studied. Written in sickness and doubt, delivered but twice, and then to small and rapidly dwindling classes of embryo barris ters, cast aside in disgust, to lie neglected for all the rest of the author's life, they owe their resurrection and splendid success to a woman, to the loving pride of a devoted wife, who spent all the years of her widowhood in building this monument to her dead hus band's fame. John and Charles Austin were the sons of an Englishman, who had begun life as a miller, but made money enough by army contracts during the French war to feel war ranted in trying to raise his children to a higher social position. For John, therefore, a commission was bought in the army, while Charles was bred to the bar. Of the latter it is sufficient to say that he made a great reputation and greater fortune as parliamen tary counsel, when railroad companies were striving for profitable charters, and paying enormous retainers to the barristers who had influence in the lobby and committee room. In short, he was a successful lawyer of the most practical type, and is remembered now chiefly by the fact that after being an ardent Liberal to the very verge of socialism all his life, he exhausted his ingenuity in framing a will by which his property should be strictly entailed to the farthest limit allowed by English law. John Austin, the elder of the two, was born in 1790. He appears to have lacked all the practical qualities of his brother. He did not like the army, and sold his commission after five years' service. Then he studied law, and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-eight in 18 18, but gave up practice in 1825. Under all the delicate phrases with which his biographers have veiled the truth, it appears plainly enough that his fail ure was almost as conspicuous as his broth er's success. A part of this is attributed to ill health, still more to a fastidious temper and morbid self-consciousness, which all his life prevented him from dealing effectively with his fellow-men. He had acute and
subtle intellect, with much logical power, hut lacked perseverance. He does not seem ever to have been a close student. When one reads his lectures carefully, after the first glow of admiration has passed away, one cannot help feeling that they betray a sur prising want of acquaintance with the learn ing of his chosen profession. Of course, we do not expect in them the technical treasures of a Coke, or a Comyn, or even the mastery of detail shown by writers like Blackstone or Woodeson. But there are many passages in his work which reveal, as well by what he does not say as by what he does, the fact that he never took the pains thoroughly to master the system which he afterward criti cised so severely, and so effectively. He probably would have been a much better lawyer if he had been less interested in many problems of social science and human life which had only an indirect bearing upon the trial of causes. He loved to speculate upon these, and above all to talk about them. There is a lively letter from Mrs. Grote to Mrs. Senior, in the Life of George Grote, where she says : " Don't you know what is the matter with John Austin? He has been languishing for the want of a listener. . . . It is the indispensable condition of his exist ence; talk, and monological talk." In this connection the very keen analysis of his character given in the Autobiography of John Stuart Mill is worth quoting : — "Mr. Austin was the eldest son of a retired miller in Suffolk who had made money by con tracts during the war. He was for some time in the army, and served in Sicily under Lord W. Bentinck. After the peace he sold his commis sion and studied for the bar. He was a man of great intellectual powers, which in conversation appeared at their very best,' from the vigor and richness of expression with which under the excitement of discussion he was accustomed to maintain some view or other of most general subjects, and from an appearance of not only strong but deliberate and collected will, mixed with a certain bitterness, partly derived from temperament, and partly from the general cast
