V.

The Chair of the Laws of England carried with it a Fellowship and

an official house at Downing. The College, standing apart from

"the sights" of Cambridge and possessing neither antiquarian nor

architectural interest, is probably neglected even by the most

conscientious of our foreign visitors. Yet during Maitland's tenure

of the Downing Chair distinguished jurists from many distant parts,

from America, Germany, Austria, France, found their way "through the

inconspicuous gateway opening off the main business street" into the

spacious quadrangle, with its pleasant grove of lime and elm, and its

two rows of late Georgian buildings fronting one another across the

grass. One of these guests has recorded his impressions. "About the

middle of the row on the western side Maitland had his house. His

study was a plain square room, not entirely given up to law or history

and not overcrowded with folios. Yet every book on the shelves had

evidently been chosen; there was no useless pedantic lumber. One gained

at once an impression of refined taste and sure critical judgment. The

workshop mirrored the worker. The view from the study window was that

of the open lawn and the monotonous row of houses opposite. But on the

western side the house was set right into the thicket. Here every sort

of English songster seemed to have its nest[20]."

Maitland at least was well content. He loved Cambridge, every stone

of it, and prized its friendships. There were Henry Sidgwick, his old

master in philosophy; and A. W. Verrall, an exact equal in University

standing, who had become intimate with him at Trinity, had shared his

chambers at Lincoln's Inn but had abandoned the law for the Greek and

Latin Classics; there were C. S. Kenny, a friend of undergraduate days,

a Union orator and a criminal lawyer; and G. W. Prothero, who bore most

of the weight of the historical teaching in the University; and Henry

Jackson, who long afterwards succeeded Jebb in the Chair of Greek; and

R. T. Wright, the Secretary to the University Press. For Dr Alex Hill,

the Master of Downing, Maitland soon came to entertain feelings of

affectionate admiration. Nor was his power of making friends limited to

men of his own age. His directness of manner, his simplicity and humour

at once secured him the confidence and respect of younger men, and he

rapidly made his name as one of the most inspiring teachers in the

University, giving to the student, in Mr Whittaker's eloquent words,

"a sense of the importance, of the magnificence, of the splendour of

the study in which he was engaged, so that it was impossible at any

time thereafter for one of his pupils to regard the law merely as a

means of livelihood[21]." His method of lecturing, like everything else

he did, was quite individual. The lecture was carefully written and

read in a slow distinct impressive voice to the audience, so slowly

that it was possible to take very full notes, and yet with such a rare

intensity of feeling in every word and intonation, with such quiet and

unsuspected jets of humour, such electric flashes of vision, that the

hearers were never weary, and one of them has reported that Maitland

made you feel that the history of law in the twelfth century was the

only thing in life worth living for. Stories, too, have reached the

sister University of witty speeches made after dinner, as for instance

on November 11, 1897, when fourteen of Her Majesty's judges were

entertained in the Hall of Downing upon the occasion of the Lord Chief

Justice receiving an honorary degree, and the speech of the evening was

made by the Professor of the Laws of England. And there were other less

august occasions. The members of a distinguished and occult society

record a series of impromptu speculations as to the character of the

company assembled round the table. Were they the Salvation Army? No,

they were not musical. Were they the Board of Works? Were they the

Saved of Faith?--and so on through a series of hypotheses each more

grotesque and fantastic than the last and delivered in the clear grave

tones which made Maitland's humour irresistible.

Among the most welcome guests at Brookside in the days of the

Readership and at the West Lodge in the early days of Maitland's tenure

of the Downing Chair was J. K. Stephen, the brilliant author of

_Lapsus Calami_. J. K. Stephen, son of Sir James and nephew of Leslie

Stephen, most tender, witty, and vivacious of companions, was on every

account dear to Maitland and his wife.

In January, 1888, Stephen launched a weekly magazine called _The

Reflector_. It was the year in which Maitland exchanged Brookside for

Downing, the year of the first publication of the Selden Society,

and finally the year of Mr Ritchie's County Council Act. Being

invited to contribute a paper to the new periodical Maitland chose

as his theme the impending revolution in English local government.

