Parliament House.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. -
a vote among themselves in favour of that protest,
declaring it to be founded on the laws of the realm,
for which they were prosecuted before Parliament,
and sharply reprimanded, a circumstance which
gave great offence to the nation..
The affairs ot the Faculty are managed by a
Dean, or President, a Treasurer, Clerk, and selected
Council ; and, besides the usual branches
of a liberal education, those who are admitted
.as advocates must have gone through a regular
course of civil and Scottish law.
Connected with the Court of Session is the
Society of Clerks, or Writers to the Royal Signet,
whose business it is to subscribe the writs that
pass under that signet in Scotland, and practise as
attorneys before the Courts of Session, Justiciary,
and the Jury Court The office of Keeper of the
Signet is a lucrative one, but is performed by a
deputy. The qualifications for admission to this
body are an apprenticeship for five years with one of
the members, after two years? attendance at the University,
and on a course of lectures on conveyancing
given by a lecturer appointed by the Society, and
also on the Scottish law class in the University.
Besides these Writers to the Signet, who enjoy
the right of conducting exclusively certain branches
.of legal procedure, there is another, but? inferior,
society of practitioners, who act as attorneys before
the various Courts, in which they were of long
standing, but were only incorporated in 1797, under
the title of Solicitors before the Supreme Courts,
The Judges of the Courts of Session and Justiciary,
with members of these before-mentioned
corporate bodies, and the officers of Court, form
the College of Justice instituted by James V., and
of which the Judges of the Court of Session enjoy
the title of Senators.
The halls for the administration of justice immediately
adjoin the Parliament House. The Court
af Session is divided into what are nanied the
Outer and Inner Houses. The former consists of
five judges, or Lords Ordinary, occupying separate
Courts, where cases are heard for the first time;
tbe latter comprises two Courts, technically known
.as the First and Second Divisions. Four Judges
sit in each of these, and it is before them that
litigants, if dissatisfied with the Outer House decision,
may bring their cases for final judgment,
unless .afterwards they indulge in the expensive
luxury of appealing to the House of Lords.
The Courts of the Lords Ordinary enter from
the corridor at the south end of the great hall, and
Those of the Inner House from a long lobby on the
east side of it.
Although the .College of Justice was instituted
by James V., and held its first sederunt in the
old Tolbooth on the 27th of May, 1532, it
was first projected by his uncle, the Regent-
Duke of Albany. The Court originally consisted
of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President,
fourteen Lords Ordinary, or Senators (one-half
clergy and one-half laity), and afterwards an indefinite
number of supernumerary judges, designated
Extraordinary Lords. The annual expenses of
this Court were defrayed from the revenues of
the clergy, who bitterly, but vainly, remonstrated
against this taxation. It may not be uninteresting
to give here the names of the first members of the
Supreme Judicature :-
Alexander, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, Lord
President ; Richard Bothwell, Rector of Askirk
(whose father was Provost .of Edinburgh in the
time of James 111,); John Dingwall, Provost of
the Trinity Church; Henry White, Dean of
Brechin ; William Gibson, Dean of Restalrig ;
Thomas Hay, Dean of Dunbar; Robert Reid,
Abbot of Kinloss ; George Kerr, Provost of
Dunglass ; Sir William Scott of Balwearie ; Sir
John Campbell of Lundie ; Sir James Colville
of Easter Wemyss; Sir Adam Otterburne of
Auldhame ; Nicolas Crawford. of Oxengangs ; Sir
Francis Bothwell (who was provost of the city
in 1535); and James Lawson of the Highriggs.
The memoirs which have been preserved of
the administration of justice by the Court of
Session in the olden time are not much to its
honour. The arbitrary nature of it is referred to
by Buchanan, and in the time of James VI. we
find the Lord Chancellor, Sir Alexander Seaton
(Lord Fyvie in 1598), superintending the lawsuits
of a friend, and instructing him in the mode and
manner in which they should be conducted. But
Scott of Scotstarvit gives us a sorry account of
this peer, who owed his preferment to Anne of
Denmark. The strongest proof of the corrupt
nature of the Court is given us by the -4ct passed
by the sixth parliament of. James VI., in 1579,
by which the Lords were prohibited, ? No uther be
thamselves, or be their wives, or servantes, to take
in ony times cumming, bud, bribe, gudes, or geir,
fra quhat-sum-ever person or persones presently
havand, or that hereafter sal1 happen to have
ony actions or causes persewed before them,?
under pain of confiscation (Glendoick?s Acts, fol.).
The necessity for this law plainly evinws that
the secret acceptance of bribes must have been
common among the judges of the time; while,
in other instances, the warlike spirit of the people
paralysed the powers of the Court.
When a noble, or chief of rank, was summoned tu
