while I remain zealous for the constitution of this country, and a friend to the interests of virtue." Mr. Holliday, worked up to enthusiasm by the recollection of the scene he had witnessed, "bears ample testimony to the tribute of applause, to the general joy and the marked approbation of the audience." On this occasion Mr. Sergeant Murray gave a grand dinner in Lincoln's Inn, rivaling the splendor of the olden time, to many of the nobility as well as to the chiefs of the law.' 'Page 106. The following is the Order issued by the Benchers for regulating the solemnity: "At an Extraordinary Council, held the 2d day of November, 1756. "Ordered-That the gates leading to Portugal Streets, Chichester Rents, and Bishop's Court from Lincoln's Inn be shutt on Monday next, from ten in the morning for the remaining part of that day. "That the two great gates be shutt from ten in the morning for the remainder part of that day; and that six porters and two constables attend at each of those gates in order to lett in the nobility, judges, and other company who are to dine at the Sergeant's feast, as likewise to lett in the members of the Society and their friends. "That the passage to the Ilail be boarded up, and doors made as usual to lett the company into the Hall; and that two porters and a constable. attend at each of those doors. "That the garden gates be shutt all that day. "That the gardener, his man, and two porters do patrole the terras walk, to prevent any person from coming over the wall. That Mr. Johnson, the steward to this Society do hire twelve extraordinary porters, or such number of porters as shall be necessary to do the necessary duty on that day; and he do appoint the several porters to their several stai.ons. "That great care be taken that there be no disturbance or riott committed in the Inn on that day. "That in case the porters or other servants do not keep good order, or are negligent in doing of their dutys, that Mr. Johnson do report their misbehaviour at the next Council. "That the cooks (Messrs. Davis and Cartwright) who are to dress the Sergeant's dinner, have the use of the kitchen and all the offices belonging thereto, together with the furniture of the same; and that Mr. Johnson do intimate to them that they are to provide such chairs for the company as shall be wanting." CHAPTER XXXIV. VIEW OF LORD MANSFIELD'S JUDICIAL CHARACTER WE AND OF HIS DECISIONS. E are now to behold Lord Mansfield a venerable magistrate, clothed in ermine, seated on his tribunal, determining the most important rights, and adjudicating upon the lives of his fellow-citizens. He presided in the court of King's Bench for the first time on Thursday the 11th of November, 1756. Modern usage does not permit a judge to deliver an inaugural address, or we should have had from him a striking enumeration of the duties imposed upon the person filling this high office, and a masterly exposition of the manner in which they ought to be performed. Although he did not then delineate in the abstract the beau ideal of a perfect judge, he afterwards proved to the world by his own practice that it had been long familiar to his mind. I feel the extreme difficulty of an attempt to present to my readers a view of Lord Mansfield's judicial character and of his decisions. I am disheartened by the utter failure of my predecessors;' but I must proceed at all risks, or this memoir would be compared to a life of Bacon, omitting all mention of his philosophy, or of Marlborough entirely passing over his campaigns. While the ensuing chapter may be entirely skipped by those who take interest only in personal anecdotes and party contests, it may be perused a second time by others who, knowing that the history of a country cannot be well understood without the study of its juris No reader, professional or non-professional, can possibly get through the voluminous account of Lord Mansfield's judgments to be found in Holliday and Evans; and it has not suited the plan of any of the able writers who have given a sketch of Lord Mansfield's life to examine them, except in a very cursory manner. prudence, are desirous of learning minutely what great magistrates actually did in administering justice to individuals and in aiming to improve the institutions over which they presided.' Perhaps I ought to begin with considering the question "whether Lord Mansfield was indeed a great magistrate?" I remember the time when it was fashionable in Westminster Hall to mention his name with a sneer. One might have supposed that he was chiefly memorable for having tried to introduce into the Common Law, some "equitable doctrines" which had been rejected, and that having long imposed upon the world by his plausibility, he was at last discovered to have been ignorant and shallow. English lawyers in those days chose to take their opinions of him from two men, deeply versed in their profession, but entirely devoid of all other learning-who not only had no taste for his liberal acquirements, but actually bore him a deep personal grudge. Lord Eldon, having begun to practice in the Court of King's Bench under Lord Mansfield, took it into his head that the Chief Justice set his face against all except those who had been educated at Westminster and Christ Church; and he left the court with disgust, ever loudly and deeply cursing the supposed author of his early disappointment. Again, Lord Kenyon with some reason mortally hated his predecessor, who had strenuously opposed his appointment, because he did not wish to see in the seat of Chief Justice of England one who did not know the characters of the Greek language, and of Latin knew only some scraps to be