the evils to be feared from the extension of popular influence.

The legal knowledge of Lord Brougham has been questioned by the members
of the profession whose abuses he desired to reform. It was even said,
that while his elevation to the Chancellorship was the unjustifiable act
of a party to serve party purposes, it was at the same time desirable to
Mr. Brougham in a pecuniary point of view, from a falling off in his
professional practice, caused by his hostility to those abuses. Now,
although this is a question really of more interest to lawyers, than to
the public in general, and one which might, therefore, be left to their
decision, yet there was an _animus_ at the time among this class of men,
that rendered them not disinterested judges. Their opinion therefore must
be taken with a qualification, as well on the score of particular
immediate drawbacks, as on the score of their general professional
prejudices. Lord Brougham respected too much the principles of justice,
and he too little regarded the technicalities of law, to be agreeable to
that body. He had a faculty too, for giving speedy judgments, and a
determination to prevent unnecessary expenses, that were particularly
disagreeable to men imbued with a conscientious desire that justice
should not be prejudiced by an unprecedented and informal haste in its
dispensation, or by a reduction of the number of its advocates. The new
Lord Chancellor, too, thought that when one or two intelligent barristers
had been engaged at a large expense, and had well stated the case of
their client, it was quite unnecessary that the same ground should be
again gone over by juniors, whose arguments marred more than they helped
the interests of their employers. When, therefore, he either put them
down, or was droned into a short nap, while the industrious advocate was
earning his unnecessary fee, it was a specimen of "the arrogance of an
upstart wholly unacquainted with Chancery Law," or "of an eccentricity
bordering on insanity, and wholly unfitting its exhibitor for the high