Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/191

 is denoted by the fact that on the first occasion he was selected to answer Sir Samuel Romilly, and on the second his speech brought up Sir James Mackintosh to reply. In the following session Copley sat for the borough of Ashburton, and in 1818 he received his first step towards judicial promotion in being appointed king's serjeant and chief justice of Chester, in which capacity he gave proofs of the high judicial qualities for which he was afterwards pre-eminently distinguished. His first labours as a judge were soon ended, for in June 1819 he was appointed solicitor-general on Sir Robert (afterwards Lord) Gifford becoming attorney-general, and was knighted. In March 1819 he married Sarah Garay, daughter of Charles Brunsden, and widow of Lieutenant-colonel Charles Thomas of the Coldstream guards, a beautiful and brilliant woman, between twenty and thirty years of age. By this time he had established his reputation as a great lawyer, with a mind of unusual subtlety, while distinguished as a speaker by terseness and luminous vigour of expression. ‘He is more than a lawyer,’ says Mr. J. P. Collier in his ‘Criticisms of the Bar,’ published in 1819, ‘and apparently well read not only in the historians, but also in the poets of his country, so that at nisi prius he shines with peculiar brightness.’ These qualities were enhanced by a singularly handsome presence and a fine voice, as well as by perfect courtesy to both bar and bench, which, Lord Campbell says, ‘made him popular with all branches of the profession of the law.’ In the House of Commons the charm of these characteristics was heightened by dignity of bearing and frank courage in debate, his bearing ‘always erect, his eye sparkling, and his smile proclaiming his readiness for a jest.’ While in office as solicitor-general Copley added greatly to his reputation both as a debater and as a leading counsel. His appearance in the trial of Thistlewood and others for high treason, and in the proceedings in the House of Lords against Queen Caroline, both in 1820, will always be a model of the dignity, the moderation, the mastery of essential details, the skill in cross-examination, the scrupulous accuracy, and the tempered glow of eloquence, which make the triumphs of the great advocate. In 1824 Copley became attorney-general, and held the office till the death of Lord Gifford in September 1826, when he was appointed master of the rolls, retaining his seat, upon re-election, for Cambridge university, which he had secured the previous June. He was also appointed, in succession to Lord Gifford, recorder of Bristol, by the unanimous vote of the town council. This office and that of master of the rolls, which, like Lord Gifford, he held along with it, he retained for only eight months, having by the wish of the king, on the refusal of Lord Eldon to continue in office, been nominated as chancellor in the following April, and raised to the peerage as Baron Lyndhurst. When Canning's brief administration was closed by his death on 8 Aug. following, Lord Lyndhurst was continued in the office of chancellor by Lord Goderich. On power passing, or rather being forced, from that nobleman's feeble hands in the ensuing December, the Duke of Wellington at once requested Lyndhurst to retain his seat on the woolsack, which he did until the fall of the Wellington administration in 1830. During this period the duke and Sir Robert Peel leaned so greatly upon his advice and assistance, that, next to theirs, his was the most potential voice in the cabinet. In debate his services were of the highest value. He spoke rarely, and only on great occasions, when he made his powers so strongly felt by his political adversaries that he became the mark, as a dreaded enemy in those days was sure to become, for envenomed slanders in their journals. These he treated with contempt, except when they impugned his integrity as a public man. At last he was driven to put two of his libellers to proof of their charges that he had used the patronage of his office to put money in his pocket, and obtained triumphant verdicts against them. The charge was never more misapplied, his rule on all such matters being detur digniori, and this, as appointments given by him to such sturdy political opponents as Mr. (afterwards Lord) Macaulay and the Rev. Sydney Smith proved, without reference to party considerations. As Lyndhurst's practice had been confined to the common law bar, he was for some time at a disadvantage as the head of the court of equity. But this disadvantage he set himself to conquer, and with the success which might have been expected from an intellect so acute, and so accustomed to refer all questions to governing principles. Although in the question of parliamentary reform, on which the Wellington administration fell in November 1830, to be succeeded by that of Earl Grey, he did not share the extreme views of his leader, he was too much attached to him, and too little in sympathy with the views of Earl Grey, to have accepted office under him. It was creditable to Lord Grey, and to his chancellor, Lord Brougham, that on the retirement of Sir William Alexander in December 1830 from the office of chief baron, they proposed to Lyndhurst to take his place, thus securing to the state the benefit of his fine judicial