Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 2

Dec. 14, 1838.

Poor Allan Park is dead; and everybody is speculating about his successor. The Solicitor-General will be the man.¹ I dined last night with Serjeant Wilde, and it was amusing to see the coquetry between him, Talfourd, Bompas, and Hill, with regard to the successor. I came up yesterday from Oxford, where I have passed four delightful days. I was installed by Sir Charles Vaughan as an honorary Fellow of All Souls.

I have now given you the Queen's Bench and the Common Pleas judges. I shall follow this with the barons of the Exchequer; and then with a view of the common law bar. Afterwards you may expect something about the Chancery Bar and Admiralty. I have read Sir Mathew Hale's Ms. on the Admiralty, and find it to be a complete treatise on the subject, which contains nothing new to you, but which, nevertheless, I think you ought to be acquainted with, as it is a scientific discussion of the subject by one of the master minds of the common law. The spirit with which it is written, as regards the common law, you may conceive from the way in which he speaks of the two jurisdictions together. He says, “The suitor is sent to Admiralty on an incidental point out of the common law courts,—Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne.” Through the kindness of Sir Robert Inglis I have been enabled to have a copy taken; which will cost about eight pounds. . . .

As ever, affectionately,

C. S.