LIVES OF SERJEANTS-AT-LAW.*

Lima of Eminent Sefieants-al-Law of the English Bar. By Humpbry William Woolryeh, Serjeant-at-Law. 2 vols. London: W. H. Allen and Co. 1869.

THE general test of legal eminence, except in the case of those

who are cut off prematurely', is the attainment of judicial honours. It may be thought a bold experiment on the part of Mr. Serjeant Woolrych to confine his Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-Law to such as were not raised to the Bench. The chief advantage of

such an arrangement is that it introduces us to a great many names with which we were not acquainted, and the novelty of much of the present book is its great recommendation. Few, indeed, have even heard of such eminent Serjeants as Nicholas Barham, Edward Leeds, Tristram Conyers, and several others of the fifty-eight to whom these volumes are devoted. Lawyers may find certain names that are familiar to them from the old reports, and may be curious to know something about the men who argued knotty points for the benefit of future judges rather than for that of the actual clients. But here we come upon another of Serjeant Wool-

rych's characteristics. In a great many cases he has written the lives of serjeants merely for the purpose of showing that there was nothing in their lives worth mention. At least half of his subjects are unknown for want of anything by which they could be known, and the present attempt to resuscitate them proves conclusively that they deserved to slumber. Mr. Serjeant Woolrych's claims to be the rates sacer of such men must not be underrated. His

style is well adapted for conveying the smallest amount of matter in the greatest number of words. The skill with which he trans- plants a serjeant of the sixteenth century into the nineteenth by calling Plowden " the Follett of our day ;" the delicious ambiguity that speaks of Lord Eldon as " Mr. Scott, afterwards Lord Chan- cellor ;" the artful management of parts of speech shown in such a phrase as " upon these I attach considerable value ;" the still more graceful antithesis apparent in the sentence, " he is reputed

to have been a man of great talent, but he died in 1577, on his circuit," stand out most prominently from the mass of trivial facts, dates, and names with which the volumes are overloaded. But dreariness is the rule with Serjeant Woolrych, and though he has written the lives of some men of distinction, has collected some facts of interest, and retold a good many anecdotes, his book is

spun out to an inordinate length, and the bulk of it is tedious.

If we may trust that epigram on the Serjeants, which might have been inserted in this work, a propos of the robes they wear, this feature of their biographer is appropriate. " There is the scarlet gown for State occasions," says Serjeant Woolrych ; " the purple for saints' days and holidays ; the silk gown for levees, drawing-rooms, and the sittings at Nisi Prius ; and (except on

saints' days and holidays) a violet gown to be worn in Court during term time." It was to the saints' day dress therefore that the epigrammatist alluded when he said of the Serjeants :—

" Their purple garments come from Tyre, Their arguments go to it."

Serjeant Buzfuz; to whom we grieve to say there is no allusion in the present book, was evidently a master of this art. So, too, was the hero of Swift's lines :-

" Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth,

Though half-a-crown o'erpaya his sweat's-worth, Who knows in law no text nor margent, Calls Singleton his brother Serjeant"

We have, it is true, one very fine instance in the life of Sir Samuel Prime, who was nearly being the cause of a mishap such as befell Eutychus during St. Paul's sermon, and who certainly fell short of the apostle in the power of restoring life, however apt he may have been in taking it away :—

" Sir Samuel is-represented as a good-natured, but rather dull man as an advocate, wearisome beyond comparison. He had to argue an ejectment case on the circuit. The case excited great interest. The Court was full, and the day very hot. Nevertheless, he spoke for three hours. Early in the cause, a boy managed to clamber to the roof of the Court, and seated himself on a transverse beam, over the heads of the spectators. Overcome by the heat and the Serjeant's monotonous tones, he fell fast asleep, and losing his balance, came tumbling down upon the people below. He escaped with a few bruises ; but several persons in Court were severely hurt. 'For this offence the Serjeant was tried at the Circuit Table, found guilty, and sentenced to pay three dozen of

wine towards the mess, which he did with the greatest possible good- humour.' "

How many dozen of wine Serjeant Woolrych ought to be fined for the length of his book is hardly a question for a reviewer. We should be inclined to fix the amount at a dozen for every life which could have been spared. Thus we should certainly have a dozen for the life of Nicholas Barham, the facts of which are that he was descended from certain Lords of Feston, was made a Serjeaut in 1567 and a King's Serjeant in 1573, went the Oxford Circuit and was engaged in important State prosecutions, was Recorder of Maidstone and M.P. for that town, bought a manor in Kent and left a son who sold it, bore arms, made a will and mentioned in it a piece of silver plate given hint by the Earl of Leicester. What is there in this to distinguish the man from a tribe of other barristers? But we do not know if a heavier fine ought not to be inflicted on Serjeaut Woolrych for his loose and unmethodical manner of telling stories that apparently have some meaning in them, and of chronicling events which have an historical value.

