Chapter I

Knights and dames I sing,
Such as the times may furnish: ’tis a flight
Which seems at first to need no lofty wing
Plumed by Longinus, or the Stagyrite:
The difficulty lies in colouring,
(Keeping the due proportions still in sight,)
With nature, manners which are artificial,
And rendering general that which is especial.
BYRON.

He’s justice of the peace, ay, and rotulorum.
SHAKSPEARE.

Some years had passed over Sir North Saunders’ head since we were last in his company, and yet we shall find him much as we left him, neither richer nor poorer, wiser nor better, nor, except “quoad” baptismal register, much older than when, upon first establishing himself for the summer season at Hornscliff Abbey, he had accompanied Castleton and Lady Madelina to Morden Bay. He still looked much the same; he could still eat as much, and walk as little. True, in the interval one great epoch had occurred in the life of a politician of his calibre; _he had sworn off_, or, to explain it in other words to the uninitiated, he was now turned sixty: a fact which, when sworn to, gives a member of Parliament an exemption from attendance on committees, it being “in the wisdom of the legislature” thought that to rise by ten o’clock in the forenoon would be very injurious at that advanced age, though to sit up all night, and decide the most important questions at five o’clock in the morning, is a duty constantly exacted.

Coeval, however, with this survival of part of his senatorial functions, he had assumed new provincial duties. He had lately acted as a justice of the peace! in the jargon of the sessions, he had sued out his _dedimus_, and become one of the _quorum_, a phraseology probably retained to contradict the proverbial assertion, that translation of the dead languages is of benefit to country gentlemen.

It may be thought a little late for an elderly gentleman, turned sixty, to take upon himself, for the first time, the complicated duties of administering the laws; but then it should be recollected that he had passed the last forty in making them, and from the singular ease with which he had, during that period, executed his part in the former process, it is no wonder that he thought himself perfectly adequate to the subordinate department he now undertook. It may not be understood with what sort of “hocus pocus” facility most of the enactments, on the construction of which Sir North had undertaken to decide, had become the law of the land. Provided they touched not the interests of any one within hearing, the whole process seems to consist in a bit of parchment being subjected to the magic touch of a certain number of men with wigs on their heads and gowns on their backs, a certain number of times; true, it is also said to be read a certain number of times, which, however, consists in one of the gownsmen mumbling the first unmeaning half line in a tone somewhat lower than that in which every voice is talking around him. The chief of the gownsmen then, in somewhat the same tone, invites all of one opinion to say “ay,” and all of the other “no;” an invitation to which, whilst all are equally unconscious to what it alludes, no one can pay the slightest attention. Having undergone this mystic touch the prescribed number of times in one room, it for once gets into the hands of a man without either gown or wig, who, with sundry “kotous,” carries it into another room, where it is again subject, a similar number of times, to the same touching process, when at last all the wigs being now collected in one room, one of them stands in the middle, produces a few strange sounds of barbarous French, and the magic parchment at once becomes the law of the land, without ninety-nine in a hundred, upon whose authority it has so become, ever having heard more of it than the cabalistic syllable, equally applicable to all, of “Whereas.”

