should be able to gain a livelihood. But the ignorant and brutal ruffians who were then in power had already condemned him to the scaffold, on which he was executed, May 8, 1794, for the pretended crime of having adulterated snuff with ingredients destructive to the health of the citizens! On being seized, he entreated at least to be allowed time to finish some experiments in which he was engaged; but the reply of Coffinhall, the president of the gang who condemned him, was characteristic of the savage ignorance of those monsters in human form :-" The Republic does not want savans or chemists, and the course of justice cannot be suspended.”

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Lavoisier in person was tall and graceful, and of lively manners and appearance. He was mild, sociable, and obliging; and in his habits unaffectedly plain and simple. He was liberal in pecuniary assistance to those in need of it; and his hatred of all ostentation in doing good probably concealed greatly the real amount of his beneficence. He married, in 1771, Marie-Anni-Pierrette Paulze, a lady of great talents and accomplishments, who after his death became the wife of Count Rumford.

THE first Earl of Mansfield was a younger son of a noble house in Scotland, which he raised to higher rank by his own brilliant talents and successful industry.

William Murray was the eleventh child of David, Viscount Stormont, and was born at Perth, March 2, 1704. He received his education at Westminster School and Christchurch College, Oxford, where he gained distinction by the elegance of his scholarship. He took his degree of M.A. in June, 1730, and was called to the bar in the Michaelmas term following: the interval he employed in travelling in France and Italy. At an early age he gained the friendship of Pope, who, in several passages, has borne testimony to the grace, eloquence, rising fame, and attractive social accomplishments of the young lawyer. 1737, in consequence of the sudden illness of his

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leader, who was seized with a fit in court, Mr. Murray had to undertake, at an hour's notice, the duty of senior counsel, in the cause of Cibber v. Sloper. From his success on this occasion he was wont to date the origin of his fortune." Business," he said, poured in upon me on all sides; and from a few hundred pounds a year, I fortunately found myself, in every subsequent year, in possession of thousands." In the same year he was retained by the corporation of Edinburgh in the memorable transactions which arose out of the Porteous riot; and his exertions to preserve their privileges were subsequently acknowledged by the gift of the freedom of the city in a gold box. November 20, 1738, Mr. Murray was married to Lady Elizabeth Finch, daughter of the Earl of Winchelsea, a lady who, in addition to rank and fortune, possessed those more valuable qualities which rendered their married life, through near half a century, one of harmony and domestic happiness.

Mr. Murray was appointed Solicitor-General in 1742, and took his seat in parliament, for the first time, as member for Boroughbridge. For many

years, during which he held office under the Pelham administration, he was recognised in the House of Commons as one of the ablest supporters of government; and he was frequently opposed, in the outset of his career, to Mr. Pitt, who, after the elevation of both to the upper house, bore this high testimony, among others, to Murray's weight as a speaker: "No man is better acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect for them, than I have. I have had the pleasure of sitting with him n the other house, and always listened to him with attention. I have not lost a word of what he said, nor did I ever." In his official station, he necessarily took a prominent part in the prosecution of the rebel lords, especially at the trial of Lord Lovat in 1747; and his

eloquence was set off by his fairness towards the prisoner, whose concern in the rebellion was indeed too evident to admit of hesitation on the part of his judges. We may follow up the history of his legal advancement by briefly stating that, in 1754, he was appointed Attorney-General, and, in 1756, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and, at the same time, raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Mansfield. It is said that the Duke of Newcastle was extremely unwilling to consent to the removal of his most powerful supporter from the Commons, but was forced to comply by the threat that, if he refused, Murray would no longer act as Attorney-General.

Lord Mansfield's private life appears for the most part to have been passed in tranquil prosperity, which afforded no incidents for the biographer to dwell on; at least the published records of him are nearly confined to his exertions as an advocate, his speeches in parliament, and reports on the important cases which he adjudicated. It will be sufficient here to mention those events by which Lord Mansfield is connected with the public history of England, and to make a few general observations on his character as a lawyer and a judge.

In 1763, the legality of what were called general warrants, not directed against persons by name specifically, but generally against any person or persons supposed to be guilty of a certain act, was mooted, in consequence of a secretary of state's warrant to apprehend the "authors, printers, and publishers" of the celebrated No. 45 of the North Briton.' Wilkes, being apprehended by virtue of this warrant, was discharged by Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, when brought up before that court by writ of habeas corpus. The question came before Lord Mansfield in a different form. An action of trespass was brought in the court of Common Pleas

against the messengers who executed the warrant, and a verdict was given for the plaintiff. A bill of exceptions against Chief Justice Pratt's directions to the jury was tendered, in pursuance of which the question was again argued before Lord Mansfield, who coincided with his brother chief in holding the instrument illegal under which the defendants had acted. Since this decision, general warrants have been disused.

In 1768, Wilkes, then at the height of his popularity, returned to England, and applied for a reversal of his outlawry. The excitement of his partisans broke out both in riots and in indecent attempts to intimidate the judges before whom the point was to be argued. Lord Mansfield pronounced for the reversal, upon the ground of a technical informality, which the Court held fatal to the process; but in his elaborate judgment he took care strongly to censure the seditious efforts which had been made to influence the Court, and to impress on his auditors that the apparently trifling objection on which the judgment turned was fatal in law, and could not have been passed over in any other case. This speech has been much admired; nor is it easy to overrate its beauties as a composition: it lies open, however, to the objection of being too theatrical. After overruling the objections made by the defendant's counsel, it rises into eloquent declamation against the attacks of the press, and the threats of the mob; and, at the moment when all seems ripe for a contrary decision, proceeds to grant the thing so loudly clamoured for. He may safely contemn danger who does not expose himself to it; and it would on this occasion have been more dignified to make less parade of independence.

Lord Mansfield's view of the law of libel exposed him to much obloquy. He was a resolute assertor of the doctrine that jurors were to judge of the fact only,