HWUVES&DOINGS
 
 Jc)
 
 MEMORIALS 
 
 \KY 
 
 EARLY LIVES AND DOINGS 
 
 GREAT LAWYERS. 
 
 C. L. BRIGHTWEl I, 
 
 " Tk. l.t/n/Mn OWA**ln>//iutiu*rj**IGemi>*,' 
 
 LONDON: 
 AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 
 N EW YOKK. 
 
 1866.
 
 l)to little iiooh 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 HER NEPHEWS, 
 TOM AND HARRY BRIGHT WELL, 
 
 THEIR LOVING AUNT, 
 CECILIA LUCY BRIGHTWELL. 
 
 2024:'
 
 this little volume will be found a series of 
 short biographical notices of some of our 
 most renowned English lawyers, having 
 reference principally to the earlier period of their lives, 
 and occasionally detailing a few of their more remark- 
 able " sayings and doings." 
 
 From Lord Campbell's " Lives of the Chief-Justices " 
 and of " the Chancellors " I have principally derived my 
 information ; and to those delightful volumes the young 
 student is directed, that he may acquaint himself with 
 these illustrious characters in full-drawn portraiture. 
 
 This work, designed as a school-prize book, will, it is 
 hoped, stir the mind of many a youth to emulate the 
 worthy example and tread in the footsteps of the eminent 
 men who have from age to age filled the highest places 
 in our Courts of Judicature, and who are among the 
 greatest benefactors and brightest ornaments of our 
 nation. 
 
 ~~ 9 _~ t\Lx v v,- r -v !
 
 J 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 I. SIR THOMAS MORE, .. 
 II. SIR EDWARD COKE, 
 
 III. SIR MATTHEW HALE, .. 
 
 IV. LORD-KEEPER GUILFORD, 
 V. CHIEF-JUSTICE HOLT,.. 
 
 VI. LORD MANSFIELD, 
 VII. SIR J. EARDLEY WILMOT, 
 VIII. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE 
 IX. LORD EKSKINE, 
 X. LORD ELLENBOROUGH, 
 XI. LORD ELDON, .. 
 XII. SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY, 
 XIII. LORD TENTERDEN, 
 CONCLUSION, 
 
 9 
 IS 
 
 36 
 5' 
 64 
 87 
 97 
 "3 
 124 
 '35 
 160 
 179 
 206 
 228 
 247
 
 LIVES AND DOINGS 
 
 GREAT LAWYERS 
 
 <3fntrol)uetion. 
 
 [KILE engaged in preparing these biographical 
 sketches for the press, I have frequently called 
 to remembrance an evening I spent, many 
 years ago. in company with the eminent and well-known 
 jurist, the late Mr. John Austin. I saw him under very 
 favourable circumstances, when none were present but 
 his intimate friends and connections, and he was drawn 
 into a long and deeply interesting talk. On returning 
 home I took notes of what he had said, and as some of 
 his observations had reference to the subject of juris- 
 prudence, I have determined to give them here. 
 
 After he had been speaking at some length on the 
 subject of languages and dialects, the conversation took 
 a different turn. My father was desirous to obtain Mr. 
 Austin's opinion respecting the question of law as relat- 
 ing to the Christian economy to the religion of the
 
 io Introduction. 
 
 New Testament. On this point he stated it to be his 
 opinion that the sanctions of the gospel are drawn from 
 a higher source that, in fact, there is no such thing as 
 statute or law laid down in the New Testament. The 
 appeal is made to another and higher principle, superior 
 to all the sanctions of law, and having its source from 
 within ; in which sense he understood the passage in 
 the Romans, " Being a law to themselves," as he said 
 this was a metaphorical expression, and could not be 
 literally taken; it being impossible for a man to make 
 laws for himself, the fact being evident that he could at 
 any time abrogate a self-imposed rule. He further went 
 on to observe, respecting the much contested subject of 
 the freedom of the will, that, in his opinion, there could 
 be no such thing, for that it resolved itself into a ques- 
 tion of choice or object the bondage of the will to sin 
 and evil being exchanged for a subjection of the will to 
 higher influences. 
 
 He said, in reference to Christianity, that it is decidedly 
 the most original thing that has ever been presented to 
 view in our world ; that its character is entirely unique ; 
 and that any man deeply acquainted with history, and 
 able to go back along the records it gives, must feel that 
 the influence of Christianity has done more to humanize 
 than any other cause. Anybody looking into the laws of 
 the more excellent among the emperors of the Antonines 
 and Adrians, and those called models of piety and good- 
 ness will be at once convinced of the truth of this. The 
 slave is put beyond the pale of humanity; the influence 
 of the principle, " Do to others as you would that they 
 should do to you," is unknown, unfelt; nor is such a 
 sanction anywhere to be found, taken in its true extent,
 
 Introduction. i r 
 
 but in the Christian religion. "Christianity," said he, 
 " is humanizing; and in this, its distinguishing charac- 
 teristic, is found its infinite superiority " 
 
 This is a striking testimony to the peculiar, the blessed 
 " humanizing " influence of Christianity ; an influence 
 which of necessity affects both the formation and the 
 execution of the laws wherever it has sway, although, 
 alas! so partially has its leaven been permitted to 
 operate, that, even in our happy land, the life and liberty 
 of men have not been secure from outrage under legal 
 sanction. Within the last half century, in the heart of 
 the venerable city I inhabit, a terrible tragedy was 
 enacted. Two fine young men, farmers' servants, were 
 hanged on the top of the Castle Hill, in the sight of 
 hundreds of their fellows, for the sole crime of having 
 stolen a lamb ! 
 
 The assembled multitude gazed with feelings of aver- 
 sion and terror, for it was felt to be nothing short of a 
 legal murder. Vox populi that irresistible voice, when 
 uttered in the cause of humanity and right pronounced 
 it such. Since that fatal day there has been no such 
 horror enacted ; it was the last example of the kind. 
 
 We owe hearty thanks to those noble-minded advocates 
 who have lifted up their cry in remonstrance against the 
 harsh and bloody laws which but recently disgraced our 
 statute books. Among those illustrious names, that of 
 Sir Samuel Romilly ranks high. Undoubtedly there is 
 no profession in this country which exerts so important 
 an influence upon our social and political relations as 
 that of the Law, and it has accordingly been always a 
 road to the highest stations in the land. Upon the whole, 
 the history of our nation tells much in favour of those
 
 1 2 Introduction. 
 
 who have distinguished themselves at the bar and on the 
 bench, many of whom, in the worst and darkest times, 
 have nobly vindicated the rights of the people and the 
 prerogatives of the crown. In how many instances have 
 the liberties of England been preserved by the intrepidity 
 and independence of the judges of the land ! Thus, for 
 example, in alluding to the unconstitutional attempts 
 of the Stuarts to subvert our privileges, Mr. Godwin 
 says, "It is impossible to review these proceedings 
 without feeling that for these liberties we are to no man 
 so deeply indebted as to Sir Edward Coke." That great 
 man, so learned a lawyer and eminent a judge, was also 
 a devoted patriot, zealously attached to the law, satisfied 
 that it afforded the best guarantee for the liberties of the 
 subject and the rights of the crown. 
 
 Accordingly, it was well observed of him that " he lost 
 his advantage in the same way he got it by his tongue." 
 " And," adds the quaint historian, " long lived he in the 
 retirement to which court indignation had remitted him ; 
 yet was not his recess inglorious, for, at improving a 
 disgrace to the best advantage, he was so excellent as 
 King James said of him, ' He was like a cat, throw him 
 which way you will he will light upon his feet ! ' " 
 
 It is unhappily true that all our judges have not walked 
 in the steps of this illustrious personage, and history has 
 registered the misdeeds and unblushing corruption of 
 but too many of their number. Lord Bacon, in his 
 history of the reign of Henry VII., writes in words of 
 burning indignation concerning those rapacious judges 
 who enriched themselves and the king by their exactions 
 and preying, as he says, "like tame hawks for their 
 master, and like wild hawks for themselves." It is a
 
 Introduction. 1 3 
 
 melancholy reflection that this great genius, who in his 
 writings and in his exhortations to the judges de- 
 nounces the sinfulness of accepting bribes, was, by his 
 own confession, repeatedly guilty of the same crime. 
 Indeed, that melancholy period in which the Stuart 
 dynasty bore rule abounds with instances of judicial 
 corruption, though relieved by occasional bright excep- 
 tions. In the famous case of " Ship Money," the judges 
 were almost unanimous for the king. One of their 
 number, Mr. Justice Croke, although convinced that the 
 law was opposed to the claims of the crown, finding the 
 voices of his brethren against him, and fearing lest his 
 resistance should prove unavailing, and merely result in 
 his own loss of place and the consequent ruin of his 
 family, had at length determined to yield and to concur 
 with the other judges in a decision favourable to the 
 court. A few days before he had to argue, we are told 
 by the historian Whitelock, "upon discourse with some 
 of his nearest relations and most"serious thoughts of the 
 business," he intimated his intention, when his wife, who 
 was a very good and pious woman, told him that " she 
 hoped he would do nothing against his conscience for 
 fear of any danger or prejudice to her or his family, and 
 that she would be contented to suffer want or any misery 
 with him rather than be an occasion for him to do or 
 say anything against his judgment and conscience." 
 
