of England' was published. The other three volumes of this great work appeared in the course of the four succeeding years. Mr Blackstone's performance almost instantly superseded the initiatory professional works, such as Finch's Law' and Wood's Institutes; but detractors and censors were not wanting to assail it, and thoroughly sift its claims to public approbation. Amongst the latter class was one whose opinions on such a point were not to be treated with disrespect. In 1776 Mr Jeremy Bentham published a Comment on the Commentaries,' in which he especially, and certainly not without reason, censures the antipathy to reformation' which he everywhere discovered in Mr Blackstone's work. But Mr Roscoe has justly remarked "that Mr Blackstone did not profess, in the language of Mr Bentham, to be a censor, but merely an expositor of the law."2 His object was, in fact, to show what the law of England is, not what it ought to be. And Mr Bentham has himself pronounced the following high eulogium upon the excellent method and exquisite style of Mr Blackstone's work:-" Correct, elegant, unembarrassed, ornamented, the style is such as could scarce fail to recommend a work still more vicious in point of matter to the multitude of readers. He it is, in short, who, first of all institutional writers, has taught jurisprudence to speak the language of the scholar and the gentleman; put a polish upon that rugged science; cleansed her from the dust and cobwebs of the office; and if he has not enriched her with that precision which is drawn only from the sterling treasury of the sciences, has decked her out, however, to advantage, from the toilet of classic erudition; enlivened her with metaphors and allusions; and sent her abroad in some measure to instruct, and in still greater measure to entertain, the most miscellaneous and even the most fastidious societies. The merit to which, as much perhaps as to any, the work stands indebted for its reputation, is the enchanting harmony of its numbers; a kind of merit that of itself is sufficient to give a certain degree of celebrity to a work devoid of every other: so much is man governed by the ear." On the style of the Commentaries a high panegyric has been pronounced by Mr Fox. In a letter addressed to Mr Trotter, he says, "You, of course, read Blackstone over and over again; and if so, pray tell me whether you agree with me in thinking his style of English the very best among our modern writers; always easy and intelligible, far more correct than Hume, and less studied and made up than Robertson." Of the political tendencies of the Commentaries, however, Mr Fox expressed a very different opinion. In the debate on the admission of Lord Ellenborough into the cabinet, the authority of Mr Justice Blackstone having been relied on, Mr Fox said, "His purity of style I particularly admire. He was distinguished as much for simplicity and strength as any writer in the English language. He was perfectly free from all Gallicisms and ridiculous affectations, for which so many of our modern authors and orators are so remarkable. Upon this ground, therefore, I esteem Judge Blackstone; but as a constitutional writer he is by no means an object of my esteem; and for this amongst other reasons, that he asserts the latter years of the reign of Charles the Second, (I mean those which followed the enactment of the habeas corpus act,) to have been the most constitutional period to

• Roscoe's Lives of Eminent Lawyers, in Lardner's Cyclopædia, p. 249.

be found in our history, not excepting any period that followed. Now it would be inconsistent with all the principles which I ever held, to regard such a writer as a constitutional authority, much less to look up to him as an oracle."

6

In 1766 Mr Blackstone resigned his professorship, and the place of principal of New Inn hall. In 1768 he was returned for Westbury in Wiltshire, and took a part in the debates relative to the election of Mr Wilkes. On the resignation of Mr Dunning, in 1770, the vacant solicitor-generalship was offered to Sir William, who declined it in consequence of the wish he now felt to retire from political life. The same year, however, he was made one of the judges in the court of common pleas. Mr Roscoe thinks that the legal acquirements of the author of the Commentaries' rather declined than advanced upon the promotion of its author to the bench. About Christmas, 1779, symptoms of water in the chest appeared in him, and the disease rapidly gaining upon him, he expired on the 14th of February, 1780. In political sentiments Sir William Blackstone was a moderate tory, and his appearance was not prepossessing, but his private character is represented by his biographer, Mr Clitherow, as having been unexceptionable. He maintained upon the bench an appearance of dignity and gravity which was often misconstrued for austerity; but in private life, and in the company of friends, he was always cheerful and often facetious.

Edward, Lord Hawke.

BORN A. D. 1705.-DIED A. D. 1781.

