"It is dark, dark, dark where the sun goes down; The angel of Hope from the earth hath flown, Hints to Legal Students,-being the Substance of an Address delivered at the opening of the Perth Juridical Society. By HUGH BARCLAY, Sheriff-substitute of Perthshire. Edinburgh: James Stillie. LAWYERS, from the remote ages of antiquity, have been subjected to a deal of obloquy on account of their professional doings. We daresay too the ancients were highly tickled, when a limb of the law, soliciting a patron saint from the pope for his order, being told that all the canonised gentry were already appropriated by other crafts, was sent blindfold to a group of saints, to chose one of the throng, but only caught hold of one of the bronze limbs of the Father of evil, squatted beneath the objects of his hate. We really fear that there has been some ground for a dislike of this kind, and certainly Sir Walter Scott (himself by courtesy at least, a lawyer) in his novels has been at no pains to disabuse the public mind of a wrong impression. Sheriff Barclay, whose address is under notice, speaks of his profession as one which "say what an evil speaker will or may, stands high for its moral and honourable feeling." It is to be feared that unless truth be held libel, and true speakers be branded as evil speakers, many charges brought against the lawyers have been too true. Our author admits that "no other profession affords more temptation to go astray, and walk in devious paths long undetected," and the correlative of this, we apprehend, in the present state of our nature, is that many aware they had impunity, have gone astray from virtue, if ever they had any, and have by sinister conduct injured or ruined others. Yet we believe many lawyers have been highly honourable and good men, and we wish their number was increased, for notwithstanding all the means of publicity happily available at present, chicanery has still scope for its dark operations both in court and in chambers. The present discourse was addressed to a society in Perth composed of young men studying for the law, and it would seem to hold that a good many denizens of the "fair city," are aspiring to this position in life. To these the learned Sheriff offers many good advices of a moral and professional nature. He is earnest that the student should carefully attend to principles of law-and quite right if these are available-but we apprehend that what our author calls the "dry and irksome perusal of institutional writers and law reports," is after all the main thing with the student and his seniors. He warns his hearers against "opening points of law acknowledged to be fixed and ascertained." "To dispute these," he says, "would render the mind sceptical of every settled point, and encourage a disputatious and captious temperament. What is res judicata by the highest legal authority is a fact-but the rationes dicidendi and the intrinsical justice of the decision is still open to challenge and controversy. We cannot shut people's mouths, nor prevent them from picking holes-even in the Lord Chancellor's gown-or the judges' ermine. Mr. Barclay enforces on his youthful auditory "command of temper," and clenches the advice by a story of a clown, who hearing two men engaged in disputation, discriminated the one who had the worst of the argument by his losing his temper. This is really silly-quite akin to thewise saw, that persecution was never on the side of truth. Good reasoners with agood cause will lose temper-though it be a pity they should-and the supporters of what is true in religion, have unhappily persecuted those who differed from 379 them. Our author attaches great importance to the ability of speaking in public. "It requires," he says, 66 on his legs, and correctly to speak his thoughts and thing aloud.' a clear and cool head to make a man think apprehend a misty and heated brain, a "sweltering heat," in the upper We story is sometimes sufficient to make a popular orator. Empty vessels make the most noise. There may be genuine talent, and oratorical confidence and power-but the two are not necessarily-nor we believe very often-combined. We can scarcely subscribe to the dictum of the learned sheriff, when talking of juvenile oratory, he opines that if there be not flowers in youth, there is little likelihood of fruit in manhood. The figure is not correct-flowers do not precede fruit on the tree-but blossoms. There is no arguing from the presence or absence of the tropes and figures of rhetoric as to what the man will turn out, and judgment sometimes ripe in early life, may avoid a luxuriant and flowery style as well as it eschews other follies and vanities. This is not the age for such displays-we require, in speaking, the argumentative and the practical, with a very moderate sprinkling of what weak people regard as beauties. Hypercriticism, Mr. Barclay denounces, and certainly, at a debating society, it would be out of place, but we are not prepared with him to call it the "nuisance of letters.' the grammar of a book, may with a critic be a part of the case-as both The style and even constitute where bad, demerits so far in the productions of intellect. recently saw some excellent observations in an Edinburgh journal, on the We vicious use of the verb "lay" in a work reviewed-and also the abuse of the same word among the tip-top quality in London. Whatever is an error, the critic is at liberty to point out-a function which does not supersede, as it is distinct from, the estimate of ideas and intelligence in the composition reviewed. Some rules are laid down for study. Our author never left marks in books, so as to enable him to find passages-and always wrote down his extracts from memory, collating them afterwards with the text. The latter expedient is no doubt a good one generally-but we fail to perceive any utility in the first. All persons cannot recollect the passage they desire to reperuse, and why need to hunt for it, if a mark discriminates the matter in a single moment? Why hunt among many volumes for an extract, if it can