Note 681 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Blackstone, though endowed with many excellent qualities, is said to have had a somewhat irritable temper, which, as he advanced in years, was rendered worse by a nervous affection. Bentham says 'that he seems to have had something about him which rendered breaches with him not difficult.' Lawyers are so accustomed to criticise arguments that they are apt to be somewhat severe judges of sermons. How many clergymen of the present day would like to have their sermons judged by the standard of a great lawyer of a somewhat irritable temperament?