 The heroic counsel of this admirable woman prevailed, 
 and when the hour of danger came her husband was 
 firm in his allegiance to the cause of truth and of his 
 country. 
 
 In the present day the integrity of our judges is not 
 put to such severe trial, and we are in no danger of
 
 14 Introduction. 
 
 judicial corruption. Such stumbling-blocks as these do 
 not lie in the path of the aspirant to legal distinction 
 now. To rise in the profession of the law, a man must 
 bear an unblemished character and repute. But, in this, 
 as in other roads to wealth and honour, "iter per ardua 
 ad astra." They who are most competent to speak on 
 such matters affirm that the study and practice of the 
 law are far from an easy task. Legal training is labori- 
 ous, and in some branches dry and unattractive, and one 
 must work hard in order to become conversant with 
 
 " The gathered wisdom of a thousand years." 
 
 It is only by diligence and persevering, energetic 
 effort that the prize can be won and the difficulties of 
 the ascent surmounted. A laborious profession it must 
 ever be, but what a worthy and honourable one to be 
 pursued with an approving conscience, and without the 
 terrible penalties associated with military ambition.
 
 ir (Thomas 
 
 Cromwtll. Sir Tliomas More is chosen 
 Lord Chancellor, in your place. 
 
 H'oltty. That's somewhat sudden : 
 Hut he's a learned man. May he continue 
 Long in his Highness* favour, and do justice 
 Fur truth's sake, and his conscience ; that his bones. 
 When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings, 
 May li.ivc a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em. 
 
 Htnry VI 11., Act iii., Scene a. 
 
 1 1 1 1 < vent thus chronicled by our great dramatist 
 took place on the 25th October, 1529, when, 
 in a council held at Greenwich, King Henry 
 VIII. delivered the Great Seal to Sir Thomas More, and 
 constituted him Lord Chancellor of England. 
 
 This admirable man, so interesting in his life and in 
 his death, was, at the time of his elevation, in the forty- 
 ninth year of his age, and had acquired a great fame, not 
 only among his own countryman, but with the great and 
 good of various nations, for his wisdom, integrity, and 
 goodness. One cannot imagine a more lovely and 
 attractive picture than that which is presented of him by 
 his contemporaries; and we love him in his household 
 character fully as much as \ve admire and reverence his 
 learning. He was born in 1480, and was a son of Sir
 
 1 6 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 Thomas More, a judge of the Court of King's Bench, 
 who was of a respectable family, and entitled by his 
 descent to use an armorial bearing, a privilege guarded 
 strictly and jealously by those who then began to be 
 called gentry. 
 
 The lawyers in those days lived in the city, and young 
 More first saw the light in Milk Street, Cheapside, then 
 a fashionable quarter of the metropolis. Until his fif- 
 teenth year he was put to St. Anthony's School, in 
 Threadneedle Street, a seminary in high repute, and 
 which produced Archbishops Heath and Whitgift, as 
 well as many other eminent men. 
 
 It was the custom of that age that young gentlemen 
 should pass part of their boyhood in the house and ser- 
 vice of their superiors in rank, that they might profit by 
 observing the manners and listening to the conversation 
 of their patrons, and gradually acquire a similitude to 
 those whom they could only in this way have an oppor- 
 tunity of approaching. It was not considered derogatory 
 to young men of good breeding that they should be 
 trained, during this noviciate, to render humble and even 
 menial offices ; and a young gentleman was willing and 
 anxious to offer his services as the page of a great man, 
 that he might enjoy advantages otherwise unattainable. 
 However strange this may seem to us, it is perhaps not 
 more so than the custom of fagging in our public schools, 
 to which boys in a good rank of life are even now obliged 
 to submit. In accordance with this usage, when he had 
 reached the age of fifteen, Thomas More became a 
 page in the family of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, one of Henry VII.'s most able ministers. 
 His services and long experience in affairs had procured 
 
 (132)
 
 Sir Thomas More, 17 
 
 him the highest offices, and he continued prime minister 
 until his death, which happened in the year 1500, when 
 he had attained the patriarchal age of ninety. At the 
 time when More entered his household, the cardinal, 
 though more than fourscore years old; was pleased with 
 the extraordinary promise of the sharp and lively boy, 
 and had the sagacity to discern his extraordinary merit, 
 and to foretell the future celebrity of his page. In the 
 rude dramas performed on occasion of the Christmas 
 festivities in the cardinal's palace, the lad distinguished 
 himself, taking a forward part probably as competitor 
 in those contests of extempore wit and drollery which 
 were the delight of the age. Pleased with the readiness 
 and obliging manners of his ward, the old man would 
 point to him and say, " The child here waiting at table 
 will some day prove a marvellous rare man." On his 
 part, the youth fully appreciated the excellencies of his 
 patron, and thus described him : " In his face did shine 
 such an amiable reverence as was pleasant to behold. 
 In speech he was fine, eloquent, and pithy. In the law 
 he had profound knowledge. In wit he was incompar- 
 able, and in memory excellent. These qualities, which 
 were in him by nature, he by learning and use had made 
 perfect" Probably it was while in the cardinal's house- 
 hold that More was first known to Collet, Dean of St. 
 Paul's, and future founder of St. Paul's School, who used 
 to say there was but one wit in England, and that one 
 was young Thomas More. 
 
 By the advice of his patron, who took great care of his 
 bringing up, the lad was sent, at the age of seventeen, to 
 Oxford, where he lodged at New Hall, but studied at 
 Canterbury College afterwards Christ Church. He 
 
 (130 2
 
 1 8 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 must have lived a very different life there to that he had 
 enjoyed in the archiepiscopal palace, for "in his allowance 
 his father kept him very short, scarcely suffering him to 
 have so much money in his hands as would pay for the 
 mending of his apparel, and expecting from him a par- 
 ticular account of his expenses," a parsimony for which 
 his son, though dissatisfied at the time, afterwards thanked 
 him, affirming that he was thereby curbed from all vice, 
 and withdrawn from gaming and naughty company. 
 
 He remained thus above two years, studying very 
 diligently, and cultivating with great enthusiasm the 
 knowledge of the Greek literature, recently introduced 
 in the university by certain learned scholars who had 
 acquired it in Italy; Grocyn, the first professor of Greek 
 in the university; Linacre, the accomplished founder of 
 the College of Physicians ; and Collet, who had spent 
 four years abroad in the same studies. 
 
 There was great excitement prevailing among the 
 students, and a sort of civil war waged between the 
 partisans of the Greek learning, who were the innovators 
 in education, and suspected of heresy, and perhaps in- 
 fidelity, on the one hand, and on the other side the older, 
 more powerful and celebrated men, who were content to 
 tread in the old paths ; especially the Established clergy, 
 who, although not yet alarmed by Luther's attacks, were 
 inimical to the new studies, and could not endure the 
 prospect of a rising generation more learned than them- 
 selves. 
 
 Our young and ardent student entered with zeal into 
 the contest, and expostulated with the university in a 
 letter addressed to the whole body, reproaching them 
 with the better example of Cambridge, where the gates
 
 Sir Thomas More. 19 
 
 wore thrown open to the higher classics of Greece as 
 freely as to their Roman imitators. 
 
 At Oxford More became acquainted with the illustrious 
 scholar Erasmus, who was then reading at the university, 
 having been invited to England by Lord Mountjoy, when 
 his pupil at Paris. Resembling each other in their 
 genius, their tastes, and their acute observation of char- 
 acter and manners, their lively sense of the ridiculous, 
 their constant hilarity, and their devotion to classical 
 lore, they soon formed a close friendship, notwithstanding 
 the great disparity in their years, Erasmus being then 
 thirty, and More only seventeen. This mutual attach- 
 ment lasted through life, without interruption or abate- 
 ment; and was fostered during absence by an epistola- 
 tory correspondence, still preserved, and affording the 
 most striking sketches of the history and customs of the 
 times in which they lived. 
 
