The Chief Justices of the Upper Bench during the Commonwealth were generally men of learning, ability, and integrity. Lawyers will take delight in the able, amiable, and learned Rolle, and all students of history are familiar with the "dark, ardent, and dangerous" character of Oliver St. John. But one of the Commonwealth judges, who also held office for a time under Charles II., perhaps as nearly filled up the ideal of a perfect magistrate as the nature of man will permit. He added to a mind of rare endowment and almost perfect balance, a depth of legal learning only equalled by that of Coke. In the midst of civil convulsions he preserved a calm and moderate temper, and the licentiousness of the Restoration left unsullied the perfect purity of his life. In his hands the law became an attractive and philosophical science, and the administration of justice assumed the venerable aspect of a religious service. We cannot forget that he shared in the superstition of the age, and suffered two innocent women to be convicted of witchcraft; and perhaps the unnecessary asceticism of his domestic life may have had an unhappy effect upon his children. These are traces of a frail and fallen nature, dark spots upon the otherwise spotless fame of Sir Matthew Hale. Lord Campbell tells a simple anecdote which is worth volumes of panegyric.

"The estate of Alderley," says Lord C., "is still in possession of a lineal descendant of Sir Matthew Hale. I remember that this gentleman held the office of High Sheriff of the county of Gloucester when I went the Oxford circuit, and that he was treated with peculiar respect by the Judges and by the bar, from our profound veneration for the memory of his illustrious ancestor."

It was impossible of course for Charles II. and his foolish brother to get along with men of integrity in high judicial station, and from the death of Sir Matthew Hale to the Revolution of 1688, the Chief Justices of the King's Bench were a set of men of whom nothing worse can, and nothing better ought to be said, than that they were fit representatives of the last two Stuart princes.

As if to complete the disgust of the people for the old dynasty, the first Chief Justice under the new was a bright example of every judicial virtue. The most loyal people on earth might well endure a break in the line of hereditary descent, in order to secure an administration of justice under Sir John Holt in the place of Scroggs and Jeffreys.

Recovering from some irregularities, for which he was unfortunately distinguished in early life, Holt became a profound

lawyer; and when, after the Revolution, it was resolved that every Privy Counsellor should bring in a list of the twelve persons whom he deemed the fittest to be the twelve Judges, however the lists of the different Privy Counsellors varied, they all agreed in presenting first the name of Sir John Holt; and when the appointment was announced by the London Gazette, it was hailed with joy by the whole nation. Lord Campbell thus describes his qualifications for his office :

From the start, as a magistrate he exceeded the high expectations which had been formed of him, and during the long period of twenty-two years he constantly rose in the esteem and admiration of his countrymen. To unsullied integrity and lofty independence, he added a rare combination of deep professional knowledge with exquisite common sense. According to a homely but expressive phrase, "there was no rubbish in his mind." Familiar with the practice of the Court as any clerk,-acquainted with the rules of special pleading as if he had spent all his days and nights in drawing declarations and demurrers,-versed in the subtleties of the law of real property as if he had confined his attention to conveyancing, and as a commercial lawyer much in advance of any of his contemporaries, he ever reasoned logically, appearing at the same time instinctively acquainted with all the feelings of the human heart, and versed by experience in all the ways of mankind. He may be considered as having had a genius for magistracy as much as our Milton had for poetry, or our Wilkie for painting. Perhaps the excellence which he attained may be traced to the passion for justice by which he was constantly actuated.

He first announced from the bench the doctrine that no man could be a slave in England; he exploded witchcraft, by causing the prosecutors for that crime to be themselves tried and punished as impostors; and he gained the love of the people and won immortal honor by the calm and immovable independence with which he held in check alternately the House of Commons and the House of Lords. There is no man in English history whom as a judge the legal profession so much admire, and he had the love of the common people.

They had heard and they believed that he was the greatest judge that had appeared on earth since the time of Daniel, and they knew that he was condescending, kind-hearted, and charitable. We are told that as his body was lowered into the grave prepared in the chancel of the church at Redgrave, not a dry eye was to be seen, and the rustic lamentations there uttered eloquently spoke his praise.

It would perhaps not be quite fair in reviewing a work devoted to the lives of celebrated lawyers, not to take some notice of the only one among them whose greatest distinction was his modesty. When we read of a lawyer without ambition, who again and again refused the Great Seal from a genuine contempt of power and wealth as well as of title, and

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an ardent love of leisure, repose, and obscurity, we are naturally curious to know more about him.

