vice-president of the Court of Justiciary, in absence of the lord-justice-general. This officer was originally no other than the clerk to the Justiciar or Justice Court of Scotland, as the name indeed imports; and his progress from the table to the bench is singular, and not a little curious.

In early times there were two justice-clerks, as there were likewise two justiciars, one on either side of the Forth; and as the jurisdiction of the Justice Court was then nearly universal in respect of the matters cognisable there, and very high in degree, the office of clerk was of considerable importance, and enjoyed by persons of station in society. Thus we find that Adam Forrester of Jus Corstorphine, justice-clerk beneroth Forth (temp. Dav. II.), was in 1373 provost, or, as that officer was then called, alderman, of the town of Edinburgh, and in 1382 sheriff of the shire; and in 19 Rob. II., he was keeper of the great seal, in the absence of the chancellor, who had gone abroad.

In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the justiceclerks began also to act as public prosecutors before the justiciars, the latter being previously, it would seem, themselves the prosecutors, as the sheriffs were in their countycourts before the institution of procurators-fiscal; and, in the beginning of the next century, as the office of justiciar came into the hands of a single individual, so likewise did that of justice-clerk. The offices of justice-clerk and king's advocate (an officer of whom we have little account previously to the end of the fifteenth century) appear to have had at this time so many duties in common, that Henryson of Fordel, and Lawson of Hierigs, succeeded each other in them respectively; and the two offices having become vacant by the fall of those individuals at the fatal field of Flodden, Wischeart of Pittarrow was thereupon appointed to both places; but in his time a deputy began to be appointed to officiate as clerk to the Justice-Court, Wischeart probably directing his chief attention to his duty as public prosecutor. On his death the offices of justiceclerk and king's advocate were again separated; and to the former Crawford of Oxengangs was appointed. On the institution of the present Court of Session, Crawford, then justice-clerk, was advanced, as were likewise the king's advocate, treasurer, and clerk-register, upon reasons of public policy; the deliberations of the court being at that time, and till the revolution, in secret with shut doors, agreeably to the practice of the papal tribunals, the principles of which, the court, as may be supposed from its ecclesiastical constitution, had very largely imbibed. The justice-clerk continued in this threefold character of clerk of the Justice Court (but discharging the duties by deputy), lord of Session, and public prosecutor, for some time, when he was at length superseded in the last capacity altogether by the lord-advocate; and in the degree in which he was so superseded he appears to have been appointed an assessor to the lord-justice-general, equally with the other lords of Session. In the time of the excellent Sir Robert Murray, who was appointed to the office in 1651, he began to be styled "lord-justice-clerk." In 1663, Sir John Home was appointed, and, the same year, declared by act of Privy Council a constituent judge of the Justice Court; and in 1672, a statute passed, constituting the lord-justice-clerk vice-president of the court, to preside in absence of the lord-justice-general.

In the Court of Session the justice-clerk had no preeminence, till the time of that distinguished lawyer, Miller of Barskimming, who, on his appointment, took his seat by desire of the court, on the right of the lord president; and on the division of the Court of Session into two chambers in 1811, the lord-justice-clerk was made ex-officio president of the Second Division, though he is not necessarily a lord of Session.

(u. u. e.)