 We are told that, while at the university More " pro- 
 fited exceedingly in rhetoric, logic, and philosophy," and 
 likewise distinguished himself much by the composition 
 of poems, both in Latin and English, which are interest- 
 ing as proofs of his extraoidinary precocity, and as the 
 exercises by which he acquired facility in the arts of 
 oratory and composition. 
 
 Having completed his course at Oxford, he forthwith 
 applied himself to the study of the law, which was to be 
 the occupation of his life. He first studied at New Inn, 
 and afterwards at Lincoln's Inn.* There were taught 
 the more profound and abstruse branches of the science 
 
 The term inn was successively applied, like the French word hotel, first to 
 the town mansion of a great man, and afterwards to a house of general entertain- 
 ment for money ; and the societies of lawyers having purchased some inns or 
 noblemen's residences in London, the.se were hence called Inns of Court.
 
 20 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 by learned professors, and efficient tests of proficiency 
 were applied before the degree of barrister was conferred, 
 entitling the aspirant to practise as an advocate. 
 
 In a short time More was appointed reader at Furni- 
 val's Inn, where he delivered lectures for three years with 
 great applause. " After this," says his son-in-law, " to 
 his great commendation he read for a good space a 
 public lecture of St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, in the 
 church of St. Lawrence, in the Old Jewry; whereunto 
 there resorted Doctor Grocyn, an excellent cunning man, 
 and all the chief learned of the city of London." 
 
 This seems to us a strange business, that a young 
 lawyer should read divinity lectures on the moral govern- 
 ment of the world. But it must be remembered that the 
 clergy were then the chief depositaries of knowledge, as 
 they had been for a long time the only lawyers ; and 
 religion, morals, and law, were taught without due dis- 
 tinction. It appears, moreover, from the report of his 
 loving relative, More did not so much discuss the points 
 of divinity, as the precepts of moral philosophy and 
 history contained in those books. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, in the midst of this excitement 
 and popularity the young lecturer was seized with a 
 desire to renounce the world and its busy ways, and to 
 embrace the monastic life. Attracted by the holy 
 pleasures of piety, or touched with the idea of superior 
 sanctity, and enamoured of the glory of St. Augustine, 
 he resolved to enter the order of St. Francis, and for this 
 purpose took a lodging close by the great Carthusian 
 monastery, called the Charter House, and began as a lay 
 brother to practise severe austerities, preparatory to taking 
 the irrevocable vows. For some time he added penance
 
 Sir Thomas Afore. 2 1 
 
 to penance, mortifying himself by watching and fasting, 
 seldom allowing himself more than four or five hours' 
 sleep, and lying on the floor or on a hard bench. In 
 addition to all this, he had recourse to self-flagellations ; 
 and it is pitiable to know that, to a certain extent, this 
 good and great man remained through life the slave of 
 such superstitions, retaining to the last his hair shirt and 
 his knotted cord. To account for such things we must 
 remember the instructions and habits of his education, 
 and bear in mind that he was ever conscientiously de- 
 voted to the Church of which he was a member. 
 
 Happily he soon became convinced by these proceed- 
 ings that nature had not fitted him to play the part of a 
 hermit; and he presently relinquished the idea of taking 
 orders, determined to marry, and having returned to his 
 profession, exerted all his energies in its pursuit, that he 
 might rise to distinction, and be able creditably to main- 
 tain his family. "God had allotted him for another 
 state not to live solitary, but that he might be a pattern 
 to reverend married men how they should carefully bring 
 up their children, how dearly they should love their 
 wives, how they should employ their endeavours wholly 
 for the good of their country, yet excellently perform the 
 virtues of religious men, as piety, humility, obedience, 
 yea, conjugal chastity." 
 
 There must indeed have been something singularly 
 sweet and loving in his nature, very winning to his 
 associates, and deeply felt by them, insomuch that Eras- 
 mus scarcely ever concludes a letter to him without 
 epithets indicating the most tender affection rather than 
 the calm relationship of friendship; thus he designates 
 him repeatedly " snai'issime" " charissime" and " melli-
 
 22 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 tissime More." Such a nature was singularly well adapted 
 to domestic life, and none more exquisitely enjoyed its 
 blessings. 
 
 His descendant gives a curious account of the young 
 lawyer's courtship. It seems he made the acquaintance 
 of an Essex gentleman, a Mr. J. Colt, of New Hall, who 
 invited him to his house, and introduced him to his three 
 daughters, pleasant country girls, young and well-looking. 
 The second was the most agreeable to his fancy; he 
 thought her the prettiest, but as the elder one would 
 have felt herself slighted by being passed over in favour 
 of her younger sister, he decided to pay his addresses to 
 her, and in a short time they were married, " to the good 
 liking of all her friends." One of his biographers says : 
 " He settled her in a house in Bucklersbury, where they 
 lived in uninterrupted harmony and affection. There 
 never was a happier union. He now applied himself, 
 with unremitted assiduity, to the business of his pro- 
 fession, being stimulated and cheered and comforted and 
 rewarded by her smiles. He soon rose very rapidly at 
 the bar, and was particularly famous for his skill in 
 international law." 
 
 About the same time we find him appointed to the 
 office of under-sheriff of London, an office then judicial, 
 and of considerable dignity. In this capacity his duties 
 seem to have been very onerous and extensive. Erasmus 
 says that his Court was held every Thursday, and that 
 no judge of that Court ever went through more causes ; 
 none decided them more uprightly; often remitting the 
 fees to which he was entitled from the suitors. His 
 deportment in this capacity endeared him extremely to 
 his fellow-citizens.
 
 Sir Thomas More. 23 
 
 A crisis in the history of More was at hand. He had 
 reached his twenty-fourth year, when he was returned to 
 the House of Commons, " many having now taken notice 
 of his sufficiency;" and he is honourably recorded in the 
 history of our country as being the first person who 
 gained celebrity as a speaker in the House ; and who, as 
 a successful leader of opposition, incurred the enmity of 
 the Court The King demanded an extravagant subsidy 
 on occasion of his daughter's marriage with James IV. 
 of Scotland ; and the consent of the Lower House was 
 about to be given, most of the members, however unwilling 
 to submit to these impositions, fearing to oppose the 
 royal will. But our young member arose, and in a grave 
 and impressive speech, urged such reasons why these 
 exactions should not be granted, that the general spirit 
 was roused, and the subsidy refused. " Upon this, Mr. 
 Tyler, one of the King's Privy Chamber, went presently 
 from the House, and told his Majesty that a beardless 
 boy had disappointed him of all his expectations." 
 
 Great was the indignation of the King, and he vowed 
 to have his revenge; but, as the youthful offender had 
 nothing himself to lose, Henry had recourse to the mean 
 expedient of raising a causeless quarrel against More's 
 father, confining him in the Tower till he had made him 
 pay a heavy fine. Nor did the royal spite 6nd here. 
 The young patriot was regarded with an evil eye, and an 
 opportunity carefully watched to bring about his ruin. 
 In consequence, he determined to quit his native land, 
 feeling that there was no security for him in England. 
 Meanwhile, he prudently had recourse to the expedient 
 of concealing himself from remark by withdrawing almost 
 entirely from his practice at the bar, and living in
 
 24 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 retirement, while he devoted himself assiduously to the 
 cultivation of his mind, " perfecting himself in most of 
 the liberal sciences, as music, arithmetic, geometry, and 
 astronomy, and growing to be a perfect historian." He 
 also studied the French language, and " sometimes 
 recreated his tired spirits on the viol." 
 
 In such pursuits he passed some four or five years, 
 when the death of Henry VII. released him from his 
 fears, and called him again into public life. On the 
 accession of Henry VIII., More, together with his father, 
 was immediately restored to office, and rose rapidly to 
 eminence in his profession. So highly was he esteemed, 
 that we are told "there was in none of the Prince's courts 
 of the laws of this realm any matter of importance in 
 controversy wherein he was not with the one party of 
 counsel." He now obtained with ease not less than 
 ^400 a year, a very handsome income, being probably 
 equivalent to ^4000 or ^5000 a year at the present 
 day. He is said to have so scrupulously adhered to 
 abstract justice, that he would not undertake a cause 
 about which he had any doubts, whatever advantages it 
 offered or opportunity for the display of his talents ; 
 assuring the client that he would not undertake what he 
 believed to be a wrongful cause for all the wealth in the 
 world. It is not to be wondered at that one who acted 
 upon such exalted principles, and who was known to be 
 a liberal friend to the interests of the people at large, 
 should become popular. In short, by his probity and 
 ability he seems to have reached the summit of his 
 forensic reputation.
 
