stituted a court of error from the common law side of the Exchequer, and in it sat the Lord Chancellor, the Lord High Treasurer and the judges of the other courts. In 1585 another court was created to take error from the King's Bench. It was composed of the judges of the Common Pleas and the Ex chequer. Both these courts were finally merged by statute (n George IV and I William IV) • into a court of appeal from all three common law courts, appeals from one court being heard by the judges of the other two. This continued to be the intermediate court of appeal in common law until the Judicature Act. As thus constituted it was at times a most powerful court. Its practical operation was, however, somewhat restricted. Occupied with the labors of their own courts the judges were irregular in attendance. And the gen eral satisfaction given by the common law courts in bane was evidenced by a limited right of appeal. During the first half of the life of the court its most active members were Tindal and Parke; but valuable assistance was ren dered by Denman, Patteson, Coleridge and Alderson. During the second period the active participants were Willes, Erie, Black burn, Bramwell, Pollock, Wightman, Cockburn, Williams and Martin. During the forty-five years of the court's existence it heard only about eight hundred appeals, and nearly two-thirds of these were heard during the last half of its existence. The Queen's Bench supplied the largest quota of these appeals, although the Ex chequer was not far behind. Appeals from the Common Pleas were comparatively few in number. Of the eight hundred judgments reviewed by the court, a little more than one-fourth were reversed—somewhat less than the usual proportion. During the first period the Queen's Bench was reversed most often and the Exchequer least. In the second period the Queen's Bench fared better than the Ex chequer.
There was a remarkable consensus of opinion among the judges in this court, the number of cases in which there was a divi sion of opinion being less than fifty.
HOUSE OF LORDS. The importance of the House of Lords as a court of final review in civil actions is a matter of recent development. Its evolution as a court is somewhat as follows: After the break up of the Curia Regis and the es tablishment of the three courts of common law there remained in the sovereign a re siduary power covering cases where the courts were not strong enough to do justice, or were deficient in rules applicable to the case, or were alleged to have decided wrongly. In time the King in Council (at first the Star Chamber, and latterly the Privy Council) became the tribunal for the deter mination of cases where, from the greatness of the offender, or the magnitude of the issue, the ordinary courts were inadequate to do justice. The King in Chancerr (by the Lord Chan cellor) acquired exclusive jurisdiction in all cases where the rigor of the common law had to be relaxed by supplemental rules, and the appellate jurisdiction in case of error passed into the hands of the House of Lords. The actual extent of the jurisdiction of the House was long a matter of controversy. Its common law jurisdiction in error, which was settled in the first year of Henry VII, was decisively vindicated in the case of Ashby r. White, 14, St. Tr. 695. Its appellate juris diction in equity was clearly recognized by the statute of 27 Elizabeth, c. 28, and has been unquestioned since the case of Shirley 7'. Fagg, 6 St. Tr. i I2I. In early times the House claimed and occasionally exercised an original jurisdiction between party and party; but this claim was finally abandoned after the conflict over the case of Skinner v. East India Co., 6 St. Tr. 709, in 1688. Juris diction over Scotch appeals dates from the act of Union of 1707. Irish appeals have always been heard in the House. In 1696,
