XAN8FIKLD. EARL OF. 



MANTRLL, GIDEON ALGERNON. 



ia UM aunlf of Nottingham. On his elevation to the seat of chief- 

 jeatsM, Lord MaaefisU, contrary to the general usage, became a member 

 of UM cabinet. 



Few lawyers have been more tempted than Lord Mansfield to quit 

 their aiofeMlnsj for politico, On several occasions (such was his power 

 as a aiiMs-sr aod such WM the opinion entertained of bis abilities by 

 his party) high polities! office, with the prospect of higher, of indeed 

 Ihe a%hiit. WM pisesul upon bis acceptance. But he WM firm in 

 fWtaanf all oilers of the kind and in adhering to bis prof, saion. Thus 

 when the duchy of Lancaster and a pension of 2000J., with the rever- 

 sion of a valuable post for his nephew, Lord Stormont, were offered 

 to him, and subsequenUy the amount of the proposed pen-ion was 

 raked to 4000L, he WM firm in his refusal " He knew," says Walpole, 

 " that it WM safer to expound laws than to be exposed to them ; and 

 he said peremptorily at last, that if he was not to be chief justice, 

 asilkir would be any loafer be attorney -general." Shortly after Lord 

 Maaililfi promotion to the bench, on tie dismissal of Pitt, and the 

 Ns%aatioB of Laj|e, the chancellor of the exchequer, tbe seals of the 

 latter omos were svo trmport placed in the hands of Lord Mansfield,. 

 nad be WM intrusted by the king with full power to negociate on the 

 subject of a new administration with Mr. Pitt and the Duke of 

 castle. The same reasons which made him refuse political office 

 i to have induced him to decline the custody of the great seal 

 i it was, upon more than one occasion, offered to him. He pre- 



d the purely judicial office of chief-justice of the king's bench, 



where he WM safe from political storms aod the vicissitudes which 

 they produce. Yet in that office, though safe from political, he was 

 not safe from popular storms. His political leanings were not towards 

 the popular side ; and even his conduct M a judge, though now, when 

 at a distance from him and bis time we can survey it with calmness, 

 It may appear deserving of a very small portion of tbe reprehension 

 heaped on it by such writers as Junius, was at tbe time not free from 

 UM appearance of some bias against popular righto, 



Ia the casM of the trials of the publishers of Junins's letter to the 

 Hag, Lord Mansfield incurred much popular odium by laying down 

 the doctrine that tbe fact, not tbe law, was wbat tbe jury bad to 

 anaaioVr. In the trial of Woodfall, Lord Mansfield, in Lis summing 

 ap, directed the jury, "that the printing and sense of the paper 

 wire alone wbat the jury bad to consider of." (' State Trials,' vol. xx., 

 p. MOV I' the OSM of Wilk< s, which occurred in tbe same year, 

 Lord ManaiUld ~~ii<i firm to his former opinion, and in allusion 

 to the odium which he had incurred in consequence, thus expressed 

 himself : " I honour the king and respect tbe people ; but many 

 things, acquired by the favour of either, are, in my account, not 

 worth ambition. I wish popularity, but it is that popularity which 

 follows, not that which U run after. It ia that popularity which, 

 f oooer or later, never fail* to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends 



In tbe famous riots of 1780, Lord Mansfield's bouse in Blooiuibury- 

 quare as attacked and set fire to by the populace. The walls were 

 all that were left of it. Hie library of books and manuscript*, his 

 arliate papers, picture*, furniture, and other valuables were all con- 

 earned. Though UM treasury, in pursuance of a vote of the House of 

 Cemmoai. applied far the particulars and amount of his loss, with a 

 view to compensation, his lordship declined returning any account of 

 his lam. lest, be Mid in his letter to the Treasury, "it might seem a 

 Mm or expectation of being indemnified." After having presided 

 Mr apwards of thirty-two yean in tbe court of king's bench, he retired 

 from his office ia 1788. He died on the 20th of March 1793, in his 

 ifhty ninth yrsr. He left no issue. The earldom of Mansfield, which 

 WM granted to him la 1776, descended to his nephew, Viscount 



Lord Mansfield's judicial character stands high. His acute and 

 powerful intellect enabled him to take a clear and comprehensive 

 view of rvtry rase. Tbe depth of his legal learning La. been 

 emeetioasd; probably not without resscn. And this want of depth, 

 atramwg it to hav existed, may account for bis sometimes making 

 law Instead of expounding it-a thing sometimes unavoidable in a 

 j4ge; awl though extremely difficult to do well, easier to do ill or 

 indifferently U an to unravel and t forth in luminous order a large 

 and eoafuesd mass of law already existing on a given subject : which 

 " UM miecUosj. that though that judge who is the profoundest 

 bsryerwUlbe the most competent to u ake law, at least to know when 

 It i* nsosaiaij to make it, ytt those judges who are tbe least profound 

 burton, and eonavqaenUy the least abU to My when law needs to be 

 mad* will be tb. most likely to evade the difficulty of elucidating 

 tbe old law by making new. This is matter of e ery-dsy experience 

 to Uwytra, Lord Mansfield's judicial legislation has been u'o.t sue- 

 I in some branches of commercial law. In tbe law of real 

 propnty be WM lest successful. For example, his decision in the case 

 of Ptrrn v. Mmtt, which involved aa alteration in tbe old rttablished 

 fjmi of law, particularly M regard- d wbat is called the rule in 

 i reversed la the Kxobequer Chamber. (Fearne's 

 laderV p. 18; and DougU, 'Rep.,' SW or 843 of 



I ID Dot*,) 



U reviewing the cheracfr of Lord Mansfield, hi. principles of 

 ***** matters of religion, which he maintained both in 

 loa the beaeh. ought not to be forgotten. 



