position of Attorney-General, when, upon the death of Lord Campbell, he
was raised to the wool-sack. As a Chancery practitioner he was for years
at the head of his profession, and is supposed to have received the
largest income ever enjoyed by an English barrister. During the four
years next preceding his elevation to the peerage his average annual
earnings at the bar were twenty thousand pounds. In the summer of 1860
it was my good fortune to hear the argument of Lord Westbury (then Sir
Richard Bethell) in a case of great interest and importance, before
Vice-Chancellor Wood. The point at issue involved the construction of a
marriage-settlement between the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Prince
Borghese of Rome, drawn up on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince
with Lady Talbot, second daughter of the Earl. The interpretation of the
terms of the contract was by express stipulation to be in accordance
with the Roman common law. A commission sent to Rome to ascertain the
meaning of certain provisions contained in the contract resulted in
several folio volumes, embodying "the conflicting opinions of the most
eminent Roman lawyers," supported by references to the Canonists, the
decisions of the "Sacred Rota," the great text-writers upon
jurisprudence, the Institutes and Pandects, and ascending still higher
to the laws of the Roman Republic and the Augustan era.

The leading counsel in the kingdom were retained in the case, and
unusual public interest was enlisted. The amount at stake was twenty
thousand pounds, and it was estimated that nearly, if not quite, that
amount had already been consumed in costs. Legal proceedings are not an
inexpensive luxury anywhere; but "the fat contention and the flowing
fee" have a significance to English ears which we can hardly appreciate
in this country.

It will be at once apparent even to the unprofessional reader that most