CHIEF JUSTICES OF ENGLAND.
LIFE OF LORD KENYON, FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HE WAS APPOINTED CHIEF JUSTICE OF CHESTER.
I BEGIN this Memoir at a time when I have the near prospect of being myself a CHIEF JUSTICE, and when I may calculate upon being subjected in my turn to the criticism of some future biographer. On every account I wish to speak of Lord Chief Justice Kenyon in a spirit of moderation and indulgence. I am afraid that my estimate of his character and judicial qualifications may call forth against me a charge of prejudice and detraction. Although till raised to the bench he was considered only "leguleius quidam, cautus et acutus," he was afterwards celebrated by dependents and flatterers as a GREAT MAGISTRATE, to be more honored than the all-accomplished MANSFIELD. And from the stout resistance which then continued to be offered in Westminster Hall to all attempts to relieve the administration of justice from wretched technicalities, Lord Chief Justice Kenyon was long hailed as the Restorer of the rigid doctrines to be deduced from the Year Books.
He was indeed a man of wonderful quickness of perception, of considerable intellectual nimbleness, of much energy of purpose, and of unwearied industry;-he became very familiarly acquainted with the municipal law of this land; he was ever anxious to decide impartially; and he was exemplary in his respect
1 12 October, 1849.-It had then been intimated to me by the Prime Minister that upon the resignation of Lord Denman, which, from his severe attack of paralysis, was daily expected, I should be appointed his successor.