English Judicial Character cast light upon the whole pathway to be traveled in delivering judgment. Ar gument before such a judge could not have been always an unmixed pleasure. Consciousness of knowledge and mental grasp greatly inferior to that of the lis tener must have been far from comforting to many of the counsel who addressed him. At least, we learn that Sugden was not always patient and considerate under such circumstances. But in spite of such faults, which are scarcely insep arable from the possession of a mind so powerful and independent, he must be regarded as among the first of English judges. Deep and accurate learning, an experience such as few lawyers have had, and a remarkable intellect combined to make him a judge who, for soundness and force of decision, has perhaps not been surpassed. The roll is not complete: only a few high points have been touched, and many great names remain — Lord Notting ham, the first to make of English equity a real system; the gifted and scholarly Somers, who so well knew a judge's duty, as exemplified by the simple but noble answer with which, on a noted occasion, he met the argument of hard ship, that a judge "ought not to make the parties' case better than the law has made it"; Lord Kenyon, pictured in no enviable light by Lord Campbell, but whom Lord Campbell himself compels us to respect in describing the courageous and honorable course that he always pursued; Brougham, with mental en dowments rarely surpassed, more ver satile, perhaps, than any of the great men of English history, but too undisciplined and eccentric to attain the essentials of high judicial character; Lord Cottenham, comparatively unknown when made Lord Chancellor, but found to have rare gifts as a judge, and who, be cause of his admirable judicial demeanor
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and the excellence of his judgments, has left the highest reputation; Lord Westbury, the very embodiment of intellec tual power, under whose touch the most abstruse and difficult of legal problems appeared simple and easy of solution, but whose deficiency of moral faculty led him into errors that have inevitably dimmed his great reputation; Lord Campbell himself, the biographer of most of those mentioned here, who was not without some of the faults which he so faithfully recorded of others, but whom to hear in his best moments on the bench was "like listening not only to law living and armed, but to justice itself"; Lord Cairns, of intellectual force not inferior to Lord Westbury's, though of a different order, pronounced by Mr. Benjamin to be the greatest lawyer before whom he ever argued a case, and who to learning and mental power added all the other more serious qualities that make up judicial excel lence; Lord Selborne, celebrated not only as a remarkable judge but as one of the chief benefactors to English law in the judicature act of 1873, for which he was chiefly responsible; and many others,—especially among those who did not reach the foremost places in the judiciary, some of whom, in their less conspicuous posts, exhibited qualities that might well have accompanied the highest judicial honors that England could confer. Blackstone was a puisne judge. Buller, thought by most of his contemporaries the superior of Lord Kenyon and Lord Mansfield's choice for his successor, held a subordinate judgeship until his death. Sir William Grant, a great master of equity, stopped short of the first prize in the Court of Chancery. There are many other in stances. As we look back on them all, some things stand out most prominently. A
