ously introduced suspending the operation of the restricting clause in the Act of Settlement, and then the naturalizing bill is brought in without the clause.

The absurdity and inconsistency of this course can hardly be described in too strong terms. A man of the most humble state is subjected to the whole disability. A small trader, an ensign in the army, a midshipman on board a vessel, are not allowed to fill the office of petty constable, or justice of peace, lest he should influence the government of the country, and turn its operations in favour of a foreign country, and away from the interests of England. But as soon as a marriage is proposed with a foreign prince, he who may be the Queen's consort, and exercise the greatest influence over the course of the government, is, quite as a matter of course, relieved from the restrictions which the Act of Settlement imposed in order to prevent the accession of foreigners to places of influence and power. It has thus happened that gentlemen possessed of ample estates, and who happen to be aliens merely because their property came from their English mother married to a foreigner, have been unable to hold either the place of member of parliament, or of justice of the peace, in the county where the estates were situated.

The late Act removes this absurdity by so far repealing1 these Acts. It provides that the government may by a simple certificate' grant naturalization to all intents and purposes, except the capacity of holding the place of privy councillor and member of parliament; but it leaves them to be dealt with by the legislature in each case, repealing the clause in the Act of Settlement, and thus enabling the parties to be completely naturalized by private act.

That there can be no danger from this amendment of the law, is manifest, for no man can be enabled to sit in parliament or be a privy councillor, without the special assent in his case of Queen, Lords and Commons. That assent never will be withholden unless there be good and sufficient grounds. But as the law before stood, it never was given, for the clause in the Act of Settlement prevented it from being given unless a special Act was first passed to suspend its operation.

1 Sects. 1. and 2.

2 Sects. 6, 7. 9.

ART. VIII. SPEECH OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE DENMAN

ON THE BILL FOR RELIEVING SCRUPULOUS PERSONS FROM TAKING OATHS. JUNE 27. 1842.

THE subject of this able, well-reasoned, and most admirable speech is of the greatest importance. It concerns neither more nor less than the security against false testimony on the one hand and the sacred rights of conscience on the other. We rejoice, therefore, that the speech of the Lord Chief Justice has been given to the public in a more correct form and with greater fulness than the course of publication in the daily newspapers rendered possible; and we deem it an imperative duty to direct towards the question the attention of our readers and of all lawyers, the rather because the Bishop of London having proposed referring the whole matter to a select committee, and the Lord Chief Justice having acceded to his proposition, the committee has only begun its labours, and will consider of its Report next session. Consequently a discussion of the subject in the mean while becomes of essential importance to the right decision of the committee.

We must begin by observing that the introduction of such a measure as this by such an authority in the law is an event of much importance, and demands from all persons and in all places the greatest respect. The Lord Chief Justice of England, the first common law judge, the first criminal judge in the realm, one, too, who has held for above twenty years judicial offices intimately connected with the administration of the criminal law and with its practice, comes down to his place in parliament, the tribunal of the last resort in all criminal cases, and declares, as the result of his long and varied experience, that he deems the investigation of truth in courts of law to be obstructed, and in many cases precluded, by the present forms of the law, and that both for enabling judges well to examine cases brought before them, and for relieving tender consciences from an unbearable load

of oppression, some alteration of that law is absolutely necessary. Who can reflect on the person, the office, the subject, and not admit that every deference is due to such a proposition, so made? But we may add, that which delicacy towards Lord Denman, prevents us from expanding into a just eulogy, — that all who know him know also his inflexible integrity, and feel assured that he is utterly incapable of propounding or of supporting any measure in his legislative capacity, above all any measure intimately connected with his higher and more sacred judicial functions, unless his mind were thoroughly imbued with the conviction of its safety, its justice, its necessity.

We begin our statement of the case by two short extracts from the admirable speech before us-a speech deriving, it is true, extraordinary weight and authority from the station and the character of the speaker, but quite equal to the exigency of the great occasion in its own intrinsic merits—a speech abounding in impressive eloquence, instinct with the soundest principles, and breathing throughout an enlarged view of human affairs, and a tender anxiety for human happiness. Here is the Lord Chief Justice's lucid and impressive description of the mischiefs that arise from a law excluding the testimony of all whose conscientious scruples forbid then to take an oath.

