ABSTRACT
Sir Samuel Romilly (1757–1818) was called to the bar in 1783, becoming a leader of the Chancery bar. In 1800 he was named a king’s counsel, and in 1806 he became solicitor-general. An autodidact, he studied the works of Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria, including On Crimes and Punishments (1764), and of Jeremy Bentham, with whom he became friendly. He wrote a riposte to Martin Madan in 1786, rejecting his argument that strict enforcement of the existing criminal law was desirable. In Observations, Romilly, always wishing to appeal to reason rather than emotion, offered detailed insight into the operation of the mechanisms of justice. Romilly’s pamphlet gave rise to a wide discussion in the leading periodicals. The same benevolence and humanity, understood in a more confined or a more enlarged sense, will determine one judge to pardon and another to punish.
