stances, sustained by any one through this kind of arrangement, while the time of the public was saved. But it is equally true that every now and then a slip was made and a benefit lost; and that nothing can guard against such accidents but the right course of thoroughly sifting each case, as if it were the only one in which the advocate was retained, or which the judge had to try. Nor must it be forgotten that the right decision of causes is only one, though certainly the most important, office of justice. Another, only second in importance to that, is the giving parties satisfaction, such satisfaction as is enough for reasonable persons. Now, as every person is impressed with the idea that there is but one cause in the world, and that his own, however unmindful of this the court and the counsel may be, discontent, heart-burnings, feelings of injustice suffered, desire of redress in other ways, and among these, oftentimes by means of other suits, is sure to be left in the train of Themis, when the pace she moves at is too rapid for ordinary eyes to follow, and breaks too rudely through the surrounding ties and feelings of interest. Hence, the despatch effected is frequently more apparent than real; of which a remarkable example used to be afforded by Sir John Leach, whose swift decisions, without hearing, only produced appeals to the Great Seal. But in whatever way these opinions may be disposed of, one thing was certain; -the kind of arrangement which has been described as prevailing among the leaders in Lord Ellenborough's time could only be found practicable as long as the lead should be confined within a very few hands. When it was at all scattered, such a thing was altogether out of the question; and in Lord Tenterden's time this distribution undeniably took place.

But another change was also consummated, which, under Lord Tenterden's predecessor, had only begun to operate, and it tended materially both to control the speed of the bench, to promote the interest of the suitor, and to improve the administration of justice. The bar no longer owned so entire a supremacy of the bench; the advocate was not any more placed at an immeasurable distance from the judge; there was not now that impassable gulf between them, which, formerly, had yawned before the barrister's eye. I remember being told by a learned sergeant, that at the table of Sergeant's-inn, where the judges meet their brethren

of the coif to dine, the etiquette was, in those days, never to say a word after the Chief Justice, nor ever to begin any topic of conversation; he was treated with fully more than the obsequious deference shown at court to the sovereign himself. Assuredly, the footing upon which judges and barristers have been in recent times is as different as can well be conceived from that on which those high parties stood under Lord Ellenborough's administration of justice; and one consequence of the new régime is the much greater fulness of discussion, with its attendant evil, no doubt, the much greater prolixity of counsel, and much slower progress of business.

In another particular Lord Ellenborough differed from his successor, and the diversity originated in the greater vigour of his faculties and his more entire confidence in himself. Lord Tenterden never having been a leader at the bar, could not abide "the trick" of the profession, and no harm would have been done had he stopped here. But he seemed always to suppose that an address to a jury could be framed on the model of a special plea, or the counts in a declaration, only without the prolixity and repetition habitual with pleaders; and to forget that the surest way of bringing out the truth in any case is to let the conflicting feelings and interests of parties come into their natural collision. His impatience was thus very manifest; and had his nerves been in the same proportion firm as his dislike to declamation and illustration was strong, a struggle would have ensued in which the eloquence of the bar would either have been extinguished, or have silenced and discomfited the bench. In like manner, during the interlocutory discussions with the counsel, whether on motions in Banc, or on objections taken before him at Nisi Prius, he was uneasy, impatient, and indeed irascible, at nothing so much as at cases put by way of trying what the court had flung out. Being wholly void of imagination to supply cases in reply, and even without much quickness to sift the application of those put, he often lost his temper, and always treated the topic as an offence. But it was chiefly in obstructing cross-examination, which he wholly undervalued, from his utter incapability of performing his part in it, that his pleader-like habits broke out. Had he been submitted to in this matter, cross-examination would have been only known as a matter of legal history. His constant course

was to stop the counsel, by reminding him that the witness had already said so, or had already sworn the contrary, and this before the question was answered; to which it was natural, and indeed became usual, for the counsel to make answer, that this was the very reason why the question had been asked; the object being either to try the witness's memory or to test his honesty.

Very far otherwise was Lord Ellenborough. He had long and ably led while an advocate, although he never attained the first rank in Westminster Hall, and only shone superior on the Great Circuit of the North. He had therefore a fellow feeling with the leaders before him; and as for any dread of their address to the jury, or of any jealousy of the jury's interference with his functions, or any squeamish notion of his own dignity suffering from the address to the jury going on before him, or any disinclination to witness the utmost exertion of the advocate's eloquence or wit in speaking, or of his subtlety and vehemence in cross-examination, there was no more risk of that than if he had not been present in the court. So when an objection was taken to evidence, he never attempted to escape from it by denying the materiality of the fact offered to be proved, or of the question attempted to be put. He at once gave his opinion, to which, and justly, he deemed the parties entitled. Beyond interfering to oppose a prolix and needless statement, or a wearisome and reiterative cross-examination, or a wandering from what he deemed the point in issue, he did not interfere; and the same liberty and even licence which he had himself enjoyed when dealing with witnesses, he freely allowed counsel to use in his pre

sence.

