oak 
1828.] Court of Chancery. 383 
_ The Masters, as the only subordinate officers who exercise any thing 
of a judicial function, are the only inferior functionaries to whom we 
shall allude. For them, the narration of a fact will be sufficient. They 
seldom make their appearance at their offices before eleven ; and are 
mostly off again at three. The earliest appointment for business before 
them is accordingly eleven—the latest two. ‘‘ Consequently,” says the 
pointed author of the Indications—“ Warrant sent for frequent answer 
—Master full for a week.” 
_ The Master of the Rolls we may, in like manner, dismiss with a fact. 
Legal vacations occupy about nine months out of the twelve. During a 
considerable part of those vacations, which occur between November 
and June, his sittings are only occasional ; from the beginning of August 
to the beginning of November he does not sit at all. Except during a 
very few days he never takes his seat until six in the evening, and leaves it 
seldom much after ten: and during term time, he sits but three even- 
ings in the week ; out of term, seldom more than four ; and never on 
seal days, without one of which a week rarely elapses. 
The Chancellor, however, is not so easily to be passed over, nor can we 
make so accurate a calculation of the time devoted by him to his judi- 
cial business, since we have not the number of days that he closes— 
either entirely or prematurely—his court, to sit in the House of Lords in 
judgment on himself—to assist in the formation of ricketty cabinets—to 
advise on the dispensation of the patronage of the church—to settle the 
diplomacy of Europe—in a word, to discharge the various duties which 
branch out of his political functions; and still less have we the means 
for measuring the amount of distraction which his mind must undergo 
from the combination of. all. Now upon what recognized principle 
of jurisprudence it is that judicial aptitude can be increased by 
political diversion, we have never yet been sufficiently fortunate to 
hear. That the very reverse of the case must be obvious to all those 
who will take the trouble to reflect that competency, and not political 
intrigue, is the only safe passport to the bench—the possession of a calm, 
unruffled, and undivided attention to its duties, a requisite security for 
their discharge—that next_to the consciousness of the popular eye, there 
is nothing so productive of a dignified independence in the individual, 
as the conviction that he is indebted for his high place, not to the sta- 
bility of a faction, but to his own high character alone—nothing so mischie-- 
vous to the suitors of the court as the eternal delay to which their causes 
are exposed by an ever varying succession of judges. Since unsupportable 
then on principles of jurisprudence, let us turn to the arguments by which 
this monstrous anomaly is attempted to be sustained. The search for these, 
however, is something like that of a needle in a bottle of hay. In one of 
the debates on this subject, the burthen of Mr. Canning’s song was, 
that it was a “noble” and a “yaluable prerogative” of the crown, that 
it could take from the ranks of Westminster Hall the meanest individual 
in birth and original station, and place him at once “in the head and 
front of the peerage of England.” Moreover, that it was a “ beautiful” 
prerogative, and further, that unless the Chancellor were thus to be 
placed at the front of the peerage, what were they to do for instruction 
in its laws and institutions—so that, in short, what between the nobility, 
value, and beauty of prerogative, and the want of a fugleman for the 
peerage, the igh was too good a thing to be given up. Prerogative 
may be a very fine thing, and in a royal cabinet it may be a beautiful 
