dence filling several bulky volumes. The inquiry concerned the ancient rights of twenty manors, and forest rights claimed to have existed for centuries; but his judg ment was given viva voce immediately on the conclusion of the case. No appeal was taken from his decision, which threw open to the public the largest forest in the imme diate neighborhood of London. While perhaps his marked energy of ex pression was not so conspicuous during the time he sat only as a judge of the first in stance, as it was after he became a member of the Court of Appeals, yet during this period his reputation soon achieved a solid basis, and early justified the language held by the eulo gist after his death:1 "As a judge he was at once so swift and so sure that the sur prise which each quality called forth became nothing less than astonishment at the union of the two. When he reasoned, it seemed as though he could dispense with authority; when he quoted, his learning and research admitted of no comparison. . . . Such achieve ments could only have been possible to a man gifted with the swiftest apprehension and the most tenacious memory. And in truth he seemed only to need to reach his hand in any direction to lay hold upon the keystone which at once fitted and completed the arch of legal reasoning upon any matter which was before him." His peculiar power consisted not merely in a grasp of the subject so masterful that he readily dispensed with mere technical language, but in a hearty scorn of this, or of argument resting only on terms or defini tions. The essence of each case was pre sented by him in a form level with the most ordinary comprehension, and yet as striking from its racy vigor as from its simple and almost colloquial directness. It carried con viction from the mere mode of statement. Few things were more gratifying to the layman or more interesting to the lawyer than to see this legal Samson burst asunder the bands of precedent, or expose the flimsi1 Sol. Jour & Rep xxvii 342.
ness of some technical absurdity respectable only from its age. Thus in sustaining the exercise of a power of appointment of per sonalty in the nature of a power in gross, by an infant feme covert, he says : * " As regards a power simply collateral, it is set tled — so it appears from such a book of authority as Sugden on Powers — that that power can be exercised by an infant. On principle it is very difficult to see why it is so settled. I mean it is very difficult to see why if discretion is required for the disposal of property, it should not be so in the case of the exercise of a power. However, as the law stands, that appears not to be so; and the reason, if reason is to be found anywhere, seems to be this, that it requires more discre tion to dispose of your own property than to dispose of other people's. That is the only reason I can find."2 In Couldery 7'. Bartrum3 another techni cal doctrine was treated with similar uncom promising plainness. " According to the English law, a creditor might accept any thing in satisfaction of a debt except a less amount of money. He might take a horse or a canary or a tomtit if he chose, and that was accord and satisfaction; but by a most extraordinary peculiarity of the English law, he could not take igs. 6d. in the pound. . . . That was one of the mysteries of the Eng lish Common Law . . . and as every debtor had not on hand a stock of canary-birds or tomtits or rubbish of that kind, it was felt desirable to bind the creditors, etc." In Cope v. Cope,4 where the power of an administrator durante minore aetate to sell for the payment of debts was denied, the Master of the Rolls thus shortly disposed of 1 Re D'Angibau, 15 Ch. D. 228 'J It is noticeable that in the Court of Appeals. Brett, L. J., is led to speak frankly with regard to the settled law prohibiting the exercise of a like power as to real estate : "The authority we are bound to obey with regard to real property is founded, I venture to say, in my opinion, upon one of those artificial rules with regard to real property which have done more to bring the law into popular ques tion than any other part of its administration." 8 19 Ch D. 394, 399. , 1 6 Ch. D. 49, 52.
