Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/732

 718 V. BENCH AND BAR permit a priest to be convicted of celebrating the mass. In the " no popery riots " his mansion was burned by a Prot- estant mob. Yet Lord George Gordon, who was tried for high treason in assembhng the mob, voluntarily chose to be tried before Lord Mansfield. His calm, colorless charge to the jury, no less than Erskine's defense, caused the pris- oner's acquittal. As a trial judge, his demeanor was blameless. His keen- ness of mind, his great experience, his firm but courteous manner, his great patience, his impartial treatment of all lawyers, his want of passion and enthusiasm, his power of dispatching business, his absolute freedom from all influence, made him an ideal judge. His decisions, with their fine lit- erary finish, combining the polish of the scholar with the learning of a profound lawyer, make the reports of Burrow and Douglas the great repository of leading cases. In the thirty-three years he served on the bench, no bill of excep- tions was ever tendered to one of his rulings ; counsel being perfectly satisfied that when the motion for a new trial came before the full bench, the evidence would be fairly stated. Another singular fact is that he had but two judgments reversed, either in the Exchequer Chamber or in the House of Lords. Most rarely, too, did he allow a reargument of a case, and generally his decisions were made upon the con- clusion of the arguments. Lord Mansfield was singularly free from one fault that has characterized some of the greatest judges. He showed neither favoritism nor envy toward any of the leaders of the bar. Sir Matthew Hale had Jeffreys for his favorite, while he hated such men as Scroggs and Wright. Jeffreys, while he had no favorite, displayed violent antipathies. Lord Macclesfield took under his patronage Philip Yorke, after- wards Lord Hardwicke, and made his fortune at the chan- cery bar. Lord Kenyon had his fortune made by Thurlow, for whom he acted as " devil," and by Dunning, many of whose opinions he signed in Dunning's name. Kenyon while Lord Chief Justice was completely under the sway of Er- skine, who induced him to charge the jury in one case that the question of libel or no libel was for the jury. Kenyon