misquoted. Their hostility to the memory of Mansfield was sharpened by their common dislike of Buller, who, reverencing him to idolatry, was in the habit of drawing offensive comparisons between him and his detractors. The influence of the Lord Chancellor and of the Chief Justice was much greater than that of the disappointed puisne who had sought refuge in the obscurity of the 'Gibbon's masterly sketch of the Roman Civil Law (Decline and Fall ch. xliv.) is one of the most interesting parts of his great work. But am afraid that I shall be supposed as much enamored of my craft a was of his the old minstrel who "Poured to lords and ladies gay Common Pleas, and those who were desirous of having "the ear of the Court" on either side of the Hall knew that they could in no way recommend themselves to favor more effectually than by talking of "the loose notions which had lately prevailed in certain quarters, and which were in the course of being happily corrected." The juniors took their tone from the leaders, and in the debating clubs of students in the Inns of Court the speakers were inflamed by a pious desire to restore the Common Law to its ancient simplicity. But these delusions are no more; and Mansfield may now be compared to the unclouded majesty of Mont Blanc when the mists which for a time obscured his summit have passed away. Yet There are a few undeniable facts, which are quite conclusive to prove that he enjoyed an unparalleled ascendency, and that this ascendency was well deserved. Although he presided above thirty years in the Court of King's Bench, there were in all that time only two cases in which his opinion was not unanimously adopted by his brethren who sat on the bench with him. they were men of deep learning and entire independence of mind. He found there Sir Thomas Denison, Sir Michael Foster, and Sir John Eardly Wilmot, who was afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and refused the great seal. They were succeeded by Sir Joseph Yates; Sir Richard Aston,' who had been Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland; Sir James Hewitt,' afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and a peer by the title of Lord Lifford; Sir Edward Willes; Sir William Blackstone; Sir William Henry Ashurst; Sir Nash Gross; and Sir Edward Buller. Again: of the many thousand judgments which Lord Mansfield pronounced during the third part of a century, two only were reversed. The compliment to Chancellors that their decrees were affirmed amounts to very little, for the only appeal is to the House of Lords, where the same person presides, so that it may be considered ab eodem ad eundem. But a writ of error then lay from the King's Bench either to the Exchequer Chamber, constituted of 3 Nov. 1, 1766. 1 Feb. 9, 1777. Jan. 24, 1763. April 5, 1765. Jan. 27, 1768. the Judges of the Common Pleas and Exchequer, or to the House of Lords, to be heard before the Lord Chancellor and all the Judges of England, without any predisposition to affirm.' What will appear to my professional brethren a more striking fact still, strongly evincing the confidence reposed in his judicial candor and ability by such men as Dunning and Erskine, opposed to him in politics, who practiced before him,-in all his time there never was a bill of exceptions tendered to his direction; the counsel against whom he decided either acquiescing in his ruling, or being perfectly satisfied that the question would afterwards be fairly brought before the Court and satisfactorily determined on a motion for a new trial. I must likewise observe that the whole community of England, from their first experience of him on the bench, with the exception of occasional displays of party hostility, concurred in doing homage to his extraordinary merits as a judge. Crowds eagerly attended to listen to him when he was expected to pronounce judgment in a case of importance. To gratify public curiosity, the unknown practice began of reporting in the newspapers his addresses to juries; and all suitors, sanguine in their belief of being entitled to succeed, brought their causes to be tried before him, so that the business of the King's Bench increased amazingly, At first starting the holder of the great seal (Lord Keeper Henley) had no voice in the House of Lords; but when created Lord Northington he might have revenged himself for his decrees which had been upset with Lord Mansfield's concurrence. Then foliowed Lord Camden, a Whig Chancellor; and, although the two following Chancellors, Lord Bathurst and Lord Thurlow, were Tories, they bore no peculiar personal good-will to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. When I was at the bar, I knew a learned Sergeant who never went into cort without several blank bills of exceptions in his bag, or rather cartouche-box, to be filled and fired off at the Chief Justice in the course of the morning. I should state, for the information of my unlearned readers (orthe lay gents), that a bill of exceptions is given by the statute of Westminster passed in the reign of Edward I., and is an admirable check on the rashness and mendacity of judges; for it empowers the parties to put down in writing the exact terms in which the judge who tries the cause has laid down the law, and subjects him to an action if he does not acknowledge it by his seal. It then goes, by writ of error, before a superior tribunal, where his ruling is reconsidered, and may be either affirmed or reversed. On a motion for a new trial, the judge at his discretion states verbally how he down the law, no averment being allowed against his statement; and the question cannot be carried before a higher court. id |