Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 61, No. 376, February, 1847

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Various. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 61, No. 376, February, 1847

MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN WILLIAM SMITH, OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW

BY SAMUEL WARREN, OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW

MODERN ITALIAN HISTORY.12

FRENCH PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES.13

THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE SECOND.16

MILDRED: A TALE

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

THE EARLY TAKEN

A RIDE TO MAGNESIA

STAGE FIRST

DIRECT TAXATION

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The name of John William Smith, barrister-at-law, of the Inner Temple, now appears, possibly for the first time, before nineteen-twentieths of the readers of Blackwood's Magazine. It is that, however, of a remarkable and eminent man, just cut off in his prime, before he had completed his thirty-seventh year: having as yet lain little more than a twelvemonth in his grave, to which he had been borne by a few of his sorrowful and admiring friends, on the 24th of December, 1845. Another eminent member of the English bar, Sir William Follett, belonging to the same Inn of Court, and also cut off in the prime of life, while glittering in the zenith of his celebrity and success, had been buried only five months previously. I1 endeavoured to give the readers of this Magazine, in January 1846, some account of the character of that distinguished person; and Mr. Smith, learning that I was engaged upon the task, with morbid anxiety repeatedly begged me to show him what I was writing, up to within a few weeks of his own decease: a request with which, for reasons which will become obvious to the reader of this sketch, I declined to comply. With Sir William Follett's name all the world is acquainted: yet I venture to think that the name of John William Smith has greater claims upon the attention of readers of biography. His character and career will, it is believed, be found permanently and intrinsically interesting,—at once affecting, inspiriting, and admonitory. He fell a martyr to intense study, just as that competent and severe body of judges, the English bench and bar, had recognised his eminent talents and acquirements, and the shining and substantial rewards of unremitting exertion were beginning to be showered upon him. He came to the bar almost totally unknown, and was destitute of any advantages of person, voice, or manner. His soul, however, was noble, his feelings were refined and exalted; and, when he departed from the scene of intense excitement and rivalry into which his lot had been cast, those who had enjoyed the best opportunities for forming a true judgment of him, knew not whether more to admire his moral excellence or his intellectual eminence, which shone the more brightly for the sensitive modesty which enshrouded them. Many have expressed surprise and regret that so interesting a character should fade from the public eye, without any attempt having been made by his friends to give a full account of his character and career. I was one of his very earliest friends; witnessed the whole of his professional career, shared his hopes and fears, and, with two or three others, attended upon him affectionately to the very last. During the year which has since elapsed, I have reflected much upon his character, and had many opportunities for ascertaining the respect with which his memory is cherished in the highest quarters. I shall endeavour, therefore, though with great misgivings as to my competency for the task, to present to the reader an impartial account of my gifted friend: no one else, with one exception,2 having, up to this time, undertaken the task.

