AWB Simpson's review in 104
Michigan Law Review (2006) 1437-1459 of Lacey's 2004
A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream notes that -
At this time, the Oxford philosophers, especially the group to which [Hart] belonged, were extremely confident of the significance of their work. Their lack of self-doubt was indeed to be little dented by the publication, in 1959, of a devastating criticism of the movement, Ernest Gellner’s Words and Things. Their initial reaction was the same as that of current law and economics devotees when they are confronted with radical criticism to which they can think of no response; they either ignored it, or were enraged by its impertinence, or both. Thus it was that the leading British philosophical journal, Mind, then edited by Gilbert Ryle, using what was known as the reversed in-tray system [Articles submitted were placed in a tray, and when publication of the next issue was imminent, the editor picked out from the top of the pile sufficient pieces thought publishable to fill the next issue. No system of peer review then complicated the task of the editor, whose decision was final], refused to review Gellner's book at all, a decision that gave rise to public controversy
Simpson goes on to offer other comments that will delight UC law students -
The practice of circulating and indeed selling copies of notes of lectures was then quite common. Indeed, some lecturers delivered their lectures at dictation speed; it was part of the lore of the school that William Holdsworth, the legal historian, who died before my time, used to repeat each sentence three times through his walrus moustaches: "The law of England, I say the law of England, the law of England ..." By this time even the most inattentive students would be aware that it was the law of England that was under discussion
and could presumably go back to sleep.
I can well recall my own astonishment when, after I had left Oxford, I learned that he had suffered a breakdown, triggered by Jenifer [Hart]'s public announcement of her early career as a communist spy in waiting. This had inevitably given rise to speculation that Herbert himself had been a spy. He had been hospitalized in the Warneford psychiatric hospital, commonly called Warneford College for the many students and occasional dons who passed into its care; it was under the supervision of Dr. Seymour Spencer, who had great problems in recalling the names of the other doctors who worked there. For a don to go there was unusual indeed. Some degree of psychological disturbance was as commonplace in Oxford as it is in American law schools, but was not usually viewed as a reason to seek medical care.
Strange creatures, those academics.
Waissman, a refugee who was a sad, lonely, and to some degree embittered person, died in 1959. Herbert attended his funeral, and arrived late and shivering for the meeting of the discussion group in consequence. He explained that there was no religious ceremony, and the philosophers, after silently consigning Waissman to his grave, were about to leave, when Gilbert Ryle, feeling that something should be said about the deceased scholar, leapt onto a convenient tabular grave stone and delivered an extempore Periclean funeral oration. It was raining heavily and blowing strongly at the time, and the proceedings, conducted by the Oxford philosophers all attired in soggy, flapping academic dress, resembling nothing so much as a group of immense crows clustered around carrion, excited the puzzled curiosity of some passing peasants.
