an immense effect to increase business. The number of persons who are now deterred, by these circumstances, from a legal enforcement of their rights, is greater than any one would at first imagine. Innumerable suits are thus silently prevented, and never heard of at the attorney's office. If expenses were so reduced as not to afford a sufficient compensation, there are few clients who would object to allow a reasonable commission on collections in cases of success. This is a mode in which men do not object to pay money, and is a very common practice in States where taxable costs are low. Taking into consideration these sources of increased profit, and considering that a simplification of the practice would infinitely reduce the labour and anxiety of the practitioner, it is much to be doubted whether even the present practitioners would be losers by reform. It ought to be considered, that the labour would be reduced in a greater proportion than the emolument. It is easier to conduct ten causes upon a simple plan, than one according to the English practice, and it is a truth, that in many of the States, a bill of costs of $10 or $15 is a better compensation to the attorney, in proportion to his trouble, than $50 in the State of New-York. But, even if the gentlemen now at the bar should be sufferers, in a pecuniary point of view, in consequence of this improvement, the evil would not be very permanent. The number of candidates for professional occupation will increase or diminish in proportion to the amount of that Occupation. If the emoluments derived from the practice of the law should become great, the number of candidates for these emoluments would be enlarged in full proportion. In any community, which is not in its mere infancy, the profession of the law will be always overflowing. For this, there are many reasons, some of which operate more powerfully in this, than in other countries. It is a genteel profession; it attracts public regard; and is, at least, one of the main avenues to political power, and the honours and emoluments of office. I believe, that the remark somewhere made by Adam Smith, that the profession of the law never wholly supports all its members, is fully verified in the United States, or, at least, in those portions of our country where the first luxuriant crop of litigation has passed off with the virgin fertility of the soil. There must, therefore, from the nature of things, be a considerable proportion of the whole number of lawyers, who can obtain but a very inadequate support from their professions; and it is probable that the number of such will bear some proportion to the whole number of the profession, and would therefore be rather diminished than increased by any circumstance which decreased the total emolument, and of consequence the total number of the profession. But suppose this view of the case to be wholly erroneous; that a simplification of the practice would decrease the total amount of professional emolument; and that this decrease would operate, upon the whole, to the prejudice of the profession; a ques

tion would then arise whether the interests of the legal profession should be preferred to those of the whole community. What should we say to a combination among the faculty of physic to oppose an improvement which was designed to lessen the quantity of disease, on the ground that it would interfere with their interests? Is any malady much greater than expensive and ill-regulated litigation?'

We have omitted altogether to touch upon the action of ejectment, dower, writ of right, &c. each of which comprehends a separate and distinct plan, and to which we are not in the least introduced by an acquaintance with the rules which govern the parties in personal actions. We cannot better convey a general idea of the action of ejectment, than in the words of Sir William Blackstone: "This new method entirely depends upon a string of legal fictions: no actual bar is made, no actual entry by the plaintiff, no actual ouster by the defendant, but all are merely ideal, for the sole purpose of trying the title." In regard to this action, the author also makes this general re

mark.

The title to real estate is tried by the action of ejectment, where the proceedings are complicated and fictitious to a ludicrous degree, and where, in fact, nothing is finally decided by the judgment of the court, except that one party is ordered to pay the costs.'

The writ of right is an action of extreme intricacy, and is seldom, if ever, used: but there is one case, we think, in which it is indispensable; created so by our statute of limitations, which bars the action of ejectment after twenty years adverse possession, and the writ of right after twenty-five years.

Manifold are the injuries that arise from the present system: In the first place, it is wholly unintelligible to the great mass of the community, and of course exposes them to vexation and difficulty. Whatever may be the machinery made use of to deprive others of their rights, and which possesses an intricacy impenetrable to those who are to be affected by it, is to such little else in principle than an inquisition, whose functions are performed beyond the reach of the public eye, or the hearing of the public ear: Different, indeed, is the operation of our legal forms, and different is the result to which they lead; but for such a difference are we indebted, not to the intrinsic quality of the forms themselves, but to the habits of the community, and the facility with which we find advocates in the attorneys of the court to protect us from oppression. "I recollect one instance

in particular, (says the author,) when the execution was the first and only proceeding in the cause, and the excuse rendered by the attorney was, that the defendant was a bad man, and he did not know any other way to secure the money." What can so readily protect the community from a repetition of such an outrage, or from outrages to which other branches of the same complicated system may give occasion, as a Practice, simple and uninvolved, adapted alike to the learned and unlearned, and to the comprehension of which a man of plain common sense is fully adequate.

Secondly: Three years apprenticeship is required by rule of Court, to entitle a man to perform the office of attorney; and in case the candidate has not passed through the forms or substance of a collegiate education, a six years preparation is directed. We do not know that the subject requires a dicipline of the intellect for so long a period; but if an acquaintance with a useless mystery cannot be obtained in a shorter period than a year, it is a full objection to it. There is another objection to the present practice, to our comprehension, infinitely more serious, which is, that its study contracts and narrows the mind, infuses a disposition to chicane and trick, and militates against the usual objects of intellectual acquisitions which are designed to liberalize the ideas, and elevate the character.

