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strong sense and a knowledge of the practice of courts, and of the human character.
Yet I have always found him apt in apprehending legal questions when raised, and in indicating which way he should instruct the jury.
His wife is Lady St. John,1 the origin of whose title I do not remember, though I think he explained it to me. She is of the family of Sir Theodosius Boughton, whose murder by Captain Donellan2 makes such a figure in the history of crime.
I have met at dinner the present Sir William Boughton,3 who is the successor of Sir Theodosius. Sir Charles Vaughan is living quietly, as a bachelor, quite at his ease.
I expect to meet him at dinner to-night with Serjeant D'Oyly.4
Tindal5 is a model of a patient man. He sits like another Job, while the debate at the bar goes on. I may say the same of the Lord Chancellor,6 who hardly moves a muscle or opens his mouth during the whole progress of a cause.
But turning from the bench to the bar (you see how I jump about in my hasty letters), a few days ago I strayed into a committee room of the House of Lords.
Several counsel were busily engaged.
I observed one with a wig ill-adjusted, with trousers of a kind of dirty chestnut color, that neither met the waistcoat nor the shoes; and I said to myself, and then to my neighbor, ‘That must be Sir Charles Wetherell.’7 ‘Yes,’ was the answer; and very soon a reply of the witness under examination confirmed all. The witness (a plain farmer) had been pressed pretty hard, and was asked by the counsel whether he thought many articles of fashion would be carried on a proposed railway; to which the witness promptly replied, ‘As to articles of fashion,—I do not think they much concern either you or I, Sir Charles.’
The whole room was convulsed with laughter, in which Sir Charles most heartily joined.
Hayward,8 of the ‘Law Magazine,’ I know very well.
Last evening I met at dinner, at his chambers in King's Bench Walk, some fashionable ladies
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1 Louisa, daughter of Sir Charles William Boughton Rouse, and widow of Lord St John, was married in 1823 to Sergeant Vaughan, and died in 1840.
2 By poison, August 21, 1780. The facts are given in Wills on ‘Circumstantial Evidence,’ ch. III. sec. 7; and more at length in James Fitzjames Stephen's ‘General View of the Criminal Law of England,’ pp. 338-356.
3 Sir William Edward Boughton, son of Sir Charles William Boughton Rouse, died in 1856. He was the successor, but not the immediate or lineal successor, of Sir Theodosius.
4 Thomas D'Oyly died Jan. 14, 1855, at the age of eighty-two years. He became a Sergeant at Law in 1819. He was attached to the Home Circuit, and was for many years Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the western division of the County of Sussex. He often invited Sumner to dine at his house, 2 Upper Harley Street, and once to attend with him a play of Terence (Phormio) performed by the boys of the Westminster School, Dec. 12, 1838.
5 Nicolas Conyngham Tindal, 1776-1846. He was counsel for Queen Caroline, Solicitor-General from 1826 to 1829, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1829 until his death.
6 Lord Cottenham.
7 Sir Charles Wetherell, 1770-1846. He was a member of Parliament for a considerable period, Attorney-General in 1826 and 1828, and Recorder of Bristol.
8 Abraham Hayward, born about 1800; author of several legal publications; editor of the ‘Law Magazine,’ from which he retired in 1844; translator of Goethe's Faust, and of one of Savigny's works; and contributor to the ‘Quarterly Review.’ Among his articles published in this periodical is one on ‘American Orators and Statesmen,’ Dec., 1840, Vol. LXVII. pp. 1-53. See a letter of Judge Story to him, which furnished suggestions for the article,—Story's ‘Life and Letters,’ Vol. II. pp. 324-327. Sumner was indebted to Mr. Hayward for many civilities, among them an introduction to Mrs. Norton.
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