He concluded a brief commentary (substantially identical with that of Lord Cottenham) on the authorities cited, by affirming that "there was neither text-book, decision, nor dicta to support a doctrine so entirely contrary to principle."

This is how his lordship thinks the like mischief may be obviated in future:—

"If bad counts are inadvertently introduced, the mischief may be easily obviated by taking a verdict of acquittal upon them—by entering a nolle prosequi to them, or by seeing that the judgment is expressly stated to be on the good counts only, which alone could prevent the bad counts from invalidating the judgment upon a writ of error."

As to the notion that the judges were uninfluenced in passing sentence by the first three counts, on which there were numerous findings, he observed, that—"We cannot resort to the palpably incredible fiction that the judges, in violation of their duty, did not consider the guilt of the parties aggravated by the charges in these three counts, and proportionally increase their punishment."

After an unsuccessful attempt on the part of one or two lay peers who had not heard the whole argument, to vote—which was resisted by both the Lord Chancellor and Lord Wharncliffe, and Lords Brougham and Campbell—the Lord Chancellor finally put the question:—

"Is it your lordships' pleasure that this judgment be reversed?—As many as are of that opinion, will say 'Content.' As many as are of a contrary opinion, will say 'Not Content.'"

"Content!" exclaimed Lords Denman, Cottenham, and Campbell.

"Not Content!" said the Lord Chancellor and Lord Brougham.

Lord Chancellor. "The Contents have it. The judgment is Reversed."

The instant after these pregnant words had been uttered, there was a rush of persons, in a state of the highest excitement and exultation, towards the door; but the lords calmly proceeded to give judgment in a number of ordinary appeal cases. The Attorney-General for Ireland, who had been watching the whole of the day's proceedings with close attention, heard the result with perfect composure; but as several portions of the judgments of Lords Denman, Cottenham, and Campbell were being delivered, a slight sarcastic smile flitted over his features. As we have mentioned him, let us take this opportunity of bearing testimony to the very great ability—ability of the highest order—with which he has discharged his portion of the duty of conducting these proceedings, unprecedented in their harassing complexity and their overwhelming magnitude. He has manifested throughout—'bating a little irritability and strictness in petty details at starting—a self-possession; a resolute determination; a capability of coping with unexpected difficulty; a familiarity with constitutional law; a mastery over the details of legal proceedings; in short, a degree of forensic ability, which has been fully appreciated by the English bar, and reflects credit upon those who placed him in his arduous and responsible office. In terms of similar commendation we would speak of the Irish Solicitor-General, (Mr Sergeant Green.) Accustomed as we are to witness the most eminent displays of forensic ability, we feel no hesitation in expressing our opinion, that the Solicitor-General's reply at the trial, and the Attorney-General's reply on the motion for a new trial, were as masterly performances as have come under our notice for very many years.

We have thus laid before our readers, with the utmost candour and care, this truly remarkable case; and at a length which, though considerable, is by no means incommensurate with its permanent interest and importance. We believe that we have, in the foregoing pages, furnished all persons, of average intellect and information, with the means of forming for themselves a sound opinion as to the propriety or impropriety of reversing the judgment of the court below. We have given the arguments on both sides with rigid impartiality, and supplied such information, in going along, as will enable the lay reader thoroughly to understand them. This is a question which all thinking persons must needs regard with profound interest and anxiety. If, in the deliberate opinion of the country, the judgments of the High Court of Parliament are habitually, though unconsciously, warped by party and political feelings and prejudices; if, with such views and intentions, they have strained and perverted the law of the land, wickedly sheltering themselves under the unfortunate difference of opinion existing among the judges, those who have been guilty of it will justly stand exposed to universal execration. It is no light matter even to propose such a possibility as that of profligacy or corruption in the administration of justice; above all, in the highest tribunal in the land—the place of last resort for the subject. It is always with pain and regret that we hear, even in the height of political excitement and hostility, the faintest imputation from any quarter on judicial integrity. We have watched this case from first to last; and especially examined over and over again, in a spirit of fearless freedom, the grounds assigned for reversing the judgment, and the position and character of those by whose fiat that result was effected. We cannot bring ourselves to believe any thing so dreadful as that three judicial noblemen have deliberately violated their oaths, and perpetrated so enormous an offence as that of knowingly deciding contrary to law. Those who publicly express that opinion, incur a very grave responsibility. We are ourselves zealous, but independent supporters of the present government; we applaud their institution of these proceedings; no one can lament more bitterly than we do, that O'Connell should, like many a criminal before him, have escaped from justice through a flaw in the indictment; yet with all this, we feel perfectly satisfied that the three peers who reversed the judgment against him, believed that they were right in point of law. When we find so high an authority as Mr Baron Parke—as far as politics are concerned, a strong Conservative—declaring that he cannot possibly bring himself to concur in opinion with his brethren; that another judge—Mr Justice Coltman—after anxious deliberation, also dissents from his brethren; and when we give each of these judges credit for being able to appreciate the immense importance of unanimity upon such a case as the present, had it been practicable—can it seem really unreasonable or surprising, that a corresponding difference of opinion should exist among the peers, whose judicial duty it was to decide finally between the judges? It is, certainly, a matter calculated to attract a moment's attention, that the judgment should have been reversed by the votes of three peers who concur in political opinion, and opposition to the government who instituted the prosecution. But in fairness, put another possible case. Suppose Lord Abinger had been alive, and had concurred with the Chancellor and Lord Brougham, would not another class of ardent partisans as naturally have remarked bitterly upon the coincidence of opinion between the peers whose three voices concurred in supporting the judgment of the court below?

While we thus entirely exonerate Lords Denman, Cottenham, and Campbell from all imputation of intentionally giving effect to party and political bias, it is difficult to suppose them, or any other peer, entirely free from unconscious political bias; but in the nature of things, is it not next to impossible that it should be otherwise, in the case of men who combine in their own persons the legislative and judicial character, and in the former capacity are unavoidably and habitually subject to party influences? When a Judicial question is under consideration, of such extreme doubtfulness as almost to justify a vote either way, (we must deal with men and things as we find them,) can it excite great surprise, if even in the most honourable minds a political bias should unconsciously evince its presence, and just turn the scale?

But here the case has turned upon one single point of the purest technicality, which the House of Lords has deemed sufficient to cause a reversal of the judgment of the court below; and the question is, have they done rightly? Are they right or wrong in point of strict law? In the language of Mr Justice Williams—the objection raised in behalf of the traversers "is purely of a technical nature, and to be examined in the same spirit of minute and exact criticism in which it was conceived."[14]

The dry question, then, is this: Is it a rule, a principle, a custom, of English law, that one good count will sustain a general judgment upon a writ of error in a criminal case, although there should be also bad counts in the indictment? Is that a "custom or maxim of our law," or is it not? First, then, how is this to be ascertained? The illustrious commentator on the laws of England, Mr Justice Blackstone,[15] shall answer:—

"Established customs, rules, and maxims, I take to be one and the same thing. For the authenticity of these maxims rests entirely upon reception and usage; and the only method of proving that this or that maxim is a rule of the common law, is by showing that it hath been always the custom to observe it. But here a very natural and very material question arises: how are these customs or maxims to be known; and by whom is their validity to be determined? The answer is, by the judges in the several courts of justice. They are the depositaries of the laws—the living oracles, who must decide in all cases of doubt, and are bound by an oath to decide according to the law of the land."

These judges were appealed to by the House of Lords upon the present occasion; and by an overwhelming majority "distinctly, clearly, and decidedly" declared that the rule in question was a rule of the English law. They had heard all the arguments calling its existence in question which Lord Denman, Lord Cottenham, and Lord Campbell had heard; they were in the daily and hourly administration of that branch of the law with reference to which the question arose; they took ample time to consider the matter, and deliberately affirmed the existence of the rule, and the valid grounds on which it rested. The highest legal authority in the land, the Lord Chancellor, corroborated their decision, declaring that it "has always been considered as a clear, distinct, and undoubted principle of the criminal law, that one good count could sustain a general judgment on a writ of error." Are Lord Lyndhurst and Sir Nicholas Tindal, with eight of the judges, palpably and manifestly wrong? It is certainly possible, though not, we presume, very probable.

We fully recognise the right of the judicial peers to examine the validity of the reasons assigned by the judges, and to come to a conclusion opposite to theirs. We apprehend that the long recognition, alone, of the existence of a rule, does not prevent its being impeached on sufficient reasons. Lord Tenterden, as cautious and accurate judge as ever presided over a court of justice, thus expressed himself in delivering the judgment of the court on a question of mercantile law[16]—"It is of great importance, in almost every case, that a rule once laid down, and firmly established, and continued to be acted upon for many years, should not be changed, unless it appears clearly to have been founded on wrong principles." Have, then, Lords Denman, Cottenham, and Campbell, succeeded in showing the rule in question to have been founded on wrong principles?

After as close and fair an examination of the judgments given in the House of Lords as we are capable of bestowing upon any subject, we have arrived at the conclusion that the Chancellor and judges were plainly right, and the peers who differed from them as plainly wrong. They doubtless believed that they were eradicating an erroneous and mischievous practice from the administration of criminal law; but we entertain grave fears that they have not duly considered the many important reasons and necessities out of which that practice originated, and which, in our opinion, will require the legislature either to restore it, or devise some other expedient in lieu of it—if one so efficacious can be found—after a very brief experience of the practical mischiefs and inconveniences which the decision of the House of Lords will entail upon the administration of criminal justice.

