The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-11 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE HISTORY OF E.NGLAND. Fifth
Edition. 10 Vols-. By John Lingard, D.D.
Upwards of thirty years have elapsed since the first
appearance of this celebrated production, and through-
out that period the reputation of Lingard has been
steadily ripening into that of one of our greatest an-
nalists, It is peculiarly fortunate that this distin-
guished historian survives still amongst us, adding
his venerable name to the list of those illustrious con-
temporaries whose genius and erudition are destined
to illustrate to a remote posterity the glories of our
national literature. Otherwise his labours could not
have been perfected by the publication of the present
splendid edition of his " History of England," an
edition which has just issued from the press, the re-
sult of a prolonged and scrupulous revision, re-
arranged in several parts with extraordinary perspi-
cuity, and altogether materially enhanced in value by
a very considerable enlargement. Remembering the
enormous accessions to the bulk of historical know-
ledge made of late years through the in-
dustry of many profound antiquaries and philologists,
the student will experience no surprise
on finding that Dr. Lingard has deemed it advisable,
on the one hand, to subject his great work to a col-
lation so peculiarly stringent; and, on the other, to
increase the scope of its excellence, by such conspi-
cunus and remarkable extensions. Those, however,
whose acquaintance with the progress recently made
in researches of this character has been restricted al-
most to a nullity, may, from the explanatory obser-
vstions of our author (see Vol. 1., pp. xiii.—xxviii.),
obtain seine insight into the responsibilities devolving
upon him as annalist, in consequence of the recovery
of documents hitherto imagined to have been de-
stroyed, or, still more, in consequence of the dis-
covery of manuscripts previously overlooked. From
his own specific acknowledgments, it will there be
perceived how numerous have been these literary
revelations, spreading as they do, according to his
emphatic declaration (1., xiv.), " over every period of
our history, from the mention of the tin-islands by
Herodotus, to the flight of James 11., in the seven-
teenth century." Among the more notice-
able, or voluminous, of these additions to the
materials of English history, many have been
carefully enumerated in a Preliminary Notice,
wherein Dr. Lingard has set the stamp-royal of his
commendations cn the works of these pioneers of the
annalist. Nor can we be amazed at the earnestness
of some of his sententious panegyrics when•we con-
sider the toil, the ardour, and the assiduity requisite
to secure the success of such herculean undertakings.
What ardent studies, for example, were essential to- '
wards the accomplishment of the enterprize realised
in the Corpus llistoricum, where every allusion to
Britain contained in the classical writers of Greece
and Rome was extracted from their compositions, and
the whole mass of such references accumulated to-
gether by the late Mr. Petrie and his assistants!.
Again, what untiring zeal in the prosecution of those
inquiries of Dr. Giles, which have summoned from
the obscurity of dust and mildew so many inestimable
documents relating to the reign of Henry 11., and illus-
trating the career of A'Becket of Canterbury, docu-
ments enshrined in his singular production, entitled
Patres .Ecclesicc Anglicance ! No light task,-enoreover,
was that of Benjamin Thorpe, the translator of the
" Homilies of SElfrie," and the compiler of our
" Ancient Laws and Institutes"—an effort ef scholar-
ship emulated with kindred ability by John M.
Kemble in his " Saxons in England," as also in his
" Codex Diplomaticus 2Evi Saxonici." Out of the
precious archives of the Tower of London, in like
manner, it has been the high prerogative of Thomas
Duffus Hardy to select, among other estimable curiosi-
ties, the " Close and Patent Rolls," having reference to
tht reigns of John and Henry 111., documents throw:
ing a broad flood of light upon the dissension exist-
ing between the former monarch and his Pontifical
antagonist, Pope Innocent 111. Similar in nature
were the researches made by Sir Francis Palgrave,
acting under the authority of the Record Commission,
to which researches, it cannot very speedily be for-
gotten, we are indebted for the publication of that
vast variety of writs dating back as early as the reign
of Ed ward 1., and the importance of which has induced
Dr. Lingard to comment (I. xvi.) in so many words
upon the "immense value of the collection." Besides
some lesser collections dragged out of the darkness
of the State Paper Office, and embellishing the
already copious annals of the reign of Henry VIII..
with new testimonies of the arrogance of ‘Volsey,
and of the servility of Cranmer, the historian has of
late obtained an extraordinary increase of data in re-
gard to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the
" Bowes Correspondence," from the " Leicester Cor-
respondence," from the Lettres de Marie Stuart,
edited by Prince Labanoff, as likewise from the De-
peches of Delamotte Fenelon, produced in this '
country under the superintendence of Charles Purton
Cooper. Beyond what has been effected by the fore-
going
philologists and antiquaries, effected, be it re- '
collected, since the year 1819, the year in which Dr.
