3. An Act for the Relief of the Suitors in the High Court of Chancery (15 & 16 Vict. c. 87.). 4. General Orders and Rules of the High Court of Chancery, issued by the Lord High Chancellor, Remarks on Government Bounties to the Superior Courts, with Observations on the Claims of the Suitors of the County Courts to an equal Participation in the Public Funds appropriated to the Support of the Administration of Justice. In a Letter to the ART. VIII.-LIMITED LIABILITY IN PARTNERSHIP. 1. Report on the Law of Partnership, to the President of the Board of Trade. Ordered to be printed March, 2. Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Law of Partnership, together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evi- dence, Appendix, &c. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed July 8. 1851. 3. Replies from Foreign Countries to Questions relating to the Law of Debtor and Creditor, and to the Law of Partnership. Circulated by the Committee of relating to Debtor and Creditor. W. Clowes & Sons, 4. An Inquiry as to the Policy of Limited Liability in Partnership. By HENRY COLLES, Barrister-at-Law. Published by the Social Inquiry Society of Ireland. James M'Glashan, Dublin, 1852. 5. A Letter to the Right Honourable Henry Labouchere, M. P., on the Formation of Companies and Partner- ships, and limiting the Liability of their Members. ART. XIII.THE LAW REFORM BUDGETS OF THE LATE AND 1. The Substance of the Speech of the Lord Chancellor [St. Leonards] in the House of Lords, Nov. 16. 1852. 2. Confusion worse confounded; or the Statutes at large Cancel pp. 193-196 in the last, and substitute those given with the present, Number. 1. Memoirs of the Right Honble. Henry Lord Langdale. By THOMAS DUFFUS HARDY. In 2 vols. Bentley, 1852. THIS work furnishes us with materials of much interest and instruction, especially to the Law Reformer, and we trust it will enable us to read a useful lesson to all public men who aspire to that name. We cannot compliment Mr. Hardy on that portion of these volumes which properly belongs to him. The papers, letters, and documents connected with the life of the late Master of the Rolls have been entrusted to him, and he has duly filed, noted, copied, and recorded them in order and date, and to all the praise that can be awarded to him in that capacity he is fairly entitled; but beyond this we cannot justly go. He has displayed a remarkable want of judgment in the insertion of many papers which it would have been more creditable to the memory of Lord Langdale to have omitted; he has filled his pages with trivial letters and journals which serve no purpose but to increase the bulk, and add to the expense of the book; he is frequently illinformed and presumptuous in his remarks on the persons whose names he introduces in connection with his hero; and in many of his statements he sins not only against good taste, but is blundering and inaccurate to no small extent. He has, however, performed one good service; he has enabled us to estimate the real character of Lord Langdale, and to state the just obligation which the country owes to him. He is perhaps the less entitled to thanks for this, as he did not always know the true bearing of what he has given; he VOL. XVII.-Nov. 1852. B sometimes prints a document with the intention of conferring honour, which to our minds has an effect precisely the reverse; he means to praise, when in fact he gravely censures: he has neither the knowledge, nor the candour of a lawyer, nor the tact nor skill of a biographer; but he has one merit, he is a faithful transcriber of records, and he enables us to judge for ourselves, and for this we are obliged to him. By means of these volumes, and of some little information of our own, we shall endeavour to give a faithful account of the life of Lord Langdale. Henry Bickersteth must always have a claim on Law Reformers; and although, as we shall show, his character as such was far from perfect, yet as an able advocate, as an honourable and conscientious man, and, on the whole, an eminent judge, his life deserves from our hands a careful consideration; but we shall not hesitate to point out his great defect, especially as this may afford some instruction to that numerous band of lawyers who are now fast rising around us, ambitious of the name of reformers of the law, and because Mr. Hardy has endeavoured greatly to mislead the public mind respecting him, and to place him in a position, with respect to his contemporaries, to which he is in no way entitled. It will be necessary, in endeavouring to consider the real worth of Lord Langdale as a public man, and more especially as a reformer of the law, to consider what is due from such an one. The duty then of him who would achieve this fame is, laying all other things aside, to seek only how to serve this cause, and to make all things subservient to it. Wealth, rank, honours, and distinctions in this life, are easy sacrifices when a greater object is in view; but the Law Reformer must learn to rise superior to slander and calumny; he must look beyond the generation with which it is his lot to strive, and boldly claim from posterity that justice which the world in his own lifetime will never give him; he must be content to make a sacrifice far more difficult, even his own present reputation, knowing, if he thinks about it, that a future time will restore to him all that he really deserves; above all, he must be careless of present ease, and be willing to undertake |