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suit, and won his case against a singularly strong and numerous array of opposing ad vocates. In the following year he was equally successful as counsel for Miss Sugden in the suit that she brought for the pur pose of establishing by secondary evidence the great Lord Chancellor's will. In No vember, 1876, Mr. Justice Blackburn was elevated to the House of Lords, and Mr. Hawkins succeeded him in the Queen's Bench. A few days later he was transferred to the Court of Exchequer. As a matter of course, knighthood followed his promotion. Sir Henry Hawkins is now a Justice of the Queen's Bench Division. He is not a great lawyer, — a facetious counsel. once observed that he always found it an effective argument in opening an appeal case before the Lords Justices to say, " My Lords, this is an

appeal from a judgment of Mr. Justice Hawkins." But Sir Henry Hawkins has a variety of mental gifts which great lawyers do not always possess. He sees through a case at once. He can read the character of a witness almost before a word of his evi dence has been uttered. He keeps his cause list habitually under control. His power of exposition — especially at nisi prias — is now, since the death of Baron Huddleston, unique; and he never either wastes or per mits any officer of his. court to waste a moment of the public time. Sir Henry Hawkins loves the Turf, — he was for many years standing counsel to the Jockey Club, — and he may be seen, after the labors of the day are over, walking in the Park, with a favorite terrier as his companion.

THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS.

William Baliol Brett, Lord Esher, the Master of the Rolls, is the son of the Rev. Joseph George Brett, of Ranelagh, Chelsea. He was called to the Bar of Lin coln's Inn in 1 846. Partly through pow LORD ESHHR. erful family in fluence, but chiefly by his own inherent ability, he rapidly acquired a large practice both in London and on the Northern Circuit. From 1866 to 1868 he sat in the House of Com mons as Conservative M. P. for Helston. In 1868 he was appointed Solicitor-General. Shortly afterwards, he was made a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, where he remained for seven years. In 1876 he

became a Lord Justice of the Court of Ap peal, and in 1883 he succeeded the famous Jessel as Master of the Rolls. When Lord Salisbury first became Prime Minister of England in 1885, it was confidently believed in legal circles that Sir Baliol Brett would be made Chancellor, and he was openly con gratulated in the Middle Temple Hall on his coming promotion. But the coveted prize went to Sir Hardinge Giffard, and the Master of the Rolls was raised to the peerage instead of to the woolsack. Lord Esher's judicial characteristics may be summed up as follows. His mind is singularly detached and independent, and he not unfrequently dissents from the judgment of the majority of the Court of Appeal. American lawyers are no doubt familiar with two recent instances of this, — Thomas v. Quatermaine (18 Q. B. D. 685) and Vagliano i'. The Bank of England (23 Q. B. D. 243). He never allows an argument with which he disagrees to proceed without interruption, but keeps up a running and caustic com mentary on the observations of the counsel supporting it. He abhors prolixity or any