The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 262, July 7, 1827

PAY OF THE JUDGES IN FORMER TIMES

(For the Mirror.)

In the twenty-third year of the reign of king Henry III., the salary of the justices of the bench (now called the Common Pleas) was 20l. per annum; in the forty-third year, 40l. In the twenty-seventh year, the chief baron had 40 marks; the other barons, 20 marks; and in the forty, ninth year, 4l. per annum. The justices coram rege (now called the King's Bench) had in the forty-third year of Henry III. 40l. per annum.; the chief of the bench, 100 marks per annum; and next year, another chief of the same court, had 100l.; but the chief of the court coram rege had only 100 marks per annum.

In the reign of Edward I., the salaries of the justices were very uncertain, and, upon the whole, they sunk from what they had been in the reign of Henry III. The chief justice of the bench, in the seventh year of Edward I., had but 40l. per annum, and the other justices there, 40 marks. This continued the proportion in both benches till the twenty-fifth year of Edward III., then the salary of the chief of the King's Bench fell to 50 marks, or 33l. 6s. 8d., while that of the chief of the bench was augmented to 100 marks, which may be considered as an evidence of the increase of business and attendance there. The chief baron had 40l.; the salaries of the other justices and barons were reduced to 20l.

In the reign of Edward II., the number of suitors so increased in the common bench, that whereas there had usually been only three justices there, that prince, at the beginning of his reign, was constrained to increase them to six, who used to sit in two places,—a circumstance not easy to be accounted for. Within three years after they were increased to seven; next year they were reduced to six, at which number they continued.

The salaries of the judges, though they had continued the same from the time of Edward I. to the twenty-fifth year of Edward III., were become very uncertain. In the twenty-eighth year of this king, it appears, that one of the justices of the King's Bench had 80 marks per annum. In the thirty-ninth year of Edward III. the judges had in that court 40l.; the same as the justices of the Common Pleas; but the chief of the King's Bench, 100 marks.

The salaries of the judges in the time of Henry IV. were as follows:—The chief baron, and other barons, had 40 marks per annum; the chief of the King's Bench, and of the Common Pleas, 40l. per annum; the other justices, in either court, 40 marks. But the gains of the practisers were become so great, that they could hardly be tempted to accept a place on the bench with such low salaries; therefore in the eighteenth year of Henry VI. the judges of all the courts at Westminster, together with the king's attorney and sergeants, exhibited a petition to parliament concerning the regular payment of their salaries and perquisites of robes. The king assented to their request, and order was taken for increasing their income, which afterwards became larger, and more fixed; this consisted of a salary and an allowance for robes. In the first year of Edward IV., the chief justice of the King's Bench had 170 marks per annum, 5l. 6s. 6d. for his winter robes, and the same for his Whitsuntide robes. Most of the judges had the honour of knighthood; some of them were knights bannerets; and some had the order of the Bath.

In the first year of Henry VII. the chief justice of the court of King's Bench had the yearly fee of 140 marks granted to him for his better support; he had besides 5l. 6s. 11-1/4 d., and the sixth part of a halfpenny (such is the accuracy of Sir William Dugdale, and the strangeness of the sum,) for his winter robes, and 3l. 6s. 6d. for his robes at Whitsuntide.

In the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII. a further increase was made to the fees of the judges;—to the chief justice of the King's Bench 30l. per annum; to every other justice of that court 20l. per annum; to every justice of the Common Pleas, 20l. per annum.

There were usually in the court of Common Pleas five judges, sometimes six; and in the reign of Henry VI. there were, it is said, eight judges at one time in that court; but six appear to have been the regular number. In the King's Bench there were sometimes four, sometimes five. They did not sit above three hours a day in court,—from eight in the morning to eleven. The courts were not open in the afternoon; but that time was left unoccupied for suitors to confer with their counsel at home.

F. R. Y.

THE SELECTOR AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

SIR WALTER SCOTT, the author of Waverley, has become the biographer of Napoleon Bonaparte; and the deepest interest is excited in the literary world to know how the great master of romance and fiction acquits himself in the execution of his task. In the preface to this elaborate history, Sir Walter, with considerable ingenuousness, informs us that "he will be found no enemy to the person of Napoleon. The term of hostility is ended when the battle has been won, and the foe exists no longer." But to our task: we shall attempt an analysis of the volumes before us, and endeavour to gratify our readers with a narrative of incidents that cannot fail interesting every British subject, whose history, in fact, is strongly connected with the important events that belong to the splendid career of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The first and second volumes of Sir Walter's history are taken up with a view of the French Revolution, from whence we shall extract a sketch of the characters of three men of terror, whose names will long remain, we trust, unmatched in history by those of any similar miscreants. These men were the leaders of the revolution, and were called

THE TRIUMVIRATE

Danton deserves to be named first, as unrivalled by his colleagues in talent and audacity. He was a man of gigantic size, and possessed a voice of thunder. His countenance was that of an Ogre on the shoulders of a Hercules. He was as fond of the pleasures of vice as of the practice of cruelty; and it was said there were times when he became humanized amidst his debauchery, laughed at the terror which his furious declamations excited, and might be approached with safety, like the Maelstrom at the turn of tide. His profusion was indulged to an extent hazardous to his popularity, for the populace are jealous of a lavish expenditure, as raising their favourites too much above their own degree; and the charge of peculation finds always ready credit with them, when brought against public men.

Robespierre possessed this advantage over Danton, that he did not seem to seek for wealth, either for hoarding or expending, but lived in strict and economical retirement, to justify the name of the Incorruptible, with which he was honoured by his partizans. He appears to have possessed little talent, saving a deep fund of hypocrisy, considerable powers of sophistry, and a cold exaggerated strain of oratory, as foreign to good taste, as the measures he recommended were to ordinary humanity. It seemed wonderful, that even the seething and boiling of the revolutionary cauldron should have sent up from the bottom, and long supported on the surface, a thing so miserably void of claims to public distinction; but Robespierre had to impose on the minds of the vulgar, and he knew how to beguile them, by accommodating his flattery to their passions and scale of understanding, and by acts of cunning and hypocrisy, which weigh more with the multitude than the words of eloquence, or the arguments of wisdom. The people listened as to their Cicero, when he twanged out his apostrophes of Pauvre Peuple, Peuple vertueux!