The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-27 00:00:00

DEATH OP LORD DENMAN.

Although four years have already elapsed since Lord
Denman was compelled by the increasing infirmities of
age to withdraw from the Court of Queen's Bench and
the office of Lord Chief Justice of England, and although
the closing period of his life has removed him from all
connexion with public affairs, we cannot allow a man so
justly respected in his generation to pass from among us
without recording some traces of his public services and
his wellsearnecl honours. It may be said of Lord Den-
man that he had not the impassioned forensic eloquence
of Erskine, nor the tremendous parliamentary energy of
Brougham • he could not display the copious and ani-
mated learning of Macintosh, and he did not possess the.
subtle advocacy of Scarlett—though he took no undis-
tinguished part with Romily in the reform of the law,by the removal of its abuses and the mitigation of its
severities, he was not his equal at the bar ; and, though
battleahnedfosutegandtinthesesinfeior to u
r ofnegornoee,mancipation with a zeal
Wilberforce and Clark-
son had a more enthusiastic following in the country, and
Buxton and Lushington had more authority in the House
of Commons. Upon the bench it is impossible to rank the
Judicial attainments and legal capacity of Lord Denman
with the eminent qualities of Parke or Tindal, Lyn&
burst or Campbell. But if the highest rank be denied
h. iro upon an impartial survey of his character and life,
it is no mean praise that in this constellation of talent
he held an undisputed place as a star of the second
magnitude. With these contemporaries,
with these
associates, with these competitors in the race of life, he
won, and he deserved to win, a fair and honourable
prize. For 18 years he filled the honoured seat of the
Chief Justice of England, and, if any man excelled him
by the vivacity of their genius or the acuteness of their
intellect, none certainly surpassed, or perhaps equalled
him, in the moral dignity which gave an appropriate
and additional lustre to his office. The personal aspect
and outward bearing of Lord Denman in the administra-
tion of justice were strongly impressed with those moral
qualities which he displayed in all the duties of life, and,
though he occasionally evinced on the bench the passion
of a partisan, we cannot but bear testimony to his un-
flinching rectitude of purpose, his love of truth, his sin-
cerity and simplicity of character. His extreme bene-
volence and humanity were the fittest ornaments of the
chief legal guardian of the public morals, and these
qualities deserve to confer lasting honour upon hie
name.

Lord Denman was born on the 23d of July, 1779, in
the house of his father, Dr. Thomas Denman, who prac.
tised medicine with distinction hi the metropolis in the
latter half of the last century. His mother was an aunt
of the present Sir Benjamin Brodie, and it is a curious
instance of the connexion of the Denman family with
the medical profession, that one of the sisters of Dr.
Denman married Sir Richard Croft, and the other Dr.
Baillie, the two leading physicians of their time. In
early childhood Thomas Denman was sent to Pa!grave
School, near Diss, in Norfolk, which was then under
the management of Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, and the
judge was sometimes wont to relate in after life that he
had received from that accomplished lady the rudiments
of instruction, and the first lessons of discipline. We
have no record of young Denman's later school educa-
tion, but we find him towards the close of the last cen-
tury entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, where
he graduated in 1800, without., however, appearing in
the list of wranglers of that year. In 1806 he was
called to the bar at Lincoln's-inn, and engaged in
the active pursuit of the law. He had already married
at an early age, and a rapidly-increasing family gave a
stimulus to his professional exertions. The moment was
peculiarly unfavourable to the public career of a young
man entering in life with principles wholly opposed to
the dominant school of high Tory politics, and connected
by education, by taste, and by conscience with the men
and the principles which were doomed to a quarter of a
century of opposition before they obtained a footing in
the Government of this country ; and Mr. Denman had
none of the qualifications which could recommend him to
the Percevals or the Eldons of that day. lie entered
Parliament for the borough of Wareham at the general
election of 1818, and at once took his seat with the
Whig Opposition. In the following year he was elected
for Nottingham, for which place he continued to sit, to
the great satisfaction of his constituents, until his pro-
motion to the bench in 1832. Ms first appearance in
Parliament was iu favour of certain reform in the law,
but it was not until 1820 that the extraordinary occa-
sion of the Queen's trial called forth all his energy,
and placed him in a more conspicuous position before
the country. When Queen Caroline formed the de-
termination of corning to this country upon the accession
of her husband to the throne, Mr. Prougbam at once
accepted the office of her Majesty's Atter ney-General,
while that of her Solicitor-General was filled by Mr.
Denman. It was impossible to declaro war more openly
upon the Government, upon the heads of the legal pro-
fession, and upon the private feelings of the King. We
now look back with amazement on tl.e spirit which
perra led the country at that time, and on the motives
,which inducel men of the .highest ability and the purest
fame voluntarily to lend their advocacy to a client who
had in a thousand ways degraded her position and dis-
graced her sex. But men like Lushington and Denman
saw in the Queen a woman whose innumerable offences
against decency and virtue might, they thought, be
palliated by the unworthy treatment she had met
with from her husband, and the furious spirit of op-
position which prevailed against George IV. and
his Ministers animated them to the contest, and em-
bellished even the worthless and repulsive object they
consented to serve. The part taken by Mr. Denman
in that memorable trial gave the public a high idea
of his courage and uprightedness, and contributed in
no slight degree to its successful result. This success,
however, was an offence not to be pardoned by the bead
of the law as long as Lord Eldon held the Greet Seal,
and accordingly the honours of his profession, to which
Mr. Denman was amply entitled by his talents and his
standing, were studiously withheld from him, as far as
they depended on the will of the Chancellor. Mr. Den-
man was, however, appointed to the office of Common
Serjeant by the Corporation of London in 1822, pro-
bably as a mark of their sympathy for the legal de-
fenders of the Queen, in whose affairs Alderman
Waithman had taken so active a part. It was not until
1828, when Lord Lyndhurst first held the Great Seal,
that this injustice was renaired, and the King was in-
duced in 1828, not, we believe, without difficulty, to
grant the patent of precedence to which Mr. Denman
had long been entitled.