The life of Wilkins, who is the last of the serjeants mentioned iu these volumes, and who is near enough to our own times to find many friends with faithful memories that might supply a complete record, is spoilt by the pointless narration of all the anecdotes. When Serjeaut Woolrych copies out a story from Lord Eldon's note-book, there is, of course, no danger of the point being sacri- ficed. But in other cases, either the Serjeant's memory is faithless, or he does not see what is the essence of a repartee. Take the following, for instance :—

" On one of his Circuits, a memorable repartee of the Serjeant is recorded. Not long before this event, a very destructive fire originated in the Temple. Wilkins was defonding a prisoner. Drink,' said he, has upon some persons an elevating, upon others a depressing, effect. Indeed, there is a report, as we all know, that an eminent Judge, when at the Bar, was obliged to resort to heavy wet in a morning to reduce himself to the level of the Judges.' Lord Denman, who had no love to Wilkins, crested up instantly. His voice trembled with indignation as he uttered the words : 'Where is the report, Sir ? where is it ?' There was a death-like silence. Wilkins calmly turned round to the judge and said : 'It was burnt, my Lord, in the Temple fire.' The effect may be better understood than described, and it was a long time before order could be restored, but Lord Denman was one of the first to acknowledge the wit of the answer."

Many of the Serjeant's readers will envy Lord Denman's acute- ness. At the first blush, it seems difficult to detect any peculiar readiness in the remark that a report which never existed was burnt in a given fire. But there is something in the story which Serjeaut Woolrych has forgotten, and it is that which makes it memorable. The fire in the Temple was kindled by the very man to whom the saying was attributed. It is well known that the late Mr. Justice Maule set fire to Paper Buildings, although the way in which the fire originated is not always mentioned in polite society. Whether, to make the story perfect, Mr. Justice Maule ought not to have been substituted for Lord Denman may be left to those who supplement their memories by love of dramatic effect and inventive genius. Serjeant Woolrych may be right as to the persons, and we do not question his accuracy, but he is lamentably deficient in spirit.

One thing which particularly strikes us as to the stories quoted from Lord Eldon's note-book is the tendency of legal sayings either to repeat themselves or to be revived periodically. Serjeant Woolrych says in his preface that different relations of the same tale afford a confirmation of its truth. " Thucydides observes," he adds, and we quote the remark for the sake of Thucydides, though we do not see its bearing, " that if six persons are wit- nesses of the same event, each will be apt to propound his own version of it. A story is sometimes attributed to the wrong person, but still the facts are the same." We confess, however, that the constant recurrence of similar stories about the leading barristers of every age has a suspicious look, and when it is clear that they are inventions in one case, there may be some ground for supposing that they are equally so in another. We find, for instance, that Lord Mansfield is said to have scandalized the public by sitting on Ash Wednesday, and to have even proposed to sit on Good Friday, till he was reminded by Serjeant Davy that he would be the first judge who had sat on that day since Pontius Pilate. Very much the same story is told of Lord Brougham. We don't know whether Serjeant Woolrych would say that both of these stories are true, or that only one is true ; but if only one is to be accepted, which is to have the preference? Again, both Maynard and Saunders were noted for citing cases which were not to be found in any reports.

" It is singular," says Serjeant Woolrych, "that as Hale watched Saunders with an entire want of confidence, so did Lord Chief Justice North regard Maynard with a due amount of vigilance. Pemberton is said to have ruled a point according to a case cited by the Serjeant. This case could not be found. " Brother May- nard might as well have tossed his cap into the air, or laughed in my face, said Chief Justice North." There can be no diffi- culty in finding a living parallel. Once more, we have a story of Serjeant Davy defending some conspirators at the instance of the Judges. " I have the honour," he began, " of attending your Lordships as counsel for the prisoners ; and I must own that I could not have been prevailed upon to have been counsel for such a set of rogues, had I not been appointed by your Lordships." This rather recalls the story of a barrister of the present day, who was retained for the defence in a very filthy case, and who ended his speech by telling the jury that they could not conceive how he loathed and abhorred the brute whom he was compelled to serve. There seems no doubt this last story is true, as we have heard it told by those who were present, and who, in defiance of the Thucy- didean maxim, agreed in their version of the sentence. But does this add to the probability of the earlier story ? We should say each ought to stand alone. It is recorded of the same Serjeant Davy that he was defending a man at the Old Bailey, and a very strong case having been made out by the prosecution, the judge asked who was concerned for the prisoner. "I am concerned for him, my Lord," answered Davy, " and very much concerned, after what I have heard." This, too, may seem more or less in keeping with the other attempt to dissociate himself from all fellowship with his clients. Yet we must say that Serjeant Davy is made too much of a peg for all the legal stories that have been fathered on generations of lawyers. He is not only set down as the author of the reply to the client who had given him a very large brief with a very small fee upon it, and who then asked if the brief had been read. Pointing to the fee, Davy said, " as far as that I have read, and for the life of me I can read no farther." But he is also said to have been accused of unprofessional conduct in taking less than a guinea, and to have defended himself by saying, "I took silver because I could not get gold, but I took every farthing the fellow had in the world, and I hope you don't call that disgracing the profession !" We do not say that the two stories may not be properly told of the same man, although an objection to a small fee is not removed by the fact that the client has nothing to give. Sir Mulberry Hawk's principle of cutting his friends when they had not a shilling left would be better suited to the circumstances. The saying is admirable as an embodiment of the common opinion that lawyers are grasping and avaricious, but the probabilities are strongly against its having been uttered. The inventor, no doubt, looked round for some one on whom it could be fathered, and finding that many stories were told of Serjeant Davy, added one to the number. Serjeant Woolrych's acquiescence is not surprising.