MURRAY, William, Earl of Mansfield, a celebrated English lawyer, was the fourth son of David earl of Stormont, and born at Perth on the 2d of March 1705. At the age of three years he was carried to England for his education, and at fourteen admitted a king's scholar at Westminster School. At this seminary he evinced a taste for poetry, and excelled in declamation and other exercises. In June 1723, he was entered of Christ-Church College, Oxford, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1727, and that of master in 1730. Having completed his academical studies, he made a tour on the Continent, and on his return became a member of Lincoln's Inn. Being called to the bar, Mr Murray early acquired reputation and obtained practice in his profession. This was, no doubt, partly owing to his talent for public speaking, in which he was allowed to excel both old and young; but there is evident injustice in the impression created by his success, that he was more of a speaker than a lawyer, and that a decided talent for oratory implies a species of disqualification for legal research. At the same time his attachment to literature, and his intercourse with Pope and other wits of the day, gave countenance to the idea that he loved poetry better than plodding, and cultivated letters when he should have been immersed in the depths of legal study. But time and experience, as they developed his powers and matured his faculties, disabused the world of this most erroneous impression, and showed that his mind was equally formed for cultivating jurisprudence, and for excelling in oratory.
As early as 1736, we find him professionally employed against the bill of pains and penalties which afterwards passed into a law against the city of Edinburgh on account of the riotous murder of Captain Porteous. In 1738, he
Murray, married Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Winchilsea; and in 1742 he was appointed solicitor-general, and chosen representative of Boroughbridge, for which place he was afterwards returned in 1747, and again in 1754. In 1748, he acted as one of the managers for the impeachment of Lord Lovat by the Commons, and, in his observations on the evidence, in reply to the prisoner, displayed so much candour and ability that he was complimented by the accused no less than by the Lord Chancellor Talbot, who presided at the trial. In 1753, a most injurious attack was made upon his character as a public man. It had been alleged that Dr Johnson, a person then thought of for preferment, and an intimate friend of Murray, was of Jacobitical principles, and had some twenty years before drank the pretender's health in a public company. Mr Pelham, then minister, considered the story as of sufficient importance to deserve investigation, and accordingly wrote to the author of it, Fawcett, the recorder of Newcastle, to learn the truth. Fawcett returned an evasive answer to the inquiry, but afterwards stated, in a conversation with Lord Ravensworth, that Mr Murray, and Mr Stone, a gentleman holding an office about the prince, had done so several times. Lord Ravensworth, thinking the statement of Fawcett not to be slighted, as impeaching the loyalty and principles of persons in official stations, made it the subject of such frequent remark in conversation that the ministry took it up, and advised the king to have the whole matter examined. His majesty acquiesced, and, after some proceedings in the council, a committee of the House of Lords was appointed to investigate the affair. When Mr Murray heard of this, he sent a message to the king, humbly acquainting his majesty, that if called before such a tribunal upon so trivial and scandalous a matter, he would resign his office, and decline to answer any questions. In the beginning of 1753, however, it was brought before the Lords upon the motion of the Duke of Bedford; but although the House divided it was not told, and thus ended an affair which, according to Doddington, was "the worst judged, the worst executed, and the worst supported point he ever saw of such expectation."