be turned up at once in a book of reference. We agree with the learned sheriff that law is not to be learned by fits and starts amidst the gratifications of an effeminate taste-though really hard study may be better digested by the occasional resource of lighter reading or amusement. according to our author's dictum, is a semi-theological affair because it deals But that the law, with oaths and crimes, &c., we cannot subscribe to. If however lawyers are made better by the delusion, it is so far a matter beneficial to others. As respects crimes, it would be well were their punishment rendered more conformable to the divine equity than is the case at present. The Cotton Tree, or Emily, the West Indian. A Tale for Young People. DR. KING, So well known as a minister of the United Presbyterian Church treaties." Mr. T. died at Paris, engrossed to the last in his grand scheme of benevolence. The widow of this esteemed gentleman earnestly urged upon Dr. King to befriend a widow lady, a Mrs. Lynch, connected with the West Indies, who was addicted to literary studies. With a kindness which does the Rev. gentleman much credit, he complied with the solicitation, and hence the present publication. The story is rather a brief rapid auto-biography, than a tale in the ordinary sense,-exemplifying a plot,-or a variety of events, all converging towards some denouement. The writer, as she describes herself, is the child of a wealthy West India planter, who had for his wife an eminently pious woman. The daughter was brought up in the fear of God, the way in which every pious mother will train her charge. She when young was sent to England for education, along with a lady friend of her parent, and suffered much by the forced severance of the ties of nature. At the boarding-school to which she was consigned, she met in with the company usually found at such seminaries, but had the felicity to make the friendship of one very saintly young girl, who proves of great advantage to her during her solitariness, and throughout an illness produced by intelligence of the death of her mother. Arrived at her paternal home in the tropics, we find her, as became a good daughter, earnestly solicitous for the spiritual welfare of her father, who, like many others, while not without the form, wanted the power of godliness; and finally he becomes, so far as man can judge, a decided Christian. The first part of the title of the work, "THE COTTON TREE," was occasioned by the circumstance that it was under the shade of a beautiful aged tree of this species that the mother of the heroine of the story was wont to inculcate upon her daughter those Biblelessons which happily were not forgotten afterwards. This little book is well worthy of being added to the family library. It is throughout marked by traces of a Christian mind, and is highly instructive in its moral lessons. Besides, the style though pitched to a key somewhat elevated, is rather pleasant. We could have wished, however, that the matter had been less sketchy, and that more of detail had been supplied. The authoress shews a correct appreciation of character, and might have expanded her pictures of individuals, in the group she has brought together, with advantage. The orphan girl, Lucille Bowring, so pious and possessed of so much strength of character, is a very fine portrait. By the latter quality, she is distinguished from the heroine who manifests rather more than enough of sensibility, and is almost always in grief or weeping,—indeed, one so young, and whose feelings were so strong, ought not to have been sent out into the world to the guardianship of strangers. In writing works like the present there is room for the exercise of steady good sense and wisdom. In one or two cases we could have spared incidents which do not come up to our ideas of perfection in this department of literature. For example, the heroine talked in the Creole way with a "languor and drawl." Mr. S. Wilson, a friend of her mother's, derided this style of elocution, but her mother told her "how I must patiently bear reproof, if I wished in sincerity to be a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus." This argument would have been quite appropriate had the young lady been reproved, and by the "righteous" for sin or imprudence; but mockery of the only way in which one has learned to speak is not to be so regarded,-and if put up with, is to be held an insult not a reproof,-proceeding too from the senseless and unjust, whose style of speech may happen to be their only quality, though certainly a poor one, even were it independent in its origin of either gifts or graces. Again, the young lady and her pious friend at school, Lucille, are jeered at by their careless co-mates for ostentatious religion,-a very common accusation with the unthinking, the worldly, and profane,-in the case of the devout, who can scarcely be devoted to their Saviour, without its becoming patent to those who are witnesses of their walk or conversation. On one occasion, we find Lucille, who had been gazing on her deceased mother's portrait, concealing the treasure in her bosom when a schoolfellow of this kind was approaching. The latter charges the pious girl with duplicity in hiding her Bible, and rudely draws the miniature from its resting-place on Lucille's neck. Now, whether the Bible, in the circumstances, should have been put out of the view of a pert miss, who neither understood nor cared for religion, or kept in view in honourable defiance of all such fools, may divide opinion, as practice under the circumstances will vary. But it was rather exaggeration to make one suspect that a book was hidden in the space that contained a miniature. We greatly wish good and devout writers would avoid such lapses. We the more readily mention them in this case, for the little volume is really meritorious. One thing we miss, that is, sketches of negro life in the West Indies. The authoress, we apprehend, is well acquainted with this curious and interesting theme, and might have supplied many instructive reminiscences. We