bottom of the matter. The Bar in a little while came to learn and
adapt themselves to his ways, and few complained of being stopped or
interrupted by him, because his interruptions, unlike those of some
judges, were neither inopportune nor superfluous. The counsel (with
scarcely an exception) felt themselves his inferiors, and recognised
not only that he was better able to handle the case than they were,
but that the manner and style in which they presented their facts or
arguments would make little difference to the result, because his
penetration was sure to discover the merits of each contention, and
neither eloquence nor pertinacity would have the slightest effect on
his resolute and self-confident mind. Thus business was despatched
before him with unexampled speed, and it became a maxim among
barristers that, however low down in the cause-list at the Rolls your
cause might stand, it was never safe to be away from the court, so
rapidly were cases "crumpled up" or "broken down" under the blows of
this vigorous intellect. It was more surprising that the suitors, as
well as the Bar and the public generally, acquiesced, after the first
few months, in this way of doing business. Nothing breeds more
discontent than haste and heedlessness in a judge. But Jessel's speed
was not haste. He did as much justice in a day as others could do in a
week; and those few who, dissatisfied with these rapid methods, tried
to reverse his decisions before the Court of Appeal, were very seldom
successful, although that court then contained in Lord Justice James
and Lord Justice Mellish two unusually strong men, who would not have
hesitated to differ even from the redoubtable Master of the Rolls.

As I have mentioned Lord Justice Mellish, I may turn aside for a
moment to say a word regarding that extraordinary man, who stood along
with Cairns and Roundell Palmer in the foremost rank of Jessel's
professional contemporaries. Mellish held for some years before his
elevation to the Bench in 1869 a position unique at the English
Common-law Bar as a giver of opinions on points of law. As the
Israelites in King David's day said of Ahithophel that his counsel was
as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God,[25] so the legal
profession deemed Mellish practically infallible, and held an opinion
signed by him to be equal in weight to a judgment of the Court of
Exchequer Chamber (the then court of appeal in common-law cases). He
was not effective as a