the differencing of the gospels from the epistles, and the bowing at the name of Jesus, from the names Christ, Saviour, God, &c. he would use some equality in his gestures, and stand up at the reading of all God's word alike." At all events, he protected, as far as his office would allow him, the unfortunate non-conformists, who were subjected to persecution under the sweeping enactments of Charles the Second's reign.

Why Sir Matthew Hale should have married two successive wives from Fawley, in Berkshire, his biographers have neglected to inform us; it is fair to suppose, that having found the first commodity of excellent quality, he resorted to the same place on the next occasion, but we are half inclined to suspect that there is some mistake in this part of his biography, and that the second lady has been confounded with the first, who was the daughter of Sir Henry Moore and grand-daughter of Sir Francis, serjeant-at-law. It is rather singular, considering Hale's character as a model of domestic virtues, and the author of the famous "Letters of Advice to his Grandchildren," that neither he nor any one else seem to have thought it worth while to leave any mention at all of her, except that she bore him ten children: while they have said very little about her successor. The latter, according to the judge's detractors, was a servant; this his panegyrists deny. It seems certain, however, that she was of low origin,

true-hearted follower of Christ, from avowing as the reason of his unpreparedness, that it was Saturday night late before he had notice of the engagement, and that the next day was not a day to think of these things." There can be no doubt of the sincerity of the avowal; but we do not see its boldness. The man who had ventured to avow, in 1651, that he had attended to his client's cause on a Sunday, would have been incomparably the bolder of the two. He would have had to put up with the loss of practice and reputation, and, perhaps, with a fine or a month's leisure in prison into the bargain. Surely, too, the reasons which Hale assigned for his strictness in this respect are not all to be cited as evidences of a rational piety: as when he told Baxter of all the "cross accidents" which befel him on a Sunday journey; how " one horse fell lame, another died, and much more; which struck him with such a sense of Divine rebuke as he never forgot;" and many similar passages, in which he asserts that temporal affairs conducted on that day never turned out well. Such notions cannot be less superstitious, when expressed by a learned and religious scholar, than when uttered by an ignorant rustic. At all events, they are not the reasons which should be ropounded to induce men to reverence the Lord's Day.

and that he married her for the sake of being tended in his old age. He speaks highly of her in his will: of his children little is known. Roger North says, that his sons all died "in the sink of lewdness and debauchery," and ascribes the catastrophe to the strictness of their education. One only survived him; but as all were married, it is hardly probable that they were men of very irregular lives.

Dr. Williams' book concludes with a catalogue of Sir Matthew Hale's numerous works, the greater part of which were left by him in MS., and, amongst these, his most valuable legal treatises. It is singular, although by no means without parallel in the lives of celebrated men, that he should have set so little store by the fruits of his study in the line of his own profession, and applied himself with much more apparent complacency to the production of essays on matters of philosophy, in which his talents are not exhibited to the best advantage. This was certainly the case, although Dr. Williams seems hardly inclined to admit it: and it is the more remarkable, because the judge was not only versed in record law far beyond any man of his time (Prynne, perhaps, excepted), but in reality fondly attached to the pursuit of that and similar abstruse antiquarian studies. One of North's charges against him is, that in the trial of a cause between the lord of the manor and the people of some township in Essex, the former having set up his title by a long deduction from "offices post mortem, charters, pedigrees, and divers matters of record," he was so transported beyond the bounds of judicial reserve, as to call it " a noble evidence;" thereby, in that writer's opinion, prejudicing the opponent's case, which had not yet been heard. To Lord Hale's other merits as a writer two must be added, which have not perhaps been made so frequently the subjects of encomium as the rest: his singular clearness of arrangement, a virtue by which few writers of that age were distinguished, and his manly, vernacular diction; which his enemy, whom we have been obliged so often to cite against him, calls "a significant English style, better than which no one would desire to meet with as a temptation to read."

We cannot avoid concluding this paper with the following characteristic letter of Lord Erskine, which, although having no reference to his subject, Dr. Williams has printed among his notes as a curiosity. It appears to have been on the occasion of some free-and-easy jest, of which the ex-chancellor had been made the subject.

SIR, Upper Berkely Street, November 13, 1819. "Your letter was sent to me from Sussex yesterday. I certainly was appointed chancellor under the administration under which Mr. Fox was secretary of state in 1806, and could have been chancellor under no administration in which he had not had a part; nor would have accepted, without him, any office whatsoever. I believe that administration was said, by all the blockheads, to be made up of all the talent in the country.

"But you have certainly lost your bet on the subject of my decrees. None of which, but one, was appealed against, except one upon a branch of Mr. Thellusson's will; but it was affirmed without a dissentient voice, on the motion of Lord Eldon, then, and now, Lord Chancellor. If you think I was no lawyer, you may continue to think so. It is plain you are no lawyer yourself; but I wish every man to retain his opinions, though at the cost of three dozen of port. ERSKINE."

Your humble servant,

"To save you from spending your money upon bets you are sure to lose, remember that no man can be a great advocate who is no lawyer. The thing is impossible." M.