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By the exclusion of evidence, the justest debt may be lost to the creditor; if it has been paid, the debtor may be deprived of the proof of payment, and compelled to pay twice: in the ordinary occurrences of life, the wrong-doer may always triumph over the oppressed; the property of one man may be wrested from his possession and transferred to a stranger; a fraudulent pretender may obtain a seat in your Lordships' House, which he knows to belong to another, and thus obtain the high privilege of enacting the laws of the land.

He

"In the department of Criminal Law the evil is far greater." His lordship here adverts to the grievous encouragements, daily multiplying, to the infraction of the law. enumerates some of the more prominent of these, and with just indignation; - such are the assumption of "a portion of the literature of the day of an important character, ex

citing the youthful mind by tales and dramatic representations to sentiments of the most vicious and debasing tendency, throwing a veil of romance over meanness and cruelty, and exhibiting them in an impossible alliance with heroic courage, generosity, and kindness."

In passing, we cannot but pause to join our feeble testimony with this just and grave reprobation. The vile taste of the unthinking public, which encourages such writings, with about as much propriety and as much temperance as it promotes the vice of dram-drinking, for the use of both stimulants comes from the like morbid appetite,-furnishes no kind of excuse for the authors to whom his lordship alludes; because their writings foster the bad taste they live on, and stimulate the vicious propensities to which they pander. But the Lord Chief Justice goes on to expose another class of exciters to criminal conduct. He gently hints that possibly the mere love of notoriety may be the origin of the fanatical folly to which he refers. But be the motive what it may, he most justly stigmatises the acts of these misguided and misguiding persons as in the very highest degree pernicious.

"Not content with exhorting them (convicted criminals) to penitence and prayer, and consoling them with a humble to hope for mercy, they have surrounded them with the enjoyments of this world, and invested them with distinction and interest in the eyes of their fellow-creatures, which no other position could have earned for them. This patronage of criminals has displayed something like an indifference to crime; and the vilest and most abject have avowed that they have thus been tempted into outrages which have filled the public mind with horror and indignation.”

No doubt his lordship here had in his mind the memorable scene enacted at the city which he once represented in parliament-the Nottingham tragedy. A murder of the most atrocious kind had been committed. The wretch had for the sake of gaining a few pounds killed a poor old man, and first mutilating, had then burnt his body. He was convicted on the clearest evidence, and he fully confessed his guilt. Forthwith there stepped forward a woman a lady of some figure in society -- and, inspired with a holy zeal to save the man's soul, administered all consolation not only of prayers

and psalms, but of meat, drink, and entertainment. He was converted to the new light of Methodism; he was proclaimed a saint ready for heaven, and awaiting the moment of his translation through the halter to the abode of the blessed; he was attended to the gallows by his dear sisters in Christ; he was mourned by them as an innocent lamb led to the slaughter; his hair was divided as relics of saints are in Romish countries; ribbons worn by him were eagerly distributed among and worn by his admirers; and he actually died the death of a felon with the portrait of his patroness hanging on his bosom. We affirm that such religion as this works not only no kind of good but infinite mischief. It is made the parent of crimes; the repentance and its fruits, which may be all very right after the offence has been committed, and nothing remains to do or to abstain from, is held out to men beforehand as the harbour into which they may retreat, and where they may find repose and rest for their souls after they shall have robbed or murdered their neighbours and also after they shall have been detected — and also after they shall have been convicted; for unless all these chances of escape shall fail, not one of the saints in question ever dream of repentance and salvation. But who does not perceive that the knowledge of all this-the prospect of this haven of rest, should the worst come to the worstmust greatly influence the conduct of criminals, must deprive punishment of half its horrors, and disarm religion of all its terrors? We regard such individuals as the lady of Nottingham in the light of great criminals; guilty of many crimes, to which their vanity, or their fanaticism, or their folly of what kind soever it be, has occasioned, and far more pernicious to society than he who has only committed one.

The Lord Chief Justice, having adverted to the varied incentives now applied in stimulating crime, proceeds to ask what is the consequence of the law diminishing the facilities of conviction, while every effort is made to multiply the chances of crimes being committed. "What would your Lordships have felt - how would the public mind have been affected if any of the wretches who have lately polluted the courts had departed without punishment through this defect? What, if a necessary witness to identify the open