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formulated an opinion. His domineering intellect made him perhaps too impatient of authorities which conflicted with his indi vidual opinion, and his uniform effort to ground his judgment on elementary prin ciples sometimes led him beyond the estab-

would be unnecessary to range up and down a variety of decisions, because those rules would afford the best answer and secure the removal of every difficulty" (5 E. & I. App. 529.) Still he was not given in the exercise of judicial functions to the extreme views

LORD WESTBURY.

lished landmarks of the law. It is common to find in his work such opening statements as these: "My Lords, we are all exceedingly glad when, in a collection of miserable tech nicalities such as these which are before us here, we can find our way to something like a solid and reasonable ground of decision" (5 E. & I. App. 25). "There is no difficulty at all in the matter, and if the general rules of law were more steadily kept in view it

which marred his political career. His subtle mind was restrained by good sense.1 1 For example, in Overend v. Gibbs, 5 E and I. App. 495, he offers the following sensible reflection : "I think it would be a very fatal error in the verdict of any court of justice to attempt to measure the amount of prudence that ought to be exercised by the amount of prudence which the judge himself might think under similar circumstances he should have exercised. I think it extremely likely that many a judge, or many a person versed by long experience in the affairs of mankind as conducted in the mercantile world, will know that there