The fact is, from the day of the Druids down to our own inclusive, there never was any mummery more unmeaning than that with which an unopposed law is passed through the British legislature. Therefore, though from being constantly at the beck of every succeeding whipper-in of the Treasury, Sir North had, perhaps, more frequently than any other individual, bowed bills up to the bar of the House of Lords; he was not by any means aware how much he had by that contributed to complicate the new duties he had undertaken, off hand, and expected to execute by intuition. But here, let not the reader be alarmed: I am not going to start off with one of the sweeping invectives, with some so popular, against the “great unpaid;” such a digression would be out of place here, if I thought it in reason anywhere. But my own opinion is, that it is a system which rather requires to be regulated than superseded. I by no means think that all is obtained that is required, because the magistrate is unpaid: but neither do I think that all would be remedied if he was paid. I do not think it by any means certain, that this change alone would at once insure oracles of wisdom, and miracles of wit, all over the country. If, too, their appointments are all to emanate from the crown, I am much surprised that any, who entertain a constitutional jealousy of the executive, should tolerate a plan, which either must be made the means of increased patronage to the dependants of Government and their supporters amongst the local aristocracy, or if there ever should be a minister who should be disposed to drill all under him into a sort of military subordination, would enable him to organize a system, if not of police espionage, at least, of ministerial surveillance. “Surveillance!” The word is not English; because the thing itself has never been naturalized amongst us. And next to the consideration of how the stipendiary magistrates are to be appointed, comes that of from what class are they to be selected. Probably from amongst those educated for the profession of the law. But you could never expect that the infinite number of appointments necessary, would be such as to tempt men of eminence or ambition to accept them, so that everywhere you must be content with mediocrity of talent and attainments. Added to this, is the name of lawyer, whether deservedly or not, so popular among the lower orders, as to make such a change desired by those for whose advantage it is supposed to be proposed? Whatever the defects of the present system may be, I am sure much good is frequently effected by the attention willingly paid to the amicable recommendations of him who is looked up to in his immediate neighbourhood, as uniting the character of magistrate with that of kind protector, or benevolent landlord. Far, however, am I from thinking that the present system is perfect. Many, I am aware, are the instances both of injustice and ignorance, which it has fostered under the head of injustice. The “game laws,” administered by the very persons most interested against the accused party, have led to much capricious tyranny. But abolish the game laws (as you have begun to do); destroy the unjust law, and you remove the temptation to injustice in the administration. As to ignorance, too, I am afraid that there are but too many lamentable instances; but why, then, is the most complicated and important business of administering the laws, supposed to be the only one for which no previous practice or preparation is required? A diploma is expected for medicine; a degree or examination, for taking orders as a priest. Why, as most of our magistrates are of the class usually educated at one of the Universities, why should not a course of English law be engrafted upon the many less useful things exacted as necessary to a degree? or why should not a certificate from a separate college, established for that purpose, be required from every one wishing to act as a magistrate? Would it be very unreasonable to expect that some little fitness should be ascertained, before duties were undertaken, in which the interests of so many, and amongst them those the least able to defend themselves, are involved. But nothing of this kind was required of Sir North Saunders; and he had entered upon the whole career of “summoning, passing, committing, and certifying,” without undergoing any other _test_ than the one then exacted from all, for the preservation of religious intolerance. Through life it had been the maxim of Sir North Saunders, to unite as much as possible the outward appearance of a dissipated man of pleasure, with the solid advantages of a shrewd man of business; and as a principal ingredient in maintaining his first character, he was always very conspicuous in his devotion to some one of the reigning beauties of the day. Not that his gallantries were ever of a nature either to endanger the character of their object, or at all to interfere with any more serious affair in which she might at the time be engaged;--on the contrary, his gratification always seemed complete when his house was proposed for any little flirting assignation, on the part of the person whom he for the time admired. And this was a favour not unfrequently granted to him, being on many accounts found particularly convenient; for whilst the decorous character of the society, which he united both in town and country, was maintained by the tutelary presence of some of the most rigid dowagers of his own party and connexion, always anxious for the support of splendid establishments, whether domestic or political, and attracted by the orthodoxy of his creed and kitchen, there was a most complete absence of all constraint in a society where every one thought they rather honoured the host, by condescending to partake of his hospitalities. Not that Sir North was without his “toad-eaters;”--where is the man of forty thousand a-year that ever was?--but it was so completely the tone of the house to take every thing Sir North did for his friends, as a matter of course, and as their due, that there was never any openly avowed admiration of any thing, and his veriest creatures only carried on a contraband trade in flattery, smuggling their contingent of subserviency at a favourable moment, when unobserved; and even these, to whom his hospitality was a convenience, and who had no alternative between the Baronet and his Grace Humphrey, would, without scruple, criticise the most _recherché_ of his _entrées_, and make believe a bottle was corked to show they were not obliged to drink it.

The party at present assembled consisted, as usual, of a strange melange, composed of well-paid placemen in search of amusement during the recess, and needy men of fashion seeking subsistence through the dead months; of dowagers hunting marrying men, and dandies hunting married women; but amongst those were to be found, some whom Sir North had contrived to persuade to visit him, who were rather above the class usually collected at a house whose ostentatious hospitality was too much ridiculed to be very _recherché_. And in this list was to be placed Lady Gayland, the young widow mentioned in Castleton’s letter to his friend, as a continental acquaintance. She had lately returned to her native country, and had accepted the invitation to Hornscliff Abbey, eagerly pressed by Sir North. As she possessed too much good spirits to be really bored anywhere; and too much good sense to affect to be so at the caprice of others, and quite wit enough to avail herself, as a matter of amusement, and in a good-natured way, of the ridicule of Sir North’s character; she found such a residence for a short time, well calculated to suit her easy humour, and independent situation.