9 
 
 ■m]
 
 1 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 J
 
 ^J(r^ o.z:Mii's D '^■^ 
 
 /■

 
 ,. A SKETCH 
 
 OP 
 
 THE LIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON; 
 
 COMPRISING, 
 
 WITH ADDITIONAL MATTER, SOME CORRECTIONS OF 
 
 ME. TWISS'S WOEK ON THE CHANCELLOE. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM EDWARD SURTEES, D.C.L. 
 
 BARRISTER AT LAW. 
 
 Look here upon this picture and on this ; 
 The counterfeit presentment of two brothers." 
 
 Hamlet. Act III. 
 
 LONDON ; 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STKAND. 
 1846. 
 
 .,■>•• • 
 
 ; »» • ' • - 

 
 LONDON : 
 
 TRINTED UV G. J. r.M.AIEU, SA^•OV STHKET, STRAND. 
 
 .'S?
 
 CD 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 o 
 
 ^ THOMAS TURNER, ESQUIRE, 
 
 M 
 
 MA. BARRISTER AT LAW, 
 
 THIS SKETCH 
 
 § OF THOSE, WHOSE PROFOUND LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS 
 
 FULFILLED THE EARLY PROMISE 
 
 OF 
 
 THEIR BRILLIANT UNIVERSITY DISTINCTIONS, 
 
 IS 
 
 "j APPROPRIATELY DEDICATED. 
 
 *y »^c'^ * 
 
 7S308
 
 P R E F A C E. 
 
 The title-])age expresses the design of tliis little 
 Work. In the valuable biography of Lord Chancellor 
 Eldon by Mr. Twiss, there were mistakes and omissions 
 which I observed and regretted : and I was induced to 
 devote, occasionally, some perhaps otherwise idle hours 
 to correcting and supplying them. The histories of 
 Lord Stowell and Lord Eldon were much entwined in 
 early life. They were easier, therefore, to unite than 
 to dissever. The results of my labours (for which 
 no claim can be set up to the importance of regular 
 biography) were contributed in a series of papers to the 
 New Monthly Magazine. They appeared in the Num- 
 bers for June, August, October, and December of 1845, 
 and in those for January, February, March, and April 
 of 184G. The articles are now re-published with some 
 additional docuniuiit.>^-. and with .sucli alterations as
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 seemed desirable wlieii the ^vol•k assumed a form which 
 as])ired to a little more of permanence. 
 
 Res])ecting my sources of information it remains to 
 add a few words. 
 
 I have often heard my grandfather, Mr. William 
 Surtees, the school-fellow, brother-in-law, and intimate 
 friend of Lord Chancellor Eldon, mention circumstances 
 of his history : and, after my grandfather's death, I 
 availed myself of many opportunities of adding to my 
 information respecting Lords Stowell and Eldon, by 
 conversing with persons well-informed concerning them. 
 
 Previously to the appearing of Mr. Twiss's volumes, 
 I had seen, in the possession of Mr. John Bell of 
 Gateshead, a collection of original letters and traced 
 copies of letters from both Lord Stowell and Lord 
 Eldon. The traced copies were the facsimiles of 
 letters addressed to a brother, Mr. Henry Scott. The 
 original of these now exist in the possession of Mr. 
 Pearson of Newcastle. 
 
 Mr. Bell has since, in the most liberal manner, lent 
 me his copies ; and these are the letters which, some- 
 times entire and sometimes in extracts, are quoted in 
 the first three cha])ters of the following sketch. To 
 both Mr. Bell and Mr. Pearson my acknowledgments 
 and thanks are due for their permission that I should 
 j)ul)lish as much as I pleased of these documents.
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 For a copy of tlie letter of Lord Eldon to the late 
 Earl Grey on the subject of the Durham uiagistrates, 
 I am obliged to the kindness of Mrs. Surtees of Mains- 
 forth in the county of Durham : and for the loan of 
 the originals of the letters of Lords Stowell and Eldon 
 to the Mayor of Nevvcastle-on-Tyne I have to thank 
 Mr. John Bell. These letters are contained in the 
 latter part of the fourth chapter. 
 
 The letters addressed by Lord Eldon to my grand- 
 father, Mr. William Surtees, are the property of mv 
 cousin, Mr. Henry George Surtees, who has favoured me 
 with the loan of them. They are given in the fifth, 
 seventh, and eighth chapters. 
 
 As my occasional tracings of the careers of Lords 
 Stowell and Eldon are sometimes at variance with the 
 narrative of Mr. Twiss, it was satisfactory to me to 
 find that their authority has been supported by the 
 introduction of copious extracts from them, into "the 
 lives of Twelve English Judges," just published, in a 
 collected form, by my able friend Mr. Townsend ; a 
 gentleman whom Mr. Twiss himself recognizes as a 
 competent judge of authenticity, by the frequent 
 citations, which, in his own life of the Chancellor, he 
 has made from his articles on Lord Eldon, formerly 
 contributed to the Law Magazine. 
 
 Temple, 23rd June, 1846.
 
 CORRIGENDA. 
 
 Page 4, line '2\,fnr occurrence, read coincidence. 
 
 14, line 23, after ^2,000, add and Mr. Suitees J. 1 ,000. 
 
 3G, line 4, for to his ability, read to its ability. 
 
 64, lines IS and 19, remove this mark — from the end of /In' irnrd ultli /o 
 
 the end of the word neutrals. 
 77, line 2, for the words a Mrs. Siddons [sic] read the words a Mrs 
 
 Sidons [sic]. 
 80, line 3, /or Burgoye, Vearf Burgoync. 
 89, line 7,/or mentamque, rearf metamque. 
 102, line 20, a/feri/ie uwrf regulated, add marks of the conclusion oj a qitu- 
 
 tation. 
 1(1.9, /or <Ae u)orc/« hardy adventurous crew, read the wordi hardy niid au- 
 venturous crew.
 
 A S K E T C H 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIVES OF LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 The first authenticated ancestor of the Lords Stowell 
 and Eldon is their grandfather, WiHiam Scott of Sand- 
 gate ; whom, from a family tradition, Mr. Twiss states 
 to iiave been a clerk to a " fitter, " and whom the accu- 
 rate local antiquary and genealogist, Mr. John Bell, of 
 Gateshead, has described to the author of this Sketch 
 as having been, in the latter part of his life, the owner 
 of several " keels." 
 
 I must now hasten to interpret a language but little 
 known beyond the banks of the Tyne. " Keels " 
 are large barges belonging to those who exercise the 
 trade of " fitters," a sort of water-carriers and brokers 
 of coal. They are manned by two swarthy sailors, who 
 navigate them freighted with the native " black dia- 
 mond " from the higher part of the Tyne to its ports, 
 either of Newcastle or Shields, for exportation or for 
 consumption on the spot. The business of a fitter was 
 a very profital^le one ; and there are several families 
 amongst the more important gentry of Northumberland 
 
 B
 
 2 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 and Durham, who owe tlie creation or tlie increase of 
 the fortune that has been transmitted to them to the 
 exercise of that trade by their ancestors. So produc- 
 tive indeed was it found, that now it is little known as 
 a separate calling ; those who " work," preferring also 
 themselves to " fit " their coal. 
 
 Sandgate was classic ground long before it was re- 
 corded as the original habitation of the Scott family ; 
 for there the scene is laid in the peculiar and chacter- 
 istic old song of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, set to a lively 
 tune well known through the north as the " keel row," 
 and commencing in the following words : 
 
 As I came thro' Sandgate, thro' Sandgate, thro' Sandgate, 
 As I came thro' Sandgate, I heard a lassie sing, 
 
 " Weel may the keel row, the keel row, the keel row, 
 Weel may the keel row, that my laddie's in." 
 
 Sandgate, the ancient " habitat " of the Scotts, and 
 the spot where the incantation of the lassie invoked 
 so appropriate a blessing on her laddie's labours, taking 
 its name from a gate in the ancient town-wall of New- 
 castle, near the sandy shore of the Tync, was an old 
 street in the suburbs running parallel to the river, and 
 opening to it by narrow lanes. It is (to compare small 
 things with great) the Strand of Newcastle ; but a 
 Strand leading to Wapping instead of to the West End. 
 The barrier gate on the sand, which in border conflict 
 " had oft rolled back the tide of war," has at length 
 yielded to modern convenience, and the suburb gate, of 
 Sandgate now mingles with Newcastle. 
 
 William Scott of Sandgate, who has already been 
 mentioned, was described, in the indenture of appren-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 3 
 
 ticesliip of liis son, as being of the degree of yeoman — 
 a style not necessarily signifying the cultivator of his 
 own farm, as we commonly understand it ; and there 
 no doubt simply meaning a householder, of too poor 
 estate to allow of his designation either as a gentleman 
 or merchant, yet raised above the ranks of servile 
 drudgery. It was applied alike to the reduced cadets 
 of gentle blood, and to the aspiring scions of the suc- 
 cessful labourer. The history of the family of Scott 
 well exemplifies the quaint definition which the vene- 
 rable Fuller thus gives of the class comprised under 
 this term. " The good yeoman is a gentleman m ore, 
 whom the next age may see refined ; and is the wax 
 capable of a gentle impression when the Prince shall 
 stamp it.''* 
 
 The son of the yeoman of Sandgate was, like his 
 father, called William. He, on the 1st of September 
 1716, was bound apprentice to a coal-fitter in New- 
 castle : hence by service he obtained the freedom of 
 that town, becoming a member of his master's com- 
 pany, the guild of Hoastmen, which comprised, from an 
 early period, those engaged in the loading and selling 
 of coal and grindstones, the subterranean wealth of the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 This William Scott, according to a natural and plea- 
 sing family progression, engaged as a principal in that 
 business in which his father had been a clerk. Not 
 content, however, with the profits of a coal-fitter, he is 
 said to have kept, at one time, a sort of public-housef 
 near the Quay, at Newcastle, for the purpose, it is pre- 
 
 * Fuller's Holv State. 
 
 t From the information of Mr. John Bell. 
 
 b2
 
 ^ SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Slimed, of supplying his own keel-men with their liquor, 
 and thus realizing the returns of the modern truck 
 system. He entered also into speculations in shipping 
 generally, and in the maritime insurance called bot- 
 tomry. The book into which Mr. Scott copied his 
 letters of business still exists, and is in the possession 
 of Mr. John Bell of Gateshead, who has found means, 
 amid laborious application to his profession as a land 
 surveyor, to amass a rare manuscript collection of anti- 
 quarian and legendary lore. By his industry and fru- 
 gality Mr. Scott was in time raised to consideration 
 amongst the trading community of his native town ; 
 and, though he seems seldom to have mixed in society, 
 or to have been heard of beyond his counting-house or 
 the Exchange, there is no reason to suppose the high 
 opinion entertained by his descendants of his prudence 
 and probity exaggerated. 
 
 His sons, who grew up to manhood, were William, 
 afterwards Lord Stowell, Henry, a merchant and coal- 
 fitter in Newcastle, and John, afterwards Earl of Eldon. 
 And here we should remark a peculiar occurrence in 
 the births of the eldest and youngest son : Lord Stowell 
 and Lord Eldon were each twins, having each been 
 born with a sister. 
 
 For a history of the schoolboy days of the Scotts I 
 am possessed of but little original information. All 
 three brothers went to the grammar-school at New- 
 castle, and all are acknowledged to have possessed high 
 talent. According to Lord Eldon's own account, he 
 used to be foremost among the " idle progeny" 
 
 That chas'd the rolling circle's speed 
 Or urg'd the flying ball.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 5 
 
 Be that, however, as it may, there is no doubt that both 
 William and John contrived so to spend their boyhood 
 as to acquire a considerable store of learning, and to 
 become, in turn, great favourites with the head master, 
 the Rev. Hugh Moises. 
 
 Mr. Moises was an able and worthy man, and had 
 generally the good fortune to win the regard of his 
 pupils. In society he used to lay himself out to talk 
 smartly, after the manner of diners out ; yet he would 
 not unfrequently mix his conversation with grave 
 appeals to his conscience and his God, in the line of a 
 somewhat more questionable gentry. The eldest Scott 
 successfully attempted the former accomplishment ; 
 while the disposition, which the youngest occasionally 
 evinced through life to adopt the latter, may reasonably 
 be attributed to the influence of the same earlv 
 example. 
 
 An accident, of which without doubt the correcter 
 version is that preferred by Mr. Twiss,* had, by shifting 
 the scene of Wilham Scott's birth from Northumber- 
 land to the county of Durham, rendered him eligible 
 for a Durham scholarship in Corpus Christi College, 
 Oxford ; and of this he did not fail to avail himself, 
 acting probably upon a suggestion from Mr. Moises. 
 
 Having been born on the 17th of October, 1745 
 (old Style), he obtained his scholarship at Corpus on 
 the 24th of Feb. 1761, when he was a little turned 
 sixteen years old. From his scholarship at Corpus he 
 was, in December 1764, elected to a fellowship in 
 
 * Twiss's Eldon, cli. i. \).27, first edition. To this edition, when 
 not otherwise expressed, the reference by pages will always be made.
 
 6 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 University College, where, as a tutor, he gained a high 
 reputation for himself and his College. 
 
 And here let us leave him to spend some years on 
 the classic, though monotonous, banks of Isis, while we 
 hasten back to the shores of the Tyne, in order thence 
 to accomjiany his youngest brother, John, through the 
 changes and chances of his early career. 
 
 John Scott was born on the 4th of June, 1751, in 
 his father's house in Love Lane, Newcastle, being 
 nearly six years younger than his eldest brother. When 
 he had gone through the education afforded by the 
 local grammar school, his father, uncertain to what 
 business it might be best to devote him, talked of pla- 
 cing him in his own trade of coal-fitting ; but that was 
 also the destination of his brother Henry : and William 
 Scott, who seems to have been always tenderly attached 
 to his youngest brother, suggested that he should be 
 sent to his own college. University, under his patron- 
 age; and there he was entered as a commoner 15th of 
 May 1766. 
 
 And well, with such a brother to direct his studies 
 and stimulate his perseverance, might the young colle- 
 gian experience how 
 
 Resistless burns the fever of renown, 
 
 Caught from the strong contagion of the gown.* 
 
 Accordingly in the following year we find him acquir- 
 ing a fellowship in his college, and in the summer of 
 1771, gaining the English prize essay — the only prize 
 then held out for competition by the University of 
 Oxford. 
 
 The sul)ject of this essay was the advantages and dis- 
 * Johnson's " Vanity of Human Wishes."
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 7 
 
 advantages of foreign travel. Its language is deficient 
 neither in strength nor grace ; and its phrases and turns 
 remind us not unfrequently of those of his brother's 
 friend, the great Doctor Johnson, with whose works its 
 author must undoubtedly have been very familiar. Its 
 matter and arrangement indicate the possession of 
 strong sense by its writer, togetlier with a disposition 
 to heap conflicting doubts into each scale, and then to 
 watch with delight the trembling of the uncertain 
 balance ; but there is not be found in it an originality 
 of thought or imagination which can entitle it to the 
 highest praise ; namely, that it is a work of genius. 
 This essay will afford an interesting key to the earlier 
 mental developments of this distinguished lawyer, if 
 we apply to it the rule laid down by Gibbon : " The 
 style of an author should be the image of his mind, 
 but the choice and command of language is the 
 fruit of exercise." 
 
 Notwithstanding Mr. John Scott's successes at the 
 university, I do not believe that his academic studies 
 were pursued with extraordinary enthusiasm, or that 
 he ever afterwards spoke of the period at which he was 
 an undergraduate as one of unusual diligence. He 
 seems then to have entered, with all the zest of 
 youth and a cheerful disposition, into the ordinary 
 amusements of his felloAv-students. It was only after 
 his marriage that his application became unremitting ; 
 and the law was the first study upon which he con- 
 centrated the whole vigour of his faculties. 
 
 His plan of life now was to be, Avhen old enough, 
 ordained, and eventually to retire from Oxford on a 
 college living.
 
 8 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 About this time, however, we find his heart much 
 interested in Miss Surtees, the ladv whom he subse- 
 quently married. So romantic were the circumstances 
 that attended, so important were the events that fol- 
 lowed this marriage, that I think I shall be excused if 
 I avail myself of my original sources of information to 
 make a somewhat lengthy digression upon it. 
 
 Elizabeth Surtees was the eldest daughter of a large 
 family. Her father, Mr. Aubone Surtees, was a 
 banker of Newcastle, and her mother, the beauty of a 
 preceding generation, was the child of Mr. John 
 Stephenson, of Knaresdale Hall, Northumberland . A 
 wine merchant of Newcastle, and a man of great com- 
 mercial ability generally, Mr. Stephenson had directed 
 and shared the extensive speculations in the hop trade 
 of his eldest brother. Sir William Stephenson, of 
 London,* and became one of the richest men in 
 Newcastle, then the commercial capital of the north of 
 England. He left a large family, the two ekler sons 
 of which he placed by his will in a position of inde- 
 pendent affluence. Henry, the eldest by birth, had a 
 house in Park-lane, which he occupied in the London 
 season, and he used to spend the principal part of the 
 summer in Berkshire, at a residence which he rented. 
 He had an only child, a girl of surpassing beauty, of 
 whom in a short time there will be occasion to make 
 further mention. 
 
 Such were the circumstances of the Surtees family 
 (so far at least as they have any bearing on the sub- 
 jects of this sketch) at the time that the eyes of Jack 
 Scott and Bessy Surtees first met in the fine old 
 
 ''' Lord Mayor of London in 17G4.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 9 
 
 Gothic church at Sedgefiekl, a pretty village in the 
 county of Durham, where Miss Barbara Surtees, an 
 old maiden aunt of the latter, was residing. The 
 mode of introduction is not now known, but that is a 
 difficulty not hard to be overcome by the ardour of a 
 youthful admirer. It is presumed that the acquaint- 
 ance was rapidly improved at the public balls in the 
 Newcastle assembly rooms, where the fair debutante 
 was considered so attractive that, before she had at- 
 tained the age of eighteen, her hand was sought hy 
 the flower of the surrounding squirearchy. But John 
 Scott was her favoured swain, though probably in j^oint 
 of position he was then far the least eligible. 
 
 Appeals to interest may be made to blighted hopes 
 or furrowed brows, but brightly opening youth repels 
 them with disdain, when they would deprive it of the 
 new luxury of love, and snatch away, as soon as tasted, 
 the sweetest cup in Nature's meagre banquet. So, in 
 the hope by absence to eradicate the impressions Mr. 
 John Scott had made, Miss Surtees was sent south- 
 ward to visit her uncle, Mr. Henry Stephenson ; and, 
 at his house in London, and at his country residence in 
 Berkshire, she spent many months in the society of 
 her cousin. Miss Stephenson. 
 
 Of the two cousins. Miss Surtees was the elder by 
 some three years. Her figure was slight, and of a 
 short, middle size ; her hair, of the deepest brown, 
 streamed in rich ringlets over her small neck. From 
 her mother she had inherited features of exquisite 
 regularity, as well as a strongly marked character, and 
 a warm but very affectionate temper. 
 
 Miss Stephenson, though yielding nothing in beauty
 
 10 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 to her cousin, bad features someuliat less symmetrical. 
 The mouth, of an infantine simplicity, but as sweet as 
 that of a smiling infant, indicated more of j^liability 
 and less of individual character. A contemjioraneous 
 painter* has represented her with hair, which, not per- 
 mitted to conceal any part of that which it was designed 
 to ornament, was raised from her neck and forehead by 
 a broad band, and clustered in rich wreathing curls 
 round the crown of her head ; while her dress, in its 
 easy simplicity, was that of " beauty adorned the 
 most." 
 
 Such was the girlhood of the Countess of Eldon 
 and the Countess of Mexborough. The former, rather 
 than relinquish the fond object of her first affections, 
 encountered all the difficulties of a straitened income, 
 and, after having in youth trimmed the midnight lamp 
 for the studies of her husband, and having honourably 
 schooled, into a pinching parsimony, a disposition, re- 
 presented by her contemporaries as having in youth 
 been liberal, in order to meet his necessities, was 
 rewarded in age, by seeing, from her secluded retire- 
 ment, him, whom she had thus loved and cherished, 
 invested with the highest honours of the state. The 
 latter, too, had an early attachment : but this, in 
 accordance with the more ambitious views of her 
 parents, she was induced to forego, and she became 
 the bride of the Earl of Mexborough. In her heyday 
 Almacks brightened at her smile ; and there also in 
 age was she seen, with cheeks where art had vainly 
 tried to retrieve the faded bloom of nature, and restore 
 
 * The Rev. William Peters, who painted a portrait of her when 
 Miss Stephenson, from which Dickinson has execnted an engraving. 
 
 7
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 11 
 
 the rosy light of youth. She was a ruin, from the 
 otherwise serene beauty of whose aspect much was 
 detracted by the injudicious introduction of parterres 
 filled with Spring's gayest flowers ; but still, as it was 
 said of her by one, who could even then find sufficient 
 traces of pristine brightness to command homage, she 
 was " the finest ruin in England." 
 
 We must not further anticipate the narrative ; but 
 hasten back to the year 1772, when the two girls used 
 to roam together in the shady lanes around the pretty 
 village of East Burnham, in Berkshire, close to which 
 Mr. Stephenson lived. 
 
 In the spring or summer of that year they parted 
 — seldom to meet again ; and Miss Surtees returned to 
 her father's residence in Newcastle. 
 
 The attachment between Mr. John Scott and Miss 
 Surtees had experienced a different reception by their 
 two families, though the imprudence of relinquishing a 
 fellowship on the one side, and that of marrying a 
 youth who had his way to make in the world on the 
 other, were obvious to each. The Scotts seem to 
 have been willing that a marriage should eventually 
 take place ; while the Surteeses were anxious to 
 defeat it altogether, and very probably represented 
 to their daughter the far higher pretensions of some 
 less favoured suitor. 
 
 And now let us hasten to the catastrophe. 
 
 The house * in which Mr. Surtees lived was a very 
 
 * Of this an engraving is given in the first and second editions of 
 the work of Mr. Twiss. Not long after the period now spoken of 
 in the text, Mr. Surtees changed his residence to Benwell, which is 
 situated at a short distance from Newcastle.
 
 12 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 large, old-fashioned building, in a row of houses, called 
 Sandhill, which fronts towards the Town-hall, the 
 Exchange, and the river. The ground-floor was occu- 
 pied by the shoj) and warehouse of a Mr. Snow 
 Clayton, an extensive clothier; but between the shop 
 and the rest of the house there was no communication, 
 each having a separate entrance. 
 
 Mr. John Scott had an early friend of the name of 
 Wilkinson ; and to him he confided a plan for an elope- 
 ment. Wilkinson, who was a young man of some 
 small independence, which he contemplated investing in 
 trade, had apprenticed himself to Clayton the clothier ; 
 and as Clayton's shop was under Mr. Surtees' residence) 
 his apprentice must have possessed peculiar means of 
 facilitating the escape. 
 
 The night of Wednesday the 18th of November, 
 1772, was that selected for the elo})ement. At that 
 time the garrison within the house at Sandhill was 
 weakened by the absence of Mr. Surtees' eldest son, 
 William, who was on a visit of a few days' duration to 
 some friends. He had been the school-fellow of Mr. 
 John Scott, and, being nearly of the same age, would, if 
 at home, have been very capable of either intercepting 
 a flight or leading a pursuit. 
 
 Wilkinson was faithful to Scott in aiding and abet- 
 ting the enterprise, and is supposed to have materially 
 assisted him by concealing * a ladder in the premises of 
 Mr. Clayton below. A ladder, probably produced by 
 
 * Mr. Twiss seems not to have been aware what part, or even 
 that any part, in these transactions was taken by Wilkinson ; but 
 in a letter from Lord Eldon to Mr. U, H. Reay, dated September 8, 
 1801, qnotcd in his work, Vol. i. p. 388, (chap, xvi.) the following
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 13 
 
 Wilkinson, was placed against the most westerly window 
 on the first floor ; and down it Bessy Surtees " with an 
 unthrift love" descended into the arms of John Scott. 
 
 That night they were " over the border and away," 
 and the next morning were married at Blackshields, in 
 Scotland. 
 
 In a few days the young couple returned to New- 
 castle, but found sad or averted faces. Mrs. Surtees 
 had been so affected with the flight of her daughter, 
 that she had kept her bed for several days ; and the 
 mind of the disappointed mother fluctuated between 
 sorrow and anger. Nor would the irritation of the 
 bride's family be mollified by a letter which Mrs. Sur- 
 tees, a short time afterwards, received from her sister- 
 in-law, Mrs. Henry Stephenson ; who, piqued perhaps 
 that the good advice, which she no doubt had given her 
 niece during the visit, was all thrown away, apologized 
 for her husband's and her own intention of taking no no- 
 tice of Mr. and Mrs. John Scott, but assigned as a reason 
 that their own family consisted of an only daughter, with 
 a very pretty face and a good fortune, to whom it would 
 be imprudent to present a sanction to elopements by 
 receiving a young man who had carried off her cousin. 
 
 Mr. Scott, however, received his son and newly- 
 
 touching allusion to the death of a person named "Wilkinson, may 
 be presumed to have reference to the same early friend : — 
 
 " Before I say a word about other matters, let me heave one sigh 
 over James "Wilkinson ! It was but yesterday that we three were 
 engaged in the follies of childhood and the sports of youth. The 
 period which has since past, seems short — how short, in all proba- 
 bility, must that appear then, which is yet to pass before we shall be 
 gatheredtogether again ! "
 
 14 SKETCH OF TTTE LTVES OF 
 
 acquired daughter kindly; and, a few days later, Mr. 
 Surtees was induced by tlio intercession of his eklest 
 son William (who, it lias already been stated, was John 
 Scott's old school-fellow), to extend to the delinquents 
 an ostensible forgiveness, though his displeasure appears 
 not to have been entirely obliterated for the next tw^o 
 years and a half; and their friends generally seem 
 wisely to have coincided in the unanswerable reasoning 
 of Benedick, when converted from his anti-matrimonial 
 heresies, " The world must be peopled ! " In after life, 
 Lady Eldon used to state tliat, on this critical occasion, 
 her brother William showed her more of kindness than 
 any other member of her own family ; and her husband, 
 when, as chancellor, he had an opportunity of advancing 
 his children in their professions, gave proof that he 
 had not forgotten it. 
 
 John Scott, " toujours traite en enfant cJieri, jamais 
 en enfant gate" * was the favourite child of his father's 
 age ; and an economy, somewhat exact towards other 
 members of his family, was relaxed in favour of him. 
 
 From the life of Lord Eldon by Mr. Twiss, it ap- 
 pears that, not long after the marriage, Mr. Scott 
 settled on the young couple 2000/., with interest in 
 each case at 5 per cent, till the principal should be 
 paid ; and that some years afterwards Mr. Surtees ad- 
 ded another lOOO/.f The emoluments of the fellow- 
 
 * Rousseau's Confessions. 
 
 t Tlie original firm in the Newcastle bank consisted of Mr. Surtees 
 and ]\Ir. Roland Burdon the elder. Mr. Burdon died in 178G. Mr. 
 Surtees lived to 1800, and then, having survived his memory and powers 
 of transacting business, expired at the age of 90. He left a moderate 
 paternal estate, and considerable personal property to his eldest son ;
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 15 
 
 ship liad not to be relinqnished for a year after the 
 marriage ; and Mr. John Scott had from other sources 
 (partly, it should seem, from having exercised the office 
 of private tutor at the University College* previously 
 to his call to the bar), some accessions to his means ; 
 so that, though far from affluent, he was, considering 
 the value of money in those days, far removed from 
 distress. 
 
 In the commencement of February, 1775, Mrs. 
 John Scott's brother, Edward Surtees died, and his 
 death appears to have opened the way to a more cor- 
 dial reconciliation with her parents than had yet taken 
 place. 
 
 To this Mr. John Scott alludes in a letter dated, 
 3rd April, 1775, which is addressed to his brother 
 Henry, and has an Oxford postmark. There is also an 
 allusion to Sir Matthew White Ridley, the Mayor of 
 Newcastle that year. The letter is much mutilated, 
 and the parts in brackets have been supplied from a con- 
 sideration of the context and the space. Those who 
 follow therefore, can adopt or reject these readings. 
 
 and about 50,000/. (being part of the capital of the bank), to pay the 
 fortunes of his five other children who survived liim. But there 
 was a deed of agreement that, in order to obviate the inconvenience 
 of the sudden withdrawal of capital from the bank, the principal of 
 the share of any partner djang should not be taken out of it for four 
 years after his decease : and, in 1803, this capital was swallowed up 
 in extensive, but unfortunate speculations, which had been under- 
 taken by the younger partners in the bank amongst themselves, and 
 with which j\Ir. Surtees had been individually unconnected. With 
 it went a fortune designed for Lady Eldon. 
 
 * Twiss, vol. i. chap. v. p. 91.
 
 10 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 " You will stare wlien I tell you we have actually 
 had a very pressiug Invitation to Newcastle, and that I 
 believe, from the Circumstances which attended it, that 
 it was a very sincere one. The death of one child 
 perhaps * beget some consideration about another. 
 Bessy would have gladly seen her friends, and she often 
 promised herself much Happiness in seeing yourself, as 
 I know you would have in seeing us both ; but my en- 
 gagement made it impossible ever to think a moment 
 about it. 
 
 " You have greatly improved your Mayor, [and] that 
 family have lately behaved to me as if they meant to 
 make me ample amends for the little attention [I re- 
 received] from them at Newcastle. Sir M. having 
 attain[ed civility] his next Improvement must be not 
 to think [himself] a wit. I must beg you once more 
 to rem [ember] me very affectionately to your Wife. 
 Bessy [very] heartily joins me ; and we both hope the 
 [little] one is as well, and, the difference of sexes 
 [allowed] for, as stout as our own. Bessy often spea[ks 
 ot] the watch which is to be your Legacy, but [I trust 
 its] Index has many myriads of Revolutio[ns to arrive] 
 at before you receive it." 
 
 Mr. John Scott's early plan of taking orders had de- 
 pended on his expectation of a college living ; but, 
 since his marriage led to the relinquishment of his fel- 
 lowship, his views were transferred to the law, and to 
 establishing himself as a provincial barrister in New- 
 castle. As, however, a " year's grace'* is given to a 
 
 * So in the original. The word "may" has probably been left 
 out here through accident.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 1/ 
 
 retiring- fellow, during which he maintains his claim 
 upon the church patronage of his college, he was pre- 
 pared to accept any clerical preferment which should 
 in that interval become vacant : but here his hopes 
 were crossed ; and he fell back upon the bar ; thus ad- 
 ding a fresh example to those which illustrate how 
 often, even in the things of this life, our disappoint- 
 ments are productive of our ultimate advantage. 
 
 Unallured by gay contemporaries into the idleness or 
 dissipation of the metropolis, the youthful husband now 
 devoted himself to "hiving knowledge" of his profes- 
 sion through the laborious years of his legal student- 
 ship : and on his call to the bar in February, 1776, he 
 was in learning, as well as in name, a barrister. " Nee 
 Agricola licenter, more juvenum, qui militiam in lasci- 
 viam vertunt, neque segniter, ad voluptates et comme- 
 atus, titulum tribunatus et inscitiam retulit."* 
 
 Shortly after he had been called to the bar, when 
 dining with Mr. Heron, a leading attorney at New- 
 castle, he expressed himself as about to settle there. 
 Mr. Heron, however, attempted to dissuade him, on the 
 ground that London was the proper field for such 
 powers and acquirements as his ; and added, " Only go ; 
 and I'll give you a guinea now, on condition that you 
 give me a thousand when you're chancellor." And so 
 saying, he handed him a guinea, which Mr. John Scott 
 proceeded to put into his pocket. On this, his brother, 
 Mr. William Scott, who was also present, exclaimed 
 in a tone of remonstrance, " Jack, you're robbing 
 Heron of his guinea ! '' when Jack took the hint, and 
 
 a" 
 
 * Tacitus. Vita Agricoljie, c. v. 
 
 C
 
 18 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 immediately returned it. In the end he determined 
 trying his fortune in London. 
 
 And thus having, by circumstances which either he 
 did not control or the effect of which he did not 
 foresee, narrowly escaped the condition of a coal fitter, 
 a country parson, or a provincial barrister, he was 
 placed in the road which was to lead him to the high 
 station of Chancellor of England. 
 
 Mr. John Scott now joined the northern circuit ; 
 and in the summer of this year, whilst in attendance 
 upon it, visited Newcastle. In the autumn he re- 
 turned to London ; and here in the early part of 
 November intelligence reached him from the north 
 that his father was dying. 
 
 Old Mr. Scott expired on the 6th of November, 
 1776, aged, according to Mr. Twiss, seventy nine years. 
 
 On the 8th of November, two days subsequently to his 
 father's death, but before information of it had reached 
 him, Mr, John Scott thus poured out his affection 
 and his grief in a letter to his brother Henry : " I must 
 say it gives me very great concern that I should be 
 the only one of my Father's Family at a distance 
 from him at this Time, and, if your Letter did not pre- 
 clude every Hope that Providence might prolong his 
 life till I could get down, I should suffer nothing to 
 prevent my setting out immediately. If he should live 
 to the Hour in which you receive this, pray let me be 
 remembered to him in the warmest expressions of 
 Love, Duty and Gratitude — But if it should please God 
 to take him to himself before that Time, relieve me 
 from the Unhappiness I feel least my xVbsence, by lead- 
 ino- him to doubt on this Occasion the Sincerity of
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 19 
 
 my filial Affection, shall have excluded me from a share 
 of his last Blessing. T must beg too that you will 
 assure my Mother that, if my Presence can be any 
 way necessary in assisting you to administer to her 
 every Comfort which her Situation will require, there 
 is nothing that shall prevent me from coming down — 
 1 shall be haj3py on this Occasion in joining you in 
 the discharge of every Duty to her as a Parent who de- 
 serves so well of us all." 
 
 c2
 
 20 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 William Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) did not,* 
 any more than his youngest brotlier John, follow even- 
 tually that profession, for which, on entering life, he 
 had been designed. 
 
 His youthful reputation both in his native town 
 and at Oxford, seems to have suggested the bar ; since 
 in this, more at any rate than in any other vocation, it 
 has been fancied that the race and the battle are to the 
 swift and to the strong ; he, therefore, on the 24th of 
 June, 1762, when between sixteen and seventeen years 
 old, was entered as a student at the Middle Temple. 
 However, the fellowship and tutorshij) wliich he soon 
 acquired, afforded him, while resident at Oxford, a 
 liberal maintenance,! together with the means of saving, 
 of which he did not neglect to avail himself: and either 
 the limited supplies which he received from home, or 
 the misgivings he entertained of the substance of his 
 
 * Sketch of the Lives and Characters of Eminent English 
 CiviUans," by one of the members of the College of Advocates. 
 
 t Tlie fellowships at University College, to which Mr. Scott be- 
 longed, are now worth between two and three hundred a year. The 
 senior tutorship, which Mr Scott for some time held, is, in these 
 days, worth somewhere about five liundred a year.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 21 
 
 father, deterred him from relinquishing a certainty, for 
 that which, though promising, was precarious. But 
 his father's death in the autumn of 1776, removed the 
 doubts or difficulties that had originally led him to 
 hesitate ; and he resigned an employment in which l.e 
 had experienced from the first more of success than 
 satisfaction. 
 