ART. 111.-MERCANTILE LAW, NO. XV.—MERCHANT SHIPPING. (Continued.)

It will be remembered, that a part of the subject relating to the hiring of mariners, was passed over on account of an expected alteration in the law, then in actual progress, for which it was thought advisable to wait. The contemplated measure has since received the sanction of the legislature, and forms the 19th Chapter of the 6 W. IV. under the title of "An act to amend and consolidate the Laws relating to the Merchant Seamen of the United Kingdom, and for forming and maintaining a Register of the Men engaged in that Service." Of this excellent statute it is no exaggerated commendation to say, that it is politic in its object,1 humane

We are not sure that the public generally is aware that one very important purpose of this act, in co-operation with another passed in the same session, and liberal in spirit, comprehensive and practical in its provisions, and, as compared with acts of parliament generally, concise, perspicuous, and, for the most part, accurate in its language. The end proposed, as indicated in the preamble, is the procuring of " a large, constant, and ready supply of seamen, as well for carrying on the commerce, as for the defence of his Majesty's dominions;" and the declared intention is, " to aid by all practicable means the increase of the number of such seamen, and to give them all due protection and encouragement." With this act before us, we propose now to fill up the space which was left, and to treat in their order of the hiring, the service, and the remuneration of merchant seamen; premising that in the term "seaman" or " mariner," we comprehend, to adopt the definition of the act, any person (apprentice excepted) who shall be engaged or employed to serve in any capacity on board the ship."

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And first, of the hiring. -The engagement of the crew to serve on board a merchant vessel is in the first instance made verbally with the master. It seems, however, that from early times it was usual to reduce the substance of the contract into a written instrument, which was signed by each seaman, and was then, as now, known under the name of the Ship's Articles. In the year 1729, this practice was sanctioned and enforced in a statute passed for the general regulation of merchant seamen, which, adopting the simplicity of the form then in actual use, required merely, as regarded the written agreement, that it should " declare

(5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 24,) for encouraging the voluntary enlistment of seamen, is to gradually supersede, by rendering unnecessary, the harsh and scarcely defensible practice of forcible impressment. Every one will join heartily in the prayer that this humane experiment may be successful.

1 If we were disposed to find fault, we should say, that there is a want of method in the order of the enactments. We are apprehensive, moreover, that some doubts will be raised, as there are others left which ought to have been removed. A competent board of reduction, to which all bills should be submitted before they are finally passed into laws, would tend greatly to the abatement of such an evil as this, the extent and mischief of which are not duly appreciated.

2 2 Geo. II. c. 36, (made perpetual by 2 Geo. III. c. 21.) From the preamble of this act, which is a long manifesto of grievances, arising from the misconduct of merchant seamen, it seems to have been a measure directed against them rather than introduced for their benefit and protection. Most of the clauses are for the prevention or punishment of desertion and neglect of duty.

what wages each seaman or mariner was to have respectively during the whole voyage, or for so long a time as he or they should ship themselves for; and also should express the voyage for which such seaman or mariner was shipt to perform the same;" the service on the one hand, and the remuneration on the other, being, as is manifest, the two essential parts of the contract. But the nature and duration of the service could not be indicated without a correct and circumstantial designation of the voyage, and the maritime Court therefore, under the cognizance of which these contracts generally fall, interpreting the statute beneficially for the seaman, required that it should be set forth in the articles with as much particularity as the nature of the case admitted. Strictness of description, indeed, was not always possible; for in the advance of commerce it happened not unfrequently, especially in the case of ships trading to the Indian and Pacific oceans, that on account of the inability to procure return cargoes in the ports of outward destination, and the consequent necessity of seeking freights elsewhere, neither the extent nor even the course of the voyage could be precisely determined beforehand. But the relaxation necessarily permitted in those instances soon degenerated into an abuse, little creditable to these by whom it was practised or connived at, and which at length drew forth the dignified reprehension of the humane and enlightened judge who at that time adorned the Admiralty Court.1 Instances,

The case of the Minerva (Bell), 1 Hag. Adm. Rep. 347, which gave occasion to this reproof, was certainly an outrageous one. The summary petition (for it was a cause of subtraction of wages), after setting forth that James Dunn was hired in the port of London at 21. per month, and that he signed the ship's articles, contained a special allegation "that in the articles the words to New South Wales and India, and to return to a port in Europe were visibly written, and the same were seen by or known to the said J. D, and many other mariners who signed the articles," and that at the time of hiring, the master also stated the voyage to be as just described. "That upon a close inspection of the articles it now appears, that the words or elsewhere are obscurely written after the word India, but the same were not seen or known by J. D. nor by many others of the mariners at the time of signing, nor until after the arrival of the vessel at New South Wales." Under this agreement the master asserted and exercised the right to carry the crew on a series of experimental voyages from Port Jackson to New Zealand, from thence to Valparaiso, from Valparaiso to Lima; from Lima to Otaheite, and from thence back to Sydney, from Sydney to Calcutta, and so at length from Calcutta to Eng