ther with an answer by the Knights Commissioners, the Faculty met to express their opinion on this matter. The real proposition before them was this, That the Society of Writers to the Signet should have the exclusive patronage of a professorship of law in the University; that the professor should be eligible only from the body of Writers to the Signet; and that the present lecturer should be the first professor. This, I say, was the real proposal. Mr Cranstoun was the person selected to support it; and surely no one could have come forward for the purpose with so good a chance of success. The high estimation in which he is so justly held by all his brethren, created a prepossession in his favour. His mild, and yet manly eloquence, had its due effect, and, I doubt not, blinded many of his hearers to the real object in view, and increased the numbers of the minority. But his motion was of a very different nature from the real proposal of the Writers. He moved, that a set of lectures on conveyancing is a very good and useful thing, and that it might be still more beneficial if a chair in the University were obtained for the lecturer. This, you see, is quite safe and general. Many a one might agree in these propositions, who would deny the propriety of giving the Writers the exclusive election and eligibility, and who might have still stronger objections to the appointment of any man already elected. But I wish to give you an idea of some of the reasons urged by Mr Cranstoun in defence of his motion. I do not pretend to give you his words, which were certainly, to my mind, much more effective than his arguments. In the first place, he made some most unnecessary observations on the importance of conveyancing as a branch of law, and upon the advantages to be derived from methodical study of it. Nobody disputes that it is a useful branch of legal knowledge. But the question is, whether it cannot be taught by the professor of law already appointed? Mr Cranstoun went on to tell us, that no lawyer of ten years standing was fit to understand a progress of titles. That he himself, when a progress was sent to him for an opinion, used to feel a cold sweat break out upon him; but then he informed us, that the secret of unravelling such a progress is all a knack. He compared it to an alge

braical formula, which, when known, enables the calculator to answer problems beyond the reach of the ordinary arithmetician; (but he did not say why this trick, which, when known, makes the matter so plain, could not be taught by the lecturer on Scots law as well as by a separate professor). Then he gave us a fine tirade upon the baseness and degradation of allowing politics to interfere with the matter, and concluded with moving the two propositions already quoted, in the following words :

"1. That the Institution of a Course of

Lectures on Conveyancing, is calculated to improve the system of Legal Education in this country, and thereby to produce results beneficial to the community.

"2. That the benefits of such a Course would be more extensive, if a Chair in the University were obtained for the Lecturer."

Then we had an assertion from the professor of Scots law, that he would not lose a shilling by the affair. Whether he meant by this, that he was not afraid of interference of the courses, or that he was undaunted by the talents of the intended lecturer, I know not. Perhaps he wishes to be relieved of the trouble of delivering the feudal lectures, or perhaps he thinks that many students, upon measuring the talents of the two professors, will not be drawn from his class by the delivery of another set of lectures on the same subject.

The Tories who spoke, stuck fast to the reasons given in the old report, with one exception. One gentleman declared, that he never would consent to yield the right of the Faculty to the patronage of all professorships of law, which were or might be established. Here I agree with him. The Faculty were the original and only authorized teachers of law. Every one acquainted with the carly history of our courts, knows that these Writers to the Signet were not originally even practitioners in our courts, except in so far as their signature was required to those judicial steps which necessarily pass the King's Signet. The original agents were the servants (as they were termed) of Advocates; young men destined for the bar, whose legal education consisted in attendance in the chambers of some counsel, and who derived their right of agenting causes, as it is now termed, from the necessity of waiting upon their in

structors in the courts-a privilege still retained by their representatives, the Advocates' first clerks. This admirable system of tuition, (which might, I think, be restored with great advantage in our own days) having been dropped, the Faculty, to supply its place, obtained chairs in the University, for the instruction of youth in civil and municipal law. And, as these two chairs embrace the whole law, it would manifestly be an encroachment upon the rights of the Faculty to subdivide the study, and take out of the hands of their professor any part of the subject which is entrusted to him. If such a doctrine were admitted, the existing chair might be ruined, by turning over to new professors, first one branch, and then another, until nothing of his subject might be left. Why not have a lecturer on teinds, on criminal law, on revenue law, on commercial law, on consistorial law, &c.?Somebody urged that this would be an advantage. No doubt each branch might be more fully taught, but how much would be left to the proper professor? I care not what the present Professor of Law thinks of it; I say that such an arrangement was never heard of. The tuition of the whole law is entrusted to one person. If he cannot comprize the whole subject in one course of lectures, let him give two, three, or four; and if he does not teach it sufficiently in detail, let other lecturers supply that in which he is deficient, but not as professors. There is no reason why the teacher of a branch of a science should be a professor. In the medical and philosophical sciences, there are innumerable independent and separate lecturers, who may teach the details, while the professors of those sciences give merely the grand and general outlines of the subject. Thus you have lectures on diseases of the eye, the ear, &c.-lectures on galvanism-electricity-dynamics, &c. ; but surely it would be absurd to erect new chairs in the Universities for such courses. There can then be no objection to the continuance of such a course of lectures as the present in the Signet Library. But I must see better grounds for placing it in the University; particularly, seeing (what however was studiously kept out of view by Mr Cranstoun and Mr Bell,) that throughout the whole of the Universities of EUROPE, there is, whatever else there

may be, no example of a separate chair for that extremely subordinate branch of legal knowledge which goes by the name of Conveyancing. I say, therefore, before I agree with these people, I must see better grounds.

