rcular to
explain his action in taking a course for which many blamed him. Viewed
dispassionately, the incident appears to have exhibited his statesmanlike
qualities in a marked degree, for he secured concessions which would have
been irretrievably lost by continued opposition. Not long after this, Lord
Cairns resigned the leadership of his party in the upper house, but he had
to resume it in 1870 and took a strong part in opposing the Irish Land Bill
in that year. On the Conservatives coming into power in 1874, he again
became lord chancellor; in 1878 he was made Viscount Garmoyle and Earl
Cairns; and in 1880 his party went out of office. In opposition he did not
take as prominent a part as previously, but when Lord Beaconsfield died in
1881, there were some Conservatives who considered that his title to lead
the party was better than that of Lord Salisbury. His health, however,
never robust, had for many years shown intermittent signs of failing. He
had periodically made enforced retirements to the Riviera, and for many
years had had a house at Bournemouth, and it was here that he died on the
2nd of April 1885.

Cairns was a great lawyer, with an immense grasp of first principles and
the power to express them; his judgments taking the form of luminous
expositions or treatises upon the law governing the case before him, rather
than of controversial discussions of the arguments adduced by counsel or of
analysis of his own reasons. Lucidity and logic were the leading
characteristics of his speeches in his professional capacity and in the
political arena. In an eloquent tribute to his memory in the House of
Lords, Lord Chief Justice Coleridge expressed the high opinion of the legal
profession upon his merits and upon the severe integrity and single-minded
desire to do his duty, which animated him in his selections for the bench.
His piety was reflected by that of his great opponent, rival and friend,
Lord Selborne. Like Lord Selborne and Lord Hatherley, Cairns found leisure
at his busiest for teaching in the Sunday-school, but it is not recorded of
them (as of him) that they refused to undertake work at the bar on
Saturdays, in order to devote that day to hunting. He used to say that his
great incentive to hard work at his profession in early days was his desire
to keep hunters, and he retained his keenness as a sportsman as long as he
was able to indulge it. Of his personal characteristics, it may be said
that he was a sp