The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-04 00:00:00

THE SUN.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1859.

Dumb before the public, saving when he was
robed in scarlet and ermine upon the Bench, Sir
JOHN COLERIDGE has been particularly loquacious
since his final retirement (after long service) from
the toils and responsibilities of his high profession.
Already the learned ex-Judge has, more than once
since his relinquishment of the judicial character,
spoken trumpet-tongued to his fellow-countrymen
upon the importance of our all caring more sys-
tematically for the condition of the National De-
fences, and upon the advisability of our multiply-
ing, here and there, all over the land, our fast
rising corps of Rifle Volanteers. To those who
have failed to recognise the earnest and perfectly
unaffected civism of this Just Judge, the theme
thus selected by him, as the one upon which, first
of all, to expatiate, upon the resumption of his long
abandoned post, as a mere civilian, may have ap-
peared, at a superficial glance, rather anomalous—
not to say even, for that matter, almost Quixotic.
So incongruous has it seemed, indeed, to some that
it might almost be compared by them, one would
fancy, to the learned and absurd Sir HUDIBRAS
going forth—as SAM BUTLER sings, at the outset
of his great burlesque-epic "a-colonelling !"
However this may be—and however much the pre-
posterous resemblance may be resented by those
who more fully appreciate the zealous patriotism,
dictating the impassioned appeals made to the war-
like ardour of the population, by " old men elo-
quent" both within and without the walls of the
House of Peers, by the venerable Lord LYNDIIURST
and the hardly less venerable Sir JOHN COLERIDGE
—there cannot, at any rate, be two opinions as to
the complete " fitness of things "—the entire har-
mony subsisting- between Subject and Speaker—
throughout Sir Joux's deeply interesting lecture,
delivered, on Wednesday evening last, in the Athen-
aeum, at Exeter, upon what the ex-Judge suggestively
entitled "Circuit Reminiscences." It ;s but a glimpse,
of course, that we can obtain through the medium of
this single night's preleetion—but the merest
glimpse of Sir JOHN COLERIDGE'S prolonged and
diversified forensic and judicial recollections. Yet
for even this brief and plrely incidental fragment,
taken, as it seems, almost hap-hazard, from those
abundant and enthralling experiences, we are
grateful. Grateful, surely, none the less because
we are sanguine that more may follow of a similar
kind—and that we may obtain, bit by bit, the
chief part of Sir JOHN'S kindred remembrances.
It is not every sage who has the advantage of a
watchful and sagacious BOSWELL ready at his
elbow with pricked-up ears and retentive memory
and devouring notebook to absorb the riches of
wit or of wisdom, of ripened judgment and ex-
tended experience squandered about in careless
profusion in the abandonne of garrulous and un-
premeditated conversation. We have reason, there-
fore, to be especially thankful, to acknowledge our-
selves peculiarly beholden to men like Sir JOHN
COLERIDGE, when they themselves volunteer to
give the world, as Sir JOHN did on Wednesday at
Exeter, a taste at least of their individual medita-
tions and reminiscences. The recollections even
of one rather notorious than renowned possess a
value almost beyond ready computation. VIDOCQ,
for example, the police spy, could draw upon his
memory to our advantage. We would give some-
thing to have an authentic MS. that proved, upon
scrutiny, to be the autobiography of the infamous
JEFFRIES—the judge of the blood-stained ermine,
whose arch-crime still shines luridly upon our an-
nals as The Bloody Assizes. How deep the value,
then, of the recollections flowing from the pure
memory and the spotless conscience of a venerable
judge, a judge venerable no less by character than
by years, like the honoured and revered Sir JOHN
COLERIDGE. It is befitting his character that Sir
JOIIN'S inaugural address (may we call it ?) as a
lecturer upon this fruitful theme of his " Circuit
-----4..ftences," should end, 'as it did on Wednes-