Having failed as a politician, he was made a judge. He sat on the bench from 1770 till his death in 1780, and he left behind him the reputation of having striven to administer justice with scrupulous care. He was certainly not a great judge. He was cursed with indecision; he was diffident of his own opinion, and never strenuous in supporting it; and in consequence, if we can trust Malone’s account of him, “there were more new trials granted in causes which came before him on circuit than were granted on the decisions of any other judge who sat at Westminster in his time.” The habit of mind which in private life produced in him almost a mania for punctuality made him as a judge a strict observer of forms; and he would not have consented, even if he had been able, to make and modify law as did his contemporary, Lord Mansfield. The time was pre-eminently favorable for earning a great judicial reputation; the law, impeded by fictions, formalities, and obsolete statutes, lagged behind a nation whose commerce had increased more than tenfold within living memory; and public opinion would have dealt leniently with a judge who shaped the old rules to satisfy the new needs. But Blackstone had not the courage for such work; and, save for the case of _Perrin_ v. _Blake_, one might well tell the legal history of the ten years which he spent on the bench and never mention his name. _Perrin_ v. _Blake_ is too technical to be here described; enough to say that it maintained inviolate the venerable rule in Shelley’s case, with which Lord Mansfield had been profanely tampering. The case excited great interest in the profession, partly from its own importance and partly from some personal controversies to which it gave rise. Lord Campbell, indeed, writing more than seventy years after it had been decided, says that when conversation flags amongst lawyers the mention of _Perrin_ v. _Blake_ never fails to cause excitement and loquacity! The politician and the judge are forgotten now, and only the commentator remains. But his life was consistent throughout. He had a reverence for authority and a respect for formalities; his mind turned more readily to apology than to criticism; and destitute of ideals he lived in a narrow groove, contented with himself and the world. When he and Serjeant Nares were calling for the expulsion of Wilkes because he was a blasphemer, Burke described their arguments as “solid, substantial, roast-beef reasoning.” The phrase paints to the life the worshipper of the constitution, who staked the fate of England upon trial by jury.—_Macmillan’s Magazine._ LITERARY NOTICES. JELLY-FISH, STAR-FISH AND SEA-URCHINS (International Scientific Series). BEING A RESEARCH INTO PRIMITIVE NERVOUS SYSTEMS. By G. J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., etc. New York: _D. Appleton & Co._