TO DAY IN HISTORY

Southland Times, Issue 20632, 2 November 1928, Page 6

TO DAY IN HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2. Born: Dr. William Vincent, scholar and writer, 1739; Marie Antoinette, Queen of Louis XVL, Vienna, 1755; FieldMarshal Radetzky, Austrian commander, Bohemia, 1766; Edward, Duke of Kent, father Queen Victoria, 1767. Died: Dr. Richard Hooker, divine, Bishop’s Bourne, 1600; Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth, 1610; Sophia Dorothea, consort George 1., of England, Hanover, 1726; Alexander Menzikoff, Russian statesman and general, Siberia, 1729; Princess Amelia, daughter of George 111., Windsor, 1810; Sir Samuel Romilly, lawyer and philantropist, 1818; Sir Alexander Burns, diplomatist, murdered at Cabul, 1841; Esaias Tegner, Swedish poet, Wexio, 1846; Dr. Richard Mant, writer, Antrim, 1848. Sir Samuel Romilly. The revocation in 1685 by Louis XIV., of Henry IV.’s Edict of Nantes, by which for nearly one hundred years Protestants had enjoyed at least toleration, cost France dearly, but greatly enriched England by the immigration of a multitude of skilful artisans, who introduced to the land of their adoption many forms of useful and elegant industry. Nor did these noble exiles profit England only by their manual skill. The names of their descendants appear with distinction in almost every department of our national life but few with more fame than Sir Samuel Romilly. His grandfather came from Montpellier, and settled in the neighbourhood of London as a wax-bleacher. His father was a jeweller, and in Frith street, Soho, he was born on the Ist of March, 1757. As a boy he received an indifferent education at a French Protestant school, but as soon as he left it he diligently applied himself to self-culture. What business he should follow he could not decide. A solicitor was thought of, a merchant’s office was tried, and then his father's shop, but none pleased him. Meanwhile he studied hard and became a good Latin scholar. Eventually he was articled for five years to one of the sworn clerks in Chancery. In his leisure he read extensively but with method, governing himself with a strict rein. At the expiration of five years it had been his intention to purchase a seat in the Six Clerks’ Office, and there quietly settle for life; but his father needed the requisite funds in his business, and Romilly, deprived of this resource determined to qualify himself for the Bar. Severe mental application brought on ill-health, and to recruit his health he went to Switzerland. In Paris Ihe formed an acquaintance with D’Alemi bert, Diderot, and other thinkers of their school and their influence had considerable effect in moulding his opinions towards . liberalism and reform. In 1783 Romilly was called to the bar but he had to wait long ere he was rewarded with any practice. When briefs did at last fall to his lot, it very soon became manifest that they were held by a master; he gave his conscience to all he undertook and wrought out his business with efficiency. Solicitors who trusted him once were in haste to (rust him again, and a start in prosperity being made, success came upon him like a flood. His income rose to between £BOOO anti £9OOO a year, and in his diary he congratulates himself that, he did not press his father to buy him a seat in the Six Clerks’ Office. Lord Brougham says, “Romilly, by the force of his learning and talents, and the most spotless integrity, rose to the very heights of professional ambition. He was beyond question or pretence of rivalry the first man in the courts of equity in this country.” Mirabeau visited London in 1784. and introduced Romilly to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who twice offered him a seat in Parliament, but Romilly was too proud to sit under patronage. Not. till 1806 did he enter the House of Commons and then as Solicitor-General in the Whig Government, styled “All the Talents,” formed after the death of Pitt. That administration lasted little more than a year, but Romilly remained a member of the House for one borough or another to the end of his life. In Parliament he was a great power, and he was invariably on the Whig and progressive side. His oratory which competent judges pronounced the finest of the age, was listened to with rapt attention.

Romilly’s grand claim to remembrance rests on his humane e:ort to mitigate the Draconic Code of English law. Nearly three hundred crimes, ’ ranging from the most frightful atrocity to keeping company with Gypsies, were indiscriminately punishable with death. As a consequence vice flourished, for as Lord Coke long ago observed, “too severe laws are never executed.” He had long meditated over the matter, and after discussing various schemes of procedure he cautiously ventured in 1808 to bring in a Bill to repeal the statute of Elizabeth which made it a capital offence to steal privately from the person of another. This he succeeded in getting passed. He next, in 1810, tried a bolder stroke, and introduced three Bills to repeal several statutes, which punished with death the crimes of stealing privately in a shop goods to the value of five shillings, and of stealing to the amount of forty shillings in a dwelling house or in vessels in navigable rivers. All three were lost! He did not despair, however, but kept agitating, and renewed his motions session after session. He did not live to reap success but he cleared the way for success after him. •