 Sir Thomas More. 25 
 
 DOMESTIC LIFE. 
 
 It is by the home life of a man we judge of his true 
 character ; and none will better stand this test than Sir 
 Thomas More. Happily, we have the minutest account 
 of his domestic menage given by eye-witnesses; and what 
 they have omitted to tell is supplied by his own simple 
 and charming letters. We have seen him early and 
 happily married. There was nothing to overshadow the 
 bright sunshine of the first few years of his conjugal bliss. 
 But it was a short-lived joy, for he early lost his wife, 
 Jane Colt, who died, leaving him an infant family of one 
 son and three daughters. 
 
 Hard pressed with public and private business, he 
 soon found it necessary to marry again; and he was 
 principally desirous to secure a trusty manager of his 
 large household. Such an one he thought he had 
 discovered in Mistress Alice Middleton, a widow, some 
 years older than himself, by no means handsome, and, it 
 is to be feared, not of the most accommodating temper. 
 Erasmus, who was often a guest in the family, describes 
 her as a keen and watchful manager, and careful over 
 her step-children, and with whom her husband lived with 
 as much kindness and consideration as though she had 
 been fair and young : " None ever gained so much 
 obedience from a wife by authority and severity, as he 
 did by gentleness and pleasantry. Though verging on 
 old age, and not of a yielding temper, he prevailed on 
 her to take lessons on the lute, the cithara, the viol, the 
 monochord, and the flute, which she daily practised to 
 him." 
 
 Some of their conjugal dialogues have been recorded
 
 26 Sir Thomas Mote. 
 
 by members of the family, from which it would appear 
 they now and then had their little tiffs like other people. 
 She was always for thrift, and looked after the minutiae 
 of her housekeeping, while he would jokingly tell her 
 " she was penny-wise and pound-foolish ;" to which she 
 would retort by scolding him for his want of ambition, 
 and because he had no mind to put himself forward in 
 the world, saying, " Tillie vallie ! tillie vallie ! will you 
 sit and make goslings in the ashes 1 My mother often 
 told me it is better to rule than to be ruled." " In truth, 
 good wife," he responded, " you have learned that lesson 
 well ; for I never found you yet too willing to be ruled." 
 
 As he advanced in life, he gathered around him a very 
 numerous household ; for, when his daughters grew up, 
 they married, and they, with their husbands and children, 
 all resided under his roof, one united and happy family, 
 which he governed with such wisdom and loving dis- 
 cretion, that it was untroubled by jealousies or discussions. 
 
 We are told it was his daily custom, after his private 
 devotions, " to say the seven psalms, the litany and the 
 suffrages following;" and in the same manner with his 
 wife and children and household nightly, before he went 
 to bed, to go into his chapel, and there to say prayers 
 and collects with them. Erasmus says you might have 
 fancied yourself in the academy of Plato, or rather, it 
 would be more correct to call his house a school and 
 exercise of the Christian religion. All its" inhabitants, 
 male or female, applied their leisure to liberal studies 
 and profitable reading, although piety was their first care. 
 No wrangling or angry words were heard there ; no one 
 was idle; each did his duty properly and with a 'Cheerful 
 readiness.
 
 Sir Thomas More. 27 
 
 But the most charming picture of More as a private 
 man is carelessly sketched by himself in a hurried Latin 
 letter to his friend, Peter Giles of Antwerp, lamenting 
 the little time he could devote to literary composition ; 
 " for while in pleading, in hearing, in deciding causes, or 
 composing disputes as an arbitrator, in waiting on some 
 men about business, and on others out of respect, the 
 greatest part of the day is spent on other men's affairs, 
 the remainder of it must be given to my family at home ; 
 so that I can reserve no part to myself, that is, to study. 
 I must gossip with my wife, and chat with my children, 
 and find something to say to my servants; for all these 
 things I reckon a part of my business, unless I were to 
 become a stranger in my own house ; for with whom- 
 soever either nature or choice or chance has engaged a 
 man in any relation of life, he must endeavour to make 
 himself as acceptable to them as he possibly can. In 
 such occupations as these, days, months, and years slip 
 away. In short, all the time which I can gain to myself 
 is that which I steal from my sleep and my meals ; and 
 because that is not much, I have made but a slow 
 progress." 
 
 Such, indeed, was the sweetness of his temper, that 
 his son-in-law, Roper, who lived in his house for sixteen 
 years, assures us that never, during that whole time, did 
 he see his countenance clouded, or hear his voice raised 
 in anger. In educating his children he seems to have 
 used the greatest care, especially in giving his daughters 
 such instruction as should make them fit companions for 
 men of eminence in learning and ability. His ideas as 
 to the teaching of women are a decisive proof of his 
 superiority to the notions then prevalent. He resolved
 
 28 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 to make the ladies of his family learned, sensible, and 
 accomplished. For this purpose he secured the best 
 tutors, and furnished his establishment with ample 
 resources of all kinds a noble library, a museum of 
 natural history, astronomical apparatus, and musical 
 instruments, with extensive gardens admirably laid out. 
 
 A few of his letters to his children, during his occasional 
 absences, have been preserved ; they are models of 
 parental love and wisdom. Here is one, addressed to 
 " His whole School." " You see what a device I have 
 found to spare the trouble of writing all your names. 
 Had I named one I must have named all, you are so 
 dear to me. Yet there is no appellation I love better 
 than that of scholar; the tie of learning seems almost to 
 bind me to you more powerfully than even that of nature. 
 I am ready to envy you the happiness of having so many 
 and such excellent masters. I hear, from Mr. Nicholas, 
 that you are, with his help, making such prodigious 
 progress in astronomy as not only to know the Pole Star 
 and the Dog, and such common constellations, but even, 
 with a skill which bespeaks truly accomplished astro- 
 nomers, to be able to discover the sun from the moon ! 
 Go on, then, with this new and wonderful science, by 
 which you may ascend to the stars; and while you 
 diligently consider them with your eyes, let this holy 
 season raise your minds also to heaven, lest, while your 
 eyes are lifted to the skies, your souls should grovel 
 among the brutes. Adieu, my dearest children." 
 
 Here is yet another, addressed, "Thomas More to 
 Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecilia, his beloved daughters. 
 I cannot express, my sweet girls, the exquisite pleasure 
 I received from your charming letters, so much does my
 
 Sir Thomas More. 29 
 
 affection endear your writings to me, and happily, these 
 need nothing beyond their intrinsic merit, their pleasantry, 
 and elegant Latin to render them agreeable. Nor am I 
 less gratified to find, that, though you are upon a tour, 
 and frequently changing your residence, you omit none 
 of your accustomed exercises. Now, indeed, I believe 
 that you love me, since you do in my absence what you 
 know would give me the greatest pleasure if I were 
 present Believe me, there is nothing more refreshes 
 me amidst the fatigues of business, than when I read 
 what has been written by you. Were it not for this 
 evidence, I might suspect your teacher of being led 
 astray by his affections in his flattering account of your 
 progress. As it is, I am most anxious to return home to 
 you. Adieu, my dearest girls." 
 
 At another time, he urges them to write more at large, 
 saying, " As to the want of matter, how can that ever be 
 felt when you write to me ] To me, who am gratified to 
 hear either of your studies or amusements, who shall be 
 pleased to hear you, at great length, inform me that you 
 have nothing at all to say ; which certainly must be a 
 very easy task, especially for women, who are said to be 
 always most fluent upon nothing !" 
 
 The progress made by these young people quite 
 answered their loving father's expectations. The son 
 was not gifted with much ability, but he was docile and 
 amiable. The daughters were well-informed and ac- 
 complished; and his eldest and favourite, Margaret, by 
 her talents and devoted attachment, became the very 
 pride and joy of his heart. We do not wonder that his 
 children were dutiful and good, when we hear him 
 warning them against pride and vanity, urging them to
 
 30 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 be humble and modest, to "look without emotion on 
 the glare of gold," and not to sigh after worldly vanities, 
 to account virtue their chief good and learning the 
 second, ever remembering the highest wisdom is piety 
 towards God and benevolence towards all men. 
 
