Edinburgh reviewers. As a lawyer, despite the bitter criticism and depreciation of con temporaries sharpened by personal and polit ical hostility, he stands in the first rank. The patient research and careful study that marked his consideration of every cause, de spite the delays, prejudicial to suitors and exasperating to counsel, traditionally associ ated with his name, rendered him an ex cellent administrator of justice. Though
ENIGMAS
making no provision for future advances, he defined with accuracy and precision the boundaries of established legal doctrines. And if he is estimated by the worth of his judicial work, by the force of intellect and depth of learning brought to his task, by the clearness of judgment that nothing could overcloud, he must be reckoned as without a superior, — a man to be classed with the most famous of his predecessors.
OF
JUSTICE.
IV, By George Makepeace Towle. SOONER or later many, if not most, ju dicial enigmas are solved; if not by judicial scrutiny, at least by the developing processes of time. The memory of Eliza Fennig was cleared after being under a terrible cloud for half a century; and nu merous similar instances might be cited. Now and then, on the other hand, we come upon long ago mysteries in judicial annals, which remain mysteries still, and the key of which the lapse of time has at last rendered it hopeless to find. Of such a character was the once famous but now wellnigh forgotten case of Spencer Cowper, the grandfather of the gentle poet who wrote " John Gilpin " and " The Task." In all the history of crime no more strange or thrilling romance could be found than that which has forever stained the name of that young patrician; and it is worth while to recall it both as a story full of sombre interest and as one more illustration of the imperfections of judicial scrutiny. Spencer Cowper was a young man of brilliant talents and high social position, a very rising barris ter on the Eastern Circuit, and a member of the House of Commons. Handsome, grace ful, eloquent, popular, it seemed that he
might without presumption look forward to the time when he should preside over the House of Peers as Lord High Chancellor, or at least sit in the King's Bench as Lord Chief-Justice of England. The younger son of a baronet, still more patrician blood ran in his veins, for the alliances of the Cow per family had included the daughters of no bles; and his elder brother was a king's counsel and also a member of Parliament. All Spencer Cowper's fair prospects, how ever, seemed on the point of vanishing for ever when, on a midsummer's day in the last year of the seventeenth century, he stood in the dock of the court of assizes at Hertford, charged with the crime of murder. It was a strange accusation, directed against such a man, in the very town which he represented in the House of Commons; but as the trial developed, the indictment seemed but too well justified. The crime of which he was accused ap peared all the more atrocious since its vic tim was not only a woman, but one young, fair, and gentle, who was known to have given her uttermost of love and devotion to her alleged assassin. It is true that Spencer Cowper was mar
