The English Law Courts. purity, and had an excellent knowledge of German, Spanish and Italian. This gift of tongues proved serviceable in later years. In the case of The Queen v. Newman, Cockburn, who was then at the bar and appeared for the defendant, by his mastery of Italian tripped up a distinguished legal witness Tor the prosecution — the Chief-Justice of the Ionian Islands — and practically destroyed his evidence; and he not infrequently, after his promotion to the Bench, corrected the interpreters, and even acted as interpreter himself. But to return to the point where this digression began, Cockburn was edu cated partly at home and partly abroad. In 1822 he entered Trinity College, Cam bridge, where he distinguished himself in Latin prose and English composition, and was a prominent member of the University Union Debating Society. In 1825 he be came a Fellow Commoner. Four years later he gained his Bachelor of Civil Law degree (B. C. L.) and was elected to a fel lowship. His thoughts had already turned to the law. He had been admitted to the Middle Temple in 1825, and was called to the bar on the 6th of February, 1829. Cockburn at once joined the Western Cir cuit and the Devonshire sessions, where he soon acquired a good practice. In London, however, he was less successful, and often felt tempted to close his chambers alto gether. On the advice of a friend, he was induced to keep them open, and a boy (there was no clerk) waited from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. for the " receipt of custom" that seemed destined never to come. In 1832, however, Cockburn had his chance. In those days there was no Council of Law Reporting. The publication of reports of cases was in private hands, and was one of the legitimate means by which a barrister could bring his name under the favorable notice of attorneys. In conjunction with Rowe, afterward a knight and Recorder of Plymouth, he published a volume of cases decided on election petitions. On the 1st
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of March, 1823, a Parliamentary brief was delivered at his chambers. He was retained for the sitting members for Coventry, Lin coln and Dover, and was successful in all three cases. Here Cockburn was merely junior counsel, and much of the glory of his victory belongs to his leader, Follett. But he had the opportunity of displaying, and did in fact display, the skill in manip ulating facts and figures and the singular gifts of exposition which were characteristics of his advocacy, and from this time his suc cess was assured. The bare years of com parative failure and disappointed expecta tion were now passed, and the time of har vest speedily came. On the 18th of July, 1834, Cockburn was appointed a member of the Commission of Inquiry into the state of corporations in England and Wales, and was deputed with Whitcombe and Rushton to report on the northern midland towns, and on Leicester, Warwick and Nottingham. The reports for which he was responsible were for the most part exhaustive, and were one and all marked by great lucidity and expository power. They enabled him to make the acquaintance of the best client which he had in the early part of his career, Joseph Parkes, the chief Parliamentary agent of the Whigs (1835). Fresh election peti tions fell to his lot; his general practice in creased rapidly, and in 1841 Lord Chancel lor Cottenham made him a Queen's Counsel. His defense of Macnaughton two years later, which is too familiar to readers of the GREEN Bag to need fresh notice here, marked him out for early promotion. In 1850 he was made Solicitor-General and knighted; in March, 1851, he became At torney-General; in 1854, he prosecuted Palmer, the poisoner, with memorable success; in November, 1856, he was made Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas and on June 24th, 1859, he was raised to the Lord Chief-Justiceship of the Court of Queen's Bench, an office which he held through the changes introduced by the Judi
