One reassuring result was obtained from Mr Whittaker's critical enquiry into the manuscript. The Mirror was never in the middle ages a popular or influential book. It existed in a single unique manuscript. Such authority as it obtained was conferred upon it by lawyers who lived some three hundred years after it was written, were "greedy of old tales and not too critical of the source from which they were derived." Still, in a book so full of concrete positive statement, so full of denunciation of practical abuses, there might for all its rubble of absurdity be a quarry for historians.
In a brilliant piece of persiflage Maitland once and for all demolishes the author of the Mirror. He exposes his wilful lies, his unctuous piety, the perverse originality which amuses itself by playing havoc among technical terms, his absence of all lawyerly interest, his perplexing and fantastic inconsistencies. A most ingenious hypothesis is advanced to explain the source of this curious piece of apocryphal literature. "In order to discover the date of its composition we ask what statutes are, and what are not, noticed in it, and we are thus led to the years between 1285 and 1290. Then we see that its main and ever-recurring theme is a denunciation of 'false judges,' and we call to mind the shameful events of 1289. The truth was bad enough; no doubt it was made far worse by suspicions and rumours. Wherever English men met they were talking of 'false judges' and the punishment that awaited them. All confidence in the official oracles of the law had vanished. Any man's word about the law might be believed if he spoke in the tones of a prophet or apostle. Was not there an opening here for a fanciful young man ambitious of literary fame? Was not this an occasion for a squib, a skit, a topical medley, a 'variety entertainment,' blended of truth and falsehood, in which Bracton's staid jurisprudence should be mingled with freaks and crotchets and myths and marvels, and decorated with queer tags of out-of-the-way learning picked up in the consistories?" No doubt, as Maitland admitted, this was guess-work; the certainty was that no statement not elsewhere warranted could be accepted from the Mirror unless we were prepared to believe "that an Englishman called Nolling was indicted for a sacrifice to Mahomet."
FOOTNOTES:
[18] "Frederick William Maitland," by B. F. L., Solicitor's Journal, Jan. 5, 1907. See also The Year Books of Edward II (Selden Society), vol. iv., Preface.
[19] I.e. as Domesmen.
[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.