 In land, houses, and mercantile ami other personal 
 property, old Mr. Scott seems, at his death, to have left 
 behind him a fortune amounting to not far from 
 £20,000 in value. His wealth was considerably ex- 
 aggerated in the first and second editions of Mr. Twiss's 
 life of Lord Eldon : but it is unnecessary here to re- 
 I)eat the facts and arguments contained in the New 
 Monthly Magazine by which the mistake was proved 
 and accounted for ; as, in a note at the end of the first 
 volume of his third edition, Mr. Twiss, with a candor 
 w^hich does him credit, has referred to that publication, 
 and acknowledged that the information which he had 
 previously received was incorrect. 
 
 The tenor of Mr. Scott's will was in accordance with 
 the tradition of his equitable character. To John Scott 
 his father bequeathed the sum of £1,000 over and above 
 the £2,000 settled upon him after his marriage : to his 
 widow, his son Henry, his two daughters and a grand- 
 daughter, he left reasonable provisions ; and subject to 
 the payment of all these legacies, he gave his whole 
 real and personal property to his eldest son William. 
 
 Mr. William Scott, Avho was executor to his father, 
 afterwards, from motives of prudence or necessity, de- 
 layed paying otf the principal of the fortunes of his
 
 22 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 brother Henry and his sisters beyond a year after the 
 death of the* testator, — the period which the law 
 aHows to an executor for discharoinjr the claims of the 
 legatees. 
 
 Already it has been stated that Mr. William Scott 
 seems to have been early designated for the bar. 
 To this, after a long interval, he, on the death of his 
 father, recurred. 
 
 In a letter addressed to his brother Henry, and 
 dated "London, May 16, 1777,'' he says: "I have got 
 Rooms in the Temple,f and keep Term with a view of 
 being called to the Bar as soon as possible, which will 
 be in about two years. My poor Father's Reserve has 
 thrown me very backward in Life, but I hope to regain 
 my Time by unremitting Industry. I shall go down to 
 Oxford in a few days, and shall spend a fortnight or 
 three weeks there." In another letter, written the 
 same year, and with a post mark of the 6th of August, 
 
 * This statement is supported by several letters, penned by Mr. 
 William Scott to his brother Henry. One letter addressed "Mr. 
 Henry Scott, fitter, Broad Chair, Newcastle-on-Tyne," without a 
 date, but with the post-mark of the 7th of April, and from internal 
 evidence written in the year 1/77, says, " I must keep you in mind 
 of your Promise to allow me to consult my own Convenience in the 
 Payment of my Balance to you. If I should not even pay you for 
 some Years, I hope you will not think I trifle with you." Another 
 letter dated "February 12, 1778," proceeds as follows: " I wish 
 much to know privately from yourself how my mother's Income an- 
 swers now she has had a year's experience. If it is Defective (as I 
 hope it is not), I shall think it my Duty to make an Addition to it 
 from my own. To my Sisters I mean to allow 701. a year Interest, 
 unless any supervening Narrowness of my own Circumstances should 
 oblige mc to contract it to 4 3 and not lower." 
 
 + lie took chambers at No. 3, King's Bench Walk, Inner Temple.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 23 
 
 he says : " I have laid aside all Thoughts of coming 
 down to Newcastle for this Year, having devoted this 
 Summer to Solitude and Study at Oxford. Indeed I 
 have some Business upon my Hands, which I am very 
 much intent upon finishing this Season, and therefore 
 shall not make any distant Excursion. The University 
 is very empty. I have had my friend Johnson stay- 
 ing with me for a fortnight." 
 
 Mr. William Scott's standing among the senior fel- 
 lows of his college, would probably have procured for 
 him a suite of rooms large enough to comprise a spare 
 bed-room for a friend ; and the frequenting in those 
 days, by Dr. Samuel Johnson, of the fellows' common 
 room at Univerity College, is now commemorated 
 there by his bust. 
 
 During his residence in Oxford as a college tutor, 
 William Scott is found complaining of his health, and 
 alluding to the time when his constitution first began 
 to break. In the long vacation he sometimes took a 
 trip to the continent ; and experienced practically, 
 what his youngest brother knew only in theory, the ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of foreign travel.* 
 
 But, though he had now relinquished his tutorship, 
 he fortunately did not at the same time vacate the 
 chair of Camden Professor of ancient history, to which 
 in 1774f he had been elected by the University of Ox- 
 ford. He now, therefore, united with the study of the 
 
 * The subject of John Scott's prize Essay at Oxford. 
 
 t The " Oxford Callender" says 1 774 ; but in Mr. Twiss's work, 
 vol. i., p. 187, ch. ix., the date assigned is 1773. As the precise 
 date is of little importance, I have not attempted, by further inves- 
 tigation, to settle the conflict.
 
 24 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 law, the composition of a course of lectures, the fame 
 of which has rendered his classic youth the rival of his 
 judicial age. In a letter,* addressed to his brother 
 Henry, dated "Feb. 1:2, 1778,'' and from internal evi- 
 dence written in London, he says : " I live much here 
 A\ith Jack, with who[m I dine] and sup constantly 
 when I am not engaged, h[aving by] that means the 
 Comforts of Domestic Society. [I am] much taken 
 up with Study, being obliged, to[gether wdth] due 
 Attention to the LaM, to compose a Set of Lectures, 
 wjiich I shall deliver publicly next Term at Oxford." 
 
 The lectures were read in the Easter or Trinity term 
 of that year. The tradition which I have received re- 
 specting them is vague and uncertain in every thing 
 but their excellence : yet a character of Alexander the 
 Great has been mentioned to me, as uniting the splen- 
 dour of the poet and the integrity of the historian. In 
 doing justice to the merits of such a performance, 
 the difhculty of the undertaking should not be 
 overlooked : — for who could worthily describe the em- 
 bodied chivalry of classic antiquity ? 
 
 Quis Martem tuuica tectum adainantiiiii 
 Digue scripserit i 
 
 Mr. Milman appears to have seen the manuscript of 
 these lectures : for, in a note to the first chapter of 
 his history of Christianity, he mentions that he has 
 been much struck by finding in one of them a very 
 
 * The letter is somewhat mutilated ; the words in brackets have 
 been supplied from consideration of its context, and the spaces which 
 had to be filled up.
 
 /: 
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 25 
 
 strono- and lucid statement to the effect that there is no 
 recorded instance of a nation being self-raised from a 
 savage life : and this fact is applied by Mr. Milman to 
 disprove the theory that the primeval state of man was 
 altogether barbarous ; though it is not clearly stated in 
 the note whether this application was orignally that of 
 the lecturer or of the historian. 
 
 To the manner in which these lectures were origi- 
 nally received, their author thus modestly alludes:* 
 " My lectures were read to the University at large, and 
 I hope not without some Degree of Credit. I shall 
 read them once more and then publish them." 
 
 Afterwards, however, Mr. Scott could be induced 
 by no solicitations to print them. The reason which 
 he is understood to have assigned for refusing was a 
 sort of professional delicacy — he was unwilling to con- 
 tract the field of his successors in that chair, by pre- 
 occupying some of the brightest epochs of antiquity : 
 but it may be suspected that this change of inten- 
 tion was the joint effect of his modesty and his cau- 
 tion — he thought his lectures had received greater 
 praise than they deserved; and was unwilling, by 
 exposing them in a more tangible shape to cri- 
 ticism, to risk what he had obtained. It is trusted, 
 however, that this valuable manuscript will at length 
 see the light: for there can be no doubt that the 
 present generation would welcome the publication of 
 that which earned for its author so high a reputation 
 with their fathers. 
 
 But to return to William Scott's professional career. 
 
 * In a letter dated " Oxford, July 17, 1/88."
 
 26 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 It is probable that some time elapsed from the death 
 of his father, before Mr. Seott decided upon devoting 
 himself to the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts. In 
 coming to this decision he would probably be influ- 
 enced by discovering, while keeping his terms at the 
 Temple, that, as the courts of equity and common law 
 were not, in those days, so much frequented by distinct 
 sets of practitioners as they are now, he could not prac- 
 tice at either bar without invading that interest to 
 which his brother John had acquired the right of first 
 possession. He was called to the bar on the 11th of 
 February, 1780 : but he had three months previously 
 been admitted, at Doctors' Commons, into the faculty 
 of advocates ; having taken, as a necessary preliminary, 
 the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. 
 And here let us pause. 
 
 His two younger brothers had been for some years 
 married ; and it may now be asked of him — did a 
 mind pre-occupied by study escape the tender suscepti- 
 bilities of early manhood ? Had the sober Muse of 
 History, whom he so assiduously worshipped, hid her 
 gentle votary mid the academic meads of Christ Church, 
 or the secluded gardens of the Temple, from an adver- 
 sary that youth is little able to resist ? 
 
 In early life Mr. William Scott entertained a strong 
 attachment to a fair townswoman of his own. The 
 lady, Miss Jane Reay, was the daughter of Mr. Joseph 
 Reay, a large wholesale grocer* in Newcastle, who, 
 
 * The following passage, from Mr. Twiss's work, vol. i., p. 78, 
 ch. iii , has reference to the early liistory of Lord Eklon ; but all 
 notice of it here has been intentionally deferred to this part of the 
 contemporaneous history of Lord Stowell.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 27 
 
 having acquired the fourth part of a profitable spe- 
 culation near the Tyne, called the Walker Colliery, had 
 retired, or was on the point of retiring, from his 
 original trade. She is said to have had such pity for 
 his sufferino-s as a lover would desire. But the stream 
 on which they were embarking, infamous for wrecks, 
 
 " It has been said upon highly respectable authority, that, at the 
 anxious and critical period which immediately followed his marriage. 
 Lord Eldon had a narrow escape from being a grocer. The particu- 
 lars, as related in the Oxford Herald of the 28th of January, 1838, 
 are, that a worthy and wealthy grocer of Newcastle, who had no 
 children of his own, paid a friendly visit to Mr. Scott, the elder, 
 upon his son's marriage, and, after expressing an apprehension that 
 Mr. Surtees wovdd never forgive either his daughter or Mr, John 
 Scott, proposed to take John into partnership ; that Mr. John Scott 
 deferred his answer till he should have received a letter which he was 
 expecting from William ; and that William's letter determined the 
 answer in the negative." 
 
 Now I did not credit tliis story for two reasons : — because I had 
 never heard it till it appeared in print after Lord Eldou's death ; and 
 because, since that event, I neither have seen noticed in Mr. Twiss's 
 volumes, nor heard of elsewhere, any contemporary individual who 
 answers the description of a " wealthy grocer of Newcastle, who had 
 no children of his own." 
 
 Possibly, Mr. Joseph Reay (who, however had both a son and 
 daughter of his own), may have oifered, on retiring from the grocery 
 business, to give his good will to John Scott, who was the intimate 
 friend of his son Henry Utrick Reay, and is, by Mr. Twiss, called 
 his relation; and this may be the origin of the tale we have just 
 quoted. 
 
 Amongst the property of which old Mr. Scott died possessed was 
 a sugar-house in Newcastle. Of this no mention has been made 
 in his will dated the 6th of December, 1774 : it may, therefore, be 
 presumed to have been acquired subsequently to that date ; nor is it 
 improbable that it was purchased of Mr. Reay.
 
 28 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 is seldom known to run smooth : and old Reay, am- 
 bitions of a higher alliance, objected to the marriage. 
 
 Shall one whom nature, learning, [truth,] conspired 
 To form, not to admire, but be admired. 
 Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth. 
 Weds the rich dulness of some son of Earth !* 
 
 The young lady, however, following the suggestions of 
 her father, rather than of the poets, was married the 
 8th of February, I774,f to Mr. Thomas Yorke, of 
 Halton Place, a gentleman of good estate and family. 
 She, as well as her early admirer, lived to a very 
 advanced age ; and he, when an octogenarian peer, re- 
 quested, through a common friend, permission to send 
 her an engraving of himself which had just been pub- 
 lished. The request was gracefully acceded to, and the 
 engraving sent. Was not this the romance of real 
 life! 
 
 But to return. Soon after the marriage of Miss Reay, 
 Mr. William Scott seems, like a practical j)hilosojoher, 
 to have sought consolation elsewhere ; for he is found 
 on the 7th of November, 1775, alluding, in a letter 
 from Oxford, to a love affair in which he was then 
 engaged, as a tedious and dubious one ; and to the 
 dear object of his wishes, of whom he has not the least 
 distrust ; but whose father he is afraid will not be 
 so tractable. Yet he there expresses a hope that some 
 
 * Pope. 
 
 ■f The date is taken from the first edition of " Burke's Landed 
 Gentry." The second edition of this elaborate work, more accurate 
 as well as more com|)rehensive than its predecessor, has not yet 
 reached the Yorke pedigree.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 29 
 
 propitious event may open a path which seems to be 
 obstructed against him. It may be presumed, however, 
 that this fond hope was never realised ; since in a 
 letter without date, but with the post mark of the 7th 
 of April, and internal evidence of being written in 
 the year 1777, he says to his brother Henry: " I am 
 sorry to inform you that my own prospects do not 
 brighten up at all. I almost consider a certain Busi- 
 ness as entirely over. Be so kind as to spare the 
 mention of it to me again." 
 
 To the glance of the hasty observer, Mr. William 
 Scott's early career at Oxford and at London appears 
 bright indeed ; but a closer investigation shows him to 
 have borne his secret sorrows. 
 
 The mild and cautious scholar may perchance have 
 lacked one ingredient in the composition of his charac- 
 ter, which, if it is valued by the gentle sex, must be 
 valued because things ojiposite are attractive, — I mean 
 what is vulgarly called " devil ;" and the want of this 
 may, like the absence of a beard in Apollo,* afford a 
 simple solution of the general ill-success of his amours. 
 The period, w^iich is the most susceptible is least experi- 
 enced ; and, though sometimes " the heart of youth is 
 wiser than the head of age," how often does girlish 
 inexperience mistake (till it is too late) dash for spirit, 
 fluency for wit, and impudence for feeling ! 
 
 But at leno'th the eldest Scott followed the exam- 
 pie of his two brothers. He married, on the 7th of 
 April, 1781, Anna Maria, the eldest daughter and co- 
 heir of Mr. Bagnall, of Early Court, in Berkshire, the 
 
 * " Apollo, or a problem solved." — Bean Swiff s Poems.
 
 30 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 liouse of a gentleman of moderate pretension ; and, 
 though to the eyes of liis, perhaps, less partial friends, 
 the lady appeared to have more attraction in purse 
 than person, we have no reason to doubt that the mar- 
 riage proved a happy one. 
 
 While glancing at the details of Dr. Scott's pri- 
 vate life, our attention has been of necessity diverted 
 from the course of his youngest brother, whom we left, 
 at the end of our last chapter, just entering upon his 
 profession. Let us now consider the little incidents, in 
 such cases always interesting, often instructive, which 
 attended the commencement of his practice at the bar. 
 
 Amongst the early circumstances which conduced to 
 his rise was, it may be presumed, the unvarying, active, 
 and judicious interest of his brother William, who, there 
 can be no doubt, did and said many things for him, which 
 one man can manage for another without discredit, 
 though, in the profession of the bar, they would, if for 
 himself, be considered derogatory and ungentlemanlike. 
 Indeed, through the whole varied tissue of John Scott's 
 life, the fi-aternal affection of his eldest brother is seen, 
 like a thread of gold, to run through and brighten 
 the ruder material ; while, in its progress and results it 
 illustrates the grand practical maxim that family union 
 is the pledge of family success. 
 
 Corroborative evidence of this unbroken attachment 
 appears in a letter dated " April 17, 1776," in which 
 William Scott thus addressed Henry respecting their 
 brother John and their father : " I observe what you 
 say about Jack's Influence over Him, and I am very 
 happy that that Influence is possessed by a Person 
 whose Equity and Generosity of Mind is perfectly in-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 31 
 
 nocent. Jack sent me down the Hundred Pounds 
 immediately, which no intreaties of mine can prevail 
 upon him to keep." 
 
 It was mentioned in the last chapter that in the 
 spring of 1776, Mr. John Scott had been called to the 
 bar ; and that in the same year he joined the north- 
 ern circuit, though probably not till the summer 
 assizes. Of that year Mr. Twiss has been induced to 
 tell the following interesting anecdote.* 
 
 " ' When I was called to the Bar,' said Lord Eldon 
 to Mrs. Forster, ' Bessy and I thought all our troubles 
 were over : business was to pour in, and we were to be 
 almost rich immediately. So I made a bargain with 
 her, that during the following year all the money I 
 should receive in the first eleven months should be 
 mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth month 
 should be hers. What a stingy dog I must have 
 been to make such a bargain ! I would not have 
 done so afterwards. But, however, so it was ; that was 
 our agreement, and how do you think it turned out ? 
 In the twelfth month I received half-a-guinea ; f 
 eighteen-pence went for fees, and Bessy got nine shil- 
 lings ; in the other eleven months I got not one 
 shilling.' " 
 
 On reading this, we are inclined to exclaim, surely 
 the extensive Newcastle connexion of Mr. John Scott 
 must have been cruelly negligent, to allow him to incur 
 
 * Vol. i. ch. V. p. 100. 
 
 t This fee would be for making in court a motion of mere form, 
 or for simply signing his name to motions or pleadings — the only 
 cases in which professional etiquette permits a barrister to receive 
 a fee less than a guinea.
 
 32 SKETCH OF TFIE LIVES OF 
 
 the expenses of circuit and to visit his native town 
 during its assizes, without the encouragement- of even a 
 single petty criminal brief, when the dropping of one 
 word would have insured it to him ! and we really feel 
 for the smotliercd disappointment and vexation of 
 the young barrister as he sits unoccujiied in court, and 
 thus as it were rejected before the face of his towns- 
 folk. 
 
 It is a great grievance, but possibly it may not 
 be true. Let us investigate the fact. 
 
 In the autumn of this self-same year, William Scott 
 wrote to his brother Henry a letter,* in which occurs 
 the following sentence : " My brother Jack seems 
 highly pleased with his Circuit Success. I hope it is 
 only the Beginning of Future Triumphs. All Appear- 
 ances speak strongly in his Favour. If he does not 
 succeed, I will never venture a Conjecture upon any 
 one thing again. He is [veryl] industrious, and has 
 made great Progr[ess in] tlie knowledge of his Pro- 
 fession." 
 
 Certainly, if both stories be consistent with truth, 
 
 * The letter, which is without date, has the post mark of Oxford, 
 22nd of October. In it there is the following notice of his father's 
 health. ** My Father, I hope, does not not suffer by the extreme ill 
 weather. It is unfavourable to invalids, but I flatter myself, not so 
 much as to affect him ;" and we see in the text that it mentions his 
 brother's circuit. Now, when it is recollected that in the same year, 
 17/6, the son joined the circuit, and the father died, we can have no 
 doubt about that being the year in which the letter was written. 
 
 f The parts in brackets have been torn away, together with 
 the seal, and are supplied from consideration of the spaces and 
 context.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 33 
 
 brother Jack must have been blessed with a disposition 
 more contented, under the trials of life, than that for 
 which the world has hitherto given him credit.. More 
 than resigned, he " seemed highly pleased!" 
 
 Yet the statement, recorded by Mr. Twiss on the 
 authority of Mrs. Forster, Avould probably be true if 
 limited to his first year's London business ; and to this 
 the old Earl may have intended to allude : for, if he 
 even went only to Newcastle and Durham, his circuit 
 receipts Avould inevitably be absorbed by his circuit ex- 
 penses ; and nothing of the low fees doled out to a 
 junior would remain for the exigences of the domestic 
 purse. 
 
 With the encourasrement of " his circuit success" it 
 is probable that he would present himself at Newcastle, 
 at the next assizes held there : and it may be pre- 
 sumed he would continue the custom, as he was then 
 ambitious of the recordership of his native town ; and, 
 therefore, in common prudence, would avail himself of 
 each professional opportunity, as it returned, to present 
 himself before its inhabitants. But Mrs. Forster has 
 reported to Mr. Twiss one of Lord Eldon's conversa» 
 tions in which he said to her : " I did not go the cir- 
 cuit one year, Mary, because I could not afford it."* 
 Now, though this statement may be somewhat am- 
 biguous, it must be confessed that, according to ordi- 
 nary apprehension, it implies that he staid away from 
 circuit a whole year, that is, from two circuits ; yet 
 of the fact, I am incredulous.t But, in order to 
 
 * Vol. i. ch. vi. p. 120. 
 
 f lu this my want of faith I am confirmed and hardened by a 
 
 D
 
 3-4 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 explain my reasons for being so, and to clear up some 
 apparent contradictions in Lord Eldon's forensic course, 
 there must here be introduced a short digression on the 
 history of the Northern Circuit. 
 
 This circuit comimses six counties ; but up to 1819 
 it visited only once in the year, and that in the summer, 
 the most northern four of these counties, whose inhabi- 
 tants jokingly claimed that on account of the longer 
 interval between the correction of their crimes their 
 higher morality should at once be admitted.* In the 
 spring the circuit was restricted to Yorkshire and Lan- 
 cashire ; and, as Mr. John Scott had no family connex- 
 ion in these counties to push liim on, we may safely 
 assume that the future chancellor would go several of 
 these smaller circuits absolutely briefless.t Thus the 
 following eloquent picture, which long afterwards in an 
 
 lithographed list of the members of the Northern Circuit, ^vith the 
 years which each attended it, compiled by the late Mr. Raincock, one 
 of its barristers. 
 
 * T' improve the world, grow rich in arts, 
 
 Learn of the active Northern parts ; 
 
 While half the rotten South's in shame 
 
 For crimes the Muse abhors to name, 
 
 Mark, in (he Lands prenomen'd Cumber, 
 
 Durham, Westmor, and Northumber, 
 
 Justice no more than once a year 
 
 Doth visit for a general Clear: 
 
 But t'other Two by custom bring 
 
 Her kind assistance every spring. 
 These lines occur in a poem called "A Northern Circuit," a 
 poetical essay by a gentleman of the Middle Temple, 1 7.') 1 . 
 
 f To such Lord Eldon must allude in the passage in his anecdote 
 book, quoted in Mr. Twiss's work, vol. i. ch. v. p. 106.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 35 
 
 assize sermon,* in the Cathedral of York, was drawn by 
 Mr. Sydney Smith, had then its living original. 
 " Fifty years ago, the person at the head of his pro- 
 fession, tlie greatest lawyer now in England, perhaps 
 in the world, stood in this church, on such an occasion 
 as the present, as obscure, as unknown, and as much 
 doubting of his future prospects, as the humblest indi- 
 vidual of the profession here present." 
 
 After Mr. John Scott had been two or three years 
 on circuit, he would make the discovery, made under 
 the same advantages by those of much less acuteness, 
 that a junior stands little chance of briefs, where he 
 has not an active local connexion ; and hence, having 
 no money to spare for mere tourising, he probably 
 staid away one spring circuit. But I do not believe he 
 ever in those days absented himself from the assizes at 
 Newcastle and Durham. Besides the reasons against 
 his having done so already given, it should be added, 
 that through the influence of his father-in-law% an alder- 
 man of Newcastle, he received, and, I believe at a very 
 early period in his career, a general retainer for the 
 corporation of his native town.f 
 
 * Preached 1st of August, 1824. 
 
 f I have been unable to learn with certainty the precise time at 
 which John Scott first received this general retainer; though this inabi- 
 lity is from no lack of the most hberal courtesy on the part of Mr. 
 John Clayton, the present Town Clerk of Newcastle. This gentleman, 
 who succeeded his father in the office which he fills, has, in answer 
 to my inquiries, most obligingly informed me that pre^dously to his 
 father's appointment, in the year I 785, he has a difficulty in tracing 
 any thing in the Town Clerk's accounts ; but that in the year 1785 
 
 d2
 
 36 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 In the " Law lieviow," tliere is a notice of Mr. 
 Twiss's work ; and to say that it has been attributed to 
 Lord Brougham, is, in the same breath, to bear wit- 
 ness to his ability. It selects its own series of anec- 
 dotes on which to make onslaught ; and I will not in- 
 tentionally encroacli upon its monopoly. But its tone 
 of treating Mrs. Forster, to whose reports of conversa- 
 tions reference has been made, must not be passed 
 over without comment. Mrs. Forster, the niece of 
 Lords Stowell and Eldon, and daughter of their 
 brother Mr. Henry Scott, has, in consequence of her 
 contributions to the life of her uncle, been reflected 
 u23on in language as little just as chivalrous. 
 
 " Mr. Twiss," exclaims the reviewer, " ought to have 
 recollected how very unlikely it was that ladies, espe- 
 cially elderly ones, should retain an accurate recollec- 
 tion of matters out of their ordinary beat, and fre- 
 quently much above their comprehension ;" but, in- 
 stead of doing so, he " assumes that whatever he is 
 told by any of the family, as having been told by Lord 
 Eldon to them, must be equally authentic with what he 
 finds presented under his lordship's own hand, or com- 
 municated by Master Farrer.'* 
 
 The ground of this attack upon the lady, whose 
 age has been used to point a sneer from which it 
 should rather have protected her, is that the facts, 
 
 John Scott certainly held the general retainer of the Corporation ; 
 though liow many years before that time he held it, would be 
 difficult to ascertain. 
 * Vol. i., p. 252.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 37 
 
 as detailed in the conversations which she reports, vary 
 from the facts as they actually occurred. But is not 
 the reviewer aware that, though Lord Eldon preserved 
 his understanding, his memory was impaired by age ? 
 He might too, by inquiry, have learned that, at the 
 time when Lord Eldon saw most of Mrs. Forster, and 
 the only time in his life when he saw much of Mr. 
 Farrer, his memory was thus impaired ; and he is there- 
 fore singularly unhappy in selecting as the touchstone 
 whereby to reject the reports of Mrs. Forster as un- 
 faithful, that which, under the circumstances, is the 
 peculiar seal of their authenticity. 
 
 The conversations contributed by Mrs. Forster are 
 eminently dramatic, and possess that union of gentle- 
 ness and vivacity, which characterised the discourse of 
 the old earl ; though, to be sure, the passage (however 
 well preserved) that gave inaccurate narrations of 
 events, ought to have been suppressed, as calculated 
 to mislead the public. 
 
 The mistakes which I have lately pointed out occur 
 in the first and second editions of Mr. Twiss's work ; 
 but in the third edition they have been briefly, though 
 candidly, corrected in some notes which refer to those 
 articles in the New Monthly Magazine in which the 
 substance of these sketches was originally communi- 
 cated to the public. 
 
 Let us now proceed with the narrative. 
 
 It was after Mr. John Scott's ascertained success on 
 his first year's circuit, and his probable failure to get 
 business in London, that he took the step of actually 
 ens-aoiuff a house in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, with a 
 view of there establisliing himself. Tlie plan was pro-
 
 38 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 moted by tlie advice of Mr. Cuthberts, a solicitor at 
 Newcastle, and attorney to the Scott family, from whom 
 he received an ample promise of professional support. 
 
 This Mr. Cuthberts affords an example of the un- 
 ceasing solicitude of William over the interest of John 
 Scott ; for in a letter to Henry Scott, with the post 
 mark of the IGth of April, and internal evidence of 
 having been written in the year 1777, the considerate 
 eldest brother is found to say : " I think Cuthberts is 
 rather shabby in being so importunate : However, 
 Jack's Interest is concerned in not saying any thing 
 affronting to Him, otherwise I should not spare Him." 
 
 But, before Mr. John Scott had actually taken pos- 
 session of the residence in Newcastle, his plans were 
 changed ; and he made over the lease of his house in 
 Pilgrim-street to his brother Henry, and hired a house* 
 in Carey-street, Lincoln s-inn-fields, at a rental of 60/. 
 a year. He selected that part of London, because it 
 was so near Lincoln s-inn as to render it unnecessary 
 for him to incur the additional expense of taking mere 
 professional chambers ; and thus he effected a saving of 
 probably an annual 40/. What was the immediate 
 cause of the alteration in his intentions is not now 
 known ; but towards the end of the last chapter it was 
 mentioned that another Newcastle attorney, Mr. Heron, 
 had strongly advised him to settle in London ; and 
 this course would receive a more substantial advocacy 
 in the encouragement he met with, at the commence- 
 ment of the second year after his call to the Bar, 
 by being retained, before the House of Commons, in 
 
 * In the spring or summer of 1777.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 30 
 
 an election petition : a subject on which there will 
 presently be occasion to say more. 
 We are warned by Shakspeare that, 
 
 Our doubts are traitors. 
 And make us lose the good we oft might win 
 By fearing to attempt. 
 
 Doubts Mr. John Scott had : but his were far from 
 the doubts contemplated by our great dramatist ; for 
 I much question whether in his whole life he was ever 
 prevented by his doubts from undertaking any enter- 
 prise which promised advantage. His were the doubts 
 of the courageous but cautious general, who, even 
 while making his advance, prepares for the hard ne- 
 cessity of retreat. In accordance with this disposition, 
 when he made over the lease of his house in Pilgrim- 
 street, Newcastle, to his brother Henry, it was with a 
 request that he would give out that it was a mere tem- 
 porary arrangement. 
 
 One letter,* amongst others to his brother Henry on 
 this subject, is dated "Aug. 28th, 1777," and says : 
 " You will be so kind as to second my wishes to keep 
 Newcastle open for me in Case I am defeated here, and 
 for that Purpose to assert that I have not relinquished 
 but only delayed for a short Time my Plan of set- 
 tling there. If any thing happens to Fawcettf I 
 
 * Where in this letter a word occurs within brackets, the space in 
 the original letter is torn away, together with the seal. 
 
 ■f This person, who, in the capacity of host of a Newcastle assize 
 dinner, is described by Mr. Twiss as " a certain la\vyer Fawcett," 
 and is alluded to in Bubb Dodington's diary under the appellation 
 of "Fosset," had been, at one time, much in the mouths of men. 
 
 \
 
 40 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 shall [count] upon you for the earliest Intelligence, 
 and upon your Friendshij) for every endeavour to ani- 
 
 Mr. Christopher Favvcett, the individual of whom we are speaking, 
 had been, in his youth, in the habit of frequenting the liouse of Mr. 
 Vernon, a rich London Hnendraper of Jacobite pohtics ; and there 
 he used to meet these young gentlemen, James Johnson, Andrew 
 Stone, and the Honourable William INlurray, all of whom rose to 
 distinction in after life. Fawcett himself subsided into a provincial 
 barrister; and in 1746 was elected recorder of Newcastle, with the 
 neighbourhood of which town he was connected by family. At the 
 commencement of 1753, Fawcett was dining at the house of Dr. 
 Cowper, the Dean of Durham, in company with Lord Ravensworth, 
 when, being informed that Johnson, who had become Bishop of 
 Gloucester, was appointed preceptor to the Prince of Wales, he ex- 
 pressed his satisfaction that his old acquaintance had prospered so 
 greatly under the reigning dynasty, and added, that he recollected 
 the time when they both attended Vernon's parties, where the health 
 was drunk of the Chevalier, and his secretary of state, Dunbar. 
 Lord Ravensworth, with some officiousness, took up this matter, 
 though it was alleged to have occurred about twenty years before. 
 And Fawcett being afterwards pressed upon the subject, seems to 
 have inadvertently let slip out, that, whether Johnson was present or 
 not on the particular occasions when this toast was given, at any rate 
 Stone and Murray were there, and used to drink it on their knees. 
 Stone was then secretary to the Duke of Newcastle, the premier, and 
 was also sub-governor to the Prince of Wales, and Murray was then 
 solicitor-general. So here were nuts for the opposition to crack — a 
 ministerial bishop, secretary, and solicitor-general! And it com- 
 pelled the reluctant government to take some notice of it. The 
 matter was referred to the Privy Council, and by it Fawcett was ex- 
 amined : when, after, having communicated in private with the par- 
 ties implicated, he hesitated, prevaricated, and retracted ; and the 
 accusation was declared unfounded, though it was never forgotten. 
 
 "The liberal spirit of youth prevailed over your native discretion. 
 Your zeal in the cause of an unhappy prince was expressed with the 
 sincerity of wine, and some of the solemnities of religion," were the
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 41 
 
 mate my Well-wishers to exert themselves in my 
 behalf." 
 
 words in which Junius revived the charge against Murray, when 
 Baron Mansfield and Lord Chief- Justice of England. 
 
 This accusation against Murray has been treated as groundless by 
 modern historians and biographers (Adolphus' Geo. III., vol. I. chap. 
 I., and the able " Life of Lord Mansfield," by the late Mr. Edmond 
 Plunkett Burke, a judge at St. Lucia, published in the Law Magazine) 
 and that by Mr. Roscoe, in his " Lives of the Lawyers") ; yet I have 
 no doubt that it was substantially true. In youth men are, for the most 
 part, drawn by the prejudices of relationship, or education, to the side 
 which they take in politics : and the family of Lord Stormont, and 
 the University of Oxford, where his son William Murray was educa- 
 ted, were both, in those days, Jacobite. James, an elder brother of 
 William Murray, following the fortunes of the exiled son of James II., 
 was created by him (titular) Earl of Dunbar, and governor to his son, 
 the young Chevalier. And a tradition has reached me from a family 
 then attached to the Stuart interest, that one of their members inter- 
 changed with William Murray himself, before his connexion with the 
 ministry, assurances of devotion to the Jacobite cause. With the 
 advances of age it may well be presumed the fine intellect of Murray 
 would imbibe more constitutional principles. 
 
 But to return to Fawcett. He bowed before the storm which his 
 imprudence had raised, and his good-nature had averted from the 
 heads of others. Himself pronounced a false witness, he ought not 
 to sit as a judge. He vacated, therefore, the recordership of New- 
 castle ; and the corporation of that town substituted, as his locum 
 tenens, one of their own body, Mr. Collingwood, who had himself re- 
 signed it many years before. CoUingwood held it from July, 1753, 
 to December, 1 769 ; when he again resigned, and Fawcett was again 
 appointed. From this time, according to Mackenzie's history of 
 Newcastle, the situation was, without interruption, retained by 
 Fawcett till 1794; the Gentleman^ s Magazine of which year has 
 the following entry in its list of promotions ; " Robert Hopper 
 Williamson, Esq., elected Recorder of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, vice
 
 42 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 On the subject of the house at Newcastle, Mr. John 
 Scott addressed to the same brother a letter, which is 
 without date or remaining post mark, and commences 
 as follows: — 
 
 " Dear Harry, 
 " I thought we had understood each other too 
 well to make it possible for you to receive any dis- 
 turbance upon the Subject of the House: I wished 
 only to have it held out to the world and among 
 the rest to Cuthberts himself that I might have the 
 house again at a short warning by way of impress- 
 ing them and him with so strong an idea of an 
 
 Fawcett resigned,'' In the following year Mr. Fawcett died at the 
 age of eighty-two. 
 