 A pleasant picture is drawn of More's deportment on 
 Sundays, while he was Lord Chancellor. Instead of 
 imitating his predecessor's parade, he walked with his 
 family to the parish church at Chelsea, and there, putting 
 on a surplice, sang with the choristers at matins and 
 high mass. It happened, one day, that the Duke of 
 Norfolk, coming to Chelsea to dine with him, found him 
 at church thus engaged. As they walked home together 
 arm-in-arm, after service, the Duke exclaimed, "My 
 Lord Chancellor a parish clerk ! a parish clerk ! You 
 dishonour the King and his office." " Nay," he replied, 
 smiling, " your Grace cannot suppose that the King, our 
 master, will be offended with me for serving his Master, 
 or thereby account his office dishonoured." 
 
 Another pleasing trait of his character was his dutiful 
 attention to his aged father, Sir John More, who, when 
 nearly ninety years of age, still sat in the Court of King's 
 Bench, whither his son, then Lord Chancellor, regularly 
 went every day during term time, and kneeling, asked 
 and received the old man's blessing before he took his 
 own higher station. About a year after Sir Thomas's 
 elevation, the venerable judge was seized with a mortal 
 illness, during which he was most lovingly attended by 
 his illustrious son, who watched beside his bed, and with 
 tears and fond embraces evinced his filial tenderness 
 and grief. 
 
 An amusing anecdote is told by More's great-grandson,
 
 Sir Thomas Merc. 31 
 
 in which we find the Chancellor passing judgment against 
 his lady. One day, as he was sitting in his hall, a beggar 
 woman made her appearance, and began to complain to 
 him that my Lady, his wife, had in her possession a little 
 dog belonging to her, and which she had lost. Forthwith 
 my Lady was sent for, and desired to bring her lap-dog 
 with her, which she did; when Sir Thomas, taking the 
 animal in his hands, bade the beggar woman and his 
 wife go and stand at the further end of the hall, and 
 each of them call the dog. They did as they were told, 
 and immediately the dog, recognising the voice of its 
 true mistress, ran to fawn upon the beggar. The judge 
 straightway awarded the prize to her. The issue of the 
 story was, that Lady More agreed with the beggar to 
 give her " a piece of gold which would well have bought 
 three dogs," and so both parties were satisfied. 
 
 One is curious to know whether this little pet spaniel 
 is the same as appears in the well-known picture of Sir 
 Thomas's household by Holbein, a most interesting and 
 characteristic family group, in which are the portraits of 
 John, the father of Sir Thomas, at the age of seventy-six, 
 and of his wife; of Sir Thomas,. at the age of fifty, and 
 his wife Alice, aged fifty-seven ; of his son John ; of 
 Margaret Roper, the eldest daughter, with her two sisters, 
 Elizabeth and Cecilia, and Margaret Giggs, the daughter- 
 in-law; and lastly, Henry Pattison, who filled the office 
 of " fool " or punster in the great man's household. 
 This admirable piece gives one an accurate idea of the 
 appearance and dress of the various individuals repre- 
 sented, and is like taking a peep in upon them, on 
 occasion of a family re-union. There are many distinct 
 portraits of Sir Thomas More which have made his
 
 32 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 features familiar to all. His great-grandson describes 
 him as of middle height and well proportioned, his 
 complexion pale, his hair of chestnut colour, his eyes 
 gray, and his countenance mild and cheerful. His voice, 
 though not very musical, was clear and distinct; and he 
 enjoyed good health, having been always simple and 
 even abstemious in his diet 
 
 THE CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 After dwelling with complacence on the virtues of this 
 admirable man, whose home character contrasts so 
 strikingly with his great elevation and profound know- 
 ledge, it is a melancholy task to recall his end. Every- 
 body knows the sad story, and is ready to shed a tear 
 over the sacrifice of such a man to the savage caprice of 
 a tyrant whose favour had dragged him reluctantly from 
 the retirement he so much loved. There is not a deeper 
 stain upon the character of the brutal and odious monarch 
 than his determination to destroy a man whose character 
 was pure and unobtrusive, and whom he had formerly 
 treated on a footing of such intimacy as to visit and 
 dine with, him at his Chelsea farm, and even, as Roper 
 informs us, to ascend with him to the house-top 
 to observe the stars and discourse on astronomy. In 
 persecuting him there seems to have been no purpose to 
 serve, yet it was apparently with the sole object of 
 entrapping the scrupulous conscience of his former friend 
 that Henry got a law passed making it high treason to 
 deny the King's supremacy or the illegality of his 
 marriage with Catharine. Not being able to take the 
 oaths required, More was accordingly committed to the 
 Tower and there imprisoned for twelve months before
 
 5/V TJiotnas More. 33 
 
 he was brought to trial. His confinement was at first 
 so rigorous that none of his family were permitted to 
 visit him. He longed to see his beloved child, Margaret, 
 who wrote to him in the most touching language, 
 deploring his absence and endeavouring to comfort him. 
 Yet, even she, in common with his whole family, appears 
 not to have sympathized entirely with his conscientious 
 refusal to obey the King's command. Her father, in a 
 tone of deep emotion, wrote to remonstrate with her on 
 this point, assuring her that " none of the terrible things 
 which had happened to him touched him so near or were 
 so grievous to him as that his dearly beloved child, 
 whose judgment he so valued, should labour to persuade 
 him to do what would be contrary to his conscience." 
 Margaret's reply was worthy of herself: " She submits 
 reverently to his faithful and delectable letter, the faithful 
 .XT of his virtuous mind," and endeavours to 
 rejoice in his victory over all earth-bom cares. She 
 subscribes herself, " Your own most loving, obedient 
 daughter and bedeswoman, Margaret Roper, who desires, 
 above all earthly things to be in John Wood's stead, to 
 do you some service." 
 
 His poor wife had no such kindred loftiness of soul. 
 When allowed to visit him in the Tower she saluted him 
 in a plain, rude style of remonstrance : " What ! Mr. 
 More, I marvel that you, who have been hitherto 
 accounted a wise man, will now so play the fool as to 
 lie here, in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be 
 shut up thus with mice and rats, when you might be 
 abroad at your liberty, in favour with the King and his 
 Council, if you would but do as the bishops and best 
 learned of the realm have done."
 
 34 Sir Thomas More. 
 
 Having patiently heard her out he tried to convince 
 her that it was better to remain in the Tower than to 
 dishonour himself, but all to no purpose; she retired 
 dissatisfied and sorely discomfited. 
 
 We must, in justice, recollect, that the worthy woman 
 did all she could to promote his comfort under these 
 afflicting circumstances, and, at a later period of his 
 imprisonment when all his property had been seized, she 
 actually sold her wearing apparel to raise money for the 
 supply of his necessities. 
 
 At length, it being found that he was immovable in his 
 determination not to belie his conscience, More was 
 brought to trial, and condemned to death. On leaving 
 the court he was conducted back by water, and arriving 
 at the Tower Wharf a scene awaited him more painful 
 to his feelings than any he had yet passed through. His 
 beloved Margaret, knowing that he must land there, was 
 watching his approach that she might catch a last sight 
 of him and receive his blessing. As soon as he appeared, 
 she rushed forward, and heedless of the guards with 
 their bills and halberds, in the presence of them all, she 
 flung herself on his neck embracing and kissing him, not 
 able to say a word, excepting, " O my father! my father!" 
 He tenderly returned her caress and blessed her, bidding 
 her remember that whatever he suffered it was not with- 
 out the knowledge and permission of God ; therefore she 
 must patiently submit to the Divine will. 
 
 After they had parted, she again turned suddenly back 
 and ran to him as before, taking him about the neck and 
 clinging to him with fondest embraces. " A sight which 
 made even the guards to weep and mourn." 
 
