LORD BROUGHAM AS A JUDGE.

Lord Brougham, as a judge, gave much greater satisfaction than was generally expected. It was thought that his constitutional precipitancy, joined to a deficiency of Chancery knowledge, would have incapacitated him for the important office. In this, however, people were mistaken. He was not so hot and hasty on the bench as he had been at the bar and in the senate—though his constitutional infirmities in this respect did occasionally show themselves even on the seat of justice. He carefully applied himself to the merits of every case which came before him, and soon showed with what rapidity he could acquire the quantity of Chancery knowledge requisite to enable him to discharge the duties of his office as judge, in at least a respectable manner.

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.

I may here, however, mention that, during the interval between the attack and this apology, Lord Brougham, on several occasions, aggravated the outrage by further annoyances of Sir Edward while practicing before him. I do not say that such annoyances were intentional—possibly they may have been accidental—but, whichever way the fact lay, it is not to be wondered at if Sir Edward, in the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, was predisposed to regard them as intentional. On one occasion, while the learned gentleman was pleading before his lordship in a very important cause, and just in the middle of what he conceived to be the most essential part of his speech, Lord Brougham suddenly threw back his head on his chair, and, closing both eyes, remained in that position for some time, as if he had been asleep. Sir Edward Sugden abruptly paused, waiting, no doubt, till his lordship should resume an attitude which would be more encouraging for him to proceed with his speech. On this, Lord Brougham suddenly started up from his reclining position, and, resuming that in which he usually sat when on the bench, apostrophized Sir Edward after the manner so peculiar to himself—"Go on, Sir Edward; proceed, Sir Edward; what's the cause of the stoppage?"

"My lord," answered the latter, "I thought your lordship was not attending to my argument."

"You have no right to think any such thing, Sir Edward; it's highly improper in you to do so; go on, if you please."

Sir Edward resumed his speech, but had not addressed the court above two or three minutes, when Lord Brougham, addressing the officer, said, in his usual hasty manner, "Bring me some sheets of letter-paper directly."

Of the folio size always used in court, his lordship had an abundant supply before him.

"Yes, my lord," said the obedient officer, withdrawing for a moment to execute his lordship's commands. He returned in a few seconds, and placed some half-dozen sheets on the desk. His lordship immediately snatched up a pen, and commenced writing, as if he had been inditing a letter to some private friend. Sir Edward again paused in his address to the court, and leaned with his elbows on the bench before him, as if willing to wait patiently until his lordship should finish his epistolary business.

"Sir Edward!" exclaimed the Lord Chancellor, in angry and ironical accents, after the learned gentleman had been silent for a few moments—"Sir Edward! pray, what's the matter now?"

"I thought, my lord, that your lordship was temporarily engaged with some matter of your own."

"Really, Sir Edward, this is beyond endurance."

"I beg your lordship's pardon; but I thought your lordship was writing some private letter."

"Nothing of the kind, Sir Edward," said his lordship, tartly; "nothing of the kind. I was taking a note of some points in your speech. See, would you like to look at it?" said he, sarcastically, at the same time holding out the sheet of paper toward Sir Edward.

"Oh, not at all, your lordship; I do not doubt your lordship's word. I must have been under a mistake."

Sir Edward again resumed; and Lord Brougham, throwing his head back on his chair, looked up toward the ceiling.

Lord Brougham had a great horror of hearing the interminable speeches which some of the junior counsel were in the habit of making, after he conceived every thing had been said which could be said on the real merits of the case before the court by the gentlemen who preceded them. His hints to them to be brief on such occasions were sometimes extremely happy. I recollect that, after listening with the greatest attention to the speeches of two counsel on one side, from ten in the morning till half-past two, a third rose to address the court on the same side. His lordship was quite unprepared for this additional infliction, and exclaimed, "What, Mr. A——, are you really going to speak on the same side?"

"Yes, my lord; I mean to trespass on your lordship's attention for a short time."

"Then," said his lordship, looking the orator significantly in the face—"then, Mr. A——, you had better cut your speech as short as possible, otherwise you must not be surprised if you see me dozing; for really this is more than human nature can endure."

The youthful barrister took the hint; he kept closely to the point at issue—a thing very rarely done by barristers—and condensed his argument into a reasonable compass.