 It would appear, however, from the work of Mr. Twiss, vol. i. 
 ch. vi. p. 120, that soon after March, 1780, the recordership of New- 
 castle was offered to Mr. John Scott, and that " he signified his ac- 
 ceptance of the office, and caused a residence to be engaged for him 
 at Newcastle ;" but that his improving prospects in London led him 
 afterwards to abandon it. 
 
 Of this story I am incredulous. The present Town Clerk of 
 Newcastle has assured me that John Scott was never its Recorder. 
 Under the old charter of the town, the recordership was in form an 
 annual office filled by election, to outward appearance popular; 
 and it is probable that some influential members of the corporation 
 may have asked Scott early in his legal career to become a canchdate 
 for the post ; nor is it unlikely even that Fawcett, who was growing 
 old, may, on some occasion, have offered to resign in favour of their 
 young /j/-o/<^^^. But I can find no ground for presuming that John 
 Scott " caused a residence to be engaged for him at Newcastle" 
 subsequently to that which he transferred to his brother in 1777, 
 wlien it is clear from his letters that the recordership was to him not 
 an object of possession but of distant hope.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 43 
 
 Intention in me hereafter to settle at N. C. as effec- 
 tually to prevent any other Person from taking that 
 Step in the mean time — If I should hereafter come 
 there, I shall take my Chance of getting a House, tho' 
 for the above reason you will Oblige me by appearing 
 not to be inclined to make any difficulty about suit- 
 ing each other's Convenience, assuring yourself that as 
 I shall not insert any Covt. in the Lease or Assignment 
 by which you may be compellable to give the House 
 up ; so neither shall I offer any Consideration to you 
 by way of inducing you to do it. Previous to my 
 receiving Cuthberts' Letter to-day I had wrote to him 
 proposing a difft- Method of transferring my Interest, 
 and telling him that I had determined to part with the 
 whole of it, contrary to his advice, and to run the 
 risque of getting another when I wanted it. If he in- 
 terprets this into an Intention of giving N. C. up 
 absolutely, you may give Him the most positive assu- 
 rances to the contrary, telling him and other People 
 (for it is but a white Lye) that, as I have taken this 
 Step to suit your convenience, we shall easily settle 
 any difficulty that may arise. If I get y. Recorder- 
 ship I'll lay the World to a farthing I get a House." — 
 The letter then, adverting to another subject, curiously 
 illustrates how slow and cautious was John Scott, even 
 in those days, in committing himself to a legal opinion. 
 It thus proceeds : — " As to the point of Law I am not 
 so very clear about it, and therefore wish to have some 
 little Time to think about it. — If it be true that the 
 House was let at an undervalue on acct- of Mr. Airey's 
 engaging to erect additional Buildings, the Landlord 
 has given a Consideration for these buildings and it is
 
 44 SKCTCII OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 therefore but Equity that at the Expiration of the 
 Term they shoukl be left standing. The Question 
 \vill princii)ally turn upon the fact whether Mr. Airey's 
 Engagement Avas to erect buiUHngs of any particular 
 Nature, and if it was such I should have some doubt. 
 However, I will write to you again when I have far- 
 ther considered it. 
 
 " I hope the good Folks in bed are tolerably well : 
 with my Wife's Love to them and you, I remain, 
 
 in haste, 
 
 « Yrs 
 
 "J. SCOTT." 
 
 Mr. William Scott considered that his brother Henry 
 was imprudent in undertaking the expenses of so large 
 a house as that in Pilgrim- street, and on the 7th of 
 September, 1777, wrote to him to that effect from Ox- 
 ford. The advice contained in that elociuent letter is 
 so sound, and the tribute rendered to the worth of 
 their common father is so high, that injustice would be 
 committed towards two generations were it to be sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 " I lament," says the ever kind brother, " that the 
 necessity of your Affairs has forced you into the 
 House which you at present occupy. Do me the Jus- 
 tice to believe that I never take the Liberty of offering 
 my Opinion upon any part of your Conduct from the 
 mere Desire of dictating to you, or from any Motive 
 but of sincere Affection. I heartily wish you Success 
 in life, and therefore am concerned at any Event that 
 ajjpears likely to obstruct it. Your house is large, and 
 therefore^ likely to attract Company, both of the visit-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON, 45 
 
 ing kind and those who will make some stay witli you. 
 Excuse me if I observe to you that you will do well to 
 be upon your guard against the Effect of this Circum- 
 stance, and to oppose the Consideration of a Growing 
 Family, and the necessity of increasing your Fortune, 
 to the indulgence of present Hospitality and Elegance. 
 Remember that we all of us owe our present establish- 
 ment in Life to a Conduct founded upon Industry and 
 Frugality — upon unremitting Attention to Business, 
 and Seclusion from Company. We inherit from our 
 deceased Father not only a provision, but what is 
 more, an Example." 
 
 Already it has been mentioned here that Mr. John 
 Scott, in the second year after his call to the bar, was 
 retained in a parliamentary election petition ; but, as 
 Mr. Twiss, in the first two editions of his work, has not 
 made even the slightest allusion to this retainer, the 
 reader is requested to forgive a digression as long as 
 may be necessary in order to supply the circumstances 
 throuofh which it was obtained.* 
 
 The family of Scott of Newcastle may be considered 
 as owino' their rise from a humble condition more to 
 the patronage of the great Durham house of Bowes of 
 Gibside than to any other source, always excepting the 
 blessing of Providence upon their own honourable in- 
 dustry. 
 
 The Bowes estates comprehended extensive " coal 
 
 * In a note, however, at the end of the first vohime of the third 
 edition of his biography of the Chancellor, Mr. Twiss has called at- 
 tention to the statement which I made in the New Monthly jNIagazine 
 that John Scott had received this parliamentary retainer, though 
 he is far from confirming my statement.
 
 4G SKETCn OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 fields" near the Tyiie, and, whilst these were in process 
 of excavation, old Mr. Scott was employed to " fit"* 
 their produce; but in 17G1, Eleanor Mary Bowes,t 
 the heiress of Gibsidc, became Countess of Strathmore 
 by her marriage with John Lyon, the ninth earl that 
 had borne that title. Upon these foundations it has 
 been unhesitatingly asserted, in one of the lives of 
 Lord Eldon, preceding that by Mr. Twiss, that " the 
 father was originally in the situation of a domestic in 
 the family of the Earl of Strathmore." Thus we find 
 the sacred stream of truth scarcely less polluted by 
 the malignity than by the complacency of biograjjliers ! 
 
 The Earl of Strathmore died in the early part of 
 1776 ; and the countess, after a ten months' widowhood, 
 married Andrew Robinson Stoney. 
 
 The Long Wellesley of a lower tone and station, 
 Mr. Stoney Avas a native of Ireland, where, in the 
 county of Tipperary, his family were creditably estab- 
 lished; and he is behoved to have, in 1763, at the age 
 of twenty-eight, come to Newcastle with the 30th regi- 
 
 * A technical term, it will be recollected, for transporting coal up 
 and down the Tyne in barges, and ncgociating its sale. Whether, or 
 not, the fitter is answerable to his principals for the performance of 
 the engagements which he has negociated, depends upon the con- 
 ditions under which he is employed, and, of course, influences the 
 terms of his remuneration. I am not aware upon what conditions 
 Mr. Scott gave his services to the Bowes' family. 
 
 f She was the representative of the second marriage of her an- 
 cestor Sir George Bowes, " the sureste Pyllorc the Queen's Majestie 
 had in thes [the Northern] Partes" at the time of the Rising of the 
 North. See p. 35)4 of Sharpe's Memorials of the Rebellion of 15GQ 
 . — a valuable contribution to authentic history prepared from 
 exclusive sources of information.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 47 
 
 ment, in which he held the rank of a lieutenant. 
 Showy without learning, cunning without prudence, 
 and ambitious without perseverance, he brought with 
 him a pleasing address and person, and the eloquence, 
 wit, and assurance which are said to be indigenous to 
 the country of his birth. Miss Newton, a lady of 
 fortune in the county of Durham, was the first victim 
 of his unfeeling, unprincipled conduct. She was mar- 
 ried to him in 1763, but her disappointments and suf- 
 ferings were not of prolonged endurance — an early 
 grave closed over a broken heart. 
 
 After this, he contrived, by means which shall be in 
 part recounted, to cast his net round Lady Strathmore, 
 and draw her into a marriage. He thus succeeded to 
 the control over the broad lands, and the influence 
 over the wide-spread dependents of the time-honoured 
 Chiefs of Gibside ; and the three young Scotts would 
 fix their hopes, with something like the transmitted 
 claim of family retainership, upon the favour and the 
 patronage of the husband of Lady Strathmore. 
 
 Mr. Stoney, whom I shall now call generally by the 
 surname of Bowes, which he assumed in right of his 
 wife, resided much, for some time after his marriage, in 
 Lady Strathmore's house in Grosvenor-square. He, at 
 that period, became the associate of the Duke of 
 Norfolk, and some other men of rank and dissipation ; 
 and their orgies were enlivened by his humour and 
 diversified by the practical jokes which he appears to 
 have considered himself jDrivileged to play off. A great, 
 and, according to Mr. William Scott's account, almost 
 fraternal intimacy now sprang ujd between Bowes and 
 himself ; and (strange contrast of friendships !) it may
 
 48 
 
 SKETCH OF TIIK LIVES OF 
 
 be presumed that Scott was introduced about the same 
 time by Bowes into the gay, and by Johnson into tlie 
 learned, society of London. Yet, since our great 
 moralist himself did not, even in more advanced life, 
 escape the seductive fascination of the graceful, intel- 
 lectual, profligate Beauclerk,* we ought not to be sur- 
 prised that the eclat, dash, and successful libertinism of 
 Bowes, when united to an hereditary veneration for 
 the name, should be irresistibly attractive to one like 
 Scott, whose genuine wit, now transported to the 
 metropolitan arena, was struggling to disentangle it- 
 self from the prim restraints and formalities of the 
 Oxford don. 
 
 Mr. William Scott, of course, had heard many 
 things to the disadvantage of Bowes : but, though he 
 probably believed them only very partially, he was 
 placed so much upon his guard, that, in spite of their 
 constant companionship, he withheld all undue con- 
 fidence. It is certain, indeed, from all that is known 
 of his character, that neither pleasures, nor prospects of 
 advantage to himself, or (what he valued at least 
 equally) to his brothers, could have brought that 
 great, kind, and good man to knowingly countenance 
 so thorough-paced a villain as Bowes afterwards 
 proved. 
 
 He says, in a letter to his brother Henry, without 
 date, but with a post mark on it of the 20th of March, 
 and with internal evidence of having been written in 
 the year 1778, "I told you that I would speak to 
 Bowes if it would answer any good Purpose. He is 
 
 * Boswell's " Life of Johnson. '
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 49 
 
 gone into the country, and seemed Dubious cabout his 
 return. Between Friends, T wish there may not l)e 
 some very bad Affair brewing; He exercised whilst he 
 was in town every morning with shooting Pistols at a 
 Mark. I expect almost certainly to hear of a Duel that 
 will be serious ; the former, I suspect, was not so." 
 
 The duel, which Mr. William Scott rightly suspected 
 was not a serious one, was the crowning fraud by 
 M'hich the marriage with the countess was attained. 
 
 But, as we have already been introduced to Bowes, 
 let us now take a glance at his victim. 
 
 Aged at this time about thirty. Lady Strathmore had 
 a graceful figure, somewhat inclining to embonpoint, 
 and her general appearance was prepossessing. Of 
 botany her knowledge was most extensive, and her 
 garden is said to have been a very paradise. For 
 poetry she had cultivated a taste naturally delicate ; 
 and had acquired many languages : but the language 
 of books was the only one, to which she had ever been 
 accustomed, that did not speak the words of flattery. 
 Her intellect had been educated, but not her character. 
 And a prosperity, unregulated by the restraints of re- 
 ligion, portended an adversity which should be un- 
 supported by its consolations. 
 
 Just before her marriage with Stoney some virulent 
 attacks had been made on the countess in the Morning 
 Post newspaper ; and it has since been presumed that 
 Stoney was the concealed writer of them. On their 
 appearance, however, he, according to a preconcerted 
 arrangement, called out Bate, the editor, for attacking 
 
 E
 
 50 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 tlio iniinaciilfito virtue of the lady* to wlioni lio ^vas 
 devoted : and then pretended to be wounded in the 
 conflict ; having probably given himself a scratch or two, 
 in order to act his part the better. 
 
 On this occasion Lady Strathmore is said to have 
 evinced, by the composition of the following lines, that 
 the Muses had not been ungrateful for the cultivation 
 Avhich she had bestowed u])on them. Alas ! that their 
 aid should have been invoked in such a cause ! 
 
 Unmoved Maria saw the splendid suit 
 
 Of rival captives sighing at her feet, 
 
 Till, in her cause, his sword young Stoney drew. 
 
 And to revenge the gallant wooer flew : 
 
 Bravest amongst the brave I and first to prove, 
 
 By death or conquest, who best knew to love ! 
 
 But pale and faint the wounded lover lies. 
 
 While more than pity fills Maria's eyes. 
 
 In her soft breast, where passion long had strove, 
 
 Besistlcss sorrow fix'd the reign of love. 
 
 " Dear youth," she cries, " we meet no more to part. 
 
 Then take thy honours due — my bleeding heart !" 
 
 The duel scene was successfully performed on the 
 13th of January, 1777 : and, on the 17th of that month, 
 Lady Strathmore was married, at St. James's Church, 
 Westminster, to her "gallant wooer!"' None but the 
 brave deserve the fair ! 
 
 * Jesse Foot, a surgeon, who wrote " the lives of Andrew Robin- 
 son Bowes, Esq., and the Countess of Strathmore," denies that the 
 wounds were merely pretended ones ; the preponderance, however, 
 of evidence, contradicts his assertion, whether we regard the pre- 
 sumption arising from jNIr. Bowes's inveterate habit of shamming 
 sickness in order to attain his objects, or confine ourselves to proofs 
 of a more positive nature.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 51 
 
 Before tlie expiration of the honeymoon, a vacancy 
 was made in the representation of Newcastle by the 
 death of Sir Walter Blackett, and Bowes determined 
 to start as a candidate to fill it. Sir John Trevelyan, 
 the nephew of the deceased member, was his com- 
 petitor. 
 
 On the day of nomination, Bowes had not yet arri- 
 ved : but allowances are made for the duties of a bride- 
 groom ; and William Scott appeared, as his friend, on 
 the hustings, and made a speech for him in his stead.* 
 
 At this contest, John Scott also, then a young inex- 
 perienced barrister, was retained by Bowes as one of 
 his counsel I" during the election, and used to speak for 
 him in public. As a mob orator, his townsmen 
 considered him to have failed ; he proceeded with hesi- 
 tation ; stopped frequently, and with a nervous action 
 raised his hand to his mouth, as though to pull out the 
 reluctant words. I have heard that he, nevertheless, 
 received from Bowes a fee of two hundred guineas for 
 his exertions. Eleven years afterward, John Scott was 
 called, as a witness for Bowes, in the Court of Common 
 Pleas, to prove that, at the time of this contested elec- 
 tion, he and Lady Strathmore had appeared to be liv- 
 ing on cordial terms.:}; 
 
 * Local newspapers. 
 
 f By a published polUbook of this election, it appears that the 
 sheriff of Newcastle, who was returning officer, retained as his coun- 
 sel, Mr. Fawcett, the recorder, and that the counsel for Sir John 
 Trevelyan were Messrs. Wanley and Ridley, while those for Mr. 
 Bowes were Messrs. Hopper, Ambler, Wilson, and Scott. 
 
 X Bowes and Lady Strathmore were, after their marriage, seldom 
 free from litigation. Mr. Grey, whom she had jilted, commenced an 
 
 E 2
 
 52 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 From a printed p«)ll-1)ook, it appears that in tliis 
 election, William, Henry, and John Scott, as freeman 
 of the Hoastman's Com])any, recorded their votes for 
 liowcs. Henry Scott, as is proved by family corres- 
 
 action for breach of promise, which he received 12,000Z. to com- 
 promise. Grey had consented to allow Lady Strathmore's property 
 to be conveyed to trustees for her own separate use, and the recjuisite 
 deeds were executed on the 9th and 10th of January, 1777; hut 
 in the following week she married Bowes (then called Stoney), who 
 had received no notice of these deeds. Soon afterwards, however. 
 Lady Strathmore signed a revocation of them. But, at a later jjcriod, 
 she applied to the Court of Chancery to establish the settlement 
 made in her favour before marriage, and to cancel the deed of revo- 
 cation ; while Bowes filed a cross bill praying that the original 
 settlement might be cancelled, on the ground that he, before mar- 
 riage, had received no notice of it, and that it was, therefore, a fraud 
 on him. In 1788 the Court of Chancery took these matters into 
 consideration, and directed an issue to the Court of Common Pleas 
 to try the fact whether Bowes had extorted this revocation by vio- 
 lence ; and the jury found by their verdict that he had. This was 
 the trial in which John Scott gave evidence. (See a report of this 
 trial in the library of the British Museum.) The Court of Chancery 
 then again considered the matter of the original settlement ; and in 
 1 789, Lord Chancellor Thurlow finally gave a judgment establishing 
 its validity. This decision was grounded on the fact that the settle- 
 ment had not been made with the intent to defraud Bowes, for, at 
 the time of making it, a marriage with him was not contemplated ; 
 but the Chancellor added that " it was impossible for a man, marry- 
 ing in the manner he did, to come into a Court of Equity and talk 
 of fraud." (2 Brown's Chancery Cases, p. 345 ; 1 Vcsey, jun. 28.) 
 At the time now alluded to, Lady Strathmore was living apart from 
 Bowes, and had instituted proceedings against him for a divorce ou 
 account of cruelty and adultery. On the latter accusation he recii- 
 min.'ited (see the depositions on both sides in the library of the 
 British Museum) ; but he adopted more vigorous measures to frus-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 53 
 
 ])ondencc, acted for Bowes as an agent during the 
 election. 
 
 The polling was concluded by tlie 14tli of March, 
 when the numbers were declared to be — for Trevelvan, 
 1163; for Bowes, 1068. The former was elected; but 
 the latter, on the 27th of the same month, presented to 
 the House of Commons a petition against the return, 
 which was followed by another to the same effect from 
 his supporters. 
 
 These petitions were sustained by a formidable array 
 
 trate her efforts. Lady Stratlimore had got a constable, of the name 
 of Lucas, assigned to her, whose business it was to guard her per- 
 son, lest Bowes should molest her. Him Bowes inveigled over to his 
 side ; and one day when she was in a shop in Oxford-street, whither 
 she had come under the escort and })rotection of her solicitor's 
 brother, Captain Henry Farrer of the merchant service, who seems 
 to have woefully over-rated his own resolution, Lucas himself arrested 
 her under a pretended warrant, and carried her off to Highgate, 
 saving that she was to be taken before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, 
 at his house of Caenwood, in that neighbourhood. Hitherto Farrer 
 had been allowed to accompany her ; but at Highgate, Bowes met 
 the party, and dismissed Farrer with threats that he would knock 
 him down. He thence conveyed Lady Strathmore to the County of 
 Durham, where he treated her barbarously, under the vain hope of 
 thus compelling her to sign a paper to stop the proceedings in the 
 Ecclesiastical Court. But she was soon rescued from his hands by 
 a writ of habeas corpus. She then exhibited Articles of the Peace 
 ao-ainst her husband ; and he was in consequence ordered by the 
 Court of King's Bench, to find sureties, to a large amount, for his 
 future conduct. Criminal proceedings were also instituted against 
 him and his confederates for their enterprise. They were tried 
 before Mr. Justice BuUer on the 27th May, 1/87, and were all found 
 guilty. Bowes was sentenced to be imprisoned in the King's Bench 
 priso\i for three years. (Sec a little tract in the library of the
 
 54 SKETCH OF Tin: lives of 
 
 of counsel. Bowes retained* Dunning-, Sergeant Glyn, 
 Wilson, and John Lee ; and to their number he did 
 not forget to add the then unknown John Scott ; nor 
 did John Scott omit to turn this early oj)portunity to 
 credit and advantage.! 
 
 In the following letter to his brother Henry, Mr. 
 John Scott refers to the imjiortant share which he had 
 been entrusted to take in the management of this, his 
 first parliamentary cause. 
 
 "'Dear Harry 
 I write a few Lines by way of gratifying yr. Curiosity. 
 I summed up in a long Speech the Evidence on ye. 
 Part of the Petition this Morning: and the Taken:]: of 
 
 British ISIuseum containing a report of this trial, and a " History 
 of Stoncy Bovvcs," published in Newcastle, and 1 Durnford and East's 
 reports, p. 696 ; and" The Lives of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq. 
 and the Countess of Strathmore, by Jesse Foot, Esq. surgeon.") 
 Lady Strathmore eventually succeeded in obtaining a divorce. Bowes 
 appealed from the Court of Arches to that of Delegates, but the 
 divorce was confirmed. 
 
 * Newcastle journal of that period, from which the names of the 
 counsel are taken. ]\Ir. John Scott is there called " Mr. Scott of 
 Oxford." 
 
 f This would probably be the first circumstance which brought 
 Scott and Lee closely in contact, and laid the foundation of that 
 intimacy, on which, according to Mr. Twiss's volumes. Lord Eldon 
 in age delighted to dwell ; and which, as Lee was a leader on the 
 Northern circuit, must have been of service to Lord Eldon when 
 young. 
 
 X This letter throughout bears marks of the greatest haste. 
 Probably the word intended to have been written was " Taking." 
 There have been torn away from the original letter parts correspond- 
 ing to those inclosed here within brackets and su])plied from conjec- 
 ture.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 55 
 
 Examination upon Oath has produced a much better 
 [case] than we had Reason to expect, so far from 
 th[at w]hich they represented it to be that the Com- 
 mittee have required them to answer it. They certainly 
 mean to recriminate, for they have been in this Cross 
 Ex", endeavouring to prove who were Mr. Bowes's 
 Agents & w'. among others you were not. Weir in 
 particular was examined strictly wi". you had not offered 
 him money — he denied it — but ackd. that you offered 
 to make him a Comr.* and that you wd. be kind in 
 assisting him. I hope you have not been so zealous as 
 to overleap the Bounds of Law and Prudence, for I 
 take it for granted that they will si)are nobody, our 
 Case has irritated and surprised them so much : I think 
 upon the whole it will not be a void Election, but 
 will contribute to establish Bowes's Importance very 
 much. 
 
 With my Love to yr. wife and Child and Mrs. Scott's 
 I remain, in Haste, 
 
 " Yrs affly. 
 
 «J. SCOTT." 
 
 " Tuesday, Cursitor Street, 
 " London April 29. 1777." 
 
 William Scott, in a letter dated " London, May IG, 
 1777," says, "I am very happy to find that my Brother 
 John acquitted Himself so much to the satisfixction of 
 his Friends in the Matter of the Petition. That affair 
 is well ended for us all, all Circumstances considered. 
 
 * This word is not very legible in the original. It, perhaps, is an 
 abbreviation of the word "Commissioner."
 
 5Q SKETCH OF TIIF, LIVES OF 
 
 Since I came to Town, I have been very nuicli with 
 Bowes, and like Him exceedingly." 
 
 On the 2nd of May, 1777, a fortnight previous to 
 the date of the letter just mentioned, the select com- 
 mittee terminated their lalxjurs by deciding against 
 the petitions, and reporting that the sitting member 
 was duly elected ; and the following letter, with a post- 
 mark of that very day, addressed by Mr. John Scott to 
 his brother Henry, gives a short account of the petitions 
 and their fate. 
 
 " Dear Harry, 
 " The Evidence on the part of Sir J. T. was closed 
 on Wednesday early. It consisted in Defence merely 
 — not an Attem})t to prove any one Act of Bril^ery on 
 Bowes or any of his People. The Committee then 
 cleared the Room to take the sense of the Majority — 
 but after debating two Hours, they were so much divi- 
 ded they could not come to a Determination. They 
 met according to Adjournment again yesterday, but 
 again broke up without a Decision. This Morning 
 they met a third Time, and I am just informed the 
 Majority is against us. Thus this vexatious and 
 
 frivolous Petition has proved respectable, tho' not suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 *' Your's, 
 
 "J. Scott." 
 " Friday noon, 3 o'clock. 
 
 T am happy in having been able to fill up this chasm 
 in Mr. Twisss volumes. As, in the first and second 
 editions of these, all notice of tiie name of Jiowes has 
 been omitted, although its beai-er ullbrded the avenue
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDUN. 57 
 
 throuo'li wliicli Mr. John Scott was first introdticed 
 into important business, and, though the statement 
 which I published in the New Monthly Magazine* has 
 been referred to by Mr. Twiss in a note to his third 
 edition, as that reference tends rather to discredit than 
 to confirm it, I have been absolutely comi)ellcd to 
 authenticate by details the information which I have 
 conveyed. I am bound to add, that for this omission I 
 do not blame Mr. Twiss, as the matter would not come 
 come within the scope of his unassisted observation. 
 
 A couple of years later, namely, in the spring of 
 1 779, John Scott is found to be much depressed. There 
 were no election petitions, no retainers in the House of 
 Lords, no briefs marked with high fees, and few enough 
 of any sort. He complained, I have heard (and it 
 would probably be at this time), just in the tone of a 
 young briefless barrister of our own day, that the bar 
 was so overstocked ! Perhaps he had thought, as any 
 inexperienced beginner might have done, that he had 
 already made a safe start ; though probably every brief 
 he had as yet received could have been traced to the 
 influence of his family or connexions or friends: and 
 he would naturally overlook tlie humiliating fact that 
 it was neither his industry nor ability which had j)ro- 
 cured him bis early business ; but that the same interest 
 would have got the same briefs for any empty-headed 
 wig in Westminster Hall. 
 
 Under these feelings of disappointment, it is very 
 probable that he may have abstained, that year, from 
 throwing away money in going the spring circuit, which 
 
 * The Number for Aug. IS-l.').
 
 58 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 comprised only the counties, as yet to him barren, of 
 Yorkshire and Lancashire. 
 
 In the March of 1780, was decided, in the favour of 
 his client, the apjjeal in the case of Ackroyd against 
 Smithson, ^\ hich he had urgently recommended ; and, 
 from that time, the favourable consideration of Lord 
 Chancellor Thurlow (by whom it was heard) was fixed 
 ui)on him. 
 
 In the same year there was a dissolution of parlia- 
 ment ; and Sir iMatthew White Ridley, and Mr. John 
 Scott's client in his former petition, Andrew Robinson 
 Bowes, were elected to rein-esent Ne\vcastle-uj)on-Tyne 
 in the new House of Commons. The unsuccessful 
 candidate, Mr. Delaval, petitioned, but without effect, 
 against Bowes, who retained John Scott,* as well as 
 John Lee, to defend his seat. This, too, in the 
 volumes of Mr. Twiss has been omitted ! 
 
 Now let us proceed to his next election j)etition. 
 The parties interested in setting aside the Clitheroe 
 election, were dismayed in the March of 1781, by dis- 
 covering, just before their petition was to be heard in 
 committee, that their leading counsel could not, on 
 account of illness, open it, and that their junior counsel 
 would not attempt to take his place. Possibly the 
 junior had not read his brief: possibly he had never 
 before been retained in pai'liamentary proceedings ;f 
 and, if so, he could not have ventured, unassisted, upon 
 a matter, with the formnl parts, at any rate, of which 
 
 * Letters of John Scott to his brother Henry. 
 
 t The former was the only reason suggested by Lord Eldon, ac- 
 coriUng to a conversation, as reported by the present Mr. Farrer to 
 Mr. Twiss. (See vol. i. eh. vi. p. 123.)
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 59 
 
 he must have been unacquainted. But Mr. Scott was 
 ah-eatly known to have been in two election petitions 
 — one for the i)etitioner, the other for the sitting 
 member — so with the routine he must have been per- 
 fectly familiar ; in whatever h-g-al proceedings he had 
 been retained, he seems to have acquitted himself with 
 credit ; and he was sufficient of a novice to jump at an 
 ojjportunity of distinction To him, then, in this 
 emergency, the brief was offered, and by him accepted, 
 at six o'clock in the very morning* on which the peti- 
 tion was to be heard in committee. A fifty guinea 
 retainer, and a daily shower of fees as long as a i:)arlia- 
 mentary committee sits, are great things for a junior. 
 But these were not the best parts of it. Though his 
 client was beaten in committee by one vote, he himself 
 had been trusted with the lead in an important case, 
 nor had discredited the confidence reposed in his 
 ability ; and the circumstances under which he was 
 retained were peculiar, and such as would gain him 
 6clat. 
 
 From this time his rise in the profession was rapid ; 
 and the silk gown with which within two years he was 
 invested, was but the precursor to the dignities and 
 emoluments of the solicitor and attorney-generalship. 
 
 * See " Twiss's Eldoii," vol. i. ch. vi. p. 121. And I must here 
 observe tlmt any person reading the passage would assume that this 
 was Lord Eldon's first parliamentary business, although it is not 
 directly asserted. 
 
 8
 
 60 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In this chapter it is contemplatefl to sketch the lives 
 of the two brothers, from tlieir early successes, achieved 
 in their respective courts, to the period when each ob- 
 tained hig-li judicial honours. 
 
 The ascent, by which the judgment seat is approached, 
 is long- and toilsome. Neither genius nor ambition can 
 leap it ; they must here condescend to climb. But the 
 unremitting exertions and regular advance of jirosper- 
 ous lawyers would be intolerably wearisome to read in 
 detail. Although, then, the interval which we now 
 jiropose to fill is long, and its occurrences are imi)Ortant, 
 the space within which they shall here be compressed 
 is limited and brief. And should the reader of the 
 following pages observe, that some even of the leading- 
 events connected with the subjects of this sketch are 
 merely touched upon, while others are altogether omit- 
 ted, I must beg to remind him that I have disclaimed 
 all ambitious i)retensions to the dignity of regular bio- 
 grai>liy ; and from the commencement* have professed 
 
 & 
 
 * Sec Preface.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. Gl 
 
 that my chief object was to correct some of the errors, 
 and to supply some of the omissions, which seemed 
 likely, but for my intervention, to impair the interest, 
 or what should be of more consequence, the value, of a 
 far more important undertaking than my own. The 
 object proposed was to correct the work of another, not 
 to supersede it ; let not, then, the performances be 
 tested by a higher standard than that afforded by the 
 ])roniises which were made. 
 
 It has already been stated, that in the spring of 
 1780, William Scott, the eldest brother of the family, 
 was admitted into the faculty of advocates. He was 
 then in the thirty-fifth year of his age. 
 
 The entrance to the profession, which he now em- 
 braced, is, as far as relates to the ecclesiastical courts, 
 effected through the fiat of the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. To this is always annexed a condition, that the 
 aspirant shall not exert his privilege of speaking in 
 court till a year has elapsed from the time at which it 
 was conferred — an interval which is commonly called 
 his year of silence, and expected to be employed by 
 him in attendance on court, in order that he may learn 
 to conduct business himself, by observing how it is 
 conducted by others. When he has become entitled 
 to practise at the ecclesiastical bar of Doctors' Com- 
 mons, he is, according to prescriptive custom, allowed, 
 without any formal admission, to practise also in the 
 High Court of Admiralty. 
 
 In the spring of 1781, his noviciate expired ; and, as 
 we may recollect from the previous chapter, in the same 
 spring he married. And henceforward would be com-
 
 62 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 bined new opportunities for distinction, with frosli in- 
 centives to exertion. 
 
 The ecclesiastical courts follow, for the most part, 
 the rules and customs of the Roman civil law. Hence 
 sprung their rejection of a jury, and hence their recep- 
 tion of evidence through written depositions, instead 
 of statements by word of mouth. The High Court of 
 Admiralty*' is formed on the same venerable, but exotic, 
 model. Both species of courts are consequently held 
 within the walls of Doctors' Commons ; and are fre- 
 quented by the same practitioners, having proctors and 
 doctors for their attorneys and bar. 
 
 The practitioners, then, in this amphibious calling, 
 " one foot on land and one on sea," are now engaged 
 in wills, marriages, and divorces, in church-rates, in the 
 correction of the lives or doctrines of the clergy, or in 
 other matters over which the church had, from an early 
 period, been allowed a jurisdiction ; and are now im- 
 mersed in condemning and apportioning prize-vessels, 
 in the adjudication of salvage, or of seamen's wages, 
 and in other questions of a civil nature which have 
 arisen at, or are connected with, the sea. 
 
 Never did advocate enter this profession with greater 
 advantages than Dr. Scott. Intimately acquainted with 
 the language in which the civil law was originally written, 
 and wonderfully conversant with the history of the ages 
 in which it grew, he must have derived from his long 
 
 * Since Lord Stoweil's time considerable alterations have been 
 made in the practice of this court by statute 3 and 4 Victoria, ch. 65 
 and GO.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND !• LDON. G3 
 
 rpsidonco at Oxford, from tlie daily table-talk of its 
 halls and common rooms, an insig-ht into the questions 
 involving the rights and interests, the difficulties and 
 dangers, of the Church of England in his own day, 
 equal to that, which his studies, as prcfessor of 
 Ancient History, would supply him with respecting 
 the Church Catholic of primitive times. 
 
 In the shipping affairs of his profession, he must, at 
 the commencement, have possessed such a practical 
 knowledge as vvas probably never before attained by an 
 advocate in the courts which he frequented. He had 
 been born and bred in a sea-port town : his father had 
 been actively engaged in its shipping interests : and, 
 after his father's death, considering it unadvisable to 
 wind up these concerns immediately, he, for a short 
 period, himself carried them on ;* principally, it would 
 seem, through the agency of his brother Henry. 
 
 A privateering speculation, in which the brother just 
 mentioned had an interest, earlv directed Dr. Scott's 
 attention to the laws that regulated such adventurous 
 enterprizes. 
 
 " Privateering," says Dr. Franklin, " is the universal 
 bent of the English nation, at home and abroad, where- 
 ever settled ;" and then, alluding to the war of Ameri- 
 can independence, he adds : " No less than seven hun- 
 
 * In a letter without date, but, from internal evidence, written in 
 the year 1778, and having on it the post-mark of the 29th of 
 November, William Scott says to his brother Henry : "I look for 
 some Profit this year from the ships, some bottomry will likewise 
 
 be due 1 intended finally settling with yourself as soon as the 
 
 Profits of my ships came in this year. However, from the Misfor- 
 tunes which have happened it will now be extremely inconvenient."
 