John Eardley Wilmot received his early education under the tuition of that Mr. Hunter who is known to history as having flogged seven boys who afterwards sat in the superior Courts at Westminster at the same time. Samuel Johnson and David Garrick were schoolmates of Wilmot, but he did not much cultivate their acquaintance in after life, being not only afraid of being distinguished himself, but desirous of avoiding all those who had gained distinction. He spent four years at the University of Cambridge as a recluse student, with the hope of obtaining a small living in the Church, and spending his days in a remote corner of the kingdom, conversing only with the peasants who might be under his pastoral care. In compliance with his father's wishes he abandoned his favorite plan, and commenced the study of the law, keeping his terms regularly at the Inner Temple, and by a three years' course of solitary study made himself a "consummate jurist." After coming to the bar he studiously concealed his acquirements, lest the attorneys should find him out and send him business. In this he was successful for several years, but he was obliged to take now and then a case from some friend or relative, and thus unwillingly betray the fact that he was a profound lawyer and a powerful advocate. Then came offers of legal promotion and a seat in Parliament; and for ever to avoid all such perils he abandoned Westminster Hall and settled as a provincial counsel in his native county of Derby. In this retreat he remained undisturbed for about a year, when he received official information that his Majesty had been pleased to appoint him one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench. He refused at first, but finally, under the idea that it was his duty to submit himself to the King's pleasure, consented to allow the honor to be thrust upon him. In the seat of justice, as unostentatious as ever, he still strove to shrink from observation, but in spite of himself delivered pithy and luminous judgments, and often guided his brother judges by a hint, a whisper, or a look; and thus came to be compared to the helm which, itself unseen, silently keeps the vessel in the right course. He had just become partially reconciled to this position, when a remarkable judicial crisis arrived in England. Lord Chief Justice Ryder died while a patent was passing for ennobling him, and William Murray claimed the vacant office, but the Duke of Newcastle was unwilling to lose his ablest supporter in the House of Commons. Wilmot's great relief Murray prevailed, and a man who had

To

already given adequate proofs of his fitness for the place was saved from the imminent risk of being called upon to fill the highest judicial office in the world. But he had soon to encounter a new peril. Lord Hardwicke resigned the Great Seal, and Wilmot was rendered extremely unhappy with the dread of being compelled to become Lord Chancellor of England. But he found no great difficulty in declining that honor, the Great Seal carrying with it such vast political power that there is never any lack of patriots willing to embrace so splendid an opportunity of serving the State. Soon after this, very reluctantly yielding to the earnest solicitations of his friends, he accepted the office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He held this office a few years, when being again importuned to accept the Great Seal, he resolved to avoid all further solicitations and resigned his office, making infirm health the ground of his retirement. He survived about twenty years, and died in his eighty-second year.

"We must," says Lord Campbell, "place him far above those who have been tempted by inordinate ambition to mean and wicked actions; yet we cannot consider his public character as approaching perfection, for he was much more solicitous for his own ease than for the public good." Perhaps so. Indolence is not desirable in itself, and yet if some of our public men, who are so much more solicitous for the public good than for their own ease, should by any chance fall into the evil habit which is censured in Chief Justice Wilmot, we think they may look for some degree of indulgence from a charitable community; especially if they should become like him in other respects, and add to his learning and integrity, his urbanity and refined sentiments as a gentleman, and his piety and humility as a Christian.

We come now to consider a man of widely different temper, and one who, take him all in all, is the most attractive character in the long line from Odo to Lord Campbell himself, who now holds the office of Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench. The biography of Mansfield is the one upon which the author has bestowed the most pains and with the most perfect success. It is a panorama of the times, from the days of Addison, Bolingbroke, and Pope, to the era when Burke and Fox and Pitt were encircling the reign of George III. with a splendor of eloquence and statesmanship unknown in any age or nation at least in modern times.

William Murray when a student at law received instructions in oratory from Pope, and by the solidity of his attainments and the fascination of his manner, and the silver-toned

eloquence of his conversation, made himself an agreeable companion in the most intellectual circles in London in the Augustan age of English literature; in his maturer years he disputed the palm of eloquence successively in either House of Parliament with confessedly the greatest of English orators; and as Lord Mansfield and Chief Justice of the King's Bench he won the reputation of a most accomplished judge, and founded the Commercial Code of his country. The career of such a man may well repay careful study.

His early discipline was at once generous and severe. He was a diligent and thorough student of history and of the ethical and philosophical writings of antiquity; and he was a patient and laborious classical student, especially of the works of Cicero, all of whose orations he translated into English and retranslated into Latin.

Upon this subject we may be permitted a single word. It is said, and with a good deal of truth, that with all the attention given in our colleges to instruction in the Greek and Latin languages, we have few good classical scholars; and it is equally true, that with all the apparatus of education, popular, practical, and scientific, with which the country is covered, there are few people who know anything well; and it would be just as fair to base an argument against teaching English upon the want of syntax and sense in common conversation, as to reason from the inability of graduates to read their diplomas, to the uselessness of a knowledge of Latin and Greek. The truth upon this subject seems to be, that the study of the Latin and Greek languages has been found a most admirable means of disciplining the intellect and cultivating the taste. This is the concurring judgment of those best qualified to judge for several hundred years. It is possible to conceive, indeed, of an excessive devotion to this pursuit, but under existing circumstances this does not seem to be an urgent topic of debate. The opposition to the study of the classics comes, so far as we have observed, from professional philanthropists and self-appointed practical men; two extremely useful classes we readily admit, and yet extremely apt to exaggerate the importance of those objects which are within their immediate range of vision. The idea of keeping our boys away from Homer lest haply he should cherish within them a warlike temper is simply ridiculous, and the habit of looking at intellectual pursuits mainly with reference to their immediate and practical effect upon what is called success in life, is something worse than ridiculous. Lord Mansfield's legal education was directed by himself,