John Macdonell

“ In 1786 he gained the chancellor's medal for English composition by an essay ‘On the Use and Abuse of Satire.’ This essay, which is printed in the first volume of the ‘Oxford Prize Essays,’ begins in the approved prize style of the period: ‘In the early ages of nations, as in the youth of individuals, before the authority of the judgment is confirmed by the establishment of acknowledged truths, the passions are ever the most powerful springs of human action.’ The essay deals separately with personal, political, moral, and critical satire. ”

“ The majority of the objections to Austin's method and conclusions come to little more than a contention that jurisprudence may with advantage be studied historically as well as analytically, and that a large class of facts excluded by his definition from that science must always have especial interest for the jurist. ”

“ His success as a special pleader induced him to go to the bar, or, to use his own characteristic words, to take that ‘leap into the turbid stream of forensic practice in which so many sink, while a few—“rari nantes in gurgite vasto”—are carried successfully along to riches and honour.’ Called to the bar by the Inner Temple in Hilary term 1796, he joined the Oxford circuit, and, notwithstanding his lack of most of the qualities of an advocate, he obtained a large practice. ”

“ A contemporary writer thus describes his qualities as a judge: 'Sir William Ashurst is a man of liberal education and enlarged notions. His language has no peculiar neatness nor brilliancy, but it is perspicuous, pointed, and clear. ”

“ He confined the domain of positive law to 'law set by a sovereign body of persons, to a member of the independent political society wherein that person or body is sovereign or supreme.' Having regard to Austin's definitions of sovereign and political society, it is often objected that he would exclude from jurisprudence law as known in all barbarous and semi-barbarous and not a few civilised societies. ”

“ His success was not won by the display of brilliant forensic abilities. ‘He had no striking talents,’ says Lord Brougham. ‘He never was a leader at the bar.’ ‘I believe,’ says Lord Campbell, ‘he never addressed a jury in London in the whole course of his life.’ Lord Campbell adds that on the few occasions when Abbott had to address a jury on circuit he showed ‘the most marvellous inaptitude for the functions of an advocate, and almost always lost the verdict.’ He was offered in 1808 a seat on the bench, but his practice was so lucrative that he declined it. ”

“ Clear as one of Lord Tenterden's judgments, it shows considerable reading; and it ends with the cautious remark, characteristic of the author: ‘Perhaps we need not hesitate to conclude that the benefits derived from satire are far superior to the disadvantages, with regard both to their extent and duration; and its authors may therefore be deservedly numbered among the happiest instructors of mankind.’ In 1785 Abbott took his degree of B.A., and he was soon afterwards made a fellow of his college and tutor. ”

“ He spent so much time and exertion on superfluous study and thought that, when his work ought to have been completed, he had generally worked himself into an illness without having finished what he undertook.' His style, too, militated against him. It was clear, and occasionally eloquent; but it abounded in repetitions and amplifications which, however suitable in an instrument settled by an equity draftsman, were repulsive even to intelligent readers. ”

“ In 1834 he was requested by the society of the Inner Temple to deliver a course of lectures on jurisprudence; but they, too, failed to attract students, and they were soon discontinued. His powerful friends, however, still entertained the highest opinion of his capacity, and a new channel of activity was opened to him. In 1836 he and his friend, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, were appointed commissioners to inquire into the administration and state of government of the island of Malta. The task was eminently congenial to a man of Austin's acquirements. ”

“ Justice Ashurst, giving expression to the fears of the hour respecting the French revolution, attacked as 'absurd, nonsensical, and pernicious' the doctrines of its English admirers. 'There is no nation in the world that can boast of a more perfect system of government than that under which we live. ”

“ They were often widows 'better versed in the toils and troubles of life than in chemistry or astronomy.... But the wiser among them taught the great lessons of obedience, reverence for honoured eld, industry, neatness, decent order, and other virtues of their sex and stations,' and trained their pupils to be the wives of working men. In 1827 Mrs. Austin went with her husband to Germany and settled in Bonn. She collected in her long residence abroad materials for her work, 'Germany from 1760 to 1814,' which was published in 1854. ”

“ On 4 Nov. 1818 Sir Charles Abbott was made chief justice. He had the good fortune to be supported by puisne judges of rare ability, such as Bayley J., Holroyd J., and Littledale J. Speaking of the King's Bench in that period, Lord Campbell observes: ‘Before such a tribunal the advocate becomes dearer to himself by preserving his own esteem, and finds himself to be a minister of justice instead of a declaimer, a trickster, or a bully. ”