THIS celebrated admiral was the only son of Edward Hawke, barrister at law, and Elizabeth, his wife, relict of Colonel Ruthven. He entered the navy at a very early age; and it is recorded of him that his father having held out to him the hope that he might in time become a captain, the boy exclaimed, "If I did not think I should rise to be an admiral, I would never go!"

After a regular progression through the several subordinate situations, he was, in 1734, appointed commander of the Wolfe sloop of war, and was thence promoted, in the same year, to the Flamborough frigate. In 1739 he was ordered to the West Indies. Soon after this he was appointed to the Berwick, a third-rate, one of the ships ordered to the Mediterranean for the purpose of reinforcing Admiral Mathews. The encounter off Toulon was the first occasion in which he had an opportunity of distinguishing himself in any particular manner. He bore a conspicuous share in that memorable encounter; and if every officer in the fleet had exerted himself as spiritedly as Hawke, there is reason to believe the combined fleets of France and Spain would either have been captured or annihilated. The greatest injury inflicted on the enemy was effected by himself: the Poder, a Spanish ship of the line, the only one taken or destroyed in the encounter, having been captured by the Berwick, unaided by any other ship. Several officers boarded the prize, but the captain of the vanquished vessel, pointing to the Berwick, which Hawke commanded, declared his submission to that vessel only, and his contempt for all the others belonging to the English squadron.

Hawke, it seems, disregarding discipline, had broken from the line of battle, and engaged the Poder-which had previously beaten off two of the British fleet-with such irresistible fury that she was compelled to strike her colours. The French fleet afterwards tacked upon and retook her, but found her so disabled that they deserted her. For this act of heroism Hawke was brought to a court-martial, and sentenced to be dismissed from the service. He was, however, immediately restored by the king, who ever after designated him as his own admiral.

In 1747 he was promoted to be rear-admiral of the white, and immediately afterwards appointed to command a strong squadron ordered to sea in the hope of intercepting a numerous fleet of merchant-ships, collected at the isle of Aix, and intended to be convoyed to America by a formidable force under the command of M. de L'Etendiere. Hawke hoisted his flag on board the Devonshire, of sixty-six guns, and sailed from Plymouth, on the 9th of August, with thirteen men-of-war, and nine third-rates, under his orders. A dull and unimportant cruize of long continuance, off the coast of Brittany, was at length repaid by a sight of the French squadron, on the 14th of October, soon after daylight. The force of the enemy was discovered to consist of eleven or twelve ships of war. Admiral Hawke immediately gave the signal to form the line a-head. One or two ships of war, together with several large frigates, were ordered by the French commodore to make all possible sail with the charge committed to his protection; the remainder, consisting of eight sail, he drew into line, for the purpose of favouring the escape of his friends. The action commenced about half-past eleven, between the leading ships of the English and the rear of the enemy, and the action soon became general. The admiral compelled the first ship he encountered to strike; but, leaving her to be taken possession of by the frigates astern, he proceeded to assist the Eagle and Edinburgh. The fight was well-maintained by the enemy, whose large ships-to use Hawke's phrase-" took a great deal of drubbing." At seven in the evening, the Terrible, of seventy-four guns, the last of six ships of the line which surrendered on this occasion, having struck, and Le Tonnant and L'Intrepide having effected their escape, Hawke deemed it prudent to make the signal to bring to, in order to collect his ships and their several prizes. The merchantmen for the time escaped; but several of them afterwards fell into the hands of Commodore Pococke.

Soon after his return the admiral was made a knight-companion of the Bath; and, in December following, he was returned to parliament for Portsmouth. In January, 1748, he sailed, with nine ships of the line, on a cruize in the bay of Biscay, during which the Magnanime, of seventy-four guns, was captured by two of his squadron. In the following May he became vice-admiral of the blue, and an elder brother of the Trinity-house. In 1749 he commanded the convoy sent to North America with settlers for Nova Scotia; and, in the words of Collins, "he performed this duty with all that integrity and care that could be expected from a person of his honour and veracity." The same author adds, "that having, after the commencement of peace, acted as president of several naval courts-martial, he always took the greatest care to distribute justice without any regard to rank or connections: the innocent were sure to meet with his protection, and the guilty to feel the rod of punishment." In the month of July, 1749, he