and on my asking him, one day, whether it was true that he had obtained the gold medal, he blushed, slightly moved his head aside, and, after a pause, said, in a tone rather even of displeasure than gratification, "Possibly I did!" and we dropped the subject. In the year 1830, he entered the chambers of Richard Grainger Blick, Esquire, one of the most eminent special pleaders in the Temple, and who has assured me, that he always considered Mr. John William Smith to be a remarkable man. Probably there never before entered the chambers of pleader or barrister, in the character of novice, a man of more formidable legal aptitude and acquirements. We have already seen the substantial and extensive character of his law-reading at college; but, between leaving it, and entering Mr. Blick's chambers, Mr. Smith read carefully over "from cover to cover"—such were his words to me—"Tidd's Practice," a standard book, in two closely printed, large octavo volumes, and also "Selwyn's Nisi Prius," in two similar volumes. He had not been long in chambers before he found that "he had not a sufficient knowledge of pleading, to get any benefit from the business, which he saw;" wherefore he absented himself from chambers for some time, to enable him to read through the first volume of "Mr. Chitty's Treatise on Pleading;" and some time afterwards he again withdrew, for similar reasons, to read "Phillips on Evidence." Having obtained such an acquaintance with these two works, as to a person of inferior intellect or discipline might seem a complete mastery, he returned to chambers, able better to avail himself of the advantages afforded by Mr. Blick's extensive practice; very frequently surprising that gentleman by his mental vigour, and accurate and extensive legal knowledge. "I was very cunning," he has more than once said to me, "at chambers; for I soon saw how to go to work, better than the other pupils. They would be all for the 'heavy papers,' the great cases that came in, not caring for the shoal of small things that were continually appearing and disappearing. Now it seemed to me, that these constituted three-fourths of a lawyer's business, and that to be able to do them, was three-fourths of the battle: so I very quietly let my fine gentlemen take all the great papers, while I did nothing but these same despised common things, till at length I really began to feel that I was improving, and learning a good deal of law. But, as to the other sort of cases and papers, as soon as my fellow-pupils had done, puzzling their brains over them, and written the opinions, or drawn the pleadings, and Mr. Blick had revised them, and given them his imprimatur, I then read them over very diligently, and with great profit: but you must remember that this was before the late revolution in pleading." All this he repeated to me one day, only a few months before his death.—He never studied under any other practitioner than Mr. Blick, with whom, moreover, he spent only one year: yet such was his close application, his wonderful memory, his clear, vigorous, and disciplined understanding, and the soundness and extent of his previously acquired law, that on quitting Mr. Blick, Mr. Smith was really an able pleader, and had laid the basis of an extended, profound, and scientific knowledge of the law. Even at that early period, I frequently heard his opinion deferentially asked by men far his seniors, and of considerable standing in business. On quitting Mr. Blick, Mr. Smith read a number of other law books, in his usual attentive and thorough manner, completely mastering both them and the "cases" contained in them, and of which, generally speaking, they were little else than digests or epitomes. He was a very keen and acute logician, and felt great satisfaction in balancing the pros and cons of the reported cases, and testing the soundness of the judges' decisions, and the relevancy and force of the arguments of council which had led to them. Among the books which he read about this time, he enumerated to me "Sanders on Uses and Trusts," (which, he said, he found to be a difficult book to master practically;) "Fearne on Contingent Remainders," which he represented as likely to prove interesting to any educated man of intellect, fond of exercising it, who would take the trouble to read it; Sir Edward Sugden's Treatises on "Vendors and Purchasers of Real Estates," and on "Powers," and Williams' "Saunders;" while "Comyn's Digest" was ever lying before him, the subject of continual reference, and with which he soon acquired an invaluable familiarity. He also read several books on Equity with great attention, and often said, that no one, who really knew law, could fail to feel a deep interest in Equity, and the mode of its operating upon law. The "Code Napoleon," too, he read very carefully, and for many years. He had a copy of Justinian's Code, and Institutes, always lying on his mantel-piece, and which