Lord Penzance has acted wisely in declining to read the
Lord Chief Justice's irritating letter to him on the question at issue between the Court of Arches and the Court of Queen's Bench ; but perhaps he would have done better if, in communicating this intention to the Lord Chief Justice, he could have persuaded himself to admit that in the judgment which provoked that letter, he did take more pains to run needles into the Lord Chief Justice than was either wise or courteous. "1 cannot charge myself," be says, "with having given just cause for personal recriminations." What may be the limits of a " just " cause for recrimination is a matter for a somewhat delicate moral discrimination to deter- mine. But no doubt, whether he did give just cause or not, he gave quite enough grounds for reasonable men to expect that the Lord Chief Justice would be irritated, and would feel that he had been sneered at. Still, Lord Penzance has restrained himself better than the Lord Chief Justice, and has contrived, though the first offender, to remain in some sense master of the field, lie measured his language, and his opportunities for attack. The Lord Chief Justice has failed to measure his, in the attempt to make reprisals. But the cooler temper, though it has great ad- vantages in life, is not always the more generous.
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