Lingard's " History of England " first appeared,
lesser, it may be, yet not less laudable revelations
have been made through the instrumentality of John '
Bruce, of Jehn Gough Nichols, of the Rev. Joseph
Stevenson, of Sir Thomas Phillips, of Sir Harris
Nicholas (subsequently deceased), of Sir Henry
Ellis, and of Sir Frederick Madden—besides
other labourers in the same vineyard of erudition, too
numerous to particularise. Having enumerated these
substantial reasons for a new and revised edition of the
invaluable composition now before us, it only remains
to be observed on this sutject, that Dr. Lingard has
especially commemorated, in his introductory remarks,
the literary achievements, not long since brought to
a successful termination, by two of the most popular
among the miscellaneous authors of our generation—
Miss Agnes Strickland in her "Lives of the Queens
of England," and Thomas Carlyle in his " Letters
and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell." To the former
composition our great annalist makes the following
complimentary allusion. "There remains," he says
(I. xxi.), " however, one name which shall not be
passed over in silence, that of a female writer, Miss
Agnes Strickland, whose claim to the distinction is of
a different kind, and peculiarly her own, the dis-
covery of a new mine of historic lore previously
unexplored, a mine which she has also worked
with great success, in those attractive volumes,
her ' Lives of the Queens of England.'"
From the powerful interest, also, which is naturally
associated with anything relating to that remarkable
work on his Highness the Lord Protector, which
may be regarded as constituting his literary apotheo-
sis, we shall, we are satisfied, be gratifying the
curiosity of the great majority of readers by tran-
scribing the allusions made by Dr. Lingard to that
singular performance. "The next large collection
of docum eats," says the great historian, (I. xix.)
"comprises the ' Letters and Speeches of Oliver
Cromwell,' which have been collected and published
with great care and accuracy by Thomas Carlyle, Esq.
In these the character of the principal personage is
not drawn, as was that of Queen Elizabeth, by the
pencil of another, but by the man himself; and in
them we may discover all the idiosyncracies that
marked his conduct from the time of his derange-
ment at Huntingdon, to his death at Whitehall. On
that account these documents are well worth the
serious attention of the historical student: I mean
the letters and speeches themselves,': not the run-
ing commentary with which the editor has accom-
panied them, in language most glowing and oracular.
In every edition of this work I have allotted to
Cromwell that share of praise which I thought, and-
still think, his due,—a, much larger share than he has
received from many other writers • but I feel no
disposition to fall down before the idol, and worship
him at the command of his panegyrist." A
sedate and deliberate conviction as to the
peculiar merits and demerits of that man, whom Mr.
Macaulay has aptly designated " the greatest prince
that ever ruled the destinies of England,"—such as
can be no surprise even to the infatuated and enthu-
siastic temperament of Mr. Carlyle. That in this,
as in so many other estimates of historical character,
Dr. Lingard has been affected by no precipitate
tendency to opposition, by no perverse antipathies,
or by no extravagant predilections, but that he has
here as elsewhere, evinced a feeling of calm and
unimpassioned impartiality, we conceive is sufficiently
well demonstrated by that memorable epitome of the
conspicuous characteristics of the genius of Crom-
well, beginning (VIII., 646)—" Till the commence-
ment of the present century, when that wonderful
man arose, who, by the splendour of his victories and
the extent of his empire, cast all preceding adventurers
into the shade, the name of Cromwell stood without
a parallel in the history of civilized Europe." It is
with an excusable, or rather we should say, an ad-
mirable, complacency that our annalist refers
to the confirmation of his three most contested
opinions, by all the subsequent revelations of facts
made in the disclosure of some of the documents al-
ready mentioned, through the researches of literary
antiquarians. These opinions, it can scarcely have es-
caped public recollection, had reference to the cha-
racter of Sir William Wallace, to the character of
Archbishop Crammer, and to the cause of the mas-
sacre at Paris on the feast of St. Bartholomew. From
the estimate originally formed by him of the career
and vicissitudes of the famous Scottish chieftain he
has not discovered any reason (11., 573) for making
any deductions whatever. Upon a review of the life
and actions of Cranmer, his words are still permitted
to remain (V .passim) as heretofore, stern and uncom-
promising. While in regard to the lamentable mas-
sacre in the French capital on the festival of St.
Bartholomew, he declares that from the publication
of the secret dispatches of Salviati (I. xxiii.) he de-
tects only additional corroborations cf his own state-
ments, arid supplementary justifications of his own
most reviled deductions. Hence it is but natural
that he should rejoice in the tacit approval of his
judgment thus afforded by disinterested and
unimpeachable witnesses, especially bearing in mind
how the statements alluded to, on their first appear-
ance, according to his own expression (1., xzii.),

