Excerpt from Analysis and Digest of the Decisions of Sir George Jesse, Late Master of the Rolls: With Full Notes, References and Comments, and Copious Index

No eulogy which has been assigned to the late Sir George J essel is undeserved. For wide learning and deep insight. His judgments are, perhaps, unsur passed. They range over nearly the whole field of equity jurisprudence, and diverge occasionally into common law regions. He marshalled previous decisions with breadth of thought and grasp of dis tinguishing detail, and rapidly swept from the books a mass of bad law. Upon the construction of documents he was a very great authority. He never fettered himself with previous decisions upon other instruments, except as a last resort, pointing out that the tendency of successive cases is a drifting further and further from their founda tion, and to be refinements upon one another. His association with the vast alterations effected by the Judicature Acts is, moreover, well understood. It was the constant effort of Sir George J essel to make equity consonant with the spirit and neces sities of the times, and, avoiding technicalities, to get, in the most expeditious and least expensive manner, to the proper result. For this reasonso had an exceptional variety of cases. As he became a Member of the Appellate Court within. A short time from his original appointmmt, his judg ments thus had a wider scope. The head of our profession (lord Chancellor Selborne) thus recently spoke of him A man of extraordinary mental gifts, of a rapidity, an acuteness, an energy, a power of doing work which I have certainly never known surpassed, I think, perhaps, never equalled; and to those qualities he joined a most remarkable accuracy of judgment. He seemed naturally to come to the point at once, and always, or almost always, to hit the right nail on the head. Justice Pearson has said of him: He put more law into his decisions than almost any other judge of whom I know.

Justice Chitty, Mr. H. Davey, q.c., and the other members of the Bar who practised before him, are never tired of testifying to Sir George J essel's lucidity and depth of learning. The writer of any modern legal treatise necessarily cites Sir George J essel at almost every page, and acknowledges the services rendered by him. Therefore, although ordinarily the judgments of any special judge might be deficient in general interest because of the acci dental nature of the subjects with which he has had to deal, this is not so with those of Sir George J essel.

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