oratorical powers, would be liable to "put their foot in it." Indeed,
Mr. Gordon is not an orator, in any sense of the term. His legal
training at the Scotch bar has stunted the development of his rhetorical
gifts. In pleading before a judge or a jury he seeks to influence their
judgments rather than their hearts, and this tendency is to a greater or
less extent characteristic of all good Scotch lawyers, although it is
fatal to those nicely rounded periods and soul-stirring appeals to the
imagination and emotional faculties, that tell so forcibly upon an
English jury. It is disappointing to listen to Mr. Gordon for the first
time. His appearance is sufficiently _distingue_, for he is tall of
stature, and he has a decidedly intellectual cast of countenance. But
when he commences to speak there is an almost painful absence of
embellishment or emotional feeling; his language is severely practical
and argumentative; but his logic is unimpeachable, and he can summon to
his aid no end of hard and dry, albeit telling, facts--

"Chiels that winna ding."

During the session of 1868, while he held the office of Lord Advocate,
Mr. Gordon passed the Scotch Reform Bill, and it is to his efforts that
the Universities of Scotland are indebted for direct Parliamentary
representation. It seems, therefore, consistent with the fitness of
things that a constituency which he himself had been the means of
creating should become his own. To Mr. Gordon we are also indebted for
the Titles to Land Act, passed during the session of 1868, by which the
whole conveyancing system of Scotland has been consolidated, and placed
on a more satisfactory footing. In the same year he succeeded in passing
the Writs Registration Bill, which has affected beneficially the whole
of the land system of Scotland. A bill for the purpose of amending the
Feudal System of Scotland was introduced during the session of 1870, by
Mr. Gordon, but although it was hailed with every symptom of approbation
and encouragement by the leading men of the country, it had ultimately
to be withdrawn. The same fate was reserved for a bill to abolish the
feudal system altogether, which was brought in by Mr. Young, the present
Lord Advocate of Scotland.

In ecclesiastical matters, no less than in matters political, Mr. Gordon
has taken a conspicuous part. He has often appeared at the bar of the
General Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland, of which he has
always been a dev