Mr Justice Coltman observes,[17] that "in old times an indictment contained one single count only;" and that, "now it has become usual to insert many counts." It has become usual—it should rather be said necessary; but why? Because of the rigid precision which the law, in spite of the subtle and complicated character of its modern mode of administration, has long thought fit to require for the protection of the subject, in the statement of an offence charged against an individual. Unless that degree of generality in framing criminal charges, which has been so severely reprobated, in the present instance, by Lord Denman, and which led the judges unanimously to condemn the sixth and seventh counts, shall be henceforth permitted, justice must, so to speak, be allowed to have many strings to her bow; otherwise the very great distinctness and particularity which constitute the legal notion of certainty, are only a trap and a snare for her. There is a twofold necessity for allowing the reasonable multiplication of counts: one, to meet the difficulty often arising out of the adjustment of the statement in the charge to the evidence which is to support it; and the other, to obviate the great difficulty, in many cases, of framing the charge with perfect legal certainty and precision. Look for a striking illustration at the sixth and seventh counts of this very indictment. Few practical lawyers, we venture to think, would have pronounced them insufficient, before hearing those numerous astute and able arguments which have led the judges to that conclusion; and what if these had been the only counts, or one of them the sole count? Of course, justice would have been defeated. Now the rule, custom, or practice—call it what you will—which has been annulled by the House of Lords, was admirably adapted to meet, in combination with the allowance of several counts, the practical and perhaps inevitable difficulties which beset the attempt to bring criminals to justice; to prevent any injurious consequences from either defective or unproved counts; and we think we may truly state, that no single instance as adduced during the argument, of actual mischief or injury occasioned to defendants by the operation of this rule—we believe we may safely defy any one now to produce such a case. It is certainly possible for an anxious straining ingenuity to imagine such cases; and where is the rule of law, which, in the infirmity of human institutions, cannot be shown capable of occasioning possible mischief and injustice?

One important distinction has not, we venture to think, been kept constantly in view by the House of Lords in arriving at their recent decision; we mean, the distinction between defective counts and unproved counts. It was principally in the former case that the annulled rule operated so advantageously for the interests of justice. Let us suppose a case. A man is charged with an offence; and the indictment contains three counts, which we will call A, B, C—each differently describing the same offence. He is proved in court to have actually done an act to which the law annexes a punishment, and a general verdict and judgment, awarding the correct kind of punishment, are given and entered. If it afterwards became necessary to "make up" the record—i. e. to enter the proceedings in due and full form—it might appear that count A was essentially defective, as containing no "offence" at all. But what did that signify—or what would it have signified if count B had also been bad—provided count C was a good one, and warranted the punishment which had been inflicted? The only consequence was, that the indictment was a little longer than it turns out that it needed to have been. Though several hooks had been used in order to give an additional chance of catching the fish, that was not regretted, when, the fish having been caught, it turned out that two out of the three had not been strong enough; and that, had they alone been used, the fish must have escaped.

Let us see how the new rule laid down by the House of Lords will operate in future, in such a case as the one above supposed; bearing in mind that it will have to be acted upon, not merely by the judges of the superior courts at the assizes, but by the chairmen—the lay chairmen—of the courts of Quarter-Sessions. Let us imagine the indictment to be a long one, and each count necessarily complicated in its allegations and refinements, to meet very doubtful facts, or very doubtful language in an Act of Parliament. A great number of prisoners are to be tried; but, nevertheless, the judge (lay or professional) has mastered the formidable record, and points out to the jury two bad counts, A and B, as either not hitting the facts of the case or the language of the act—possibly neither. He orders them to be quashed, or directs a verdict of not guilty upon them. He then has the verdict and judgment entered accordingly on count C, (the count which he considers good.) The record is afterwards made up; a writ of error brought; the only count on which the judgment is given being C, the court of error decides that it is bad, reverses the judgment, and the prisoner is discharged; or the country is put to the expense and trouble of bringing, and the prisoner unjustly harrassed by, fresh proceedings, which may, perhaps, end as disastrously as before!

To escape from these serious difficulties, it is proposed by Lord Denman,[18] to leave the legal sufficiency of the counts for discussion before a court of error, and to pass, not one sentence, but three distinct sentences on each count respectively, apportioning to the offence thereby apparently charged, the degree of punishment due to the guilt disclosed. Keeping his eye on the alarming possibility of a reversal of judgment, what difficulties will not beset the path of the judge while engaged on this very critical duty? And why may not the indictment, for necessary caution's sake, contain, as there often are, ten, fifteen, or twenty counts? we shall then have ten or fifteen distinct sentences delivered in open court—engrossed on the record—and dangling at once around the neck of the astounded and bewildered prisoner. Is such a method of procedure calculated to secure respect for the administration of justice, even if, by means of such devices, the ends of justice should be ultimately secured, though it is easy to imagine cases in which such devices would, after all, fail; and we had framed several illustrations of such possibilities, but our limits forbid their insertion: instances illustrating the mischievous operation of the rule, equally in cases of defective and unproved counts—of felonies and misdemeanours—and in the latter case, whether the indictment contained several offences, or only varied statements of one offence. In the case first put, what a temptation the new rule holds out to criminals who may be able to afford to bring a writ of error, and so seriously embarrass the administration of justice! And if too poor to do it, he will, under the operation of the new rule, be suffering punishment unjustly; for the only count selected may be bad, or some one only of several may be bad, and the judgment ought to be reversed. What was the operation of the old rule? Most salutary and decorous. No public account was taken of the innocuous aims, so to speak, taken by justice, in order to hit her victim. If he fell, the public saw that it was in consequence of a blow struck by her, and concerned themselves not with several previous abortive blows. The prisoner, knowing himself proved actually guilty, and the numerous chances existing against him on the record, if he chose to make pettifogging experiments upon its technical sufficiency, submitted to his just fate.

Let us take one more case—that of murder: we fear, that on even such solemn and awful occasions, the new rule will be found to operate most disadvantageously. There are necessarily several, possibly many, counts. Mr Baron Parke[19] admits, that here the old rule should apply; viz. a general judgment of death, which shall not be vitiated by one, or several bad counts, if there be a single good one. The new rule since laid down, says, however, the contrary; that judgment must be reversed for a single bad count. Lord Denman, to meet this difficulty, would pass sentence "upon some one"[20] of them, and thereby exhaust the materials of punishment, and so in effect give a "judgment for one felony." But how is the record to be dealt with? If the prisoner choose to bring a writ of error, and show a single bad count, must not the judgment be reversed if entered generally? And if entered on one count with not guilty on all the others; and that one count proved bad, while even a single one of the rejected counts is good, and would have been supported by the evidence given at the trial, the prisoner can plead autrefois acquit to a fresh indictment, and so get off scot-free, after having been incontestably proved guilty of the act of murder! Suppose then, to avoid so fearful a result, separate sentences of death be passed, to say nothing of the unseemliness of the transaction in open court, which might be avoided: but how can it be avoided on the record, upon which it must be entered? Mr Baron Parke pronounces that such a procedure would be "superfluous, and savour of absurdity,"[21] and that therefore, "in such a case, the general judgment might be good!" Thus, in order to work the new rule, Mr Baron Parke is forced to make the case of murder a double exception—viz. to the adoption of the new rule at the trial, and then to the operation of the new rule before the court of error, which must then hold that a single bad, or a dozen bad counts, will not vitiate a general judgment, if sustained by one good count! Does not all this suffice to show the desperate shifts to which even two such distinguished judges are driven, in order to support the new rule, and conceal its impracticability? Then why should the old lamp be exchanged for the new?

We entertain, we repeat, very grave apprehension that the House of Lords has treated far too cavalierly the authority of the great Lord Mansfield, than whom a more enlightened, learned, and cautious a judge probably never administered justice among mankind. He was not a man accustomed, in delivering his judgments, to "utter things needlessly and inconsiderately," as he is now charged with doing;[22] and when he declared the established rule of criminal law to be that which has now been so suddenly abrogated, he spoke with the authority which nearly thirty years' judicial experience attaches to the opinion of a responsible master-mind. We ask with deep anxiety, what will be the consequences of thus lightly esteeming such authority?—of impugning the stability of the legal fabric, by asserting one-half of its materials to consist merely of "law taken for granted?"[23]—and, consequently, not the product of experience and wisdom, and to be got rid of with comparative indifference, in spite of the deliberate and solemn judgment of an overwhelming majority of the existing judicial authorities of the land.

The rule just abrogated has, for a long series of years—for a century and a half—obviated a thousand difficulties and evils, even if it should be admitted that the end was gained at the expense of some imperfections in a speculative and theoretical point of view, and with the risk of possibly inflicting injustice in some case, which could be imagined by an ingenious and fertile fancy. The old rule gave ten chances to one in favour of justice; the new one gives ten chances to one against her. We may be mistaken, but we cannot help imagining, that if Lord Cottenham, unquestionably so able as an equity judge, had, on the maxim cuique sua arte credendum, given a little more weight to the opinions of those whose whole lives had been passed, not in equity, but criminal courts, or had seen for himself the working of the criminal law, he would have paused before disturbing such complicated—necessarily complicated—machinery, and would not have spoken of the consequences as being so very slight and unimportant—nay, as so very beneficial.

It was suggested by the three peers, that the old rule had no better foundation than the indolence, slovenliness, and negligence of practitioners, whom the salutary stringency of the new rule would stimulate into superior energy and activity. We cannot help regarding this notion, however—for the preceding, among many other reasons—as quite unfounded, and perhaps arising out of a hasty glance at the alterations recently introduced into civil pleadings and practice. But observe, it required an act of Parliament to effect these alterations, (stat. 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 42,) the very first section reciting the "doubts which might arise as to the power of the judges to make such alterations without the authority of Parliament;" and yet the state of the laws calling for such potent interference was in an incomparably more defective and mischievous state than is imputed to the present criminal law. Then, again, any practical man will see in a moment, that the strictness of the new system of civil pleading, which to this moment occasions not infrequently a grievous failure of justice, with all the ample opportunities afforded for deliberate examination and preparation of the pleadings, cannot be safely applied to criminal law for many reasons, principally because it rarely admits of that previous deliberation in drawing the indictment, which must be based upon the often inaccurate statement of facts supplied by the depositions; and because a defect in them is, generally speaking, irremediable and fatal, and crime goes unpunished. If the new rule is to be really acted upon in future, we must, in some way or other, alter the whole machinery of the criminal law: but how to do so, without seriously interfering with the liberty of the subject, we know not.

