istics of his family. When Sir Robert Walpole and the Argyle party came into power in the year 1725, Mr Dundas resigned his office, and resumed his place as an ordinary barrister; soon after which, he was elected by his brethren dean of the faculty of advocates ; a dignity which confers the highest rank at the bar, it being even at this day a question, whether, according to the etiquette of the profession, the dean is not entitled to take precedence of the lord advocate and the solicitor-general In 1737, Mr Dundas was raised to the bench; when, like his father, and grandfather, he took the title of lord Arniston. He held the place of an ordinary, or puisne judge, until the year 1748, when, on the death of lord president Korbes of Culloden, he was raised to the president's chair, and continued to hold that high office until his death. He died in 1753, in the 68th year of his age.
As a barrister Mr Dundas was a powerful and ingenious reasoner. To great quickness of apprehension he added uncommon solidity of judgment; while, as a public speaker, he was ready, and occasionally impressive; without being declamatory. His most celebrated display was made in 1728, at the trial of Carnegie of Finhaven, indicted for the murder of the earl of Strathmore. Mr Dundas, who was opposed on that occasion to Duncan Forbes of Gulloden, then lord advocate, conducted the defence with great ability, and had the merit, not only of saving the life of his client, but of establishing, or rather restoring, the right of a jury in Scotland to return a general verdict on the guilt or innocence of the accused. An abuse, originating in bad times, had crept in, whereby the province of the jury was limited to a verdict of finding the facts charged proven, or not proven, leaving it to the court to determine by a preliminary judgment on the relevancy, whether those facts, if proved, constituted the crime laid in the indictment. In this particular case, the fact was, that the earl of Strathmore had been accidentally run through the body, and killed, in a drunken squabble; the blow having been aimed at another of the party, who had given great provocation. The court, in their preliminary judgment on the relevancy, found that the facts, as set forth in the indictment, if proved, were sufficient to infer the "pains of law," or, in other words, that they amounted to murder and therefore they allowed the public prosecutor to prove his case before the jury, and the accused to adduce a proof in exculpation. Had the jury confined themselves to the mere question whether or not the facts stated in the indictment were proved, the life of Mr Carnegie would have been forfeited. But Mr Dundas, with great acuteness and intrepidity, exposed and denounced this encroachment on the privileges of the jury, which he traced to the despotic reigns of Charles II., and his brother James II.; and succeeded in obtaining a verdict of not guilty. Since that trial, no similar attempt has been made to interfere with juries. The trial, which is in other respects interesting, will be found reported in Arnot's Collection of celebrated Criminal Trials; and in preparing that report, it appears, that Mr Arnot was favoured, by the second lord president Dundas, with his recollections, from memory, of what his father had said, together with the short notes from which Mr Dundas himself spoke. These notes prove, that, in preparing himself, he merely jotted down, in a few sentences, the heads of his argument, trusting to his extemporaneous eloquence for the illustrations.
In his judicial capacity, lord Arniston was distinguished no less by the vigour of his mind and his knowledge of the law, than by his strict honour and inflexible integrity. It has been said of him, that his deportment on the bench was forbidding and disagreeable; but although far from being affable or prepossessing in his manners, he was much liked by those who enjoyed his friendship; and was remarkable throughout his life, for a convivial turn approaching occa-
