Any sketch of the prominent members of the House of Lords would be imperfect which should omit to give some account of Lord Westbury, the present Lord-High-Chancellor.  Having been Solicitor-General in two successive Administrations, he was filling for the second time the 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 difficult and complicated questions were presented by this case,—­questions turning on the exact interpretation of contracts, involving delicate verbal distinctions, and demanding a thorough comprehension of an immense and unwieldy mass of Roman law embraced in the dissenting dicta of Roman lawyers.  It required the exercise of the very highest legal ability, trained and habituated by long and patient discipline to grapple with great issues.