We affirm, therefore, that the old rule—viz. that one good count would support a general verdict and judgment, though the indictment contained bad ones also—was a beneficial rule, calculated to obviate inevitable difficulties; and its policy was so transparent to all the great intellects which have, both as judges or counsel, been for so long a series of years concerned in criminal cases, that no one ever thought of questioning it. The supposition of the three peers is one not very flattering to the distinguished predecessors, with the great Lord Mansfield at their head—all of whom it charges with gross negligence, ignorance, and, in plain words, stupidity—in overlooking, from time to time, a point so patent and glaring. The Lord Chancellor's answer to their argument is triumphant; and we refer the reader to it.[24] We respectfully and firmly enter our protest against Lord Denman's mode of getting rid of the efficacy of a custom or practice which has been so long observed by the profession; and regard it as one calculated to sap the foundations of the common law of the land. An opinion, a practice which has stood its ground for so long a series of years unchallenged, amidst incessant provocation to challenge it—and that, too, in the case of men of such vigilant astuteness, learning, and determination as have long characterized the English Bench and Bar—rest upon as solid grounds as are conceivable, and warrants it subversion only after profound consideration, and repeated evidence of its mischievous operation. Was any such evidence offered in the argument at the Bar of the House of Lords, of persons who had suffered either a kind or a degree of punishment not warranted by law? None: but several cases were put in which—in spite of past experience to the contrary—inconvenience and injustice might possibly be conceived to occur hereafter!

What, then, led to this error—for error we must call it? Let us candidly express our opinion that the three peers were fairly "overpowered"—to adopt the frank acknowledgment of one of the most distinguished among them—by the plausible fallacies urged upon them, with such unprecedented pertinacity and ingenuity, by the traversers' counsel. They have been influenced by certain disturbing forces, against which they ought to have been vigilantly on their guard, and which we shall now venture to specify, as having occasioned their forgetfulness of the true province of a court of error—of the functions and duties of the members of such a court. A COURT OF ERROR occupies a high, but necessarily a very limited, sphere of action. Their observations and movements are restricted to the examination of a single document, viz. the record, which they are to scrutinize, as closely as possible, without regard to any of the incidents which may have attended the progress of the events narrated in it, if these incidents do not appear upon record: and they must be guided by general principles—not such as might properly regulate a certain special and particular case, but such as would guide them in all cases. And this is signified by the usual phrase, that they "must not travel out of the record." Now, we defy any one to read the judgments of the three peers, without detecting the undue influence which one extrinsic and utterly inadmissible fact has had upon their minds; viz. the fact, that the court below had actually affirmed the validity of the two bad counts. They speak of its being "against notorious facts"—against "common probabilities," a "palpably incredible fiction"—to conclude from the language of the record, that the "offences" there mentioned did not include the pseudo offences contained in the sixth and seventh counts. In this particular case, it did undoubtedly happen, in point of fact, that the court below decided these counts to be valid counts: but the court of error can take no cognisance whatever of extrinsic facts. Their only source of information—their only means of knowledge, is the record—beyond the four corners of which they have no power, no authority, to cast a single glance; and within which are contained all the materials upon which, by law, the judges of a court of error can adjudicate and decide. The Court, in the present case, ought thus to have contemplated the record in the abstract—and with reference to the balance of possibilities in such cases, that the court below had affirmed, or condemned the vicious counts: which very balance of possibilities shows the impropriety of being influenced by speculations based on matters dehors the record. However numerous and mischievous may have been the errors committed by the inferior court, a court of error can take no cognisance of them, if they do not appear specifically and positively upon the record, however valid may be the claim which these errors may notoriously prefer to the interference of the executive. Consider what a very serious thing it is—what a shock to the public confidence in the administration of justice—to reverse a judgment pronounced after due deliberation, and under the gravest responsibilities, by a court of justice! The law and constitution are properly very tender in the exercise of such a perilous power, and have limited it to the case of "MANIFEST" error—that is, not the vehement, the immense probability that there has been error—but the CERTAINTY of such error necessarily and exclusively appearing from the record itself. To act upon speculation, instead of certainty, in these cases, is dangerous to the last degree, and subversive of some of the fundamental principles of English jurisprudence. "Judgment may be reversed in a criminal case by writ of error," says Blackstone, "for NOTORIOUS (i. e. palpable, manifest, patent) mistakes in the judgment, as when a man is found guilty of PERJURY, (i. e. of a misdemeanour,) and RECEIVES THE JUDGMENT OF FELONY." This is the true doctrine; and we submit that it demonstrates the error which has been committed in the present instance. Let us illustrate our case by an example. Suppose a man found guilty under an indictment containing two counts, A and B. To the offence in count A, the legislature has annexed one punishment only, viz. transportation; to that in count B, imprisonment. The court awards sentence of transportation; and, on a writ of error being brought, the court above pronounces count A to be bad. Here it appears INEVITABLY and "manifestly" from the record, that there has been error; there is no escaping from it; and consequently judgment must be reversed. So where the judgment is the infliction of punishment "for his offences" aforesaid: there being only two offences charged, one of which is contained in a bad count, containing therefore no "offence" at all. Apply this principle to the present case. Does this record, in sentencing the defendant "for his offences aforesaid," conclusively and necessarily show that the court regarded the sixth and seventh counts as containing "offences," and awarded punishment in respect of them? We unhesitatingly deny it. The merest tyro can see that it is possible—and, if so, where is the NECESSARY error?—that the judges excluded the vicious counts from their consideration; that they knew the law, and could discern what were and what were not "offences;" and annexed punishment to only true "offences" in the eye of the law. The word "offence" is a term of art, and is here used in its strictest technical sense. What is that sense? It is thus defined by an accurate writer on law: "an offence is an act committed against a law, or omitted when the law requires it, and punishable by it."[25] This word is, then, properly used in the record—in its purely technical sense. It can have no other meaning; and an indictment cannot, with great deference to Mr Baron Parke,[26] contain an "offence" which is not "legally described in it;" that is, unless any act charged against the defendant be shown upon the face of the indictment to be a breach of the law, no "offence," as regards that act, is contained in or alleged by the indictment. The House of Lords, therefore, has exceeded the narrow province and limited authority of a court of error, or has presumed, upon illegal and insufficient grounds, that the Irish judges did not know which were, and which were not "offences," and that they did, in fact, consider those to be offences which were not, although the record contains matter to satisfy the allegation to the letter—viz. a plurality of real "offences." Where is Lord Campbell's authority for declaring this judgment "clearly erroneous in awarding punishment for charges which are not offences in point of law?" Or Lord Cottenham's, for saying that "the record states that the judgment was upon all the counts, bad as well as good?" They have none whatever; their assertions appear to us, with all due deference and respect, purely arbitrary, and gratuitous fallacies; they do violence to legal language—to the language of the record, and foist upon it a ridiculous and false interpretation. We admit, with Lord Cottenham, that "where the sentence is of a nature applicable only to the bad counts," it is incurably vicious, and judgment must be reversed—it is the very case which we put above; but how does that appear in the judgment under consideration? Not at all. The two cases are totally different.

And this brings us to another palpable fallacy—another glaring and serious error into which we cannot help thinking the House of Lords has fallen, and which is abundantly evidenced by their judgment: viz. that a court of error has any concern whatever with, or can draw any inference whatever from, the AMOUNT of punishment. The reasoning of the judges is here perfectly conclusive. "If a sentence be OF THE KIND which the law allows, the degree of it is not within the competence of a court of error. If a fine be an appropriate part of the sentence of a court below, the excess of it is no ground of error. What possible line can be drawn as to the reasonableness and excess, so as to affect it with illegality? It is obvious there can be none. If in this case, the sentence had been transportation, the sentence would have been illegal: Why? Because not of the kind authorized by law in such a case." Any presumption, therefore, made by a court of error, from the amount of punishment awarded, as to which of the counts had been taken into consideration by the judges in giving their judgment, is manifestly based upon insufficient and illegal grounds. Can these principles have been duly pondered by the lords? We fear not. Look at Lord Cottenham's supposition of two counts for libel: one for a very malignant one, the other for one comparatively innocuous; and a sentence of heavy fine and imprisonment passed, evidently in respect of the malignant libel, which a court of error decides to be no libel at all. Lord Cottenham appears to rely greatly on this supposed case; but is it not perfectly clear, that it is not a case of error on the record—and therefore totally inapplicable to the case which he had to consider? The defendant would have certainly sustained an injury in that case; Where is the remedy? There is no legal remedy, any more than there is when a man has been wrongfully acquitted of a manifestly well-proved crime, or unjustly convicted of a felony. The mercy, or more properly the sense of justice entertained by the executive, must be appealed to in either case; such power of interposition having, in the imperfection of human institutions, been wisely reserved to the supreme power to afford redress in all cases where the LAW cannot. Lord Cottenham's reasoning appears to us, in short, based upon two fallacies—a petitio principii, in assuming that judgment was entered upon all the counts; the question being, was it so entered? The other is, that a court of error is competent to infer, from the amount of punishment, that a defendant has been sentenced upon bad counts. Again: the three peers admit, that if a sole count contain a quantity of aggravating, but really "irrelevant stuff" (to adopt Lord Denman's expression,) it will not prejudice the judgment, provided the count also contain matter which will legally support that judgment. Why should the judges be given credit for being able to discard from consideration these legally extrinsic matters in a single count, and not also, by the exercise of the very same discretion, be able to discard, in considering the record, irrelevant and insufficient counts, such as in the eye of the law have no existence, are mere nonentities?