opine, as her parents were worthy people, that their slaves fared well, but the reverse happens in other cases. We fear that in the planter's lady, the oppressed African at times found as bad, if not a worse tyrant, than in her lord,—the terrible autocrat of the sugar or coffee estate. The Scottish Review. A Quarterly Journal of Social Progress and General Literature. Nos. 1 and 2. Glasgow: Scottish Temperance League. This is a new Quarterly Review, at a cheap price, devoted to the general interests of social progress. Its pages are consequently occupied principally with articles expository of the causes which have led to the low tone in morals and in the religious habits of the humbler classes. The papers which consist of "Notes on Refreshment Rooms," The Delirium of Intoxication, Better Houses for the Working Classes, &c., we can heartily commend, and it is one of the cheering characteristics of our day to see a periodical so exclusively devoted to the amelioration of the working-classes. It is relieved by occasional papers on other topics, and from the leading article on the career of Dr Chalmers, obviously from the pen of George Gilfillan, we extract the following sketch:— "We linger as we trace over in thought the leading incidents of his wellknown story. We see the big-headed, warm-hearted, burly boy, playing upon the beach at Anstruther, and seeming like a gleam of early sunshine upon that coldest of all coasts. We follow him, as he strides along with large, hopeful, awkward steps, to the gate of St Andrew's. We see him, a second Dominie Sampson, in his tutor's garret at Arbroath, in the midst of a proud and pompous family-himself as proud, though not so pompous, as they. We follow him next to the peaceful manse of Kilmany, standing amid its green woods and hills, in a very nook of the land, whence he emerges, now to St Andrews to battle with the stolid and slow-moving Professors of that day, now to Dundee to buy materials for chemical research, (on one occasion setting himself on fire with some combustible substance, and requiring to run to a farm house to get himself put out!) now to the woods and hills around to botanize-ay, even on the Sabbath-day!—and now to Edinburgh to attend the General Assembly, and give earnest of those great oratorical powers which were afterwards to astonish the Church and the world. With solemn awe we stand by his bed-side during that long, mysterious illness, which brought him to himself, and taught him that religion was a reality, as profound as sin, sickness, and death. We mark him, then, rising up from his couch, like an eagle newly bathed-like a giant refreshed-and commencing that course of evangelical teaching and action only to be terminated in the grave. We pursue him to Glasgow, and see him sitting down in a plain house in Sauchiehall Road, and proceeding to write sermons which are to strike that city like a planet, and make him the real King of the West. We mark him next, somewhat worn and wearied, returning to his Alma Mater, to resume his old games of golf on the Links, his old baths in the Bay, and to give an impetus, which has never yet entirely subsided, to that grass-grown city of Rutherford and Halyburton. Next we see him bursting like a shell this narrow confine, and soaring away to stately Edinburgh, throned on crags,' to become there a principality and power among many, and to give stimulus and inspiration to hosts of young aspirants. With less pleasure we follow the after steps of his career, -the restless and uneasy agitations in which he engaged, which shook the energies of his constitution, impaired the freshness of his mind, rendered him, in fact, too cheap,' and paved the way for his premature and hasty end. With deep interest, however, if not with entire sympathy, we see him sitting at the head of a new and powerful ecclesiastical body, which owed, if not its existence, yet much of its glory, to him; so that the grey head of Chalmers in that Canonmills Hall seemed to outshine the splendours of mitres, and coronets, and crowns. We watch him with far profounder feelings, preaching to the poor outcasts of the West Port, or sitting like a little child beside them, as others are telling them the simple story of the Cross. We follow him on his last pilgrimage' to the south-confronting senates, going out of his way to visit the widows of Hall and Fosterbursting into the studies of sublime unhappy sceptics, and giving them a word in season-preaching wherever he had opportunity, and returning in haste to die! And our thoughts and feelings rise to a climax, as we hear the midnight cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!' raised beside his couch; and, entering in, behold the grand old Christian Giant-the John Knox of the nineteenth century-laid gently on his pillow, asleep, with that sleep which knows no waking, till the trumpet shall sound, and when HE surely shall be among the foremost to rise to meet the Master, and to go in with him into the eternal banqueting-room." Original Poetry. TO THE EDITOR OF MACPHAIL'S JOURNAL. DEAR SIR,-When "Ragged Schools'' are drawing every becoming attention and sympathy even from persons of high rank and of polite accomplishment, perhaps the following simple but affectionate effusion, relative to the class of inmates who now find a place in these most praise-worthy seminaries, may not be thought unworthy of a small space in your Magazine. The verses are the composition of the same excellent person, who some time ago furnished you with the verses entitled "The Schoolboy's Jacket," -which, simple and unpretending as they were, did not fail to draw the notice, and to awaken the feelings, of some persons who are, perhaps, among the best judges of such artless effusions. I may mention, in connection with this subject, that our ingenious townsman, Mr. James Ballantine, was the first who drew attention to this class of subjects, by his admirable poem, entitled, "The Wee Ragged Laddie,”although Mr. Ballantine has not been so much noticed, in this respect, as he might have been. |