CHAP. CXXXI.

of any importance, so that in all branches of professional information he was equal, and in many superior, to the most eminent counsel who were to plead before him. But that to which I mainly ascribe the brilliancy of the career on which he was entering, was the familiar knowledge he acquired of the Roman civil law. The taste for this study he is said to have contracted from the necessity of preparing himself first to argue as an advocate, and then to decide as a judge, appeals to the House of Lords from the Court of Session in Scotland. In that country he found the Roman civil law regulating the enjoyment and succession of personal property, and even frequently alluded to by way of illustration in questions respecting entails. Like most English lawyers, in preparing for the bar, he had hardly paid the slightest attention to it. While Attorney General he was retained in many Scotch appeals, and for the occasion he was obliged to dip into the Pandects and into the commentaries upon them; but although he had the discernment to discover the merit of these admirable compilations, it was not indispensably necessary for the discharge of his duty that he should examine them systematically, and his time was filled up with more urgent occupations. Now that he was to sit in the House of Lords as sole Judge to decide all appeals from Scotland, he saw the necessity of making himself a profound Scotch lawyer, and he found that this was impossible without being a good civilian. Therefore, having gone through Mackenzie, Bankton, and Stair*, he regularly proceeded to the Corpus Juris Civilis with Vinnius, Voet, and other commentators, and his mind was thoroughly imbued with the truly equitable maxims of this noble jurisprudence. I delight in recording how his unrivalled eminence as an equity Judge was achieved, lest the aspiring but careless student should think it could be reached by natural genius and occasional exertion:

"Pater ipse colendi

Haud facilem esse viam voluit. . . .

. . curis acuens mortalia corda."

He took special delight in " Dirleton's Doubts," saying, "his doubts are more valuable than other people's certainties.”

CHAP.

CXXXI.

Court.

Lord Hardwicke, having bestowed unremitting pains in qualifying himself for the discharge of his high duties, when occupying the judgment-seat exhibited a pattern of all His dejudicial excellence. Spotless purity—not only an abstinence meanour in from bribery and corruption*, but freedom from undue influence, and an earnest desire to do justice, may at that time, and ever afterwards, be considered as belonging to all English Judges. But I must specially mention of this Chancellor, that he was not only a patient but an eager listener, conscious that he could best learn the facts of the case from those who had been studying it, and that, notwithstanding his own great stores of professional learning, he might be instructed by a junior counsel, who for days and nights had been ransacking all that could be found scattered in the books on a particular topic, actuated by a desire to serve his client, and to enhance his own reputation. While the hearing was going on, the cause had the Chancellor's undivided and devoted attention. Not only was he undistracted by the frivolous engagements of common life, but during a political crisis, when there were to be important changes in the cabinet, when his own continuance in office was in peril, he was, as usual, calm and collected; and he seemed to think of nothing but whether the injunction should be continued or dissolved, and whether the bill should be dismissed with, or without, costs? Some said that he was at times acting a part, and that he was considering how he should conduct a political intrigue, or how he should answer an opponent in debate,when he pretended to be listening to a thrice-told tale; but so much is certain, that no argument ever escaped him, and

One attempt was made to bribe Lord Hardwicke. Thomas Martin, mayor of Yarmouth, being threatened with a bill in Chancery, wrote a letter to the Lord Chancellor bespeaking his favour, and inclosing a bank note for 201., of which his acceptance was requested "for his trouble in reading the papers." An order being made upon his worship, to show cause why he should not be committed to the Fleet for his contempt, he swore "that the said letter was wrote, and the said bank note inclosed therein by him through ignorance, and not from any ill-intent whatsoever." Upon his paying all expences, and consenting that the 201, should be distributed among the poor prisoners in the Fleet, the order was discharged. —27th April, 1748. Sanders's Orders, ii. 628. — Lord Sidmouth prosecuted in the King's Bench for an offer to bribe him a simpleton, who, when the criminal information came down, joyfully showed it to his family and his friends, believing that it was the patent for the office he wished to purchase.

CXXXI.

