given to him to enable him to accomplish large Law Reforms. He would do neither of these, but he was always willing to talk and write "about and about" these changes, whilst he usually opposed smaller reforms brought in by others, as by Lord Chancellor Cottenham and Lord Campbell, which would have led on to the very reforms which he professed to have at heart; thus being in fact an obstacle, rather than an assistant, to Law Reform, from the very day on which he first entered the House of Lords.

But in his letter to Lord Lyndhurst, he said, the Great Seal had never been offered to him, and that "he had not the least reason to think that it would ever be offered to him;" thus always making up an excuse not so much to others as to himself.

This difficulty was soon removed. On the day that Lord Cottenham resigned, he wrote to Lord Langdale requesting to see him.

"At this interview Lord Cottenham told him that he had sent in his resignation of the Great Seal, and that Lord John Russell had said that it was impossible to go on with temporary expedients, and that a Chancellor must be named: he then said, that he had been requested by Lord John to ascertain whether he (Lord Langdale) would take it if it were offered to him.

“I think not,' was the reply, but I could not positively say.””

A day or two after, Lord John Russell requested Lord Langdale to call on him.

"At this interview, Lord John Russell, having obtained the Queen's sanction, made Lord Langdale the offer of the office of Lord Chancellor; and Lord Langdale having respectfully declined it, he was requested to reconsider the matter." (Vol. ii. p. 249.)

Unfortunately for his reputation he has left a memorandum in his own handwriting, "the result of this reconsideration." This Mr. Hardy apparently considers so creditable to Lord Langdale that he has caused it to be engraved as a fac-simile of Lord Langdale's handwriting. It is as follows:

This memorandum appears to us completely to establish the truth of the defects in Lord Langdale's character, which we have alleged. He was a selfish man, who thought almost entirely of his own ease, and was willing to risk nothing for the sake of his principles. Salary, pension, and patronage come first to his mind in the way of benefit; the power of advancing the cause to which he had owed nearly all his success, comes last in the scale. How he could persuade himself, under the circumstances we have mentioned, that "the hope of effecting some further reform in Chancery" was "small and doubtful," we cannot imagine, especially as some years before, Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister,. had, as Mr. Hardy ignorantly or purposely omits to state, declared himself in favour of a division of the duties of the Great Seal. Never, it appears to us, was so fair an opportunity lost of accomplishing a great object safely and easily; certainly there was every reason for proposing it. After this Mr. Hardy has but small right to say of Lord Cottenham, as a politician he was useless. He was not in his heart a true law reformer, and in more than one instance he was the cause of the miscarriage of important legal measures." (Vol. ii. p. 252.) And he also says, that "when he was promoted

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to the Great Seal, Lord Melbourne required from him a statement of his proposed Chancery Reform, as it was upon the express condition of his bringing forward a great measure on the subject that he was advanced to the Chancellorship. Lord Melbourne had also obtained from Mr. Bickersteth and Sir R. M. Rolfe statements of their views of Chancery Reform."

Now Lord Langdale, as we have shown, entirely owed his elevation to this idea, that he too would bring forward a great measure of Chancery Reform. Lord Cottenham did so and was thwarted by this very Lord Langdale. The latter never brought forward any measure at all. We wish Mr. Hardy had printed, if he could, Lord Cranworth's views, for to him we now greatly look for a clear and comprehensive scheme on this subject.

The consequence of Lord Langdale's unfortunate view of the case was, that after putting the Great Seal in Commission for some time, it was given to Lord Truro, an active opponent of all Law Reform. We cannot imagine how this conduct, on the part of Lord Langdale, was consistent with a sincere and disinterested love of Law Reform, and willingness to make sacrifices in its favour. We cannot therefore quite agree with Mr. Hardy, when he says, "In the case of Lord Langdale there is hardly sufficient shade in his character to throw over his virtues the relief that they deserve." (Vol. ii. p. 328.)

Up to the year 1848 his health was good; after that time he became unwell, and his illness increased in the years 1849 and 1850. He offered to resign early in 1851, but deferred it for a few months to suit the convenience of the Government, and in March in that year he finally retired, and on the 18th of April he expired.

We now leave the reader to judge for himself as to the correctness of our estimate of Lord Langdale's character and public life. We have made no statement for which we have not given our authority, and in pointing out the faults of this learned Judge, we have only performed what we consider to be a duty. We have given him all the praise to which in our opinion he is fairly entitled. We have not attempted to hide his faults.