And truly some of the grounds stated by the commissioners are odd enough. One of the strongest depends upon the success the scheme has met with as it now exists." The Society have the satisfaction of stating, that, to an increasing concourse of students, of various descriptions, that gentleman (Mr Macvey Napier) has delivered several courses of lectures, in which he has shewn that his talents and acquirements have eminently qualified him for the situation in which they have had the good fortune to place him."It might be a curious subject of inquiry, whether this immense concourse of students was drawn together by the talents of the lecturer, and the utility of the course, or by a certain regulation which compels each candidate for admission to the Society of Writers to the Signet, to take out one or more tickets for the course. Be this as it may; if the course is so eminently useful, and so well attended, it does not clearly occur to me where the strong necessity exists for making a professorship of it, unless it be for the aggrandizement of the Society of Writers to the Signet, which is, in truth, the object of the Tory friends of the measure, or for that of the present incumbent, which is the aim of the Whigs.

Mr Cranstoun told us that none but an experienced Writer to the Signet could teach this abstruse science, and that no one could acquire it without such tuition, unless he should get a glimpse of the new algebraical light to which he alluded. I have conversed with many Writers to the Signet upon the subject, and am inclined to agree with Mr Cranstoun, that a Writer to the Signet has the best means of teaching conveyancing. But I have met with none who ever derived benefit from attendance on public lectures on the subject;-it is at the desk that it must be learned, or nowhere. But if it is to be taught by a professor, I confess I do not see any good reason for excluding an Advocate from such a chair. I shall be told that his particular branch of business is incompatible with a thorough knowledge of deeds. But if constant practice in conveyancing is cssen

tial to a thorough knowledge of the subject, I conceive a lawyer quite as adequate to teach it, as a writer not in constant practice. In fact, the last lecturer on conveyancing thought it added to his respectability to take the advocate's gown; and when he was unable to lecture, the Society of Writers to the Signet allowed another advocate to teach in his place; and it is believed better and more useful lectures never were delivered than on this occasion. But we may safely maintain, that an advocate in practice may teach conveyancing as well as a person who does not practise conveyancing at all; nay, the chief part of whose time is devoted, and usefully devoted, to the study of title pages rather than title deedsto the distribution of books in the library of the Society of Writers to the Signet to the collection and arrangement of materials for a supplement to a superannuated Encyclopædia-to criticism-to the discovery of new information as to the scope and tendency of Lord Bacon's Writings a new tune on the Novum Organum-and other such employment.

And this leads me to my last and strongest ground of objection to this proposal, which, in spite of Mr Cranstoun, I will confess is political. I have as great a respect for Mr Cranstoun as any Whig at the bar, and a much greater respect for him than for any other Whig at the bar. But I was truly sorry to hear him making a harangue about the baseness of voting upon this measure from political motives. Did he not know that almost every one member of the Faculty who voted with him voted wholly and solely from political motives? Did he not know, that if a Tory gentleman had been lecturer on conveyancing, the whole measure would have been stigmatized as a dirty Tory job? Did he not know that one-half of the persons, who, along with him, appeared to be so earnest and anxious for the honour and glory of the Society of Writers to the Signet, have upon other occasions declaimed against the pushing and striding system of that body-have complained of the privilege granted to them by the Court of having seats in the Inner-House set apart for them, &c.? It is absurd to deny that this measure would have been scouted by the very men who supported it, if it had not been for the political object in

view. And it was a complete piece of humbug to pretend that politics were not to interfere in the question.

Had the question been brought forward in a fair, manly, and open way, the case would have been quite different. Had the proposal been, that, after the present incumbency, the course should be transferred to the University; or suppose Mr Napier had signified his resignation, in order that the question might be discussed without bias, I verily think it would not have been fair to have allowed politics to interfere, although, in this latter case, it is evident, from the high estimation in which we are told Mr Napier stands, that he would have been re-elected. Still, this course would have been so manly and honourable, that however much I dislike Mr Napier's politics, and however aware of the danger which I foresee from the projected monopoly of education by his party, I should have been much inclined to vote for his re-election, But as the matter stood, I saw no occasion, for one, to give the sanction of my approbation to the Whig Mr Napier being made a professor under the cover of two general propositions, declaring simply that conveyancing is a useful study, and ought to be taught by a professor rather than a lecturer. I confess I was somewhat surprised that no one gave this as the best and true reason for voting against Mr Cranstoun's proposition. It is, I think, a reason of which nobody needs to be ashamed. But I suppose they were all cowed by the thunders of declamation against politics, which was as politic a device as can well be conceived. However, notwithstanding the absence of a great number of those who expressed themselves against the measure, and the presence of every retainer of whiggery who could be laid hold of, a majority voted against Mr Cranstoun's motion.

This was communicated to the Writers by the Dean of Faculty, and a most extraordinary application followed. The Faculty were requested by the Writers to the Signet to send them an extract of the minutes of their meeting on the subject, together with any reasons of DISSENT which might be lodged against the resolution of the Faculty. The Faculty were told it would be rude and impolite to refuse this most unheardof request. The majority of a body