acter of attorney-general he conducted the prosecution against the jacobite pamphleteer, Dr. Shebbeare, (the first libel case tried before lord Mansfield,) he equally assumed the same right in the jury, and accordingly, as he tells us himself, turned his back upon the judge while opening the case and commenting on the alleged libel, so as to intimate that in his view the whole question was one which the jury had the sole cognizance of, and the bench no part in. In Owen's case the jury adopted his view of the matter, and found an unqualified verdict of "not guilty," to which they adhered in spite of the inquiry which the chief justice (Lee), at the attorney-general's suggestion, addressed to them, whether or not they were satisfied with the evidence of publication. We see him also engaged in several other important crown cases within the two or three following years, and learn that he obtained besides considerable practice and reputation at the bar of the house of commons; and it appears to have been, thus far at least, principally as an advocate well read in constitutional law, and known as a liberal interpreter of it, that he established himself in general estimation. He does not appear at all in the courts of equity until after his appointment as attorney-general; and in the minor matters of daily discussion in the king's bench, his name occurs less frequently than that of many others. But he was about to be busied upon a wider and more important scene.

The duke of Newcastle's administration began early in the year 1756 to exhibit unequivocal symptoms of disorganization, and promised speedily to fall asunder before the combined assault of the two parties of Rockingham and Pitt. The timid and irresolute spirit of the minister crouched before the fulminations of his great opponent, and sunk within him at the gathering difficulties which the disasters of the war abroad, and increasing discontents at home, brought round him. In November of that year the dis

jointed cabinet, notwithstanding all its attempts to patch it up, fell irretrievably to pieces. The series of negociations and intrigues which occupied the next half year are well known to all readers of the memoirs of the time. They ended at last, in June 1757, in the restoration of the duke to the nominal head of the government, Pitt being, as secretary of state, its presiding spirit; und the post of attorneygeneral becoming vacant by sir Robert Henley's acceptance of the great seal, Pitt insisted, as a personal favor to himself, on its being filled by Pratt, his early friend, and in whose coincidence of opinion on political subjects he could place full confidence. He was accordingly installed in it, over the head and to the great chagrin of Charles Yorke, who had been some time solicitor-general, and who, years afterwards, in Pitt's second administration, endeavored to revenge himself by privately plotting with Charles Townshend, then chancellor of the exchequer, the undermining of the ministry of which they both were members, and the formation of a new one, in which Yorke himself should occupy the woolsack; an intrigue to which the young king George III. (already a worthy proficient in that science of dissimulation which has been pronounced by high authority a necessary qualification in a sovereign) was also a secret party, and which was rendered abortive only by Townshend's unexpected death.

A seat in parliament was obtained for the new attorneygeneral for the borough of Downton, which he continued to occupy as long as he remained a member of the house of commons. Almost the first parliamentary duty imposed upon him was one which conveyed a high compliment that of preparing and conducting through the house the bill for explaining and extending the provisions of the habeas corpus act, the introduction of which arose out of a decision of the court of king's bench, that the statute of Charles II. did not apply to the case of a party impressed into the

king's service, unless he were charged with some criminal matter. In performing this office, "he declared himself," says Horace Walpole, "for the utmost latitude of the habeas corpus; and it reflected no small honor on him that the first advocate of the crown should appear as the firmest champion against prerogative." No distinct report of his speeches on this occasion is extant, the debates in the commons, as we have them in the parliamentary history, being all thrown into the form of a single argument on either side. The bill, as is well known, after encountering little opposition in that house, was rejected by the lords, "in compliment to lord "Mansfield," according to Walpole; at all events, in deference to his and lord Hardwicke's authority and influence, and the undisguised hostility of the king: nor was it until more than half a century afterwards, and even then not without much opposition, that the legislature adventured on an extension of the act, absolutely necessary to give effect to its spirit and principles, and to which no argument could be opposed beyond the ordinary topics of prejudice and feebleness, vague declamation about the dangers of innovation, and the absolute and unimprovable excellence of the system to be changed.

It was about this time that Pratt, already past forty years of age, found out that he had remained long enough a bachelor, and that for the full enjoyment of his brilliant prospects, it was expedient to share them with a partner. The lady of his choice was Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Nicholas Jefferys, Esq., of Brecknock Priory. Their first child, the late venerable marquis Camden, was born on the 11th of February 1759: another son, Robert, who entered the army and died abroad, and three daughters, were the other issue of the marriage.

It fell to Pratt to conduct, as attorney-general, the prosecutions against Dr. Hensey and Dr. Shebbeare for treason and sedition in 1758, and in 1760 that against the unfortu

nate earl Ferrers in all of which he demeaned himself after the honorable pattern of moderation and fairness set him by his predecessor Murray, and in a very different style from that in which state trials had been wont to be conducted. "As I never thought it my duty," he says in lord Ferrers's case, "to attempt at eloquence when a prisoner stood upon trial for his life, much less shall I think myself justified in doing it before your lordships; give me leave therefore to proceed to a narration of the facts." He now enjoyed, besides his official emoluments, an almost engrossing private practice in the courts of equity, to which (in the anticipation, it may be, which was eventu ally realized, of succeeding his friend lord Northington, when gout or party should drive him from the much coveted seat,) he had confined himself since he became attorneygeneral. We have had the curiosity to look through lord Northington's Reports, where the names of the counsel are almost uniformly given, and find, during the four years from 1757 to 1761, five cases only in which the attorney-general does not appear, in three of which five the counsel are not named at all. He had also received from the corporation of Bath the honor of being elected, in 1759, recorder of that city.

The accession of the new sovereign, the ascendency of lord Bute, and the resignation of Pitt, wrought no depression of Pratt's fortunes. He continued to occupy his post of attorney-general until December 1761, when the death of Chief Justice Willes created a vacancy on the bench of the common pleas, which the government had no difficulty in offering at once for his occupation; and, in the present aspect of politics, he had as little hesitation in accepting a lucrative and now permanent dignity; and accordingly, having been first called to the degree of the coif, and knighted, he took his seat as chief justice on the 13th of January following; justices Clive, Bathurst, and Noel, being his.

colleagues on the bench.

A few weeks afterwards, he

writes to his old friend Dr. Davies- "I remember you prophesied formerly that I should be a chief justice, or perhaps something higher. Half is come to pass: I am thane of Cawdor; but the greater is behind; and if that fails me, you are still a false prophet. Joking aside, I am retired out of this bustling world to a place of sufficient profit, ease, and dignity; and believe that I am a much happier man than the highest post in the law could have made me." So men persuade themselves. His friend lived, however, to congratulate him on his elevation to that highest post, and might have exclaimed to him in turn-"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all."

Very few days elapsed before the new chief justice gave a sufficient indication of the principles on which he intended to administer justice. In one of the first cases that came before him, a question arising as to the discretionary power of the court to receive or reject a plea puis darrein continuance, he took occasion to say, that "such discretion was contrary to the genius of the common law of England, and would be more fit for an eastern monarchy than for this land of liberty; nulli negabimus justiciam, nulli defercmus," &c. Nor was it very long before it appeared that he was not, in his judicial capacity, to be exempt from the discussion of questions of political right of the deepest concern to the liberty of the subject. In the spring of 1763, the memorable proceedings against Wilkes and his obnoxious North Briton, prosecuted by means of general warrants from the secretary of state, gave birth to numerous actions at his own suit and that of the persons employed by him (there were some fifteen or sixteen in all), against the secretaries, lords Halifax and Egremont, Mr. Wood, their under-secretary, and the officers engaged in the execution of the warrant. All these were brought in the common pleas; the known principles of the chief justice affording a