While representing this contrast between the two Chief Justices, we must, in fairness to Lord Tenterden, bear in mind the somewhat anomalous position of a judge while presiding at Nisi Prius; a position, the annoyance of which so vigorous a personage as Lord Ellenborough had no occasion to heed, strong in his own resources, relying on his intrinsic qualities, seeking no support to his dignity from any adventitious circumstances, dreading no rival authority to lower it. But inferior men could not so easily bear that rivalry. The judge, indeed, presides over the whole proceedings; but the jury holds divisum imperium; and he sits there as the nominal chief while the advocate is sometimes

dealing with the witness as if no judge were present, and sometimes addressing the jury, careless whether the judge hears him or not, equally indifferent whether his lordship approves or disapproves what he says. Princes, it is said, cannot allow any one to address another in their awful presence; nay, the code of etiquette has embodied this feeling of sensitive royalty in a rule or maxim. The ruler of the court has as little love of a proceeding which, in the prefatory words, " May it please your lordship," seems to recognise his supremacy; but in the next breath leaves "his lordship" entirely out of view, as if he were reposing in his bed, or gathered to his fathers. Few judges, accordingly, were so considerate as to be patient of eloquence, whether in declamation or in witty illustration; few regarded these flights otherwise than as in derogation from the respect which is their own especial due. To address passions which they are forbidden to feel to contemplate topics that must be suited to any palate rather than theirs -to issue jokes by which they ought not to be moved while all others are convulsed-seemed incompatible with their station as the presiding power, or a violation of that respect which it ought to inspire. Lord Tenterden, more than most judges, appeared to feel this; and it was a feeling wholly founded in forgetfulness of the very nature of jury trial, as it was unworthy of his solid sense and great sagacity. In the distribution of criminal justice the case is widely dif ferent. The anxiety necessarily attendant upon the judge's highly responsible office here leads him to court all help from the ingenuity of counsel. Before addressing the jury was allowed in cases of felony, the chances of collision were of course more limited; but even now nothing of the uneasy feeling to which I have been adverting has been found to take place since the recent change of the practice in criminal courts.

In his political opinions, Lord Ellenborough was originally, like the rest of his family, a moderate Whig. But he never mingled in the associations or proceedings of party; and held an independent course, with, however, considerable disinclination, at all times, to the policy and the person of Mr. Pitt. He joined Mr. Addington's Administration as Attorney-General, and came into Parliament, where he did not distinguish himself. Lord Kenyon's death soon after made way for him on the bench; and he

was, at the same time raised to the peerage. The quarrel between that administration and Mr. Pitt did not reconcile him to the minister; and against Lord Melville he entertained a strong personal as well as party prejudice, which broke out once and again during the proceedings on his impeachment. The accession of the Whigs to power, in 1816, was accompanied by their junction with Lord Sidmouth; and, as he required to have a friend in the strangely mixed cabinet, the unfortunate choice was made of the first Criminal and Common Law Judge in the land, of whom to make a political partisan ;-he whose high office it was to try political offences of every description, and among others the daily libels upon the government of himself and his colleagues. This error has ever been deemed one of the darkest pages of Whig history. Mr. Fox made a dexterous and ingenious defence, quoting a few special precedents against the most sound principles of the constitution; and defending an inroad on the pure administration of criminal justice by appeals to instances of civilians and Chancery lawyers sitting in Parliament. But Lord Ellenborough's own son lately took occasion honestly to state that his father had told him, if it were to do over again, he should be no party to such a proceeding. He said this in the course of the discussion which I raised against making the Lord Chief Justice one of the Regency in the event of the next heir being beyond the seas on a demise of the crown. I may add, that being asked my opinion of his argument by Mr. Fox the day after Mr. Stanhope's motion, the reception which he gave my strong expression of dissent gave me a persuasion that he fully felt the difficulties of his case, if not its weakness.

On the bench, it is not to be denied that Lord Ellenborough occasionally suffered the strength of his political feelings to break forth, and to influence the tone and temper of his observations. That he ever, upon any one occasion, knowingly deviated one hair's breadth from justice in the discharge of his office, is wholly untrue. The case which gave rise to the greatest comment, and even led to a senseless show of impeachment, was Lord Cochrane's; but I have the best reason to know that all who assisted at this trial were in truth convinced of the purity with which the judicial duties were discharged, and the equality with which ustice was administered. Lord Ellenborough was not of