Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/513

 15. DILLON: INFLUENCE OF BENT HAM 499 " but what a savage spirit it has infused into the minds of " many of his countrymen." ^ Eldon was for a quarter of a century Lord Chancellor. It is certain that he never originated a reform act; and if he ever favored an act which could be fairly said to have been intended to amend the law, I do not recall it. It was difficult and almost impossible to pass any act which Eldon disapproved. He considered the existing system as perfect ; or if not, that if the least innovation were favored or al- lowed no one could tell where it would stop, and therefore the true course was to destroy all innovation in the Qgg. He was " accused by Bentham of nipping in the bud the " spread of improvement over the habitable globe." ^ And yet I love old Eldon. He could not help his impenetrable and incorrigible conservatism. He was sincere and immova- ble in his sincerity. If he was true to his party and " never ratted," he was also true to his heart and conscience and sense of duty. No breath of suspicion ever rested upon him or the absolute purity of his court. What a great advance had been made from the time of Bacon to the time of Eldon. Eldon had, moreover, the qualities of a great judge. He loved right. He hated wrong. He appreciated argu- ments of counsel and freely heard them. He was deeply learned in his profession. His judgment was sure-footed. His love of justice was so great, his sense of the fearful responsibihty attaching to the exercise of judicial power so ^ " Life of Sir Samuel Romilly," edited by his sons, vol. i., Diary, June, 1808. See also his beautifully written Letters to C, letter iii., September, 1807, in same volume, 3d ed., London, 1842, p. 537. ' Townsend, " Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges," vol. ii., chap, x., p. 455, London, 1846. Bowring says that Bentham hated Eldon as much as it was possible to his benevolent nature to hate, — considered him the mightiest and most mischievous of all the opponents of law reform; and he calls him, in another place, the Lord of Doubts. Defective as the laws were, they were doubtless in a vastly better condition than they would have been if Bentham could have subjected them to the full op- eration of his radical, and to a large extent impracticable views, which, however, were never favored in their full scope and details by such con- servative reformers as Brougham, Romilly, and Bickersteth.
 * have been produced in this country by the French Revolu-
 * ' tion and all its attendant horrors, he should attempt some
 * ' legislative reform on humane and liberal principles. He
 * ' will then find, not only what a stupid dread of innovation,