The English Bench and Bar of To-day.
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THE ENGLISH BENCH AND BAR OF TO-DAY. I. LORD COLERIDGE. JOHN DUKE BARON COLERIDGE, J the Lord Chief-Justice of England, is himself the most interesting figure in his own biography. Some of the old English judges appeal to our consideration solely on the ground of the part, often uncon scious and involuntary, which they took in the development of the national or judicial life of England. Others, like Stowell and Jessel, command our sympathies by the im portant work which they have done. Yet a third class touch us on the human side by the record which they have to show of cruel fortune and hard circumstances overcome. Of such were Erskine and Thurlow. But to none of these three classes does Lord Coleridge belong. He has not been the passive instrument in any legal revolution, for the fusion of the courts of law 17
and equity has produced merely a symmet rical and not a radical change. He has added nothing of permanent value to the law reports; much less is his name associ ated with the creation or rapid development of any branch of law. Nor did Lord Cole ridge — the grand-nephew of the poet and philosopher, and himself the son of a distin guished judge — ever come into intimate per sonal contact with the seamy side of life at the bar, or know what it was to make up by intense effort for the want of money and friends. The external facts in his career are therefore of little interest, and shall here be lightly touched upon. The life of Lord Coleridge deserves study, not on account of anything he has accomplished, but as an example of what may be accomplished in a man. He is the personification of culture;
