by a court of ‘Six Doctors,’ he expressed a decided opinion that the action of the vice-chancellor was illegal. Academic dignities were freely bestowed on him as his career advanced. He was created D.C.L. and an honorary fellow of Magdalen in 1862, and honorary student of Christ Church in 1867. From 1861 to 1863 he was counsel to the university and deputy steward, and on the death of Lord Carnarvon in 1891 he was appointed high steward.
To the practice of the law Palmer brought a mind as keen and subtle as that of one of the great mediæval schoolmen, a rare power of easy and persuasive speech, a learning and knowledge of affairs equally wide, profound, and exact, the abstemiousness of an ascetic, a vigorous constitution, untiring energy, and a high and chivalrous sense of the duty of the advocate. Though the equity bar was never stronger than in his day—among his many rivals were Richard Bethell (afterwards Lord Westbury) [q. v.] and Hugh McCalmont (afterwards Earl) Cairns [q. v.] —he rose rapidly in his profession, soon made a large income, and took silk in Hilary vacation 1849.
According to Lord Westbury, Palmer's only defect as an equity pleader was a habit of pursuing a fine train of reasoning on a matter collateral to his main argument, a defect resulting from that subtlety of mind with which nature had superabundantly endowed him, and which, kept under due control, makes the consummate lawyer. This subtlety, united with vast learning, comprehensiveness of view, and the inexhaustible patience which he applied to the mastery of the most intricate complications of law and fact, gave to his opinions while counsel something of the weight of judicial decisions. In court his rare gift of luminous exposition and the singular persuasiveness of his manner lent to his arguments an air of irrefragableness which during the zenith of his powers caused him to be regarded by clients as all but indispensable. His style was severely simple, and was rarely relieved by action. He seldom fixed his eyes on the judge, but seemed rather to be talking to himself, yet all the while he was perfectly alive to the impression he was producing both on the bench and within the bar, and knew as if by instinct when to develop a point which had told, and how to glide stealthily over a weak place in his argument. His memory was prodigious, so that he rarely needed to refer to his brief, and was able to meet unforeseen emergencies by prompt references to cases in point.
Before becoming a law officer of the crown Palmer had little or no experience of common-law practice, and he never found it possible to acquire the needful dexterity in cross-examination, and the peculiar tact indispensable for addressing juries. Finding the work extremely irksome, he protected himself as far as possible from retainer in such cases by charging unusually heavy fees. When retained, however, he spared no pains to fit himself for the discharge of his duty.
While his reputation at the bar was steadily rising, Palmer was returned to parliament in the Peelite interest for Plymouth at the general election of July 1847. Like most equity lawyers, he did not show to great advantage on the floor of the House of Commons; but his speeches, if rarely impassioned, were always lucid and weighty, and an extremely pure accent and melodious enunciation went far to compensate for a somewhat monotonous delivery. His maiden speech, on the government of New Zealand bill (13 Dec. 1847), was a warm eulogium on the bishop of New Zealand (G. A. Selwyn), whose recent political action had elicited much adverse comment, both in the colony and at home.
Though nominally a conservative, Palmer was in truth an independent, and lent an earnest support to the movement for the emancipation of the Jews (Hansard, 3rd ser. xcviii. 642). In regard, however, to all that concerned the church of England, and the traditional methods of higher culture, his conservatism was intense, and led him to oppose, in 1850, the government plan for a commission of inquiry into the state of the universities. His opposition to the ecclesiastical titles bill, introduced in consequence of the ‘No Popery’ hubbub raised on occasion of the so-called papal aggression, brought him into collision with the dominant feeling of the country; and at the election of July 1852 he lost his seat, but his rival, Charles John Mare, was unseated on petition, and Palmer was returned in his stead on 2 June 1853. To the Oxford University bill of 1854 he gave a qualified support, and was indefatigable in amending it in committee. In the great pitched battle of February–March 1857, on Palmerston's Chinese policy, he fought under Cobden's standard, and led, in a speech of great power, the final assault on the government. Defeated at the subsequent general election, he did not re-enter parliament until he succeeded Sir William Atherton as solicitor-general in Lord Palmerston's ministry on 28 June 1861. He was then returned for Richmond, Yorkshire, which seat he retained until his elevation to the peerage. On 5 Aug. 1861 he was knighted. On 2 Oct. 1863 he
