Lord St Leonards died on February Ist, at the great age of ninety-four. Seventy years ago. i.e., quite at the beginning of the century, he was already a great power at the Bar, and this, though he had been the exclusive architect of his own fortunes, for, as everybody knows, he was the son of a hairdresser, The deceased Chancellor was even greater as a barrister and a judge than in the capacity in which he will live longest—namely, as a writer on law. His books contain vast knowledge, great subtlety, a true legal sagacity, but they are not by any means models of exposition, and they are even more patchworky now than when he first wrote them. His command of legal principle was never so brought out as to give any massiveness of construction or charm of organisation to his books, “ Vendors and Purchasers” was certainly scrappy from the first, and is none the better for its repeated darnings, iiord St Leonards’ knowledge was so minute and so extensive, that it will be long before new master-builders will venture to pull down even the old scaffoldings, and to recast the structures he raised on a more natural and harmonious architectural principle. But certainly the lawyer as evinced by his writings was far greater than the legal author. If Prince Bismarck were in full health, we should say he was wanting to do something very big indeed, for he is resigning again, but the evidence makes it probable that he is very ill. According to the Cologne Gazette, he is over-worked and over-worried till he has resolved to resign, and according to the Daily Telegraph's Berlin correspondent, he has fixed on his sixtieth birthday, Ist of April of this year, for the event. He intends thenceforward to live at Varzin. According to this writer, the incessant threats of assassination, which affected even Cromwell’s iron nerves, and the elaborate precautions taken by the police, who evidently believe him in danger, have destroyed his health, •nd induced his family and his physicians to put a pressure upon him which he cannot resist. His frame is still unbroken, and even il be did retire, be could still return at tbe
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Bibliographic details
Globe, Volume III, Issue 282, 7 May 1875, Page 4
Word Count
367Page 4 Advertisements Column 1 Globe, Volume III, Issue 282, 7 May 1875, Page 4
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