" were received with bursts of indignation, and con-
tradicted with sneers of contempt." Before pro-
nouncing any general t pinion upon this standard
history of our country, this history which, in the esti-
mation of many of our greatest intellects now living,
has already risen to the dignity of a classic, we would
briefly jut seriously direct attention to the dis-
claimers put forward by its veteran author, first, of
making any pretension whatever to what is
termed the philosophy of history, but which he him-
self felicitously brands as the " philosophy of romance"
(1., xxv.), and secondly of adventuring upon any
discursive or episodical themes with a view to render
his narrative more palatable, preferring as he intimates
(1., xxvii.), the composition of " pure history" instead
of "an incoherent medley of fragmentary and
elementary essays," and justifying his preference by
a quotation from the Great Roman historian, Annul.
XIII, 31. And se, deeming this to be the last edition
he can expect to see, he withdraws finally into the
shadow of his scholastic seclusion, saying to us nobly,
because victoriously, in the language of the retiring
veteran in Virgil—
_ " Bic ccesius artonque reponcy"
_ _ _

Taking into consideration the magnitude of the under-
! taking here perfected with inimitable care in the ripe
ness of his autumal years—remembering that it is
nothing less than the record of the history of this
illustrious island during seventeen centuries—bearing
in recollection the multiplicity of authorities that re-
, quired consultation, the complication of events that
needed sifting, the diversieits of opinion that de-
manded reconciliation, and the perpetual involvement
of occurrences that it was absolutely essential to nar-
rate sequentially throughout calling to mind,
moreover, the various and, in some in-
stances, gifted intellects which had previously been
directed to the very effort here attempted by our an-
nalist—we do not conceive it to be beyond the pro-
vince of sedate and unbiassed criticism to proffer to
Dr. Lingard on the completion of his great history
our earnest and cordial felicitations. In 1819, when
the work was first issued from the press, its author
was in the fiftieth year of his age, consequently, in
1850, when the present revised edition is published
with the last finishing touches from the master hand
yet warm upon it, he is fast approaching the eightieth
anniversary of his nativity—an age at all times ve-
nerable, but especially so when attained, as in the
present instance, with intellectual faculties of the
very highest order not only unimpaired, but in all
their pristine energy. To us, we must acknowledge,
there is something inexpressibly solemn and elevating
in the contemplation of a career thus drawing towards
its completion in the midst cf so much moral serenity,
and surrounded by the increasing celebrity cf an al-
ready matured and permanent reputation. That the
fame acquired by Lingard's " History of England"
has not originated in a temporary fascination of the
public mind, but that it has been built up on its many
enduring excellences, may be recognized best by
those who have qualified themselves to appreciate the
worth of historical composition by a familiarity with
the classic annalists of antiquity. It is only, in truth,
through an examination of his work according to
this lofty standard that its real merits or demerits
can be estimated with accuracy ; for otherwise the
mind, sated with the gorgeous panoramas of
events disclosed in the narratives of a more
modern and, we fear, less enduring school of anna-
lists—such annalists we mean as are almost peculiar
to the soil cf France, and whose meretricious histories
may possibly have been originated by the hybrid
tastes engendered by the revolution—might experi-
ence some want of gaudy colouring and eccentric
eloquence, and picturesque partizanship in the sedate
style, the impassive precision, and the measured ora-
tory constituting the prominent characteristies of Dr.
Lingard. Familiar, however, with the classic models
of historical composition—acquainted with the exqui-
site perspicuity of Herodotus, the inexorable fidelity
Thucydides, the sweetness and purity of Xeno-
phon the energy of Folybius, the amplitude of Livy,
and the masculine animation of Sallust—the student
of history will be, of all other readers, the
best enabled to recognise the indisputable
beauties and unquestionable vigour of these re-
markable volumes, penned by the strong and
virile band of Lingard. Clear and cf admirable sim-
plicity throughout, writing as he does invariably to the
point, and
,in the purest idiom of our noble Saxon
tongue, his voice on occasions can rise to a strain of
burning and sustained eloquence capable of
proving his depth and capacity as a rhetorician.
In this respect his description of the great
plague of London in 1665 (IX., 107
et seq.) is a passage which, for the very loftiest
kind of oratorical excellence, is worthy of having fallen
from the lips of Cicero, or from the pen of Tacitus.
We must remember, however, that our office in this
criticism is rather to comment upon the qualities of
the present edition than to utter a detailed opinion of
the work as a history, or of the author as an annalist
—any such latter endeavour being little less than an
impertinence with a reputation so fully established.
Referring to the edition under review, therefore,
we can aver, with all possible emphasis, that it is par
excellence THE edition of the "History of England" by
Dr. Lingert, revised to the utmost attainable degree
of exactitude, and issued altogether in a form and
manner worthy of so remarkable and valuable a pub-
lication. Referring to the illustrious historian him-
self, now, es hitherto, living in a renowned and
academic retirement, we may say as the Abbot Cuth-
bert said of the venerable Bede, an annalist with
whom, be it observed, Dr. Lingard has many things
in common, his age, his genius, and his profession,—
Et rectum quidem vidctur, ut tota gees Anglorum
in omnibus provinciis, übicumque reperti sunt, gratias
Deo referant, pia tam mirabilem virum illis in sus
natione donavit !

THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.

This able periodical for the present month sustains
its usual high position in the serial literature of the
day. It opens with a very able and elaborate article,
as far as it goes, on a subject upon which there has
been recently some difference of opinion between
political economists, entitled "Absenteeism : its Social
and Economic Effects upon Ireland." The writer
takes a cursory glance at the enactments of different
periods against absenteeism both in this and other
countries. In England absenteeism never existed to
any mischevious or prejudicial extent, and for very
obvious reasons, yet at various periods of her history,
very stringent laws were enacted against it. In the
reign of King John, the Anglo-Normans, who held
estates both in Normandy and England, were ordered
to make their election between their two estates, and
to reside in the country of their adoption. In the
reigns of Edward the First and Third there were
also several severe and penal enactments against ab-
sentees. The able writer of this paper then goes
on to show that the English Legislature at former
periods attributed to absenteeism many of the evils of
Ireland, and enacted several -laws in the reigns of
Richard 11., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI.,
by which several of the English nobility forfeited the
whole or great part of their Irish estates in conse-
quence of non-residence, and concludes a very in-
structive paper by an admirable picture of the moral
and social benefits likely to attend a resident pro-
prietary. The other papers, constituting the present
number are, " I Never Can Forget," " Bertha's Cross
—a Story of the Middle Ages ;" " Irish and Danish
Antiquities ;" " A few more Random Records of a
Ramble in the East ;" " Some Remarks on the
Evidence for the Origin of the Round Towers," by
the Rev. G. S. Faber; "Annalists of the Restora-
tion ;" " Lays of the Famine ;" " The Price of
Blood—a Story of Gold ;" "Irish Theatricals," second
article ; " Irish Tourists—Giraldus Cambrensis ;"
" Law Reform." The subject of this last paper will
perhaps be noticed by us elsewhere. We will only
say here, that we do not concur in the remarks of
the writer on the Bills proposed by Sir John
Romilly, for the amendment of several branches of
the law in Ireland.