 04 ' SKETCH OF T[TE LIVES OF 
 
 (Ired privateers were, it is said, commissioned in the 
 last war ! These were fitted out by merchants to prey 
 upon other merchants who had never done them any 
 injury/' — And, in candour, it must be acknowledged that 
 the Pagan blood of our sea-king ancestors did, at that 
 time, somewhat predominate in the veins of our nation. 
 During the latter part of the war, \vhen we were 
 embroiled, not only with the Americans, but also witli 
 the French, Spaniards, and Dutch, Mr. Henry Scott 
 consulted his brother William as to the prudence of 
 joining some other persons in fitting out a privateering 
 vessel. The advice which he appears to have received, 
 was not whether he should, or should not, enter at all 
 into the speculation, but against what dangers, in tlie 
 event of his so doing, he should be on his guard. He 
 was cautioned against the indiscreet impartiality of the 
 masters of some of these vessels, who take everything 
 that comes in their way — enemies, friends, or neutrals, 
 alike ; and he was warned that they who meddle with — 
 Danes, Swedes, Prussians, or Russians, would burn 
 their fingers. In the end, Henry Scott became a 
 partner in this speculation, and it was not unproductive ; 
 for, in 1781, their crew, violating a neutral flag, boarded 
 and plundered a ship of Denmark. 
 
 A complaint was lodged wiHi the British authorities ; 
 and the privateer, which may be presumed to have put 
 into a Scottish port, was seized by the commissioners of 
 the Admiralty in Scotland. Overwhelmed by the anti- 
 cij)ation of a loss to a large but indefinite amount, liable 
 for the restitution of what could be restored, and for 
 damages for what could not, as well as to the for- 
 feiture of the aggressive vessel, Mr. Henry Scott wrote
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON, 65 
 
 to his brother William to ask his advice on the course 
 which should be pursued under the threatening asj^ect 
 of the case. He narrated that the master whom they 
 had employed, had, contrary to their instructions, 
 boarded a neutral ship, and, amongst other acts of s^do- 
 liation, had deprived her of sails. 
 
 This statement created in Dr. Scott's mind a vivid 
 and painful apprehension that, as the hulk, dismantled 
 and left in the midst of the sea, was likely to founder, 
 his brother would be put to a ruinous expense for his 
 share of the compensation. The affair, however, turned 
 out less serious than was expected. Part of the cargo 
 of the Dane consisted of sails ; and it was these which 
 had been taken away. She probably, therefore, pur- 
 sued her voyage, somewhat lighter indeed, but not the 
 less sea-worthy, to the port of her destination. The 
 privateer was eventually restored to its owners ; but 
 they would of course have to make compensation for 
 all losses caused by the misconduct of their agents. 
 The master, however, and the crew under him, were 
 committed to take their trial. 
 
 Such, then, was the previous mental training which 
 had fitted this distinguished civilian for the brilliant 
 career on which he was entering. Yet in one respect 
 his education had been deficient — there had been little 
 or no preparation for public speaking. The debating 
 societies, such as are now frequented with advantage 
 by the students at our universities, had not then sprung 
 into existence at Oxford ; and the lecture-room of the 
 tutor or professor, where no one is privileged to deny his 
 positions, or dispute his arguments, to smile at his reflec- 
 tions, or look grave at his jokes, is but a sorry school for 
 
 F
 
 QQ SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 the extemporaneous oratory of the bar or the senate. It 
 is true, indeed, that Dr. Scott had once appeared on the 
 hustings of his native town, and made a speech for Mr. 
 Bowes, but I am not aware that on any other occasion 
 he had attempted to speak in public. 
 
 From a diffidence, then, in his command of his own 
 powers, or a fastidiousness in pohshing his periods, he, 
 on making his debut in the little Court at Doctors' 
 Commons, adopted the plan of writing out his speeches, 
 and reading them from a paper before him. Those 
 professionally opposed to him objected to this innova- 
 tion in their courts ; but he persisted for some months 
 as he had begun, till he had acquired greater confidence 
 or more of accuracy and elegance. 
 
 The Bar at Doctors' Commons (I ask pardon for 
 having used an expression not strictly accurate) is now 
 small in number when compared with that of any 
 circuit, yet is large in comparison of its condition when 
 Dr. Scott joined it. He had, before adopting it, been 
 assured that a man of talent would readily obtain con- 
 siderable emolument.* That the result justified the 
 prediction Dr. Scott himself testifies in a letter 
 without date or post-mark, written probably in the 
 spring of 1782 ; for he says: — " I believe our Rulers 
 would be very glad of a Peace ; but it is not to be had 
 without a general Peace, which I sincerely wish for, 
 tho' my own Interest will suffer considerably by it. I 
 am exceedingly oppressed with Business, and shall 
 remain so for these three weeks, and then hope to have 
 
 * Sketches of the Lives and Cliaraeters of eminent English 
 Civilians.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 67 
 
 something of a Vacation." Joliu Scott, in a letter, 
 dated the 9th of January, 1783, gives equally conclusive 
 evidence of his brother's success. " The Doctor," he 
 here observes, " has got a Daughter ; he is also very 
 happy in a sinecure place which the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury has given him, and which is considerably 
 above four hundred a year for Life. His Success is 
 wonderful, and he has been fortunate beyond Example." 
 And then, adverting to himself, the future Chancellor 
 despondingly adds : " As to your humble servant, I 
 have the younger Brother's portion, a Life of Drudgery ; 
 Our part of the profession has no places for young men, 
 and it will wear me out before I cease to be such." 
 
 The sinecure place, in the acquisition of which Dr. 
 Scott was so happy, would, it is presumed, be the 
 registrarship of the Court of Faculties : for it is in the 
 patronage of the archbishop, and Mr. Townsend informs 
 us* that, in the year 1783, it was thus bestowed. The 
 daughter, to whose birth allusion has been made, was 
 Dr. Scott's eldest child. 
 
 And here may, perhaps, be conveniently introduced, 
 a short notice of the family of which Dr. Scott was the 
 father. 
 
 The eldest child was followed by three other chil- 
 dren, of whom a son and daughter died in infancy, and 
 
 * Law Magazine, No. XXXIII., p. 42. I am happy to see 
 that, whilst my own sketches are passing through the press for 
 separate publication, the interesting series of biographies, by Mr; 
 Townsend, comprising those of Lords Stowell and Eldon, are adver- 
 tised for publication in a collected form under the title of " Lives of 
 Twelve Eminent Judges."
 
 GS SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 another son, unmarried, attained middle life. Of remoter 
 descendants this groat civilian had none. Mary Anne, 
 the eldest child, who alone survived her father, and 
 that for only a short period, was twice married. Her 
 first husband was Colonel Thomas Townsend, a gentle- 
 man of Warwickshire ; and, after his death, she became 
 the second wife of Viscount Sidmouth. 
 
 For a considerable portion of Dr. Scott's life, he and 
 his family resided at No. 5, College-square, Doctors' 
 Commons, the house now occupied by Dr. Lee. In 
 this, there is, on the ground-floor, a sitting room, the 
 windows of which open upon a garden ; and this was 
 the room in which, as Lady Sidmouth used, after her 
 second marriage, to relate, she, for the first time, though 
 but for a moment, had seen her husband. Her father 
 and mother were sitting there, and she, a little girl with 
 a dirty pinafore on, was playing upon the carpet near 
 an open window, when a servant announced " Mr. 
 Addington." On this, her mother, not thinking her 
 costume such as would do credit to the menage, snatched 
 her up, and put her through the window into the gar- 
 den. — Who at that time woiild have ventured to pre- 
 dict that the gentleman, whose age then probably ex- 
 ceeded thirty, and the little girl who on his appearance 
 had been bundled out of the window, were ever to be 
 united as husband and wdfe ! 
 
 Returning from the children to the father, it would 
 be unpardonable to omit that, soon after Dr. Scott 
 came to reside in town, he was elected a member of 
 the Literary Club, where the wits and scholars of the 
 day, Johnson at their head, assembled for good dinners 
 and good conversation : nor has the whisper of detraction
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. GO 
 
 ever ventured to question the readiness of our civilian, 
 at any period of his Hfe, to partake of tlie former, and 
 contribute to the hitter, of these rational enjoyments. 
 
 But it is time we should revert to Mr. John Scott. 
 We left him in the last chapter, with a moderate 
 practice in the northern part of his circuit ; as well as 
 before parliamentary committees, and at the chancery 
 bar :* and he, therefore, had early acquired the only 
 description of business to which he had directed his 
 views ; for, when in London, he did not frequent the 
 courts of Common Law, and, when in the country, he 
 did not attend Sessions. His gradually increasing 
 business was, however, subject to the ordinary fluctua- 
 tions; and, at the recurrence of these, he evinced more 
 than ordinary timidity. He would feel, it is true, that 
 the comfort of others was dependent upon the success 
 of his exertions. He had become the father of a family, 
 small indeed ; for, though his eldest child John was 
 born in 1774, nearly ten years elapsed before the ap- 
 pearance of another. Still his circumstances would 
 afford ample grounds for the intrusion of anxieties 
 amidst the endearments of domestic life ; and his 
 strong family affections, the capitis injuria cari, would 
 render the husband and father keenly, and more than 
 commonly, sensitive to professional neglect, as well as 
 forbid indolence and stimulate ambition. 
 
 The early part of June, 1780, was the period of 
 
 * In a letter dated Carey-street, 1 May, 1778, Mr. John Scott 
 says : " I do tolerably well, I do not get so much Pudding as Praise, 
 tho' I fancy I am rather better of [sic] than most of my Age in the 
 Profession."
 
 70 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Lord George Gordon's riots ; when a holy alliance was 
 formed between knavery and folly to pillage and burn 
 the capital, in order that its recent pollution in tolerat- 
 ing Romish priests and masses* might be duly expiated. 
 During this season of anarchy, Mr. John Scott, with his 
 family, fled from his house in Carey-street, and took 
 refuge within the gates of the Temple ; a fact which is 
 recorded by Mr. Twiss : but his situation and conduct 
 on this occasion are also alluded to in the following 
 letter from Dr. Scott to his brother Henry, which is 
 valuable as a contemporaneous record of the extraordi- 
 nary proceedings which it details. "f 
 
 " Dear Brother, 
 " I received your Letter this evening, and am 
 happy in being able to assure you that Peace and 
 Satisfaction are fully re-established among us. We 
 are employed at present in securing the Agents in this 
 infernal Business, and in taking every Method of ])re- 
 vention against any future attempts. Military Associa- 
 tions are formed in every Part of Town, and I hope to 
 be a very tolerable Performer of the Manual Exercise 
 by the next Time you see me. In short, the Spirit of 
 every Man either of Property or of Education is so 
 thoroughly raised, that if these Scoundrels (be they 
 
 * By Sir George Saville's act, (18 Geo. III., c. 60), passed in 
 1 77^, Jesuits, and Roman Catholic bishops and priests, were hence- 
 forward exempted, on condition of taking an oath of allegiance, from 
 arrest and prosecution on account of the religion which they pro- 
 fessed. 
 
 t It is directed to " Mr. Henry Scott, Pilgrim-Street, Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne," and has the post mark of the 15th of June, but no date.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 71 
 
 sanctified villains, or be they downright Newgate 
 Ruffians) were to attempt any thing again, we should 
 be able, I am persuaded, with hardly any Assistance 
 from the Military, to drive them where they ouglit to 
 go, that is, to the Devil. 
 
 " What you have heard of the Northumberland* 
 Militia is strictly true. In no part of the town did the 
 troops behave with better regulated Impetuosity. The 
 Execution they did was very considerable, and yet so 
 necessary, that it has not subjected them to the least 
 Imputation of Inhumanity. 
 
 " The Trials of the Rioters will come on next week. 
 Till then the Public remains in ignorance whether these 
 dreadful Scenes exhibited here, were the effect of any 
 regular Conspiracy, or only the sudden Eruption of 
 that ill-humour which has been brooding in the Minds 
 of the Common People for some time past, and has 
 been but too successfully inflamed by the Artifices of 
 a malignant Party. What the specific charges are 
 ag*. L G Gordon we do not know, nor by what evidence 
 they are to be supported. He is a close prisoner, and 
 will continue so till his trial.f 
 
 * The fatality which, on this occasion, seems to have paralysed 
 the city authorities, extended itself to the lieutenant-colonel of the 
 Northumberland militia, who was unexpectedly discovered to be in- 
 capacitated for taking the command : it therefore devolved upon the 
 major. 
 
 t On the 5th and 6th of February, 1781, he was tried at the bar 
 of the court of the King's bench for high treason, when the jury 
 acquitted him, as they considered the criminality of his intention not 
 to amount to that of which he was accused. Annual Registrar for 
 1781, pp. 217— 239. 
 
 8
 
 72 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 " The Papers now have given you a complete Enu- 
 meration of Particulars ; for they have resumed Courage 
 enough to speak out, which they durst not do during 
 the Continuance of the Outrages. My Brother's family 
 and myself had our full Share of the alarm ; Lincoln's 
 Inn and the Commons being both marked out for 
 Destruction, as being the residence of Lawyers. I 
 removed every Thing that I could, upon so short a 
 Notice, expecting every minute to have my house fired 
 about my ears. John did the same, removing what he 
 could carry, with his Wife and Child, in the Middle of 
 the Night, to a place of greater Security. The Terrors 
 they were in are not to be described ; they were, how- 
 ever, no more than what were felt by every decent, 
 virtuous Family in town. Nobody was safe but He 
 that was protected by his Poverty, and his Participation 
 of Guilt. I am certain, that if the Riot had not been 
 suppressed that [Day*], the next night would have 
 seen the whole city [in] Flames. 
 
 " The hospitals are full of wounded Men and Women, 
 and the number of Persons killed by the Military and 
 by Intoxication is considerable. I believe not more 
 than one Soldier was hurt. The City behaved with the 
 most disgraceful Want of spirit. Jack Wilks was the 
 only Magistrate almost, who showed any degree of 
 Courage or Sense upon the Occasion. 
 
 " If Government make a riglit use of this Business, 
 
 * The spaces enclosed here in brackets were, in the original letter, 
 torn with the seal. The context, however, sujiplies the words with 
 which to fill them.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 73 
 
 they may derive Benefit from it. People's minds 
 are heartily sickened of licentious Notions, now that 
 we have had such melancholy Experience of their 
 Consequences ; and the Public in general is returning 
 to a Love of regular Government and of the old Con- 
 stitution, under which we have lived happily for so 
 many Years. I wish the opposition may not act an 
 improper Part at the Meeting of Parliament next week. 
 This is too serious a Business to be made party Con- 
 tention. 
 
 " The Tower Guns have been firing very briskly, and 
 the Rejiort is, that it is on account of the Capture of 
 Charles Town, and of the American Army in it. I 
 am, with best affections, 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " W. S. 
 
 " Send me some money when you can." 
 
 The use, which I have made, by way of quotation, of 
 the extensive Scott correspondence to which I have 
 access, has been very sparing. When from it extracts 
 relating to mere family affairs have been given, they 
 will generally be found to have been called for, in order 
 to correct, with due authority, mistakes which had pre- 
 viously been promulgated. But, as the foregoing letter 
 relates almost exclusively to matters of national interest, 
 I have selected it for publication, as a specimen of Dr. 
 Scott's epistolatory style ; and have deemed it more 
 fair, both towards its writer and reader, to insert it, in 
 spite of its length, without any mutilation. 
 
 But now let us quit matters whether of individual 
 or public anxiety, in order to inquire into the friends,
 
 74 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 the relaxations, and amusements, of Mr. John Scott's 
 private life. 
 
 The question has sometimes been asked, why those, 
 who have supi)lied Mr. Twiss M'ith his private informa- 
 tion, have withheld from him all mention of the asso- 
 ciate and friend of Lord Eldon's youth and age, so well 
 known to the London world, convivial as well as legal, 
 under the name of " Dick Wilson ;" but it would be 
 more serviceable, perhaps, to fill up the deficiency, than 
 to search out its cause. 
 
 The parents of Mr. Wilson were established at a 
 house called Hepscot, near Morpeth, while those of 
 John Scott were, as we know, resident at Newcastle. 
 13etween the boys in each house there was a close in- 
 timacy ; and the children of old Mr. Scott, glad to 
 exchange the thronged streets of the town and the 
 smoke of its neighbourhood for the fresh green fields 
 and rural sports of Hepscot, often visited their country 
 friends. In the succeeding stage of life the two younger 
 sons of their respective families, John Scott and Richard 
 Wilson, were again thrown in contact : for each had 
 come up to London to follow his profession — Scott, 
 ambitious of success as a barrister, and Wilson, with 
 humbler aspirations, limiting his hopes to the realizing 
 of a fortune as an attorney-at-law. Amongst these 
 new scenes the intimacy of their boyhood Avas renewed 
 or continued : and it is presumed it would then not be 
 un])roductive of professional advantage to Scott ; for 
 W^ilson obtained business and wealth. Often would 
 John Scott, after he had attained distinction at the bar, 
 avail himself of the Saturday afternoon, the lawyer's 
 half-holiday, to dine with Dick Wilson ; when he would
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 15 
 
 enjoy his host's jokes and stories, and admirable mimicry 
 of the Northumberland dialect, as well as his port, for 
 a couple of bottles of which neither he nor his brother 
 the Doctor would be the worse. Wilson had humour, 
 observation, versatility, and assurance ; and with such 
 qualifications he could hardly be otherwise than suc- 
 cessful in life. He became a member of parliament ; 
 and was, in spite of his adherence to Whig politics, 
 appointed by his friend Scott, at the commencement 
 of his first Chancellorship, to be one of his secretaries. 
 His useful qualities, whether in the occupations of 
 business or the pursuit of pleasure, became widely 
 acknowledged. The doors of Carlton House were 
 thrown open to him ; and his society was cultivated by 
 the young princes. The Duke of Sussex continued, 
 during the remainder of their joint lives, to keep up an 
 intimacy with him ; and frequently did him the honour 
 to be a guest at his table : but His Royal Highness is 
 believed to have been also his debtor in obligations 
 more diflficult to rejjay than a good dinner. 
 
 Though Mr. John Scott, during the earlier period of 
 his professional career, put a strong restraint upon his 
 naturally convivial disposition, it is clear that he did 
 not absolutely seclude himself from society. To his 
 brother Henry he says, in a letter dated 1st of May, 
 1778, " I see y- Friend Bowes very often, but I dare 
 not dine with him above once in three Months, as there 
 is no getting away before midnight ; and indeed one is 
 sure to be in a Condition in which no Man would wish 
 to be in the Streets at any other Season."' Mr. Bowes 
 delighted in making his guests intoxicated : the 
 device, which he adopted to reduce them to this
 
 7G SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 State, is thus related by one of his biographers:* 
 " Bowes had a practice, which he applied whenever he 
 could, if he wanted to make any part of his company 
 drunk, and as far as I have seen, he was generally suc- 
 cessful. I have known very grave people over whom 
 he has so succeeded. He would appear to be very 
 candid, and to tell his guests they should help them- 
 selves to the spirits which were upon the table, whilst 
 he officiously poured the water to fill up the glasses 
 out of the tea-kettle. All this appeared very fair, but 
 he had instructed his servant to bring in the kettle, 
 with half and half of water and spirits, so that the 
 more his guests were desirous of being sober, the 
 drunker they became." 
 
 It is stated by Mr. Twiss that Lord Eldon was so 
 indilferent to the sweetest warblino:s of Italian sono-. 
 that he humourously declared the Opera House, to him, 
 was " opera atque labores :"t but I could wish that the 
 letter from which is extracted tlie following passage, 
 showing that he was not equally insensible to the 
 triunii)hs of the histrionic art, had fallen into the hands 
 of Mr. Twiss ; since it might, on family grounds, have 
 afforded him a justifiable pleasure and pardonable 
 pride to record the instance by which it is now our lot 
 to illustrate the early admiration for the theatre, enter- 
 tained by the hero of his narrative. 
 
 "You will see," says Mr. John Scott in a letter, 
 
 * Jesse Foot, in his " Lives of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq. 
 and the Countess of Striithmorc," j>. 155. 
 t Twiss, vol. i. p. 70.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 77 
 
 written about December, 1782, "the Papers very full 
 of accounts of a Mrs. Sidaous [sic] a new Actress. 
 She is beyond all Idea capital, I never saw an Actress 
 before. In my Notion of just affecting Action and 
 Elocution, she beats our deceased Roscius all to 
 nothing."* 
 
 When he was a junior in his profession, Mr. John 
 Scott, with his wife, accompanied his eldest brother-in- 
 law, Mr. William Surtees, and his wife, in a tour to 
 the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Whilst the 
 party were at the inn at Keswick, Mrs. Scott became 
 ill. The medical man of the place was superannuated : 
 for him, however, Mr. Scott sent. On his arrival, he 
 begged Mr. Scott to retire, as he wished to question the 
 lady when alone. When Mr. Scott had left the room, 
 he said, " Madame, there is something on your mind. 
 Probably you do not live happily with your husband ? " 
 Mrs. Scott, one of the most attached of wives, unable 
 to bear this, fell into heroics, rang the bell, and ordered 
 the doctor out of the house. 
 
 In the early part of Mr. John Scott's professional 
 life, the health of both his wife and himself, appears 
 to have been very delicate. Of his wife he thus writes 
 
 * It appears from Campbell's " Life of Mrs. Siddons" that about 
 the end of 1782, she received from the legal profession tbe compli- 
 mentary present of a purse of one hundred guineas : and it may be 
 presumed that in the list of subscribers would be found the name of 
 the youthful John Scott. The letter from which I have quoted has 
 neither date nor post-mark. The "deceased Roscius," to which it 
 alludes, is Garrick.
 
 78 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 to his brother Henry, in a letter dated from Carey Street, 
 1st of May, 1778: " You will probably have heard that 
 I mean to have Mrs. Scott and Jack at her Father's 
 wliilst I am upon the Circuit ; they have frequently 
 importuned her to come down, and I think it abso- 
 lutely necessary for her health that she should do so. 
 I shall come with her as far as York, where she will 
 leave me till the Newcastle Assizes." Respecting his 
 own health, the following extract occurs in a letter 
 which John Scott addressed to his brother Henry on 
 the 2nd of February, 1781 : " You will easily believe 
 that I could have no Motive for not writing to you ex- 
 cept such as is perfectly consistent with the Affection 
 I have for you. The Truth is, I have been and am so 
 much indisposed that I have scarce Spirits to write to 
 any body : and I feel a great deal of Unwillingness to 
 trouble those I love with Complaints which it does 
 them as little Good to hear as it does me to make. I 
 have been plagued dreadfully with Giddiness and 
 Swimming in my Head, which quite unman me ; and I 
 am now going through the drudgery of what little 
 Business I can do with blisters on the Outside of mo 
 and enormous Quantities of Medicine in the Inside " 
 
 And now reverting from the private pains and plea- 
 sures of life to its active business, we find that Mr. 
 John Scott had surmounted all those impediments that 
 obstruct the start and earlier advances at the critical com- 
 mencement of a professional course. With the increasing 
 demands which were made upon their latent powers, 
 his constitution strengthened, and his genius expanded. 
 His ambition, too, advanced with the like progression ; 
 for one success is the pioneer to another. And he,
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 79 
 
 whose aspiring liopes had lately been bounded by the 
 recordership of his native town, now disdained the 
 dignity of king's counsel, if a precedence were given to 
 his junior, though that junior was Mr. Erskine, the son 
 of a peer, and the most accomplished orator of the 
 English bar. Mr. Scott was firm ; tlie ministers 
 yielded: and in May, 1783, he took his place as a 
 king's counsel, with that precedence which he had so 
 spiritedly vindicated. 
 
 A seat in parliament appeared early to each of the 
 brothers a desirable object. But before we see them 
 placed in a position to take a share in the direction of 
 public affairs, it may be interesting to learn what had 
 been their opinions on the American war, the leading 
 national event of their earlier manhood, and on the 
 conduct of some of those who were most conspicuous 
 whether in its support or opposition. Such ojiinions 
 may have their use as contemporaneous indexes to the 
 impressions made, by the conduct of their rulers, on 
 other well-informed men, unconnected with party 
 politics. But it is more than ordinarily curious to read 
 how the youngest Scott, hereafter destined to be so long 
 a cabinet minister both in war and peace, expressed 
 himself thus early upon a question calculated to disclose 
 his views both of national spirit and constitutional 
 justice. 
 
 In a letter, having the post-mark of 1 1 th of Decem- 
 ber, and written in 1777 to his brother Henry, William 
 Scott thus speaks of his own feelings and those of Mr. 
 and Mrs. John Scott, on receiving intelligence of the 
 surrender of General Burgoyne and his army to the 
 American General Yates, and adds a passing comment
 
 80 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 on the political incapacity of Lord North's administra- 
 tion. " You could not be more deeply concerned for 
 the fate of the gallant Burg-oye than were your two 
 brothers and your sister : We mingled our Tears for 
 two Days together, being English Folks of the old 
 Stamp, and retaining, in spite of modern Patriotism, 
 some affection and Reverence for the name of old 
 England. All People here whose Hearts lie in the 
 same direction, are extremely concerned. It is totally 
 unknown even to themselves, what the Ministry will 
 do : I think they want common sense and common 
 spirit as much as the Minority wants common 
 Honesty." 
 
 On the 27th of January, in the following year, 
 William Scott, thus, from London, addresses the same 
 brother : " The Political world is in great Fluctuation, 
 [but] I do not apprehend from any thing that I can 
 [hear] that Lord Chatham is likely to occupy the Place 
 you mention, or that his Friends will obtain any Places 
 at all. The King is reported to be very determined 
 about the War, and consequently about employing none 
 but such as are inclined to support it. Lord Cornwallis 
 has brought over no news relative to a Pacification or 
 a Conquest, one of which is the only Event that can 
 give an Englishman Pleasure. An Inquiry will be 
 made soon in Parliament about the Miscarriage of 
 Burgoyne, which will terminate in his Disgrace or that 
 of L. G. Germaine,* whom the Ministry are inclined to 
 
 * Lord George Germaine, afterwards, by creation, Viscount Sack- 
 ville, the Secretary of State for our American colonics.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 81 
 
 support in preference/' But a few days later, on tlie 
 12th of February, he recurs to Lord Chatham, and 
 writes to his brother, that he " may depend upon it as 
 authenticated fact the Minority consider Lord Chatham 
 as having totally quitted them." 
 
 In another letter, written also in 1778, and pro- 
 bably* posted on the oOth of February, he mentions 
 the impending- war with France, and again alludes to 
 Lord Chatham, as follows ; " There is a strong Report 
 that Lord Chatham will come in ; but it continues all 
 dark and gloomy. Why they Delay a Declaration of 
 War I do not know ; it seems to be no Manner of 
 Doubt that a War lu'ill and must take Place. For 
 my own Part I am sick of Politics — there is so much 
 Folly on the Part of Ministers, and so much villany on 
 [the] other side, under the Cloak of Patriotism, [that] 
 an Honest man has nothing to d[o but to lam]ent the 
 Fate of his Country, and butter his own Bread as well 
 as he can. And I hope you take care to do so." 
 
 This letter was addressed by William Scott to his 
 brother Henry, only a little more than a month before 
 the great and venerable statesman to whom it refers, 
 ended his oratorical triumphs and his life, in declaiming 
 against " the dismemberment of this ancient and most 
 noble monarchy." 
 
 In four years from the period just alluded to, the 
 disastrous ministry of Lord North was compelled to 
 retire. The Whigs, under the Marquis of Rockingham, 
 succeeded it : but their ostensible chief, within a few 
 months, dropping into the grave, their party became 
 
 * The post-mark of this letter is not distinctly legible. 
 
 G
 
 82 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 disunited ; and tbc Etui of Shelburno, already a 
 minister, was raised to the head of a dwindling and 
 heterogeneously formed cabinet. 
 
 The brief authority of the last-named premier is thus 
 foreboded in a letter from Mr. John Seott, written 
 about the month of December,* 1782: "We seem 
 here to think that Charles Fox can't get in again, and 
 that Lord Shelburne cannot keep in, and that Lord 
 North may rule the Roast again whenever he pleases. 
 As to Peace," continues the letter, " we are in fifty 
 difterent stories in a day. I own I cannot bring my 
 proud heart down to yield Gibraltar, nor is absolute 
 unconditional American Independence a bit more 
 agreeable to my Ears and feelings than absolute un- 
 conditional American Submission was — I like the lan- 
 guage of Lord North,! better than that of any other 
 Man or Set of Men in the house upon the subject of 
 Peace: all parties but his seem to be struggling 
 who can give up most of the old Rights of Old 
 England." 
 
 Unconditional American independence was, how- 
 ever, acknowledged : and the Shelburne cabinet then 
 fell before the North and Fox coalition, which under 
 the name of the Portland administration, forced itself 
 upon the king and country. 
 
 But, passing from the opinions entertained by the 
 Scotts upon the conduct of public men, and the course 
 
 * It is in the same letter in which eulogistic mention is made of 
 *' a Mrs. Siddons, a new Actress." 
 
 t For an abstract of his speech, made in the early part of Decem- 
 ber, see Adolphus' Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 444, last edition.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDOX. 83 
 
 of public events, let us now return to their own 
 careers. 
 
 So early as 1780, on a vacancy occurring in the re- 
 presentation of the University of Oxford, the ambition 
 of Dr. Scott, or the zeal of his friends, ventured to 
 hope that he might then be selected to fill it : but his 
 claims to this distinction were, for the present, post- 
 poned to those of an older candidate. Four years later. 
 Dr. Scott was returned for the borough of Downton, 
 but unseated on petition: in 1790, however, being 
 again elected for the same borough, he kept his seat. 
 
 Shortly after Mr. John Scott had, to use professional 
 language, " taken silk," death created a vacancy in the 
 representation of Lord Weymouth's close borough of 
 Weobly : and Mr. John Scott, in consequence of an 
 unsolicited application made by Lord Thurlow to its 
 patron, was elected the new member. 
 
 To those who should close their eyes to the course 
 of the brothers during the concluding part of the 
 eighteenth century, a change would present itself, on 
 again regarding them, as great as that which awaited 
 Endymion, when, aroused from his spell-bound slumber, 
 he found the twig, on which he had leaned, had become 
 a tree : for the one brother would in the meantime 
 have been constituted a privy-counsellor and judge of 
 the High Court of Admiralty, and the other a peer and 
 chief-justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Yet of 
 that interval I shall say but little. During it, much of 
 William Scott's life was too uniform to supply ma- 
 terials to the biographer; and much of John Scott's 
 was so public, as to be the province rather of the his- 
 torian. Nor, indeed, as regards this period, am I pos- 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SKETCTI OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 sessed of the means of making many important addi- 
 tions to the labours of Mr. Twiss and Mr. Town- 
 send.* 
 
 Fox's India Bill was the cheval de hataiUe of the 
 Portland administration ; and against its side John 
 Scott broke his maiden lance. His speech on the first 
 reading, though in opposition, was hesitating and du- 
 bious, and asked time for consideration : that on the 
 third, unequivocal and unflinching. The latter speech, 
 how^ever, was laboured and pedantic : and in it, if not 
 resembling Falstaff, in being witty himself, Scott re- 
 sembled him in being the cause of wit in others; for 
 Sheridan turned it into infinite ridicule. The bill was 
 rejected by the House of Lords, and with it expired 
 the ministry which had given it birth. 
 
 In extenuation of Mr. Scott's oratorical enormities, 
 it should be remembered that the old law writers, to 
 whom, since leaving Oxford, he had devoted himself, 
 form but a poor school for either elegance of diction, 
 or purity of taste ; and, therefore, that the woful de- 
 terioration from the days of the Oxford prize essay 
 should be, in part at any rate, attributed to the evil 
 connnunications of the quaint old company in which he 
 had so often burnt the midnight lamp. 
 
 But, unlike the Coalition administration, he, if he 
 fell here, fell to rise again; and, clarior e Jiammis, was 
 all the better for the roasting he had got. His future 
 
 * The Life of Lord Stowell in No. XXXI IL oHheLmv Magazine, 
 and four able articles on the Life of Lord Eldon, by the same hand, 
 commencing in No. XLL of the same periodical, and continued 
 in the succeeding numbers.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 85 
 
 speeches became conspicuous, not indeed for rhetorical 
 brilliancy, but for subtle reasoning, sound law, and 
 sterling sense. 
 
 Mr. Scott's business at the equity bar increased so 
 rapidly, that before the year 1787* he had found it 
 expedient to relinquish the eastern half of the Northern 
 Circuit, and, indeed, had restricted his attendance to 
 Lancaster. 
 
 In the House of Commons, he gave a general, 
 though independent, supjjort to the ministry of Mr. 
 Pitt, which had succeeded that of the Duke of 
 Portland, and by it was, in 1788, rewarded by the ap- 
 pointment of solicitor-general. 
 
 The close of this year is painfully memorable from 
 the mental malady of George III. ; and from the fac- 
 tions it engendered in his family and his Parliament. 
 Pitt now moved and carried a series of resolutions on 
 the state of the king and the delegation of his au- 
 thority ; which were, for the most part, highly unpala- 
 table to the young Prince of Wales and his Whig 
 associates. In favor of these resolutions, the new 
 solicitor-genera], the friend of Chancellor Thurlow, 
 spoke, as from his office bound : but I have heard 
 that one of his speeches on this occasion (presumed 
 to be the first) was regarded by the ministerial side 
 as too complimentary to the opposition ; and ridiculed 
 by the opposition for its prominent allusions to himself, 
 
 * Lord Brougham states that before Mr. Justice (James Allan) 
 Park joined the Northern Circuit, Scott had given up all the circuit 
 towns except Lancaster ; and from Mr. Raiucock's hst it appears 
 that Park joined it in 1/87.
 
 86 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 his conscience, and his God. From a cautiously worded 
 parai>rai)h transferred from Lord Eldon's anecdote book 
 to the first vokmie of I\Ir. Twiss's Avork,* it ai)pears 
 " that it was the opinion of many of the king's friends 
 that it was very desirable, for the king's sake, that 
 Lord Tliurlow should continue Chancellor, however the 
 Regency administration might be composed." It might, 
 also, possibly have occurred to the solicitor-general, at 
 the commencement of the regency debate, that it was 
 very desirable, for the king's sake, that the solicitor- 
 general as well should continue to hold office, in spite 
 of the changes that were anticipated. The people, how- 
 ever, were soon found to sympathise with the smitten 
 monarch, and sided with his favoured minister : while 
 at the same time the royal physicians held out increas- 
 ing hopes of the speedy recovery of their patient. And, 
 if Scott's later speech, of the ]Dth of January,! 1789, 
 has a fault, it certainly is not that of taking too chari- 
 table a view of the conduct or motives of the Whig 
 minority. The Regency bill, which in this spring was 
 introduced, has been said to have been drawn by the 
 solicitor-o-eneral : and there is no doubt that the course 
 which he then adopted, exposed him to the hatred of 
 the prince ; but covered him with the gratitude of the 
 king, who was restored to himself and his people before 
 the bill became a law. 
 
