I have heard more than enough to satisfy me that there is no want of talent in the Judges who take the principal direction and conduct of the business brought before them. The President of the Second Division, in particular, seems to be possessed of all the discernment and diligence which it is pleasing to see a Judge display; and he possesses, moreover, all that dignity of presence and demeanour, which is scarcely less necessary, and which is infinitely more rare, in those to whom the high duties of such stations are entrusted. In his other Court, (the Criminal, or Justiciary Court, of which also I have witnessed several sittings,) I could better understand what was going forward, and better appreciate the qualities by which this eminent Judge is universally acknowledged to confer honour upon his function.

In his Division of the Civil Court, one of his most respected assessors is Lord Robertson, son to the great historian; nor could I see, without a very peculiar interest, the son of such a man occupying and adorning such a situation, in the midst of a people in whose minds his name must be associated with so many feelings of gratitude and admiration. It is perhaps the finest and most precious of all the rewards which a man of

virtue and genius receives, from the nation tó whose service his virtue and his genius have ministered, that he establishes for his children a true and lofty species of nobility in the eyes of that people, and secures for all their exertions, (however these may differ in species from his own,) a watchful and a partial attention from generations long subsequent to that on which the first and immediate lustre of his own reputation and his own presence may have been reflected. The truth is, that a great national author connects himself for ever with all the better part of his nation, by the ties of an intellectual kinsmanship,-ties which, in his own age, are scarcely less powerful than those of the kinsmanship of blood, and which, instead of evaporating and being forgotten in the course of a few generations, as the bonds of blood must inevitably be, are only rivetted the faster by every year that passes over them. It is not possible to imagine that any lineal descendant of Shakespeare, or Milton, or Locke, or Clarendon, or any one of the great authors of England, should have borne, in the present day, the name of his illustrious progenitor, and seen himself, and his great name, treated with neglect by his countrymen. The son of such a man as the Historian of Scotland, is

well entitled to share in these honourable feelings of hereditary attachment among the people of Scotland;-and he does share in them. Even to me, I must confess it afforded a very genuine delight, to be allowed to contemplate the features of the father, as reflected and preserved in the living features of his son. A more careless observer would not, perhaps, be able to trace any very striking resemblance between the face of Lord Robertson and the common portraits of the historian; but I could easily do so. In those of the prints which represent him at an early period of his life, the physiognomy of Robertson is not seen to its best advantage. There is, indeed, an air of calmness and tastefulness even in them, which cannot be overlooked or mistaken; but it is in those later portraits which give the features, after they had been divested of their fulness and smoothness of outline, and filled with the deeper lines of age and comparative extenuation, that one traces, with most ease and satisfaction, the image of genius, and the impress of reflection. And it is to those last portraits that I could perceive the strongest likeness in the general aspect of the Judge,-but, most of all, in his grey and over-hanging eye-brows, and

eyes, eloquent equally of sagacity of intellect, and gentleness of temper.

In the other Division of the Court, I yesterday heard, without exception, the finest piece of judicial eloquence delivered in the finest possible way by the Lord President Hope. The requisites for this kind of eloquence are of course totally different from those of accomplished barristership-and I think they are in the present clever age infinitely more uncommon. When possessed in the degree of perfection in which this Judge possesses them, they are calculated assuredly to produce a yet nobler species of effect, than even the finest display of the eloquence of the Bar ever can command. They produce this effect the more powerfully, because there are comparatively very few occasions on which they can be called upon to attempt producing it; but besides this adventitious circumstance, they are essentially higher in their quality, and the feelings which they excite are proportionally deeper in their whole character and complexion.

I confess I was struck with the whole scene, the more because I had not heard anything which might have prepared me to expect a scene of so much interest, or a display of so much power.

But it is impossible, that the presence and air of any Judge should grace the judgment-seat more than those of the Lord President did upon this occasion. When I entered, the Court was completely crowded in every part of its area and galleries, and even the avenues and steps of the Bench were covered with persons who could not find accommodation for sitting. I looked to the Bar, naturally expecting to see it filled with some of the most favourite Advocates; but was astonished to perceive, that not one gentleman in a gown was there, and, indeed, that the whole of the first row, commonly occupied by the barristers, was entirely deserted. An air of intense expectation, notwithstanding, was stamped upon all the innumerable faces around me, and from the direction in which most of them were turned, I soon gathered that the eloquence they had come to hear, was to proceed from the Bench. The Judges, when I looked towards them, had none of those huge piles of papers before them. with which their desk is usually covered in all its breadth, and in all its length. Neither did they appear to be occupied among themselves with arranging the order or substance of opinions about to be delivered. Each Judge sat in silence, wrapt up in himself, but calm, and