed with old part, and at-
tended with his javelin men, having first got all the
troops out of the county town. guarded and conveyed
the judges to the Shire-hall, where, after a discharge
of judicial compliments, the Royal commissions were
opened and read. And this, with the exception of
that now a days the high Sheriff repairs to u railway
terminus. is exactly what is every where dune, ex-
cept, it seems, in gorthumberiand.
We are no admirers of useless pageantry, ur of
the perpetuation of old raise shows; we should
think a judge a judge still though he was not enve-
loped in a great horse-hair wig or encased in a heavy
acarkt robe. To our eyes Lord Cvmenri.t., riding
his white horse from Kensington Guru to Westmin-
ster Hull, is as " venerable" a Chief Justice as Lord
MANSFIELD going down in his coach and four from
lkshord-squaw. plat we don't deny that the public
reception of the QUEEN.s judges in the assize towns
any be useful and impressive. We still recollect
how grand and awful an effect it had on
boyish minds; nay we remember haw, when part of
the splendour and more of the expense were curtailed
by act of parliament, older people regretted tlw loss.
But that is nut the question between Baron Pharr and
Sir Houser. Sr. Path. The Baron dues not maintain
that the exhibition ought not to be put an end to; but,
being accustomed as the Cit'sEN's representative to
be everywhere else received as such, he objects tam Sir
lloweet: Sr. Par i. treating him with no more respect
than if he were a second-rate acquaintance, for
whom all he had to do was to send his dog-curt to
the station and bring him home in time to (bras for
dinner. The shabby "garniture" of the shabby ear-
ring: in which the shabby Northumberland High
Sheriff received and conveyed the QuEEN's commis-
sion, roused the learned Ixeron, and thus lie spoke to
the gentry of Northumberland :
As he had the honour of addressing gentlemen of high
vespertability in the county, he could nut dismiss them
without expressing his great regret that in this county and
this country the gentry should he so reduced as not to show
the ordinary napect to the crown; for they must give him
leave to say that it is not the judges who come here in their
own name, or ley their own authority—we are ma-rely mini.-
tees under the sign manual. XV,. have the honour to attend
before you under s commission from the Quern herself,
and in this country where disloyalty or any disregard to the
administration of justice would he consid,rell a slur, he re-
gretted much to see that the usual and ordinary garniture,
by which that loyalty anal respect to the laws are mani-
fested, has mat attenacil these assizes.

On concluding his address, the Iligh Sheriff (Sir Horace
St. Paul, Bart.), who was sitting on the right of the judge,
MK' and said—l hare lw•cn accused of didoyalty ; I publicly
declare that that accusation is unjust. lam as loyal as any
man.

Mr. Baron Platt immediately replied—l am sorry that a
gentleman who has the means of showing that loyalty to
the crown in • proper manner should nut have exhi.
bitcti it.

•-•
Ili., Lord-hip then h.ll the court.

Infringing on Baron Pl. A IT'. digni t v is, then, a much
more serious affair than treading on 'Justice WIGIIT-
NAN'S toes. The latter offence is but a trespass ; but
the former partaketh in its nature of treason. The
High Sheriff, is lost to all sense of shame, is dis-
loyal : disloyalty leads to treason ; treason to rebel-
lion ; rebellion to the scaffold. Or, who knows
that the fate of the reigning family may not be in
this " ordinaly garniture" of a Northumberland
chariot—that the wrath of a Sr. PAUL may not pull
down what it took the political genius of a iV.turol.r.
to set up ? Northumberland has always been a county
dangerous to royalty.
this, however, were to consider the matter too
curiously." For, in thus censuring Sir Homey Sr.
Pict., the learned baron appears to hare got hold of
the wrong word. A man, though a high sheriff,
may be mean, may be shabby, may be economical ;
may receive even Baron rt-trr in a dirty carriage,
drawn by ill-groomed horses, and attended 'br
servants in seedy liveries ; mar have the hardi-
hood to give him a bad dinner and worse
wine; and may hare the cruelty to put
a judge of assize into damp sheets, withtiut being in-
tentionally and of malice prepense disloyal to Queen
LURIA : all men not seeing or knowing or caring
to recolle:t that Mr. Baron PLATT carries royalty as
well as legality about with him on circuit. Our
most gracious Sovereign's matronly features do
not smile la sweetly through Baron PLATT'S visage
(awful to poachers, dreadful to burglars!) as all
that.
But, no question that Sir HonAcE Sr. PAUL, in
treating the learned judge to this reception, com-
mitted such a breach of good manners, so signally
disocgardcsl the usages and the habits of gentlemen
when they happen to till the office of high stunt; as
very richly to merit a severe rebuke. His loyalty
may yet be safe, and his barouetcv also; but breed-
ing or good manners, or proper feelings, or a sense of
self-respect, ho clearly has none.