Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/827

 ^0. V ELDER: A CENTURY OF JUDICATURE 813 I am bound by it ; but I have not the remotest notion what that principle is. Not being at liberty to guess what the principle of those decisions is, I am only bound to follow them in a precisely similar case; consequently, as the legal decisions do not stand in my way, I dismiss the summons with costs." It is remarkable that so strong and positive a mind should have gone wrong so seldom. In the few cases in which he was reversed his errors came from his keen sense of justice and impatience with the law's delays.^ His complacency was never disturbed by reversals. " That is strange," he said when his attention was called to the fact that the Court of Appeal had reversed one of his decisions ; " when I sit with them they always agree with me." Jessel's mental fibre was so strong that it was coarse grained. He lacked the cultivated imagination of such men as Cairns, whom, alone of his con- temporaries, he conceded to be his superior, and second only to Hardwicke. In the rank of supremacy in the long line of chancery judges he modestly placed himself third.* Bramwell had few of those subtle and impressives attributes which go toward the make-up of a great judge of appeal. It would be idle to compare him as such with such contempo- raries as Cairns, Selborne or Bowen. But his sturdy common sense was an invaluable influence for good among associates differently constituted. In the Court of Appeal, sitting with •Jessel's work may be studied in the following list of representative opinions: Re Hallett's Estate, 13 Ch. D. 693; Smith v. Chadwick, 46 L. T. 702, 20 Ch. D. 67; Wallis v. Smith, 21 Ch. D. 243; Re Campden's Charities, 18 Ch. D. 310; Baker v. Sebright, 13 Ch. D. 179; Rossiter v. Miller, 36 L. T. 304; Adams v. Angell, 5 Ch. D. 634; Anglo-Italian Bank v. Davies, 9 Ch. D. 275; Carter v. Wake, 4 Ch. D. 605; Dymond V. Croft, 3 Ch. D. 512; Re Eager, 32 Ch. D. 86; Flower v. Lloyd, 6 Ch. D. 297; Freeman v. Cox, 8 Ch. D. 148; Re Hargreave's Contract, 32 Ch. D. 454; Henty v. Wrey, 21 Ch. D. 332; Patman v. Harland, 17 Ch. D. 353; Redgrave v. Hurd, 20 Ch. D. 1; Richards v. Delbridge, L. R. 18 Eq. 11; Steed v. Preece, L. R. 18 Eq. 192; Sutton v. Sutton, 22 Ch. D. 511; Tussaud v. Tussaud, 9 Ch. D. 363; Walsh v. Lonsdale, 21 Ch. D. 9; Couldery v. Bartrum, 19 Ch, D. 394; Sugden v. St. Leon- ards, 1 P. D. 154; Ex parte Reynolds, 20 Ch. D. 294; Suffell v. Bk. of England, 9 Q. B. D. 555; Mersey Steel Co. v. Naylor, 9 Q. B. D. 648; Aynsley v. f}lover, 18 Eq. 544; Speight v. Gaunt, 22 Ch. D. 727; Ewlng V. Orr Ewing, 22 Ch. D.; Re W. Canada Oil Co. 17 Eq. 1 (first case); Ex parte Willey, 74 L. T. 366 (last case).
 * See Coventry and Dixon's case, 14 Ch. D. 660.