For these, and many other reasons which might be assigned, had we not already exceeded our limits, we have, after a close and a candid study of the judgments delivered by the three peers, and the convincing, the conclusive judgments of the great majority of the judges, come, without hesitation, to the conclusion, that the Lords have not merely decided incorrectly, but have precipitately removed a chief corner-stone from the fabric of our criminal law, and have incurred a very grave responsibility in so doing. We cannot help thinking, that they have forgotten the fundamental distinction which our constitution makes between "jus dare" and "jus dicere." Jus dederunt, non jus dixerunt—an error, however, easily to be accounted for, by a reference to their double capacity, and the confusion it occasions between their judicial and legislative functions. We view with grave apprehension the power exercised by three members of the House of Lords, of overturning so well-established a rule and custom as that attested to them by the judges. What security have we for the integrity of our common law? In the face of the judges' decisions, how decorous and dignified would have been the conduct of the House of Lords in giving way, even if they had differed from the judges; lamenting that such was the law of the land, and resolving to try and persuade the legislature to alter it, as has often been done. Witness the statute of 1 and 2 Geo. IV. c. 78, passed in consequence of the decision of the House of Lords in Rowe v. Young, 2 Brod. and Bing. 165. The House of Commons has resented such interference with the laws by the House of Lords; who, in the case of Reeve v. Young, (1 Salkeld, 227,) "moved by the hardship of the case, reversed the judgments of the courts below, contrary to the opinion of all the judges." But the House of Commons, "in reproof of this assumption of legislative authority in the Lords," immediately brought in the 10 and 11 Will. III. c. 16, which passed into a statute.[27] May we venture to suggest that the elaborate, and long, and deeply-considered opinions of the judges of the land, who had been summoned by the Lords to advise them, were worthy of more than the single day, or day and a half's examination which they received before they were so peremptorily pronounced to be "clearly erroneous?" And may we, with no little pain, suggest to Lord Campbell, that the array of Gamaliels at whose feet he had sate during his whole life—whose feet he had indeed so very recently quitted—whose integrity, whose profound learning, whose sagacity, none has had larger experience of than he—are entitled to look at his cavalier-like treatment of their best services, with a feeling stronger than that of mere surprise? In concluding this long article—in expressing our conviction of the error of the Lords—we feel one consolation at all events—that if we err, we err in good company; and that we are not conscious of having transgressed the limits of legitimate discussion, in exercising as undoubted a right of its kind, as these three peers exercised in branding so overwhelming a majority of the judges of the land with the imputation of ignorance of those laws which all their lives had been spent in administering. The very existence of the ancient common law of the land is put in jeopardy by such a procedure as that which we have been discussing; and our honest conviction, however erroneous, that such is the case, will suffice to excuse the freedom of our strictures; if, indeed, we require an excuse for echoing the stern declaration of on forefathers—Nolumus leges Angliae mutari.

As to him who has reaped the benefit of this lamentable miscarriage—Mr O'Connell—the law of the land has nevertheless been vindicated, and the stability of the empire secured, to a far greater extent than he is willing to acknowledge. Agitation he must continue; he must play out his base and sordid game. But his powers of mischief are manifestly and seriously crippled; and we quit him with the language addressed by Pope to a mean one of his day—

"Uncaged, then let the harmless monster rage— Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the Judgment of the Judges, ordered by the House of Lords to be printed, (and from which the quotations in this article have been made,) read to the House of Lords by Lord Chief-Justice Tindal, on the 2d September 1844.

[2] State Prosecutions, pp. 9, 10. No. CCCXXXIX. Vol. LV.

[3] Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 302.

[4] Several distinct offences may undoubtedly be included, in as many counts, in one indictment.

[5] Two of the defendants' (the two priests) names do not appear in the record of the verdict, as one of them (Tyrrell) died before the trial, and as to Tierney, the Attorney-General entered a nolle prosequi.

[6] Comyn's Digest, title Pleader, 3 B. 18.

[7] This is the proper expression. See M'Queen's Practice of the House of Lords, p. 256. "They are summoned for their advice in point of law, and the greater dignity of the proceedings" of the Lords.—(Blackst, Comm. p. 167.)

[8] 1 Blackstone's Commentaries, p. 69.

[9] Opinions of the Judges, &c.—(Pp. 1-3.)

[10] Opinions of the Judges, p. 23.

[11] 3 Blackstone's Commentaries, p. 395.

[12] We quote from the edition of Lord Denman's judgment, sanctioned by himself, and edited by D. Leahy, Esq., (one of the counsel in the cause.)

[13] A "demurrer" is the mode by which any pleading, civil or criminal, is denied to be (whether in form or substance) sufficient in point of law; and a plea is the mode by which is denied the truth of the facts which the pleading alleges.

[14] Opinions of the Judges, p. 19.

[15] Vol. I., pp. 68-9.

[16] Williams v. Germaine, 7 Bar. and Cress. 476.

[17] Opinions of the Judges, p. 17.

[18] Judgment, (by Leahy,) p. 36.

[19] Opinions of the Judges, p. 28.

[20] Judgment, &c., p. 43.

[21] Opinions of the Judges, p. 28.

[22] Lord Denman's judgment.

[23] Ditto.

[24] Ante.

[25] West's Symbolography, and Jacob's and Tomlin's Law.

[26] Opinions of the Judges, p. 29.

[27] 2 Bla. Comm. 169; and see Mr Christian's Note.



MY COLLEGE FRIENDS.

No. I

JOHN BROWN.

Did you ever happen to know a man who spent a whole Christmas vacation in Oxford, and survived it? I did. And this is how it came to pass.

"Frank," said the governor one evening after dinner, when the conversation had turned upon my approaching return to college, and the ticklish question of supplies had been disposed of—"when the deuce do you mean to go up for your degree? I have a notion this next term is your fifteenth, young man?"

"Why no, sir—that is, not exactly; you know"——

"Oh! true—I forgot that confounded rustication business. Well, it's your fourteenth at all events, and I think that's enough."

"Well, sir, I was thinking to have a shy at it after Christmas."

"Shy at it! You've always been shying at it, I think. I hope it mayn't end in a bolt, Master Frank!"

I laughed dutifully at the paternal wit, and promised to go to work in earnest the moment I reached Oxford.

This was a resolution announced periodically like the ballot question, and with much the same result. So the governor only shook his head, yawned, looked at the bottle, which stood between us nearly empty, and prepared apparently for an adjournment.

"I'll tell you what, sir," said I, emptying what remained in the decanter into my glass, and swallowing it with a desperate energy befitting the occasion, "I'll stay up the Christmas vacation and read."

"The deuce will you! Why, Frank," continued the governor, sorely puzzled, "you know your cousins are coming here to spend the Christmas, and I thought we should all make a merry party. Why can't you read a little at home? You can get up something earlier, you know—much better for your health—and have two hours or so clear before breakfast—no time like the morning for reading—and then have all the day to yourself afterwards. Eh, why not, Frank?"

"If you'll allow me to ring for another bottle of this Madeira, sir, (I declare I think it's better than our senior common-room have, and they don't consider theirs small-beer,) I'll tell you.——I never could read at home, sir; it's not in the nature of things."

"I doubt whether it's much in your nature to read any where, Frank: I confess I don't see much signs of it when you are here."

"In the first place, sir, I should never have a room to myself."

"Why, there's the library for you all day long, Frank; I'm sure I don't trouble it much."

"Why, sir, in these days, if there are any young ladies in the house, they take to the library as a matter of course: it's the regular place for love-making: mammas don't follow them into the company of folios and quartos while there are three volumes of the last novel on the drawing-room table; and the atmosphere is sentimentality itself; they mark favourite passages, and sigh illustrations."

"Precious dusty work, Frank, flirtations among my book-shelves must be; but I suppose the girls don't go much beyond the bindings: they don't expect to get husbands by being blue."

"Not exactly, sir; reviews and title-pages constitute a good part of modern literary acquirements. But upon my honour, sir, one hears young ladies now talk of nothing but architecture and divinity. Botany is quite gone out; and music, unless there's a twang of Papistry about it, is generally voted a bore. In my younger days—(really, sir, you needn't laugh, for I haven't had a love affair these two years)—in my younger days, when one talked about similarity of tastes and so forth, it meant that both parties loved moonlight, hated quadrilles, adored Moore's Melodies, and were learning German; now, nine girls out of ten have a passion for speculative divinity and social regeneration."

"Ay, one sort of nonsense does just as well for them as another: your cousin Sophy bothers me to build an Elizabethan pigsty, and wanted her poor mother to dance with the butler in the servants' hall last Christmas, when the fellow was as drunk as an owl: I hope it mayn't end in her figuring off herself with the footman; for Sophy is rather a pet of mine, and a right-down English girl after all. But, Frank, if you can't read in peace in the library, you surely could have a room fitted up for yourself up stairs; and you shall have the great reading-desk, with lights, that was your grandfather's, that stands in my little sanctum; (he made more use of it, poor man, than I do;) or I don't know but what I might spare you the little room itself, if it would suit you—eh?"