John William Smith, the eldest of eight children, was of a highly respectable family: his father having died in 1835, Vice-treasurer and Paymaster-general of the Forces in Ireland. Both his parents were Irish—his mother having been a Miss Connor, the sister of a late Master in Chancery, in Ireland. They lived, however, in London, where the subject of this memoir was born, in Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, on the 23d January, 1809. From the earliest period at which note could be taken of their manifestation, he evinced the possession of superior mental endowments. No one is less disposed than the writer of this memoir, to set a high value upon precocious intellectual development. Observatum fere est, says Quinctilian, in his passionate lamentation for the death of his gifted son, celerius occidere festinatam maturitatem.3 The maturity, however, of John William Smith, far more than realised his early promise, and renders doubly interesting any well-authenticated account, and such I have succeeded in obtaining, of his early childhood. When advanced not far from infancy, he appears to have been characterised by a kind of quaint thoughtfulness, quick observation, and a predilection for intellectual amusements. He was always eager to have poetry read to him, and soon exhibited proofs of that prodigious memory, by which he was all his life pre-eminently distinguished, and which has often made the ablest of his friends imagine that with him, forgetting was a thing impossible. Before he knew a single letter of the alphabet, which he learnt far earlier, moreover, than most children, he would take into his hand his little pictured story-book, which had been perhaps only once, or possibly twice, read over to him, and pretend to read aloud out of it: those overlooking him scarcely crediting the fact of his really being unable to tell one letter from the other; for he repeated the letterpress verbatim, from beginning to end. This feat has been repeatedly witnessed before he had reached his third year. To all the friends of Mr. Smith in after-life, this circumstance is easily credible: for the quickness of his memory was equalled by its tenacity, and both appeared to us almost unequalled. When three years old, he read with the greatest facility all such books as are usually put into the hands of children; and his delight was to act, in the evening, the fable which he had read in the morning—and a reader insatiate he even then appeared to be. Between his third and sixth year, he had read, effectually, many books of history, especially those of Greece, Rome, England, and France; acquiring with facility what he retained with the utmost fidelity. He seems to have been, at this time, conscious of possessing a strong memory, and pleased at testing it. When not five years old, he one day put the parts of a dissected map, consisting of a hundred pieces, into his father's pocket, and then called for them again one by one, without having made a single mistake, till he had finished putting them together on the carpet. At this early period, also, he displayed another first-rate mental quality, namely, the power of abstraction—one by which he was eminently distinguished throughout his subsequent life. When a very young child, he was frequently observed exercising this rare power—lost to all around him, and evidently intent upon some one object, to the exclusion of all others. Thus, for instance, he would often be occupied with a play of Shakspeare, while sitting in the corner of the drawing-room, in which were many persons engaged in conversation, or otherwise doing what would have effectually interrupted one who was not similarly endowed with himself. One of his brothers often played at chess with him, with closed folding doors between them, the former moving the chess-men for both, and the latter calling out the moves, without ever making an erroneous one, and frequently winning the game. His partiality to poetry, from almost his infancy, has been already noticed: and it is to be added, that he was equally fond of reading and writing verses. One of his relatives has at this moment in her possession a "Poem" from his pen, in pencilled printed characters, before he had learned, though he learned very early, to write, entitled, "The Mariner's Return." Till very recently, also, the same lady possessed another curious relic of this precocious child,—namely, a prose story; the hero of which was a peasant boy, whom he took through almost all the countries of Europe, and through many vicissitudes, finally exalting him to the post of Prime Minister to Henry VIII. The knowledge of geography and history displayed in this performance, is declared by those who have read it, to be truly wonderful. Shortly after he had reached his eighth year, he was sent to a school at Isleworth, kept by a Dr. Greenlaw, and remained there four years. I have heard him frequently describe his first arrival at the school, and several incidents attending it, in such a manner as showed him then to have had great shrewdness and keenness of observation. One, in particular, struck me at the time as illustrative of his stern sense of right, and habits of reflection, at that very early period. "I remember," said he, "that soon after I had got to school, a big boy called me aside, and told me very seriously that I must prepare for a terrible flogging on Saturday morning, and that however well I behaved, it would signify nothing, for it was an old custom at the school to flog a little boy on his first Saturday, before the whole school, by way of example, and to make him behave well. I was horribly frightened at this; but the first thing that struck me, and kept me awake a good while thinking of it, was, how very unjust a thing it was to do this; and I thought so much of this, that I do believe I was at length far more angry than frightened. Of course, when Saturday came, I found it had been all a joke only; but I always thought it a very disagreeable and improper joke." I have several times heard Mr. Smith mention this little circumstance, and I have above given many of his own expressions. He used to proceed to describe the reasonings which he had held in his own mind upon this subject, all which, he said, he vividly recollected; and it was certainly both curious and interesting to hear how he puzzled himself in trying to find out "reasons why it might be right to flog him under these circumstances." Dr. Greenlaw was not slow in discovering the extraordinary abilities of the little new-comer, and used to describe them in glowing terms to his father; but would add that, much as he admired the child's talent and diligence, he entertained a still higher opinion of the little fellow's perfect modesty, his seeming unconsciousness of his mental superiority over his companions, his honesty and simplicity of character, and, above all, his unwavering and inflexible adherence to truth on even the most trifling occasions. Every living friend of his will testify that he was thus distinguished throughout life, exhibiting that

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A striking evidence of the value of this work, the soundness of his opinions, and the importance attached to them in the highest judicial quarters, was afforded by the very first number of the Reports of the Court of Exchequer, published after his death, where (in Tanner v. Scovell, 14 Meeson and Welshy, 37,) the Lord Chief Baron, after time taken to consider an important question of mercantile law, delivered the judgment of the Court in expressed conformity with the doctrine which Mr. Smith has laid down in his "Mercantile Law," and in opposition to the opinion of the late very learned Mr. Justice Taunton!