The administrative functions of the Justices of the Peace were to be

transferred to elective County Councils. In a charming essay full of

ripe wisdom and pleasant wit Maitland bade farewell to the old order

and expressed some of the misgivings which the inevitable change

aroused in his mind. Master Shallow and Master Silence were to be

stripped of half their functions and might come to the conclusion

that the other half was not worth preserving. That which was "perhaps

the most distinctively English part of all our institutions," the

Commission of the Peace, was attacked in a vital part, not because the

Justices had been corrupt or extravagant, but because the spirit of the

age condemned them. "The average Justice of the Peace is a far more

capable man than the average alderman, or the average guardian of the

poor; consequently he requires much less official supervision. As a

governor he is doomed; but there has been no accusation. He is cheap,

he is pure, he is capable, but he is doomed; he is to be sacrificed

to a theory, on the altar of the spirit of the age." Regrets, however,

were vain. On the contrary, since the control of the central Government

was already vested in the people, it was best that the people should

gain political experience in local affairs, that the local authorities

should be given a free hand to manage and to mismanage, and that care

should be taken to invest them with such a degree of dignity and

independence as should attract the best men into the public service.

Maitland did not often express himself on public affairs; but he

watched them closely and took no conclusions at second-hand.

It is part of our English system to expect of our professors, however

eminent they may be, that they should examine undergraduates, serve on

boards, committees, syndicates, and take an active part in University

and College affairs. Maitland did not seek to escape any duty which

he might be expected to discharge. He examined five times in the Law

Tripos, twice in the Historical Tripos and three times in the Moral

Science Tripos. From November, 1886, to January, 1895, he served as

secretary to the Law Board, and always took an active share in its

work. He was a member of the Library Syndicate (helping to redraft

its regulations), he served on the General Board of Studies, and in

1894 was elected to the Council of the Senate. Nobody is so valuable

on a committee as a good draftsman and Maitland's quick and exact

draftsmanship caused his services to be highly esteemed by any board or

syndicate of which he was a member. "He took," says Mr Wright, "little

part in the discussions of these bodies unless he had something

definite to say, but was always ready to state his views on being

appealed to, and it is not necessary to say that they always carried

great weight." The Dean of Westminster, who for some time sat next

to him at the Council meetings, was impressed by the "sagacity and

courage" of his judgments in the interpretation of statutes. "'I always

stretch a statute,' he whispered to me once half humourously. He seemed

to be making the law grow under his hands[22]."

In the public debates of the Senate House he was rarely heard, but when

he spoke there was a sensation. Academic oratory is generally above

the average in tone and ability, but is seldom spirited or passionate,

and often goes astray into subtleties and side issues. In the judgment

of some members of his audience, Maitland's speaking was quite unlike

any other oratory which was heard in Cambridge. The whole man seemed

quick with fire. His animation was so intense that it hardly seemed

to belong to a northern temperament, expressing itself with dramatic

force in every line of his eloquent face, in every movement of hand and

arm and in the rhythm of the body which swayed with the spoken word.

The language of his speeches, which had been carefully thought out,

was clear and weighty, full of pungent humour and unexpected turns,

and stamped with the impress of a restrained but vehement idealism.

The speech on Women's Degrees was a masterpiece after its kind and

very little was heard of a proposal to establish a separate University

for Women after Maitland had suggested that it should be called the

"Bletchley Junction Academy"--"for at Bletchley you change either for

Oxford or for Cambridge."

The oration against compulsory Greek, though less cogent in substance,

was hardly less striking in form.

College business claimed and received no small part of the time which

under the system of the continental Universities would have been

devoted to the advancement of knowledge. "When," writes Dr Hill, "in

1888 Maitland was elected Downing Professor of the Laws of England,

the older members of the Society, knowing his attachment to Trinity,

doubted whether he would feel himself naturalised in the smaller

College. From the moment of his admission all misgivings vanished.

