Sir James Bacon, "the last of the Vice-Chancellors," retired on
Wednesday, at the great age of eighty-eight, but none the less in full possession of his judicial faculties, as his admirable speech in replying to Sir R. Webster's graceful address suffi- ciently shows. Sir R. Webster had remarked that the retiring Vice-Chancellor had never shown himself jealous of change, but had assisted his younger colleagues heartily in carrying out the many changes of recent years ; and the Vice-Chancellor, in reply, testified with the utmost cordiality to the great improvements which the altered system had introduced. He is evidently no laudator temporis acti, and yet he has much to be proud of in his own work,—and this is very apt to incline an ordinary Man who feels that his career is over, to magnify the victories of the past, and to depreciate the victories of the present. "Of your Lordship's judgments," said the Attorney-General, "we feel that they will ever live as models of the English language, and monuments of the great power and grasp which your Lordship
has had over facts,—not surpassed, perhaps, by any of the Judges • who have hitherto filled your Lordship's office." Probably it
takes a man of some original power not to be a panegyrist of the past and a depreciator of the present. Sir James Bacon knew well how the work to be done had grown, and it shows his serenity of mind that he could recognise quite cordially, how the power to do it had grown with the work.
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