John, Baron Campbell, Lord Chancellor of England, was born, 15th September 1779, at Cupar-Fife, a son of the parish minister. He studied for the ministry at St. Andrews University, became (1798) a tutor in London, joined Lincoln’s Inn (1800), read law and acted as reporter and made dramatic critic to the Morning Chronicle, and was called to the bar in 1806. His nisi prius “Reports” (1808), brought him into notice, and by 1824 he was leader of the Oxford circuit. He became king’s counsel in 1827, Whig M.P. for Stafford in 1830, and for Dudley in 1832, in which year he was made solicitor-general and knighted. Attorney-general in 1834, he was defeated at Dudley, but returned for Edinburgh. He became Lord Campbell (1841), and for six weeks Lord Chancellor of Ireland, next, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1846), Chief-justice of the Queen’s Bench (1850), and Lord Chancellor of England (1859). He died 22nd June 1861. He was a courteous and painstaking judge; he carried statutes on defamation, compensation for death by accident, and against obscene publications. His “Lives of the Chief-justices” (1849–57) and of the “Lord Chancellors” (1845–47), though readable, are disfigured by the obtrusion of himself, and in the later volumes by misrepresentation and inaccuracy.

Personal

  Sir John Campbell is a stout athletic man. He rejoices in a pair of good round shoulders: he would certainly have made an able-bodied labourer had fate made him a “working”-man. His personal appearance is rather uncouth. In walking you would fancy he was some farmer measuring distances on his lands, by means of what are called “paces.” His head generally droops on his shoulder, as if the neck were tired of the burden; and he usually looks towards the ground on which he walks, as if lost in profound meditation. His complexion is pale: his eyes have little lustre in them. The whole expression of his countenance is that of a care-worn man;—though why he should be so, I cannot exactly understand; for he has no reason to complain of want of success, either as a politician or as a professional man.

  He is a fine, noble-looking man, with an impressive manner, and clear tone of voice. He is deemed one of the most excellent jurists in the three kingdoms, and likewise a statesman. I was deeply interested in him, for I was told he had been the architect of his own fortune.

  In my London days, Lord Campbell was “Plain John Campbell”: but Plain John was wonderfully like the present Lord;—facetious, in and out of place, politic, flattering to an insulting degree, and prone to moralising in so trite a way as to be almost insulting. He was full of knowledge, and might have been inexhaustibly entertaining if he could have forgotten his prudence and been natural. When his wife, Lady Stratheden, was present, there was some explanation of both the worldly prudence and the behaviour to ladies,—as if they were spoiled children,—which Plain John supposed would please them.

  An act of cruelty has been committed by an English judge, and I have arraigned the perpetrator before the bar of public opinion, because that is the only tribunal to which he is amenable. His son, by pleading on his behalf, has recognised the jurisdiction. It remains for me to consider his reply; it will finally remain for the public to decide on its validity. If it is valid, the charge falls to the ground; the accused is absolved; and I, as the accuser, am covered with confusion. If it is not valid, the failure of the defence will strengthen the force of the accusation, and even they who wish to favour the judge will be compelled to allow, that what they would fain have palliated, as the momentary ebullition of an arbitrary temper, swells into far graver matter, when, instead of being regretted, it is vindicated with stubborn pertinacity, and in an obstinate and angry spirit.

  It has been well said of him in explanation of his success, that he lived eighty years and preserved his digestion unimpaired. He had a hard head, a splendid constitution, tireless industry, a generally judicious temper. He was a learned, though not a scientific lawyer, a faithful political adherent, thoroughly honest as a judge, dutiful and happy as a husband. But there was nothing admirable or heroic in his nature. On no great subject did his principles rise above the commonplace of party, nor had he the magnanimity which excuses rather than aggravates the faults of others. His life is the triumph of steady determination unaided by a single brilliant or attractive quality.

  Campbell was indeed only a clever, shrewd lawyer of the hard and narrow class. He never made any pretension to statesmanship, or even to great political knowledge.

  On Friday he was kept very late in the House. But on Saturday morning, June the 22nd, he appeared perfectly well. He drove to Lincoln’s Inn, accompanied by two of his daughters, and sat in Court till the afternoon, when he went to Downing Street for a meeting of the Cabinet. Thence he walked home to Stratheden House, and, having some spare time before preparing for a dinner party, he sat down to his desk and wrote a judgment…. Throughout the evening he conversed with his usual animation, and when the guests had departed, remained having a last talk with his children, and bade them Good-night at about twelve o’clock. At eight next morning his servant went into his room and found him seated in an armchair with no appearance of life. Medical advice was instantly called in, but he had gone to his last rest, and, in his own words, was “honourably released from the labours and anxieties of the Great Seal.”… His body was carried to Hartrigge, and on Saturday, June the 29th, we laid it beside that of our dear mother in the Abbey at Jedburgh; carrying out the wish he had expressed at the time of his brother’s funeral, that the English Burial Service might be used, when “his remains should be deposited in the resting place secured to him in very holy ground.”

  He was an admirable example of what may be done by perseverance, energy and industry, combined with shrewdness and sagacity. He should have a section to himself in the next edition of “Self Help.” In his readiness to turn his hand to anything that could be turned to advantage—to write dramatic criticisms or undertake the department of wit, to learn dancing or teach French—he rivalled the man who, being asked whether he could play on the fiddle, replied that he didn’t know but he would try. If there were a bump in the phrenological system for the get-on faculty, there would be one of the biggest on Campbell’s cranium. But he did not abide implicitly by the well-known Scotch maxim. He got on honestly. He used his opportunities without abusing them, and he was enabled to do so by being always prepared for them when they occurred. He was never before or after the time, never in or out of the way, when preferment or promotion was in the air.