With characteristic chivalry he assumed and almost over-acted his

new _rôle_. His eager patriotism was a challenge to our own. He was

prepared to out-do Downing men in his labours in all matters pertaining

to the welfare of the College." If a Statute was to be interpreted,

if title deeds were to be scheduled, if a voyage was to be made to

the Record office in search of "feet of fines," Maitland was at hand

willing and eager to interpret, to schedule, to investigate. "In all

questions of interpretation," Dr Hill continues, "Maitland was standing

counsel to the College as he was to the University." It so happened

that when he joined Downing rents were rapidly falling and that the

management of the estates entailed much care and thought. College

meetings were very frequent and not a few of the special difficulties

which arose, involved legal proceedings. Maitland, who for three years

received no part of his salary as fellow, put himself unreservedly at

the disposition of the College, and an academic society struggling to

extricate itself from financial embarrassments could not have invoked

a more valuable ally. Now he would help to draft a memorial to the

Master of the Rolls; now a bill to be brought before Parliament. "His

legal training and knowledge and his nicely balanced judgment were of

inestimable use in the solution of the special problems with which the

College had to deal." But it was not in legal matters only that he gave

service without stint. "He was equally loyal in taking his share in all

phases of administration and in doing all that in him lay to enrich the

College life. He dined regularly in Hall and spent the evening in the

combination room to the delight of his own guests and those introduced

by other members of the Society." The Master of Downing might be

painting the portrait of an ideal Fellow; those who know the College

best will be the last to dispute its resemblance.

In the summer of 1892 Maitland advertised a course of lectures upon

"Some Principles of Equity," and from that date onward till 1906 a

course upon equity--"Equity more especially Trusts" was the favourite

title--figured in the yearly programme of the Downing Professor. At

first the subject was packed into the Lent term; then the lectures grew

and overflowed into the summer. "I put in some business," he would

observe gaily, "the business" consisting of recent decisions of the

Chancery division, for the lectures were revised year by year to keep

pace with the march of knowledge and the requirements of the practical

student. Of these discourses there is the less reason to speak, even

if the present writer were entitled to be heard, seeing that they have

now been given to the world, thanks to the labour of two distinguished

and devoted pupils. Maitland explained to his audience the whole system

of modern equity, and when a lawyer is unfolding the Administration

of Assets or the doctrines of Conversion, Election and Specific

Performance to qualified persons, the layman would do well to keep his

peace. It is, however, a quality in Maitland that much as he enjoyed

the technicalities of law, he was never content to be purely technical.

The same gifts which shone out in his conversation, the genius for

perspicuous and graphic description, the quick darting flight to the

essential point, the fertile power of exhibiting a subject in new

and original aspects were conspicuous in his handling of the least

promising topics, and these lectures could never have been written by

a man who was nothing more than a sound Chancery practitioner. What

is equity and what is its relation to the common law? So simple and

fundamental do these questions appear to be that one would imagine that

the correct answer to them must have been given again and again. It is

one of those numerous cases in which a truth which appears to be quite

obvious as soon as it is pointed out has lain if not unperceived, at

least imperfectly perceived, because the proper perspective depends

upon an unusual combination of studies. Maitland, doubly equipped as

an historian and a lawyer, found no difficulty in demonstrating two

propositions which had never been clearly stated before, first that

"equity without common law would have been a castle in the air and

an impossibility," and second "that we ought to think of the relation

between common law and equity not as that between two conflicting

systems but as that between code and supplement, that between text

and gloss." Such observations will soon savour of platitude. That

equity was not a self-sufficient system, that it was hardly a system

at all but rather "a collection of additional rules," that if the

common law had been abolished equity must have disappeared also, for

it presupposed a great body of common law, that normally the relation

between equity and law has not been one of conflict, for the presence

of two conflicting systems of law would have been destructive of all

good government--such propositions only require to be stated to meet

with acceptance. Yet it was left to Maitland to state them. The need

for thus emphasising the essential unity of English law was due partly

to the tendency of teachers to lay stress upon the cases in which

there is a variance between the rules of common law and the rules of

equity and partly to the fact that in the routine of his profession the

practitioner would have his attention directed rather to such occasions

of variance than to the necessary and intricate dependence of equity on

common law. Perhaps there is no greater proof of originality than the

discovery of truths, which have no surprising quality about them except

the length of time during which they have gone unnoticed or obscured.