СНАР. that, in taking notes, it was observed that "his pen always moved at the right time."* He used to declare, that "he did not take his place upon the bench to write letters to his correspondents, or to read the newspaper."† His voluminous note books are still extant, containing, at great length, the material proceedings of the Court during each day,—the statement of the case, the evidence, and the arguments of counsel, -with the answers to be given to them enclosed within brackets. When he took time to consider, he generally wrote his judgments either in his note books or on separate papers, to which his note books refer. Unlike some Judges, deservedly of high reputation, whose impression on hearing a case stated was never known to vary, he appears not unfrequently, upon further argument and maturer consideration, finally to have arrived at an opinion quite different from that which he had at first entertained, and even expressed; and he certainly well merited the character he gave of himself in this respect, when he said, "These are the reasons which incline me to alter my opinion, and I am not ashamed of doing it, for I always thought it a much greater reproach to a Judge to continue in his error than to retract it." He never interrupted, to show his quickness, by guessing at facts, or anticipating authorities which he expected to be cited. Not ignorant that the Chancellor can always convulse the bar with "counterfeited glee," he abstained from illtimed jocularity, and he did not level sarcasms at those who, he knew, could not retort upon him. He had a complete control over his temper, and, from the uniform urbanity and decorum of his own demeanour, he repressed the petulance and angry passions of those who practised before him, in

i. e. I presume, when any thing was said worthy of being noted.

I must say, that this last practice has occasionally been carried to an indecorous and inconvenient length. A glance at a newspaper may be permitted to a Judge during a tedious reply, as a hint to the counsel against prolixity; and such was the habit of Lord Mansfield, who was ever completely master of all the facts, and all the law, of every case that came before him. But I have seen a Judge indulge his curiosity by turning over the unwieldy pages of the "Times," while a counsel has been opening, in a condensed manner, a very important and complicated case— requiring the closest attention of a Judge, however quick, learned, and discriminating.

2 Atk. 438.

CHAP.

somuch that it was remarked, that not only was he never himself led into any unbecoming altercation, but that he CXXXI. taught the rival leaders to behave to each other with candour and courtesy. It is likewise stated, to his credit, that, although in society he was supposed rather to be supercilious, presuming too much upon his acquired dignity, he was in Court uniformly affable to the solicitors, remembering that they were the class to which he expected himself to have belonged, and to whose kindness he had been greatly indebted for his advancement.

The arguments being finished, if the case seemed clear, and did not involve any new question, he immediately disposed of it; but wherever his decision was likely to be quoted as regulating "the doctrine of the Court," he took time for consideration, and having perused his notes and referred to the authorities cited, he came with a prepared and often a written judgment. On such occasions he was likened to "the personification of wisdom distributing justice and delivering instruction."

ments.

These performances certainly do come up to every idea we His judg can form of judicial excellence. They are entirely free from any parade of learning, or the affectation of pointed or antithetical sentences. Two objects seem entirely to absorb the attention of the Judge: 1. Properly to adjust the disputed rights of the parties. 2. To establish a rule by which similar questions may be solved in future. He was anxious to bring every case within the scope of some general principle which he enunciated and defined, guarding it with its proper conditions and exceptions. He did not decide every case upon its “specialties” or peculiar circumstances, leaving the profes

sion entirely at a loss with respect to the general principle which had been discussed,— nor did he wrest the peculiar circumstances of the case to make it conform to his canon. Having lucidly stated the allegations on each side, and accurately enumerated the facts which were established, he propounded the question or questions which they raised, and on which his decree must depend. Then recollecting the observation of Lord Bacon, that "his equity was to be taken from his books, and not from his brains," and that "the

CHAP. Chancery was ordained to supply the law, not to subvert the CXXXI. law," he reviewed all the authorities upon the subject, and if

none of them were expressly in point, he tried to educe from them by analogy a rule which harmonised with them in principle, and which might equitably govern all cases similarly circumstanced. He never resorted, however, to forced interpretations or fanciful analogies, and he was always anxious to support his opinion by legal precedents in the selection and application of which he was particularly happy. Nor was he betrayed into the seductive and dangerous practice of laying down rules in loose and sweeping terms, which might carry their authority far beyond the point necessarily to be decided, and mischievously include cases which were not then in contemplation. He, therefore, expressed himself in the most guarded terms, and mentioned distinctly the qualifications with which he meant his opinion to be received. There was no enthusiasm in his nature, but he really had a passion (such as I have seen exhibited by the cool-headed Tenterden) to do justice, and to advance the science over which he presided — most unlike the recklessness of some Judges in times gone by, only anxious to escape open censure-indifferent as to the rights of parties, the improvement of jurisprudence, and their own permanent fame.

-

Lord Hardwicke's judgments are deservedly praised for luminous method in the arrangement of the topics, and elegant perspicuity of language in the discussion of them. But I will venture to point out what I consider their peculiar excellence the fair and manly manner in which the arguments are stated which are to be overruled. I have known Judges who, in important cases, have entirely omitted to notice the most powerful objections to their view of the case

not probably from any disingenuous motive, but from not understanding them. Lord Hardwicke always fully sees and appreciates the arguments against the side which he adopts-restates them with additional force and clearness, and refutes them so satisfactorily as almost to bring conviction to the minds of those who had invented them, and had for a time been the dupes of their own subtlety.

He was particularly praised for the manner in which he