THE BRITISH POLITICAL, COMMER-
CIAL, ECCLESIASTICAL, and HISTORI-
CAL GAZETTEER; Travelling Road-Book,

and County Atlas.
The proprietors of this important work omit no
opportunity of rendering it both useful and instructive,
and giving it as it progresses additional claims to the
support of the public. The present number contains
a map which will be found of the greatest utility to
travellers—" A Key to British Railroads." It also
contains a well-executed map of the county of Wilt-
shire, and is embellished with a fine engraving of the
Royal Institution, Manchester.

THE MAGISTERIAL FORMULIST, being a
Complete Collection of Forms and Precedents for
Practical Use in all Mutters out of Quarter Sessions;
adapted to the Outlines of Forms in Jervis's Acts
(11 and 12 Vict, cc. 42, 43) ; with an Introduc •
Lion, Explanatory Directions, Variations, and
Notes ( brought down to 12 and 13 Vict.) By
George C. Oke, author of the " Magisterial
Synopsis."
A practical compilation of forms and precedents
such as this was rendered essentially necessary since
the passing of the Acts of the 11 and 12 Vict., cc. 42
and 43, introduced by the present Attorney-General,
and known as " Jervis's Acts." The object of these
Nets was to facilitate the duties of justices of
the peace with respect to " indictable offences"
and " summary convictions and orders ;" and
Mr. Oke, a gentleman of great practical know-
ledge and experience, seeing the want of uniformity
in the forms and precedents in use previous to the
passing of these Acts, and their want of strict appli-
cability to many special cases since the passing of
these statutes, has, with great but successful labour
and industry, supplied this desideratum, and has ac-
complished a most desirable end in whipting unifor-
mity of form to uniformity of practice. Mr. Oke
has upon former occasions supplied admirable compi-
lations for the guidance of magisterial functionaries,
both in their ministerial and judicial duties; and we

cannot too highly commend the present volume to
every magistrate and magistrate's clerk in the king-
dom. It is beautifully got up, and reflects much
credit on the publisher.

QUESTIONS for LAW STUDENTS on the
THIRD EDITION of AYEBOURNS NEW
CHANCERY PRACTICE. By JohnSwittin-
bank, Solicitor in Chancery.
. .

We think the public will, e.s we certainly aro dis-
posed to do, receive with commendation every effort
to advance the important science of the law ; end
we believe there is no method by which that desirable
end can be so speedily and solidly attained as by the
test supplied by the practical questions of volumes
like the present. To the student seriously anxious
to acquire a knowledge of his profession such little
books are invaluable, while the practitioner who
can satisfactorily answer these questions will not be
lilie!y to injure either his own reputation or the in-
terest of his client by a blunder. There are nearly
2,000 questions in this little volume which, when the
student hes fully mastered and can satisfactorily an-
swer, we think he may be fairly entrusted with the
conduct of a suit in Chancery. The compilers of
little volumes like the present deserve the en -
couragement both of the profession and the public.

