CHAPTER VII.

THE LIFE OF SIR VICARY GIBBS.

DEVONSHIRE has been from early times distinguished as the nursing mother of eminent lawyers. It was long since remarked by Fuller, that "this county seems innated with a genius to study law, none in England (Norfolk alone excepted) affording so many legal men. Cornwall, indeed," "hath a famine, but Devonshire makes a feast of such, who by the practice thereof have raised great estates." These occur among other great names:*- the elder Fortescue, Aland, an able judge, Sir H. de Bathe, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir John Dodderidge, Sir John Maynard, and Peere Williams; Sir Henry Bathe, one of the Justices of the King's Bench; Henry Bracton, Chief Justice of England under Henry the Third; Dr. Cowell, Dean of Arches, called by Coke in his clumsy raillery at the courts of civil law, Dr. Cowheell; Sir J. Doddridge, who said that old as he was he would go to Tyburn on foot to see a man hanged that should prefer money for a place of a judicial nature; Fitz of Fitzford, bencher of Lincoln's Inn in the first year of Henry VI.; Sir J. Fortescue, with his knightly motto, Forte scutum salus ducum,' in whose days the four inns of court contained each 700 students, and the ten inns of Chancery 100 each; and Sir John Glanvil, who administered justice according to his oath indifferently to all, with that uprightness and honesty, as one conscious to himself he must one day come to judgment, and have all his judgments judged over again.' Another century has added to this proud array the still more noble names of Camden, Dunning, Buller, Lord Chancellor King, Gifford, Heath, and Gibbs, the four last of whom are natives of Exeter. A still more illustrious forensic name— -greater than the greatest of them all-is beginning to pass away from the

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* Prince's Worthies of Devon.

lips of men, but not till his grateful country has determined to perpetuate, by the erection of a statue, the memory of Devon's gifted son, the perfect lawyer Sir William Follett.

Sir Vicary Gibbs was born at Exeter in 1751, in the Cathedral close, within a few doors from the birth-place of John Heath, his future colleague on the bench. He was the son of a surgeon and apothecary, who had practised in that city for many years, and laboured hard-such is the common lot of his profession-for a small competence. The acuteness of young Gibbs, which early developed itself, tempted his father to incur the expense of sending him to Eton, then under the able care of Dr. Barnard, the reputation of whose talents had already raised the number of scholars from 300 to 500. The numbers are now risen, under the worthy auspices of Dr. Hawtrey, editor of the Arundines Cami, to the unprecedented amount of 800. The great public schools have been always especial favourites with ambitious parents, from the facilities which they afford to the establishment of eligible friendships. But the character of the young Etonian was ill adapted to further any such scheme of promotion. "The boy's the father of the man," and he proved himself both too independent and too testy to become a tuft-hunter. He formed intimacies, indeed, with many who like himself pushed their way in after-life into high stations, amongst whom may be mentioned Dr. Rennell; Plomer, the Vice Chancellor; Cornwall, Speaker of the House of Commons; Dr. Goodall, and Mr. Justice Dampier: but he sought no patrons, and found none. The apothecary's son had neither sprightliness nor humour to atone for deficiencies of birth, and that aristocratic little community made no allowance for the waywardness of a plebeian fag. He soon gained distinction, however, by the sure test of elegant scholarship, his composition of Latin verse. A pretty classical collection, the Muse Etonenses, contains some pleasing specimens of his proficiency, but shows at the same time the mechanical skill without the mind of a poet, and proves to demonstration that there was no "sweet Ovid lost" in Gibbs. At sixteen he was elected scholar of King's College, Cambridge, on Lord Craven's foundation-a scholarship "passing rich"

with 251. a year. The value is inconsiderable, but the repute which these scholarships hold in the University may be inferred from the fact, that the scholar who preceded young Gibbs was Seale, and his successor Richard Porson. King's College in his time enjoyed the privilege—if it may be termed a privilege-of its fellows taking their degrees without a public examination; a boon to the slothful, a privation to the emulous. A syndicate has lately abolished this injudicious exemption, and permits the ambitious scholar to win that distinction in the senate house, of which our young student justly thought himself defrauded. He took his bachelor's degree in 1772, and was elected a fellow of his college, but did not reside long, being eager to enter himself at Lincoln's Inn and study for the bar. The tradition of his excellence as a Greek scholar still lingers in the University.

