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Campbell strong supporters; and, unable to decide between their claims, Lord Palmerston gave the great seal to Campbell, acting, it is said, on the advice of Lord Lyndhurst (, Life of Lyndhurst, 480). Campbell was now in his eightieth year, and no one, as he took pains to find out, had ever been appointed to, or had even held, the office at so advanced an age. About two years of life remained to him, which were marked by little that is noteworthy. He made a respectable equity judge, and prided himself on his rapid despatch of business; but his rather overbearing nature caused some friction with the other judges (see his remarks on V.-c. Page Wood in the case of Burch v. Bright, and the protests of the other vice-chancellors; Life of Lord Hatherley, i. 88. His equity decisions are reported in De G. F. & J.) The chief political incident of the time was the outbreak of the American war, and it was by Campbell's advice that the government agreed to recognise the belligerent rights of the Southern states (, Recollections and Suggestions; 286). Had he lived a few weeks longer, his chancellorship would have been distinguished by the passing of the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts, in the preparation of which he had taken a great interest (see introduction to Greaves's edition of the acts). He died on the night of 22 June 1861, having sat in court and attended a cabinet council during the day.

Lord Campbell possessed in a supreme degree the art of getting on. 'If Campbell,' said Perry of the 'Morning Chronicle,' 'had engaged as an opera-dancer, I do not say he would have danced as well as Deshayes, but I feel confident he would have got a higher salary.' He was full of ambition, and though he did not lack public spirit, he judged most things by their bearing on his personal fortunes. Perhaps nothing paints his mind more clearly than a phrase which he lets drop in a letter to his brother in recommending the study of the best English classics; 'they bear reading very well,' he writes, 'and you can always make them tell.' He had no false modesty, rather an exalted self-confidence, which he concealed neither from himself nor from others; he had patience to wait for his opportunities, yet he never let himself be forgotten; and his enormous industry and power of getting rapidly through work stood him in stead of abilities of the highest kind. He fell far short of greatness, intellectual or moral. Not even as the term is applied to the great rivals of his later life, Brougham and Lyndhurst, can he be described as a man of genius. On its moral side his nature was lowered by ambition. His private life, indeed, was rich in fine traits. In no man was the sense of family union more strong, and few have won for themselves and maintained through a busy life a deeper devotion and affection. His public career is less attractive. While his abilities compelled admiration, he did not in any high degree inspire feelings of enthusiasm or confidence. Some of his contemporaries have even represented him as essentially ungrateful and ungenerous. But this is exaggeration. His were simply the defects of a man of pushing character, whose eagerness to succeed made itself too plainly felt. But whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the spirit in which he served his country, there is none as to the value of the services themselves. As a legislator and a judge he left a name which can never be passed over when the history of our law is written.

The following is a list of his works: 1. 'Reports of Cases determined at Nisi Prius in the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, and on the Home Circuit,' 4 vols. 1809-16; vols. i. and ii. were reprinted in New York in 1810-11; vols. iii. and iv., with notes by Howe, in 1821. 2. 'Letter to a Member of the present Parliament on the Articles of a Charge against Marquis Wellesley which have been laid before the House of Commons,' 1808 (see 's Bibl. Brit.) 3. 'Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley on the Law of Church Rates,' 1837; at least five editions were published during the year; reprinted in his 'Speeches.' It was written to show that the assent of the vestry was required before a valid church rate could be levied, and that no legal means existed of compelling the vestry to impose a rate. 4. 'Speeches of Lord Campbell at the Bar and in the House of Commons; with an address to the Irish Bar as Lord Chancellor of Ireland,' 1842. 5. 'The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England from the earliest times till the reign of King George IV.' In 3 series, 7 vols., 1846-7; 4th ed., 10 vols., 1856-7. The life of Lord Bacon was reprinted in Murray's 'Railway Library.' An American work has the following title: 'Atrocious Judges. Lives of Judges infamous as tools of tyrants and instruments of oppression. Compiled from the judicial biographies of John, Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of England,' with notes by R. Hildrath, New York and Auburn, 1856. 6. 'The Lives of the Chief Justices of England from the Norman Conquest till the death of Lord Mansfield,' 3 vols. 1849 and 1857. 7. 'Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements considered, in a Letter to J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A.,' 1859. 8. 'Lives of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham,'