252 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHEX.
He was diffident to follow one so greatly endowed ; and he said-" It is well
lkown, I believe, to all your lordships, that I did long and earnestly decline
this office. But, as it is a fixed principle of my life, that a public man, when
he has no intirmitiea of age or sickness to excuse him, is bound to serve his
country in any station to which his Sovereign may call him, I did not think
myself ultimately justified in disobeying the gracious conimands of his Royal
Highness the Prince Regent."
The ability with which Lord President Hope filled the high station to which
he was appointed is well known to all who are capable of appreciating his
character. In Peter's Lefters to his Kinsfolk, the eloquence and dignified bearing
of his lordship are portrayed with the author's usual felicity and power ; and
the scene described is interesting, the more so that it is happily one of rare
occurrence. The writer has just been speaking of the Second Division of the
Court of Session, and he continues-
" In the other Division of the Court, I yesterday heard, without exception, the finest piece of
judicial eloquence delivered in the finest possible way by the Lord President Hope. The requisites
for this kind of eloquence are, of course, totally different from those of accomplished
barristership-and I think they are in the present clever age infinitely more uncommon. When
possessed in the degree of perfection in which this Judge possesses them, they are calculated
assuredly to produce a yet nobler species of effect than even the finest display of the eloquence
of the bar ever can command. They produce this effect the more powerfully, because there are
comparatively very few occasions on which they can be called upon to attempt producing it ;
but besides this adventitious circumstance, they are essentially higher in their quality, and the
feelings which they excite are proportionally deeper in their whole character and complexion.
" I confess I was struck with the whole scene, the more because I had not heard anything
which might have prepared me to expect a scene of so much interest, or a display of so much
power. But it is impossible that the presence and air of any judge should grace the judgmentseat
more than those of the Lord President did upon this occasion. When I entered, the Court
was completely crowded in every part of its area and galleries, and even the avenues and steps
of the bench were covered with persons who could not find accommodation for sitting. I looked
to the bar, naturally expecting to see it filled with some of the most favourite advocates ; but
was astonished to perceive, that not one gentleman in a gown was there ; and, indeed, that the
whole of the first row, commonly occupied by the barristers, was entirely deserted. An air of
intense expectation, notwithstanding, was stamped upon all the innumerable faces around me ;
and from the direction in rrhich most of them were turned, I soon gathered that the eloquence
they had come to hear, was to proceed from the bench. The Judges, when I looked towards
them, had none of those huge piles of paper before them, with which their desk is usually
covered in ali its breadth and in all its length. Neither did they appear to be occupied among
themselves with arranging the order or substance of opinions about to be delivered. Each Judge
crat in silence, wrapt up in himself, but calm, and with the air of sharing in the general expectation
of the audience, rather than that of meditating on anything which he himself might be
about to utter. In the countenance of the President alone, I fancied I could perceive the workings
of anxious thought. He leaned back in his chair ; his eyes were cast downwards ; and his
face seemed to be covered with a deadly paleness, which I had never before seen its masculine
and commanding lines exhibit.
" At length he lifted up his eyes, and, at a signal from his hand, a man clad respectably in
black rose from the second row of seats behind the bar. I could not at first see his face ; but
from his air, I perceived at once that he was there in the capacity of an offender, A minute or
more elapsed before a word was said ; and I heard it whispered behind me that he was a wellknown
solicitor or agent of the Court, who had been detected in some piece of mean chicanery,
and I comprehended that the President was about to rebuke him for his transgression. A
painful struggle of feelings seemed to keep the Judge silent, after he had put himself into the
'
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 253
attitude of speaking, and the silence in the Court waa as profound as midnight ; but at last,
after one or two ineffectual attempts, he seemed to subdue his feelings by one strong effort, and
he named the man before him in a tone that made my pulse quiver and every cheek around
me grow pale.
'' Another pause followed-and then, all at once, the face of the judge became flushed all
over with crimson, and he began to roll out the sentences of his rebuke with a fervour of indignation,
that made me wonder by what emotions the torrent could have been so long withheld from
flowing. His voice is the most hollow and sonorous I ever heard ; and its grave wrath filled the
whole circuit of the walls around, thrilling and piercing every nerve of every ear, like the near
echo of an earthquake. The trumpet-note of an organ does not peal through the vaults of a
cathedral with half so deep a majesty ; and I thought within myself that the offence must indeed
be great, which could deserve to call down upon any head such a palsying sweep of terrors. It
is impossible I should convey to you any idea of the power of this awful voice ; but, never till
I myself heard it, did I appreciate the just meaning of Dante, where he says, 'Even in the
wilderness the Lion will tremble, if he hears the voice of a just Man.'
" Had either the sentiments or the language of the Judge been other than worthy of such
a vehicle, there is no question that the effect of its natural potency would soon have passed
away. But what sentiments can be more worthy of borrowing energy from the grandest music
of nature, than those with which an upright and generous soul contemplates, from its elevation
of purity, the hlack and loathsome mazes of the tangled web of deceit ! The paltry caitiff that
stood before him must have felt himself too much honoured, in attracting even indignation
from one so far above his miserable sphere. With such feelings, and such a voice, it was
impossible that the rebuke he uttered should not have been an eloque4t rebuke. But even the
language in which the rebuke was clothed, would have been enough, of itself alone, to beat into
atoms the last lingering reed of self-complacency, on which detected meanness might have
endeavoured to prop up the hour and agony of its humiliation. Mena est id quod facit dkrfum ;
and whatever harrowing words the haughtiness of insulted virtue, the scorn of honour, the coldness
of disdain, the bitterness of pity might supply, came ready as flashes from a bursting
thunder-cloud, to scatter tenfold dismay upon this poor wretch, and make his flesh and his
spirit creep chill within him like a bruised adder. His coward eye was fascinated by the glance
that killed him, and he durst not look for a moment from the face of his chastiser. He did
look for a moment ; at one terrible word he looked wildly round, as if to seek for some whisper
of protection, or some den of shelter. But he found none. And even after the rebuke was at an
end, he stood, like the statue of Fear, frozen in the same attitude of immovable desertedness. *
" This Judge was formerly President of the Criminal Court ; and after being present at
this scene, I have no difficulty in believing what I hear from everyone, that, in pronouncing
sentence, he far surpassed every Judge whom the present time has witnessed, or of whom any
memory survives. Had any gone before him, his equal in the 'terrible graces' of judicial
eloquence, it is not possible that he should soon have been forgotten. Feelings such as this
man possesses, when expressed as he expresses them, produce an effect of which it is not easy
to say whether the impression may be likely to abide longest in the bosoms of the good, or in
those of the wicked.
" As I came away through the crowd, I heard a pale, anxious-looking old man, who, I doubt
not, had a cause in Court, whisper to himself-'' God be thanked, there's one true GENTLFXAN
at the head of them all.' "
In 1820 the President presided at the Special Commission for trying the
cases of high treason at Glasgow and other places. His address to the grand
jury, on opening the Commission, was published at their request.
On the death of the Duke of Montrose, in 1836, by virtue of an Act of
Parliament, he became invested with the office of Lord Justice General, the
highest official office in Scotland ; and he presided in the Justiciary Court on
several occasions, thus going back to the Justiciary Court after an absence of
twenty-five years. At the proclamation of Queen Victoria he wore the robes
of Lord Justice General.
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