 Sir John Scott (for on his appointment to the 
 solicitor-generalship he had undergone the, to hini, dis- 
 tasteful honour of knighthood) was in 1793 advanced 
 
 * Ch. ix. p. 197. 
 
 t Parliamentary History, vol. xxv., p. 1023.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 87 
 
 to the office of attorney-general ; and on him, there- 
 fore, devolved the most prominent part in the prose- 
 cutions for treason,* undertaken ao-ainst the British 
 sympathisers with French republicanism. 
 
 His opening speech on the trial of Hardy occupied 
 nine hours, but did not exhaust him : When he resu- 
 med his seat, he was still fresh — a striking proof of the 
 improvement which his constitution had of late years 
 received. At the conclusion of the prosecution, Mitford, 
 the solicitor-general, made the reply, and fainted in the 
 course of his address. Scott, not long afterwards, said 
 the evidence was, in his opinion, so nicely balanced, 
 that, had he himself been on the jury, he did not know 
 what verdict he should have given. The succeeding 
 trial for high treason, that of Home Tooke, ended, as 
 this had done, with an acquittal. When it Avas over, 
 the reverend philologist is said to have waggishly de- 
 clared that he would plead guilty, if it should be his 
 misfortune to be tried again for high treason, as he con- 
 sidered hanging preferable to the long speeches of Sir 
 John Scott. 
 
 In the summer of 1799, the office of Chief Justice 
 of the Court of Common Pleas became vacant ; and the 
 claim of the attorney-general to fill it could not be 
 gainsaid. On receiving it, he, of course, had to retire 
 from the House of Commons, where he had sat for 
 seventeen years ; but w^as raised to the House of Lords 
 by the title of Baron Eldon. 
 
 * One of the most iuterestiug passages iii Mr. T^\iss's work is 
 Lord Eldon' s justification of the course pursued by government in 
 these trials. — See vol. i., p. 282.
 
 88 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 His brother, Dr. Scott, if in the meantime less con- 
 spicuous, had been hardly less successful. In 1788, he 
 had been constituted by the Bishop of London judge of 
 his Consistory Court, and had received from the crown 
 the appointment of its advocate-general. The latter 
 office bears, in the courts at Doctors' Commons, a 
 strong analogy to that of attorney-general in those at 
 Westminster. In time of war it is very lucrative ; and 
 Mr. Townsend states, that during the great French 
 war its fortunate holder sometimes received in the 
 prize causes adjudicated in the Court of Admiralty as 
 much as 1000/. a case, in fees and perquisites. On 
 this promotion he was knighted. The same year had 
 seen him appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 his vicar-general, or official principal; in right of 
 which he received fees on grants of marriage licenses, 
 a fact to which a humorous allusion is made by the 
 poet Moore : — 
 
 Sir William Scott (now Baron Stowell) 
 
 Declares not half so much is made 
 By licenses — and he must know well — 
 
 Since vile Quadrilling spoil'd the trade.* 
 
 Within the succeeding two years the same j)atronage 
 conferred u])On him the office of masterf of the facul- 
 ties ; and in 1798 he was nominated judge of the 
 High Court of Admiralty — the highest dignity of the 
 courts at Doctors' Commons. 
 
 Thus have we, throughout this chapter, seen the two 
 
 * Country-dance and Quadrille. 
 
 t For an explanation of the nature of these various appointnients, 
 the unprofessional reader is referred to the fourth part of Coke's 
 " Institutes."
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 89 
 
 brothers, in o-eneroiis emulation, and now with alternate, 
 now corresponding-, success, press onward to the sum- 
 mits of their respective professions. 
 
 Et nunc Pristis habet, nunc victam prseterit ingens 
 Centaurus : nunc una ambse junctisque feruntur 
 Frontibus, et longa sulcant vada salsa carina. 
 Janique propinquabant scopulo, meljtauique tenebant.
 
 1)0 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The heart of old Mrs. Scott, which, towards the 
 close of the eighteenth century, had throbbed with all 
 a mother's pride at the successive recitals that her son 
 William had been made judge of the High Court of 
 Admiralty, and her son John a peer and Chief Justice 
 of the Common Pleas, was saddened, ere the new cen- 
 tury commenced, by the death of her son Henry, the 
 letters to whom have hitherto aftbrded such valuable 
 expositions of the feelings and opinions of his distin- 
 guished brothers. 
 
 Two brothers only were now left ; of whom each 
 Avas destined shortly to attain additional honours. The 
 elder in March 1801 was elected member for the 
 university of Oxford. With the history of the younger 
 we shall now proceed ; and we shall find Lord Eldon 
 henceforward applying to princes and to cabinets that 
 tact and practical knowledge of the world, which he 
 had early acquired in the courts of common law ; where, 
 in the conduct of his profession, he had to weigh con- 
 flicting evidence, to estimate op])osing probabilities, to
 
 LORDS STOW ELL AND ELDON. 91 
 
 dive into hidden motives, to see tlirough the cloud of 
 obscurity into which human interests and passions in- 
 volve the truth, and then, rejecting what was falsely 
 stated, divining what was insidiously concealed, to apply 
 boldly yet watchfully the results of his penetration and 
 judgment, and to address his statements, his jokes, and 
 his arguments, to the apprehension, the prejudices, the 
 reason, and the various and varying tempers of the 
 jury, and the bench. 
 
 In February, 1801, the ministry of Mr. Pitt was 
 succeeded by that of Mr. Addington. As a part of the 
 new arrangement. Lord Eldon exchanged the perma- 
 nent and comparatively easy office of presiding over the 
 Court of Common Pleas for the precarious and laborious 
 dignity of the Wool Sack. The circumstances of this 
 promotion shall hereafter be discussed. 
 
 The reader will not yet have forgotten that the first 
 parliamentary brief, which Lord Eldon received after 
 his call to the bar, was one on the petition of Mr. Bowes* 
 against his successful rival in the contest for the repre- 
 sentation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Since then, Bowes, 
 a dishonored gambler and libertine, had spent much of 
 his time in the King's Bench prison. He had entered 
 into a Chancery suit respecting property with Lady 
 Strathmore, the wife from whom he had been divorced ; 
 and, after her death, had continued the litigation 
 against her executors. Rising by prudence and perse- 
 verance in inverse proportion to that in which Bowes 
 sunk by the want of these qualities, John Scott, 
 as Lord Chancellor Eldon, was called upon, not long 
 
 * See chapter II.
 
 1)2 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 after his elevation, to adjudicate upon tlie claim of his 
 early patron : and now, in the altered position in which 
 they Avere placed, the former counsel of Mr. Bowes, 
 " fi'om motives of the nicest delicacy, called the Master 
 of the Rolls, Sir William Grant to be present with him 
 during- the hearing of this cause." * 
 
 The peace of Amiens M'as the most important, iff 
 not the most approved, measure of the new cabinet. 
 Its preliminaries were settled in the autumn of 1801 
 on the responsibility, of course, of the existing minis- 
 ters ; but under the advice and management of the 
 ex-minister Pitt.; Several members of the cabinet 
 were " rather against peace," and amongst these dis- 
 sentients was, according to Lord Malmesbury,§ the 
 Lord Chancellor Eldon. If this allegation be true, 
 
 * Jesse Foote's Lives of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq. and the 
 Coimtess •£ Strathmore, p. 1.58. 
 
 f When the prehminaries of this peace were beginning to be dis- 
 cussed. Lord Eldon mentioned to a friend that Pitt had said he would 
 support the peace heart and hand. " But," stated his lordship, 
 " Lord Melville is against us, Windham is against us," and then 
 added, with a smile, " and my son John is against us." 
 
 With a mind of considerable cultivation, the delicate fabric of 
 which was highly susceptible of the impression of classic grace and 
 beauty, INIr. John Scott, the eldest son of the chancellor, was an 
 enthusiastic admirer of William Windham, whose intellect had full 
 as much of i)olish as of power ; and whose speech, subsequently 
 delivered against this very treaty, deserves to be ranked amongst the 
 most finished specimens of eloquence in the English language. The 
 life of Mr. John Scott was -not long granted to the afl'ectiou of his 
 friends and the idolatry of his parents. He died in December, 1805, 
 at the age of thirty-one years. 
 
 X Lord Malmesbury's Diaries, vol. iv., p. 59. 
 
 § Idem, p. GO.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 93 
 
 there seems to be a difficulty in accounting for the 
 language -which the chancellor subsequently adopted ; 
 for in an ensuing debate he is found in parliament, not 
 only defending the preliminaries of the peace with the 
 ordinary zeal of a minister, but authoritatively claiming 
 them as his own special progeny. Perha])s he was 
 hurried away by party exigencies or excitement : })er- 
 haps his practised sagacity suggested to him that the 
 surest mode to obtain a commanding influence was to 
 assume the appearance of possessing it. 
 
 The chancellor stated, " He was firmly persuaded 
 that the war had been carried on until it became hope- 
 less to proceed any further. Tt was undertaken to 
 guard the country against the effects of principles and 
 practices which had been propagated and carried on by 
 persons combined for the purpose of overturning the 
 constitution. With this object in view, the war was 
 attended with success ; because those principles no 
 longer existed to any extent that could be attended 
 with danger. In advising his majesty to make peace he 
 would perish sooner than he would sacrifice any of the 
 essential interests of the country; but, when he said 
 that, he must not be understood to vapour in praise of 
 the peace as if it was a very honourable one. His 
 principal object had been the attainment of a secure 
 and lasting peace, and the former ministers had often 
 declared that they had no other object in view." * 
 
 The reader will have observed that the lanoruaofe 
 
 * " Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol, xxxvi., p. 1/1. The 
 speech quoted was made November 3, 1801, in answer to one from 
 Lord Grenville.
 
 94 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 originally used has not been " owr," but " my, principal 
 object," and may perhaps consider the tone adopted to 
 be that of a prime minister. 
 
 The spread of the democratic spirit of France had, 
 indeed, been checked ; but not her ambition for terri- 
 torial aggrandisement. The peace of Amiens proved 
 little more than an armistice ; and England was speed- 
 ily ])lunged again in a war with her continental rival. 
 Mr. Addington then found that his government had 
 not vigour for the mighty struggle ; and, after having 
 sought the accession of Mr. Pitt as his coadjutor, but 
 on terms with which that statesman would not comply, 
 commenced making overtures to some of the Whines.* 
 Before long the antagonist influences of Pitt and Fox 
 arrived at a portentous conjunction, which might well 
 be deemed to threaten a disastrous and violent dissolu- 
 tion to the ministry of Addington. But while he was 
 thus beating about for recruits, by means of whom to 
 oppose this formidable confederacy, the official existence 
 of Mr. Addington was terminated, in May, 1804, in 
 consequence of a secret negociation between Lord 
 Eldon and Mr. Pitt, to which the king, latterly at any 
 rate, had been a party. Pitt resumed office as prime 
 minister ; but he could not prevail on his majesty to 
 admit his now ally, Fox, to his counsels, or on Lord 
 Grenville to join an administration from which Fox 
 was excluded. Lord Eldon continued to hold the 
 Great Seal. 
 
 * In the early part of 1804, Addington offered the attorney -gene- 
 ralship to Erskine. " Moore's Life of Sheridan," vol. ii. p. .S23. 
 See also p. 324. 
 
 8
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 95 
 
 And here, perhaps, I may conveniently allude to 
 a heavy accusation, brought in strong language, against 
 the chancellor. 
 
 " Not once, but repeatedly, not in one, but in various 
 forms. Lord Eldon," according to a writer in the Laio 
 Review,^ " would represent his acceptance of the Great 
 Seal as forced upon him, as not according with his own 
 inclination, as only occasioned by a promise which he 
 had given to George III., when he was raised to the 
 office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Now," 
 adds the reviewer from whom I am quoting, " there 
 is a positive certainty that this cannot be an honest 
 representation of the fact." The article then proceeds 
 to charge Lord Eldon with availing himself of little 
 more than ordinary expressions of royal favour — such, 
 indeed, in some instances, as had been subsequently 
 used by William IV. to Lord Chancellor Brougham — 
 to represent that he owed his appointment entirely to 
 George III. in contra-distinction to Mr. Addington, 
 and to establish a " wary and subtle distinction between 
 the king's chancellor and a premier's colleague ;"t that 
 thus he might, under the plea of his paramount duties 
 in the former capacity, be defended against the accu- 
 sation of having betrayed the ministry whilst sitting at 
 its council-board — of acting the part of the treacherous 
 ally who opened the gate of the citadel to the enemy, 
 while his comrades slept. 
 
 This charge deserves the more notice, because it has 
 been attributed^ to the pen, hardly less eloquent than 
 
 * Vol. i, ch. xii. p. 256. f Vol i. ch. xii. p. 261. 
 
 :|: In a note to the sketch of Lord Eldon in Lord Brougham's his-
 
 96 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 the tongue of " the most eloquent of living men ;" and 
 because its presumed author, himself at one time in- 
 vested with the dignity of chancellor, must have been 
 well aware how great was the treachery and falsehood, 
 how doubly tangled the web of deceit, with weaving 
 which he has accused one, certainly not the least dis- 
 tinguished, of his own predecessors. 
 
 It must be admitted that this charge seems, in some 
 parts, not absolutely without foundation ; but, even in 
 these there are circumstances of extenuation which 
 should have, but have not, been stated. 
 
 Lord Eldon's repeated assertions, that the office of 
 chancellor was rather shunned than courted by him, 
 that he consented, contrary to liis own inclination, to 
 accept it, appears at first not unsupported by proba- 
 bility. His prudent character, his far-sighted intellect 
 might have led him to prefer a permanent situation, 
 for which he was eminently qualified, to one, indeed, of 
 greater emolument, patronage, and dignity, but from 
 which the chances of party warfare, or the death or re- 
 newed insanity of the king, would, in all probability, 
 speedily dismiss him to a hojieless banishment in the 
 " cheerless barren regions of opposition." That Lord 
 Eldon's declarations were strictly true, that his am- 
 bition was thus modified and restrained, it did not — 
 I confess my simplicity — once enter into my head to 
 
 torical sketches (Knight's weekly volume), his lordship has referred 
 his reader for further information to the article from which I have 
 been quoting ; and that, without any disclaimer of its authorship, 
 though he must have known it was attributed to him : I shall be 
 excused, then, if I treat it as his.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 97 
 
 question, till, opening the second volume of Mr. Twiss, 
 I found that, after having, during his exclusion from 
 office, whilst the ministry of " the talents" was in power, 
 exerted his best efforts to reorganize and invigorate tlie 
 opposition,* whose victory would restore him to the 
 Wool Sack, he again celebrated his elevation to office, 
 when it actually arrived, in dirges instead of peans ; 
 writing to Dr. Ridley, that " the death of his friend 
 Mr. Pitt, the loss of his poor dear John, the anguish of 
 mind in which he ever has been, and ever must be, 
 when that loss occurs to him ; these have extinguished 
 all ambition :"t and assuring Dr. Swire, " that the 
 world should not have induced him to take the seal 
 again, if the king's commands had been of such a 
 nature as to leave him any choice. "| The credibility, 
 then, of both statements, candour must compel us to 
 give up ; but in assigning a motive for the former of 
 these, we may well differ from the reviewer alluded to. 
 As, in the latter case, there seems to have been no 
 important object to be gained by a disingenuous asser- 
 tion, it is not unreasonable to presume that there was 
 none contemplated in the former. The reiterated attempts 
 to represent the highest honours of his life as to him 
 only grievous incumbrances, forced upon his reluctant 
 acceptance, were, in all probability, the mere result of 
 that inveterate habit of canting, which, whether origi- 
 nally caught from the examj^le of his old schoolmaster, 
 
 * See Lord Eldon's letter to Lord Melville. Twiss, vol. ii, 
 c. xxiii. p. 18. 
 
 f Twiss's Eldon, vol. ii., c. xxiv. p. 31. 
 X Idem, p. 34. 
 
 H
 
 98 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Dr. Moises, or adopted to acquire admiration or disarm 
 envy, disfigured and degraded a character in Mliich 
 there was much to admire and to love. 
 
 From that part of Lord Eklon's statement which re- 
 fers more immediately to himself, let us now pass to 
 that in which his majesty is most prominent. 
 
 The naked fact that the king, on appointing Lord 
 Eldon to the chief-justiceship, did ask him to " promise 
 not to refuse the Great Seal when he might call upon 
 him to accept it,"* seems to have been admitted by the 
 reviewer : but that this was a mere common form of 
 kingly condescension, — the unmeaning persiflage of 
 courtly comjoliment, which could hardly have been 
 uttered, and could not be narrated, with gravity, — a 
 consideration of the circumstances of the times, includ- 
 ing the expectations of Ireland, the intentions of the 
 leaders of both parties, and the conscientious scruples 
 of the king, will afford no ground to support. 
 
 I must now throw myself upon the indulgence of the 
 reader, while I glance at a few facts respecting the 
 conduct of George IIL, Mr. Pitt, and Lord Eldon, in 
 regard to the " Catholic Question." 
 
 His majesty having heard that Lord Fitzwilliam, 
 then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was, with the autho- 
 rity of his office, sanctioning the agitation of measures 
 " in favour of the papists" (such is the royal language), 
 wrote on the 7th of May, 1795, to Lord Kenyon, the 
 Chief Justice of the King's Bench, to ask his opinion 
 resp ecting " the question" which he considered " had 
 been so improperly patronized by the lord lieutenant ;" 
 
 * Twiss's Eldon, vol. i,, c. xv., p. 331.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 00 
 
 and added that he should be glad if the chief justice 
 "would also acquire the sentiments of the attorney- 
 general on that most serious subject."* The attorney- 
 general was then Sir John Scott : but I have not ob- 
 served that his connexion with this remarkable corres- 
 pondence has been noticed in any of the biographies of 
 Lord Eldon which have yet appeared. 
 
 Lord Kenyon, it is clear from his answer, agreed 
 with the king in considering that the coronation oath 
 was binding uj^on tlie conscience of the sovereign in 
 his legislative as well as in liis executive capacity; for 
 he said " to overthrow the church establishment, as he 
 (Lord Kenyon) had then stated it, would, as it seemed, 
 militate asrainst the coronation oath, as settled in the 
 statute I. William and Mary, and the act of union 
 (with Scotland) and contravene an essential and funda- 
 mental part of the act of union." He added that 
 " though the test act appeared to be a very wise law, 
 and in point of sound policy not to be departed from, 
 yet it seemed that it might be repealed or altered 
 without any breach of the coronation oath, or act of 
 union." And in answer to his majesty's particular in- 
 quirv, he declared that, " it would seem that a chan- 
 cellor would incur great risk by affixing the Great Seal 
 
 * Correspondence of George III. with Lord Kenyon in 1795, and 
 with Pitt in 1801, on the subject of concessions to the Roman 
 Cathohcs, published in 1827. It is to be remarked that it is men- 
 tioned in Mr. Twiss's work (vol, i. p. 361) that Lord Eldon unsuc- 
 cessfully attempted to stop the publication of the Pitt correspon- 
 dence ; but I have not there observed any allusion to Lord Eldon' s 
 original connexion with the correspondence between the King and 
 Lord Kenyon. 
 
 h2
 
 100 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 to a bill giving the pope a concurrent ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction with the king." He stated, too, that " he 
 had conferred with the attorney-general, and believed 
 there was not any difference of opinion between them." 
 
 What, then, can be more probable than that the 
 king, seeing the accession of support to his own views 
 to be acquired by placing in the cabinet a chancellor 
 with such pre-ascertained sentiments, should have from 
 that time determined that the attorney-general should 
 eventually succeed to the Great Seal ? What more 
 natural than that a king, entertaining such a project, 
 and notoriously persevering in all projects which he 
 had once entertained, should, on raising that attorney- 
 general to a peerage and chief-justiceship, dread lest his 
 intended coadjutor, released from his heavier toils, 
 should reject higher but more precarious preferment ; 
 and hence seriously extort from him a promise not to 
 disappoint his cherished expectations ? 
 
 And here let us pause to reflect upon a remarkable 
 coincidence. Neither was the repeal of the Test Act 
 effected, nor the Catholic Emancipation Act passed, 
 till Lord Eldon had finally relinquished the Great Seal ; 
 but both these measures, which characterised the reiirn 
 of George IV., were deferred till the chancellorship of 
 his successor. Lord Lyndlmrst. 
 
 Previously to the passing of the act of union with 
 Ireland, Mr. Pitt had suffered his own desire to be pro- 
 mulgated through that country, that this ministerial 
 measure should be followed by another removing the 
 disabilities from Roman Catholics. His intention also 
 was to substitute for the sacramental test an oath of
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 101 
 
 iillegiance to the king and constitution.* Tims would 
 he throughout the empire have admitted all dissenters 
 to the privileges of office ; and the adherents of the 
 Ciiurch of Rome to parliament, from which they were 
 the only sect now excluded. The Roman Catholic priests, 
 too, in Ireland, were under conditions, to have received 
 some payment from the national purse.f But, when after 
 the union with Ireland, Mr. Pitt found the mind of the 
 king unalterably prepossessed against his proposals, he, 
 together with several of his friends, withdrew from the 
 administration ; and, in February, 1801, Mr. Addington 
 succeeded him at the helm of government. Lord Eldon 
 on this occasion accepted the chancellorship. 
 
 In allowing the resignation of Pitt rather than con- 
 cede to his requirements, the king had made a great 
 sacrifice of his personal attachments to his conscientious 
 opinions. He was now attacked by a feverish disorder ; 
 and his mind was for a short time affected. In the 
 early part of March, when somewhat convalescent, his 
 majesty desired one of the Messrs. Willis, his medical 
 attendants, to write or sj^eak to Pitt. " Tell him," 
 said the king, " I am now quite well, quite recovered 
 from my illness ; but what has he not to answer for 
 who is the cause of my having been ill at all !" 
 
 This communication affected Pitt deeply : he imme- 
 diately wrote an answer " most dutiful, humble, and 
 contrite," in which he promised he would henceforward 
 "give up the Catholic question."^ Lord Eldon had 
 
 '^- Lord Mahnesbury's Diaries, vol. iv., p. 1. 
 
 f Correspondence of George III., p. 32. 
 
 I Diaries of the Earl of Malmesbury, vol. iv., pj». 31, 32.
 
 102 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 originally accepted the Great Seal ^vitll the approba- 
 tion* of Pitt, with whom he appears to have continued 
 on friendly intercourse ; he, therefore, ])robably, had 
 been all along anxious that Pitt should return to a 
 connexion with government, especially since he must 
 have been acquainted with the concession which the 
 ex-minister was now willing to make to the wishes 
 of the king. But, with the increasing exigences of 
 the state, increased the hostility of the former friends 
 Pitt and Addington. The commencement of 1804 was 
 rendered still more gloomy by the king suffering some 
 return of his old mental malady ; wdiilst at the same 
 time the ministerial ranks in parliament were daily 
 diminished by desertions to the opposition. In this 
 emergency we find the chancellor, unknown to his col- 
 leagues, volunteering, on the 20th of March, a commu- 
 nication to Mr. Pitt ; on which the latter writes to say 
 he will " put him confidentially in full jiossession of all 
 the sentiments and opinions by which his conduct will 
 be regulated ;f and we find the same minister, a little 
 later, becoming the medium of intercourse, through 
 which Mr. Pitt, still in opposition, communicates with 
 the king. 
 
 In the extraordinary, and indeed unprecedented, cir- 
 cumstances of the times, the chancellor's conduct will 
 certainly find a justification or an excuse. Mr. Wilber- 
 force, wdio was intimate with both Pitt and Lord Eldon, 
 and who was aware of the negociation whilst it was 
 pending, writes, after conversing with Lord Eldon, 
 that "his sentiments and language did him the highest 
 
 * Twiss's Eldon, vol. ii., c xxiii., p. 17. 
 j" Twiss, vol. i., ch. xix. p. 438.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 103 
 
 honour."* Acquitting, then, the chancellor, as we are 
 here bound to acquit him, of all base, all interested 
 motives, yet we must admit that, however the debili- 
 tated energies of the country might demand that some 
 change shoukl be wrought suddenly, however the 
 tottering mind of the king might require that the 
 change should be wrought quietly, still it would have 
 been more analogous to the ordinary principles and 
 common conduct of gentlemen, if he had himself re- 
 tired from the ministry, when he considered it too weak 
 to serve the country efficiently, before he entered into 
 a secret negociation, which might end, as it did end, in 
 its subversion. 
 
 And now we will take a passing glance at the newly- 
 returned premier. And here it may be stated that Pitt 
 had been originally most desirous to avoid the anti- 
 revolutionary war with France, — so much so, indeed, 
 that Lord Eldon has, in private conversation, said of 
 him, that in no other matter did he so much question 
 his judgment, as in his unwillingness to enter into it. 
 The great minister shrunk from bringing this country 
 into collision with the unknown but expanding energies 
 of the young republic. Still, there can be no doubt 
 that when war was once adopted, and when, after 
 its temporary cessation, it was again rekindled, he ap- 
 plied all the vast resources of his mind to organize 
 Europe against the common aggressor. 
 
 In this, Pitt's last and brief administration, his zeal 
 taxed too heavily the powers of his frame. His con- 
 
 * Letter from Mr. Wilberforce to Lord Muncaster, dated May 1, 
 1804. See the Life of Wilberforce, vol. iii., p. 156. 
 
 10
 
 104 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 stitutioii was prematurely worn out by incessant labour, 
 and his spirit broken by the successive disa})i)ointments 
 of all his plans for resistance to France upon the con- 
 tinent. Scarcely had his hopes begun to revive through 
 the glorious victory of Trafalgar, when they were 
 again crushed by the disastrous intelligence of Auster- 
 litz. The blow, which seemed fatal to Europe, was 
 fatal to him. He expired on the23rd of January, 
 1806. 
 
 The coalition ministry of " all the talents" was then 
 formed under Lord Grenville. It comprised Fox as 
 Secretary for Foreign Aifairs and leader of the House 
 of Commons ; and Erskine,* now created a peer, as 
 Chancellor. But Fox was soon destined to find, be- 
 neath the roof of Westminster Abbey, a quiet resting- 
 place by the recent grave of Pitt. Nor was it long 
 
 * When Erskine had received the Great Seal, he, with kind con- 
 sideration, said to some of the secretaries and official staff of his pre- 
 decessor, " Keep your places, gentlemen." Dick Wilson, who has 
 already heen introduced to the reader (see the third chapter), took 
 him at his word ; but Lord Eldon, though he continued to cultivate 
 the intimacy of his old friend, did not, on returning to office, re- 
 appoint him to his situation. 
 
 William Villiers Surtees, a young barrister and nephew of Lady 
 Eldon, answered a similar offer, on the same occasion, by expressing 
 his thanks, but adding that he had received too much kindness from 
 Lord Eldon to be willing to serve under his successor. With this 
 answer Lord Eldon, when he heard of it, was greatly pleased. In 
 very advanced life the attachment of Lord Eldon to this gentleman 
 became remarkable. He became then unwilling to be long separated 
 from him ; and till the death of his proteye in the spring of 
 1834, could hardly be induced to undertake any considerable journey 
 without his company.
 
 LORDS STOVVELL AND ELDON. 105 
 
 before the king, quarrelling- about some suggested con- 
 cessions to the Roman Catholics, eagerly dismissed the 
 now enfeebled and disunited cabinet. 
 
 During the interval just mentioned, which broke 
 Lord Eldon's long tenure of office, his time appeared 
 to hang heavily upon him. His resources for occupa- 
 tion were limited : literature he had not cultivated 
 since his Oxford days ; in composition he was neither 
 practised nor successful ; and his political talents, 
 though exerted at this period, were always of a kind 
 better suited to the cabinet than to the debate. 
 Through long habit his nature had grown professional ; 
 and, as is commonly the case, he loved the pursuits in 
 which he excelled. The form of the ex-chancellor was 
 then often seen to haunt the inns of court, the scenes 
 of his departed glory : and often would he drop in to 
 the chambers of his old friends ; and, in the enjoyment 
 of his pleasing conversation, make others as idle as 
 himself. 
 
 In the spring of 1807, the Duke of Portland, for the 
 second time premier, took office, accompanied by the 
 Tories, heirs, in most measures, of the policy of Pitt. 
 The Duke of Portland numbered in his administration 
 Spencer Percival as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
 Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Earl of Liverpool) as 
 Secretary for the Home Department ; and under these 
 three personages, as they succeeded each other in the 
 dignity of prime minister. Lord Eldon, who now again 
 resumed the Wool Sack, continued uninterruptedly for 
 the space of twenty years, to hold the Great Seal, and 
 to sway the cabinet. 
 
 As a termination to this chapter, the reader shall
 
 106 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 now be presented with two letters from Lord Eldon, 
 written during the earlier part of his second chan- 
 cellorship ; and one letter from Lord Stowell, written 
 about the same period. 
 
 The first letter, which I am about to quote, requires 
 some little jireface. It relates to the duties of the 
 chancellor in dismissing or retaining justices of the 
 peace. The theatre of the contention to which it 
 alludes was the county of Durham ; and so great there 
 has been the change in the lapse of between thirty and 
 forty years — the temporal authority having jmssed 
 from the bishop to a lord-lieutenant, — so general the 
 death of the parties connected with the dispute, that, 
 whatever objections of delicacy there may have been 
 to its early publication, it is now scarcely fair to with- 
 hold* from the public a document which can be of- 
 fensive to no one, and which is replete with sound 
 constitutional doctrine. 
 
 At a general meeting of the magistrates, held, ac- 
 cording to statute,t for the purpose of granting licences 
 to publicans, a licence had been refused to one of the 
 applicants. This refusal was the result of the influence 
 of the Bishop of Durham ; nor has it been suggested 
 that the interference of Dr. Barrington, the Prelate 
 Count- Palatine, was tyrannical or groundless. The 
 publican next preferred his claim at some petty ses- 
 
 • A small portion of this letter was, in 1840, published by Mr. 
 Taylor, in his memoir of Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, author of the 
 " History of the County of Durham," to the fourth volume of which 
 work the memoir is prefixed. The quotations will be found at 
 p. 46, 
 
 t 2 Geo. II., c. 28, and 26 Geo. II., c. 31.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 107 
 
 sions, held at Rusliyford, in 1808 ; and the licence was 
 there granted by two magistrates,* one of whom was a 
 clerg}Tnan. They had, however, mistaken and ex- 
 ceeded their powers ; for a licence could not be legally 
 conferred at the sessions in which they had assumed to 
 confer it. According to the then existing custom of 
 the palatinate, the commissions of the peace were of 
 annual duration, and renewed each year. And the 
 bishoj), being in those days custm 7wtulorum, and con- 
 ceiving that this conduct, on the part of the clergyman 
 at any rate, was dictated by a desire to annoy him, 
 took the course of rejecting from the list, which, ac- 
 cording to custom, he annually sent up for the approval 
 of the chancellor, the names of the two offending ma- 
 gistrates ; and that, without calling the attention of the 
 chancellor to the fact of their rejection. The commis- 
 sion of justices for the following year, being as usual a 
 mere echo of the recommendation, had the same omis- 
 sions. In 1809, therefore, the County of Durham Avas 
 in a ferment. The lay magistrates, comj^rising a local 
 aristocracy ever jealous of episcopal encroachment, de- 
 clared their independence was undermined. Several 
 gentlemen of consideration voluntarily withdrew from 
 the commission ; whilst others approached the bishop 
 with a remonstrance, courteous, yet firm, stating that, 
 " however satisfied they might feel of the purity of his 
 lordship's views, they could not acquiesce under a 
 power which might hereafter be exercised by others 
 with very different intentions." 
 
 * Mr. Currie and the Rev, Robert Sj)encer.
 
 108 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 With an allusion to this remonstrance, Lord Eldon 
 thus commences a letter to Lord Grey : — 
 
 " March 30, 1810. 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Your lordship having communicated to me an inti- 
 mation that Mr. Hutchinson and the other magistrate 
 who had addressed the Bishop of Durham, had express- 
 ed a wish to know the sentiments which I had stated 
 to the Bishop, I have no difficulty in communicating 
 the precise substance of them, under a full understand- 
 ing that no such communication as this should be 
 j)ublished in print, which I think very objectionable. 
 
 " I told the Bishop that what he proposed prospec- 
 tively accorded very much with my sentiments ; that I 
 took it to be quite clear that a person holding the 
 ( ireat Seal was the only person who could expunge the 
 name of a Magistrate from the Commission existing ; 
 and, as the Act of that Person is necessary for such a 
 ])ur})ose, there never had been, I believe, any doubt or 
 difficulty arising out of such a case; and that when any 
 a])plication is made to the Person holding the Great 
 Seal, to expunge the name of a Magistrate from the 
 Commission, whose conduct has not been otherwise 
 judicially examined, upon that application the Party 
 accused should be heard, I further represented that, 
 where a new Commission of the Peace is projiosed, I 
 take the correct course to be, that those, who, from 
 their situation, recommended to the Chancellor, should 
 state specially the names of such Gentlemen, as being 
 INLigistrates in former Connnission, are proposed to be 
 omitted in the new Connnission, and the reasons with
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 109 
 
 reference to which it is thought fit that their names 
 shouki bo omitted. That the Chancellor ought also to 
 afford those Gentlemen an opportunity of being fully 
 heard against the Proposition. 
 
 " I further represented that I was afraid that this at- 
 tention, so obviously due as a mere act of Justice to 
 Gentlemen who have acted under former commissions, 
 from a j^ractice too lax had not been sufficiently at- 
 tended to by many whose situations called upon them 
 to recommend persons to be named in new Commisions 
 of the Peace ; and that I should not act as candidly 
 and honourably as I ought, if I did not add, that those 
 holding the Great Seal had not been sufficiently 
 anxious to require that this special statement should 
 always be made, or sufficiently careful in examining, 
 when no such special statement is made, whether 
 any names are omitted in the new Commission — 
 that, if I had accurately attended to my own duty, 
 according to the sense of it which I had express- 
 ed, the Bishop would perceive that before the Com- 
 mission complained of was sealed, the circumstance 
 which had occasioned the uneasiness which had led to 
 the correspondence, would have been satisfactorily 
 adjusted. I further added that I was happy in know- 
 ing that such a circumstance could not occur again in 
 the County Palatine while the Bishop lived and I held 
 my office ; and that as the matter had been matter of 
 great publicity, and the Bishop had my Authority to 
 communicate such my sentiments, I hoped no occur- 
 rence of the same kind would happen between the 
 Magistrates of the County and our Successors. 
 
 " I have only to add, that by authority to communi-
 
 110 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 cate my Sentiments — I meant to comnmnicate them to 
 
 any of the Magistrates concerned, but not to give tliom 
 
 to the public by printing, M'hich I cannot approve. 
 
 " I am, my Lord, \vith much resiDect, 
 
 " Your foithful humble servant, 
 
 "Eldon. 
 " The Right Honourable Earl Grey." 
 