  North of the Tweed,—and in some places south of the Tweed, too,—it has for many years been a commonplace with those who preach Self-Help, or who discuss the phenomena and the philosophy of Getting On, to point to the career of Lord Campbell. By extraordinary industry: by rigorous self-denial: by steadfastly keeping his end in view: by great ability no doubt and great learning: all seconded by wonderful good luck; the St. Andrews student of Divinity, the son of good old Dr. Campbell, parish minister of Cupar, who had no great connections and no powerful friends to back him; was Solicitor-general at the age of fifty-three; Attorney-general at fifty-four; was raised to the bench as Lord Chief Justice of England; and finally became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. Nor is it enough to say he held these great places: no one can deny that he proved himself equal to the duties of each. He was a strong Attorney-general. He was one of the most eminent of Chief Justices. And, though raised to the Woolsack at four-score, he was a thoroughly sufficient Chancellor.

General

  You are, indeed, in a proper scrape, if you must do such an act—of what shall I call it?—as review Jack Campbell’s Speeches. Are you aware that they are the standing jest of the whole town, both in and out of the profession? No one has, of course, read them, but only seen them cited in newspapers. However, it was not necessary to read, or even to see that much. The very fact of his publishing his speeches was what raised endless ridicule in all quarters.

  But of all the sins against Francis Bacon, that of Lord Campbell is the last and worst. I wish to speak with respect of so bold and great a man as our present Lord Chancellor. He is one who has swept up the slope of fame by native power of heart and brain; in the proud course of his life, from the Temple to the Peerage, from the Reporters’ Gallery to the Woolsack, I admire the track of a man of genius,—brave, circumspect, tenacious, strong; one not to be put down, not to be set aside; an example to men of letters and men of law. But the more highly I rank Lord Campbell’s genius, the more I feel drawn to regret his haste. In such a case as the trial of Bacon’s fame he was bound to take pains; to sift every lie to its root; to stay his condemning pen till he had satisfied his mind that in passing sentence of infamy he was right, beyond risk of appeal. A statesman and a law-reformer himself, he ought to have felt more sympathy for the just fame of a statesman and law-reformer than he has shown. Not that Lord Campbell finds fault with Bacon where he speaks by his own lights. Indeed, there he is just. He has no words too warm for Bacon’s reforms as a lawyer, for his plans as a minister, for his rules as a chancellor. When Lord Campbell knows his subject at first hand, his praise of his hero rings out clear and loud. But there is much in the life of Bacon which he does not know. He has not given himself time to sift and winnow. Like an easy magistrate on the bench, he has taken the pleas for facts. That is his fault, and in such a man it is a very grave fault.

  His energy now devoted itself to literature; and he began to bring out his “Lives of the Chancellors.” In that work he has described himself better than any one else could describe him. The style is entertaining, the facts anything that he chose to make them, and the spirit depreciatory to the last degree. The late Sir Harris Nicolas, the highest possible authority in antiquarian memoirs, accidentally examined some old MSS., which expressly contradicted Lord Campbell’s painful account of Sir Christopher Hatton; and was so struck by the easy style of statement in Lord Campbell’s life of that Chancellor that he made further investigations among State papers, and established and published a case of malversation of materials which will not easily be forgotten. The same process was afterward carried on, with the same result, by the Westminster Review, which entirely overthrew the value of the work as History or Biography, while stamping upon it the imputation of libel on the reputation of personages long gone where the voice of praise or censure cannot reach them. Lord Campbell certainly saw Sir H. Nicolas’s exposures; for he omitted a few statements, qualified others, and inserted “it is said” in yet other instances; leaving, however, a considerable number uncorrected, to pass through successive editions, and become History if no vigilant curator of the fame of the dead does not take measures to preclude an evil so serious.

  The merits of his “Lives” are very considerable. They are eminently readable. The style is lively though rough, careless, and incorrect; every incident is presented effectively; they are full of good stories, and they contain a great deal of information about the history of law and lawyers which is not easily to be found elsewhere. The later volumes, moreover, both of the “Chancellors” and the “Chief Justices,” have the freshness and interest of personal memoirs. For all these qualities Campbell has received due and sufficient recognition. Nor has time worn away the merits of his books; they still find many readers, and there is little probability that they will be displaced by anything more entertaining written on the same subject. None the less are they among the most censurable publications in our literature…. The tone of laborious research which pervades every volume is delusive. No writer ever owed so much to the labours of others who acknowledged so little…. Literary morality in its other form, the love of historical truth and accuracy, he hardly understood. No one who has ever followed him to the sources of his information will trust him more; for not only was he too hurried and careless to sift such evidence as he gathered, but even plain statements of fact are perverted, and his authorities are constantly misquoted.

  These biographies are carelessly written in an extremely slovenly style, and are in many cases inaccurate and unjust; but they never fail to keep up their interest, and especially in the latest volumes, where Campbell is writing of his own time, are full of vivacity,—of prejudice, too, it is said, perhaps more than the previous ones,—but one can safely say of all Campbell’s biographical work, that the unpardonable sin of dulness is not included in the list of his transgressions.