To a student just graduated at Cambridge, who has rejoiced in classical themes and classical associations, the first study of the law must be scarcely less repulsive than the atmosphere of the dissecting-room to a noviciate in medicine, fresh from the purity of country air. The art and mystery of special pleading, however logical and inviting scrutiny in its present amended form, appears at first to substitute an uncouth jargon for the ancient models of thought and style— to have no sympathy with the feelings or fancy, and to dispense with all literary acquirements. The system was at that time darkened with vain and unprofitable subtleties, with unmeaning fictions, infinite minuteness, and wearisome prolixity. The technical terms colour, continuance, negative pregnant, certainty to a common intent, duplicity, common bar, and many others, usque ad nauseam, tend at first to vex the ear and dispirit the learner.* "In the study of the law," writes Mr. Gray to his friend West, "the labour is long, and the elements dry and uninteresting; nor was ever anybody (especially those that afterwards made a figure) amused, or even not disgusted, at the beginning." It was natural that Mr. Gibbs should feel this disgust-he had the merit of

* A country gentleman asked an eminent special pleader if he thought his son would succeed in that walk. "Sir," was the pithy reply, "can your son eat sawdust without butter?"

having felt and mastered it. To discipline his mind to perfect legal habitudes of thought, to acquire a thorough knowledge of that exact science, in the development of whose principles the most subtle intellects have been exercised, was the employment of his morning and midnight hours, a diligence the more exemplary from its contrast with the previous license of King's, which had no senate-house to prepare for, no January matins to dread. We have seldom read of a student who devoted his whole heart and mind with more perfect singleness of purpose to the study of his profession. The " res angusta domi," straitened means, came in aid of his ambition. He had no connexion to force business, nor wealth to supply its absence, and knew that he must depend entirely on his own personal competency for success. During the three years of his pupilage he carefully abstained from all clubs, either of a literary or social character, was a stranger to the west-end and the parks, and in general emerged from his chambers only once in the day to eat in haste and alone his half-commons of minced veal, and then earth himself again in the midst of precedents and reports. "It is impossible," said Sir Joshua Reynolds to his pupils," that anything should be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand." An occasional Sunday at the villa of his friend Dunning, who appreciated and loved to encourage the talents of his young countryman, an annual trip to Cambridge, and a visit to Eton at the Montem, formed the sum of Gibbs's dissipations and delights. When challenged by Mr. Scarlett, in mature life, with not making proper allowance for the impatience of an audience, (he was prosecuting some people for a tumult in a theatre,) which that gentleman ascribed to his ignorance of theatrical matters, he repelled the imputation on his dramatic taste with some heat, and gravely declared that he had been in a theatre, when a young man. He had gone there no doubt on some solitary festive occasion, looking like Cato the Censor at the Floral games. Yet we are assured by the late Mr. Adolphus that he loved the drama in private. "Prince Hoare dedicated his play of Indiscretion to Sir Vicary Gibbs. Many readers will think that Mr. Cruise or

Mr. Sugden might as well have dedicated their works on contingent remainders or on vendors and purchasers to Prince Hoare, or to Jack Bannister; but the great lawyer and elegant scholar to whom the play was dedicated, was eminently worthy of such a compliment. His knowledge of English dramatic literature was copious, his ability as a critic acute, but not leaning to severity, and they who have enjoyed the pleasure of his private conversation, may recollect with unbounded satisfaction the humour and spirit with which he used to recite passages and scenes from some of our best comedies, the Beaux Stratagem, the Alchymist, and Twelfth Night." We ought also to include in his recreations the military mania, by which he was seduced from the desk for a season, and acted as lieutenant under Erskine, at the time of the riots in 1780. "We were very proud of our arms,” he said; "regimentals we had not, but very proud we were of our muskets." This corps, as it consisted of lawyers, rejoiced in the sobriquet of the Devil's Own. They mustered about seventy, but the military pride of Lieutenant Gibbs was not shared by the recruiting serjeant who had undertaken the task of drilling them. He complained that he could never make the lieutenant turn out his toes. "The front rank," we are informed by Mr. Espinasse, one of the troop, "graduated down from six feet two inches to five feet three or four inches,-from Dampier to Vicary Gibbs and the Honourable Mr. Kenyon. These two were often put by the serjeant into the rear rank on account of their unsoldierly appearance; and, as they were always paired off together, Dauncey gave them the whimsical names, from the Recruiting Serjeant, of Thomas Appleton and Costar Pearman."

But it is time to return with Gibbs from the spectacle of the field-day to the business of term. An eminent judge declared that he never knew of any one doing justice to the law, to whom the law did not in the end do justice; and his remark was verified in the instance of this eminent special pleader. He practised in that capacity nearly ten years, organizing slowly, but surely, a large connexion. "When the attornies have no one else to go to," he remarked with fretful naïveté, "they come to me! Other pleaders have the