LORD ST LEONARDS. SOME little time ago might have been seen in the corner of a weekly legal periodical the following brief intimation: "Early in January 1857 will be published the Thirteenth Edition of Sugden's Law of Vendors and Purchasers of Estates, with important additions. This Edition will contain between eleven and twelve hundred cases, in addition to those in the last Edition. The Author has bestowed great pains on this Edition." The book now lies before us; and in the preface we find this observation "Every case cited I have perused in the original Report, and every line of the book has been written by myself," that book being a royal octavo volume of 720 closely-printed pages, and those cases-as we vouch, after curiously counting the table of cases -amounting to upwards of four thousand six hundred! And who, it may be asked, is this very laborious author? No other than Lord St Leonards, so lately Lord High Chancellor, now in his seventy-fifth year, yet having the inclination and the power, mental and physical, thus to occupy the intervals of leisure occurring in the discharge of his judicial and legislative duties as a member of the House of Lords! The career of such a man we commend to the studious attention of some future historian of the Lives of the Lord Chancellors; and in the mean time shall supply him with some authentic materials, collected in the course of careful inquiry, and personal observation. We believe that England never before saw, living at once, three such remarkable subjects for the portraiture of some future Lord Campbell, as the three ex-Chancellors now adorning the House of LordsLords Lyndhurst, Brougham, and St Leonards,-Lord Campbell himself being a distinguished member of that House, for a brief space Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and now the learned and upright Lord Chief Justice of England. At some future time we may ourselves attempt sketches of Lords Lyndhurst, Brougham, and Campbell; but our present concern is with that one of the aforesaid three ex-Chancellors whose name stands at the head of this article. Without attributing to him the attractive and dazzling characteristics of Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham as orators and statesmen-the latter, too, a prodigy of versatility and power-we shall, by a plain narrative of facts, establish the pretensions of Lord St Leonards to be regarded as a great lawyer, whose name will be ranked with those of Lord Hardwicke and Lord Eldon; while, in several respects, his career is more remarkable and more instructive than that of either. The race of great lawyers in England is but too evidently dying out. Perhaps we see the last of them in Lord St Leonards, who may be said to have exhibited A Concise and Practical Treatise of the Law of Vendors and Purchasers of Estates. By EDWARD SUGDEN (now Lord St Leonards). 13th Edition. 1 vol. royal 8vo. 1857. Sweet, London. Practical Treatise of Powers. By the Right Honourable Sir EDWARD SUGDEN. 2 vols. 8vo. 7th Edition. 1845. The Law of Uses and Trusts. By the late Chief Baron GILBERT; with Notes, References, and an Introduction, by EDWARD BURTENSHAW SUGDEN, Esq., Barristerat-Law. 1 vol. 8vo. 3d Edition. 1811. A Treatise of the Law of Property, as Administered by the House of Lords. By Sir EDWARD SUGDEN. 1 vol. royal 8vo. 1849. An Essay on the New Statutes relating to Real Property. By Sir EDWARD SUGDEN. 1 vol. 8vo. 1852. A Series of Letters to a Man of Property on Sales, Purchases, Mortgages, Leases, Settlements, and Devises of Estates. By Sir EDWARD B. SUGDEN. 1 vol. 8vo. 6th Edition. Pamphlets, &c. Speeches, &c. as great legal, as the late Duke of Wellington military, genius. And the former has this signal characteristic, that throughout the whole of his long, arduous, and distinguished career as advocate, judge, and legislator, he has never intermitted the labours of legal authorship; but brought forth works of practical and profound erudition, contributing to develop law as a science, aiding the studies, and facilitating the practice and administration of that law, by every member of the profession. Under this fourfold aspect, therefore, of author, advocate, judge, and legislator, we propose to exhibit a sketch of the life and labours of Lord St Leonards, tracing him from his first book and his first brief, to his last edition of that first book; to his last brief; to his last judgment as Lord High Chancellor; and the most recent of a long series of Acts of Parliament, of the highest practical importance, contributed by him to the Statute-book. wieldy a subject, without wondering how the youthful author could have acquired the requisite knowledge and facility in using it. He was a pupil of the late eminent conveyancer, Mr Duval, but we are not aware at what age he entered the chambers of that gentleman. Let us now, however, leap over a good half-century, and look for a moment at the account of this early performance, given by its author on the 10th of this present January 1857, in the highly interesting preface to the edition now under consideration :— "After the lapse of half a century since the first publication of this work, I am about to send forth a thirteenth