 After this farewell, More felt that the bitterness of
 
 Sir TJiomas More. 35 
 
 death was over, and he awaited his execution with serenity 
 and even cheerfulness. The day before he was to suffer 
 he wrote with a piece of coal, the only writing implement 
 now left to him, a farewell letter to his dear Margaret, 
 containing blessings to all his children by name, with a 
 kind remembrance even to her maids. When about to 
 lay his head on the block he encouraged the executioner 
 to do his office boldly, and then desired him " to wait 
 till he had removed his beard, for that had never offended 
 his Highness." One blow put an end to his sufferings 
 and his pleasantries. Some have charged him with levity 
 in uttering such pleasantries at so solemn a moment; 
 but the lofty-minded Addison thus comments upon the 
 occasion: "The innocent mirth which had been so 
 conspicuous in his life, did not forsake him to the last. 
 His death was of a piece with his life; there was nothing 
 in it new, forced, or affected. He did not look upon the 
 severing of his head from his body as a circumstance 
 which ought to produce any change in the disposition of 
 his mind, and as he died in a fixed and settled hope of 
 immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow 
 and concern improper." 
 
 More's body was given to his family for interment; 
 to strike terror into the multitudes his head stuck on a 
 pole was placed on London Bridge, but the affectionate 
 and courageous Margaret caused it to be taken down, 
 preserved it as a precious relic during her life, and at 
 her death ordered it to be laid with her in the same 
 grave.
 
 Coke. 
 
 jjF there be as I hope there is some young 
 reader of these pages who has set his heart on 
 being one day a great lawyer, I would invite 
 him to ponder, for his encouragement, the following 
 address of the oracle of our municipal jurisprudence. 
 Sir E. Coke had a passionate attachment to his own 
 calling, and was fully convinced that the blessing of 
 Heaven was specially bestowed upon those who followed 
 it Thus he exhorts the young beginner: 
 
 " For thy comfort and encouragement cast thine eyes 
 upon the sages of the law that have been before thee, 
 and never shalt thou find any that hath excelled in the 
 knowledge of the laws but hath sucked from the breasts 
 of that Divine knowledge, honesty, gravity, and integrity, 
 and, by the goodness of God, hath obtained a greater 
 blessing and ornament than any other profession to their 
 family and posterity. It is an undoubted truth that the 
 just shall flourish as the palm tree, and spread abroad as 
 the cedars of Lebanus. Hitherto I never saw any man 
 o.f a loose and lawless life attain to any sound and per- 
 fect knowledge of the said laws; and, on the other side, 
 I never saw any man of excellent judgment in the laws,
 
 .S7r l:tiii'iird Coke. 37 
 
 but was wiihal (being taught by such a master) honest, 
 faithful, and virtuous." 
 
 Such testimony, coming from such a quarter, carries 
 weight ; and if it be in some measure an exaggerated 
 picture, it has, we may be sure, a great deal of sober 
 truth. A man who shall truly love good and holy laws 
 must have a heart attuned to the highest and most 
 exalted emotions. To enact with a discerning spirit 
 righteous and equitable laws, is to love one's neighbour 
 as one's self, to lay down a common rule of action 
 between men on good and virtuous principles, and thus 
 to bind them together in bonds of brotherhood. It is 
 very remarkable that the counsel which Jethro gave to 
 s for appointing of judges was that. " They should 
 be men of courage and men of truth; fearing God and 
 hating covetousness." 
 
 To return to the extract quoted from Sir E. Coke's 
 Second Report; it is no less true than strange that the 
 opus magnum of this great lawyer, his Commentary on 
 Littleton, was the fruit of his leisure after he had been 
 tyrannically turned out of office, and was in part written 
 during his imprisonment in the Tower. How strange it 
 seems to us in these happy days of freedom and privilege 
 that, but comparatively a short time ago, there were few 
 public men of note who, in the course of their lives, were 
 not sent as prisoners to the Tower of London. 
 
 The offence of Sir Edward was that he made a noble 
 vindication of the privileges of the House of Commons, 
 incurring the frantic wrath of King James I., whom he 
 had before offended by the lofty independence which he 
 displayed as a judge, for which reason he had been 
 dismissed from his office of Chief Justice of the King's
 
 38 Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 Bench. This was in 1616, and five years later, as 
 Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, he 
 moved an Address to the King on the subject of the 
 Prince's proposed match with the Infanta of Spain 
 which was strongly opposed by the popular party and 
 the war for the recovery of the Palatinate, which they 
 strongly desired. This drew from Sir Edward a Protes- 
 tation in vindication of the "liberties, franchises, and 
 privileges of Parliament, the ancient and undoubted 
 birthright of the subjects of England." 
 
 Bold man ! Full well he knew that he must pay the 
 penalty of such uncourtly demeanour; but he quailed 
 not On a former occasion, when the attempt had been 
 made to cow his spirit, he replied: "When the case 
 happens I shall do that which shall be fit for a judge to 
 do." So, at present, regardless of personal ease, though 
 far advanced in years, he refused to yield, and was 
 accordingly committed, with Selden, Prynne, and other 
 leaders of the Opposition. Immediately orders were 
 given for sealing up the locks and doors of his house at 
 Holborn, and of his chambers in the Temple, and for 
 seizing his papers. 
 
 What followed, Lord Campbell thus relates : " The ex- 
 Chief-Justice being carried to the Tower, and lodged in 
 a low room which had once been a kitchen, he found 
 written on the door of it by a wag,' This room has 
 long wanted a Cook;' and he was soon after compli- 
 mented in the following distich : 
 
 ' Jus condcre cocus potuit, sed condere jura 
 Non potuit ; potuit condere jura cocus.' 
 
 Instead of being prosecuted for his speeches in the 
 House of Commons, the true ground of his imprison-
 
 Sir E (heard Coke. 39 
 
 ment, he was examined before the Privy Council on a 
 stale and groundless charge, that he had concealed some 
 depositions taken against the Earl of Somerset; he was 
 accused of arrogant speeches when Chief-Justice, especi- 
 ally in comparing himself to the Prophet Samuel; and 
 an information was directed to be filed against him in 
 the Star Chamber respecting the bond for a debt due to 
 the crown, which he had taken from Sir Christopher 
 Hatton. By way of insult, Lord Arundel was sent to 
 him with a message, 'that the King had given him 
 permission to consult with eight of the best learned in 
 the law on his case.' But he returned thanks for the 
 monarch's attention, and said, 'he knew himself to be 
 accounted to have as much skill in the law as any man 
 in England; and therefore needed no such help, nor 
 feared to be judged by the law: he knew his Majesty 
 might easily find a pretence whereby to take away his 
 head; but against this it mattered not what might be 
 said.' He was detained in confinement nearly eight 
 months, and was so rigorously guarded at first that 
 neither his children nr servants were allowed access to 
 him. But he was, after a time, allowed to send for his 
 law-books ever his chief delight and he made con- 
 siderable progress with his immortal Commentary, which 
 now engrossed all his thoughts." 
 
 There are two episodes in the life of Sir . Coke 
 which cannot fail to interest the young, his training as 
 a youth, and his carrying the Petition of Right 
 
 The father of this illustrious man, Robert Coke, was 
 descended from a good family which had been settled 
 for many generations in the county of Norfolk. Although 
 possessed of a good property he was brought up to the
 
 4O Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 law, and practised at the bar till his death, which 
 occurred when his only son, Edward, was about twelve 
 years old. The boy was of quick parts, and under the 
 instruction of his mother, learned to read. In later days 
 he used to ascribe the habit of steady application which 
 marked him through life, to her early discipline. 
 
 In his tenth year he was sent to the Free Grammar 
 School at Norwich, where he remained seven years, 
 making good progress under the excellent training of 
 Mr. Walter Howe, then the head master. He attained 
 considerable proficiency in classical learning, but, it is 
 said, was more remarkable for memory than imagination. 
 
 In his sixteenth year he went to the university, and 
 was admitted a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 in the autumn of 1567. Nothing is recorded as to the 
 course of study which he pursued. It is enough that 
 " he laboured to comprehend and remember what he 
 was taught." In after life he always spoke with gratitude 
 and reverence of his alma mater, yet he left college 
 without taking a degree. 
 
 The death of his father had left him, at an early age, 
 heir to a handsome fortune, and, had he been so inclined, 
 he might now have resided in his country mansion, and 
 been satisfied to amuse himself with hunting and hawk- 
 ing, and acting as a Justice of the Peace. Happily, his 
 wealth did not prevent him from entering upon the 
 career he was destined to pursue with so much honour, 
 and he determined to tread in his father's steps, who 
 was progressing in his profession when prematurely cut 
 off. In those days the bar was considered a pursuit 
 specially befitting the aristocracy; and, indeed, to start 
 in it required a long and expensive education, which only
 
 Sir I-', lizard Coke. 41 
 
 the higher gentry could afford to give to their sons. 
 Accordingly, it was then by no means unusual to find 
 men born to an ample inheritance, devoting themselves 
 with zeal and industry to the study and practice of juris- 
 prudence. Eager to enter upon the race for riches and 
 honours, young Coke betook himself to London, " not, 
 like other young men, to finish his education at an Inn 
 of Court, frequenting fencing-schools and theatres, but 
 with the dogged determination to obtain practice as a 
 barrister, that he might add to his paternal acres, and 
 rise to be a great judge." 
 