he was very fond of reading. We have frequently conversed together on the subject of the extensive obligations of our Common Law to the Roman Law; to which he used to refer, in the absence of the books, with great facility and accuracy. He was very fond of Plautus, and would quote almost an entire scene, as accurately, and with as natural a fluency and zest, as another would have shown in reading off any of the scenes in a popular English play; often accompanying his quotations with shrewd and ingenious critical comments. He was also very fond of the French Dramatists, particularly Moliere, from whom I have heard him quote entire scenes with wonderful accuracy. You might have imagined him reading from the book, as I have several times myself observed, and heard others remark: and all this he did in a perfectly natural and unobtrusive way, as if merely to relieve an over-charged mind, and give pleasure to those whom he credited with inclination and ability to appreciate the excellencies which he pointed out. His memory seemed, indeed, equally tenacious of things important and unimportant; incapable, in short, of forgetting any thing. I have heard him quote long-forgotten but once popular and laughable trash, ballads, squibs, epigrams, &c., till at length he revived in the listener such a sort of recollection of them, as made him imagine that Mr. Smith must have recently committed them to memory for some special purpose, but for their appearing so really fresh and racy to him, and plainly suggested by the casual current of conversation. He was, about this time, and for years afterwards, a very frequent visiter at my house; and never was any one, independently of my personal regard for him, more welcome; for his conversation was always that of a ripe and varied scholar and fastidious gentleman. He was ever gay and animated as soon as he had recovered, which he quickly did, from the exhaustion of a long and severe day's work, and his fund of anecdote appeared inexhaustible. Never was any man farther removed from being that insufferable social nuisance, a professed talker. Display of any kind was quite foreign to his nature; and whenever he chanced to encounter a person cursed with that propensity, he would sit in silence for a whole evening: not in the silence of vexation or pique, but of a man left at leisure to pursue his own thoughts, or calmly amuse himself with the characteristics of the chatterer. If, while thus occupied, unexpectedly interrupted, or appealed to by the aforesaid chatterer, or any one else, he readily answered, though certainly with a somewhat frigid courtesy. It was impossible for any one, of the least powers of observation, to fail of detecting in Mr. Smith, though beneath a reserve and formality not very easy to penetrate, a kind of scrupulous antique courtliness, suggesting to you a resuscitated gentleman of the school of Addison, particularly in his intercourse with ladies. He was caution personified,—never saying any thing that required retraction or modification: and though you might guess the contemptuous estimate which he had formed of some particular person's character or doings, he rarely permitted himself to express it. He would sometimes smile significantly at the recital, or witnessing, of some particular absurdity or weakness; but I think that no one ever heard him utter a hasty, harsh, or uncharitable judgment of any body. He seemed, in fact, equally chary of giving praise or blame. No man would laugh louder, or longer, on hearing, or being told, of some signal and ludicrous miscarriage of another; but he would say nothing, except on very rare occasions, and among his intimate friends—and even then, never any thing severe or violent. Tell him, however, of any thing really mean and unworthy, or let him have witnessed it, and no one could fail to see, calm and measured though Mr. Smith's language might be, the profound contempt, or the lively indignation with which he regarded the delinquent and his delinquency. I fear, however, that I am digressing.—He and I commenced our careers as special pleaders about the same time, viz. in 1831; and not many days passed without our being at each other's chambers, borrowing one another's books, or going out to walk together, or conversing on law or other matters. I always listened to what he said on legal subjects, as to a master: he was so ready, so correct, so concise, so judicious, that his suggestions, upon any case which I mentioned to him, were very valuable; and they were given with a heartiness of good-nature that made them doubly welcome. He was delighted to assist me, or any other of his friends. We were a small circle, about that time, of some half a dozen; and I may take upon myself to say, that we all cheerfully recognised in him our superior—our facile princeps, from the first. Some of us set agoing a little weekly periodical, called "The Legal Examiner," to which
СКАЧАТЬ
