Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/734

 720 V. BENCH AND BAR the greatest English judge and the greatest EngHsh advo- cate were both Scotchmen of high descent. Erskine was a member of the house of the earls of Mar, the oldest title in Europe which has survived to our times. But he had not the fine training of Mansfield. The poverty of his father, the Earl of Buchan, caused Erskine at an early age to enter the army, and it was not until he was twenty-seven that he turned to the law. Again the profession has Mansfield to thank for his advice to the young subaltern. The uninter- rupted career of Erskine at the bar justified Mansfield's judgment. Perhaps the world may see again as perfect a forensic orator, but doubtless up to our time the Roman Cicero is the only advocate who can be found to rank with Erskine. While Mansfield was on the bench, Jeremy Bentham had been writing his epoch-making works. He was the son and grandson of attorneys, members of the inferior grade of the profession. He was educated at Westminster School and at Queen's College, Oxford. At twenty-five he entered Lin- coln's Inn. He attended the court of King's Bench and lis- tened, as he tells us, with rapture to the judgments of Lord Mansfield. He heard Blackstone's lectures at Oxford, but he says that he immediately detected the fallacies under- lying those smooth periods. Fortunately, he was the pos- sessor of an ample fortune which gave him leisure for study. Becoming disgusted with the profession, and willing to dis- appoint the wishes of his father, who had hoped that his son's great talents would at last place him in the marble chair, Bentham voluntarily relinquished all effort to take an active part in life, either as a lawyer or legislator, and devoted himself to the study of the subjects upon which legislation ought to act and the principles upon which it ought to proceed. His ample means to employ secretaries saved him from a life of drudgery. He gathered around him a small but brilliant company; prominent among his circle were Romilly, Mackintosh, and Brougham, the ex- ponents of his views of legal reform. Bentham's legal reforms were but a small part of his activity. He was a philosopher, who claimed by his one