"Oh, my dear father! I wouldn't disturb you on any account," said I, rather alarmed at the extent of my worthy parent's liberality in the cause, and fearing it might end in the offer of the whole family to pack themselves in the attics, and leave me a first floor to myself—calculating, too, the amount of hard reading commensurate with such imposing preparations. "What would become of the justice business of the parish, sir, if we shut up your tribunal? I don't suppose my mother would like to have the constables and the illegitimates introduced either into the drawing-room or the kitchen," (this was, as I meant it to be, a poser; if Mr Hawthorne senior had a hobby, it was his magisterial authority.) "The fact is, that at home, up-stairs or down-stairs, I couldn't read. I should have not only my own idleness, but the various idlenesses of the whole family combined, to fight against. My sisters would be knocking at the door every half hour, if only to ask how I was getting on: Bob would tease me to come out skating, and Charles would start me perpetually after wild-ducks or woodcocks. And you yourself, sir, if I am not much mistaken, would think it odd if I didn't take a ride with you as usual after breakfast. Then one can't be expected to crawl about one's books by candlelight on a winter's morning; and after a six o'clock dinner who can read? After tea you know, sir, my mother always likes a rubber when I'm at home; and if you are going to have those girls, Jane and Sophy, down this Christmas"——

"Ah! well—I see, Frank; I'm afraid it's a hopeless case. Perhaps you had better stay up at Oxford after all; you won't have much to disturb you there, I suppose. If you don't get moped to death, I certainly don't see what's to hinder your reading. You don't feel inclined to try North Wales in the winter, I suppose, eh?"

"No, sir," said I, swallowing a last glass of Madeira at a gulp, and rising, to cut short a conversation which was beginning to take rather an awkward turn—"No, sir, not exactly."

"Why, I don't know, Frank: why not? you'd find the climate cooler, you know," persevered the governor, as he followed me into the drawing-room.

So in Oxford it was settled that I should stay; a tolerable character for the last term or two, and the notorious fact that I was going up at Easter, ostensibly for a class, obtained me the necessary permission: strange that, in the University, one should require leave to read! My friends, John Brown and Harry Chesterton, were to stay up too; and we promised ourselves some hours of hard work, and many merry ones together. The vice-principal and one of the juniors, the only fellows that would be in residence, were both gentlemen, and always treated the under-graduates as such; we should get rid of the eternal rounds of beef and legs of mutton that figured at the commoners' table in hall; there would be no morning chapel; and altogether, having had nearly enough of the noisy gayety of a full term, we looked forward to the novelty of a few quiet weeks in college with a degree of pleasure which surprised even ourselves.

But alas! under-graduates are but mortals, and subject to somewhat more than the ordinary uncertainties of mortal life. It wanted but a week to the end of term; all our plans were settled. Brown was to migrate from his own rooms in "Purgatory"—as we used to call the little dark back quadrangle, where, from sheer laziness, which made him think moving a bore, he had remained ever since his first location there as a freshman, up three pair of stairs; so that, when his intimate friends wished to ascertain if he was at home, we used to throw a stone through the window—and was to take up his abode in "Elysium," where he would be Chesterton's next-door neighbour, and in the same number as myself. We were to have a quiet breakfast in each others' rooms in turn every morning; no gross repast of beef-steaks and "spread-eagle" fowls, but a slight relish of anchovy toast, potted shrimps, or something equally ethereal; and the chasse-cafe limited to one cigar and no bottled porter. It was cruel to interfere with such unexceptionable arrangements; but a college, though it have a head, has no heart worth mentioning; and, in an evil hour, they rusticated John Brown. At least they forbade his staying up the Christmas vacation; and, for the credit of my friend's character, let me explain. Why John Brown should have been a person particularly distasteful to the fellows of —— College, was a matter at first sight rather hard to understand. He was not what is called a rowing man; was never found drunk in the quad, or asleep at the hall lecture; never sported a pink, or drove a team; was not known to have been concerned in any of the remarkable larks which occurred in our times; was neither an agent in the Plague of Frogs, nor an actor in the private theatricals; was not a member of the Agricultural Society, which made the remarkable experiments with clover and ryegrass in the college quadrangle; had no talent for midnight howling, sang very small in a chorus, capped all the fellows diligently, and paid his battels to the minute. He was known to have asked twice for the key of the library, put down his name for the senior tutor's pet lecture in "Cornelius Nepos," bought the principal's sermon on the "Via Media," and was suspected of having tried to read it. He was not clever enough to sneer at the tutors, or stupid enough to disgust them. He was too sleepy to keep late hours, too fat to pull in the boat, too stingy to give supper-parties. How on earth came the fellows not to like John Brown? "A most respectable man," the principal always said he was. "Sir," said he to his anxious father, when, at the end of his second term, he took the opportunity of a professional visit to Oxford to call to know how the hope of the Browns was progressing—"Sir, I consider your son a most respectable person: I may say a most respectable person;" and as the principal had taken wine with him once at dinner, and bowed to him at collections, and read "Mr John Brown" twice upon a card at the end and beginning of term, and thus had every opportunity of forming an opinion, and expressed that opinion oracularly, in a Johnsonian fashion, Governor Brown was satisfied. How did the fellows come not to like John Brown?—pronounced "most respectable" by the principal—declared by his scout to be "the quietest gentleman as he ever a knowed;" admitted by the under-graduates to be "a monstrous good fellow, but rather slow;" how came John Brown to fail in recommending himself to the favour of his pastors and masters—the dean and tutors of ——? Why, in the first place, John Brown, the elder, was a wine-merchant; a well-educated man, a well-behaved man; but still a wine-merchant. Now the dean's father was—I beg his pardon, had been—a linen-draper; neither well-educated nor well behaved; in short, an unmitigated linen-draper. Consequently the dean's adoration of the aristocracy was excessive. There are few such thorough tuft-hunters as your genuine Oxford Don; the man who, without family or station in society, often without any further general education and knowledge of the world than is to be found at a country grammar-school, is suddenly, upon the strength of some acquaintance with Latin and Greek, or quite as often, from having first seen the light in some fortunately endowed county, elevated to the dignity of a fellowship, and permitted to take rank with gentlemen. The "high table" in hall, the Turkey carpet and violet cushioned chair in the common room, the obsequious attention of college servants, and the more unwilling "capping" of the under-graduates, to such a man are real luxuries, and the relish with which he enjoys them is deep and strong. And if he have but the luck to immortalize himself by holding some University office, to strut through his year of misrule as proctor, or even as his humble "pro," then does he at once emerge from the obscurity of the family annals a being of a higher sphere. And when there comes up to commemoration a waddling old lady, and two thin sticks of virginity, who horrify the college butler by calling the vice-principal "Dick," no wonder that they return to the select society of their native town with an impression, that though Oxford was a very fine place, and they had real champagne, and wax candles, and every thing quite genteel, and dear Richard was very kind, still they did think he was grown rather proud, as he never once asked after his old acquaintances the Smiths, and didn't like to be teased about his old flame Mary. No wonder that in the visits, few and far between, which, during the long vacation, the pompous B.D. pays to his humble relations in the country, (when he has exhausted the invitations and the patience of his more aristocratic friends,) they do not find a trace remaining of the vulgar boy, who, some twelve years ago, quitted the seat of the provincial muses to push his fortunes in the University of Oxford. In vain does his uncle give up his after-dinner pipe, and in place of the accustomed Hollands and water, astonish the dusty decanter with port of an unknown vintage in honour of his illustrious nephew; in vain does the good old lady afore-mentioned, the unworthy mother of so bright a son, quit the instruction of pious Mr Jabez Jenkins, the "Independent" minister, and turn orthodox and high-church for the nonce, when her dearly beloved Richard "officiates" for the rev. the vicar; no ties of home or kindred, no memories of boyhood, no glow of early recollections, touch the case-hardened parasite of college growth; and when he has banished his younger brother to Australia, under pretext of making his fortune, married both his sisters, and erected a cheap monument to the linen-draper's widow as the "relict of the late Thomas Thompson, Esquire," he waits in peaceful expectation of a college living, with the consciousness of having done his duty by his relations, and delivered himself from a drag upon his new career. I do not mean to set too high a value on gentle birth, or to limit nobility of character by that of blood; I believe my tailor to be one of nature's gentlemen, (he never duns,) and I know my next neighbour, Sir John, thirteenth baronet as he is, to possess the soul of a huckster, because he sells his fruit and game: still these are the exceptions, not the rule; and there are few cases of men rising from low origin—rising, that is, from circumstances, not from ability—not the architects, but the creations of their own fortunes, (for that makes all the difference)—who do not carry with them, through all the gradations of their advancement, the plebeian instincts, while they forget, perhaps, the homely virtues of the class from which they spring. There is a nobility of birth, seldom to be counterfeited or mistaken, wholly irrespective of the rank and wealth which are either its graceful accompaniments or its insufficient substitutes; fostered and strengthened by early habits and education, but none the less originally innate—as much an endowment from heaven as beauty, strength, or talent, and more valuable than all. Many men have the tact to adapt themselves to the station and the society to which they have risen, however much above their own level; they acquire the habits and the tastes, seldom the feelings, of a gentleman. They act the character well; it is carefully studied, and on the whole well sustained; it is a correct and painstaking performance, and the points tell distinctly; but there is throughout that indirect appeal to the audience which marks it to be only acting. They are more studiously aristocratic than the aristocracy, and have a horror of vulgarity which is in itself essentially vulgar.