In 1754, Mr Murray was appointed attorney-general in the room of Sir Dudley Ryder; and, in 1756, he succeeded the same person as chief justice of the King's Bench. He took his seat on the bench on the 11th of November, and was immediately afterwards raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Mansfield, to himself and to the heirs male of his body. His first care was to introduce regularity, punctuality, and despatch in carrying through the business of the court; his next, to prevent delay and expenses in the disposal of causes where the court entertained no doubt. These and other reforms equally necessary gave general satisfaction, and the business of the court increased to an extent never before known, yet continued to be despatched with exemplary regularity. It is stated by Sir James Burrow, in the preface to his Reports, that at the sitting for London and Middlesex, there were as many as eight hundred causes set down in a year, "and all disposed of." In consequence of method, and a few distinct rules laid down to prevent delay, even where the parties themselves would have willingly consented to it, the business in banco, notwithstanding its immensity, was carried through with equal despatch, nothing being allowed to hang in court or accumulate, and upon the last day of term there was rarely a single matter of any kind that remained undetermined. It appears, indeed, that excepting in the case of Perrin and Blake, and in that relating to literary property, there had not been a final difference of opinion in the court upon any point whatsoever, from the 6th of November 1756 to the 26th of May 1776; and it is not less remarkable that, excepting these two cases, no judgment given during this period had been reversed either in the exchequer cham-
ber or in parliament, whilst, even in respect to these reversals, great difference of opinion existed amongst the judges. During the very unsettled state of the ministry in 1757, Lord Mansfield accepted the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and was the means of effecting a coalition of parties, out of which was formed a strong and successful administration. In the same year he was offered the great seal, on the retirement of Lord Hardwicke, but declined it. At the commencement of the reign of George III., he was marked out as an object of party rancour, and continued for many years exposed to violent and unsparing invective, the most vigorous specimens of which have come down to us in the Letters of Junius. But the virulence of party libels occasioned no interruption in the attention which he uniformly paid to the business of his court. During the Rockingham administration, in 1765, he opposed the bill for repealing the stamp act, and is believed to have had some share in framing the protests recorded against it, although he did not sign them. The affair of Mr Wilkes' outlawry served to rekindle the animosity with which he had been regarded by the popular party, and exposed him to renewed attacks. The question, whether this outlawry should be reversed or not, was a dry point of law, upon the wording of the record, and nothing could possibly be more remote from considerations of expediency or reasons of a political character. Yet, though merely a matter of special pleading, it was rendered an occasion of much popular excitement; and upon the day when judgment was to be given, not only the court, but the whole of Westminster Hall and Palace Yard, were crowded with anxious spectators. The court had made up their minds to reverse the outlawry, and thus place Mr Wilkes in a situation to receive judgment on the conviction. Upon this occasion, Lord Mansfield took notice of the popular excitement which had been directed against the judges of the court, particularly himself; he declared his contempt for all the threats which had been employed to deter the court from doing their duty; and he described such attempts as calculated to have no effect at all, or only one contrary to that which they were intended to produce, though he believed and knew that he had fortitude enough to resist even that weakness. "No libels, no threats, nothing that has happened, nothing that can happen," said he, "will weigh a feather against allowing the defendant, on this and every other question, not only the whole advantage he is entitled to from substantial law and justice, but every benefit from the most critical nicety of form, which any other defendant could claim under the like objection. The only effect I feel," he adds, "is an anxiety to be able to explain the grounds upon which we proceed, so as to satisfy all mankind, that a flaw of form, given way to in this case, could not have been got over in any other." Upon the same occasion he gave expression to a very striking sentiment. "I honour the king," said he, "and respect the people; but many things acquired by the favour of either are, in my account, objects not worth ambition. I wish popularity; but it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run after."
In the beginning of 1770 Lord Mansfield was once more offered the great seal, which he again declined; and a similar offer, renewed the following year, found him equally inflexible. About the same time he was attacked, in both houses of parliament, on account of his direction to the jury in the case of Woodfall the printer, who had been prosecuted for a libel. But as his lordship's doctrine, however dangerous in point of general principle, seemed to be correctly deduced from preceding decisions, and in accordance with the law as it then stood, and as the whole court concurred in sanctioning it, his opinion stood its ground, notwithstanding the powerful arguments with which it had been assailed. The direction which he gave to the jury was, in
effect, that the question of law belonged exclusively to the court, and that the only point competent for the jury to try was merely the fact of publication, leaving it to the judges afterwards to decide whether the matter published did or did not amount to a libel. In 1776 his lordship was raised to the dignity of earl, with remainder to Louisa Viscountess Stormont, and to her heirs male by David Viscount Stormont her husband.
In June 1780, when the metropolis of the kingdom was, for several days, exposed to all the fury of lawless banditti, which took advantage of the tumultuous assemblages brought together by the Protestant Association, Lord Mansfield was marked out as an object of popular vengeance, and his house in Bloomsbury Square, with every thing it contained, including his library and manuscripts, was burned to the ground. This occurred on the night of Tuesday the 7th of June; and he did not appear in court until the 14th, which was the last day of term. When he took his seat on the bench, a reverential silence prevailed, expressive of sentiments of condolence and respect more affecting than the most eloquent address which the occasion could have suggested. His lordship submitted to his loss with calmness and dignity. At one moment, however, his feelings almost overpowered him. Having entered the House of Lords whilst the capital was still in the hands of the mob, now maddened by intoxication, and being loudly called for as soon as he had taken his seat, he rose and said, "My Lords, on the present occasion I shall not express my opinion from books; God knows, I have none." This touch of natural eloquence, delivered with suppressed emotion, had a powerful effect on the house. His lordship was entitled, amongst others, to recover the amount of his loss from the hundred, but he preferred no claim of compensation. Further, in consequence of a vote of the House of Commons, the treasury directed the surveyor of the Board of Works to apply to Lord Mansfield, as one of the principal sufferers, requesting him to specify the nature and amount of his loss; but he declined the proposed indemnification. "It does not become me," said he, "however great the loss may be, to claim or expect reparation from the state."
