Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 189.jpg



PAINTED Lord Halsbury among a group of Lords Justices of Appeal sitting in the old Court of Appeal that has been for some time past used as a writing and reading room for counsel.

This chamber constituted one of the most dignified and imposing Courts in the great building at Temple Bar. Its severe and simple character, the bench arched over by a wooden frame, surmounted by the Lion and the Unicorn, which enclosed the Lords Justices and protected them from draughts, made a solemn impression upon me when I first entered it. Their lordships in their full-bottom wigs and watered-silk robes trimmed with gold lace had the effect of being separated from the rest of the world by an atmosphere of mystery of peculiar picturesqueness.

Lord Halsbury was at that time Lord Chancellor, and presided over the court. The attitudes of the Lords Justices seemed to vary according to their rank, the chief among them, the president, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Esher, and Lord Justice Lindley, being very much at their ease, especially the latter, whose wig was always awry, and half concealing a very red face; while those at the two ends of the bench sat upright, wearing their robes with less abandon.

My interest had been aroused first in Lord Halsbury long before, when, as Sir Hardinge Gifford, he was counsel for the plaintiffs in the case Belt versus Lawes. The whole gist of the