_August 18th._--The day before yesterday the Judicial Committee gave judgement in the great case of James Wood's Will, reversing the whole of Sir Herbert Jenner's judgement both as to the will and the codicil. The surprise was great and general, for everybody expected that the judgement would have been affirmed, and this impression was the stronger, because they had had so little discussion and so few meetings on the matter. They seem to have made up their minds as the cause went on, and they kept the secret so well, that nobody had the least notion what their decision would be, everybody guessing at it from their own opinions, or the circumstance I have alluded to. Brougham was there,[7] and arrived long before the appointed hour. He told me that Lyndhurst would deliver the judgement, and, he concluded, would affirm. Soon after Lyndhurst arrived, when he took Brougham aside, and told him what they were going to do. I never saw a man so pleased. He came up to me and, giving me a great poke in the side, whispered: 'See how people may be deceived; they are going to reverse the whole judgement.' Lord Lyndhurst read the judgement, the delivery of it lasting about an hour. It was, I think, very superficial, and when he reversed so elaborate a judgement as Jenner's, it was due to the character of the Judge below, as well as to the importance of the cause, to go into much greater detail, and to reason the case more, and reply to those legal grounds on which Jenner's judgement was grounded. On these they did not touch at all. Having satisfied their minds that the documents were authentic, and that it was the intention of the testator that the four executors should have his money, they decided accordingly, stepping over the technical objection which arose upon the disjunction of the papers A and B, and discarding from their minds, as they were right in doing, all consideration of the misconduct of the parties interested. But it struck me as very extraordinary that they should not have expressed a stronger opinion on that point, and that they should have allowed Alderman Wood to take his 200,000_l._, and Philpotts his 40, or 50,000, without one word of animadversion upon their behaviour. The Chancellor had said on the Saturday preceding that he thought the judgement would be reversed. [Footnote 7: [Lord Brougham had not heard the appeal, nor did Dr. Lushington sit on it, on account of their supposed intimacy with Alderman Wood, who was one of the principal legatees.]]