And such a man was the dean of ——. On the philosophic principle of hating all to whom we are under obligations, if there was any thing he cordially detested, it was trade. His constant aim was to forget his unfortunate origin himself, if possible to lead others who knew him to forget it, and to keep strangers from knowing it at all. And as he shrank from every shape and sound plebeian, so he industriously cultivated every opening to "good society." There was not a member of his own college, graduate or under-graduate, of any pretensions to family, who could not speak from experience of the dean's capital dinners, and his invariable urbanity. No young honourable, or tenth cousin to an honourable, ever got into a row, that he had not cause to bless the dean's good offices for getting him out. And if some of the old stagers contented themselves with eating his dinners, and returning them in the proportion of one to five, the unsophisticated gratitude of youth, less cunning in the ways of the world, declared unhesitatingly, in its own idiomatic language, "that old Hodgett was a regular brick, and gave very beany feeds." And so his fame travelled far beyond his own collegiate walls, and out-college honourables and gentlemen-commoners were content to make the acquaintance, and eat the dinners that were so freely offered. And as the dean had really some cleverness, and "a well-assorted selection" of anecdotes and illustrations "from the best markets," (as his worthy father would have advertised it,) and could fill the chair at his own entertainments with ease if not with gracefulness, and moreover was not close with his purse-strings, and could always be reckoned safe for a L.20 note if a dun was troublesome, (well knowing that even under-graduates make exceptions in favour of debts of honour,) he became, among his younger friends especially, a very popular man. And when those who had enjoyed his good fare, and profited by his friendly offices with duns and proctors, found that, after all, he was "nobody," all they said was, that it was a pity, and that he was a monstrous good fellow none the less. And one invited him to spend the Christmas with him down at the governor's in Kent, where there was to be a regular houseful, and merry-making of all sorts, and another would have him into Norfolk in September for the shooting—(the dean never shot, but wisely said nothing about it until he got into good quarters, when he left his younger friends to beat the stubbles, while he walked or drove with Lady Mary and Lady Emily, and eat the partridges;)—so that on the whole he felt himself rather an ill-used individual if there was a week of the vacation for which he had not an invite. If such a rare and undesirable exception did happen, seldom indeed did he bestow himself, even for a day or two, upon his mother and sisters at Nottingham; and never did he, by any oversight, permit a letter to be addressed to him there; if it could not conveniently bear the address of some of his titled entertainers, it was to meet him at his college, to which he usually retired to await, with sufficient discontent, an invitation, or the beginning of term; while he took pains to have it understood, that his temporary seclusion was hardly spared him from the hospitable importunities of those whom he delighted to call "his many friends," in order to attend to important business. Occasionally, indeed, it would happen that the natural sagacity of some old English gentleman, or the keen eye of an experienced courtier, would fathom at a glance the character of his son's invited guest, and treat him with a distant politeness which he could neither mistake nor get over; but, on the whole, his visits among his aristocratic entertainers were agreeable enough, and he was not a man to stick at an occasional trifle. His youthful proteges were glad to be able to repay in the country many kind offices at Oxford, and to become patronizers in their turn; and the seniors redoubled, in the case of their son's friend, the hospitality and courtesy they would have readily shown to a stranger, and were not eager to scrutinize the motives which might have induced him to be civil to the hopeful stripling, whom, in their partial view, the whole university might well have delighted to honour.

In the eyes of such a man, John Brown was not likely, at first starting, to find much favour. Had he been a rich man, and sported the velvet cap and silk gown, the unhappy fact of his father's being in trade might have been winked at. If not in the front rank of the dean's friends he might have filled a vacant seat occasionally at his dinner-table, and been honoured with a friendly recognition in the quadrangle. At it was, he did not condescend to remember that such a man was on the college books. Happy ignorance, if only it could have lasted. But one unlucky morning a late supper party had decidedly thinned the attendance at the hall lecture; and Mr Hodgett, having been disappointed of an invitation to a very select dinner at the principal's, was in no very benignant humour, and "hauled up" the defaulters. Among them was one of the dean's pets—who, having done the same thing a dozen times before, was rather astonished at the summons—and the usually regular John Brown. What excuses the rest of the party made is immaterial. John, I believe, said nothing, beyond a remark as to his having been rarely absent. The result, however, was, that he and the rest got an imposition, which cost them half-a-guinea each to get done by the under-cook, (it was Greek with the accents, which comes expensive,) while the Honourable Lumley Skeffington was dismissed with a jocular reproof, and an invitation to breakfast. Now, if Mr Skeffington had had the sense to have kept his own and his friend's counsel, this might have been all very well. But being a somewhat shallow-pated youth, and a freshman to boot, he thought it a very fine thing to talk about at his next wine-party, and boast that he could cut lecture and chapel when he pleased—the dean and he understood each other. Brown happened to be present; (for though not good company enough for the dean, he was for his betters; your parvenu is far more exclusive in his society than your born gentleman;) he quietly enquired into the facts; and finding that what he had before been inclined to consider as undue severity in his own case, was positively an injustice compared with that of another, appreciating thoroughly the character of the party he had to deal with, and coupling the present with certain previous minor snubbings from the same quarter, he from that moment declared war.

Now, the Rev. Mr Hodgett, sedate and dignified as he was, had better have danced a hornpipe in his thinnest silks amongst a bed of stinging nettles, or have poked sticks into a wasp's nest, or amused himself with any other innocent recreation, than have made an enemy of John Brown. It was what he himself would have called a wrong move, and it played the deuce with his game. John was the very man who could annoy him, and he did. None of us knew he had so much ingenuity, or so much malice in his composition, until he commenced his hostilities against the dean. The fact was, he was more piqued, perhaps, than any other man in college would have been by so small a matter. Too sensible to be really ashamed of being the son of a man in trade, he was conscious, nevertheless, that it was in some sort a disadvantage to him, and that, descended as he was from an old and once knightly line, (his father had been an ill-used younger son,) he did not quite occupy his proper position in the world. His feeling of this made him sensitive to a fault; it led him rather to shun than to seek the society of his contemporaries; and much as he was esteemed by myself and others who knew him well, I will not say that he was a universal favourite. Men did not understand him: at that time of life (alas, why not always?) most of us are open and free-hearted; they did not relish his shy and reserved manner, his unwillingness to take the initiative in any social intercourse, his exigeance to a certain extent of those forms which the freedom of college friendship is apt to neglect. "Why didn't you turn into my rooms the other night, when you came in from Oriel?" said I to him early in our acquaintance. "Hobbs says he told you I had some men to supper."—"You didn't ask me," was the quiet reply.—"I couldn't see you, or else I should; but you might have known I wanted you; don't serve me such a trick as that again, old fellow." But it let me into a secret of his character, and ever after that, I was as particular in my invitations as possible. Men thought him proud, and cold, and touchy, which he was not; and stingy, which he scorned to be, from his contempt for ostentation in any shape. The rarity of his wine-parties, and his never having other wines produced than port or sherry, he himself explained to me—"Men would say, it was easy for me to sport claret and champagne, when I could get them for nothing." But if an unthinking freshman broke out in praise of the said excellent port or sherry, (as indeed they might well be pardoned for doing, considering the quality of what they commonly imbibed,) he would say at once—"Yes, I believe it is good; I know my father considers it so, and it has been in bottle above twelve years." There was no shirking the question for a moment. And excellent wine he got for me from his father, at a moderate price, at his own offer. Hating then, as he did undisguisedly, the tuft-hunting and affectation of haut-ton, which was so foreign to his own nature, he felt, perhaps excusably, annoyed at their palpable existence and apparent success, in a man, whose station, as he said, ought to have kept him from meanness, if it could not give him dignity.

At all events, his method of retaliation—"taking down the dean"—as he called it was most systematic and persevering. He let the matter of the imposition pass over quietly; was for some months doubly attentive to all his college duties; carefully avoided all collision with his adversary; kept out of his way as much as he could; and whenever brought into contact with him, was as respectful as if he had been the Vice-chancellor. This had its effect: John began to rise in the dean's good graces; and when he called upon him in the usual course of etiquette, to mention that he should be absent the vacation of three days which intervenes between the two short terms, the meeting, on one side at least, was almost cordial. A day or two after his return, (he had been to visit a friend, he said,) we were in his rooms at breakfast together, when the dean's scout entered with his master's compliments to request Mr Brown's company to breakfast. Then it was that John's eyes dilated, and he rubbed his hands, as soon as the door was shut, with an excitement rather unusual.

"Do you know who breakfasts with the man to-morrow? Do you, Hawthorne?"

"Why, I had a message this morning," said I, "but I don't mean to go. I shall have a headach or something to-morrow. I have no notion of going there to eat my own bread and butter, and drink his very bad tea, and see a freshman swallow greasy ham and eggs, enough to turn the stomach of any one else; and then those Dons always make a point of asking me to meet a set of regular muffs that I don't know. The last time I went, there were only two reading-men in spectacles, perfect dummies, and that ass, young Medlicott, who talks about hunting, and I believe never crossed the back of anything higher than a donkey."

"You had better come to-morrow; perhaps you will have some fun."

"Why, who is going there, do you know?"

"I haven't a notion; but do come. I must go, and we will sit together, and I'll get the cook to send up a dish of deviled kidneys for you."

There was something in his eye as he said this which I could not make out, and it rather puzzled me to find him so willing to be of the party himself. However, he was an odd fellow, so I promised to go, and we parted; certainly with little anticipation on my part of what the "fun" was to be.

Nine o'clock the next day arrived, and punctual to the minute might be seen two freshmen, from opposite corners of the quadrangle, steering for the dean's rooms. Ten minutes afterwards, an interesting procession of coffee-pots and tin-covers warned me to finish my toilet; and following them up the staircase, I found a tolerably large party assembled.

"Just in time—just in time, Mr Hawthorne," said the dean, who appeared to be in high good-humour, "as my old pupil, Sir Charles Galston, used to say, (you don't know him, do you? he's your county man, too, I believe,)—as he always used to say, 'Gad, Hodgett, just in time to see the muffins break cover!' ha, ha! Take those tins off, Robert."