To retrace our steps, however, for a moment: Mr. Smith at length despaired of getting business under the bar, and tired of sitting a prisoner at chambers, in vain expectation of it. His rooms and mine were directly opposite to each other, on the same floor; and rarely or never was a knock heard at his door, except that of some friend coming either to ask his able and willing assistance, or chat away a weary half hour. Towards the close of 1833, he announced to his friends that he contemplated trying his fortune at the bar, and was easily persuaded, with that view, to commence attendance at a professional debating society, called "The Forensic," which, confined to barristers and students for the bar, and established so long ago as 1815, has numbered among its members almost every lawyer of eminence who has appeared since that year, including Sir William Follett and Mr. J.W. Smith. He entered this society on the 29th January, 1834; and I well recollect his first essay at addressing it. It was upon the discussion of a legal question. He was evidently very nervous when he rose, for the colour quite deserted his cheek. His manner was cold, dry, and formal, and sufficiently uninteresting, and uninviting. We were all, however, soon struck by the book-like precision of his language, the clearness and closeness of his reasoning, and the extent of his legal knowledge. He spoke for about ten minutes; and, having risen amidst a half-suppressed titter, sate down amidst earnest cries of "Hear, hear, hear!" He afterwards spoke pretty regularly, especially upon legal questions; and those who, in due course, were appointed beforehand to argue against him, felt it expedient to come particularly well prepared! Shortly before he was called to the bar, he said to me, with a timid, dejected air, "It is a bold step; but I really don't see what else is to be done. Why should I sit any longer perishing in chambers? Besides, my 'Mercantile Law' will be out in a month or two, and if it succeed, it may possibly give me a lift—so I shall try it." He was accordingly called to the bar on the 2d May, 1834, selecting the Oxford Circuit and the Hereford and Gloucester Sessions. "There are only two ways," I heard him say, (quoting the well-known dictum of a late able judge,) "of getting on at the bar, Pleading or Sessions. I have failed in the former, I shall now try the latter. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo!" I was, I confess, amongst those of his friends who were not sanguine as to his prospects of success at the bar, regarding him as unlikely to attract favourable notice in court practice. Shortly after he had attended at the Sessions, however, he began to obtain a little employment in petty cases there; and, contrary to expectation, became very successful in defending prisoners: his acuteness, vigilance, ingenuity, and legal knowledge—particularly of the law of evidence—became more apparent in every succeeding case intrusted to him. In spite of the dry formality of his manner, he soon attracted the understanding of his hearers, exhibiting great caution and judgment in dealing with the evidence, his tenacious memory here standing him in great stead. His start at sessions, however, seemed likely to lead to nothing, on the civil side at the assizes—where his reception was sufficiently disheartening. He attended regularly, nevertheless, both assizes and sessions; during his stay in town labouring with indefatigable energy in the acquisition of law. In 1835, he composed a lucid little treatise on the Law of Practice, entitled, "An Elementary View of the Proceedings in an Action at Law," distinguished by simplicity, correctness, and condensation, and calculated to give students a perspicuous view of an extremely dry and troublesome subject. This also has become a standard book. In 1836, he wrote another little work—one upon Patent Law, explanatory, in a practical way, of a statute which had just before been passed, and had effected important alterations in that department of law. He told me that "he did not like to throw a chance away," and this "might possibly get him some briefs in Patent cases;" but I suspect that in this he was disappointed. In the same year he and I occupied our long vacation in preparing together a work entitled "Select Extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries, carefully adapted to the use of schools and young persons." We both took great pains with this book, and it has had a large sale: but for some whimsical reason or other, he would not allow his name to appear, though particular in retaining a share in the copyright.

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