edition of it. Determined at my outset in life to write a book, I was delighted when I hit upon the subject now before the reader-the Law of Vendors and Purchasers. The title promised well; previously been embodied in any treaand many portions of the law had not tise. Modern law-treatises were indeed few at that period. When this work was announced for publication, nearly Edward Burtenshaw Sudgen was the universal opinion was that it would born in the year 1781; and having be a failure, as the subjects to be con duly entered himself a student of sidered were too multifarious for one Lincoln's Inn, such was the use he treatise. Nothing dismayed, I laboured had made of his time, and such his diligently; and with the aid of Lincoln's marvellous aptitude for the acquisition of the book was written for my Inn library, in which a considerable portion of legal knowledge-for which, indeed, his intellect may be said to have exhibited a sort of elective affinity-that before he had reached his twenty-second year, as he himself has left on record,* he had written his Vendors and Purchasers of Estates-which was published in February 1805,-. e. in his twentyfourth year! It is an octavo volume of 461 pages. We have seen a copy of it bearing the date 1805; and no person, competent to judge, can read its terse and thoroughly practical exposition of the leading principles applicable to so difficult and un own shelves were but scantily furnished ginal shape. My courage then failed me. -I at length finished the work in its oriThe expense of publication was certain, and success I thought more than doubtful; and it was not without some difficulty that I could be persuaded to refrain from committing the manuscript to the flames, and to join with a bookseller in incurring the risk of publishing it at half profit and loss, as it is termed. As soon as the book was printed, another edition, and thus relieved me from my bookseller bought my interest in the obligations. The amount I received as the price of the edition was small, but I have never since received any sum with * Preface to the fourth edition of the "Vendors and Purchasers" quoted in the preface to the thirteenth edition. In justice to the memory of the late Mr Preston, one of the most eminent conveyancers that ever lived, it should be stated that he also in early life published-we believe in his twenty-first year (1791)-an elementary treatise on the Quantity of Estates, which has, with modifications in successive editions, continued even to the present time a standard text-book in the profession. In its original form it may be regarded as the anatomy of the body of real-property law-and a doubt may be entertained whether subsequent editions were improvements on the first. This book laid the foundation, in his case also, of an enormous practice and great wealth; but never, as in the case of his distinguished contemporary, led to judicial office. anything approaching to the same satisfaction. The book was certainly the foundation of my early success in life." 66 Who does not envy the veteran (not lagging lazily on the stage) this retrospect, and thank him for a glimpse of his autobiography? He proceeds to tell us that this first edition was sold "at once;" that a greatly enlarged one was published in June 1806-both before he was called to the bar; the third in a year afterwards, in 1808; the fourth in 1813; and five new and very large editions at regular intervals of four years, till 1834;-"all these six appearing," he continues, "while I was in full practice at the bar, and could ill afford the time required to re-edit the work." On returning from Ireland, in 1835, after his first Chancellorship, "I had," he says, "for the first time in my professional life, full leisure, and revised the whole work with great care;" and published a tenth edition, in three volumes royal 8vo, in 1839. While yet a second time in office in Ireland" (as to which we shall have by-and-by to say much that is interesting), "I prepared and published, on the 1st May 1846" (that is, while holding the Irish Seals), "the eleventh edition, compressed into two volumes." A twelfth, in a greatly compressed form, in one small octavo volume, a work of very great labour, appeared in June 1851,every portion, including even index and table of cases, being his own exclusive personal handiwork. Six months afterwards he became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain; and now, at the opening of the new year, 1857, we have, as a sort of parting gift, of infinite value to the profession of the law, this thirteenth edition, "the last," he says, though he is in full health and vigour, "that I can expect to publish..... To restore the work to its original shape as a treatise, and at the same time preserve its character as a concise and practical view of the subject" (the form which the twelfth edition had assumed), “I have spared neither time nor labour." Those only can judge of the labour and time required for such a task, who are in the habit of perusing all the voluminous reports of our many courts. The twelfth edition con tained some five hundred cases not quoted in the eleventh ; and upwards of twelve hundred cases are