352 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. which, in spite of marked limitations, gave him the pre-eminent position which he unquestionably attained. In comparison with the greatest of his contemporaries who were his peers in intellectual power, I should say that he shared with Westbury, Cairns, and Selborne a precision of thought and logical faculty which rendered his mind capable at once of entertaining the broadest views and the most subtle distinctions; but he lacked their versatility. He was the equal of Blackburn and Jessel in legal learning, without the pedantry of the one or the dogma- tism of the other. In affinity and contrast Earl Cairns probably furnishes the best comparison. Among the great names just men- tioned Cairns and Bowen had no equal in that cultured imagina- tion which is essential to the exercise of the highest art. Earl Cairns has never had an equal, in my opinion, in that intuitive insight into legal principles which make his opinions sound like " an embodiment of the voice of the law stamping its seal upon what is obviously reasonable and just." His judgments were not so much ratiocinations as illuminations. In his mere statements the most complex legal problem passed out of his hands in so sim- ple and clear a light that our wonder is why there should have been any difficulty. Cairns was a genius ; Bowen was a scholar. The latter shows us the processes by which he arrives at his con- clusions; we may observe the penetration and precision of a severely logical mind, expressed in language clear as crystal, and as luminous as it is subtle. Finally, in spite of physical sufferings to which all but Cairns were strangers. Lord Bowen shared with all these great jurists the habit of patient industry and close appli- cation without which intuitions are deceitful and gifts of exposition vain. Lord Bowen had the very qualities which are most needed in these days of systematic reporting. His work will repay attentive study simply as a demonstration that depth of legal learning and literary grace of style and method are not incompatible. Cer- tainly any distinctive style besides a slovenly one is least com- mon among learned lawyers, and is as rare as it is refreshing in the reports. A conception of intellectual reserve, sense of propor- tion, and wholesome mental habits of discrimination seem to be quite unknown. Interminable opinions on questions of fact, elab- orate restatement of settled principles, and the needless and me- chanical citation of all the cases to be found on a given point, — these are the evils at the root of the present deluge of reports. If
