BOOKS.

HARDY'S MEMOIRS OF LORD LANGDALE.*

To the world at large, that can know nothing of private circum- stances, the advancement of Lord Langdale seemed a remarkable

example of fortune and the fashion of Benthamism. Bickersteth

was not known in literature ; he was not remarkable as an advo- cate; he was a sound and good lawyer, but not preeminent like Sugden or Eldon ; he was not a leading politician ; not a Parliament or even a party man. Yet he jumped per saltum into the most de- sirable judgeship the Crown had to give, without exciting much remark in the public, though that section of it which ranked as his friends raised vague hopes of his eminence as a law-reformer, that were never fulfilled.

The immediate causes of the rise and progress of Henry Bick- ersteth are well, though undesignedly, unfolded in these memoirs.

They may be resolved into the respectability of his family and the self-sacrifices of his father, good luck in his connexions, a faculty for labour, and the absence of self-seeking. His father was a me- dical practitioner in Kirkby Lonsdale ; where the future Lord Lang-

dale was born, in 1783. He was intended for his fatker's profes- sion; and after serving some time as his apprentice, -he went to

London to study, with the assistance of Dr. Batty, his uncle, in the then famous Windmill Street school. He subsequently pro- ceeded to Edinburgh to finish his medical education; and his fa- ther afterwards strained his means to send him to Cambridge with a view to a medical degree, without which the highest formal rank as a physician was then unattainable. Medical practice, never much liked, had got distasteful to him. As a matter of duty, he pursued it, but relieved it by more general studies ; apply- ing to such an extent as to injure his health. About this time, (the early part of 1803,) the Earl of Oxford, then in Italy, applied to Dr. Batty to recommend to him a travel- ling medical attendant; and the Doctor named his nephew, who was only in his twentieth year. Young Bickersteth set out for Italy ; attended the noble invalid till his return to England ; and by means of his medical skill, his general abilities, a grave de- meanour, and courteous manners, gave great satisfaction to the Earl, who subsequently became his father-in-law.

Had he thought fit to pursue the medical profession, a favour- able prospect was before him ; but the practice of physic grew more and more distasteful. With the grudging consent of his

father, he resolved to abandon it, and at first inclined to the army ; for although his politics were liberal, his foreign experience had opened his eyes to the nature of Napoleon's doings, and he

considered it to be the duty et every man in the country to be pre- pared to take up arms. The Oxford interest, however, could only

procure an ensigncy ; future promotion would have to be purchased, for which he had not the means ; so the bar was finally decided on. He continued at Cambridge ; eking out a junior fellowship with such allowance as his father could make him. His final resolution was taken in the autumn of 1805, and he set to work in earnest and systematically. In his first residence he had neglected ma- thematics; he now applied so vigorously to their study, that in January 1808 he became Senior Wrangler, against competitors like Sedgwick, the present Bishop of London, and (in mathe- thematics perhaps more eminent than either) Miles Bland. Soon afterwards he entered the Inner Temple ; in 1810 became a pupil to the celebrated John Bell, and in 1811 was called to the bar.

At the outset he had a severe struggle. His fellowship yielded little ; his chambers were comparatively expensive ; he had to live,

and keep up appearances. It does not seem that the Oxford con- nexion was of much use to him; the then unprofitable polities of the Burdetts, to whom he had been introduced through the Ox- fords, did him damage ; Bentham, Mill, and others, had no means of assisting him ; while to some people their politics were worse than Burdett's. The following is from a letter to his "dearest pa- rents," who seem to have been fearful that all the expense of his education would be thrown away.

"For my own part, I should not be uneasy if it was not for your anxiety and the present heavy expense of living and buying very dear books, so

many of which are indispensable. You are aware that none but easy mat-

ters can or ought to be intrusted to a beginner at the bar, as the least mis- take may materially injure the whole progress of the cause; and conse- quently, while men of long experience are always to be had, attorniea can-

not, in fairness to their clients, procure any but the best advice and assist- ance. Add to this, that they are almost always in the habit of employing particular men, with whom they form a sort of connexion, from which they are reluctant to depart, and it will not seem wonderful that business does not come at once. I have taken a great deal of pains to inquire how men of great practice at first got on, and I find that it has almost invariably been by very slow degrees; at first being only employed when easy business hap- pened to occur, and when men more advanced were either out of the way, or so much otherwise employed, that they could not use the despatch which in particular cases happened to be necessary. On thus finding that many men who are now making great fortunes were sometimes for two or three years without getting any business, and sometimes for eight or ten years hardly