(Life of Lord McunfitU, by Henry Roscoe, Esq., in Dr. Lardner's 

 Cabinet Cyclopadia). 



M ANTKON A, ANDREA, was born at Padua, in 1431. His parent* 

 were persons in humble life. It does not appear under what circum- 

 stances or at what age he became a pupil of Francesco Squaricone, 

 who was so struck with his talents that ho adopted him M his son. 

 On Andrea marrying a daughter of Jscopo Brlliui, Squaricono's 

 competitor, the latter was offended, and censured his pupil as much 

 M he had before praised him ; but these censures, being in many 

 instances well founded, only tended to his improvement, which was 

 further promoted by the friendly advice of the brothers Gentile and 

 Giovanni Bellini. 



His chief residence and his school were at Mantua, where he 

 settled under the patronage of the Marquis Lodovico Gonxaga, but 

 worked occasionally at other places, especially Rome. There are 

 several of his oil-paintings in Mantua. HU master-piece was the 

 picture ' Delia Vittoru,' which was in tbe Oratorio de' Padri di San 

 Filippo. Few of this painter's works now remain, and most of them 

 have been much injured. One of his greatest and most celebrated 

 works, ' The Triumph of Julius Cteear,' was part of the rich gallery 

 of paintings that belonged to the Oonzaga family, which was purchased 

 by King Charles L for 80,000t This, the greatest and most esteemed 

 work of Mantegna, consisting of nine pictures, each 9 feet high and 

 9 feet wide, is now at Hampton Court Unhappily it was coarsely 

 painted over by Laguerre, in the time of William III. ' The Triumph 

 of Scipio,' painted in black and white, and in admirable preservation, 

 is in the possession of Sir George Vivyan. The Earl of Pembroke bos 

 a picture by Mantegna, representing 'Judith with the head of 

 Holoferne*.' In the National Gallery is a painting by Mantegna of 

 'The Virgin and Child enthroned; St. John the Baptist and the 

 Magdalen ; ' and in the British Museum there is an admirable drawing 

 in bistre touched with white, representing the dominion of the vices 

 over the virtues, a counterpart to Montr gnu's picture in the gallery of 

 the Louvre (No. 1107), representing the vices expelled by the virtue*. 

 It is not probable that he painted many cabinet pictures, bis time 

 being so much occupied by large works and engraving : though not 

 the inventor of this art, he was the first engraver of his time ; the 

 series of plates executed by bis own bond exceeds fifty. Mantegna 

 died at Mantua, September 13, 1506, at the age of seventy-four. He 

 left two sons, Francesco Mantegna, who completed several of the 

 works left unfinished by Andrea, and who was considered his father's 

 best scholar, another also a painter, but who attained no celebrity. 



MANTELL, GIDEON ALGERNON, a paUcontologist and geologist 

 of extensive and varied acquirements, was born at Lewes, in Sussex, 

 about 1 790. For several years he practised as a medical man at Lewes, 

 in a district which he rendered classical by his researches into its 

 geological struct ure. He was a memorable instance of a man of genius, 

 constantly and diligently occupied in discharging the duties of a labo- 

 rious profession in which he acquired great provincial reputation, 

 specially for the delicacy of his manipulation in surgical cases, and 

 for the tenderness of bis demeanour to his patients nevertheless 

 reaching great eminence M a man of science, and finding time to 

 pursue his favourite studies with distinguished success. During his 

 residence at Lewca be collected a vsst number of interesting fossils, 

 and formed a private museum, such as has rarely if ever been equalled. 

 Here also he published his principal separate works, ' The Fossils of 

 the South Downs,' and ' The Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex.' 

 Tbe former appeared in 1822, simultaneously with that of Cuvier and 

 lirongniart upon ' The Geology of the Environs of Paris ;' and many 

 of the organic remains of the chalk were described in both works 

 simultaneously, though independently. Whilst at Lewes also be called 

 attention to the interest and beauty of tbe remains of fishes found in 

 the chalk, and it wss there he commenced the series of observations 

 which placed him in a prominent position among British geologists. 

 His attention was early directed to the phenomena exhibited by tho 

 assemblage of clays, sands, and subordinate limestones which imme- 

 diately underlie the cretaceous system in the Weald district, happily 

 designated by his friend Mr. P. J. Martin as the ' Wealden formation.' 

 His location being exceedingly favourable for researches in that group 

 of rooks, be became the original demonstrator of the fresh-water origin 

 of the mass of Wealden beds, thus making a great step in British 

 geology ; and it is remarkable and instructive that this resulted from 

 the direct application of the knowledge of existing causes and pheno- 

 mena to the investigation of the past. Dr. Mantell s observation of 

 the conditions under which existing fresh-water shells were imbedded 

 in the alluvium of the valley of tbe Sussex Ouse, and even alternated 

 with marine exuviae, suggested the probability of the occurrence of 

 similar, but immensely more ancient, phenomena in the clays and 

 sands of the Weald ; and careful research fully confirmed his conj c- 

 ture. His chief and very memorable palrcoutological discoveries are 

 connected with the Wealden. But the particular circumstances under 

 which researches in fossil osteology have been pursued iu England tor 

 many years past render it difficult, with a due regard to brevity^ 

 define accurately the character, and to delineate tho extent, of 

 Dr. Mantcll's labours in that department of science. Tbe following 

 view of the subject is from the impartial pen of Mr. William 

 Hopkins, F.R.8., and forms a part of an obituary notice contained 

 in his Anniversary Address' from the chair of the Geological 



