Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/719

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE AGES 705 himself the greatest master of common law pleading that system has ever known. He had no political opinions, nor did he seek riches or advancement. Witty, genial and gay, he had always around him a crowd of students, with whom he was putting cases, answering objections and debating abstruse points. His physical appearance was repulsive. Brandy was his constant drink, varied by a pot of ale always near him. Drunkenness and gluttony had caused a general decay of his body. Hideous sores and an offensive stench made his presence an affliction. Yet the government had such need of his services that North, the Lord Keeper, actually asked him to dinner. Saunders drew the pleadings in the great Quo Warranto case, and caused the attorneys for the City of London to plead upon a point where they were sure to be defeated. Thereupon Saunders drew up an ingenious repli- cation, to which the city demurred. Just as the cause was about to be argued Pemberton was removed and Saunders was appointed, and (incredible as it may seem) he then heard argument upon his own pleadings. The cause was argued for two terms, but when, at the third term, judgment was delivered, Saunders lay dying in his lodgings. His best memorial is his book of reports, the most perfect specimen of such work in our legal literature. Saunders was succeeded, after an interval, by the noted Jeffreys, popularly considered the worst judge that ever sat in Westminster Hall. But this popular belief cannot be taken in place of the sober facts. He was of an ancient family in Wales. He received the usual education of his time, and at- tended at Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied at the Middle Temple, and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty. He at once leaped to a commanding position. He was made Common Serjeant, and later Recorder of London. This was due to his splendid legal talents. He had one of those rare minds which under great masses of evidence seize upon the real issue. He had a marvellous skill in advocacy, and a flowing, impassioned, magnetic eloquence. Added to this was an overwhelming bitterness of denunciation that sometimes appalled his hearers. We know that Sir Matthew- Hale was a good judge of lawyers, and we are told that