Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/666

 652 V. BENCH AND BAR not reinstated until ten years had passed. Weyland, Chief Justice of the Common Bench, after a prosperous career as a lawyer and a long service as judge, was found guilty of heinous offences and abjured the realm. But with lawyer- like skill he had made his wife and children co-foeffees of sev- eral of his manors, which were not forfeited. Other judges were fined in large amounts ranging from 4,000 to 2,000 marks, — immense sums, when we reflect that a Chief Jus- tice's salary was then but forty pounds. Lovetot, Rochester, and Sadington are not heard of again. Boyland busied him- self in building a splendid mansion and left a large fortune. Hopton and Saham returned to the practice. It will be seen that only after a bitter experience did England learn the necessity of paying large salaries to judges. Two judges were " faithful found among the faithless," — Elias de Beckingham and John de Metingham. The lat- ter was promoted to the headship of the common bench. There he presided for twelve years. His memory is kept alive by the prayer directed to be made at Cambridge pro animo Domini John de Metingham, as one of the benefactors of the University. He was a learned and just judge. His treatise on Essoins was a valued law book. He in one of his opinions cites Porphyrins to a definition of surplusage, as something " which may be present or absent without detri- ment to the subject." Once he ruled against the opinion of all the Serjeants, putting his decision on the ground of convenience. In another case he ruled in Mutford's favor, and the gratified counsel burst forth with a quotation from Holy Writ : " Blessed is the womb that bare thee." In another case he patiently listened to many objections to a verdict and then dryly said : " Now it is our turn," and made short work of the objections. A counsel, not a serjeant, who had pleaded badly and lost his client's case, he addresses pityingly as " My poor friend," and explains to him his hopeless error. Metingham in another case thought it no objection to a verdict that the prevailing party had enter- tained the jury at a tavern. We are reminded that the jury has hardly as yet attained a judicial function. Hengham came back to the bench as the successor of