“ In 1847, the year of the railway mania, his income was enormous—the computations of it vary from 40,000l. to 100,000l. There is a story that, when he left his chambers one morning in the year of the great gold discoveries, some one wrote on the door 'Gone to California;' and there is another of his having been seen riding in the park during the height of the parliamentary session, and of his saying to one who asked how he came to be there, that he was doing equal justice to all his clients. ”

“ J. S. Mill's article in the 'Edinburgh Review' of October 1868 was the first intimation to the majority even of English lawyers that they had lost a great jurist. In 1861 his widow edited a new edition of the 'Province of Jurisprudence,' and added to it a preface, in which she told the chief facts of her husband's life with much pathos. Two years afterwards she published two volumes of his lectures, or such remains of them as she, with remarkable sagacity and zeal, could discover. ”

“ In 1834 she translated 'The Story without an End' by Carové, and this admirable translation has since been often republished. In the same year she translated the famous report on the 'State of Public Instruction in Prussia,' addressed by Cousin to Count Montalivet, minister of public instruction. In the preface she pleads eloquently for the cause of national education. 'Society,' she says, 'is no longer a calm current, but a tossing sea; reverence for tradition, for authority, is gone. ”

“ There is no reason, however, to lay the blame of this neglect solely upon an inappreciative generation. He was not well equipped for active work. Outwardly austere, he had also a softness of nature which unfitted him for the battle of life. ”

“ It is recorded as one proof of his influence that the opinions which Macaulay brought from his Clapham home were modified by converse with Austin. Austin was one of a brilliant group, including Macaulay, Praed, Moultrie, Lord Belper, Romilly, Buller, and Cockburn; and none of these young men who rose to distinction gave more promise than Charles Austin. Moultrie, who has sketched that group in his poem, 'The Dream of Life,' describes Austin as
A pale spare man of high and massive brow. ”

“ No commission ever did its work more carefully, and its reports to the colonial office are remarkable papers, dealing with great ability and thoroughness with some of the most important questions of political economy and jurisprudence. Among those possessed of permanent interest are the despatch urging the establishment in Malta of liberty of printing and publishing ”

“ As a lad Abbott is said to have helped his father in his business. Lord Campbell, who, in his ‘Lives of the Chief Justices,’ gives the most complete account of him, describes Abbott as a ‘scrubby little boy, who ran after his father, carrying for him a pewter basin, a case of razors, and a hair-powder bag.’ Having been taught to read at a dame's school, he entered at seven the King's or Grammar School, where many celebrated men have been educated. Abbott's ability was soon discovered by his teacher, Dr. ”

“ In the autumn of 1836 she accompanied her husband to Malta, busying herself while there with investigations into the remains of Maltese art. On their return from that island, she and her husband went to Germany. Thence they passed to Paris, where they remained until they were driven home by the revolution of 1848. In 1840 she translated, Ranke's 'History of the Popes,' which was warmly praised by Lord Macaulay and Dean Milman. When this translation was published, her intimate friend Sir George C. Lewis wrote to her saying, 'Murray is very desirous that you should undertake some original work. ”

“ Mill, was that of boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with much force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the world.' An ardent, brilliant, and paradoxical exponent of the doctrines of Bentham at a time when utilitarianism had the zest of novelty, a militant radical of a type new at Cambridge, he won admiration in debates at the union and in conversation with his most distinguished rivals. ”

“ Owing to bad health he seems at one time to have thought of quitting his profession; but on the death of Mr. Justice Heath, in February 1816, he accepted a puisne judgeship in the court of Common Pleas. ”

“ In such a state of things who can deny the absolute necessity of national education.?' In 1839 she returned to the same subject in a pamphlet, originally published in a short-lived periodical, Cochrane's 'Foreign Quarterly Review.' Arguing from the experience of Prussia and France, she urged the establishment in England of a national system of education. ”

“ Harvey’ (2 B. & C. 257) , dealing with the question how far a malicious intention is necessary to constitute a libel. From the judgment in the first of these may be quoted a sentence which indicates the spirit in which Abbott was wont to approach questions of law: ‘In matters that regard the conduct of men, the certainty of mathematical demonstration cannot be required or expected ”