We sat down, and for some time every thing went on as slow as it usually does at breakfast parties. At length, taking advantage of a pause, after laughing his loudest at one of our host's stories, John Brown broke out with "How is Mrs Hodgett, sir?"

If Mrs Hodgett, instead of the dean's most respectable mother, had been his lawful wife, hitherto unacknowledged through fear of losing his fellowship, he could not have looked more thoroughly horrified. I myself was considerably taken aback; some of the other men, who knew the reverend gentleman's tenderness on the subject of his family connexions, picked their chicken-bones, and stirred their coffee with redoubled attention. John Brown and the two freshmen alone looked as cool as cucumbers.

"Eh? oh—h," stammered the party addressed, "quite well, thank you—quite well. Let me give you some of this—oh, it's all gone! We'll have some more; will one of you be kind enough to ring? My friend, Lord"——

"No more for me, thank you, sir, I beg," said John. "Have you heard from Mrs Hodgett since the vacation?"

"No—yes; oh dear, yes, several times!" (It was about five days back.) "She was quite well, thank you. In town at present, I believe. You were in town during the vacation, I think, Mr Wartnaby? Did you meet your uncle Sir Thomas there, or any of the family?"

"Sir T-T-Thom...." began young Wartnaby, who stammered terribly.

"I beg your pardon, sir," struck in John Brown, "are you sure Mrs Hodgett is in town? I saw her in Nottingham myself on Friday; I made my first acquaintance with her there, and a very charming old lady she is."

Mr Hodgett's confusion could only be rivaled by Mr Brown's perfect self-possession. I began to see the object of his kind enquiries; so, probably, did the victim himself. The other men who were present thought, I suppose, that it was only an unfortunate attempt of John's to make himself agreeable; and while some were amused by it, a more considerate friend kicked my shins in mistake for his, under the table.

"She certainly told me, sir, she should be going up to London in a few weeks, to purchase her winter stock, I think she said; but I did not understand that she was to be there now."

John had got on thus far before his enemy could rally at all; but the dean grew desperate, and resolved to make a diversion at all hazards; and as he reached his hand out, apparently in quest of a slice of toast, cup, saucer, and a pile of empty plates, went crashing on the floor.

"Bless me, how very awkward!" said he, with a face as red as fire.

"Never mind, sir," said a freshman from Shrewsbury, just entered who had not opened his lips before, and thought it a good opportunity; "it's all for the good of trade."

Never was a stale jest so unconsciously pointed in its application. Brown laughed of course, and so did we all; while the dean tried to cover his confusion by wiping his clothes—the cup having been an empty one. The freshman, seeing our amusement, thought he had said a very good thing, and began to talk very fast; but nobody listened to him.

"Talking of trade," mercilessly continued the tormentor, "I was uncommonly pleased with Nottingham the other day. Your brother-in-law, Mr Mogg, was exceedingly civil to me, (I took the liberty of mentioning your name, sir;) he showed me the whole process of stocking-making; very interesting indeed it is—but of course you have seen it often; and I really think, for a small establishment, Mr Mogg's is one of the best conducted I ever saw. You don't know Mr Mogg, Hawthorne, do you? Get the dean to give you a letter to him, if you ever go to Nottingham; a very good sort of man he is, and has his whole heart in his business. 'Some men are ashamed of their trade, sir' said he; 'I a'n't. What should I do, I should like to know, if trade was ashamed of me?' And really Mrs Mogg"——

"Ah yes!" said Mr Hodgett, hitherto overwhelmed by John's eloquence, (he never talked so fast,) and utterly at a loss how to meet it, "Mogg is a great man in his line at Nottingham. I shouldn't wonder if he was member some day; he has a large wholesale connexion."

"And retail, too, sir," chimed in John. "I bought six pair of the nicest sort of stockings there I have seen for a long time: did I show them to you, Hawthorne? 'These,' said Mr Mogg, 'I can recommend; I always'"——

"If you won't take any more coffee, gentlemen," said the dean, jumping up and looking at his watch, "I am afraid, as I have an appointment at ten"——

"I declare, so have I," said Brown; "but I had quite forgotten it, our conversation has been so very agreeable. Good-morning, sir; and if you are writing to Mrs Hodgett, pray make my compliments." And with this Parthian shaft he quitted the field.

Having adjusted the difficult questions which are apt to arise as to the ownership of caps and gowns, the rest of the party took leave. The facetious freshman, after putting in an ineffectual claim upon one or two of the most respectable of the caps, at last marched off with the dean's, as being certainly more like the new one he had bought the day before, than the dilapidated article with a broken board and half a tassel, which was the tempting alternative, and possessing also the common property of having a red seal in it. He was not allowed, however, to remain long in peaceful possession of his prize. Scarcely had he reached his rooms, when Robert, the dean's scout, came to inform him that he had left his own cap (which Robert presented to him with a grin) behind him, and taken away Mr Hodgett's in mistake; enlightening him, at the same time, as to the fact, that fellows' caps, by special exemption, were "not transferable." And when he ventured to send back by Robert an apology, to the effect that the very ancient specimen could not at all events be his, and a humble request that the dean would endeavour to ascertain which of his friends whom he had met at breakfast had also "made a mistake," that official, remembering his happy debut as a conversationalist, instantly sent for him, and read him a severe lecture upon impertinence.

Of course we were no sooner fairly landed in the quadrangle, than all who had any acquaintance with Brown surrounded him with entreaties for an explanation. What possessed him to make such a dead set at the dean? How came he to be so well up in the family history? How long had he had the pleasure of an acquaintance with dear old Mrs Hodgett? And who introduced him to Mr Mogg?

It turned out that John had made an expedition to Nottingham during the vacation on purpose; he had called on the old lady, whose address he had with some difficulty obtained; presented his card, "Mr John Brown, —— Coll.;" stated that he was a stranger, very desirous to see the lions of Nottingham, of which he had heard so much; and having the honour of knowing her son, and the advantage of being at the same college with him, and having so often heard her name mentioned in their many conversations, that he almost felt as if she was his intimate acquaintance, had ventured to intrude upon her with a request that she would put him in the way of seeing the town and its manufactures to the best advantage. Much taken, no doubt, by John's polite address, which by his own recapitulation of it must have been highly insinuating, and delighted to see any one who could talk to her about her son, and to learn that she herself was talked about among his grand friends in Oxford, the worthy Mrs Hodgett begged John Brown to walk in; and finding that there was nothing high about him, and that he listened with the greatest interest to all her family details and reminiscences, she took courage to ask him to eat a bit of dinner with her and her daughter at two o'clock, after which she promised him the escort of her son-in-law, Mr Mogg, the principal (that was what they called them up at Nottingham, just as they did in Oxford, she observed) of the great stocking-house over the way. Such a man he was! she said; every bit as good as a book to a stranger; "he knowed every think and every body." John assured her such universal knowledge was not common among principals of houses in Oxford; and declared that he should appreciate the services of such a guide proportionately. And as an introduction to the whole family was just the thing he wanted, he at once accepted the invitation with many thanks. In short, an arrangement was made which pleased all parties; all, that is, with the exception of Mr Spriggins, the head shopman, who usually took his meals with the family, but on that day, to his great disgust, not being considered of quality to meet their unexpected guest, (not being a principal,) received intimation that his dinner would be served in the counting-house. The dinner passed off, no doubt, much more satisfactorily than more formal affairs of the kind. John had a good appetite and good-humour, and so had the old lady; and no doubt, even in Miss Hodgett's eyes, the young Oxonian was no bad substitute for Mr Spriggins. Even that gentleman, could he have foreseen all that was to follow from this visit, would have exchanged for his blandest smile the stern glance with which he regarded, from the little back window of the counting-house, the procession of John, with Miss Hodgett under his arm, from the drawing-room, to take the seat which should have been his; would have made him his most obsequious bow, and regarded him as the best customer that had ever come inside their doors.

But perhaps I am wronging Mr Spriggins in assuming that he thought the usurper of his rights worthy of a glance at all: and certainly I am anticipating my story. John dined with the old lady; drank her currant wine in preference to her port, ate her seed biscuits, and when Mr Mogg, in pursuance of a message from his mother-in-law, called to renew in his own person the offer to show his relation's distinguished friend, (Mrs Hodgett had hinted her suspicions that John Brown was a nobleman,) he was ready, though rather sleepy, to commence his lionizing. Mr Mogg was exceedingly civil, showed him every thing worth seeing, from the castle to the stocking-frames; and by the time they returned together to supper at the old lady's, they had become very thick indeed. John called the next day and took his leave of both parties, with a promise not to pass through Nottingham without renewing his acquaintance, and that he would not fail to mention to his friend the dean how much he had been gratified by his reception; both which pledges he scrupulously redeemed.

Mr Hodgett's indignation was unbounded; if the united powers of vice-chancellor, doctors, proctors, and convocation, could, by rummaging up some old statute, have expelled John Brown for paying a visit to Nottingham, he would have moved the university to strive to effect it. Happily these powers never are united, or there is no saying what they might not do. So John remained a member of the college still. The dean seldom looked at him if he could help it; he tried once the soothing system by praising him at collections, but it only elicited from John a polite enquiry after Mr and Mrs Mogg.

What man could do to extricate himself from his unfortunate position, the dean did. He wrote off immediately to his mother, entreating her, by her hopes of his advancement in life, not to allow the name of Hodgett to be any longer contaminated by any touch of linen-drapery. He suggested that she should at once make over the business to her foreman, Spriggins, reserving to herself an interest in the profits, and retire to a small and genteel cottage in the suburbs, where no impertinent intruder could detect the linen-draper's widow. She, worthy old soul, though it did grieve her, no doubt, to part with her shop, in which were centred the interests and associations of so many years, yet would have set fire to it with her own hands, and emigrated to America—though she knew it only as a place where banks always broke, and people never paid their debts—if it could in anyway have furthered his interests whom she loved better than he deserved. She always looked upon him as a gentleman, and did not wonder he wished to be one, though she herself had no manner of taste for becoming a lady.