In 1830 the scene changed, and upon the formation of
Lord Grey's Government Sir Thomas Denman was
immediately raised to the post of Attorney-General,
which he held during the momentous debates on
the Reform Bill. In 01832, however, upon the death
of Lord Tenterden, he was appointed to the Chief Jus-
ticeship of the Court of Queen's Bench, which he held
till 1850, having been raised to the peerage in 1834. As
a judge, we have already observed, that Lord Denman
cannot be ranked with the highest legal authorities who
have presided over that court, but no man ever took a
loftier view of its duties to society. To quote but one
example, the conduct of the Court in the difficult case of
" Stockdale v. Hansard," when it was directly assailed
by one branch of the Legislature, is a memorable in-
stance of the exercise of that constitutional power which
enables our judges to interpose the authority of the law
against the arbitrary pretensions of the moat powerful
body in this realm, and to combat privilege in the name
of justice. " Most willingly, would I decline," said Lord
Denman in delivering judgment on that occasion, " to enter
upon an inquiry which may lead to my differing from that
great and powerful assembly (the House of Commons). But
when one of my fellow-subjects presents himself before
me in this court demanding justice for an injury, it is
not at my option to grant or to withhold redress. I
am bound to afford it him, if the law declares him en-
titled to it. Parliament is said to be supreme. I most
fully acknowledge its supremacy. It follows, then, that
neither branch of it is supreme when acting by itself."
In those few words, and in the judicial power of enforc-
ing that truth, lies the supreme guardianship of the
liberties of England.
Lord Denman lived the life of a reformer of abuses,
and an enemy of all that in his judgment clouded the
honour or impaired the public utility of our institutions.
His hatred of negro slavery in every form rose to a pas-
sion, for lie stood armed against cruelty and injustice,
and in the wretched fate of kidnapped Africans and de-
graded slaves he beheld the united and accumulated
evils and wrongs which have most disgraced humanity
and profaned religion. He powerfully contributed to the
furtherance of those reforms of the criminal law which Sir
Samuel Rornilly had commenced, and which Lord Den-
man brought to test
ttohieeration and
o fhis
freedomownj wudiciitahin judicial experience.
erience.
To the cause of
boun-
daries of law he at all times gave his hearty support, and
in all the undertakings set on foot in our day for more
extended popular education, foorf
etrhiemdiniffalusoiffoenndoefrau,saefnual
knowledge, for the reformation
for other acts of enlightened charity lie readily bore his
part. The warmth lie had smile.tiiinesdisplay as aiiar-
tisau gradually subsided under -ie higher duties of his
judicial station and the soothing influence of age. His
closing years, though afflicted by severe illness, were se-
renely devoted to that contemplation which is the worthiest
termination of human ,life—to those acts of kindness
which endear the memory of the departed—and to the
exercises of religion which anticipate the final change.
We rank him not 'pith the greatest, but with the wor-
thiest of our contemporaries, and the life he led affords,
in our Judgment, a better example to those who follow
him than that of more eager and impetuous aspirants
after'power and fame.—Times.

ALDERSHOT.—We understand that the site for bar-
racks at Aldershot, which was selected by the committee
of officers, has been considered by the medical board
ill selected in a sanitary point of view, and that a piece
of land which is more eligible in the neighbourhood is to
be purchased for the erection of the barracks. We re-
gret these delays, but would have more regretted the
building of barracks on an unhealthy site.—Naval a tztt
Military Gazette.