James McMullen Rigg

“ After the publication of an inaugural lecture, 'The Philosophy of Mind : a Corrective for some Errors of the Day,' London, 1867, 8vo, he confined himself to oral teaching. His favourite topic was the Nicomachean Ethics, of which his exposition was acute and stimulating. He lived the life of a scholarly recluse, devoted to the study of Aristotle and his commentators, and is understood to have amassed copious materials for an edition of the master's 'Fragments,' in which he was unhappily forestalled by the German scholar, Valentin Rose. ”

“ At the end of the year the situation in Ireland was thought to demand a statesman of greater weight at the Irish office. Accordingly Lord Hartington was appointed to that post, which Fortescue vacated, at the same time succeeding John Bright [q. v. Suppl.] as president of the board of trade (14 Jan. 1871) . In his new capacity he deserved well of the public by the effective measures which he took to constrain railway directors to be more careful of the lives of their passengers. In general politics he still followed Gladstone unwaveringly, even supporting him on the Irish university question. ”

“ Carlingford's views on the Irish question were based on an intimate knowledge of the Irish people, and matured by independent thought. He had been among the earliest advocates of the policy of conciliation, and his concurrence in the late developments of the Gladstonian policy had been unconstrained by party considerations. But he had never contemplated any tampering with the union, and he consequently declined to follow his old chief, Gladstone, in his espousal of the home rule cause in 1886. He joined the ranks of the liberal unionists, but spent his closing years in comparative retirement. ”

“ The consolidation of the courts effected by the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875 gave Blackburn the status of justice of the high court, which numbered among its members no judge of more tried ability when the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 authorised the reinforcement of the House of Lords by the creation of two judicial life peers, designated 'lords of appeal in ordinary.' Blackburn's investiture with the new dignity met accordingly with universal approbation. ”

“ He never attempted any formal exposition of his philosophical position, and is understood to have remained a devout and essentially orthodox churchman. As a thinker he is best known by his ‘Systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence,’ London, 1872, 8vo, and his ‘Science of Law,’ 1874, and ‘Science of Politics,’ 1883 (International Scientific Series) . These works, however, have less of the method than of the terminology of science, are suggestive rather than illuminative, and are marred by irrelevant detail and rhetorical rhapsody. ”

“ No less distinguished as an athlete than as a scholar, in three successive years (1850–2) he stroked the Oxford boat to victory, and twice he kept the Oxford wicket, being in the latter year (1849) captain of the team at Lord's. On 15 Nov. 1851 he was admitted student at Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 30 April 1856, and elected bencher on 2 Nov. 1875, having taken silk in the preceding year, and treasurer in 1895. Chitty practised from the first exclusively in the court of chancery, in which his success was both speedy and sustained. ”

“ He was as competent in criminal as in civil cases. His knowledge of mercantile affairs was comprehensive and intimate, and especially fitted him for the post of bankruptcy judge, to which he was assigned on the transference of the jurisdiction to the queen's bench division under the Act of 1883. To his able administration the success of that measure was in no small degree due; and had he retired from the bench when he resigned the bankruptcy jurisdiction, at the commencement of 1891, he would have avoided a certain loss of reputation. ”

“ Nevertheless, in matters academic he was a moderate reformer, and helped to establish the law, moral science, and physics triposes, which, however, he afterwards characterised as 'sickly growths.' He was naturally inclined to a recluse life, and, even when fairly absorbed in the study of Roman history, was satisfied with a single brief visit to Rome in the autumn of 1845. ”

“ In parliament he had the conduct of the measure abolishing public executions, and contributed to shape the enactments which conferred admiralty jurisdiction on county courts, and transferred the jurisdiction on election petitions from the House of Commons to the superior courts of common law. Under the clause in the latter measure providing for an augmentation of the judicial staff, he was appointed additional justice of the common pleas, and invested with the coif on 24 Aug. 1868. On the bench Brett proved himself no less competent to direct than he had been to convince a jury. ”