But in the simplicity of her heart, she planned that even this sacrifice to her motherly affection might be turned to some account in the way of trade. Accordingly, there appeared in the Nottingham Herald an advertisement, extending across two columns, headed with imposing capitals, by which the public were informed that Mrs Hodgett being about to decline her long-established linen-drapery business in favour of Mr Spriggins, the whole stock was to be turned into ready money immediately, "considerably below prime cost;" by which means the public had no doubt an opportunity of giving full value to Mrs H. for sundry old-fashioned patterns and faded remnants, which the incoming Spriggins would otherwise have "taken to" for a mere song.

Now, since the time that John Brown began first to take so deep an interest in the Hodgett family, he had regularly invested fourpence weekly in a copy of the Nottingham Herald. By this means he had the satisfaction of congratulating the dean upon the birth of a nephew, in the person of a son and heir of the Moggs: and though so carefully did that gentleman avoid all communication with his tormentor, that he was obliged for two whole days to watch an opportunity to convey the intelligence; yet, as he finally succeeded in announcing it in the presence of the tutor of a neighbouring college, who was a profound genealogist and a great gossip, his pains, he declared, were sufficiently repaid. The eagerness with which he pounced upon the advertisement may be imagined; and finding, from a little N. B. at the bottom, that handbills with further particulars were to be had at the office, he lost no time in procuring half a dozen by post; and one morning the usual receptacles for university notices, the hall-door and the board by the buttery, were placarded with staring announcements, in red and black letters, six inches long, of Mrs HODGETT'S speculation. One was pushed under the dean's door; one stuck under the knocker at the principal's; one put into the college letterbox for "the senior common-room;" in short, had good Mrs Hodgett herself wished to have the college for her customers, she could hardly have distributed them more judiciously.

In short, no pains were spared by John Brown to tease and worry the dean with all the particulars of his family history, which he would most have wished to bury in oblivion. And to do him justice, he in his turn spared no pains to get rid of John Brown. He would have allowed him to cut lectures and chapels ad libitum, if he thus could have spared all personal intercourse, and escaped his detested civilities. Finding that would not do, he tried the opposite course, and endeavoured either to get him rusticated at once, or to disgust him with the college, and thus induce him to take his name off. John was cautious—very cautious; but a war against the powers that be, is always pretty much of an uphill game; and so at last it proved in his case.

John had another enemy in the college, of his own making too; this was Mr Silver, the junior tutor. He was a man of some scholarship and much conceit; took a first class when very young, having entered college a mere schoolboy, and read hard; got his appointment as tutor soon after, and sneered at older men on the strength of it. He pretended to be exceedingly jocular and familiar with his pupils, but was really always on the alarm for his dignity. His great delight was to impress the freshmen with an idea of his abilities and his condescension. "Always come to me, Mr ——, if you find any difficulties in your reading—I shall be most happy to assist you." This language, repeated to all in turn, was, not unnaturally, literally understood by the matter-of-fact John Brown; who, perhaps, could see no good reason why a college tutor should not be ready to aid, as far as he could, the private studies of those who are so often in want of sensible advice and encouragement. However, it did not occur to him, when he took up to Mr Silver's rooms one morning after lecture, a passage that had puzzled him, that he was doing a very odd thing, and that the tutor thought so. As these consultations became more frequent, however, he began to perceive, what other men were not slow to tell him, that Mr Silver thought him a bore. And the moment this flashed upon him, with his unfortunate antipathy to any thing like humbug, he began another war of independence. He selected crabbed passages; got them up carefully by the help of translations, scholiasts, and clever friends; and then took them up hot to Mr Silver. And when he detected him slurring a difficulty instead of explaining it, or saying there was no difficulty at all, John would bring up against him his array of objections to this or that rendering, and arguments for and against various readings, &c., till Mr Silver found himself fairly out of his depth. At first this puzzled him, and he very nearly committed the mistake of pronouncing John Brown a first-rate scholar in the common-room; but when he found his performance at lecture did not by any means keep pace with the remarkable erudition sometimes displayed by him in private, he began in his turn to suspect the trick. He dared not refuse to play his part, when called upon, in these learned discussions, though he dreaded them more and more; for his college reputation was at stake, and there were some among the older fellows who looked upon him as rather an assuming young man for understanding what they did not pretend to, and would have been glad to have had a joke against him; but he began cordially to hate John Brown; he gave him all the difficult bits he could at lecture; sneered at him when he dared; and practised all those amiable embellishments which make schoolmasters and tutors usually so beloved, and learning in all its branches so delightful.

It is not to be wondered at, then, if John's kind friends somewhat damaged his reputation among the Dons, and watched their opportunity to annihilate him. It came, and they were down upon him at once. Some half-dozen noisy men, the survivors of a supper-party, had turned into Brown's rooms (he seldom sat up so late) for a parting cigar. Having accomplished this, they took it into their heads to dance a quadrille in the middle of the covered thoroughfare, for the benefit of the echo, to the music of six individual tunes sung in chorus. So strange a performance brought down some of the fellows; the men were not recognised, but traced to Brown's rooms. He refused to give up their names—was declared contumacious; and, in spite of the good-natured remonstrances of the principal and one or two of the others, his enemies obtained a majority in the common-room; and it was decided that John Brown was too dangerous a character to be allowed to remain in college during vacation. But they had not got rid of him yet.

About two miles out of Oxford, on the C—— road, if any one takes the trouble to turn up a narrow lane, and then follow a footpath by the side of the canal, he will come to one of the most curious-looking farmhouses that he (or at least I) ever met with. It is a large rambling uninhabited-looking place; the house, as is not unusual, forming one side of a square enclosure, of which the barns and outhouses make up the rest. The high blank walls of these latter, pierced only here and there by two or three of the narrowest possible lancet-holes, give it something the air of a fortification. Indeed, if well garrisoned, it would be almost as strong a post as the Chateau of Hougoumont; with this additional advantage, that it has a moat on two sides of it, and a canal, only divided from it by a narrow towing-path, on a third. The front (for it has a front, though, upon my first visit, it took me some time to find it, it being exactly on the opposite side to the approach at present in use, and requiring two pretty deep ditches to be crossed, in order to get at it from the direction)—the front only has any regular windows; and of these, most of the largest are boarded up, (some, indeed, more substantially closed with brick and mortar) in order to render it as independent as possible of the glazier and the assessor of taxes. There is a little bridge, very much decayed, thrown across the narrow moat to what was, in former days, the main entrance; but now the door was nailed up, the bridge ruinous, and the path leading to it no longer distinguishable in the long rank grass that covered the wet meadows upon which the house looked out. It was a place that filled you involuntarily with melancholy feelings; it breathed of loneliness and desolation, changed times and fallen fortunes. I never beheld it but I thought of Tennyson's "Mariana in the moated Grange"—

"Unlifted was the clicking latch, Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated Grange."

Brown and I, in some of our peregrinations, had stumbled upon this old house; and after having walked round it, and speculated upon its history, made our way through an open door into the spacious court-yard. If the outside looked desolate, however, the interior was lively enough: cattle, pigs, geese, ducks, and all the ordinary appurtenances of a well-stocked farm, gave token that the old place was still tenanted; and a large mastiff, who stalked towards us with a series of enquiring growls, evidently demanding our business, and suspicious of our good intentions, made us not at all sorry to see a stout good-natured-looking dame, a perfect contradiction to the poet's woe-worn "Mariana," who, after bidding Boxer hold his noise, volunteered a compendious history of herself and husband in answer to our simple question as to the name of the place. How good Farmer Nutt and herself had lived there for the last seventeen years; how the old place belonged to Squire somebody, and folks said that some gentry used to live in it in times past; what a lonesome-like life they thought it when they first came, after living in the gay town of Abingdon; how, by degrees, they got to think it pretty comfortable, and found the plashy meadows good pasturage, and the house "famous and roomy-like;" this, and much besides, did we listen to patiently, the more so because an attempt or two at interruption only served to widen the field of her discourse. The wind-up of it all, however, was, that we were asked to walk in and sit down, and so we did. A civil farmer's wife, a very common character in most parts of England, is, I am sorry to say, somewhat too much of a rarity about Oxford; whether their tempers are too severely tried by the "fast men," who hunt drags and ride steeple-chases to the detriment of young wheat and new-made fences; or by the reading-men, who, in their innocence, make pertinacious visits in search of strawberries and cream in the month of March, or call for the twentieth time to enquire the nearest way to Oxford, (being ignorant of all topography but that of ancient Rome and Athens;) or whether they regard all gownsmen as embryo parsons and tithe-owners, and therefore hereditary enemies; whatever be the reason, it generally requires some tact to establish any thing like a friendly relation with a farmer or his wife in the neighbourhood of the university. However, Mrs Nutt was an exception; and nothing could exceed the heartiness with which she set out her best wheaten bread and rich Gloucester cheese, and particular ale—an advance towards further acquaintance which we met with due readiness. In short, so well were we pleased with the good dame's hospitable ways, and her old-fashioned house, and even with her good-humoured loquacity, that our first visit was not our last. The farmer himself, a quiet, good-natured, honest yeoman of about sixty, who said very little indeed when his wife was present, (he had not much chance,) but could, when disposed, let out many a droll story of "College Gents" in bygone days, when he was a brewer's apprentice at Abingdon, came, by invitation, to taste the college tap, and carried home in each pocket a bottle of wine for "the missus."