A Century of English Judicature.

439

not less honorable, yet who were not, like played a capacity for statesmanship which him, as fit to play a great part in political as few great lawyers have possessed. He was in judicial affairs." (Personal and Political ' not only "great in council," as Disraeli said, Memoirs, pt. 2, vol. i, pp. 157. 158.) By but next to the Prime Minister himself he Jessel, Benjamin and his most distinguished was the ablest orator of the conservative contemporaries he was regarded as the party. Almost alone among great lawyers, ablest lawyer of his day; and as time goes he seems to have had a strong apprehension on it is not too much to expect that he will of the class of considerations which deter be held the greatest lawyer of the century. mine party policy and influence public It may be said at the outset that his high opinion. Legal distinctions, it has often been reputation derived no adventitious support pointed' out, are so specific in kind that they from personal affection. He was never pop ular. His manner was austere, cold and seem to incapacitate ordinary minds for the apprehension of moral and political distinc sternly self-repressive. This was undoubt edly due in a large measure to continual ill tions when once the guiding clue of legal health. It was probably influenced, also, to principle is lost sight of. Distinguished law some extent, by the gloomy religion of which yers in public life are apt to become either he was a devout professor. Religion indeed so merged in mere party advocacy that they seems to have enlisted the deepest feelings cease, like Westbury, to exhibit individual character and conviction, or, like Selborne, of his nature. It was with him the para mount consideration, in comparison with when once they leave the firm ground of legal principle, they lean toward extreme which, he once said, all else—honor, reputa views on either side from sheer want of ap tion, wealth, recreation—were "nothing, ab solutely nothing." A stern Protestant in his prehension of the intermediate resting places views of ecclesiastical polity he disliked with of political thought, and lose weight from the far-fetched moral and speculative argu all the strength of his austere nature the tol erance of modern thought. Like Hatherley ments by which they seek to support their and Selborne, he was a Sunday school position. But Cairns' public speeches are teacher all his life.' replete with independent political thought The most obvious characteristic of his and strong personal conviction, and his career is his astonishing versatility. At the sagacity is as keen and his logic as close on subjects of purely political interest as on outset of his professional career his consti tutional diffidence was so great that he legal topics. He never rendered himself vul deemed himself unfitted for everything but nerable to flank attacks, like Gladstone, by going out of his way into rather remote chamber practice. He soon gained confi dence in his powers, however, and forthwith intellectual regions for arguments in support became the acknowledged leader of the of his main proposition. chancery bar. Although his professional In manner, both at the bar and in publiclabors were confined almost entirely to life, he was Scotch rather than Irish, logical equity cases, he argued many Scotch and rather than emotional. He was not a pas ecclesiastical appeals with brilliant ability; sionate orator. His great speech on the and on the rare occasions when he appeared Reform Bill of 1867 was described by one of before a jury—such as the Windham lunacy his opponents as "frozen oratory": "It flows case, and the Alexandra case, arising out of like the water from a glacier; or rather it our Civil War—he displayed, as if by intui does not flow at all, for though Cairns never tion, the most consummate powers of pop hesitates or recalls a phrase, he can scarcely ular advocacy. In public life, too, he dis be called a fluent speaker. His words rather