able to maintain themselves, I see no reason for being anxious but the pre- sent difficulties to which I have alluded. On every other hand I am more

comfortable than I have been; being very much more reconciled to my busi-

ness, to which I now devote my whole attention, and for which I have re- linquished every other pursuit. My whole time will be passed either in

chambers or in court ; and if being always in the way and always attentive to my business will give success, I shall be successful, as soon as favourable circumstances concur to give me employment. When that may be, I am

afraid does not depend on myself, but on the friendly disposition of others. I should be very glad indeed of some employment, but I confess that if a great deal were to come to me all at once I should be afraid to undertake it;; • Memoirs of the Right Honourable Henry Lord Langdale. By Thomas Duffus Hardy. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.

and if it were not on account of having money in hand, I would rather not have it, because I am convinced that by beginning slowly I shall have a better chance of doing more in the end, after the example of many men who are now very eminent in the profession.

"I have said all this in the hope of persuading you that in time I shall succeed, and of preventing your being uneasy at the time which is requisite. But, in the mean time, I cannot express how uneasy I always sin at the thoughts of having been, and continuing to be, so heavy a burden to you ; but, indeed, I hardly know how it could have been otherwise. In clothes and living I have been as economical as I could, consistently with keeping up a decent appearance. My chambers are certainly expensive ; but to have worse, or in a worse situation, would hardly be advantageous to me on many accounts. The buying of books harasses me most, and must continue to do so, till I have a better stock ; and they are so very expensive, that a law- book generally costs twice as much as any other of the same size. I have, at different times, paid nearly 2001. for three or four shelves full, (which I could not have done without selling several other books for which I had not immediate use,) and still I am in want of some which are essential ; the Statutes at large, for instance, which at this time cannot be bought for less than 501., and others, though not of equal importance, yet very necessary.; for a lawyer's library is like a tradesman's stock in trade, without which his business cannot be carried on."

Connected with this period of struggle is a letter from Sir Francis Burdett, highly creditable to the memory of a man who in his latter days was exposed to much public obloquy. "Dear Bickersteth—So you have been promising and vowing strange things in my name. I was very sorry not to be able to attend the dinner ; but if I had been well it would have been the same, for I must have been in the House. I have five hundred times been upon the point of speaking to you upon a subject I very much wished to do, but have been fearful of of- fending you ; yet I know not why, since you are sure to take a thing as it is intended. Without any more preface, I am very desirous, if I could tell how, to serve you; and after revolving a variety of things, this has occurred to me. I know that it is often of the greatest importance to a man in the commencement of any career to have the command, in cases of emergency, of a sum of money : don't be alarmed. Now, if you would allow me to be your banker to a certain extent, say five hundred pounds, the whole of which, or any part, you might draw for whenever occasion made it desirable, and replace it at your own convenience I have thought this might, in the begin- ning of an arduous profession, be of great service to you and no detriment whatever to me ; and therefore I have flattered myself that the offer, proceed- ing as it does from a just esteem of your character, would not be by you re- jected: if it should not, as I have set my heart upon it it will not, pray write two words—and mind, two words only, or rather three—I accept it— and never further mention made of it between us. Now the murder is out; I hope I have not done wrong. I am, however, confident you will take it as intended.

"And believe me, with great esteem, yours very sincerely,

"F. Burr. " 26th, 1813."