included in this thirteenth which were not in the twelfth. "This collection of cases is the fruit of upwards of half a century of research and labour ;every case" (as we have seen), "I have perused in the original report, and every line of the book has been written by myself. I doubt not that there are errors which have escaped me, but I have endeavoured to leave behind me this, my first work, in a shape in some sense worthy of the acceptance of the members of the profession to which I have the honour to belong; and I know, by a long experience, that I may safely rely on their indulgence." Such is the first glimpse we obtain of Edward Sugden, starting on his career as an author, during half a century's overwhelming labour and anxiety as a Chancery counsel, as an active member of the House of Commons, and as thrice a Lord Chancellor. Blackwood's Magazine is not the fitting expositor, in detail, of this great law-treatise, stamped by the unanimous and uninterrupted approbation, for half a century, of the whole legal profession, of every rank -by judges, counsel, and solicitors, alike in courts of law and equity. We think there must at this moment be extant some thirty or forty thousand copies of the various editions of the "Vendors and Purchasers ;" and we entertain little doubt that, as soon as this last is seen, no member of the profession, who can afford to procure it, will be long without doing so. To the general reader we may intimate that this work is of an intensely practical character; and the art of condensation which it manifests can go no further. Its sweep is immense. The gifted author exhibits the power of grasping the whole subject, however extensive and complicated, and yet applying accurate and the latestlegal knowledge to the minutest exigency, from the terse, clear, cautious, and yet decisive enumeration of the profoundest principles of equity, down to a question of costs,in all the variety of subdivisions of that somewhat expensive luxury,whether as "6 costs" simpliciter, or as "costs, charges, and expenses!" Probably no book of the kind has ever stood on a lawyer's shelves, or was constantly in hand, in which so few errors have been detected; while able and experienced lawyers could point to great numbers of opinions and doubts from time to time expressed by the author, which have afterwards been sanctioned by judicial decision, and are always entertained and canvassed with the utmost respect-the respect due to one bringing the results of vast practical and scientific knowledge and experience to bear upon the ordinary exigencies of litigation. It has facilitated the labour, and alleviated the anxieties and responsibilities of tens of thousands of practitioners during half a century:* and those of 1857,-students as well as practitioners-now see a new edition, thoroughly remodelling the work, and adapting it to existing exigencies with scrupulously conscientious personal care and labour, by an author who so lately administered justice as Lord High Chancellor, to the admiration of all. Shortly after the original appearance of this work, its author, then seeking practice as a conveyancer under the bar, received a Case for his opinion, in consequence of a solicitor's having cancelled the work. Mr Sugden's opinion differed from that which, though given by an eminent counsel, had dissatisfied his client, and proved to be correct. In a short time he found himself in large and rapidly increasing business. Two years after the appearance of his book, namely in 1807, he was called to the bar; and the first trace of him in the reports is to be found in the 14th volume of Vesey Junior's Reports of Cases in Chancery, p. 302, on the 18th March in that year, in the case of Browne v. Like, which was, in fact, the first case he ever argued, and before that very eminent judge, Sir William Grant, then Master of the Rolls. Mr Sugden's senior on that occasion was Sir Samuel Romilly, who left him to open the case. He has since said, that when he first rose, at the corner of the back bench in that dusky little court, his knees shook under him; but if this were so, he disguised his nervousness, and spoke, as we have heard, with apparent calmness and selfpossession, - so effectually arguing the first of the two points in dispute, and the main one, that, on his proceeding to the second, to his surprise, Mr Richards, subsequently Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who led for the defendant, turned round and told him that they should abandon that point; thereby so encouraging the young counsel, that, in a more lively and confident frame of mind, he proceeded to his second point. His opponents were unable to answer his lucid argument; and after a few words in reply from Sir Samuel Romilly, the court decided in favour of the plaintiff, and thus enjoyed Mr Sugden his prædulce decus primo certamine! This his first case was a small affair in point of the property involved, but has its special interest, as far as he is concernednot only as occasioning his maiden effort, but because it affected a branch of the law which, not long afterwards, fell under his vigorous assault, as most vexatious and oppressive-the enrolling of