Two new judges were created, who were styled Lords Justices of Appeal, and though the Chancellor from time to time sat in this Court, it gradually came to see little of his presence. Rolfe, afterwards Lord Cranworth, and Knight Bruce were the two first Lords Justices, and the former, two years later, became Chancellor on the formation of Lord Aberdeen's Government in 1852. Probably from his interest in the new Court, Cranworth, though he was not an experienced equity lawyer, continued to attend its sittings, and thus gave an opportunity for one of Bethell's mordant remarks: "I wonder," someone said to him, "why old Cranny always sits with the Lords Justices." "I take it to arise from a childish indisposition to be left in the dark," was the characteristic reply. Bethell's criticisms on his contemporaries are tempting incidents to dwell on in Victorian legal history; but our object at this point is to show, briefly, the manner in which the office of Lord Chancellor has changed during the years of the late reign.

We have seen the Chancellor ceasing to be a judge of first instance, then an intermediate judge of appeal. And when in 1876 two judges, known as Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, were added to the House of Lords so as to strengthen it as the final appellate tribunal, the importance of the office of Lord Chancellor as a final judge of appeal was noticeably lessened. In that Court a high legal capacity, whether in a Chancellor or in a Law Lord, necessarily gives an individual judicial supremacy. When Lord Westbury as Chancellor had for his colleagues Lords Chelmsford, Cranworth, and St. Leonards, his was obviously the master-mind. But the constant presence of

judges who have always devoted their minds mainly to the study and exposition of the law, and who have leisure to consider cases out of court, necessarily tends to diminish the weight of the judicial utterances of a hard-worked statesman who is also the president of the tribunal. More than half a century ago Lord Langdale proposed that the judicial and administrative functions of the Chancellor should be separated, and that the political functions "should be discharged by a Keeper of the Great Seal, who was to hold no judicial office, but was to act as a Minister of Law and Justice." The change, which Lord Langdale would have effected by legislation, has to a large extent come to pass by force of circumstances. Human capacity has definite limits, and so at the present time the Lord Chancellor, with his multifarious duties, occupies to some extent the position of the Keeper of the Great Seal under Lord Langdale's scheme. The Master of the Rolls, as Lord Langdale then was, saw some way into the future; but his scheme is now chiefly of historical importance, because it indicates that some clear-sighted minds perceived the inevitable tendency of events-the changes which have since occurred in the nature of the office of Lord Chancellor. Be this as it may, they have come to pass contemporaneously with the increase in the official and political work of the Attorney- and of the SolicitorGeneral, so that at the present time all these three offices have become more administrative and less legal. To some extent this has had an undesirable and unforeseen effect, for in consequence the judicial bench, which owing to various causes is increased in size and is a somewhat unwieldy body, has become more independent of a central control at the very time when, owing to the fact that it

forms part of one Supreme Court, it is desirable that it should be governed by a Chancellor who is at once in close touch with public requirements and with the legal profession.

Though the head of the legal system and responsible for its efficient working, the Chancellor has always held a curious and an anomalous position, which has emerged and taken shape almost imperceptibly. Though responsible, he has never had a free hand, and the mingled fortunes of legal and political life, and the urgencies of political necessitics have affected the personal equation in unexpected ways. Men possessed of opposite qualities, of divergent aims and ideals, have succeeded one another as the political system has brought one party up and another down; so that it is not surprising that though the Lord Chancellor has ever been the most prominent legal personage in the public eye, his influence on the body and system of English law has not equalled his public authority, and that that influence has been exercised spasmodically and irregularly.

If we take the period 1858-1868, from the commencement of Lord Derby's second Administration to the end of his third term of power, the interval being filled by the Premierships of Palmerston and Russell, we see the Woolsack occupied by Chelmsford, Campbell, Westbury, Cranworth, and for a second period by Chelmsford. Chelmsford was an able Common Law advocate, whose tact, common-sense, and agreeable manners allowed him to fill any place which was offered to him without discredit, but also without distinction. Campbell was a

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thorough all-round lawyer, whose robust brain and strong body enabled him to overcome difficulties and to be a thoroughly efficient advocate and judge. He was essentially the business lawyer-hard-headed, keen-sighted, and laborious, with the qualities which would have made an efficient railway manager or a capable archbishop. Westbury differed toto cælo from his two predecessors. A scholar and a jurist, his keen, clear intellect saw through mazes of fact; points of law sank to their proper dimensions before his grasp of legal principles; and he had the ardour of the clear mind for system, and therefore for legal codes. This desire for system is the basis of the desire for codification, and causes also the dislike of prolixity and obscurity, which is the vice of judge-made law. If he had lived in a bureaucratic country and had been Minister for Justice, Westbury would have left behind him monuments in the form of codes. It would not be easy to find a sharper contrast to him than Cranworth, one of those men whose careers form models for English youth, who succeeded him on his fall, and who had already occupied the Woolsack in the Governments of Aberdeen and Palmerston. The story runs that when he took the place of Westbury, some one said of, we may suppose, rather than to him: "Well, Kingsley is right; it is better to be good than to be clever." Cranworth was essentially a safe man; he was well versed in judicial decisions, so that he was guided by an abundant number of legal signposts; his temperate character prevented him from mistakes of conduct, and his kindly nature made him a universal friend. It was impossible not to congratulate him on his several successes; yet he became a puisne judge because he had so little private practice that if he had

ceased to be Solicitor-General he would have lived a life of enforced leisure, and he became Chancellor because he had been Solicitor-General, and because for the moment no lawyer of high calibre was available. Yet he was a dignified and a sensible Chancellor, who would never have made the fatal mistakes of administration which caused the downfall of his infinitely abler predecessor; and he even carried some useful legal reforms in the true English fashion. Indeed, the comparatively small personal influence of the Chancellor is strikingly illustrated by the careers of Cranworth and Westbury; for the latter had not only, as we have pointed out, the type of mind which appreciates the importance of legal reforms, but also a lifelong and unquenchable wish to effect changes which he regarded as necessary. A scientific education for lawyers is the corner-stone of a clear legal system. In 1846,when overwhelmed by an enormous practice, Bethell, as he then was, brought forward the subject in a letter to the Master of the Rolls. And he also “unfolded the details of his scheme in a letter addressed to the Treasurer of the Inner Temple. He advocated founding four chairs for readers or lecturers on the subjects of real property law and conveyancing, constitutional and criminal law, personal property and commercial law, and equity as administered by the Court of Chancery, the compulsory attendance of all students at the lectures on real property law, as being of universal utility and necessity in all branches of the profession, and a compulsory examination with competition for honours and exhibitions. It was part of his plan that these readers should devote themselves not only to their separate duties, but to the general and public purpose of amending, improving, and digesting