From this time it seemed as if popular hatred had spent its force. Party animosity appeared to be mitigated by the dignity with which he bore his heavy loss; and, during the remainder of his life, all parties united in a common feeling of respect and reverence for his character and virtues. Notwithstanding his advanced age, he continued until 1787 to discharge his judicial functions with his wonted regularity; but from that time his infirmities increased so rapidly, that, in June 1788, he came to the resolution of resigning his office, and withdrawing into the shade of retirement. On this occasion the gentlemen who practised in the court where his lordship had so long presided, addressed to him an eloquent letter expressive of their admiration and regret, and at the same time consoling themselves with the reflection that his lordship was not cut off by the sudden stroke of a painful distemper, or incapacitated by the ebb of those extraordinary faculties which had so long distinguished him, but that it had pleased God to allow to the evening of an useful and illustrious life the unclouded reflections of a superior and unfading mind over its varied events, and the happy consciousness that it had been faithfully and eminently devoted to the highest duties of human society. This letter was drawn up and transmitted to the venerable judge, by Mr. afterwards Lord Erskine, and elicited a reply, in which he declared, that if he had given any satisfaction, it was owing to the learning and candour of the bar, the liberality and integrity of whose practice freed from difficulty the judicial investigation of truth, and facilitated the administration of justice. His health continued to decline, but his mental faculties remained unim-
paired almost to the last. He was happy to receive intelligent visitors, and conversed freely upon the events of the time. Of the French revolution he is said to have observed, that it was an extraordinary event, and that, as it was without example, so it was without a prognostic. He died on the 20th of March 1793, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, leaving his immense fortune to his nephew Lord Stormont, who also, in virtue of a new patent granted in 1792, succeeded to his title.
The character of this noble and learned person has been ably delineated by Dr. Hurd in his preface to the works of Bishop Warburton. That he was, in many respects, an extraordinary man, and that his name will go down to posterity with distinguished honour in the public records of the nation, cannot reasonably be doubted. His shining talents displayed themselves in every department of the state, as well as in the supreme court of justice, his peculiar province, which he filled with a reputation not exceeded by any of his predecessors. As a politician, he had too little courage to be the leader, and too much ability to be the dupe, of any party. He was believed to speak his own sense of public measures; and the authority of his judgment was so high, that, in ordinary times, the house was usually guided by it. He was not a forward nor a frequent speaker, but reserved himself for occasions worthy of himself, and never spoke except on subjects which he had carefully considered. In debate he was eloquent as well as judicious; or rather he became eloquent by his wisdom and good sense, flowing in apt terms, and in the clearest method. He affected no sallies of imagination, no bursts of passion, no mere tours de force; much less did he condescend to personal abuse or virulent altercation. All was clear and apparently candid reason, instilling itself so easily into the minds of his hearers, as at once to convey information and to carry conviction along with it. He shrank from direct contention with Chatham, when Chatham came forth in his might; and he is even said to have been overawed by the ascendancy of that great man's powers, or at least restrained by his fierce and unsparring invective. But this may, with some reason, be doubted. He knew that such triumphs are always temporary, often momentary; that it is not by sudden coruscations of genius or eloquence that a deliberative assembly is permanently or effectually influenced; that to effect such an object, genius must ally itself with reason, enlightened by knowledge, and directed by judgment; and that it is by the force of persuasion alone that the decisions of such a body can ultimately be determined. In this conviction he seems to have formed himself to the truest and best manner of speaking. His powers of genius and invention were confessedly of the first order; but he owed less to them, perhaps, than to the diligent and studious cultivation of his judgment. In private life Lord Mansfield was easy, friendly, and engaging; extremely sensible of worth in other men, and ready upon all occasions to countenance and patronize it. (A.)