 On the subject of this letter it need only be added 
 that in 1811 the displaced magistrates were restored to 
 the commission by the chancellor. 
 
 In the following year, the corporation of Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne, being anxious to adorn the walls of their 
 Guildhall with the portraits of their most distinguished 
 townsmen, requested Sir William Scott and Lord 
 Eldon to sit for their likenesses. The request, as we 
 shall find, was complied with. And there, at this day, 
 the portraits of these profoundly learned judges, toge- 
 ther with that of their gallant schoolfellow Lord Col- 
 lingwood, form a spectacle well calculated to awake 
 the emulation and stimulate the energy of the native 
 youth. 
 
 The reader shall no longer be detained from the 
 answers which the two brothers on this occasion ad- 
 dressed to the Mayor of Newcastle. He will be pre- 
 pared silently to accompany each writer in turn to his 
 desk. It may be that the paper is filled slowly — that 
 the raised pen is long suspended : but he will pardon 
 the mournful reverie ; he will not disturb the moral 
 retrospect. The home of their childhood, their school, 
 the struggle of their youth, and the triumph of their 
 age, the death of friends who had grieved over the one 
 and rejoiced at the other, the vanities and vicissitudes
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. Ill 
 
 of fleeting life with its unavailing sorrows and its empty 
 joys — all these crowd upon the mind, oppress the 
 heart, and dim perhaps the eye. 
 
 {Lord Eldo7i's Letter.) 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " I beg you to be assured, and that you will be pleased 
 to assure the Alderman and Common Council, that I 
 am impressed with a very warm Sense of Gratitude for 
 the Mark of Respect and Regard, which is mentioned 
 in your letter of the 13th instant. In complying with 
 the Request contained in it, which I am satisfied is 
 dictated more by their kind Partiality than by any 
 claim, which I can have to the distinction offered to 
 me, I W'Ould willingly indulge the Hope that the 
 Measure, which has been proposed, may occasionally 
 and usefully suggest to the descendants of our Fellow 
 Burgesses that in this great and free Country the in- 
 dustrious Exercise of moderate Talents may, under the 
 blessing of Providence, raise them, before the Close of 
 Life, to those Situations in the State, to which, in the 
 beginning of Life they could hardly aspire, and may 
 ensure to them also the solid Gratification which flows 
 from receiving in advanced Years Distinction and 
 Honour from that Part of the Community, among 
 whom were passed the days of Infancy and Youth. 
 " I am, Dear Sir, 
 
 " Y-^ obliged and faithful Friend, 
 
 " Eldon. 
 
 "July 26, 1811."
 
 112 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 (Sir William Scott's Letter.) 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I bcp;- you will take an early opportunity of pre- 
 senting my sincere Thanks to the Corj)orate Body, 
 over which you at present preside, for the high and 
 unexpected Honour they have been pleased to confer 
 upon me, in requesting me to sit for my Picture to be 
 placed in the Guildhall in company with the Pictures 
 of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Collingwood. 
 
 " It cannot but be highly gratifying to me, on every 
 account, to be thought worthy of such a Distinction 
 by the Gentlemen of Newcastle. I received my Edu- 
 cation amongst them ; and to tliat Education, under 
 God's good Providence, I owe everything that can have 
 obtained for me so flattering a Declaration of their 
 Regard. I am hapjjy in feeling that, in their opinion, 
 I have not dishonoured It in the Course of a Life that 
 has passed under some degree of Publick Observation. 
 It is a testimony to my Character, to which I hope my 
 Family will in all future time advert with peculiar 
 Pride and Satisfaction — as conveying the Sentiments 
 of those who have had the best 0])portunitics of judging 
 upon the general Tenor of my conduct ; It is with real 
 Elevation of Mind that I receive the Result of their 
 favourable judgment, in their associating me upon such 
 an Occasion with two Individuals who have made a 
 more splendid Use of the same early Advantages in 
 Life, and whose more important Publick Services have 
 united for them the Applause of their Country with 
 the honourable Approbation of their native Town. 
 
 " I beg that you will present my particular Acknow- 
 ledgments to Mr. Clennel and Mr. Reid.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 113 
 
 " I liave the Honour to be, Mr. Mayor, with particular 
 Regard and Respect, 
 
 " Your obliged and faithful bumble Servant, 
 
 Wm. Scott. 
 
 " Early Court, July 27, 1811. 
 " To the Right Worshipful the Mayor of Newcastle."
 
 114 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Though in the last chapter it was stated that the poli- 
 tical talents of Lord El don had not entirely slumbered 
 during the Grenville Administration ; the fact was 
 omitted that the ex-chancellor was, at that period, the 
 confidential adviser of the Princess of Wales, the attacks 
 upon whose character had found encouragement in the 
 Whig ministers of the day — the friends of her hus- 
 band. 
 
 Let us now, for a moment, go back to the day 
 on which the unliai)py lady made her first inausj^icious 
 landing " on this English earth." 
 
 It was midday on Sunday the 5th of April, J 795, when 
 Caroline of Brunswick disembarked at Greenwich. By 
 two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day she was 
 conveyed to St. James's. Here the Prince of Wales 
 hastened to meet her. And here to the fastidious 
 bridegroom was she presented invested with an ambient 
 atmosphere, created by the fumes of the brandy and 
 water which she had drunk — no very inviting creden-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 115 
 
 tials of feminine breeding ; especially to one who had 
 ever been lie with those whose physical — whatever 
 might be said of their moral — purity was unquestion- 
 able. 
 
 The disgust, once taken, was rapidly increased. Who 
 has not heard of the honeymoon of the Princess, so 
 mysteriously and portentously eclipsed ? 
 
 Well, long years of estrangement followed the birth 
 of the Princess Charlotte. As the Prince had naturally 
 gravitated to the Whigs, so, by as sure a law, was the 
 Princess drawn into the political system of the Tories, 
 which revolved round the Kino-. In Mav, 1806, whilst 
 the Whigs were in office, the Prince preferred to the 
 ministers a charge against his wife, whom he had 
 deserted, of being unfaithful, and of having unlawfully 
 become pregnant, and given birth to a son. The 
 charge was taken up by the government ; and authority 
 was intrusted, by a commission from the King, to a 
 secret tribunal, consisting of four members of the 
 ministry to conduct " the delicate investigation " of the 
 credibility of the evidence by which it was supported. 
 
 On the 14th of July, the commissioners reported to 
 the King, that the pregnancy and delivery were dis- 
 proved ; but that there were other circumstances, " par- 
 ticularly those stated to have passed between Captain 
 Manby and her Royal Highness, which must be credited, 
 until they receive some decisive contradiction ; and 
 which, if true, were justly entitled to most serious 
 consideration." And a copy of the report, and of the 
 depositions on which it was founded, \vas shortly after- 
 wards forwarded to the Princess, at her residence at 
 Blackheath. 
 
 I 2
 
 no SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 As the befriending her Royal Highness was known 
 to be a sure mode of gratifying the King, and damag- 
 ing the ministers and the Prince, she had then no lack 
 of able friends and defenders. Lord Eldon, at that 
 period, would often dine with her at Blackheath ; and 
 to him she used to assign the seat of honour on her 
 right hand. In Germany it had not been the custom 
 for gentlemen to help the ladies near them to wine ; 
 but each sex filled their own glasses at their option. 
 The Princess, however, as Lord Eldon related, used to 
 reverse, in some sort, our own old English fashion in 
 his favour ; for she would quietly fill his glass berself, 
 and so frequently, that he seldom loft her house with- 
 out feeling that he had exceeded the limits of discre- 
 tion. Those, indeed, who recollect the proverb, " that, 
 though one man may take a horse to the well, ten men 
 cannot make him drink," will moderate their commise- 
 ration for the hard lot of the ex-chancellor. 
 
 The Princess, having an ally so well qualified to 
 assist her in this emergency, communicated to Lord 
 Eldon the report and depositions. He came to the 
 conclusion, which he then of course kept private, that, 
 though at the time in question " she was not with 
 child, she had supposed herself to be with child ;"* and, 
 
 * Romilly's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 104. It is a remarkable fact 
 that, though Mr. Twiss in the second volume of his work, c. xxiv. 
 p. 37, has quoted, from the very same page in Sir Samuel Romilly's 
 Memoirs, another part of this conversation, he has omitted to notice 
 this startling passage. That the principal advisers of the Princess 
 entertained the view attributed to Lord Eldon, will appear more 
 probable after a perusal of her letter to the King, of the 2nd October,
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 117 
 
 therefore, that she was more fortunate than innocent : 
 but he supported her cause with the zeal and the skill 
 of an advocate. Mr. Perceval, with the assistance of 
 Lord Eldon and Sir Thomas Plomer,* composed for 
 her some letters to the King. In these she defended 
 herself from the imputations cast upon her, and, after 
 attacking- the conduct of the Prince and the commis- 
 sioners, in a manner calculated, if the letters should 
 be published, to f)roduce a great effect on the country, 
 threatened, that unless her reception at Court (to which 
 her husband and the ministry had raised impediments) 
 should immediately be permitted, she would publish 
 the whole proceedings and correspondence. 
 
 About the commencement of 1807, as the minis- 
 terial interdict upon the Princess appearing at Court 
 had not been taken off, Mr. Perceval,'}' the most active 
 of her partisans, caused the documents connected with 
 the "delicate investigation ' (comprising these letters) 
 to be privately printed, with a view to publication. In 
 this step he had the sanction of Lord Eldon,:}: of the 
 
 1806 ; of which Sir Samuel Romilly, after praising the dexterity 
 with which it was drawn up, says, " The most remarkable circum- 
 stance in it is, that the Princess, instead of demandmg that a further 
 investigation of her conduct should take place, and that she should 
 have an opportunity of proving her innocence, and confounding her 
 enemies, earnestly deprecates any further inquiry." — Id. vol. ii. 
 p. 165. 
 
 * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxiv. pp. 1132 — 1144. 
 Romilly's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 165. 
 
 f Romilly's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 165. 
 
 I Edinburgh Review, No. cxxxv. pp. 29 — 32. Hansard's Par- 
 liameiitary Debates, vol. xxiv. p. 1145. A few letters from the
 
 J ] 8 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Duke of Cumberland, then in confidential communica- 
 tion with both his Majesty and Lord Eldon, and of (it 
 may hence be fairly presumed) a still more exalted 
 personage. 
 
 The reasons and circumstances, which led to the 
 abandonment of the intention at this time to publish, 
 may be collected from the conversations of Lady Hester 
 Stanhope and of Lord Eldon. 
 
 In 1837, Lady Hester, after alluding to what is com- 
 monly called the Queen's Trial, thus spoke of the book 
 of Mr. Perceval :^' " I prevented the explosion the first 
 time ; and I will tell you how. One day, the Duke of 
 Cumberland called on me, and, in his accustomed man- 
 ner, began ' Well, Lady Hester, it will be all out 
 to-morrow. We bave printed it, and to-morrow it will 
 be all out.' I knew what he meant, and said to him, 
 ' Have you got [Lord Eldon'|"]'s leave ? I, for my 
 
 Princess to Lord Eldou, given in the 13th chapter of Mr. Twiss's 
 work, (from one of which it appears that she would not even dis- 
 charge some servants who had made depositions to her prejudice, 
 unless Lord Eldon would " agree to the request" that she might do 
 so) conduce also to show how improbable it is that the Princess 
 should have originally allowed the documents to be printed without 
 having first obtained his lordship's approbation. Of this book, ac- 
 cording to Adolphus's " Royal Exile," vol. i. j). 440, three original 
 impressions were said to have been preserved. 
 
 * " Lady Hester Stanhope's Memoirs, as related by Herself in 
 Conversation with her Physician," vol. i. p. 305. 
 
 t "NVhere in this conversation the words " Lord Eldon" are here 
 inserted between brackets, the words " the Chancellor" occur in
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 119 
 
 part, don't like the business at all.' ' Why don't you 
 like it ?' asked the Duke. ' Because,' answered I, ' I 
 have too much respect for Royalty to desire to see it 
 made a subject for Grub Street songs.' (I did not say 
 
 this so much on the P of W 's account, as for 
 
 the sake of the P ss. I dreaded the other disclo- 
 sures to which a business like this might lead.) The 
 Duke turned away as if in thought, and I saw the same 
 idea struck him; for after a moment's pause, he re- 
 sumed his position, and answered, ' You are quite right, 
 Lady Hester ; by God ! You are quite right ; but 
 what am I to do ? We have gone too far : what am I 
 to do V ' Why, I think,' rejoined I, ' the best thing 
 you can do is, to go and ask [Lord Eldon.]' So off he 
 packed, and I fancy Mr. Perceval [Lord Eldon] and he 
 talked it over, and decided on quashing the business. 
 Why, Doctor, the papers were all jDrinted, and it cost 
 Mr. Perceval 10,000/. out of the secret service money 
 to recover one copy which had been taken off his 
 table." 
 
 But it has already been hinted that a most august 
 
 the memoirs from which I quote. It is there, however, clearly a 
 mistake of carelessness ; since though Lord Eldon was Chancellor 
 before and shortly after the time in which the conversation with the 
 Duke must have been held. Lord Erskine must have been Chancellor 
 when it was uttered. And, as Lord Erskine was one of the adminis- 
 tration which instituted the delicate investigation, he would not have 
 been consulted by those who wished to cast odium upon it.
 
 120 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 personage seems to have been eager that the nation 
 should not be deprived of the benefit of these interest- 
 ing revelations ; — that an angry father longed for the 
 exposure of a graceless son.* Lord Eldon, therefore, 
 as he possessed a considerable influence over the mind 
 of tlie King, may be presumed to have been deputed 
 to represent to him the opinion which had now been 
 formed, as to the imprudence of publishing. His 
 Majesty probably assented ; for, changing his tack, he 
 turned out the ministry on the pretext of their dispo- 
 sition to make concessions to their Roman Catholic 
 fellow-subjects. 
 
 As Lord Eldon, who was in opposition, paid his visit 
 to the king but a short time before the dismissal of the 
 Grenville administration, he was naturally anxious to 
 assure its members that the change, though after, had 
 not been on account of, it. In 1813, the King was 
 insane ; yet, whilst he was living, his secrets could 
 hardly be divulged by his Chancellor. But Mr. 
 Perceval was dead ; and it was then that Lord Eldon 
 told Lord Grey the following history : — " I do assure 
 you — you may believe it or not as you think proper — 
 but I do assure you, that when I had the conference 
 with the King in 1807, which 1 requested, it was 
 solely for the purpose of representing to him what mis- 
 chief might follow, if Perceval was not prevented 
 
 * Lord Brougham says of George III. that his eldest son "be 
 hated viiih a hatred scarcely consistent with the supposition of a 
 sound mind." — Statesmen of the times of George III. in Knight's 
 weekly vohunes.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 121 
 
 from publisliing the book wliicli Le was then bent on 
 publishing."'* 
 
 In the spring of 1807, when the Tory ministry were 
 appointed, St. James's again unfolded its portals to 
 the Princess. But between three and four years later 
 fortune again deserted her; for the intellect of the old 
 King, her father-in-law and protector, became incurably 
 disordered. As the Prince, on being appointed Regent, 
 retained the ministers of his father, he expected them 
 to abandon the advocacy of his wife ; and it must be 
 confessed that his expectations were but little dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 The Tory cabinet, in May 1812, was deprived, by 
 the hand of an assassin, of Mr. Perceval, its chief. 
 Shortly afterwards the Prince Regent gave a com- 
 mission first to Lord Wellesley, and then to Lord 
 Moira, to form a Whig administration. These over- 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 104. Lord 
 Brougham says, in his sketch of Lord Eldou, in the edition of his 
 statesmen comprised in Knight's weekly volumes : " The length to 
 ■which his zeal is supposed to have carried him, of having a fierce 
 attack on the Prince's conduct towards her printed at a private press, 
 cannot fitly be dwelt upon here ; because the whole passage has 
 been confidently denied, and, how universal soever the belief was, 
 confirmed by a copy or two of the work being preserved, so that the 
 whole was afterwards reprinted, and openly sold, the share which 
 Lord Eldon and jNIr. Perceval were said to have had in the trans- 
 action has never been established by any decisive proofs." Lord 
 Brougham gives no reference ; and I have not been able to find the 
 denial to which he alludes : for I presume it can scarcely be 
 the passage quoted in the text, as this admits Perceval's desire to 
 publish, and does disclaim Lord Eldou's oriyinal particii)ation in 
 the plan.
 
 122 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 turcs, in which the sincerity of the Prince has been 
 confidently denied, ])roved abortive ; for Lords Grey 
 and Grenville rejected the conditions with which they 
 were accompanied. Sir Samuel Romilly informs us 
 that, during this negociation, Lord Eldon was every 
 day closeted with the Duke of Cumberland ; and adds, 
 *' we have even had the Duke of Cumberland coming 
 down to Westminster Hall, and sending for the Chan- 
 cellor out of court.' '^' 
 
 In the early part of 1813 the Princess, dissatisfied 
 with the increasing restraints which were imjiosed on her 
 intercourse with her daughter, appealed to the nation 
 by the publication of a letter : and it was soon after- 
 wards that Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, thus ex- 
 pressed to Lord Grey, his opinion respecting the Prin- 
 cess of Wales : — " My opinion is, and always was, that 
 though not with child, she supposed herself to be with 
 child."! 
 
 The depositions given in " the delicate investi- 
 gation" were now again routed out, and were submitted 
 to a committee of the Privy Council, together with a 
 question whether it was proper, under all the circum- 
 stances, " that the intercourse between the Princess of 
 
 * Romilly's Memoirs, vol. iii. pp. 42 — 3. 
 
 t Tliis opinion, of course, was expressed after the depositions, on 
 wlucli it had heen formed, had been the second time laid before him, 
 and probably after they wei'e pubUshed to the world ; for to promul- 
 gate an opinion, unfavourable to a party who had confidentially laid 
 before him the evidence on which it was formed, in order to obtain 
 his assistance in preparing a defence, would be conduct of which 
 Lord Eldon was incapable.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 123 
 
 Wales and the Princess Cliarlotte should continue, 
 subject to regulations and restrictions." It was de- 
 cided in the affirmative, with the support of Lord 
 Eldon and Sir William Scott. On the 13th of March, 
 the depositions against the Princess were very unfairly 
 published by themselves in the ministerial newspapers ; 
 and, a few days later, the supporters of the Princess 
 retaliated, by publishing " The Book,"* consisting of 
 all the documents, on each side, connected with the 
 delicate investigation, taken from what the advertise- 
 ment states (and, as it is presumed, truly) to be a copy of 
 the work printed in 1807, under the direction of Mr. 
 Perceval. 
 
 I cannot help fancying, that, notwithstanding Lord 
 Eldon now supported the Prince's side with the zeal 
 of a proselyte, his original advocacy of that of the Prin- 
 cess somewhat jeopardized his seat on the Wool Sack ; 
 for Lord Yarmouth, a most intimate associate of the 
 Regent, in this very month of March, sounded a friend, 
 as to " whether Romilly w^ould think it his duty to re- 
 fuse the Great Seal if it were offered him, unless all 
 his political friends formed part of the administration."! 
 
 * Entitled " The Book, or the Proceedings and Correspondence 
 upon the subject of the Inquiry into the Conduct of Her Royal 
 Highness the Princess of Wales. Richard Edwards. London, 
 1813." 
 
 •f Romilly's Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 90. The passage which I have 
 just quoted has reminded me of an anecdote which I long ago heard 
 from one intimately acquainted with Lord Eldon' s history. The 
 Prince Regent, having been assured by Sheridan that Lord Eldon' s 
 services could be dispensed with, was on one occasion led into adopt- 
 ing a somewhat insulting tone of language to the Chancellor, while 
 
 8
 
 12-1 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 And it should be remembered, that Romilly Avas the 
 Prince's adviser at the time of the delicate investi- 
 gation. 
 
 The Princess of Wales availed lierself of the jieace 
 of 1814, to leave the land of her disai)pointments and 
 humiliations. Henceforward she sojourned on the 
 continent, till the crown devolved on her husband ; 
 when, with a reputation irretrievably tarnished, she re- 
 turned to England to claim her share of the regal 
 honours of her consort. With the history of the bill of 
 pains and penalties against her, it would be superfluous 
 to proceed ; although, in the House of Lords, at its 
 introduction and withdrawal, Lord Eldon presided as 
 Chancellor. It may be mentioned, however, that his 
 opinion of her conduct was then most unfavourable ; 
 and that, amongst his familiar friends, he did not hesi- 
 tate to designate her by a term, preceded by an exple- 
 tive, both of which would, in print, be best expressed 
 by a couple of dashes. 
 
 At the instance, and by the favour, of George IV., 
 the Chancellor was, at the coronation, in 1821, ele- 
 vated to the dignity of an earl. 
 
 The year 1825 commenced with a fever of specula- 
 lation in mines and railroads. The Earl of Eldon 
 reirarded these investments with the distrust which 
 
 Sheridan remained within hearing, in the next room, to enjoy the 
 joke. The arrangement contenii)hited hy Sheridan could not be 
 effected. The Prince was, therefore, compelled to apologise to the 
 Chancellor, and beg him to continue in office. My informant added, 
 that Sheridan never regained that station in the Prince's favour 
 which he then lost.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 125 
 
 might be expected from one of his caution and experi- 
 ence. Of this there is evidence in the followinof 
 letter, written to his brother-in-law, and quondam 
 schoolfellow, Mr. (William) Surtees. 
 
 " Jan^- 1, 1825. 
 
 " Dear Surtees, 
 
 ** I avail myself of the Opportunity to send you back 
 the enclosed, which the Duty of expressing on this day 
 to you and my Sister all the good wishes, which a new 
 Year's day can suggest, affords me. I hope it may be 
 distinguished by better weather and Skies less in- 
 clement than the departed year, 1824. We had Gusts 
 of Wind last Night, that rivalled Thunder in Noise, 
 but I don't find that they have done Mischief. 
 
 " To-day has brought us a draw-back Account of dear 
 Matt* — What an excellent creature his Wife appears 
 to be ! 
 
 "As to Rail Roads, and all the other Schemes, which 
 Speculation, running wild, is introducing, I think 
 Englishmen, who were wont to be sober, are gone mad 
 — Money is so plentiful that they are throwing it 
 away — and, if Things go on long as they are now going 
 on. Money will bear no Interest. 
 
 " With Love of both to both of you, 
 
 " y aff'y- 
 
 " Eldon." 
 
 * The Rev. Matthew Surtees, Prebendary of Canterbury, and 
 brother of Lady Eldon.
 
 126 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 In the spring- of 1827, on the accession of Mr. 
 Canning, the chief of the advocates for Roman Catho- 
 lic Emancipation, to the office of premier, which had 
 been vacated through the paralysis of Lord Liverpool, 
 the Earl of Eldon, being in his seventy-sixth year, 
 resigned the Chancellorshi]), and was succeeded by 
 Lord Lyndhurst. 
 
 And here it may be mentioned that, after having, 
 at each returning Christmas during the greater part of 
 his life, had his larder crammed with presents of game 
 and poultry, from those bound to him in fi-iendship or 
 gratitude, on the Christmas which followed his resig- 
 nation. Lord Eldon received not one of the accustomed 
 remembrances.* This, trifle as it was, I have been 
 assured, he observed and felt. Any circumstance, in- 
 deed, occurring to an old man, which shall add to those 
 suspicions of the disinterestedness and gratitude of 
 mankind too natural to age, is much to be regretted — 
 and more for his own sake than that of others. 
 
 * One friend, however, had sent him a turkey from Norfolk : 
 but, by a strange coiucidcuce, the coach by which it was sent 
 was robbed.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 127 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As the last two chapters took but slight notice of 
 Sir William Scott, this chapter shall open with a 
 continuation of his history. 
 
 It will be remembered* that, in the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century, Sir William Scott was appointed 
 judge of the Bishop of London's Consistorial Court, and 
 then judge of the High Court of Admiralty, both of 
 which situations he continued for a long period to fill, 
 alike to his own honour and the adA-antage of his 
 country. Nor will it have been forgotten that, at the 
 commencement of the nineteenth century he was 
 elected to parliament as representative of that univer- 
 sity which once as a tutor and professor he had 
 instructed and adorned. The learned constituency of 
 Oxford is not in the habit of withdrawing the con- 
 fidence which it has once reposed, and our civilian 
 retained this honourable seat till his elevation to the 
 peerage. 
 
 * See the latter part of the third chapter.
 
 128 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 On the 4tli of September, 1809, Sir William Scott 
 experienced the loss of his wife, and, between three 
 and four years afterwards, most inauspiciously was he 
 induced to attempt to fill tliat void which her death 
 had left in his domestic affections. 
 
 Strange are the circumstances which preceded and 
 produced his second marriage. They shall, therefore, 
 be related, though they will involve the episode of the 
 early adventures of the late Marquis of Sligo. 
 
 Howe Peter Browne, second Marquis of Sligo, then 
 hardly twenty-two years old, and freshly imbued with 
 the associations of a classical education, was, in 1810, 
 makino- the tour of the Mediterranean. He had 
 formed the laudable project of visiting Greece* and its 
 islands, — laudable, if in its execution he had not been 
 tempted into transgressing the dictates of patriotism 
 and of honour. At Malta he hired a brig; he was 
 anxious to man it with a good crew; and hence he 
 seduced, or suffered his servants to seduce, two picked 
 seamen from a king's ship to his own, and that (be it 
 remembered) at a time of war; and, when they were 
 demanded by a naval captain, denied that they were in 
 his vessel. For this, his offence, he was called, as a 
 criminal, to answer in a court of justice. 
 
 Over crimes committed at sea the Lord High Admiral, 
 or his judges, would, in an early period of our history, 
 have exercised an exclusive jurisdiction. But, as juries 
 were unknown to the Court of Admiralty, the liberty 
 
 * At Athens he met his old fellow-collegian, Lord Byron, and with 
 him travelled as far as Corinth. — Gait's Life of Byron, p. 155.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 129 
 
 or life of the subject could thus be sacrificed without 
 the judgment of his peers. This infringement upon 
 the spirit of the constitution, was rectified by statutes 
 which directed that crimes perpetrated upon the sea 
 should be tried by jury before commissioners appointed 
 under the Great Seal. 
 
 On the 16th of December, 1812, such commissioners 
 assembled in the court-house at the Old Bailey for the 
 trial of the young marquis. In these commissions the 
 Lord HighAdmiral, or his judge, was necessarily placed, 
 and it was usual to include in them two common law 
 judges, and several civil lawyers, besides the judge of 
 the Admiralty. The most distinguished members of 
 the present commission were Lord Chief Justice Ellen- 
 borough, and Sir William Scott. Amongst the specta- 
 tors on the bench was the Duke of Clarence. 
 
 At the commencement of the trial the counsel for 
 the marquis stated that his lordship was anxious to 
 plead " guilty" as to part of the indictment, and " not 
 guilty" as to the rest ; but Lord Ellenborough sternly 
 answ^ered, " The indictment must not be garbled. He 
 must plead guilty to the whole, or not guilty to the 
 whole." On this Lord Sligo pleaded "not guilty." 
 
 The evidence was then heard — Lord Ellenborough 
 summed up for a conviction — the jury gave a verdict 
 of "guilty." 
 
 On the following day Mr. Scarlett, one of the coun- 
 sel for the defendant, stated to the court that it had 
 been no wish of his client to justify his proceedings by 
 the plea M'hich he had offered ; — that he had desired 
 to plead guilty, but that his intention had been over- 
 ruled by his professional advisers, who thought that he 
 
 K
 
 130 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 could not with propriety plead guilty to all the counts 
 in the indictment. 
 
 It then only remained to pass sentence. This duty 
 devolved on Sir William Scott, who thus addressed the 
 distinguished prisoner : — 
 
 " It now becomes my painful duty to affix the pe- 
 nalty, which, on the result of a laborious inquiry, the 
 country expects as a reparation for its violated laws. 
 It is unnecessary for me to dw^ell on the magnitude of 
 the offence ; on the incalculable mischief which it might 
 produce to the public safety; or on those unworthy 
 practices without which the criminal purpose could not 
 have been effected — practices, as adverse, no doubt, to 
 the nature of your lordship's present disposition, as they 
 are to those i:)rincii3les of honour which elevated rank 
 ought to generate. Your lordship's exalted rank and 
 ample fortune made your country expect from you a 
 conduct equally dignified. Unfortunately, in the folly 
 and indiscretion of youth, you have been betrayed into 
 a forgetfulness of what you owed to your country and 
 to yourself: you have perverted the great advantages 
 which you possessed, to withdraw your inferiors from 
 their duty, thereby exposing them to punishment, and 
 weakening the defence of your country ; and in the 
 prosecution of your design your lordship has descended 
 to practices of dissimulation and deceit. It is unneces- 
 sary for me to express my own sentiments on this sub- 
 ject ; sentiments, which, no doubt, are equally felt by 
 your lordship. It will become the duty of your lord- 
 ship to make the effects of these sentiments visible in 
 your future life, and to endeavour to efface the memory 
 of these transactions by an ardent devotion to the ser-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 131 
 
 vice of your coiiiitiy, and by an application of all your 
 efforts to its safety, prosperity, and glory. Though 
 these may be the feelings and intentions of your lord- 
 ship, yet the country expects that you should receive 
 such an admonition as may operate for a usefiil exam- 
 ple, and which may confirm that boasted principle of 
 the English constitution — that no rank, however high, 
 — no fortune, however ample, — no regrets, however 
 severe, can prevent the due administration and enforce- 
 ment of justice. 
 
 " The sentence, therefore, of the court is, that your 
 lordship shall pay to the king a fine of 5000/. and be 
 imprisoned four months in Newgate."* 
 
 The Dowager Lady Sligo, widow of the late Marquis 
 of Sligo, and daughter and co-heiress of the distin- 
 guished Admiral Lord Howe, had, during the two days 
 occupied by the trial, remained shut up in her housef 
 in London, grieving at the punishment which seemed 
 
 * Evening Mail of Friday, 18th Dec. 1812. 
 
 f It has been often stated that the Dowager Lady Sligo took a 
 seat on the Bench in order to witness the result of her son's trial ; 
 and that, charmed with the majestic eloqiaence and courtesy of the 
 judge, she passed to him in court a slip of paper on which she had 
 written how happy she should think it for her son, could he but con- 
 tinue to have the advantage of such paternal counsels. This version 
 of the story I adopted in the article on the subject of Lords Stowell 
 and Eldon which I contributed to the New Monthly Magazine of 
 January 1846. Subsequent inquiry, however, from well-informed 
 sources, has convinced me that it was the mere invention of the 
 wicked wags of town, who delighted in casting ridicule on the mar- 
 riage of Sir AVilUam Scott and Lady SUgo. I regret my want of 
 caution the more, as I find that Mr. W. C. Townsend, (whose interest- 
 ing lives of the judges have been published within the course of the 
 
 k2
 
 132 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 impending over her son. A few hours after liis con- 
 demnation, she received a note from the young Mar- 
 quis, written from the rooms assigned him in his 
 prison : it stated that he thought the sentence itself to 
 be a severe one ; but that it was so kindly expressed 
 by Sir William Scott, that " he felt it as coming from 
 a conciliatory father, rather than from a severe judge." 
 Shortly afterwards Sir William Scott called on Mrs. 
 Howe, an aunt of the Marchioness and friend of his 
 own. To this lady he expressed great sympathy for 
 the distress of the mother, and added that he should 
 be anxious to pay his respects to her in person, and to 
 assure her of his commiseration for the wounds, which, 
 in the discharge of his duty, he had been the instrument 
 to inflict upon her feelings. He had not previously 
 been acquainted with Lady Sligo : but an intimacy be- 
 tween them rapidly grew up. And her ladyship is said 
 to have hinted to the civilian how fortunate she should 
 think it for her son, if he could but continue to have 
 the advantage of such paternal counsels as his. 
 As for Sir William Scott, 
 
 He, on the other hand, if not in love. 
 Fell into that no less imperious passion, 
 
 Self-love — which, when some sort of thing ahove 
 Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion. 
 
 Or duchess, princess, empress, " deigns to prove" 
 
 ('Tis Pope's phrase) a great longing, though a rash one. 
 
 For one especial person out of many. 
 
 Makes us believe ourselves as good as any. 
 
 week in which I am adding this note) has paid me the compliment 
 of incorporating into his Life of Lord Stowell the history given in the 
 New Monthly Magazine of the trial and the subsequent marriage.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 133 
 
 Well, however, they were married. Lady Sligo* and 
 the judge who won her heart through condemning her 
 son. The marriage took place on the 10th of April, 
 1813, immediately on the expiration of the term of 
 imprisonment of the young Marquis. Lord Eldon 
 augured ill of the engagement, and would not sanction 
 the wedding with his presence. The Marchioness per- 
 haps had not the temper likely to render her introduc- 
 tion into any family an accession to its happiness. And 
 Sir William Scott, whatever had been his disposition, 
 might perhaps have been soon called to practise those 
 lessons of domestic patience and forgiveness which, 
 from the consistorial chair, he had taught so eloquently 
 to others.^ 
 
 But a comparison of the tastes and feelings of the 
 married pair must have disclosed obvious elements of 
 peculiar discord. The disposition of Lady Sligo was 
 generous ; while that of Sir William Scott had become 
 grasping as well as parsimonious. The husband, there- 
 fore, would view the expenditure of the wife with dis- 
 pleasure ; while the wife, losing the esteem which the 
 hiffh talents and insinuating address of the husband had 
 at first inspired, would regard with contempt the little- 
 ness of his character. Sir William Scott, delighting 
 
 * The difference of age between them was very considerable ; Lady 
 Sligo being then in her forty-sixth year only. 
 
 t See the case of Evans v. Evans, in Haggard's Consistory Re- 
 ports, vol. i. p. 35 ; in which the reciprocal duties and interests of 
 the married state, and the ingredients likely to disturb its tran- 
 quillity, are pointed out with an admirable union of tenderness and 
 penetration.
 
 134 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 in society of which he was one of the brightest orna- 
 ments, seldom partook of a dinner at home or returned 
 there otherwise than late at night. Lady Sligo, on the 
 contrary, having been for many years of her life the 
 nurse of a sick husband (for such was the late Marquis), 
 was wx^aned from society, and rarely could be induced 
 to dine out of her own house. 
 