We have already noticed one or two errors and omissions of Mr. Hardy. He tells us repeatedly that he is not a lawyer. He need not have done so, as this is sufficiently obvious, but a little care would have saved him from the inaccuracies which the want of information has produced, and perhaps it might have been suggested to him that none other than a professional man was competent to handle correctly the papers entrusted to him.

We had noted some other errors, but we do not think that any good service would be performed by pointing them out. This book can have no authority, and as coming from an unprofessional person, will probably mislead no one. We are assured that the family of Lord Langdale already regret its publication, and we now consign it to that share of future attention to which its merits entitle it.

It will be seen that the opinions in this Article as to Lord Langdale differ from those expressed by Lord Brougham in Art. VIII, to which we refer our readers.

ART. II.-ATTORNIES NOT CONVEYANCERS. Attornies not Conveyancers. London. Printed for the Author, [R. GROOM, Esq.,] by Luke Hansard and Sons, 1820.

THE pamphlet at the head of this Article is of considerable interest at a time when the fetters which now bind the transfer of land are about to be burst. As a necessary part of this enfranchisement a class of practitioners will be demanded who, adjusting themselves to the new state of affairs, will facilitate all dealings connected with land, by reducing the enormous delay and expense now attending them; and who, by so doing, we believe, will serve their own interests as much as they will benefit the dealers in land. It cannot be disputed that one source of the present evils now pressing on the transfer of land is the practice of employing (and of course paying) in many cases two practitioners instead of one. The mystery of conveyancing is so great, that in most important matters not only counsel must be consulted, but a peculiar kind of counsel; and thus it is that the document known to the suitor by the familiar name of the Bill assumes its tremendous character. Let us see then by the help of our author, known to be the late Mr. Groom, a very learned person, and perfectly conversant with conveyancing, - -whether two persons were always necessary to effect a conveyancing transaction.

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Prior to and in the year 1729, when the first Act was passed for placing attornies on their present footing, Mr. Groom says that conveyancing was not the proper business of attornies, but was conducted by scriveners, and by barristers who were employed by the parties concerned, without the intervention of an attorney." As evidence of this, Curle's case (20 Jac. I., Winch, 40.) is cited, when Hobart, C. J., held that to say of an attorney that he had made false writings was not actionable, "for it doth not appertain to an attorney to make writings, and so it is no scandal to him in his profession." And also Godsal's case (22 Jac. I., Winch, p. 90.) to the same effect.

Mr. Groom then quotes from Roger North, in reference to the practice of Lord Guildford, where it is said that he practised as a conveyancer, not only receiving instructions direct from the parties, but also engrossed the deeds himself. (See Life, vol. i. p. 142.)

The Acts for regulating the admission of attornies are then referred to; and it is said that, "so far from its having been an object of the Legislature to give to attornies any right to supersede the practice of the scrivener, the confining five years of their youth to a different pursuit, is the strongest possible argument against any such intention."

The scrivener, however, was, in course of time, superseded by the more active attorney; and the whole case is gone into in a Report of the Scriveners' Company in 1748, quoted at length by Mr. Groom, in which it is said that "the proper business of a scrivener was to make charters and deeds concerning lands, tenements, and inheritances, and all other writings which, by common law or custom of the realm, were required to be sealed;" and that "scriveners were till of late years considered to be so far from having any connection with attornies, that the art or mystery of the former was looked upon and made use of as the means of preventing as much as possible all manner of occasion for applying to the latter." (P. 23.)

In 1794, however, according to Mr. Groom, the attornies had been so industrious as "to unite in themselves the business of the scrivener and the business of the attorney, to such an extent, that they had almost annihilated the scrivener, and had succeeded in attaching to the name of scrivener an idea of a person disreputable and contemptible, and had effected the exclusion of all counsel from the practice of conveyancing as the direct and immediate agents of the parties." (P. 25.)

And it is here said in a note: "At a club of attornies, called 'The Law Society,' consisting of several hundred members (including the greater part of the respectable attornies of the metropolis), which was instituted about the year 1749 or 1750, and which has for its professed object the preservation of the privileges of the order, any conveyancing counsel, who is known either to have prepared legal instruments without the intervention of an attorney, or to have admitted parties to a direct personal intercourse in business without a similar intervention, is regularly DENOUNCED.”