-minded and the
opprobrium of ages. What Bacon proved to philosophy Mansfield in his day
became, in a measure, to his own cherished science; and, as Coke affected
commiseration for the author of the _Novum Organum_, so the fettered
slaves of forms and rules in later times pitied and reproached Lord
Mansfield for his declared unconquerable preference for the spirit of
justice to the unilluminated letter of the law.

Nature and education prepared William Murray for the very highest
forensic distinction, and his career is chiefly remarkable for the
certain, though gradual steps, by which he reached it. His success was
the legitimate and logical result of the means sedulously taken to obtain
it. Had William Murray failed to win his race, it would have been because
he had dropped down dead on the course, or violent hands had forbidden
his progress. The conditions of victory were secured at starting, in his
own person, let the competitors be whom they might. The spirit of the boy
was as ambitious of worldly glory as the spirit of the man looked for
undying fame; from first to last, from the beginning of the century until
the close of it, the same application, the same aptitude, the same
self-devotion, and the same clear, unruffled, penetrating judgment, were
visible in Mansfield's useful and protracted life.

The younger son of a poor Scotch lord, whose family favored the Stuart
cause, William Murray quitted his school at Perth on the 15th of March,
1718, being then thirteen years of age, and started on the back of a pony
for the city of London. His destination was the house of an apothecary,
who, emigrating from Perth, had settled in London, and was now
commissioned to see the son of his former patron safely deposited at
Westminster School, where it was hoped the young student would win, in
due time, his Oxford scholarship. Upon the 8th of May, just two months
after the journey was commenced, the pony completed his task, and the
rider resolutely began his own. He soon distinguished himself by his
classical attainments, and, according to Mr. Welsby, "his superiority was
more manifest in the declamations than in any of the other exercises
prescribed by the regulations of the school." In May, 1723, after a
severe examination, William Murray took his place as first on the list
of King's scholars who were to proceed to Christ Church.

At Oxford the student determined to go to the bar, and through the
generosity of the first Lor