ities of
a great judge. His legal knowledge, indeed, was merely such as he had
picked up in practice of no very high kind. But he had one of those
happily constituted intellects which, across labyrinths of sophistry,
and through masses of immaterial facts, go straight to the true point.
Of his intellect, however, he seldom had the full use. Even in civil
causes his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually disordered his
judgment. To enter his court was to enter the den of a wild beast,
which none could tame, and which was as likely to be roused to rage by
caresses as by attacks. He frequently poured forth on plaintiffs and
defendants, barristers and attorneys, witnesses and jurymen, torrents of
frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and curses. His looks and tones
had inspired terror when he was merely a young advocate struggling into
practice. Now that he was at the head of the most formidable tribunal
in the realm, there were few indeed who did not tremble before him.
Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in
general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated
by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to
revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him
to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low
merriment, but social and goodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on
such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the
vilest pettifoggers who practiced before him. These men bantered and
abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk,
sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, hugged and kissed
them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. But though wine at first seemed
to soften his heart, the effect a few hours later was very different. He
often came to the judgment seat, having kept the court waiting long, and
yet having but half slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes
staring like those of a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon
companions of the preceding night, if they were wise, kept out of his
way: for the recollection of the familiarity to which he had admitted
them inflamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity
of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious
of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in
publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of