“ His ecclesiastical views were of the moderate type, and the four sermons which he delivered as select preacher to the university in November 1838 were warmly commended by Whewell, and led to his appointment in the following year as select preacher at Whitehall. As a scholar he was more of a Latinist than a Grecian, and little short of a devotee to Latin verse composition. He had no speculative interests, and though he had studied political economy under Malthus at Haileybury, he entertained no respect for that science, and remained throughout life a convinced protectionist. ”

“ He was raised to the peerage on 6 April 1869 by the title of Baron Penzance of Penzance, Cornwall, and on 23 April took his seat in the House of Lords. The new peer counted as a distinct gain to the government. In a weighty and eloquent maiden speech he justified (15 June 1869) the disestablishment of the Irish church on the broad ground of equity. He carried the measure of the same session enabling the evidence of the parties to be taken in actions for breach of promise of marriage and proceedings consequent upon adultery. ”

“ His liberalism was of no school, and on certain questions, e.g. woman's suffrage and home rule, he was as tenaciously conservative as the highest of tories. He was an occasional contributor to periodical literature, and his articles on the conduct of certain of the operations in the Crimea, which appeared in the ‘National Review’ under the titles ‘Admiral Lord Lyons,’ ‘My Two Chiefs in the Crimea,’ ‘Lord Raglan's Traducers,’ and ‘The War Correspondent at Bay,’ during the first quarter of 1899, constitute a valuable accession to the materials at the disposal of the future historian. ”

“ As a law officer he proved an unqualified success, but the fall of the government in June 1885, and his defeat at the subsequent general election, clouded his political prospects, and he might have waited long for further advancement but for the schism in the liberal party occasioned by the new departure on the home rule question, foreshadowed by Gladstone after the victory at the polls. The scruples of Lord Selborne and Sir Henry James, now Lord James of Hereford, precluded their acceptance of the great seal in the new administration. ”

“ The turning-point in Congreve's life was a visit to Paris shortly after the revolution of 1848. He there met Barthélemy St.-Hilaire and Auguste Comte, and the influence of the latter thinker proved decisive and enduring. On his return to Oxford he embarked on a course of study which resulted in the adoption of the entire positivist system, including the religious cult. He in consequence resigned his fellowship (1855) , left Oxford, and soon afterwards founded the positivist community in London. ”

“ On the question of national education he continued to the end irreconcilable, and viewed the compromise effected in 1870 with unmitigated disgust. His attempt to foreclose the discussion on the Athanasian Creed, in the course of Dean Stanley's speech in the lower house of the convocation of Canterbury, on 24 April 1872, caused a dramatic scene which terminated in his temporary secession from the assembly. Essentially a high churchman of the old school, Denison never became a thorough-going ritualist, though in 1877 he joined the Society of the Holy Cross. ”

“ On 28 April 1880 he was appointed to the place among the lords of appeal in ordinary, vacant by the recent death of Lord Gordon, and created a life peer by the title of Baron Watson of Thankerton, Lanarkshire.
A lord advocate of less than four years' standing, who enters the highest judiciary of the empire, might not unreasonably plead his limited experience as a reason for occupying himself mainly, if not exclusively, with the decision of Scottish cases. ”

“ Chambers was returned to parliament in the liberal interest for Hertford on 7 July 1852, but lost his seat at the general election of March 1857. Returned on 12 July 1865 for Marylebone, he continued to represent that constituency until the general election of November 1885. As a reformer he was best known for his persistent advocacy of the inspection of convents and of the legalisation of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. By his death, at his residence in Gloucester Place, Portman Square, on 24 Dec. 1891, London lost an assiduous public functionary. ”

“ Other papers in the 'Proceedings ' of the same society (1895) laid the basis of his 'Monograph of the Lories, or Brush-tongued Parrots composing the Family Loridse,' London, 1896, 4to. Mivart received in 1876 the degree of Ph.D. from the pope, and in 1884 that of M.D. from the university of Louvain, in which he was professor of 'the philosophy of natural history' from 1890 to 1893.
Despite his rejection of Darwinism, Mivart always professed himself an evolutionist. As such, however, he can be ranked with no school. ”

