bered that in other cases he had been peculiarly active in correcting abuses in the departments under his charge, and that in using his position to favour his relatives he had been following a long, if an evil, tradition, to break which the public had clamoured for the sacrifice of somebody. (For the facts of the two cases, see the Committee Reports: Edmunds's case, 1865 (294), ix. 1, and (173) xliii. 495; Leeds Bankruptcy Court case, 1865 (397), ix. 413, and (295) xliii. 465, also the Annual Register for 1865; and for different commentaries on the facts, see Law Magazine, xix. 281, and Fraser's Magazine, lxxii. 247). After his fall Lord Westbury retired to a villa which he had purchased in Italy, having resolved, as he said, to quit public life for ever. But he was very soon back again, to sit on appeals in the House of Lords and the Privy Council, and occasionally to take part in political debate. His intellect was still too bright and keen, and his delight too great in the exercise of his power of epigrammatic speech, to have made a life of retirement possible. He took especial interest in the Irish Church Bill, and, while agreeing that the existence of the Irish church was a great evil that needed to be cured by legislation, protested against the bill as a measure of mere destruction and confiscation. The case of St. Ambrose had been often mentioned in the debates, and there was much controversy as to whether in applying the vessels of the church to secular uses he had been guilty of sacrilege: ‘What might be the opinion respecting St. Ambrose,’ said Westbury, ‘in the days when he lived, I do not know; but I must say, with the modern ideas of property, that if St. Ambrose had been brought before me in equity I should not have hesitated to find him guilty of a breach of trust, and to make him refund the property’ (29 June 1869). The Irish Land Act of 1870 was even more repellent to his rigid and lawyer-like ideas of justice. He himself, on the other hand, succeeded in inducing Lord Hatherley to amend the constitution of the judicial committee of the privy council, which had long been unable to deal satisfactorily with its legal business (Judicial Committee Act, 1871); while he found in Lord Selborne's Judicature Act of 1873, carrying out the fusion which he had so long advocated, a measure to which he could give a hearty support.
The last year of his life was one of great labour. By the private act 35 and 36 Vict. c. xlv. he was appointed arbitrator in the winding-up of the affairs of the European Assurance Society, the number of questions involved being so great that, as in the previous case of the Albert Company, of which Earl Cairns had been appointed arbitrator, the ordinary courts proved incapable of settling them. It is the opinion of lawyers who at this time practised before him that he had never shown more clearly his acuteness, his knowledge of men and things, and his power of rapid and sound decision. As he was not bound by rigid rules of law, his decisions are not authoritative, but they are constantly referred to by judges and text-writers as containing a valuable body of principles on several titles of the law of public companies. (Reported by F. S. Reilly, and published 1873.). Till within a few weeks of his death he was engaged at this work, which was left unfinished, and was continued by Lord Romilly. He died at his house in London 20 July 1873, just the day after his old antagonist, Bishop Wilberforce.
Lord Westbury was twice married: (1) in 1825 to Ellinor Mary, eldest daughter of Robert Abraham, by whom he left seven children surviving; and (2) on 25 Jan. 1873 to Eleanor Margaret, third daughter of Henry Tennant, of Cadoxton in Glamorgan.
His character remains a difficult and interesting study, for it was full of contrasts. It combined a love of display with habits of the greatest frugality, and absolute ruthlessness with considerable benevolence of spirit and good nature. Few men have had a greater power of sarcastic speech, and no one has ever used such a power more mercilessly. Delivered in the most urbane manner, and in his mincing, drawling, half-affected tones, and set off by his round, placid face, his sentences fell with blistering effect. Lord Derby once described him as ‘standing up and for upwards of an hour pouring upon the head of a political opponent a continuous stream of vitriolic acid;’ and a judge once appealed to him to be addressed at least as a vertebrate animal. Judges, indeed, he treated at the bar as superciliously as on the woolsack he treated bishops, and Lincoln's Inn is rich in traditions of his audacity. Once, at any rate, his boldness was useful, in his famous protest against Knight Bruce's habit of prejudging cases (see Times, 14 and 15 March, and Punch, 26 March 1859). His manner of speech was the outcome of an overpowering and evidently sincere belief in his own intellectual superiority over other men, and his sleepless ambition to have his superiority acknowledged. In order to attain his end he spared no one, and he was not over-scrupulous of the means which he employed. But his character had another side. To those who did not stand in his way he could be the best of friends, and when the story of his life comes to be told in full there
