and in a few months gained a scholarship. He had just completed his eighteenth year when he graduated, taking a first class in classics and a second in mathematics—an instance of precocity which, among men who have gained distinction in later life, is paralleled only by that of Phillpotts, bishop of Exeter. It was his frequent boast that from the age of seventeen he supported himself entirely by his own exertions, his father being no longer able to bear the expense of maintaining him at Oxford. After taking his degree he continued to reside in Oxford, and in a few years he was appointed to a fellowship in his own college, having previously, it is said, unsuccessfully opposed the future Cardinal Newman as a candidate for an Oriel fellowship. In 1823 he was called to the bar as a member of the Middle Temple, and he decided to practise in the equity courts, then presided over by Lord Eldon, the chancellor, Sir Thomas Plumer, the master of the rolls, and Sir John Leach, the vice-chancellor. On the strength of his academical reputation an opportunity was offered to Bethell a few years after his call, of which he availed himself, and which assured his success. An action had been brought against Brasenose College, and some eminent legal authority had advised the college to agree to a compromise. The question was of great importance, and on the recommendation of Dr. Gilbert, then principal of Brasenose, Bethell's opinion was taken. It was strongly in favour of continuing the action. The college followed his advice, and both before the vice-chancellor and on appeal before the House of Lords they were successful (‘Attorney-General v. Brasenose College,’ 1 L. J., N.S. 66; 2 Cl. & Fin. 295). From this time his practice grew very rapidly. In 1840 he was made a queen's counsel by Lord Cottenham, and thereafter he settled in the court of Vice-chancellor Shadwell, over whose easy mind he exercised an extraordinary influence. By the aid of a wide knowledge of law, great industry, and unexampled audacity, he moved quickly to the front, and on the promotion of Knight Bruce and Wigram, in 1841, found himself the leader of the chancery bar, making an income which is said to have for many years exceeded 20,000l. Not till 1847 did he make any attempt to enter parliament. He failed in his first contest, when he stood as a liberal-conservative for Shaftesbury; but four years later he appeared with somewhat more advanced opinions, prepared to support the ballot and the abolition of church rates, and was returned for Aylesbury. The change in his attitude has been curiously exaggerated through his having been confounded with another Richard Bethell, a tory, who was member for the East Riding of Yorkshire from 1832 to 1837 ; but certamly his liberalism was steadily growing stronger, and at the general election of 1862 he found a more suitable constituency at Wolverhampton. The conservative element in his nature, however, never disappeared; though on questions of personal liberty, such as the admission of Jews to parliament and the abolition of tests in universities, he was at one with the advanced party. He retained his belief in the value of a landed aristocracy. ‘I do not know anything,’ he said, ‘that is more important to preserve in this country than the great rule by which the landed property of the father passes to the eldest son.’
Bethell had not long to wait for promotion. In 1851 he was appointed vice-chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; in the following year he became solicitor-general in the ‘Government of all the talents,’ and in 1856, when Sir Alexander Cockburn was raised to the bench, he was made attorney-general. With one interval in 1858 and 1859 he held this last office until he became lord chancellor. When Bethell entered the House of Commons the necessity of great measures of law reform had for the first time begun to be recognised as of serious political consequence, and the weight of the work fell chiefly on his shoulders. Nothing did more to raise his reputation than the manner in which he carried through committee Mr. Gladstone's Succession Duty Bill, one of the most difficult and technical measures ever dealt with by parliament, and one which gave splendid scope for that readiness of apprehension and clearness of exposition in which he was unrivalled. He took a leading part also in the debates on the Oxford University Bill of 1854, and as attorney-general he introduced and carried through in 1857 the Probate and Administration Bill, the Divorce and Matrimonial Bill (carried almost single-handed against the most bitter opposition), and the Fraudulent Trustees Bill, and in 1861 the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill. This last measure, on which he had built high hopes, was marred, as he believed, by the rejection of his proposal to create a chief judge in bankruptcy—a proposal to which parliament returned when in 1869 it next legislated on the subject. He had other schemes of law reform, which advanced more slowly. On the subject of legal education he entertained the largest notions, desiring to see the Inns of Court erected into one great legal university, which should not merely undertake the training of professional lawyers, but co-operate with other universities in general
