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WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. XXIII.
LONDON, 1829.

VIEW OF THE COURT OF CHANCERY.
LONDON 1829.
If experience makes a man wise—if an ex-
tensive practical acquaintance with certain griev-
ances qualifies the sufferer for writing on the
SUbject of such grievances—then are the stric-
turea of Mr. Long Wellesley on the forms,
Processes, and embarrassing expences of the
Court of Chancery entitled to very grave con-
ideration. Reversing the old adage, that " a
burnt child dreads the fire," this gentleman re-
turns- to the subject of his latter annoyances
with a heartiness and perseverance, not to
gaY a freshness of zeal, which we have
Seldom, if ever, seen equalled. Difficulties
"ern to rise up, one after another, in his path,
71.1 y for the purpose of showing with what ree-
Intim he can brush them away " like dew-drops
f n3Tn. the lion's mane." This indomitable perse-
Isranee -argues a very high, and what is greater
reaise still, a very rare order of mind ; for how
*---how very few, after having lost in four
Yesra Upwards of 20,0001., besides having been
deprived of their paternal rights by successive
law-Suits and decrees of the Court of Chancery,
wnuld have sufficient energies left to grapple
single-handed with the hundred-headed Hydra
of their difficulties ! But Mr. Wellesley, like
his uncle, is not. a man to be dispirited, as his
Present Treatise every where evinces. The work
bears
unequivocal marks of legal research, and
P,roves also that its author, besides being well-
Skilled in the " sermones utriusque lingua," is
Perfectly at home with the modern French and
Italian literati. On the infelicitous —to give
it the most courteous term—system of the
Court of Chancery, he descants at length, and
with much pertinent sagacity, following in the
lame- track, though diverging here and there from
the main path, that Mr. M. A. Taylor and
others have trode before him. We need not
add, that Mr. Wellesley makes out a strong
case ; that he exposes the weak, defenceless,
untenable points of the Chancery system, and
lays tlle lash upon that system with as much
scientific dexterity as the late Dr. Parr, (greatly
to his credit) used to evince in the flagellations
of a refractory Harrovian. His episodical sketch
of Lord Eldon is sternly but forcibly painted;
nothing was ever more true, few things more po-
litely caustic. We subjoin a specimen :
" Lord Eldon is an avowed disciple of Mr. Pitt. Look
, at the declaration of that statesman in early life, as to the
necessity of reform ; his sweeping reform in the Irish re-
presentative system ; the Union between Ireland and
England ; his dissolution of the Irish Parliament,
&el. I cannot help thinking that the man who now
marks himself out as adverse to all reform, must either
have forgotten or mistaken the principles he professes to
uphold, whea he professes himself a supreme Pittite. I
have already said, that that which might have been con-
sidered yesterday as destruction, may be to-day salvation ;
and this, I contend, was Mr. Pitt's frequent policy.
Ile, then, is not to be stigmatised as an anti-Pittite,
Or as infected with revolutionary principles, who
now demands to see effected those wholesome and
necessary reforms which the particular exigencies
of the times caused once to be held in disrepute.
The indemnity we formerly required for the past has been
obtained ; and the security which we want for the future
is now within our grasp. I think I have a right to say
his Lordship's conduct upon a recent occasion in Parlia-
ment justifies my original opinion. Time has made Lord
Eldon unequal to himself. He either does not feel the
change of circumstances, or, tenacious of the political in-
fluence he has obtained, has resolved to use it for the pur-
poses of his own aggrandisement.
l'Untrer 'his Lordship's auspices a report, it is true, has
come forth with regard to the evils of the Court of Chan-
cery; but so overloaded with technicalities that it is un-
intelligible to all but a privileged few. No man has been
hardy enough to venture to expound its meaning to that
part of the community who are unlettered in equity juris-
prudence. Notwithstanding this, the vices of the Court
Are beginning to be understood, and the public call aloud
for remedy.
" His Lordship evinces none of those qualifications
which are the essentials to magnanimity. Pitt ! Pitt !
Pitt! no reform ; no abandonment of ancient rights—the
throne—the law, and the clergy ; the dignity of high
station; the power of the executive, as it was found ne-
cessary to maintain it in all times, when at our doors were
anarchy and confusion. These are:the watch-words and
symbols of Lord Eldon's political principles. He cannot
be brought to conceive that these views do not belong to
the present times, and that they cannot he carded into
effect now that there are no grounds for apprehending
sudden disorders from rebellion ; when there is no enemy
at our gates, seeking the extinction of our liberties, or the
destruction of our political power."
In closing our necessarily brief account of this
spirited treatise, we cannot help expressing our
regret, that in certain passages a feeling of exa-
cerbation, rather too warm and personal, has
been suffered to obtrude itself. This is not,
perhaps, to be wondered at ; but Mr. 'Wellesley
should remember, that the cause of truth is to
be forwarded, not by rancour or personality, but
by the tempered weapons of a calm, unbiassed
judgment, which, in its zeal to promote the
public good, merges the recollection (however
difficult) of private wrongs.

The review of Coleridge's Works, whic
forms the opening article of this periodical, seems
to have been put forth for the purpose of show-
ing that the Westminster Reviewers, so far from
misunderstanding the nature and uses of poetry,
or holding it in abhorrence, are in reality equally
at home on subjects of feeling and imagination as
on those of a more homely, practical, and mecha-
nical nature. If this be their intention, we can only
say that in the present instance it is a failure ;
for the poetical intellect of Coleridge, so far from
being, what the Reviewer hints throughout that it
is, of a healthy, logical, and consistent character, is
dreamy, wild, incongruous, and obscure to a de-
gree seldom or never surpassed among poets of
any age or nation. We need not go far for
proofs of this assertion, they abound in every
page of Coleridge's works. " The Remorse,"
notwithstanding its many transcendant beauties
both of thought and expression, is full of them.
So also is Christabel, Kubla-Khan, the Rime
of the Anciente Marinere, and the majority of
those metaphysical—or, as the author lcves to
call them—" meditative" poems, which a few
years since were collected and published toge-
ther, in one volume, under the title of " Sibyl-
line Leaves." Yet this is the man that the
Benthamites stoutly assert, is " one of us !"
This is the author who, though in many respects
a first-rate poet, is at the same time vague, ramb-
ling, incoherent, and mysterious, and whose
imagination is here lauded to the skies, for
its logical and continuous character ! We
can conceive no severer calamity befall-