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.