, as the Semitic intellect generally is, and yet thoroughly
scientific. And he was also one of those strong natures who make
themselves disliked while they are fighting their way to the top, but
grow more genial and more tolerant when they have won what they
sought, and perceive that others admit their pre-eminence. The
services which he rendered as a judge illustrate not only the
advantage of throwing open all places to all comers--the bigotry of an
elder day excluded the Jews from judicial office altogether--but also
the benefit of having a judge at least equal in ability to the best of
those who practise before him. It was because Jessel was so easily
master in his court that so large and important a part of the judicial
business of the country was, during many years, despatched with a
swiftness and a success seldom equalled in the annals of the English
Courts.

-----

[25] 2 Sam. xvi. 23.

[26] _Odyss._ viii. 274: "And upon the anvil-stand he set the mighty
anvil; and he forged the links that could be neither broken nor
loosed, so that they should stay firm in their place."

[27] Lord Justice James said of his colleague that he had only one
defect as a judge: "He was too anxious to convince counsel that
they were wrong, when he thought their contention unsound,
seeming to forget that counsel are paid not to be convinced."

LORD CHANCELLOR CAIRNS

Hugh M'Calmont Cairns, afterwards Earl Cairns (born 1819, died
1885), was one of three remarkable Scoto-Irishmen whom the north-east
corner of Ulster gave to the United Kingdom in one generation, and
each of whom was foremost in the career he entered. Lord Lawrence
was the strongest of Indian or Colonial administrators, and did more
than any other man to save India for England in the crisis of the
great Mutiny of 1857. Lord Kelvin has been, since the death of
Charles Darwin, the first among British men of science. Lord Cairns
was unquestionably the greatest judge of the Victorian epoch, perhaps
of the nineteenth century.[28] His name and family were of Scottish
origin, but he combined with the shrewd sense and grim persistency
of Scotland some measure of the keen partisanship which marks the
Irish Orangeman. Born an Episcopalian, he grew up a Tory in
politics, an earnest Low-Church Evangelical in religion; nor did his
opinions in either respect ever seem to alter during his long
life. His great abilities were perceive