Ayrshire > Volume 2

THE BOYLES OF KELBURN 177
ability, large professional resource, and habit of judgment
of that distinguished person. He bore witness to his
integrity, his candour, his purity, " his anxiety to free
himself from the prejudices and prepossessions which
will beset all men and insidiously yet widely divert the
course of justice, and of his firm resolution in all circum-
stances to make between suitors inequality even."
" I dwell eminently upon this," he added, " that
his whole heart was in his duty, and that presiding so
many years, both in Civil and Criminal Courts, he has
ever and remarkably evinced a deep conviction that
he who takes upon himself the sacred function of a
Judge is bound to devote to it his whole mind and
strength, in disregard of every other consideration,
and is only the more obliged to utmost exertion —
that he then makes it less for himself and more for his
country. I should not hesitate to say that in this
respect he has elevated the judicial character in
Scotland, and that he has established a standard by
which all those who succeed him in the high office to
which he is now called, or who may fill judicial stations
less exalted, must submit to be tried, and, as they
shall answer the test, applied to every day and hour
of their judicial life, must consent to relinquish office,
with honour or without it."
Lord Cockburn, not always the most indulgent of
critics, and who, like Andrew Rutherford, was of the
Whig political persuasion, was also generous in his
appreciation of the new President. " With some great
judicial defects," he wrote, " he has seme of the greatest
judicial excellencies — untiring energy, perfect candour,
and the principles of a gentleman. The desire of
avoiding labour, with the consequent impatience and
negligence, never for a moment beset Boyle, whose sole
ambition has always been that he and his Court should
do their duty well. Neither (political) prejudices, nor
any other considerations, have ever obstructed the