The National Register.
London, England, 1817-01-20 00:00:00

No. 467.—V0t. X.

Utgat Ntograptp:

OR,
Memoirs ofthepresenteludges.

No. 111.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR WILLIAM GRANT,

MASTER OF THE ROLLS.

THE LAW has long been considered as one of
the highways to preferment and political exaltation,
through the exercise of individual talent. Genius and
industry arc not wanting in any parts of the Empire.
In poetry, in the arts, ha the sciences, in politics, and
in war, there seems to have been an equal rivalry
amongst the three sister kingdoms ; yet in the Law,
there seems an accidental disparity as relates to one of
them, which we cannot immediately ascount for. That
Scotland is fertile in Genius, in Talents, and in Indus-
try, it would be in vain to deny. That the practice of
the English Law affords ample scope for the talents of
Scotchmcn is undeniable. But were we asked the
question, whether the natives of Ireland or of Scotland
would attain to most eminence iu the practice of En-
glish Law, we should hesitate perhaps for awhile, but
ar7ning a priori we should form no {great expectation
that the natives of Scotland should be peculiarly at-
tracted to the study and practice of the Law in this coun-
try, as all its firm and usuages arc essentially different
feom those adopted iu their own. Yet it has actually
batmened that, although the Irish have the same code
t;f laws, the same forms of pleadings, and arc compelled
to perform their law exercises, and pursue their studies
in England, very few hare settled here for practice,
and none yet acquired at considerable eminence either
ai pleaders, or on the Bench, while Scotian.] has given
to us the first great ornament of our Courts of Justice
in Lord Manlficid, and the most perfixt of Nisi Prins
itdvocates, the most fascinating and elegant of forensic
pleaders, in Lord Erskine, who may justly he deemed the
Cicero of the English Bar. Other instances of success-
ful Scotchmen, in practice as English lawyers, must be
fresh in every one's recollection. Lord Loughborough
was eminent both as a Chancellor and a political de-
bater ; Sir Archibald Macdonald for many years adorn-
rd the Exchequer, with the elegant urbanity of a cour-
tier, delighted the circuit-table with a never-ceasing
fund of anecdote, and administered the criminal law of
the country at the Old Bailee, and on the circuits, with
a steady firmness, blended with humanity and discre-
tion, which gained him the affection anti jatst esteem
of all who had opportunities of witnessing his merito-
rious career. Sir Wm. Adam has for a long period
held the chief practice as a parliamentary advocate, anti
now fills an honorable rank as a Judge, appointed to
introduce the inestimable boon of the Trial by Jury in
Ms own country ; while in the ranks of our English bar
we at present reckon amongst its most rising ornaments,
Brougham, Horner, and others, who seem desirous in
the aim at metropolitan celebrity to rise from the hum-
bler sphere -of mere Scottish fume, and extend the re-
putation of the United Kingdom by seeking to distin-
guish themselves as English Lawyers and British Se-
nators.

Sir WILLIAM GRANT, the subject of our present
'Memoir, is one of those adventurous Seotehmen who
have emancipated themselves from the narrow boundsof
their own native regions, and sought and obtained
fme, fortune, and high rank in that city, which may
stiled the centre and focus of the united talents of
the three kingdoms. From the best accounts which
we can collect of his origin, he is by birth a Northern
Highlander. The place of hi,. nati..ity was Elchirs,en
the bunks or the Spey, where his father then lived and
carried on some agricultural concerns upon a moderate
scale about the veer 1754. liere it has been said he
frequently passed his time in habits of solitude, like the
141iustrel of Beattie, now 'wing on the brook, now