“ In 1881 appeared his elaborate monograph, ' The Cat : an Introduction to the Study of Back-boned Animals, especially Mammals' (London, 8vo) , which for fulness and accuracy of detail and lucidity of exposition is worthy to rank with Huxley's 'Crayfish.' Subsequent studies in the anatomy of the Æluroid, Arctoid, and Cynoid carnivora appeared in the 'Proceedings' of the Zoological Society 1882, 1885, and 1890. His researches on the last group bore fruit in 'Dogs, Jackals, Wolves, and Foxes ; a monograph of the Canidæ,' London, 1890, 4to. ”

“ As a scholar he was distinguished by vast, minute, and recondite learning and immense laboriousness. His knowledge of the Greek commentators on Aristotle was unique; and his failure to leave any monument worthy of his powers was due partly to his extreme fastidiousness, partly to chronic ill-health. Throughout the greater part of his life he was a prey to insomnia, which in his later years induced the fatal habit of taking chloral in enormous quantities. ”

“ The bishops discouraged recourse to his court, while among the laity not a few of those least disposed to sympathise with lawlessness deplored the scandal and doubted the policy of converting ritualists into martyrs. For these reasons Penzance's court came eventually to be all but deserted for that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Penzance retired from the bench in March 1899, and died at his seat, Bashing Park, Godalming, Surrey, on 9 Dec. ”

“ A sound, though hardly a profound lawyer, an easy speaker, and, above all, a clearheaded and experienced man of the world, he was especially at home in addressing juries, and was naturally led to form an unusually high estimate of the value of their verdicts. ”

“ Herschell's confidence in Gladstone remained, however, unshaken; he unhesitatingly accepted the veteran statesman's offer, and on 8 Feb. 1886 was created lord chancellor with the title of Baron Herschell of the city of Durham. After the rejection of Gladstone's home rule bill by the House of Commons, and the formation of a unionist administration (22 July 1886) , Herschell patriotically refrained from opposing its measures for the pacification of Ireland, and lent the government loyal support on all neutral questions. ”

“ Of the higher criticism he remained entirely unreceptive, and his disapprobation of 'Lux Mundi' caused his secession in 1892 from the English Church Union, of which he had been one of the founders. His later life was embittered by the recognition that the cause for which he had so sturdily contended was at least temporarily lost. His closing years were spent in comparative seclusion at East Brent, where, on 21 March 1896, he died. His remains were interred in East Brent churchyard on 26 March.
Denison was as genial in society as he was unsparing in controversy. ”

“ He took silk in 1866, and after enjoying a prolonged lead in Vice-chancellor Bacon's court, confined his practice to the House of Lords and privy council (1878) . On the retirement of Vice-chancellor Malins in 1881, Kay was appointed (30 March) justice of the high court (chancery division) and knighted (2 May) . He proved a strong judge, a sworn foe to lucrative abuses and dilatory proceedings, and as competent on circuit as in chambers. ”

“ FORTESCUE, afterwards PARKINSON-FORTESCUE, CHICHESTER SAMUEL, Baron Carlingford (1823–1898) , statesman, youngest son of Lieutenant-colonel Chichester Fortescue of Glyde Farm, county Louth, M.P. for Hillsborough in the last Irish parliament, by Martha, daughter of Samuel Meade Hobson, barrister-at-law, of Muckridge House, Cork, was born on 18 Jan. 1823. His eldest brother, Thomas Fortescue, was created in 1852 Baron Clermont in the peerage of Ireland, in which the Fortescue family, founded in Ireland by Sir Faithful Fortescue [q. v.] , anciently held higher honours. ”

“ Herschell was of middle height and of somewhat slight build. He had regular features and remarkably fine dark eyes. His portrait, from a sketch by Rudolf Lehmann, is in 'Men and Women of the Century' (1896) , His principal recreation was music, and he was not without skill as an executant on the violoncello. His interests were unusually various. He was a member of the council and departmental president of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science ; he was president of the governing body of the Imperial Institute, founded in 1892 ”