although Mr. Gibbs's summing up the evidence was allowed, on all hands, to be a masterly performance, and of very signal service to the case, the overwhelming genius of his great leader so far eclipsed him, that while, in 1780, no one spoke of the chief, but all admiration was reserved for the second in command, in 1794 the leader alone was mentioned, and the important contribution made by the junior to the mighty victory escaped all but professional observation. In Westminster Hall, however, it was estimated at its real worth; and, notwithstanding his narrowminded notions on political matters, his slavish adherence to the Tory party, his bigoted veneration for existing things, and hatred of all disaffection, or even discontent, the courage and perseverance which he displayed throughout that trying scene, both towards the government whom he was defeating in their frantic scheme, and towards the court whom he was constantly joining his leader to beard, was not surpassed by the technical ability which he showed,nay, was not exceeded even by the manly boldness which won for that leader the most imperishable of all his titles to the admiration and gratitude of mankind.

The general narrowness of Sir Vicary Gibbs's mind has been marked; but on the side of vanity and selfconceit it was out of proportion to its dimensions in other parts. It always seemed as if no one could do anything to please him, save one individual; and his performances were rated at the most exorbitant value. Nay, the opinion of that favoured personage he estimated so highly, that there always lay an appeal to him from the bench, as well as from every other authority; and it was sometimes truly laughable to observe the weight which he attached to a single sentence or a word from one with whom he was ever so entirely satisfied. On a certain trial he had occasion to mention some recent victories of Lord Wellington's army

in the Peninsula, and had named three battles with praise not very lavish, because every word was deemed of inestimable value, but had omitted Busaco; he corrected himself very ostentatiously, and went back to include that fight, with the feeling manifest to all who heard him, that real and irreparable, possibly fatal injury would be done to the troops, had the momentary omission unhappily not been supplied. When he came among the heads of the law, whether in his own court or at occasional meetings of the twelve, even while junior puisne judge, he arrogated the place and deference due to the chief of the whole; and when he was made first Chief Baron, and afterwards Chief Justice, there were no bounds to his contempt for all the opinions of all his brethren, although it is an undeniable fact that he was not nearly so much distinguished for the soundness of his opinions upon the bench as he had been for the excellence of his arguments at the bar. In trials at Nisi Prius he was distinguished for the little and peevish temper which predominated in him, often to the seeming injury of his judgment, almost always to the detriment of his judicial powers; and so absolutely was he persuaded of his own universal capacity, and the universal unfitness of others, that it was no uncommon thing for him to ask, somewhat roughly, for a counsel's brief, that he might see what was intended to be stated; then lecture the attorney who had prepared it; soon after the witnesses; and down to the officers of the court, whose functions of keeping silence and order he would occasionally himself undertake to perform. So that it was not an uncommon remark that the learned Chief Justice was performing at once, in his own person, the offices of judge and jury, counsel for both parties, attorneys for both, witnesses on both sides, and crier of the court. To the same conceited spirit was owing his much graver offence of parading rash opinions upon branches of the law with which the previous

habits of his life had never brought him very familiarly acquainted, and even of forming hasty judgments upon matters to which he was more accustomed. Certain it is, that there were decisions, both of his own at Nisi Prius and afterwards of the Court in Banc, which he persisted in forcing upon his brethren, and which do little credit to any of the parties concerned in them.

The survey which has just been taken of this eminent counsellor does not show him as filling the highest places in his profession; and yet if we follow him into the House of Commons, the falling off is very great indeed. There he really had no place at all; and feeling his nullity, there was no place to which he was with more visible reluctance dragged by the power that office gives the government over its lawyers. He could only obtain a hearing upon legal questions, and those he handled not with such felicity or force as repaid the attention of the listener. He seldom attempted more than to go through the references from one act of parliament to another; and though he was doing only a mechanical work, he gave out each sentence as if he had been gifted and consulted like an oracle, and looked and spoke as if when citing a section he was making a discovery. When Mr. Perceval was shot, his nerves, formerly excellent, suddenly and entirely failed him; and he descended from the station of Attorney-General to that of a Puisne Judge in the Common Pleas.

Of his political prejudices, which were quite intolerant and quite sincere, mention has already been made. To the cause of reform, in all shapes and under what name soever, he was the bitter enemy. Towards all who indulged in free discussion, whether of measures or of men, he was an implacable adversary. The Press, therefore, engaged a large share of his dislike; and under the combined influence of exasperation and alarm he filed so many ex officio informations

in a few months, that no two attorney-generals ever in a long course of years loaded the files of the court with as many. It was his truly painful fortune that, as most of these regarded the attacks on the Duke of York, he was compelled soon to withdraw them all; while in several of the others he was defeated; and partly by his excessive use of the power, partly by his failure in the exercise of it, he had the agony, to him most excruciating, of being signally defeated in his attempts to crush the press, and of causing all the discussions of the ex officio power which first brought it into hatred and then into disuse.

This is that successful barrister, that skilful special pleader, that acute lawyer on common points, that dexterous and expert practitioner, (for all this he was, as certainly as he was a little-minded man)-this is he whom the men that contemn Lord Erskine, and look down upon Lord Mansfield, and would fain, if they durst, raise their small voices against Sir Samuel Romilly, hold up as the pattern of an English lawyer.

225

SIR WILLIAM GRANT.

Ir from contemplating the figure of the eminent though narrow-minded lawyer whom we have been surveying, we turn to that of his far more celebrated contemporary, Sir William Grant, we shall find, with some marked resemblances, chiefly in political opinions and exaggerated dread of change, a very marked diversity in all the more important features of character, whether intellectual or moral. We have now named in some respects the most extraordinary individual of his time-one certainly than whom none ever better sustained the judicial office, though its functions were administered by him upon a somewhat contracted scale-one than whom none ever descended from the forum into the senate with more extraordinary powers of argumentation, or flourished there with greater renown. It happened to this great judge to have been for many years at the bar with a very moderate share of practice; and although his parliamentary exertions never tore him away from his profession, yet his public character rested entirely upon their success until he was raised to the bench.

The genius of the man then shone forth with extraordinary lustre. His knowledge of law, which had hitherto been scanty and never enlarged by practice, was now expanded to whatever dimensions might seem required for performing his high office: nor was he ever remarked as at all deficient even in the branch most difficult to master without forensic habits, the accomplishments of a case-lawyer; while his familiarity with the principles of jurisprudence and his knowledge