 "/Vr ardna ad alta!" To attain his object he spared 
 no toil, and was content to submit to a severe discipline. 
 " He began," we are told, " his legal studies at Clifford's 
 Inn, an 'Inn of Chancery,' where, for a year, he was 
 initiated in the doctrine of writs and procedure; and on 
 the 24th of April, 1572, he was entered a student of the 
 Inner Temple, where he was to become familiar with 
 the profoundest mysteries of jurisprudence. He now 
 steadily presevered in a laborious course, of which, in 
 our degenerate age, we can scarcely form a conception. 
 Kvcry morning he rose at three in the winter season 
 lighting his own fire. He read Braeton, Littleton, the 
 Year Books, and the folio Abridgment of the Law, till 
 the courts met at eight He then went by water to 
 Westminster and heard cases argued till twelve, when 
 pleas ceased for dinner. After a short repast in the 
 Inner Temple Hall, he attended 'readings' or lectures 
 in the afternoon, and then resumed his private studies 
 till five, or supper time. This meal being ended, the 
 moots took place, when difficult questions of law were 
 proposed and discussed, if the weather was fine, in the
 
 42 Sir Edivard Coke. 
 
 garden by the river-side; if it rained, in the covered 
 walks near the Temple Church. Finally, he shut him- 
 self up in his chamber, and worked at his common-place 
 book, in which he inserted, under the proper heads, all 
 the legal information he had collected during the day. 
 When nine o'clock struck he retired to bed, that he 
 might have an equal portion of sleep before and after 
 midnight The Globe and other theatres were rising 
 into repute, but he never would appear at any of them; 
 nor would he indulge in such unprofitable reading as 
 the poems of Lord Surrey or Spenser. When Shakspeare 
 and Ben Jonson came into such fashion, that even ' sad 
 apprentices of the law ' occasionally assisted in masques, 
 and wrote prologues, he most steadily eschewed all such 
 amusements; and it is supposed that in the whole course 
 of his life he never saw a play acted, or read a play, or 
 was in company with a player." 
 
 Lord Campbell comments upon Sir Edward's name, 
 which was originally spelt Cook; and thinks it probable 
 that it took its origin from the occupation of the founder 
 of the race at the period when surnames were first 
 adopted in England. Be that as it may, it is curious 
 to find his forensic powers first called into exercise when 
 deputed by the students to make a representation to the 
 Benchers of the Inner Temple respecting the bad quality 
 of their commons in the hall. After laboriously studying 
 the facts and the law of the case, he clearly proved that 
 the cook had broken his engagement, and was liable to 
 be dismissed. This, according to the phraseology of the 
 day, was called " the Cook's Case," and he was said " to 
 have argued it with so much quickness of penetration 
 and solidity of judgment, that he gave entire satisfac-
 
 .9/r Rdivard Coke. 43 
 
 tion to the students, and was much admired by the 
 Bench." 
 
 According to rule, our young lawyer's name should 
 have been seven years on the books of his society before 
 he could be called to the bar, but so unusual and sur- 
 passing was the proficiency he made that the Benchers 
 of the Inner Temple resolved to make an exception in 
 his favour, and on the 20th April, 1578, called him to 
 the bar whc % n he was only of six years' standing. His 
 progress in his profession was surprisingly rapid, and 
 it arose, not from the display of oratory or popular 
 eloquence, but from his deep skill in the art of 
 special pleading. Two years after his call to the bar 
 he was appointed, by the Benchers of the Inner Temple, 
 Reader of Lyon's Inn, an Inn of Chancery under 
 their rule. Here he lectured to students of law and 
 attorneys with much applause, and "so spread forth 
 his fame, that crowds of clients sued to him, for his 
 counsel." 
 
 He filled this office three years, and before the end 
 of that time he had placed himself at the very head 
 of his profession by his argument as counsel in " Shelley's 
 Case" a case, said by Lord Campbell to be the 
 most celebrated one that has ever occurred respecting 
 the law of real property in England. From thencefor- 
 ward, so long as he remained at the bar, he was 
 employed in all important causes that came on in 
 Westminster Hall. 
 
 Wealth now poured in upon him ; he received 
 an immense income, and invested his monies in the 
 purchase of land. It is said that the crown became 
 alarmed lest his territories should extend beyond the
 
 44 Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 measure befitting a subject, and the tradition goes in the 
 family that in consequence of a representation from the 
 government that he was monopolizing injuriously all 
 land that came into the market in the county of Norfolk, 
 he asked and obtained leave to purchase "one acre 
 more," whereupon he became proprietor of the great 
 "Castle Acre" estate, of itself equal to all his former 
 domains. 
 
 Thus, step by step advancing onward, he attained his 
 thirty-second year, when he made a most advantageous 
 marriage. It is interesting to learn that, while he was 
 handsome in person, he was very neat and careful in 
 dress, a point to which he attached no small importance, 
 for he said that " the neatness of the outward apparel 
 reminds us that all ought to be clean within." A quaint 
 old writer thus describes him : " The jewel of his mind 
 was put into a fair case, a beautiful body, with comely 
 countenance; a case which he did wipe and keep clean, 
 delighting in good clothes well worn." And this hint 
 should not be thrown away upon the juvenile reader. 
 A careless, untidy appearance is always displeasing, 
 and generally indicative of something amiss or defi- 
 cient in the character. To say the least, it shows little 
 modesty or regard for the approbation and pleasing of 
 others. 
 
 Having thus made the acquaintance of Sir Edward 
 Coke in his young days, let us look at him when age 
 and honours crowned his life. He was in his seventy- 
 seventh year when he fought the great battle for our 
 freedom, and stood firm at the grand crisis of the English 
 Constitution. Had he and the other distinguished
 
 45 
 
 p:\triots associated with him then quailed, it is impossible 
 to calculate the mischief that would have been inflicted 
 upon this nation; but, in spite of the blandishments, 
 the violence, and the craft of the Court of Charles I., he 
 framed and he carried the Pciition of Right, which con- 
 tained an ample recognition of the liberties of England, 
 and was subsequently made the basis of that happy 
 settlement which was permanently established at the 
 Revolution in 1688. 
 
 Charles I. ascended the throne in 1625, and it was not 
 long before the struggle commenced. The first Parlia- 
 ment of his reign refusing to grant a subsidy until griev- 
 ances had been inquired into, was abruptly dissolved by 
 the King. Sir E. Coke had plainly spoken his mind, 
 " He would give ;iooo out of his own estate rather 
 than grant any subsidy" under the circumstances. It 
 >y to dismiss the Parliament, but not so easy to 
 procure supplies; and the Government soon came to a 
 dead stand-still for want of them. There was no alter- 
 native but another appeal to the nation. In the mean 
 time an attempt was made to disqualify the chief opposi- 
 tion leaders by making them sheriffs of counties, under 
 the idea that they would thus be disqualified to sit in 
 the House of Commons. Sir E. Coke was appointed 
 Sheriff of Buckinghamshire; but this did not prevent 
 his being returned without solicitation on his part 
 as member for his native county of Norfolk. He did 
 not, however, take his seat ; for but a few months had 
 elapsed when the same scene was re-enacted, and a dis- 
 solution followed. 
 
 An interval of nearly two years succeeded, during 
 which the infatuated monarch had recourse to the most
 
 46 Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 obnoxious measures of internal government, as though 
 Parliament were never to assemble again. At length, 
 yielding to necessity, in the year 1628, he once more 
 summoned the great council of the nation. 
 