The result of the offer does not appear; but in time Bicker- steth's assiduous attention was rewarded, and business began to drop in. It was checked in 1818, by the zeal with which he acted as a committee-man for Sir Francis Burdett, in the celebrated elec- tion when Romilly headed the poll, and it was only by throwing Kinnaird overboard that Sir Francis saved his seat from the Tory Maxwell. Time and attention soon retrieved the loss ; and when he practised generally in all the courts Mr. Biekersteth's income rose to 60001. a year. When he determined to confine himself to the Rolls Court, in order that his clients should not suffer from his absence, he lost two thousand a year by his unprofessional scruples. The first promotion of Bickersteth was by Lord Lyndhurst, from whom he received a silk gown when Sir John Copley became Chan- cellor in Canning's Ministry. Lyndhurst also requested Bicker- steth's ideas of Chancery Reform; which subject., from Lyndhurst's want of practice in Equity, was new to the Chancellor. On the accession of the Reform Ministry in 1830, the politics of Bickersteth were no longer a bar, and his friends rather a popular recommendation. He was known as a law reformer to a limited number of politicians. The Benthamites praised him—if their praise be measured by what he had done, perhaps puffed him ; but at first the Whigs did not want new men or additional candidates for loaves and fishes. As difficulties began to thicken around them, they became anxious for names at all events, to help them, and in the autumn of 1834 Lord Brougham took upon himself to offer the Solicitor-Generalship to Bickersteth. This Bickersteth declined ; and when the Premier proposed it he still declined. This refusal rather raised him in popular estimation: he made such an impression on Melbourne,—who, it turns out, was conscientiousl anxious for Chancery Re rm,—that it was he who appoints Bickersteth to the Rolls, with a permitted independence of action distasteful to the . The length of time that the seals were kept in commission, r Peel's expulsion from office in

1835, seems to have been owing in part to Melbourne's zeal on the subject. He wished to have Bickersteth for Chancellor ; for he disliked the phlegm and pomposity of the man Pepys, (Lord Cot- tenham,) and distrusted him (too truly) as a law reformer. The party claims of Campbell, then Attorney-General, and of the Mas- ter of the Rolls, Pepys, were too strong for the Premier. All he could manage was to pacify "plain John," who waled his claim ifir

to the Rolls ; whither Bic steth went, and Pepys ascended the woolsack. Even this was t managed without difficulty.

" 'Downing Street, Jan. 11, 1886. "'My dear Sir—We should lament Campbell's resignation, and consider it a g.reat loss ; but we cannot now draw back ; we are therefore determined, at all hazards, to proceed with our arrangement, and if you are ready to undertake the Rolls, we are ready to give it, upon the understanding which you so clearly expressed to me this morning. We can hardly dispense with your assistance in the House of Lords, but you must not consider yourself bound to give support politically. " 'Yours faithfully, Max mov " 'H. Bloke/stab, Esq. ' "To this Mr. Bickersteth sent this answer. " '12th January 1836. "'My dear Lord—I beg leave to thank you most sincerely for the early information which you have been kind enough to give me.

"If the peerage can be dispensed with, or even postponed, I shall feel great additional gratitude ; but if required, and notwithstanding the re- luctance and misgiving which I cannot satisfactorily overcome, I consent to accept it on the terms of perfect political independence which your Lord- ship so liberally (and if I may presume to say it) so properly sanctions and approves.

" ' I now await your orders ; only wishing to add, that if the arrangement is settled I ought without any delay to relieve myself from professional engage- ments, which cannot be continued without future inconvenience, and that I can take no steps for that purpose till I am released from the obligation of secrecy by which I consider myself bound. I remain, my dear Lord, your faithful and obliged servant, H. BICKERSTETH. 6' • 6 Craven Hill, Bayswater.' "'Lord Melbourne immediately replied, "'South Street, Jan. 12th 1836.

"'My dear Sir—I mean today to make one more attempt with the Attor- ney-General; and then, whether it succeeds or fails, the arrangement must be declared.

"'Yours faithfully, Min.nouarts. "'H. Biekersteth, Esq.' " 'the above was followed by the following the next day.

" Downing Street, Jan. 13th 1836.

" 'My dear Sir—All is settled. Sir John Campbell will remain. For the sake of public impression, and for the sake of legal reform, we cannot let you oil' the House of Lords ; so you have nothing to do but to settle your title.

" Yours faithfully, MELBOURNE.

• " Henry Biekersteth, Esq.'" How the hopes of legal reform were disappointed need not be told. Part of this was owing to Cottenham's bigoted obstructive- ness; part to the indifference of the Whigs—perhaps to their incapacity ; a good deal to the inherent difficulties of the subject. Something, however, must be ascribed to Lord Langdale himself. He had from nature a faculty of analysis ; he had acquired great logical skill ; he had a liking for labour, as well as the habit of work ; and he could be fully trusted to master any subject sub- mitted to him : but he was deficient in the large comprehension, that, disregarding the forms and technicalities of a subject, seizes upon the essential principles ; he wanted force of mind to stimu- late the sluggish and overbear the interested ; perhaps he had too fastidious a taste for those who must make their way through the dirty ways of the world. On the smaller subject of Record Re- form he was pertinacious and successful : but that question was ready to his hand, and the only subject there to overcome was offi- cial inertia. No mean task, however, as Mr. Hardy's history of the matter shows.

