What, then, led to this error--for error we must call it? Let us candidly express our opinion that the three peers were fairly "_overpowered_"--to adopt the frank acknowledgment of one of the most distinguished among them--by the plausible fallacies urged upon them, with such unprecedented pertinacity and ingenuity, by the traversers' counsel. They have been influenced by certain disturbing forces, against which they ought to have been vigilantly on their guard, and which we shall now venture to specify, as having occasioned their _forgetfulness of the true province of a court of error_--of the functions and duties of the members of such a court. A COURT OF ERROR occupies a high, but necessarily a very limited, sphere of action. Their observations and movements are restricted to the examination of a single document, viz. the record, which they are to scrutinize, as closely as possible, without regard to any of the incidents which may have attended the progress of the events narrated in it, if these incidents do not appear upon record: and they must be guided by general principles--not such as might properly regulate a certain special and particular case, but such as would guide them in all cases. And this is signified by the usual phrase, that they "must not travel out of the record." Now, we defy any one to read the judgments of the three peers, without detecting the undue influence which one extrinsic and utterly inadmissible fact has had upon their minds; viz. the fact, that the court below had actually _affirmed_ the validity of the two bad counts. They speak of its being "_against notorious facts_"--against "_common probabilities_," a "palpably incredible fiction"--to conclude from the language of the record, that the "offences" there mentioned did not include the pseudo offences contained in the sixth and seventh counts. In this particular case, it _did_ undoubtedly happen, in point of fact, that the court below decided these counts to be valid counts: but the court of error can take no cognisance whatever of extrinsic facts. _Their_ only source of information--_their_ only means of knowledge, is _the record_--beyond the four corners of which they have no power, no authority, to cast a single glance; and within which are contained all the materials upon which, by law, the judges of a court of error can adjudicate and decide. The Court, in the present case, ought thus to have contemplated the record in the abstract--and with reference to the _balance of possibilities_ in such cases, that the court below had affirmed, or condemned the vicious counts: which very balance of possibilities shows the impropriety of being influenced by speculations based on matters _dehors_ the record. However numerous and mischievous may have been the errors committed by the inferior court, _a court of error_ can take no cognisance of them, if they do not appear specifically and positively upon the record, however valid may be the claim which these errors may