works at which we have been thus glancing in passing, nor in that now lying before us--did Mr Townsend suffer his political opinions to bias his judgment, or betray him into the faintest semblance of partiality or injustice. It is time now to direct attention to the last work of Mr Townsend--which he barely lived to see published--his _Modern State Trials_, spread over two goodly octavo volumes, containing nearly eleven hundred pages, and these, too, pretty closely printed. Upon this work much thought and labour have evidently been bestowed in the collection of his materials, and dealing with them, as in the volumes before us, in such a manner as to render the product at once interesting and instructive to both general and professional readers. It is no slight matter to make one's-self thoroughly master of a great case, in all its bearings; to seize its true governing characteristics; to select, condense, and arrange facts and incidents; to assign to every actor, whether judge, jury, witness, or counsel, his proper proportion and position; and all this with a view to interesting and instructing widely different classes of readers--and those, again, general and professional. To do all this effectually, requires powerful talents, much knowledge of life and character, practical acquaintance with the law of the country, a sound judgment, and a vivid imagination. There is scarcely any point of view in which a great trial will not appear deeply interesting to a competent observer, watching how each individual plays his part in the agitating drama. Whether the judge holds the sacred scales even; whether he sees clearly and acts promptly, calmly, resolutely, in detecting fallacy, in order to shield an unsophisticated jury from its subtle and deleterious agency; whether, for this purpose, his intellect and his knowledge are superior, equal, or inferior to those of the advocates pleading before him. How those advocates conduct themselves, intellectually and morally; whether they be clear-headed, acute, ready, learned--or cloudy, obtuse, superficial, and ignorant; whether evenly or over matched; whether they play the gentleman or the scoundrel; whether they will, however difficult the task, nobly recognise the obligations of truth and honour, or villanously disregard them, to secure a paltry triumph in defeating justice! How the witnesses discharge their momentous duties; whether constantly mindful of their oath, or forgetful of it, or wilfully disregarding it, from hostility or partiality to the prisoner, or any other wicked motive. Whether the judge, or the advocates, are equal to the discomfiture of a wicked witness. How the jury are conducting themselves--whether with watchful intelligence, or stolid listlessness. How the prisoner, standing in the midst of all these--with life, with honour, character, liberty, everything at stake--and depending on the word which one of that jury will utter--how _he_ is demeaning himself, knowing, as he does, the