The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-21 00:00:00

DEATH OF LORD LANGDALE.
Scarcely a month has elapsed since the late Master of
the leolls took his final leave of the court and the bar
over which he had so long resided, and already we are
called upon to record the melancholy close of a life which
had been exhausted in the severest labours of the judi-
cial service. Lord Langdale expired on Good Friday, at
Tunbridge-wells, whither be had repaired about a fort-
night ago for the benefit of his health. The over-exer-
tioa of his prolonged attendance in the Court of Chan-
cery had produced a degree of exhaustion from which
he was unable to rally. His faculties, which had re-
mained unimpaired to the last moment of his judicial
duty, collapsed under that repose which came too late.
A paralytic stroke followed, and though hopes had at
one time been entertained that change of SCQIItI and com-
plete rest would revive his Lordship's vital powers, " the
silver chord was already loosened, and the bowl was
broken at the fountain."
Henry Bickersteth, Lord Langdale, was born on the
18th of June, 1783, in the county of Westmoreland,
where his father belonged to the class of the small
landed gentry of the north of England. He had conse-
quently not yet completed his 68th year. Originally
destined for the medical profession, in which he had al-
ready completed his studies with success, he visited the
Continent with the family of the late Earl of Orford;
and it was by the advice of those discerning friends that
he was induced to embark on the more ambitious career
in which his remarkable talents already promised Mtn
no ordinary suern.g. Re entered Caiva College, Cam-
bridge, where ho took his degree as senior Wrangler in
1808. Three years afterwards he was called to the bar
by the Society of the Inner Temple, and he engaged at
once in the arduous duties of his profession.
Throughout the whole course of his life Lord Lang-
dale was ardently devoted to the cause of liberal opinions,
and although ho figured but little at any time in the
arena of party politics, no man pursued with greater
enthusiasm the work of reform, or brought a more subtle
intellect to bear upon the great problems of social and
legal improvement. His speculative opinions upon these
topics brought him into close and habitual contact with
that remarkable set of men who, about a quarter of a
century ago, looked up to Mr. Bentham as their sage and
lawgiver; and although the philosopher of Queen-square,
Westminster, was hardly destined to witness the prac-
tical application of his Sybilline labours, no small por-
tion of the reforms we have since accomplished in our
laws, our administration, and the Constitution itself,
may bo traced to that class of thinkers who claimed to
be his disciples, and amongst whom Lord Langdale oc-
cupied a distinguished place.
Assiduous in his devotion to his professional duties,
Mr. Bickersteth rose to great eminence in the Equity
Courts, to which he confined his practice; and perhaps
at the period of his career to which we are now advert-
ing a higher estimate was formed of his powers than his
judicial performances subsequently warranted. Indeed
it may be said that his personal reputation stood even
higher than his forensic weight and celebrity amongst
the party which had at that time recently been sum-
moned to the councils of the empire. Probably it was
with a view to the services Mr. Bickersteth was expected
to render in the cause of law reform, and possibly in
nart to supply the loss which had recently been sus-
tained by the rupture of the Whig Cabinet with Lord
Brougham, that the equity counsel was suddenly ap-
pointed on the 19th of January, 1836, to succeed Lord
Cottenham as Master of the Rolls, and was at the same
time called to the House of Peers. By an unusual ex-
ception to the course of high legal preferment in this
country, his Lordship had thus risen to one of the most
honourable and important posts in his profession without
having mingled in active political life, and without
having either sate in the House of Commons or held the
office of a legal adviser to the Crown.

But a few months had elapsed after his accession to
the Mastership of the Rolls when Lord Langdale deli-
vered in the House of Lords his remarkable speech on
the administration of justice in the Court of Chancery,
and on the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships'
House. To the opinions expressed in that speech, and
in favour of the division of the duties of the Great Seal,
Lord Langdale constantly adhered; but when the ccca-
sion arrived at which it might have been possible for
him with more robust health and greater energy to
carry these plans into execution, his time of action was
already verging to its close. Upon the resignation of
Lord Cottenham last year, the Great Seal was more than
once tendered to Lord Langdale by the head of the
present Administration; but though ho consented to act
as First Commissioner, and actually sate for a short time
in the Lord Chancellor's Court and in the House of
Lords in that capacity, the intense application to which
the state of the Court of Chancery had condemned him
forbade any further stretch of his powers, and he longed
only for that repose which the expiration of 15 years'
uninterrupted judicial service entitled him to claim,
though not to enjoy.
As a judge the reputation of Lord Langdale has at
times fallen somewhat below what was expected of him
in the earlier years of his professional life. He wanted
that boldness of judgment and self-guiding energy which
has enabled our greatest lawyers to apply and even to
frame the results of scientific analysis with instinctive
felicity and precision. But ho was unsurpassed in the
lucid and methodical exposition of the facts with which
he had to deal. His elaborate and cautious dissection
of every case before him led him by a safe though slow
process to the discovery of truth; and the subtlety of
his logical powers enabled him to unravel with indefa-
tigable accuracy the most intricate chain of reasoning.
His labours as a reformer of the Court of Chancery
fell infinitely short of his intentions and his
desires, though even these he powerfully and
systematically contributed to the new rules for the
removal of delays, the reduction of costs, and the
abolition of needless formalities. But the philoso-
phical lawyer was belled by the duties and obliga-
tions of the active judge. No man ever sate in that
court who was more anxious to reform its abuses, and
the last disappointment of his life was the production
Lord John Russell of the miserable Chancery ll of they
present session.
Lord Langdaie brought to his Oleo a personal dignity
not inferior to that which it conferred upon himsett, for
he was a man earnestly devoted to truth end justice—
his whole life ewes unsullied by the suspicion of a job or
of sutservience to any but the loftiest motives of action.
Lie preserved the simplicity of his manners and his love
of literature in the residence,onthe confines of Rich-
mond-park, where c,f late years he
had himself
resided,
and in the gardens or holibrary had himself formed.
Ycunger and more active men have already succeeded
to the functions he so recently discharged, but amongst
the lawyers who have filled the chief offices of
their profession, and who might have filled the highest
of all, none leaves purer fame than the late Master of
the Rolls.
His Lordship married late in life the Lady Jane Har-
ley, eldest daughter of the late Lord Orford, by whom
he leaves one daughter; his peerage, therefore, becomes
extinct.— Times.