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE
BRADFORD REFORM ASSOCIATION.
Sir,—On Wednesday the 6th, the debate was re-
sumed on the Marriages Bill. There were some
points about the resumed debate, which are worth re-
marking on. One was, how completely the pretence
of Levitical authority was driven out of the field and
given up. It might be hard to insist on inferring
any analogy between our quoters of Scripture, and
the enemy of mankind who appears to have been
himself a quote/. of Scripture in his time; but assu-
redly there is a strong resemblance between the ways
in which the two comport themselves, upon being met
with the resistance we are invited to make to the latter.
Another remark is, the abundance of the specimens
of those peculiar descriptions of argument which a
witty Divine has immortalised in the inimitable
" Oration." If the present Bill is passed, why should
not an Act be next passed to enable men to marry
their sisters ? Simply, unfortunate one, because no-
body will petition for it, speak for it, vote for it. If
these are not reasons enough, none can be. But are
not the people demanding to be allowed to act contrary
to law ? All amendment of law, is to allow men to
act contrary to that which was worse. But is not all
that anybody may have suffered, the mere result of
the supremacy of the existing law ? Slavery and the
Slave Trade would have always been justified on the
same principle of jurisprudence.
On Thursday the debate ran high on the ques-
tion of Relief to the Kilrush Union. The case is
certainly one having many bearings, and not to be
settled on the instant by a headlong charge of phi-
lanthropy. But can it be altogether right, that when
men have been reduced to famine by the potatoes to
which they trusted being found to have gone through
the ship's bottom and disappeared, the commander
and his officers should take that opportunity of dis-
solving the tenancy, and pulling down their berths
and coverings, by way of enforcing their clearing
his decks by jumping into the sea? It is clear that
in the actual position of things, it is a simple walking
of the plank ; and the question I have to put is,
whether this comes within the captain's ordinary
right to have a choice in his passengers. It looks
as if the moment was badly chosen. It looks as it
means might be found to invite the commander to
exercise his power either before or after, but not to
fix on that particular moment to push his passengers
into the water.
On the same evening the annual motion was made
for the establishment of the Vote by Ballot. It was
met by the old routine of stale and oft-repeated ar-
guments. One of the great uses of a Parliament, is
to enable the people to judge of the strength or
weakness of their rulers. It is only when the string
is worn out, and its weakness too palpable for further
use, that an unwise Government provides for the
necessity. After the acknowledgments that change
is on the road, it would appear as if something might
have been done, on the principle of the shipmaster
who takes in sail before the squall reaches him. But
nothing will be taken in here, till something is blown
away. There is an admission of the danger, and at
the same time a refusal to do anything to ease it,
which are curious in combination.
The division demonstrates, that the squall is near-
ing fast ; 123 votes in a House of only 299, is a large
advance on any previous display.
On Friday came on the Member for the West
Riding's motion for the reduction of expenditure.
The event was like all the rest. Nothing will be
done, till there is reason. It must be the business of
the country in its preparatory processes, to make it.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
AN OLD REFORMER.
London, 11th March, 1850.

REVIVAL OF THE ANTIGONE"
OF SOPHOCLES.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Slll,—Your remarks on the superb way in which
Judge Talfourd's fine tragedy of _lon has been
lately represented at Drury-lane Theatre comes very
apropos, in aid of those who are longing to witness
the revival of the Antigone with its Mendelssohn-
nian music, at the same theatre. If lon can be
so well put upon its stage, how much more attrac-
tively to the public might the Antigone be given—
seeing that the original Antigone would come out in
full force—(not in only quarter force, as in the
slightly interesting and subordinate role of Clemanthe)
—by the side of her father's magnificent Creon ; and
seeing, furthermore, that Mendelssohn's glorious
choral and lyric strains and symphonies would be a
grand and entire addition, over and above any attrac-
tion which appertains to the tragedy of lon. Add
to all these considerations, that the learned world,
our collegiate friends and celebrities, would be in-
evitably anxious to witness the representation of a
play enacted more than 2,000 years ago before the
Areopagus and the people of Athens ; and that her
Majesty, with her Court, would in all probability
bestow her patronage on a representation which owes
its first introduction to our own times to the
fostering patronage of a crowned head—viz., the
King of Prussia—and I think enough has been said
to indicate that the revival of the Antigone unex-
hausted and unworn out with the public as it is,
would be a matter of the highest policy, certain
remuneration, and lasting credit to the present lessee
of our great national temple of the intellectual
drama. I am, Sir, &c.,

