Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Perhaps no Lord Chancellor ever presided in Chancery who applied himself
more assiduously and unremittingly to the discharge of the duties which
devolved upon him, than did Lord Brougham. The amount of physical, not
to speak of mental labor, he underwent during the greater part of his
chancellorship was truly astonishing. For many consecutive months did he
sit from ten till four o'clock in that court, hearing and disposing of
the cases before it; and, on returning home from the House of Lords,
after having sat four hours on the woolsack, he immediately applied all
the energies of his mind to the then pending cases before the court. The
best proof of this is to be found in the fact, that, though possessing,
in a degree seldom equaled, and certainly never surpassed, the power of
extemporaneous speaking, he wrote, on particular occasions, his
judgments, and then read them in the court. I might also advert, in
proof of Lord Brougham's extraordinary application to the duties of his
office, to the fact of his having, in two or three years, got rid of the
immense accumulation of arrear cases which were in the Court of Chancery
when he was first intrusted with the great seal. It is not, however,
necessary to allude particularly to this fact, as it is already so well
known.
Lord Brougham's irritable temper often led him, when Lord Chancellor,
into squabbles with the counsel at the bar. The furious attack he made
on Sir Edward Sugden must be fresh in the memory of every body. No
person can justify that attack. It was as unwarrantable in principle as
it was unseemly in a court of law, and especially as coming from the
highest legal authority in the country. It is but due, however, to Lord
Brougham to say, that he often regretted these unbecoming outbreaks of
temper, and that he did so in this particular case. It consists with my
own private knowledge that he afterward, on pretext of speaking on
matters of public business, called Sir Edward one day into his private
room, and made a most ample apology for the attack he had made on him.
Sir Edward was generous enough to accept the apology, thus privately
given, though the offense was a public one.
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