Thirdly: The time exhausted in attending to these unmeaning and insignificant ceremonies, would be indeed appalling, were it not that our habits have in some degree reconciled us to its waste; suitors in particular, in their zeal for justice and ardour of its pursuit, seldom taking note of it" but by its loss," or until they have worked their way so far into the mire of the law as to prevent their receding. In actions where no defence is made, a judgment cannot be obtained under six months; and in simple causes, which are contested, a period of from nine months to a year, is the shortest in which these forms can be complied with. If, however, the whole forms of the law are pursued, which may be induced by defendant's obstinacy, plaintiff's dilatoriness, the complication of the subject, or, we may add, by the management of a faithless attorney, it will absorb a period of eighteen months or two years. In this estimate we take no note of the delay occasioned by a multiplicity of business before the court, and the want of labourers to despatch it; the useless ceremonies of which we are now complaining, have enough sin of their own to answer for, without imputing to them what is chargeable to an imperfect arrangement

of the judiciary department. Neither do we have reference to the cases in which a suit is removed from the Common Pleas to the Supreme Court, or from thence to the Court of Errors; of which cases we cannot limit the duration. We cannot better exhibit the futility of these forms, than by comparing them with the proceedings in other states.

The practice of the courts of common law in Massachusett is wholly free from the heavy and embarrassing forms of the English practice. Their proceedings are characterised by nc involution, or evolution, fiction, or mystery, but are simple and direct the consequence of which is, that a suit is terminated in a month, if no appeal be made, and in six months, if referred for farther adjudication: the taxable costs do not exceed six or ten dollars in the first case, and forty dollars in the second, independent of compensation to witnesses; who are allowed there one dollar a day for their attendance at court, and who, with us, receive nothing. It would be idle in the extreme, to suppose that justice is not administered with as much infallibility in Massachusetts, as it is with us.

But, the greatest evil arising from this system, is in the costs of suit, which will average nearly 200 dollars in each cause, estimating the taxable costs of the plaintiff's and defendant's attorney, (the action being commenced and terminated in the Supreme Court, and the amount exceeding 250 dollars.) It is evident, that justice is thus placed beyond the reach of ordinary persons, and the means thus furnished to one class of the community to harrass and perplex the other, induced many to submit to injury, rather than seek redress by measures so appalling. It is true, that litigation is thus restrained, and differences are sometimes amicably compromised, which would otherwise be referred to the decision of the law; but we are convinced, that much more importance is attached to this as an argument, than it merits; for defendants, availing themselves of the embarrassment which now attends the conduct of a suit, are of ten unyielding and refractory. We trust, however, there is no one in this community who would, at the expense of justice, desire to repress suits at law, and we therefore will not dwell upon an argument, which however referrible to the state of manners and habits of the people of Turkey or China, can have but little application to us. Speedy and certain punishment is the best security against the commission of crime; so the administration of summary justice in civil cases tends most powerfully to make men honourable in their dealings, cautious in

their intercourse with others, more upright in their intentions. and prompt in rendering satisfaction for injuries inflicted. We have instances at hand, to prove the truth of this proposition; which, as they might be considered to savour of personality, we shall at present omit to cite.

We are exceedingly pleased with the spirit and temper in which this pamphlet is written. The reasoning is direct and forcible, and the sentiment employed, wholly devested of trifling and of severity. The author seems sincerely desirous of reforming the present practice of the law. which has become an intolerabie grievance; and the circumstance of his being a lawyer, puts his candour and disinterestedness beyond suspicion. We have no doubt that this essay will meet with many opponents from the gentlemen of the bar; some will feel and express the r indignation, because they conceive their interests to be intimately connected with the present system; others will feel regret, because truth is not to be told at all times; and others again, will seriously question the necessity, or practicability of any reform but we know there are in this community professional men, of as enlightened and liberal minds as adorn any country, whose talents and integrity place them beyond the reach of secondary or inferior considerations, who will approve both the reasoning and the motives of our author. But, however problematical may be the immediate reception of this pamphlet, one thing is clear and certain, that the time will come, when the absurd and ridiculous pageantry of the English Practice will be banished from our land, and ranked with blue laws, and prosecutions for witchcraft, as among the delusions of the age. We fervently pray that this period be not far distant.

ART. III. La Profezia di Dante di Lord Byron, tradotta in terza rima da L. DA PONTE. Seconda edizione con note ed aggiunte di varie poesie originali. pp. 100. Nuova Jorca, 1822.

LORD BYRON calls his Prophecy of Dante a metrical experiment. We believe it to be something more serious-a political experiment. He has ever shown himself the eloquent defender of the rights of subjects, in opposition to the pretensions of legitimate tyranny; and indeed it is to that inspiration which liberty lends to her advocates, that we are indebted for the finest productions of his Lordship's Muse. Of late years, a willing resi