New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-01-30
LORD JOHN CAMPBELL.

GREAT sTAI-HOW "CAMPBELLS EEPoH'o
AND The LIVES" WERE WEIT1TN-HIs WAR
FARE WITH LORD NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. NCi-
DENTS OF HIS CAREER-THE HIGHEST HoNohs
WON BY FAITHFULNFss AND PERSEVERANCE.
IrRox THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRiBUHE'I
LONDON. Jan. 2l.-" During my first term
vrites Campbcll+ to his faithful and generous
brother " had not even hall guinea m"Von'
This does not seem an suspicious pegihhlne' p".
thirty men had been called during the telin' anu VI
these only one had anything to DO Inc experience
is no uncommon one, and Campbeil cXpeo'eh. loi
improving his position IS not uncommon e'iei'
He wrote n book on the Law of Partnership,
or rather helped write one, and for his share
of the work received c75; and this go. not
fame seems to have been CampbclIs main object.
MANY Americans must be aware of a recent
instance in which O successful law book was tho
foundation of what is now probably the largest
practice at the English Bar. The book was Ben
jamin on Sales" and the eX-Secretary OF the Coh'
fedeIate Treasury first attracted general notce az
the English Bar by means of that book. Ills IS an
almost unique case. can think OF no other par
rister who came late in life to business anu
stepped so rapidly and surely to the f1ont Al inc
front he is, in every sense lie STANDS as hlsh VIII
The bench as with solicitors and clients. They say
MFR. BENJAMIN is one of the few lawyers to whom
the Master of the Rolls takes the trouble to listen
md the Master of the Rolls is of two or three
Judges whom the profession look upon rs the intel
lectual equals of Mr. Benjamin. and whose legal
Knowledge can be compared with his. The late
Lord Chief Justice COckburn, who, whatever his
own legal attachments may have been, Know d
iovvver when he saw one said not long before his
Oeatb tn mn intimate friend: " If You ever have q
tause i'm Court, be sure you retain benjamin..
when Campbell was called he was twenty-seven
Sears of age and after narratng to his father his
6rst appearance and fee. he remarks grlmly " IN
Aort do not at all despair of being pointed out at
Gfty as q promising young man." He chose the
Kings Bench for London practice and the Home
circuit. which has been abolished within the last
ten wears for country business. Some notion of the
state of the circuit that time may be got from his
account of its leader, GarrOw who was easily the
first in business wholly uneducatcd, and had never
read anything except brief and newspaper.
Garrow was ignorant Of the most notorious events
In English history and did not even know the sue
cesson of the English kings. He was equally igno-
rant of the principles of Jurisprudence. In which,
apprehend, he by no means renarRaDle' nor
would he now be. "Yet such was his natural acute
ness and the effect of a most beautiful voice. which
no one could hear and not listen to- irrespective OF
the sentiments it conveyed, that, when first at
tended in the Court of King Bench he was fully
match for Erskine, and he actually running
ahead of him." OF the Kings Bench as it seemed to
ayoungster, here is lively picture:
My Court is the Kings Bench. This attend
regularly day by day. going into Others only on
tpecal occasions. 1t is the pleasanteSt lounge IN
the world l am very wAl acquainted with the
coung barristers, and am on very desirable loot
ing with them. Here we assemble and talk over
the news and scandal of the day. When these topics
fail u.s. we crtiCiSe the leaders QUIZ the judges ana
abuse the profession. We again meet at dinner In
the Hall, and upon the whole we lead very merry
lives.
This is in the Court itself. where then rs now
the sucking barTiSter was expected to pass and did
pass much of his time while the Court was sitting
Ear truer notion of Campbell's real life NAV be
gathered from q letter to his father excuSlng him.
self from visit to Scotland:
To have any chance Of success l must he more
steady than other men i must be i'll chambers when
they are at the theatre must study when they
are asleep; must above all, remain III town when
they are i'll the country.
"CAMPBEILs REPORTS AND LORD ELLENBoROUGH.
When vacation came he had earned exactly
forty-one and half guineas aud the chagrin lie
expresses-rather ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS not from
not having earned more but because he might have
earned every farthing of that equally well
without knowing the difference between trespaSs
md case. He might have had at any time lncra-
tive engagement to report law for newspaper but
VOWS he will never accept such a thing so long as
he can enlist in the 60th Regiment! SO deep had
the iron sunk into his soul during the years when
he manfully did his work on The Chronicle as
means of earning his bread, but at the price, as he
fancied of all social position. 1t consoles him for
the salness OF his legal gains to set down the TACT
that being in the same cause with sergeant Best
one of the two chief men in the Common Pleas, he
was able privately to argue point OF law with MN
so keenlv that the great SERGEANT was presently
convinced that his unknown junior was IN the
right Three months later he was downhearted
again apd writes to his brother that he has no
luck or to speak the truth, talents fo1 the pro-
fesson. By the end of another three me lths, and
within year from his call, he embarked upon an
undertaking which brought him both money and,
as he saws little nOtoriety. He agreed with
ButterwOrth, the law publisher to report Nisi
Prius cases; and the subsequently well known
0Campbell's Reports" soon began to appear. and
soon to be reckoned of value by the profession
The Judge before whom these causes were tried was
the great Lord Peterborough; whose character
Campbell forty years later after remaIkng that
the Guildhall business ten times greater than
when Lord Mansfield was Chief Justice, thus
sketches:
Probably no other Judge than Lord Peterborough
could have supported such n burden as was now
cast upon him and there certainly never was suCh
n Judge for q NiS Prius reporter. He was not only
laboriOus and indefatigabc. hut he was acute
rapid. bold, decisive. informative ana eI9Iucnt
He never shrked any point that was raised before
him. or decided it without copOusly and p0lntedly
giving his reasons lie had some bar6aIisms OF
pronunciation which were supposed to have been
brought from Cumberland, and which he never at
tempted to correct, and he sometimes became
quaint in trying to be forcible; but generally
speaking his diction nervous, luminous, and
classical He had likewise rich fund of humOr
and an uncommon power of sarcasm, which often
favored his judgments and gave life and animation
to the proceedings of the Court in which he pre-
sided.
No admirer of Lord Peterborough can quarrel
with that and it is pity Campbell could not have
LETT it as it stands But he would not have been
Campbell if he had. What follows may or may not
be Just to LORD EllenboIougb, but it gives the
reader an insight into Campbelrs character and one