These volumes may in some sense be regarded as authorized : Mr. Hardy has not only had access to all the family papers, but he has received assistance from friends and from the family. This has rather induced him to overload the earlier parts of the life with particulars too full and minute, as in a later stage he deals too much in such accessible matters as Lord Langdale's speeches in the House of Lords. The advantages possessed by Mr. Hardy have produced the materials at least of a good biography. The early letters of Bickersteth to his friend Dr. Henderson show great maturity of mind, depth of reflection, and power of analysis. The fact of his acquisition of Italian in three weeks and of German in six weeks during his Continental tour with the Oxford family, ex- hibits great aptitude and application ; as his mastery of mathe- matics and of law when youth was over, and the voluntary labours he underwent in analyzing cases, display a very remarkable power of sustained labour. By his own reminiscences and those of others Mr. Hardy brings up his subject well before the reader. In pri- vate life, Lord Langdale was excellent and amiable, of unsullied conduct and general kindness ; as a public man, he was possessed of lofty principles and unbending purpose ; but both in public and private he was so scrupulous to be technically correct, that he was sometimes guilty of substantial injustice while looking after forms. He was courteous after the fashion of the old school, with the genteel notions of the gentleman of the bar superadded to the po- liteness of the family physician. Mackintosh discovered the bent of his genius when he wished to be professor in a university. Biekersteth's native bias took the same direction, though he never perceived it himself. His letters to Henderson, written in his teens and soon after, show that he should have begun where Sir James Stephen has ended. The following speculation on the effect of arts and sciences, and the cultivation of the intellect in tending to diminish the perfection of the whole man, is curious in a youth of two-and-twenty nearly fifty years ago, and long before the " march of mechanics" had developed the effemi- nating effects of a high civilization. This extract is from letters of 1805.

"Let me revert to a subject which I think I mentioned in my last, viz. the necessity there is to avoid a confusion between the progress of arts and sciences, and the progress of mankind towards perfection. If all our ad- vancement depended upon our abstract speculations, the exercise of our in- genuity, or the saving of labour of our hands, I would then allow that the advancement of knowledge, or, in other words, a predominant excitability of the nervous system, and human improvement were synonymous terms. But as the course of nature is fixed and independent of our speculations, as inge- nuity is but one property of our complicated system; and all our principles of action depend upon excitements stirred up in all the several parts of our frame, it appears to me more natural that an exclusive exercise of any of our faculties ought to be considered a diminution of the perfection of our nature. Not that I would quarrel with any individual who employs himself almost exclusively in whatever pursuit he may think contributes most to his hap- piness but if it should so happen, that in a whole nation the greater num- ber of individuals should incline one way, it then seems reasonable to con- clude, that although such a nation may for a time waver on the brink, it will at length be precipitated into the gulf of destruction. "Now, the natural indolence of mankind leads them, after the spurs of necessity and ambition are gone by, to sink into an exclusive love of the sciences and the fine arts. Love of -gain begins to 'predominate over the love of glory and honour ; and thus, it is but too true, has perdition overwhelmed the greatest empires of the earth. "And, again, when one considers that in the present times honour is held Iup to ridicule as a bubble, and poetry is far on the decline,—a proof that ima- gination holds not a proper rank among us • that almost all calculations con- cern profit and loss,—a proof that but one part of the judgment is in esteem ; and, above all, when one reflects that all noble and manly and vigorous ex- ercises have fallen into contempt and disuse,—a proof that the muscular sys- tewhas lost its excitability—I say, when it is considered that these circum- stances are ascribable to the inordinate love of commerce, of arts, and of sci- ences, which prevails, it is not so wonderful one should be led to imagine that the manner in which they are now studied, or cultivated, or practised, has a tendency to promote employments hostile to our improvement.' (My last letter.) " Lord Langdale cannot be said to have died young, for he was approaching the threescore years and ten ; if life be measured by its labour rather than its years, his pertinacious habits of work or study made him much older. It has been considered that he continued too long on the bench for his health : but this may be doubted. He probably would have lived a little longer had he remained longer in office. He had remarked that a few days of leisure seemed to flatten him ; and from the rapidity, with which death followed retirement, it is probable that the last attack of paralysis arose from the withdrawal of a customary stimulant.