Learned Enemies

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 389, 6 December 1946, Page 15

Learned Enemies

ICHARD SINGER’S 3YA talks on Great Figures of the Bar I have urged on readers before, as possessing solid erudition and genuine wit. I now find that they may claim another virtue, not perhaps as common as it might be in radio talks on deceased worthies, that of objectivity and detachment, His most recent choice was a mid-19th Century potentate, Lord Campbell, who. was, it seems, a great lawyer, but (like King John in the poem) "not a good man; he had his: little ways." These little ways. included relentless ambition, pitiless intrigue, the furious and humourless industry of the social climber, and savage and uninhibited ill manners, These things were made plain by Mr. Singer with admirable calm and fairness. He quoted Dr. Johnson’s pronouncement that the fairest prospect in Scottish eyes was the road to England, and showed its relevance to Campbell (Mon, it’s a grand sicht tae see a Scotsman on the make"-Barrie) without becoming involved as a weaker man might have done in disputing the justice and accuracy of the dictum. Mr. Singer dares to assume that his public appreciate good prose and good anecdotes. |