 Sir William Scott removed from Doctors' Commons 
 to his wife's house in Grafton-street ;* and, ever econo- 
 mical in his domestic expenses, brought with him his 
 own door-plate, and placed it under the pre-existing 
 plate of Lady Sligo, instead of getting a new door-i)late 
 for them both. Immediately after the marriage, Mr. 
 Jekyll, so well known in the earlier part of this cen- 
 tury for his puns and humour, happening to observe 
 the position of these plates, condoled with Sir William 
 on liavinof to ''knock under''' There was too much 
 truth in the joke for it to be inwardly relished. And 
 Sir William ordered the plates to be transposed. A few 
 weeks later Jekyll accompanied his friend Scott as far 
 as the door, when the latter observed, " You see I 
 don't knock under now." " Not now," was the answer 
 received by the antiquated bridegroom, " now you 
 knock ?(p."f 
 
 * Lady Sligo, at a later period, purchased a honse in Cleveland 
 Row, looking into the Green Park ; and to that herself and her hus- 
 band removed. After Lady Sligo' s death, Sir William Scott returned 
 to the house in Grafton-street which had been settled on him for 
 life. 
 
 f The anecdote just mentioned, is given by Mr. Twiss, vol. ii.^ 
 c. XXXV. p. 238 ; but I have not followed him, preferring my own 
 recollection of it.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 1S5 
 
 The matrimonial infelicities of Sir William Scott 
 and Lady Sligo were not of long- duration. In the 
 summer of 1817 she proposed to her husband a trip to 
 Paris ; being anxious to show that metropolis to a 
 favourite niece. Sir William threw no imj^ediments 
 in the way of the departure of the ladies ; but declined 
 accompanying them on the plea of business. Not long, 
 however, after the Marchioness and her niece had 
 crossed the channel, he himself started off for Switzer- 
 land. While the liusband was making the tour of 
 lakes and mountains, the wife, with her young relative, 
 proceeded to Amsterdam. Here, having caught a vio- 
 lent cold in seeing a castle in the neighbourhood. Lady 
 Sligo expired on the 26th of August, after a few days' 
 illness. Sir William Scott continued in Switzerland 
 some weeks after the intelligence of his wife's death 
 had reached him ! 
 
 Little occurred, henceforward, to disturb the tran- 
 quillity of Sir William Scott till he was overtaken by 
 the infirmities of extreme old age. 
 
 In July, 1821, on the coronation of George IV., he 
 was, in reward of his long and eminent judicial services, 
 raised to the peerage as Baron Stowell ; and, in the 
 following August, he resigned the chair of the Consis- 
 torial Court of London ; though he continued to retain 
 that of the Court of Admiralty. 
 
 Several years later Lord Stowell visited Jersey for a 
 few days, in order to make some inquiries respecting 
 its laws. The Channel Islands are in the diocese of 
 Winchester : and the mission of our civilian, perhaps a 
 private one, may not improbably have been to investi- 
 gate their ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
 
 13G SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 In 1823, Lord Stowell's daughter, Mrs. Townsend, 
 then a widow, was married to Lord Sidmouth. For 
 his new son-in-law Lord Stowell had a great esteem ; 
 and loved to display his comic vein in talking of him 
 in spite of his years, as " his boy :" thus he would say, 
 " my boy and I are going to dine together to-day." 
 
 In December, 1827, Lord Stowell having commenced 
 his eighty-third year, and finding that it was hopeless 
 to contend any longer against the advances of age, 
 vacated the judgment seat of the Court of Admiralty, 
 where he had presided twenty-nine years. 
 
 In the following summer, at the house of Lord 
 Sidmouth, Sir Walter Scott dined in company with 
 the venerable peer, and thus commemorates his powers 
 and their decay : " Here I met my old and much 
 esteemed friend, Lord Stowell, looking very frail, and 
 even comatose. Quantum 7nutatus. He w^as one of 
 the pleasantest men I ever knew."* 
 
 Henceforward the life, or rather existence, of Lord 
 Stowell— 
 
 — nil jam ccelestibus uUis 
 Debeutem — 
 
 ceases to be a subject for biography. 
 
 The decline, though at first gradual, soon becomes 
 rapid. The body, blind, and borne down by infirmities, 
 is hastening to its home. The mind has already de- 
 parted. But let us draw back with reverence, nor 
 curiously pry into the ruins of a temple once glorious 
 in the presence of so bright an intellect. 
 
 * Entry in his diary for the 24th of May, \S2S.—LocJiharVs Life 
 of Sir Walter Scoff, vol. vii. p. 135.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 137 
 
 He died on the 28tli of January 183C, in his ninety- 
 first year. 
 
 Lord Stowell's early necessities had taught him 
 habits of prudence ; and he adopted and recommended 
 the maxim, " that decent frugality is the parent of 
 wealth." As he was a very careful, so he became a 
 very rich, man. He had loved in later life to say 
 that he admired, above all other investments, " the 
 beautiful simplicity of three per cents;" and at his 
 death he left personal property exceeding 200,000/. 
 When adding field to field, and purchasing other estates 
 around his own, he observed, that " he liked to have 
 plenty of elbow-room ;" and ample became the domain 
 of him whose wants are now confined to the earth 
 which he measures. 
 
 There is a story current of him in Newcastle, that, 
 when advanced in age and rank, he visited the school 
 of his boyhood. An old woman, whose business was 
 to clean out and keep the key of the school-room, con- 
 ducted him. She knew the name and station of the 
 personage whom she accompanied. She naturally ex- 
 pected some recompense — half-a-crown perhaps, — 
 perhaps, since he was so great a man, five shillings. 
 But he lingered over the desks, and asked a thousand 
 questions about the fate of his old school-fellows. And 
 as he talked her expectations rose — lialf-a-guinea — a 
 guinea — nay, possibly (since she had been so long 
 connected with the school, in which the great man 
 took so deep an interest) some little annuity ! He 
 wished her good-bye kindly ; called her a good woman ; 
 and slijiped a piece of money into her hand. It was a 
 sixpence !
 
 138 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Before, however, we form a harsh judgment of Lord 
 Stowell's character from such a story as this, we should 
 pause to reflect, that, though no one else of his rank or 
 fortune would on such an occasion, have given so small 
 a sum, yet the sixpence which the old woman received, 
 in no other way could she have earned so easily. He 
 had considered her station, it was his own he had for- 
 gotten. 
 
 But the memory of Lord Stowell claims tlie impartial 
 judgment which he gave to others. Notwithstanding, 
 then, that his notions regarding domestic economy, if 
 not alien to the station from which he sprang, were 
 unsuited to that to which he rose, and that he regulated 
 his household expenses with little correspondence to the 
 war establishment of a nobleman or gentleman of for- 
 tune, yet William Scott, the friend of Johnson, was far 
 from a man naturally mean. 
 
 Nurtured in a mercantile town, himself the son of a 
 merchant, he had seen that fortune was inconstant, and 
 riches had wings ; he had, therefore, to provide against 
 the future. He had been ill-advised in extensive in- 
 vestments ;* he had, therefore, the past to redeem. 
 
 1 have heard that, when he was a fellow of Univer- 
 sity College, an anonymous donation was received for 
 some specific purpose connected with that foundation ; 
 
 * It may be recollected that he lost some money in his early ship- 
 ping s])eculations. At a later period, during the French war, he 
 made a most unprofitable purchase of an extensive property in 
 Glouccstersliire, at the recommendation, it has been said, of his 
 friend and solicitor, Mr. Richard Wilson. It is believed to have 
 afterwards returned him scarcely one per cent, on the outlay.
 
 LORDS STOVVELL AND ELDON. 139 
 
 on which, it was said in the common room, that it must 
 have been sent by WilHam Scott, as there was no one 
 else likely to do so generous an action. And, though 
 in his early letters, there is ample and ever-recurring 
 proof that he was even then very thoughtful about 
 money, there appears no trace of conduct or sentiment 
 intrinsically mean. On the contrary, they contain traits 
 of delicacy, of consideration, and even of liberality. 
 
 Possibly, as life advanced, Lord Stowell might, in 
 the matter of accumulation, have felt towards Lord 
 Eldon some degree of rivalry ; and, though the struggle, 
 there too, j^roved vain, might have been unwilling that 
 his vounofest brother should beat him also in that. But, 
 be the cause what it may, a change took place more 
 lamentable than rare ; and the prudence of youth was 
 lost in the avarice of age. 
 
 Lord Stowell was a great eater. As Lord Eldon 
 had, for his favourite dish, liver and bacon, so his 
 brother had a favourite quite as homely, with which 
 his intimate friends, when he dined with them, would 
 treat him. It was a rich pie, compounded of beef- 
 steaks and layers of oysters. Yet the feats which Lord 
 Stowell performed with the knife and fork, were 
 eclipsed by those which he would afterwards display 
 with the bottle. And two bottles of port formed with 
 him no uncommon potation. By wine, however, he 
 was never, in advanced life at any rate, seen to be 
 affected. His mode of living suited and improved his 
 constitution ; and his strength long increased with his 
 years. 
 
 The countenance of Lord Stowell was intelligent 
 and benign ; but his personal appearance was much
 
 140 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 inferior to that of Lord Eldon, and presented the dis- 
 advantages of a slovenly toilet, and time-worn clothes. 
 
 With the iieeuliarities of the undistinguished herd 
 of men, the public can have no concern and little curi- 
 osity ; but in the case of such a man as Lord Stowell, 
 who has rendered the Admiralty and Ecclesiastical 
 Bench so distinguished for elegance and depth of learn- 
 ing, and has stamped an image of his own mind on 
 the international jurisprudence of the world, the public, 
 in return for the immortality conferred by its approba- 
 tion, has a claim to be made acquainted with character- 
 istic details of habits and deportment. It has a right 
 to learn that the hand, which could pen the neatest of 
 periods, was itself often dirty and unwashed ; that the 
 mouth, which could utter eloquence so graceful, or such 
 playful wit, fed voraciously, and selected the most 
 greasy food ; and that the heart, which contained so 
 much kindliness and honour, was generally covered 
 with a tumbled frill and soiled shirt. 
 
 The curiosity of Lord Stowell was remarkable : there 
 was no subject above or beneath his interest. Superior 
 to the pedantry or bombast which disdains common 
 sources of instruction and amusement, he was the most 
 indefatigable sight-seer in London. Whatever show 
 could be visited for a shilling or less, was visited by 
 Lord Stowell. And the author of this sketch has been 
 assured by a friend that his father had seen him, after 
 his elevation to the peerage, coming out of one of the 
 penny show-rooms in the streets of London. 
 
 The following anecdote has also been told of Lord 
 Stowell : In the western end of Holborn, there was a 
 room generally let for exhibitions. At the entrance.
 
 LORDS STOAVELL AND ELDON. 141 
 
 Lord Stowell presented himself, eager to see " the 
 green monster serpent/' which had lately issued cards 
 of invitation to the public. As he was pulling out his 
 purse to pay for his admission, a sharp, but honest, 
 north-country lad, whose business it was to take the 
 money, recognised him as an old customer, and, know- 
 ing his name, thus addressed him : " We can't take 
 your shilling, my lord ; 'tis t' old serpent, which you 
 have seen six times before in other colours ; but ye 
 shall go in and see her." He entered ; saved his money ; 
 and enjoyed his seventh visit to the painted beauty. 
 
 For table-talk Lord Stowell had a high reputation. 
 At dinner, when surrounded by an " audience, few, 
 but meet," he was one of the most agreeable of men. 
 His mind was remarkable for its quickness ; and 
 hence, he was capable of giving sudden and very pleas- 
 ing turns to conversation. His humour was dry ; his 
 language was terse ; he would say much in few words. 
 His memory, enriched with the spoils of all ages, was 
 tenacious and ready. At times, therefore, he would 
 exhibit vast stores of learning ; and, in a very agreeable 
 way, would unexpectedly throw historical illustrations 
 on the subject of discourse. His classical quotations, 
 often humourously applied, were always effective. He 
 was a frequent and honoured guest at the table of Dr. 
 Howley, both when Bishop of London and Archbishop 
 of Canterbury ; and here, whether in the polite or 
 profound scholarship of his host — himself also at one 
 time an Oxford Fellow and a tutor — he would feel the 
 inspiration of kindred sympathies. But to a lawyer, 
 the greatest of all conversational treats was to meet 
 Lord Eldoii and Lord Stowell together in a friendly 
 
 5
 
 142 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 dinner-party of lawyers. Here, sure of deference and 
 appreciation, each brother woukl playfully unbend after 
 the labours of the day ; talk one against the other ; 
 and narrate alternately professional anecdotes. 
 
 The volatile ethereal essence of fine conversational 
 wit can never be conveyed faithfully to j^rint. You 
 might as well attempt to represent Ariel on the stage, 
 as to transfer to paper the spirit of a bon mot. 
 
 Having attempted to cover myself by this protest, I 
 shall now proceed to jot down for the reader one 
 or two of the savins^s of Lord Stowell. 
 
 On some occasion, when he had been worn out by a 
 plague of clergymen, requesting his assistance in a 
 parliamentary measure which promised to affect their 
 interests, he ejaculated, " Those parsons ! I shove them 
 out by barrows-full !" — A miserable little cur ran 
 barking after him furiously, " Ah !" he exclaimed, " get 
 along with ye, vox et prater ea nihil T — Amongst the 
 advocates in Doctors' Commons was a fat little fellow, 
 as round as a ball, whom his friends sometimes laughed 
 with, and sometimes at. This worthy gentleman had 
 been jammed by a cart against a wall, and seriously 
 hurt. The first time after the accident that Lord 
 Stowell saw his strange figure, looking stranger than 
 ever from his arm being in a sling, he congratulated 
 him on his convalescence, and declared how glad he 
 was to see him " looking totus teres.^' — Meeting Sir 
 Henry Halford in society, he took occasion to ask a 
 question respecting the management of his own health. 
 Sir Henry, knowing his man, and thinking the question 
 would (to use a lawyer's phrase) carry a fee, made, with 
 malice prepense, the resolution to evade it, and there-
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 143 
 
 fore answered, " A man's health is generally in his own 
 keeping : you know the old saying, that at forty every 
 man is either a fool or a physician." " May he not be 
 both, Sir Henry?" replied Lord Stowell, with an arch 
 and pointed smile. But here Lord Stowell had met 
 his match. Tlie physician had his revenge ; for, some 
 one mentioning to him that the bon vivant peer was 
 " complaining of his bowels," he drily answered, " Then 
 he is the most ungrateful man upon earth." 
 
 The domestic life of Lord Stowell, was amiable :* and, 
 in spite of his negligence in attending public worship, 
 he bore the reputation of a sincere Christian, and a 
 conscientious member of the church of his country. 
 
 His parliamentary career was little distinguished : 
 and all that need be said of it has been collected by the 
 research of Mr. Townsend.f He was too timid, too 
 
 * As no descendant of Lord Stowell survives to be pained by the 
 disclosure, we are bound to make one exception in this praise, and to 
 mention a misconduct, which brought, alas, its own retributive pun- 
 ishment. William Scott, his only son who grew to manhood, had 
 formed an attachment that was unexceptionable. His father would 
 not make him a sufficient allowance to enable him to marry. The 
 intemperate habits of the son increased under the disappointment ; 
 and he died of a broken constitution about two mouths before his 
 father. — The title of Lord Stowell is extinct : the riches, which he 
 had heaped up, are gathered by collateral relatives ! 
 
 f No. xxxiii. of the Law Magazine, where is a life of Lord Stowell, 
 to which reference has already been made. It may here be remarked 
 that, in opposition to a motion made by Mr. Grattan, that several 
 petitions from the Roman Catholics of Ireland be referred to a com- 
 mittee. Sir William Scott made a speech in the House of Commons 
 on the 25th of May, 1810. It is reported in the first person in vol. 
 xvii. p. 182, of Handsard's Debates, and bears considerable appear-
 
 144 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 sensitive for his reputation, too fearful of the press, to 
 make a great debater. Nor had lie the fervid vehe- 
 mence, ingentis Demosthenis arma, requisite for carrying 
 along with him a popular assembly. Hence, to the 
 courts over which he presided were, for the most part, 
 confined the graces of his eloquence ; and the private 
 circle of his friends was alone delighted with the exu- 
 berance of his wit. 
 
 Over-estimating the dangers of change, he had more 
 than the conservatism of a Tory. Yet, having declared 
 liimself hostile to excommunication, as a mode of en- 
 forcing the payment of costs incurred in the ecclesias- 
 tical courts, he was so pressed by Sir Samuel Romilly 
 to bring in a bill that should correct this deformity in 
 the law, that he could not but consent.* When he 
 was drawing the act,f a deputation of proctors waited 
 upon him, to request that he would ingraft some pro- 
 hibitions, calculated, as they represented, to raise and 
 purify their own branch of the profession. Sir William 
 Scott, when informed of the object of the interview, 
 thus drily addressed the spokesman : " So, now that 
 I've got out my cart, you want to load it with your 
 dirt, do you ?" He agreed, however, to introduce the 
 matter desired, and it now forms the eighth clause in 
 the act. 
 
 ance of being either contributed, or corrected, by its author. The 
 reader will not fail to recognise here tlie pervading neatness, delicacy, 
 and polisli of expression which distinguished the productions of tliis 
 finisbed master of composition. 
 
 * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxi. p. 310, and vol. 
 xxxiii. p. 800. Sir Samuel Romilly's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 6. 
 
 ■f Afterwards known as that of 53 George III., chapter 127.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 1 45 
 
 This is not tlic place to discuss the legal merits of 
 Lord Stowell's judgments; but there is no one so am- 
 bitious of eccentricity as to deny them excellence of 
 the highest order. The statesman, in the Admiralty,* 
 the moral philosopher, in the Consistoryf Court, will 
 find his own more appropriate instruction ; while the 
 scholar, who may turn to the reports of Lord Stowell's 
 decisions in either court, will admire the inimitable 
 felicity of the language on which his judicial thoughts 
 are winged, and acknowledge that his diction has been 
 formed on the purest models of ancient and modern 
 elegance. 
 
 Of Lord Stowell, it has been said by Lord Brougham,J 
 that " his vast superiority was apparent, when, as from 
 an eminence, he was called to survey the whole field of 
 dispute, and to marshal the variegated facts, disentangle 
 the intricate mazes, and array the conflicting reasons, 
 which were calculated to distract or suspend men's 
 
 * The judgments of Lord Stowell in this court will be found in 
 the Admiralty reports of Drs. Robinson, Edwards, Dodson, and 
 Haggard. His judgment in the case of the ship " Juliana," in 
 Dodson's Reports, and that in " Ealing Grove/' in Haggard's Re- 
 ports, however high their merits, were not very popular amongst the 
 mercantile body. That on " the slave Grace," also in Haggard's 
 Reports, encountered more extended dissatisfaction. 
 
 f The judgments of Lord Stowell here will be found in Haggard's 
 Consistory Reports, and Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Reports, which 
 latter contains also the judgments of Sir John Nichol, who flourished 
 contemporaneously with Lord Stowell, and occupied the chair of the 
 three courts of the Archbishop of Canterbury ; namely, the Court 
 of Arches, and that of Peculiars, and the Prerogative Court of the 
 See of Canterbury. 
 
 X In the notice of Lord Stowell in the " Historical Sketches of 
 Statesmen of the Time of George IIL" 
 
 L
 
 146 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 judgment." And he adds, that, " if ever the praise of 
 being luminous could be bestowed ujDon human compo- 
 sitions, it was upon his." 
 
 Qualities, then, high and various, such as his judg- 
 ments possessed, it would be idle to hope to convey 
 by mere extracts ; yet m itli one brief extract shall 
 this chapter be concluded. 
 
 The ecclesiastical judge is considering whether coffins 
 of iron, or other very durable material, shall be admit- 
 ted into our churchyards ; and, if so, whether at the 
 same burial fees as those of wood. 
 
 " It has been argued,"* he observes, " that the 
 ground once given to the body is appropriated to it for 
 ever — it is literally in mortmain unalienably, — it is not 
 only the clomus ultima, but the domus ceterna of that 
 tenant, who is never to be disturbed, be his condition 
 what it may — the introduction of another body into 
 that lodgment at any time, however distant, is an un- 
 warrantable intrusion. — If these positions be true, it 
 ceatainly follows, that the question of comparative du- 
 ration sinks into utter insignificance. 
 
 " In support of them it seems to be assumed, that 
 the tenant himself is imperishable ; for, surely, there 
 can be no inextinguishable title, no perpetuity of pos- 
 session belonging to a subject which itself is perishable. 
 — Tkit the fact is, that ' man and '/br ever are terms 
 quite incompatible in any state of his existence, dead 
 or living, in this world. The time must come ' ipsce 
 
 * Gilbert v. Buzzard. — Haggard's Consistory Reports, p. 351 ; 
 in which case he decides that iron coffins are admissible, but that 
 the difference of the duration of coffins ought to make a difference 
 in the terms of their admission.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 147 
 
 periere ridno',^ when the posthumous remains must 
 mingle with, and compose part of, that soil in which 
 they have been deposited. Precious embalments and 
 costly monuments may preserve, for a long time, the 
 remains of those who have filled the more commanding 
 stations of human life ; but the common lot of man- 
 kind furnishes no such means of conservation. With 
 reference to them, the domus ceterna is a mere flourish 
 of rhetoric ; the process of nature will speedily resolve 
 them into an intimate mixture with their kindred dust ; 
 and their dust will help to furnish a place of repose for 
 other occupants in succession." 
 
 L 2
 
 148 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Having paid a respectful but honest tribute to the 
 genius, and bade a last farewell to the Manes — magna 
 imago — of the classic Lord Stowell, we have now only 
 to survey the latter and concluding portions of the life 
 of his brother. 
 
 In a previous chai3ter we have followed to its close 
 the protracted chancellorship of Lord Eldon. Let us 
 now, therefore, pause a moment to reflect on the dis- 
 position of his official patronage. 
 
 Though Sir Samuel Romilly has remarked that Lord 
 Eldon, in making the higher legal appointments, would 
 allow neither private feelings, nor even public interests, 
 to prevail over party motives,* yet his Masters in 
 Chancery present two instances of promotions arising 
 from mere personal considerations. These exceptions 
 are afforded by Masters Francis Cross and James Wil- 
 liam Farrer ; the history of whose appointments shall 
 now be related. 
 
 Mr. Cross, in the year 1800, was admitted a student 
 
 * Memoirs, vol. iii. pp. 102, 103.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 149 
 
 of Lincoln's Inn, where, in 1807, lie had kept a few 
 terms only. At this period he relinquished all notion 
 of following the legal profession, and withdrew his 
 name from the books of his Inn of Court. He next 
 figured in the Somersetshire militia, in which he at- 
 tained the rank of captain. And then, exemplifying 
 the French song, 
 
 Et Ton revient toujours 
 A ses premiers amours, 
 
 was at the commencement of 1811, at the age of 
 twenty-nine, re-admitted at Lincoln's Inn, in order to 
 keej) his remaining terms. During his second student- 
 shij), he was introduced to Lord Eldon at the table of 
 one of Lady Eldon's brothers ;* and having had, in the 
 mean time, the good fortune to amuse and please both 
 the Chancellor and his lady by the sprightly ease of a 
 manner and address formed in the intercourse of mili- 
 tary society, was, in 1813, called to the bar. 
 
 It will be recollected, that in the spring of 1815, 
 during the brief interval of peace which preceded the 
 return of Napoleon from Elba, a bill was passed which 
 
 * Mr. ToATiisend, in his valuable publication of the collected lives 
 of the judges, which has just appeared, has referred to my sketches 
 in the New Monthly Magazine as his authority for this anecdote 
 which he has introduced in his second volume at p. 433. He has, 
 however, committed the mistake of saying that Mr. Cross made the 
 acquaintance of the Chancellor at the table of " one of Lord Eldon's 
 brothers :" whereas the reader must know that, since his elevation to 
 the chancellorship. Lord Eldon had no surviving brother but Lord 
 Stowell. The fact was, that the introduction took place at the house 
 of Lady Eldon's brother, William Surtees, who had himself met Mr. 
 Cross in Somersetshire, at the seat of Sir John Csesar Hawkins. 
 Such are the chances which make or mar men's fortunes !
 
 150 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 increased the restrictions on the introduction of 
 foreign corn. So unpopular was this measure with 
 the poorest classes, that its progress through parlia- 
 ment was accompanied by riots. It happened that, 
 on the evening of the 6th of March, Mr. Cross was 
 passing near the residence of Lord Eldon, then the 
 centre house on the east side of Bedford-square, when 
 the mob was beginning to attack it, under the supposi- 
 tion that its occupant was a supporter of the bill. 
 Mindful of the preservation of one, whom he already 
 regarded as his patron, Mr. Cross, with a boldness and 
 alacrity which reflected credit upon the Somersetshire 
 militia, determined to relieve the garrison ; and, passing 
 the lines of the besiegers, threw himself into the house. 
 He there seized the treasures which the Chancellor 
 most prized — Lady Eldon and the Great Seal — and 
 conveyed them safely, one on each arm, by the back of 
 the house into the garden of the British Museum, just 
 before the mob broke into the very room from which 
 they had been withdrawn. 
 
 Five or six years afterwards, when a mastership in 
 Chancery was vacant, Lady Eldon pressed upon her 
 husband to remember this timely service ; and Mr. 
 Cross received the appointment. I have been assured 
 that Lord Eldon, at a later period said, " The only legal 
 appointment which I regret having made, is that of 
 Frank Cross ; and that Bessie got from me." Not, in- 
 deed, that Mr. Cross evinced absolute incompetence 
 for the situation ; but chiefly, it is jDresumed, that his 
 professional standing did not justify the appointment ; 
 and that his advancement could not be laid upon the 
 importunity of political connexion. That the ground
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 151 
 
 of the regret was no diminution of regard for Mr. Cross, 
 there cannot be a stronger proof than the fact, that the 
 Earl afterwards appointed him one of his executors. 
 
 With regard to the appointment of Mr. Farrer, 
 there is a longer story to be told. The Honourable 
 John Scott,* the elder of Lord Eldon's two sons, who 
 arrived at manhood, married Miss Ridley, in 1804 ; and, 
 in the following year, had issue the present Earl of 
 Eldon. The month, which saw the birth of the son, 
 saw the death of the father. 
 
 But time rolled on ; and, in 1811, the widow became 
 the wife of Mr. Farrer. Mighty was the indignation 
 of Lord Eldon ;f and for years afterwards he refused 
 to see his daughter-in-law. 
 
 Now let us see what story Mr. Twiss has been told 
 about this marriage. He says that the present Earl 
 of Eldon writes in the following terms : — " My Grand- 
 father objected to this marriage, not on personal 
 grounds ; but stating himself to be averse to ' vota 
 iterata,' to second marriages : curiously, perhaps, for he 
 himself was the offspring of a second marriage.":!: 
 
 So, according to the present Earl, to object to the 
 
 * To the amiable qualities of this gentleman a brief tribute has 
 been paid in a note in the early part of the fourth chapter. His 
 brother, William Henry John Scott, died unmarried, in 1832, at the 
 age of thirty-seven. 
 
 f In justice to the late Lord Eldon, as well as to Mr. and ^Mrs. 
 Farrer, the following passage, alluding to this marriage, must be 
 quoted from Mr. Twiss's work (vol. ii, ch. xxxii. p. 178), " after the 
 event, however, the lapse of time, and the unexceptionable conduct 
 of the parties, gradually obliterated these impressions." 
 
 X Twiss, vol. ii. ch. xxxii. p. 178.
 
 152 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 marriage of his daugliter-iii-Iavv, he must virtually 
 reflect upou that of his parents ; — to gather stones 
 to throw at the living, he must violate the graves of 
 the dead ! 
 
 But I am enabled to afford the present Lord Eldon 
 the gratification of learning that this is unnecessary. 
 And, as he — the son of Mrs. Farrer — was obviously the 
 last person in the whole world with whom his grand- 
 father was likely to talk over the grounds of his objec- 
 tion, any misapprehension which he may have made on 
 this subject will readily be forgiven. My own version, 
 I received many years ago from one* most intimately 
 acquainted with the private opinions of the Chancellor. 
 
 The late Lord Eldon maintained (and Lady Eldon 
 agreed with him) that a woman (and they applied the 
 rule to a woman only) ought not to submit herself to a 
 second marriage. So high was the standard entertained 
 by that couple, so long and so happily united, of the 
 modesty and constancy of the softer sex ! 
 
 The argument so eloquently addressed to the 
 widowed Queen of Carthage, though it have less of ro- 
 mance, may have more of pliilosophy : — 
 
 Solane perpetua moerens carpere juveuta ; 
 Nee dulees natos, Veneris nee praemia noris ? 
 Id cin^crem aut manes credis curare sepultos ? 
 
 But what I am now stating is the ground of objection, 
 and not the soundness of it. And as the Chancellor's 
 objection related only to a woman marrying again, 
 and as his own mother was not married twice — though 
 his father was, and he was the son of the second mar- 
 
 * Lady Eldon' s brother, Mr. William Surtces.
 
 LORDS STOVVELL AND ELDON. 153 
 
 riage of his father — this attempt at the application of 
 the argumentum ad hominem fails for want of regarding 
 the difference between the sexes. 
 
 Now, in 1824, many years after this marriage, when 
 Lord Eldon's displeasure was considerably mollified, 
 Mr. Farrer, who was at the bar, became very anxious 
 to obtain a mastership in Chancery : he made what 
 interest he could for it; and he did obtain it, but 
 chiefly (for it is the first reason put forward in the 
 letter to Mr. Farrer notifying his appointment) through 
 Lord Eldon's " recollection of what passed, during a 
 very interesting part of his own life, of kindness to- 
 wards him on the part of his (Mr. Farrer's) father and 
 uncle.''* 
 
 To this I would call the attention of Mr. Twiss — 
 for I trust that the last edition of his work has yet to 
 appear — with a view of informing him of the fact (of 
 which he does not seem to be aware) that the father 
 and uncle of Mr. Farrer were amongst the solicitors in 
 London who early gave Lord Eldon business in his 
 profession ; and of pressing upon him that, if from the 
 present generation of that family he can obtain any 
 traditions as to Lord Eldon's mode of conducting 
 business when at the bar, he will be enabled to fill up 
 a void in all the existing biographies of the Chancellor. 
 
 To remind a Lord Chancellor of the time when he 
 was an unknown barrister, when a brief or two given or 
 withheld would have been enough to keep him in Lon- 
 don or banish him to a remote province — so evenly, at 
 one period, hung the scales of Fate — would have been 
 
 * Twiss, vol. ii. ch. xlvi. p. 502.
 
 154 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 a difficult, perhaps a somewhat indelicate matter, for 
 one ambitious of a j^lace — the son of an attorney who 
 had given him business. The delicate mission of hint- 
 ing to Lord and Lady Eldon this early obligation was 
 assigned to, and accepted by, another ; and in the end, 
 as we have seen, Mr. Farrer was a2)pointed. 
 
 The following anecdote is not without professional 
 humour. A barrister applied in person for a master- 
 ship in Chancery. The Chancellor shrugged his 
 shoulders portentously, and answered, " I am engaged 
 double, treble, quadruple, quintuple, nay, sextuple deep ; 
 but I shall be happy to give you a silk gown." " No," 
 replied the mortified applicant, " I did not ask your 
 Lordship for that. I have no fancy for brevet rank 
 and half pay : but, if your Lordship has a silk gown to 
 spare, my wife will be only too proud to wear it." 
 
 The Chancellor had two daughters. Respecting 
 (me of these, the following statement, from the pen 
 of the present Earl, has been presented to the public 
 through Mr. Twiss :* 
 
 " His (Lord Eldon's) eldest daughter, Elizabeth, after 
 some unsuccessful attempts to obtain his consent to 
 her marriage with Mr. George Stanley Repton, made 
 her escape from Lord Eldon's house in Bedford-square, 
 on the morning of the 27tli of November, 1817 ; and, 
 the bridegroom having made all requisite preparation, 
 they were married by licence, at St. George's Hanover- 
 square. Although in this instance the lady only fol- 
 lowed the example of her father and mother, yet the 
 
 * Vol ii. ch. xxxix. p. 298. The other daughter, Frances- Jane, the 
 darhng of her fatlier, was afterwards married to the Rev. Edward 
 Bankcs.
 
 LORDS STOVVELL AND ELDON. 155 
 
 head of the law would not allow the validity of his own 
 precedent; and it was not until the year 1820 that a 
 reconciliation took place." 
 
 Without entering into the question, whether the 
 public was entitled to the painful communication of 
 Lord Eldon's displeasure at his daughter, represented 
 by Mr. Twiss, and perhaps with some reason, as " very 
 much over-proportioned to the offence, both in degree 
 and duration," I must, now that it has been made, ob- 
 serve that the paragraph lately quoted, affords another 
 instance of that misapprehension of facts, which, in 
 family matters, occasionally occurs in " the public and 
 private life of Lord Chancellor Eldon." Why, after 
 all, in that paragraph not the slightest inkling has been 
 given of the offence which Lord Eldon alleged that he 
 punished. Who, on reading that paragraph, and re- 
 collecting that Lady Eldon had eloped from her father s 
 house at the age of eighteen, would not suppose that 
 the offence committed by her daughter was that of a 
 minor marrying without the consent of her father? 
 And yet the fact was, that Miss Scott was then nearly 
 twice the age at which her mother had become a wife ; 
 and the legal authority of her natural guardians had 
 expired for years. The offence — as Lord Eldon stated 
 it, and on the ground of which he endeavoured 
 with his most intimate friends to excuse his severity — 
 was, that his daughter had married one whom she had 
 promised her father to give up. 
 
 As Lord Eldon's severe displeasure has already been 
 proclaimed l)y Mr. Twiss, an anecdote may be given, 
 singularly characteristic of the vaiious conflicting 
 elements which composed his temper and affections.
 
 156 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 111 a little more than a year after the marriage, Mrs. 
 (now Lady Elizabeth) Reptoii gave birth to her only 
 chilli, the present member for St. Albans. Her life 
 was long in danger — probably at one time despaired of. 
 At this period, and by her desire, her uncle, William Sur- 
 tees, entreated Lord Eklon, his contemporary and 
 school-fellow, to be reconciled to his own daughter ; 
 and entreated in vain. Her recovery was slow : and 
 while she was recovering, Mr. Surtees again interceded 
 for her. As he was proceeding. Lord Eldon thus ab- 
 ruptly, and somewhat angrily, interrupted him : " I am 
 not surprised at the officious interference of some per- 
 sons who have spoken to me on this subject ; but I am 
 surprised that so old a friend as you should take up the 
 cause of my daughter against me." Mr. Surtees an- 
 swered him : — " You know how ill your daughter has 
 been. If she had died, and I had not spoken to you 
 as I have done, what should you have thought of me ? " 
 The heart of the father was touched. He seized his 
 brother-in-law by the hand ; exclaimed, " Perhaps T 
 should never have forgiven you !" and burst into tears. 
 
 Thenceforward Lord Eldon's anger was partially 
 subdued. He now soon agreed to see his daughter : at a 
 later period he was induced to see her child ; and 
 afterwards, as the last stage of the reconciliation, re- 
 ceived Mr. Reptoii. 
 
 But it is time that Me should pass from private to 
 public matters. 
 