Annuities. The facts were shortly these: An uncle had bequeathed to his niece, for her sole and separate use, a life interest in the dividends on a small sum in the Funds, vested in trustees for that purpose. Soon afterwards she married, and, with her husband's concurrence, bona fide sold to Mr Sugden's client, for £140, twenty pounds a-year of the aforesaid dividends; but no memorial of the deed of sale was enrolled according to the Act then in force, and since repealed. The two questions were, whether the lady had power to sell these dividends? and whether the transaction was a "sale, out and out," or the grant of an annuity? in the former case requiring no enrolment. The first point was given up,† and the second *It is well known that for a single edition, Sir Edward Sugden once received the sum, unprecedented in the writers of law books, of four thousand guineas! + The uncle might have prohibited his niece from thus alienating, or "anticipating," as it is called, any portion of what he had bequeathed her, but had not thought decided against the defendant. Mr Sugden's second case in court, as far as we have been able to trace him, was the well-known one of Sloane v. Cadogan, in the Rolls Court in the year 1808. His own outline of his elaborate argument is to be found in the appendix to the "Vendors and Purchasers." Those clients of Mr Sugden who are still living, tell of the peace of mind which ensued their securing his services as their conveyancer; so prompt, correct, decisive, was he as an adviser, and, as a draftsman, neat, concise, and elegant. In his case, confidence was not a plant of slow growth. His practice grew apace in chambers, and he began more and more frequently to appear, not only in courts of equity, but in those of common law, to argue questions connected with conveyancing, and the law of real property: quickly conciliating the respect of opponents, and of the bench, by his exact and extensive knowledge, and masterly use of it. Great as was the pressure of his chamber practice, and constantly increasing as his appearances in court, Mr Sugden yet found time to prepare two new editions of his "Vendors and Purchasers," as we have seen, in the years 1806 and 1808, that of the latter year in a far more systematic form than any of the former had exhibited, being, as he now tells us, "the first divided into sections, with the placita numbered." And as if even all this were not sufficient, the selfsame year 1808 saw another important work of his, of a much higher order than his former one, as of a more abstruse and scientific character his Treatise on POWERS. This elaborate and systematic work, which we regard as eminently characteristic of its author's legal genius, at once elevated him-now in his twentyseventh year-to a conspicuous position in the foremost rank of living lawyers. It has ever since continued a text-book of the highest repute we might almost say, though in its author's lifetime, of authority-and were has passed through seven large editions, every one prepared by the indefatigable author, who, in his preface to the first edition, modestly pleaded, "as an excuse for any inaccuracies in it, the necessity of devoting his time to other labours, from which moments were snatched for this performance." He is here speaking of his labours as a conveyancer in full practice, whose toils are severe and unremitting; requiring a close exclusive attention, if he would not run the risk of making shipwreck of his reputation by perilling, or actually sacrificing, the important interests confided to his skilled experience. To such a master of his art as Mr Sugden, these toils would be lightened as far as their troublesome nature admitted. The Practical Treatise on POWERS, we regard as one of the most remarkable performances on record in the literature of the law, especially as that of a conveyancer comparatively so youthful. The attempt to give a mere general reader a fair notion of what the lawyer means by "powers," would be about as hopeful as to explain to a young lady the doctrine of differential calculus. To form an idea of this kind of "Power," he must be apprised of the nature of "Use," of a "Trust," of the old common law, and after a great statute. Blackstone, that exquisitely elegant expositor of everything susceptible of exposition, declared it "impracticable," in the plan of his Commentaries, to pursue the doctrine of Uses through all the refinements and niceties which the ingenuity of times abounding in subtle distinctions, deduced from this child of the imagination;" "a notion transplanted," he elsewhere tells us, "into England from the civil law about the close of the reign of Edward III., by means of the foreign ecclesiastics, who introduced it to evade the statutes of mortmain." Would our non-legal readers set out with us, if we were so disposed, to follow this ignis fatuus? Doubtless they would be as unwilling to follow 66 fit to do so. A woman who has thus property in equity, is the creature of equity, and may have as much or as little capacity of dealing with it, as her donor may have chosen to confer upon her. Possibly this was something like the argument of Mr Sugden, which is not given by the reporter. |