“The nobility of the Spencers has been enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort them to consider ‘The Fairy Queen’ as the most precious jewel in their coronet.” This lively paragraph may be found in the memoirs of Gibbon; and the sentiment therein conveyed is no less beautiful than true; for after all, what is military glory and renown when compared with the fame of the distinguished poet, historian, or man of letters. The hero, after the lapse of a few centuries shines like a very distant constellation, merely visible in the wide expanse of history, while the poet and historian continue to sparkle in the eyes of all men, like that radiant star of the evening, perpetually hailed by the voice of gratitude, affection, and delight. * * * * * “The lawyer,” said Burke, “has his forms and his positive institutions, and he adheres to them with a veneration altogether as religious as the divine. The worst cause cannot be so prejudicial to the litigant as his attorney’s ignorance of forms. A good parson once said, where mystery begins, there religion ends. May not the same be said of justice, that where the mystery of forms begin, there all justice ends.” There is a great deal more truth in the above quotation from Burke, than is generally admitted by the followers of Coke and Littleton. The satire may be, perhaps, too broad, as the whole essay in which it occurs was a burlesque upon Bolingbroke; but, nevertheless, there is truth in the sarcasm. Law, as a system, even in this age of intelligence, is cumbered up with useless forms, absurd fictions, and unmeaning technicalities; serving only to strew with stumbling blocks the pathway to the temple of justice, which should ever be of safe and easy approach. The system of the administration of laws in this country, needs a thorough overhauling. The Augean stables were not half as much in want of the labors of an Hercules, as the departments of law of the labors of the modern reformer. And as the stables in the classic fable were cleansed by the turning of a river through them, so all that it wants now in reference to the administration of law, is, that the current of popular sentiment should be turned in that direction; and gathering strength as it goes “Vires acquirit eundo,” it will thoroughly cleanse and purify the Augean stables of the law. * * * * * The impudent man has wonderful advantages; he successfully assumes every talent, and pretends to every branch of learning; and passes the time, spent by others in recluse retirement and gloomy study, in making useful friends, and acquiring the habits of the world. * * * * *