 Canning, the high-mettled showy racer of the politi- 
 cal course, dashed onward to the goal, just gained it, 
 and expired. Lord Goderich, respectable as his colo- 
 nial secretary, succeeded him in the office of first
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 157 
 
 minister; but within six months, retired from a station 
 he was incompetent to fill. The Duke of Wellington 
 was then called to the confidence of his sovereign ; and 
 in January, 1S28, formed an administration, without 
 including or consulting Lord Eldon. The Ex-chan- 
 cellor was chagrined at this neglect ; and expressed 
 little trust in the motley coalition of the old Liverpool 
 and Canning parties, by which his cabinet was con- 
 structed. 
 
 Li the spring of this year was carried, against the 
 opposition of Lord Eldon, the bill for removing the 
 disabilities imposed on Dissenters by the Test and 
 Corporation Acts. The aged peer, with the wizard 
 eye of experience, " looked into the seeds of Time," 
 and foresaw that the next important measure of govern- 
 ment would be one to admit Roman Catholics to Par- 
 liament — a measure which he persisted in maintaining 
 would be the ruin of the British constitution. 
 
 As exemplifying not only the impressions at that 
 time entertained by Lord Eldon, but the wary circum- 
 spection of his character, the following letter, addressed 
 from his seat of Encombe, about the end of September, 
 1828, to his brother-in-law, William Surtees, will repay 
 in the perusal the attention which it demands. 
 
 " Monday Night. 
 " Dear Surtees, 
 " I thank you for your last Letter. T hope the par- 
 tridges proved good. They are scarce about this place, 
 and the heavy Rain we have had will now make it 
 difficult to find them, and walking for that purpose very 
 wet work, and somewhat laborious.
 
 158 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 " I hear nothing- from Town, except what I know there 
 is no foundation whatever for, viz., that it is reported that 
 I am to come into Office : I mean reported in Town, 
 for, except that T learn from London Correspondence 
 that it is so reported, I have heard nothing respecting 
 any such Matter. Indeed, if any such Offer was made, 
 there is much to be explained before I would give any 
 Answer. That no such Offer will be made I am as 
 certain, as I can be of any Thing, that I do not positively 
 know — and I am so, because I think I can't be mis- 
 taken when I believe that the Inflexibility of my 
 Opinions respecting the Catholic Claims was with 
 those, who are not inflexible as to those Claims, the 
 Reason, or at least one of the Reasons, that produced 
 that Silence towards me, which took place on the 
 Change of Administration, and it remains very well 
 known to be the fact that that Inflexibility cannot 
 be shaken. 
 
 " There is not a Being in London, who corresponds 
 with me in this dead Season of the year. So that I 
 know nothing but what I hear from the Newspapers, 
 which, at this Season, are very dull and stupid. You 
 have probably seen in them the Letters of Lord Ken- 
 yon and the Duke of Newcastle.* There are not two 
 
 * Lord Kenyon's first letter " On the State of the Catholic Ques- 
 tion," dated 30th of August, 1828, appeared in the Morning Post 
 of the 2nd of September. His second letter, dated the 10th of Sep- 
 tember, appeared in the Morning Post of the 12th of the same 
 month. After this, on the 18th of September, the Duke of New- 
 castle addressed a letter to Lord Kenyon on the same subject, which 
 appeared in the Morning Post of the 23rd of the same month. 
 These are the letters to which Lord Eldon referred.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 159 
 
 better or [moref] well-meaning Men living — but it re- 
 quired great Consideration, and much good Advice, 
 before these Letters should have been published — If as 
 general Protestant Associations could have been hoped 
 for in England, as there are likely to be in Ireland, the 
 Step they have taken would have been undoubtedly 
 right — but, sorry as I am to say it, the Truth seems to 
 be that in England there seems to be little Anxiety 
 anions: the different Ranks of Persons as to what Re- 
 ligion they profess, or whether there is any — and the 
 danger is this — viz., that, as now a Sort of appeal is 
 made to the Protestants of the Nation, if the protestant 
 part of the Nation was equally divided, the Friends of 
 the Roman Catholics would argue that, adding to one- 
 half of the protestants, who, in that case, would be for 
 them, their, the Roman Catholics', own Numbers, a 
 large Majority of the whole of the people of the United 
 Kingdom is for them — if such, therefore, was the 
 Result, harm would be done — But more harm would 
 be done, if it should ha23pen that a Majority of the 
 Counties in England should declare for them, or be 
 neuter — and take no part against them, for then it 
 would be quite impossible for the Friends of the Pro- 
 testants in Parliament to say, as they have hitherto, 
 that the Majority of the People of England are against 
 the Catholic Claims. The County of Kent and that of 
 Buckingham will petition agt them — but I hear of no 
 other Movement. Durham and Northumberland will 
 be for them or neuter. The same as to Dorset, Devon, 
 
 * I have inserted this word to complete the sense ; though in the 
 original, from which I am copying, it does not occur. 
 
 7
 
 IGO SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 and Cornwall. To meet and petition in Yorkshire is 
 a Matter of vast Expense, and I suppose won't be at- 
 tempted — and I hear nothing of any other Counties. 
 So that it seems to me that the appeal of those noble 
 Lords to the People should not have been made, till 
 they knew Avhat the People would do upon that appeal. 
 According to what the People do, the appeal will do 
 Good, or do Mischief. And what is probable, I think, 
 is not very pleasant to think of. 
 
 " The famous John Wilkes used to say that, as Mem- 
 ber for Middlesex, he always followed the Instructions 
 of his Constituents — which he was told was uncon- 
 stitutional — He admitted it to be so in general Cases 
 — but never in his Case, for said he, I always first tell 
 my Constituents what Instructions they are to give 
 me — So those noble Letter- writers — most excellent 
 Men certainly — should have been sure what their Cor- 
 respondents, the People at large, to whom, in fact, their 
 letters are written, w^ould or would not do, upon receiv- 
 ing their good Advice. 
 
 " Our Love to you and my Sister. Lady Eldon is as 
 usual. John sends his Love to you both, together with 
 Lady E.'s, and that of 
 
 " y^ aff7, 
 
 " Eldon." 
 
 In the following spring the anticipations of Lord 
 Eldon were verified. The Roman Catholic Relief 
 Bill became a government measure, and was carried. 
 His opposition during its progress through the House 
 of Lords was uncompromising ; and loud w^ere his com- 
 plaints in private that nowhere -was faith inviolable.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 101 
 
 Amongst those of his ohl colleagues against wliom he 
 used to vent his indignation, Sir Robert Peel was the 
 most prominent ; for he maintained that he had reason 
 to think that there had existed between the home 
 secretary and himself a general accordance in political 
 sentiments, and an entire union of opinion respecting 
 the particular question of the Roman Catholic claims. 
 
 The zeal, which Lord Eldon on this occasion evinced, 
 induced his admirers to institute a subscription for an 
 '• Eldon testimonial,'' to commemorate how " ably and 
 uniformly," his exertions had been directed to the 
 " maintenance of the Protestant Constitution of his 
 countrv." 
 
 The friend, to whom the last letter was addressed, 
 may be presumed to have applied to this testimonial 
 the somewhat inaccurate description of a " national 
 monument ;" for Lord Eldon thus answered him, in a 
 letter, probably written in the summer of 1829, con- 
 taining much of the easy humour which characterised 
 his conversation. 
 
 " Dear Surtees, 
 
 " I was sorry to find from your Letter that you were 
 not so fully recovered as we had hoped and wished. 
 
 " All that I wish of my Country is that they would 
 do me the Justice to beheve that I have meant, and 
 shall continue to at least to mean well, whilst I live, 
 able, with any Exercise of Judgment, to form a 
 Meaning. 
 
 " As to national Monument, my dear Friend, that 
 honor must be paid only to those who are more deserv- 
 ing of it. As to any other Monument, the kindness of
 
 J 62 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 that Beiiii^, who has given me Leisure, and a Respite 
 from Labour between the Business of Life and the 
 Close of it, that I miglit not go hence too well known 
 to others, too little known to myself, I trust will post- 
 pone, for some Time longer, the Occasion, upon which 
 it may be considered whether I should have a JNIonu- 
 ment to my Memory, or be quietly suffered, which per- 
 haps is best for me, to be forgotten. 
 
 " I own that I am not in any great hurry to take 
 possession of that little Spot of Land, which, when 
 possessed, must be occupied by me till Time shall be no 
 more. Our poor Friend Reay, if you remember, thought 
 his Mother might be in a hurry about such a business, 
 for his Father having, by will, left her a Vault in some 
 Church, he wrote her a civil Letter to tell her that 
 he would give her possession as soon as she pleased to 
 take it." 
 
 In June, 1830, the demise of George IV. transferred 
 the crown to his brother the Duke of Clarence. In 
 tlie autumn of this year, when the foundations of 
 ])olitical society throughout continental Europe were 
 tottering to their fall. Lord Eldon watched the moral 
 earthquake and eruption with timorous curiosity and 
 gloomy anticipation. The latter part of the following 
 letter, addressed by Lord Eldon to his brother-in-law 
 William Surtees, evinces his feelings at that momentous 
 crisis. The letter is proved by internal evidence* to 
 
 * I have read many letters from Lord Eldon to his intimate 
 friends, in the inside of which there were no dates— a fact accounted 
 for by the consideration that the franked envelopes, containing such 
 
 5
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 163 
 
 have been written at the commencement of September, 
 1830:— 
 
 " Dear Surtees, 
 
 " A great many Thanks to you for your Letter. I 
 trust that your Entrance upon your 81st year may be 
 only the Fore-runner of your entering upon, and enjoy- 
 ing, in many more. Health and all Blessings— and in 
 this wish your Sister most heartily joins me — Our Love 
 waits also upon my Sister, and we read, with much 
 Satisfaction, your good Account of her health. 
 
 " I am very glad to hear so good an account of the 
 Norfolk crops — but I confess I don't consider, (if Mr. 
 Willis's Letters to me are right as to fact,) that these 
 great Crops will be as beneficial to the Landlord or 
 Tenant, as one might, in other Circumstances, have 
 hoped — for he assures me that they have very good 
 Crops — but that the Corn, imported from abroad, is 
 already in quantity so great, that our Corn cannot sell, 
 so as to enable the Farmer to get a price, which will 
 enable him to pay his Taxes and his Rent — As to the 
 jiolitical Changes, which are going on abroad, and which 
 are leading to political Changes here, it seems, by no 
 means, improbable that even you and I may live to 
 see England without a Rag left of the Constitution, 
 under which we have so long lived. 
 
 " I don't think we shall be able to move from Town, 
 
 of his letters as were sent by post, would present the dates to those 
 who received them. Afterwards, unluckily, the franks and letters 
 have often been separated. 
 
 M 2
 
 1G4 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OP 
 
 for, tlio' I tliiuk Lady Ekloii somewhat better, she is 
 not sufficiently better to leave Town I doubt. 
 
 " Encombe is elected again, but there is a petition 
 against his Election. 
 
 " Our best Love attends you and my Sister, and I 
 am 
 
 Y". old and sincere Friend 
 
 " Eldon."
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 1C5 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Amidst the political convulsions of the Autumn of 
 1830, the first parliament of William IV. was assem- 
 bled. In Ireland was raised the cry for a repeal of the 
 union : over England was resounding the demand for 
 Parliamentary Reform : while the Trades' Associations 
 throughout the empire aggravated the apprehensions of 
 the friends of order by the appearance of discipline and 
 organization which they began to present. The 
 cabinet of the Duke of Wellington had lost the 
 support of party, without gaining the confidence of the 
 nation. Whig and Tory agreed in distrusting it ; and 
 by a temporary, and perhaps factious, junction of an- 
 tagonist extremes, the ministers, on thelSth of Novem- 
 ber, were beaten in the House of Commons. They 
 immediately resigned the seals of office into the hands 
 of the sovereign, who called Lord Grey to his con- 
 fidence. Before the change of administration, Mr. 
 Brougham had given notice, in the House of Commons, 
 of a motion on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, 
 which he was only prevented from bringing forward by 
 his elevation to the chancellorship and peerage. 
 
 We shall shortly find Lord Eldon addressing his 
 brother-in-law as follows : —
 
 16G SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Lord Eldon to Mr. ( William) Siirtees* 
 " Dear Surtees, 
 
 " A great many Thanks from Lady Eldon and myself 
 for your Letter received to day — We are happy to find 
 you arc in Progress to the Restoration of combined 
 Health and Strength, and God grant that that Resto- 
 ration may be soon entire and complete ! May his 
 kind Providence secure to you and my Sister many 
 happy Years. 
 
 " You mention Ireland, and you mention reduction 
 of Rents. These are melancholy subjects. 
 
 " That Rents must, after being already gently re- 
 duced, be still more, and largely reduced, I have no 
 doubt, and the Land Owner, and the Owners indeed 
 of every Species of property, have to look for more 
 calamitous days than these descriptions of Men have 
 ever yet seen in England. 
 
 " As to Ireland, all I hear leads me to fear that the 
 Union will be repealed — I thought when I struggled 
 against the Roman Catholic Bill that this might — nay, 
 must be the Consequence — and now England, favouring 
 the Catholics in Ireland, in all things, has driven the 
 Protestants — the Orangemen, to join, I fear, in this 
 project of repeal. 
 
 * Mr. Townsend, in vol. ii. p. 492, of his Lives of Eminent Judges, 
 in quoting, from the New Monthly Magazine of April last, a portion 
 of this letter, has made the mistake of stating that it was addressed 
 to Mr. Wm. V. Surtees, who was the nephew of Lady Eldon and 
 son of the gentleman named in the text. The author of this sketch 
 begs to be forgiven, when he pays to the memory of Mr. William 
 Surtees, the elder, such poor tribute as is afforded by acknowledging 
 and recording the grateful affection of a grandson for the unvarying 
 kindness of a grandfather.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 1C7 
 
 " This Country is certainly in a worse State than 
 you and I have ever known it — and I see no signs 
 of improvement. — 
 
 " I send you and my Sister Lady Eklon's love and 
 
 my own. Lady E.'s health remains much the same ! 
 
 " Yours most affectionately, 
 
 " Eldon." 
 " 27 Dec."* 
 
 Lady Eldon, after having suffered from an illness 
 nearly two years, during which she was the object of 
 inexpressible tenderness and solicitude to her husband, 
 expired on the 28tli of June, 1831. On the event 
 Lord Eldon seemed crushed with grief ; and, though he 
 afterwards rallied, he ever continued to mourn her 
 loss — constant in sorrow as in love. 
 
 The influence of Lady Eldon over her husband, 
 always great, seemed only to increase with her age. 
 Her affections were warm, as perhaps is commonly the 
 case with those of retiring habits ; and, notwithstanding 
 her retiring habits, her disposition was active. The 
 little savings, necessary under straitened means, are felt 
 painful, principally because to the surrounding world 
 they seem ridiculous. But as Lady Eldon secluded 
 herself from society, and lived only for her husband and 
 children, such habits of domestic thrift as she had ac- 
 
 * 1 hesitated, at first, whether to assign to the composition of this 
 letter a place in the December of 1829, or that of 1830 ; for both 
 were periods of national distress. But the allusion to the agitation 
 on the union with Ireland — a subject which, in the autumn of 1830, 
 had formed one of the topics of the King's speech — seems to suggest 
 the latter year.
 
 168 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 quired in early married life, were not brushed off when 
 the necessities, which had produced them, passed away : 
 and it became a reproach to her, that an economy, 
 honourable in its commencement, was mean in its con- 
 tinujince. Lady El don derived from nature much sim- 
 plicity of character, and retained through circumstances 
 an entire ignorance of the world as it exists in the 
 nineteenth century. Of the personal attractions of her 
 youth, some mention has been made in the first chap- 
 ter. And it may be added that, when in the company 
 of those whom she valued, her address was sprightly 
 and agreeable ; and that on some occasion, perhaps the 
 only one, when she presented herself at court. Queen 
 Charlotte passed high encomiums on the graceful man- 
 ners of the fair recluse. But, when it is recollected that 
 a husband and a son — the one in his will, the other on 
 his death-bed — desired to be buried close beside her, it 
 will be pronounced that in spite of some admitted 
 eccentricities, she must have possessed attractions more 
 sterling than those which are comprised in person and 
 manner. 
 
 But let us now return to the Earl of Eldon. In the 
 spring of 1831, the ministry of Lord Grey introduced 
 a bill for Parliamentary Reform. It was rejected in 
 the Lower House before it had reached the Lords ; 
 and its defeat was followed by a dissolution. As the 
 new House of Commons was elected at a period of 
 great national excitement, many of its members were 
 returned under the pledge of supporting the leading 
 ministerial measure. The second Reform Bill, there- 
 fore, proceeded as far as the House of Lords ; but 
 there it was rejected ; Lord Eldon being amongst those
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 169 
 
 who spoke and voted against it. The hardy adventu- 
 rous crew, however, who manned the vessel of Reform, 
 though twice she had wrecked, determined again to re- 
 fit her, and a third time to trust her to the deep. 
 Lord Eklon, together with a great body of the lords in 
 opposition, influenced by the persevering demands of 
 the country, the request of the king, and the ministerial 
 threat to create peers, now abstained from voting. 
 Hence, on the 4th of June, 1 832, the Reform Bill was 
 allowed to pass through the Ui)per House, and on the 
 7tli of the same month became the law of the land. 
 
 Up to the end of July, 1834, Lord Eklon continued 
 to speak occasionally in Parliament ; and whenever 
 leoal or church matters were discussed, would raise his 
 feeble voice to deprecate change. But he was heard 
 with more of respect than attention. He had survived 
 his influence; and was accounted unable to accommo- 
 date his opinions to the preceding, or the necessarily 
 impending, alterations in our domestic policy. 
 
 As those, who consider the vast amount of application 
 requisite for the discharge of the duties of Chancellor, 
 may have some curiosity respecting the diet pursued 
 by one, who, with a constitution by no means originally 
 robust, was enabled to continue, for so protracted a 
 period, such laborious exertions, a custom shall be men- 
 tioned which was adopted, and long continued, by 
 Lord Eklon. Each night, just before he retired to his 
 bed-room, Lord Eklon received from his butler a glass 
 of ale, which he would drink off to the bottom. He 
 persevered in this habit to a late stage of life : but, at 
 length, Mr. Pennington, his medical attendant, pre- 
 vailed upon him to i-elinquish it, on the ground that,
 
 170 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 if persisted in, it would produce a tendency of blood to 
 the head. 
 
 Towards the conclusion of 1833, or about the com- 
 mencement of the following year, Lord Eldon, impressed 
 with the prudence of " setting his house in order'' 
 against that event, which, in the course of nature, could 
 not long be delayed, devoted a morning to the exami- 
 nation of the papers in his London residence in Hamil- 
 ton Place. He destroyed many confidential letters, 
 bearing on the politics of former times ; and, though 
 Ave may regret the irreparable loss of information, we 
 must acknowledge the prudence and the propriety of 
 the act through which we suffer. In the afternoon, 
 when giving an account of his morning's work, Lord 
 Eldon added, that " he had been connected with a good 
 many administrations, and that there were many things 
 which he did not wish afterwards to come out." 
 
 As Lord Eldon drew near the end of life, his me- 
 mory, once so tenacious, began to fail him ; and those, 
 who had frequent access to him, complained, that they 
 were weary of hearing him over and over again repeat 
 the same stories. Perhaps, too, the temper, as well as 
 the memory, might occasionally be affected. But the 
 weaknesses of age are to be regarded, on their approach, 
 with the reverential kindness and the sacred silence 
 due to such hoary messengers, on so sad an errand — the 
 venerable ambassadors from an unseen world ! 
 
 Lord Eldon died on the 13th of January, 1838, in 
 his eighty-seventh year. 
 
 To possess the affectionate and unlimited confidence 
 of two successive sovereigns — to preside in the supreme 
 courts of justice for more than a quarter of a century,
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 171 
 
 and to sit in the cabinet for nearly that period — to fill 
 a prominent and influential j^osition in various adminis- 
 trations, which checked the growth of anarchy at home, 
 waged a great and successful war abroad, or established 
 and maintained a long and prosperous peace — was the 
 lofty destiny of the distinguished personage whose 
 death has been just recorded. 
 
 The character of one, whose life was so successful 
 and so conspicuous, must present a reasonable subject 
 of curiosity to his fellows : and I shall endeavour, 
 therefore, to give some additional assistance towards 
 forming a just estimate of it. 
 
 Assiduous in the discharge of his various and most 
 responsible duties, both political and judicial, it was 
 seldom that Lord Chancellor Eldon devoted to physical 
 and mental relaxation an interval from the cares of 
 office. But when the autumnal holidays did anive, no 
 school-boy enjoyed them with a keener relish. An 
 abundant flow of animal spirits is imjDortant, possibly 
 essential, towards eminent success in a profession so 
 disheartening in its commencement, so exacting and 
 laborious in its prosecution, as that to which Lord 
 Eldon belonged ; but this was comi:>rised in the happy 
 temperament which he had received from Nature. 
 When, in 1807, lie purchased his seat of Encombe, in 
 Dorsetshire, one of its strongest recommendations to 
 him was, that its distance from London was so great that 
 he should stand little chance of having his rural enjoy- 
 ment interrupted by being summoned thence to consult 
 on trivial occasions. When, then, he had arrived there 
 he would give full play to the natural gaiety of his 
 temper.* " Tempora curarum remissionunique divisa.
 
 172 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Ubi conventus ac jiidicia poscerent, gravis, intentus, 
 Severn?, ct sa^pius misericors : ubi officio satisfactum, 
 nulla ultra protestatis persona."* He, who had lately 
 been seen under the bushy honours of his flowing wig, 
 presiding in the Court of Chancery or the House of 
 Lords, was here transformed into the light-hearted, 
 simi)le-minded play-fellow of his own dogs and his 
 bailiff's children. Not long after he had become pos- 
 sessed of the property, I have heard of him, while 
 there, suddenly jumping up in the drawing-room and 
 dancing a step to a tune of his own singing ; and then 
 observing with a smile to the family party around, 
 " You don't know the luxury of playing the fool." 
 
 On some occasion, when going to call on Mr. Cal- 
 craft, who resided in the neighbourhood of Encombe, 
 he saw, on passing through the grounds, two daughters 
 of his friend, and two other girls playing at " see-saw'' 
 — two at each end of an oak tree, which had been cut 
 down. He used, afterwards, laughingly to compliment 
 one of the Misses Calcraft on the pretty ancle which he 
 persisted that she had then revealed ; and he com- 
 memorated his own lm])i)y fortune in the following 
 vers de societe, copied from the original in Lord Eldon's 
 hand-writing. 
 
 " In days of yore, as Roman poets tell, 
 One Venus lov'd in myrtle groves to dwell : 
 In modern days no less than four agree 
 To consecrate to fame our oaken tree — 
 Blest tree ! the monarch shelter' d by thy arms ! 
 The goddessf from thy boughs displays her charms." 
 " t Viz., Caroline." 
 
 * Tacitus. Vita Agricolsc- C. ix.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 173 
 
 The young people of Lord Eklon*s family, wlicii this 
 effusion was produced, declared that, for the encourage- 
 ment of genius, its author should be decreed a poetic 
 triumph ; and, having made a wreath, they crowned the 
 Chancellor with mock solemnity, that he might for the 
 future — 
 
 Instead of powder'd curls, let i\-y twine 
 Around that head so full of " Caroline ;" 
 
 while he himself entered into their fun with all the 
 zest of boyish frolic. 
 
 Such is the pleasing aspect under which the charac- 
 ter of Lord Eldon would often appear. That the re- 
 verse side of the same medal presents a man with 
 strong and permanent personal prejudices and resent- 
 ments, will hardly be denied. That he, on some mat- 
 ters, was anxious to exact from his family a submission 
 of their judgment to his own incompatible with proper 
 independence — that his tenderness was changed for 
 anger, his confidence for distrust, the moment that he 
 considered his interest or his authority to be invaded — 
 is a statement which cannot be disputed. With his 
 eldest son, whom he loved and mourned so deeply, 
 Lord Eldon used to be grievously annoyed, because, 
 though a Tory, he professed to be not a party man, and 
 had from principle declined occasionally to support in 
 the House of Commons the measures supported by his 
 father in the House of Lords. 
 
 Beneficial as the experience of kindness is to most 
 characters, the excess of attention which Lord and Lady 
 Eldon paid to each other, might be somewhat detri- 
 mental to both, as tendino^ to render them too exacting 
 of deference from those less eager to bestow it.
 
 174 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 Whether or not Lord Eldon M-cre unwilling to have, 
 in his hours of relaxation, his hard- worked intellect 
 still kept ujion the stretch, certain it is that he did not 
 generally select his most familiar associates from men 
 of commanding ability. They were, for the most part, 
 worthy fellows, who had a vast respect for him, could 
 tell or listen to a good story, and crack with him a joke 
 or a bottle of wine, 
 
 Lord Eldon's disposition in regard to parsimony and 
 liberality has often been misunderstood. That Lord 
 Eldon occasionally did very liberal actions I am well 
 assured ; that in private charity he gave away, and most 
 unostentatiously too, large sums of money, is a fact 
 which I am happy to record. But no one who had ca- 
 pacity for forming a just opinion, and an opportunity of 
 knowing, and in an extended survey regarding, the whole 
 of his conduct, ever thought him a liberal man. His 
 charities never gushed from that loftiness and generosity 
 of soul which loves to give for the sake of giving — of 
 that feeling he could have formed no conception ; but 
 they proceeded from the impulses of a heart so sensible, 
 so almost womanishly tender, that it could with diffi- 
 culty bear the sight or even the knowledge of distress. 
 When he indulged his passion for accumulation, it was 
 the victory of the soul — when he dispensed his bounty, 
 it was the triumph of the heart. This consideration 
 will exjilain the puzzling phenomenon how the same 
 person could have been sometimes described as liberal, 
 and sometimes as mean. 
 
 As it is our prescriptive consolation in defeat to lay 
 too much upon fortune, while, on the other hand, in 
 success w'e attribute too much to ourselves, Lord Eldon,
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 175 
 
 in proportion as lie advanced in rank and riclics, was 
 found to exaggerate — unconsciously, no doubt — the 
 difficulties Avbicli lie had to surmount in his entrance 
 upon his profession. An early marriage, the surest 
 check to the levity of morals and dissipation of fancy, 
 so hostile to severe application, vrould facilitate the 
 industry which it had rendered necessary ; while the 
 peculiarly domestic habits of his wife, whom he tenderly 
 loved, would, by binding him to his own fire-side, still 
 further dispose him to prosecute his studies. In her 
 he would find a companion ever ready either to console 
 him under disappointment or rejoice with him in suc- 
 cess : nor is this an advantage to be lightly accounted. 
 To the ordinary difficulties of his profession he opposed 
 extraordinary diligence, and there were no unusual 
 obstacles in his case to be surmounted. 
 
 On first joining circuit, he obtained business in the 
 northern counties ; and his second forensic year did not 
 pass without his receiving a parliamentary retainer. 
 The readiness with which he got into practice in New- 
 castle would give him confidence and encouragement : 
 while the few years which elapsed before he obtained 
 briefs in York, and got established in business in Lon- 
 don, would teach him the importance of making the 
 most of opportunities when they occurred, and of pre- 
 serving and increasing his connexion by watchfulness 
 and application. His discretion, still more even than 
 his ability, exempting him from reverses of fortune, he 
 passed through the regular gradations of professional 
 and official life, till he mounted to the highest 
 honours. 
 
 His labours as a common law and equity judge are
 
 176 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 comprised in the sixteen sets of reports, the names of 
 which are phxced, in the second volume of the " Law 
 Review," * at the head of the article entitled " Lord 
 Eldon as a Law Reformer." But I shall not attempt 
 to analyse Lord Eldon's extraordinary judicial qualifi- 
 cations and acquirements. The discussion of them 
 would be wearisome to the unprofessional reader ; and 
 the professional reader will have already seen them 
 frequently and ably discussed. Of his conduct, how- 
 ever, in the Court of Chancery, one anecdote shall be 
 recorded. 
 
 Though the courtesy of the Chancellor to the bar 
 
 was gratefully felt and acknowledged, yet it was often 
 
 made a subject of complaint in the profession, that the 
 
 judge appeared not to be listening to the arguments 
 
 addressed to him. 
 
 • On one occasion a barrister paused in the middle of 
 bis speech, and suggested that perhaps it would be 
 more convenient that he should discontinue his obser- 
 vations until his lordship should have finished writing 
 the letter in which he api)eared engaged. The Chan- 
 cellor received the remark without signs of irritation ; 
 answered that he certainly Avas writing a letter, but at 
 the same time he was attending to the speech ; and 
 added that had he not known that in his own case 
 another employment was not inconsistent with contem- 
 poraneously bestowing the requisite attention upon the 
 cause, lie should never have attempted it ; and that to 
 
 * No. 4. In addition to the various publications bearing on Lord 
 Eldon to which reference has already been made in the course of 
 these chapters, I am bound also to mention the articles upon him in 
 Nos. 5 and (3 of the " Law Review."
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 177 
 
 prove his assertions, he would repeat what had been 
 said. He then with great fidelity recapitulated all the 
 observations of the counsel. 
 
 His speeches and arguments, whether delivered in 
 the capacity of counsel, judge, or senator, displayed 
 none of that clear and polished felicity of diction which 
 distinguished those of his eldest brother. But in his 
 person and clothes he was as remarkable for neatness, 
 as Lord Stow'ell was for the want of it. Perhaps, 
 • however, this latter distinction was produced rather by 
 the fastidious exactness of Lady Eldon, and the 
 gallantry which her husband always evinced towards 
 her, than by the spontaneous impulse of his own dispo- 
 sition. 
 
 In the commerce of society, the address and conver- 
 sation of Lord Eldon were singularly agreeable. His 
 anecdotes (especially professional ones, of which he had 
 a rich store) he would relate with dry humour, not 
 laughing himself, but suddenly looking up, at the point 
 of the story, with an arch smile and mirth -beaming eye, 
 the influence of which no gravity could resist. He w as 
 ready at repartee, and had a turn for sarcasm ; but it 
 was as bright, playful, and innocuous as the vapour 
 lightning in a cloudless sky. In the early part of Lord 
 Eldon s Chancellorship, George III. asked him, in good- 
 humoured badinage, whether ever before there was a 
 king who had a Chancellor and an Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, both of wiiom had run away with their wives : 
 When Lord Eldon adroitly and drolly turned the joke 
 upon the venerable metropolitan who was present, with 
 " Let the archbishop answer that question, please your 
 majesty." It is said that a guest, who had first dined 
 
 N
 
 178 SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF 
 
 with Lord Stowell at Lord Eldoii's and then with Lord 
 Eldon at Lord Stowell's, whispered, on tlie latter occa- 
 sion, to Lord Eklon, that his brother seemed no longer 
 to care about wane, for he evinced none of his former 
 zeal in helping himself and passing the bottle. " My 
 brother will drink any giveji quantity of wine," was the 
 arch and significant answer. 
 
 The fascination of Lord Eldon's manner will best be 
 appreciated through a knowledge of its effects. George 
 IV., when merely Prince of Wales, had bitterly hated 
 him. As Prince Regent, however, being drawn within 
 the charmed circle of the Chancellor's society, he was 
 converted into his friend. 
 
 During the insanity of George III., the Princess 
 Charlotte had been sternly, and even rudely, rebuked 
 by Lord Eldon for opposing the wishes of her father ; 
 and, in relation to a letter which she had written to the 
 Prince Regent, the Chancellor told the Princess, that 
 " if she had been his daughter, and had written him 
 such a letter, he would have locked her up till she came 
 to her senses."* Yet no sooner had she arrived at 
 womanhood, than his powers of attraction began to 
 produce their wonted effect ; and when he came to 
 Claremont, to be present at her confinement, he found 
 that she had given orders that the best bed in the house 
 should be prepared for him ; while some of the other 
 lords who were there had to sleep on the carpet, t 
 
 Lord Eldon, to the end of his career, entertained a 
 
 grateful recollection of any kindness which he had 
 
 received at its commencement. In his private friend- 
 
 * Memoirs of the Times of George IV. vol. i. p. 193. 
 f Twiss, vol. ii. p. 299.
 
 LORDS STOWELL AND ELDON. 179 
 
 ships he was affectionate and constant : But his tem- 
 porary connexion with Queen Caroline when Prin- 
 cess of Wales, and, perhaps, some other incidents, 
 suffice to show that in public life there was no de- 
 ficiency, on the proper occasions, of a convenient versa- 
 tility — an invaluable ingredient to those who would 
 rise. It was, probably, from a consciousness of this, 
 that he so pertinaciously arrogated to himself the credit 
 of undeviating consistency ; and that flattery, of which 
 he was somewhat exacting, never stole more sweetly 
 upon his ear than when it invested him with this at- 
 tribute.* 
 
 The Nestor and the Ulysses of the latter administra- 
 tions with which he was connected, he well knew — no 
 one better — the value, as an instrument of power, of 
 the reputation of political honesty, and that it should 
 not be risked for the attainment of trivial advantages. 
 Having risen from the middle walks of life, he was more 
 intimately acquainted with " the ebbs and floods of 
 popular councils, and the winds that move those 
 waters, "t than were others of his colleagues, whose 
 birth and education had been within the sphere of the 
 court : and he closely watched every movement of pub- 
 lic opinion, analyzed its causes, gaged its strength, cal- 
 culated its duration. 
 
 With but little of pride do the friends of Lord Eldon 
 turn the pages of the statute-book : for, though there 
 can be no doubt that his caution intercepted many bad 
 measures, his energy has introduced few good ones. 
 
 * Twiss, vol. iii. p. 231. 
 
 t Clarendon's " History of the Rebellion."
 
 180 SKETCH OF THE LIVES, &C. 
 
 Yet for the legislative ladies of the administrations in 
 which he was so long Chancellor, Lord Eldon was 
 not entirely, nor, perhaps, principally, to blame. To 
 the reform of the penal code, it is stated* by Lord 
 Brougham that Lord Liverpool was the chief obstacle. 
 
 The hand of the same gifted limner has depicted 
 Lord Eldon as a champion of the throne and the altar, 
 who confounded every abuse, that surrounded the one 
 or grew up within the precincts of the other, with the 
 institutions themselves, and was alike the determined 
 enemy of all who would either invade the institution 
 or extirpate the abuse. But in justice to Lord Eldon, 
 it must be recollected, that he had witnessed the effects, 
 and formed his mind upon the experience, of that 
 French Revolution — so mild in its promises, so bloody 
 in its performances — which terrified even the firm and 
 mighty intellect of Burke into deserting for ever the 
 banners of Reform. 
 
 Lord Eldon, however, lived to survive the school in 
 Avhicli he had been trained. Its system, at the time of 
 his death, had become obsolete. New principles and 
 another name were assumed by the party to which he 
 had belonged. And ancient Toryism, which had grown 
 decrepit with him, with him was buried in the grave. 
 
 * The sketch of Lord Liverpool in the " Statesmen of the Time 
 of George III." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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