A. FIZZ .-&D OF " OLD DRURY."
Inner Temple, March 7, 1850.

- -
PORTRAIT OF LORD D. C. STUART. A beautiful
proof impression of a very excellent portrait of this
nobleman, the liberal and popular representative of
the borough of Marylebone, has just reached us. It
has been printed by Hanhart, from a drawing on
stone by Napoleon Ploszczynski,
and pourtrays the
features of Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart somewhat
felicitously, especially in the upper portion of the
countenance. As an accompanying prospectus very
judiciously observes, " All who admire his Lordship's
upright and amiable character should secure an im-
pression early, as a limited number only will be
thrown off, and the stone destroyed, to prevent the
circulation of inferior copies."
A HISTORY OF HUNGARY AND LYRICS, DY A. B. M.
WILDMAN.—A neat little volume, under this title, has
recently been printed in Bradford, and a copy having
fallen into our possession, we can afford the author our
felicitations. Some of his verses having originally
appeared in our columns may be in the recollection
of those interested in the progress of the Hungarian
movement. The modest volume before us is rendered
additionally attractive by the preservation in its pages
of some of those famous documents and speeches
which even in England have secured to Kossuth a high
reputation as a poet and an orator.
LEGAL REFORIC—A brief but excellent pamphlet
has within the last few days appeared in the form of "A
Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Brougham and Vault on
the Amendment of Common Law Procedure," by W. H.
Smith, attorney-at-law. From the ability displayed by the
pamphleteer in the lucid suggestions thrown cut by him
in reference to the improvements necessary in the com-
mon law procedure, it is to be hoped that he will apply
his attention in a subsequent brochure to the considera-
tion of the changes requisite in the laws relating to real
property. His remarks go far towards the elucidation
of many difficult;es at present experienced by our legal
reformers, especially in the simplicity and compactness
of the forms of action proposed by him in lieu of those
antiquated, if not obsolete ones now employed.
COLONIAL APPOINTMENTS--John Porter Atthill,
Esq., late Attorney-General of St. Lucia, is appointed
Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court in that island. Louis
Le Case, Esq., Solicitor-General, succeeds Mr. Atthill
as Attorney-General; and Cyprian Millet Pont. Esq.,
is appointed to the vacant office of Solicitor-General.
George Garcia, Esq., is appointed Solicitor-General for
Trinidad. David Jardine and Joseph Frost, E.qs., are
appointed members of the L, gislative Council of Hong-
Kong.—Observer.
Tas EGYPTIAN MEDAL.—The following are the
names of some of the survivors of the Egyptian achieve-
ments of 1801, who are no longer in the service:—
Thomas Davis, Esq , formerly assistant surgeon 20th
Dragoons; Lieutenant Colonel S. J. Cochrane, fur-
Ensign 3rd Guards; M. L. Este, Esq., formerly 3rd
Guards; Lieutenant L. A. tie Nee, formerly of the 10th
Foot; Lieutenant Colonel D. Baby, formerly Lieutenant
24th Eoot; Major Campbell, formerly Lieutenant of the
42nd; Lieutenant Colonel Fulton, formerly of the 70th
Re gimei.t; Captain Metcalfe, formerly 79th Regiment;
Lieutenant Colonel Gunning. ditto; Lieutenant Colonel
Marsh, ditto; J. 11. Soden, Esq., ditto (Assistant Sur-
geon); Lieutenant Russ, formerly 88th Regiment;
Captain S. Nicoll, formerly 26th Cameronians.
AILWAY COMMISSIONERS.—Captain Harness, se-
, cretary to the Commissioners of Railways, is appointed
to a high position in the Mint. lie is succeeded by
Captain Simmons, as secretary, now one of the inspec-
: tors of railways. Capt. Laffan is re-Es'ablished on the
commission as inspector.—. British Army Despatch.