 The session had no sooner opened when, on the first 
 day devoted to business, Sir E. Coke spoke as follows : 
 " Dum tempus habemus bonum operemur. I am abso- 
 lutely for giving supply to his Majesty; yet with some 
 caution. To tell you of foreign dangers and inbred 
 evils, I will not do it. The State is inclining to a con- 
 sumption, yet not incurable. I fear not foreign enemies ; 
 God send us peace at home. For this disease I will 
 propound remedies: I will seek nothing out of my own 
 head, but from my heart [dear old man!], and out of 
 acts of Parliament. I am not able to fly at all grievances, 
 
 but only at loans The King cannot lawfully tax any 
 
 by way of loans. I differ from them who would have 
 this of loans go among grievances, for I would have it go 
 alone. I'll begin with a noble record ; it cheers me to 
 think of it 26 Edw. III. It is worthy to be written in 
 letters of gold : Loans against the will of the subject are 
 against reason and the franchises of the land, and they 
 desire restitution. What a word is that franchise! The 
 lord may tax his villein, high or low; but it is against 
 the franchises of the land for freemen to be taxed but 
 by their consent in parliament." With fixed determina- 
 tion that, before the supply was actually given, there 
 should be an effectual redress of grievances, he framed 
 the famous Petition of Right, which, in the most express 
 and stringent terms, protected the people in all time to 
 come from similar oppressions. " In vain the Attorney- 
 general and other crown lawyers were permitted to argue
 
 Sir Edward Coke. 47 
 
 against the Petition at the bar, as counsel for his Majesty, 
 and to combat its positions and enactments; they were 
 completely refuted by the ex-Chief Justice, who not only 
 had reason on his side, but possessed much more con- 
 stitutional law and vigour of intellect than any of them, 
 or all of them put together." In vain did the King en- 
 deavour, by flattering messages and false assurances, to 
 make them assent to waive the Petition. All would not 
 do; following the lead of their noble chief, the Com- 
 mons resolved that they would proceed; and the Lords 
 passed the bill, but were prevailed on by the courtiers 
 to add a proviso which would have completely nullified 
 its operation. 
 
 Sir E. Coke immediately attacked this " amendment." 
 He said, " This is a matter of great weight. To speak 
 plainly, it will overthrow all our Petition. This is a 
 Petition of Right, granted on acts of Parliament, and 
 the laws which we were born to enjoy. Let us hold our 
 principles according to law. That power which is above 
 the law is not fit for the King to ask or the people to yield. 
 Sooner would I have the prerogative abused and myself 
 lie under it; for though I should suffer, a time would 
 come for the deliverance of the country." Thus nobly 
 urged, the Commons rejected the amendment, and the 
 Lords agreed to their desire, to the great joy of the 
 patriots, and all united in beseeching his Majesty to 
 give his royal assent in due form. By the advice of the 
 Duke of Buckingham, an evasive answer was returned, 
 to the effect that the King would do right according to 
 the laws and statutes of the realm. 
 
 In sore wrath and indignation the Commons returned 
 to their chamber, and amid the general excitement
 
 48 S/;' Edward Coke. 
 
 Sir Edward rose to address them ; but, overpowered by 
 his emotion, touched to the heart with a sense of the 
 danger which threatened his country, the venerable 
 man sank back into his seat, while the tears flowed 
 down his cheeks. 
 
 After a time, having recovered in a measure his self- 
 possession, he proceeded to utter a spirited denuncia- 
 tion of the Duke of Buckingham, whom he upbraided 
 as the author of all the miseries they bewailed. " That 
 man is the grievance of grievances," he said. " Let us 
 set down the causes of all our disasters, and they will 
 all reflect upon him." Whereupon the house resounded 
 with cries of"Tis he! 'tis he!" The historian Rush- 
 worth adds : " This was entertained and answered with 
 a fulj acclamation of the house; as when one good 
 hound recovers the scent, the rest come in with full 
 cry." 
 
 Forthwith the Lords and Commons agreed upon a 
 joint-address to the King, which was delivered to him, 
 sitting on the throne, saying that they did, with unani- 
 mous consent, beseech him to give a clear and satisfactory 
 answer to their Petition of Right. The King intimated 
 his assent; and the Petition being read, by his desire 
 the clerk announced in the usual form the royal sanc- 
 tion, and the Petition of Right became a statute of the 
 realm. A significant entry in the Journals states, " When 
 this was done, the Commons gave a great and joyful 
 applause, and his Majesty rose and departed." 
 
 This was the last appearance of Sir E. Coke in public. 
 At the close of the session of 1628 his growing infirmities 
 caused him to withdraw into retirement, and he passed ' 
 the remainder of his days at his estate of Stoke Pogis in
 
 Sir Edward Coke. 49 
 
 Buckinghamshire. Little is related concerning the man- 
 ner in which he spent the closing years of his life. The 
 last entry in his note-book, written with his wonted firm 
 and cjear hand, records an accident, which was probably 
 the cause of his death, although at first he apprehended 
 no such result: "The 3d of May 1632, riding in the 
 morning in Stoke, between eight and nine o'clock, to 
 take the air, my horse under me had a strange stumble 
 backwards, and fell upon me (being above eighty years 
 old), where my head lighted near to sharp stubbles, and 
 the heavy horse upon me. And yet, by the providence 
 of Almighty God, though I was in the greatest danger, 
 I had not the least hurt, nay, no hurt at all. For 
 Almighty God saith by his prophet David, ' The angel 
 of the Lord tarrieth round about them that fear him, 
 and delivereth them.' /-./ no men Domini bencdictum, for 
 it was His work." Until this accident, he had con- 
 stantly refused " all dealings with the doctors," and used 
 to give God thanks that " he never gave his body to 
 physic, nor his heart to cruelty, nor his hand to corrup- 
 tion." Somebody having ventured to urge on him the 
 desirableness of medical advice, received a notable 
 rebuff, as is told, in the following lively manner: "Sir 
 E. Coke being now very infirm in body, a friend of his 
 sent him two or three doctors to regulate his health, 
 whom he told that he had never taken physic since he 
 was born, and would not now begin; and that he had 
 now upon him a disease which all the drugs of Asia, the 
 gold of Africa, nor all the doctors of Europe, could cure 
 old age. He therefore both thanked them and the friend 
 that sent them, and dismissed them nobly with a reward 
 of twenty pieces to each man.
 
 5o Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 It would seem he had received some internal hurt 
 from his fall, and from this time he was almost entirely 
 confined to the house. Gradually his strength declined, 
 and en the 3d September 1634 he expired, in the eighty- 
 third year of his age, enjoying to the last the full pos- 
 session of his mental powers, and devoutly uttering with 
 his last breath the prayer, " Thy kingdom come, thy will 
 be done." He was buried in the family burying-place at 
 Titleshall in Norfolk, where a magnificent marble monu- 
 ment has been erected to his memory.
 
 III. 
 
 Sir 
 
 Sale. 
 
 Immortal Hale ! for deep discernment praised 
 And sound integrity, not more than famed 
 For sanctity of manners*undefiled." 
 
 the year 1666 an opinion was very prevalent, 
 and indeed spread through the length and 
 breadth of England, that the end of the world 
 would come within that twelvemonth. The times were 
 portentous, and astrologers and students of prophecy 
 broached various opinions which probably assisted the 
 natural propensity of mankind to foretell " the end of 
 things created." Whether this were so or no, certain it 
 is that the notion spread, and possessed to a surprising 
 extent the minds of the people, both in the lower and 
 upper ranks. 
 
 It chanced during that summer, while the assizes were 
 being held in one of the towns of the western circuit, 
 that a most terrific storm very suddenly arose. The court 
 was then sitting, and the bench was occupied by Sir 
 M. Hale, at that time Lord Chief Baron. An eminent 
 barrister, who was present, has described the scene. 
 All at once an awful darkness overspread the heavens;
 
 52 Sir Matthew Hale. 
 
 vivid flashes of lightning at intervals irradiated every 
 object in court with a lurid brilliancy startling and ter- 
 rific. Loud peals of thunder rattled overhead, and the 
 reverberation seemed to shake the very walls of the 
 building. The effect on the assembled crowd was 
 strange and fearful. A general consternation seized all, 
 and each looked with eyes of alarm at his neighbour. 
 Presently a whisper or rumour ran through the assembly 
 that the dread moment had arrived, and the day of judg- 
 ment was being ushered in by that fierce tumult of the 
 elements! Every one, as by common consent, forgot 
 the business in hand; the counsel rose from their seats, 
 an<^ the whole multitude, in a paroxysm of terror, betook 
 themselves to their knees, and prayed for mercy, believing 
 that "the great and terrible day of the Lord" was at 
 hand. 
 
 What a scene must this have been ! The narrator, a 
 man of no ordinary resolution and firmness of mind, 
 confessed that he was completely unnerved by it; but 
 chancing to look towards the judicial bench, he perceived 
 the judge unmoved, calm, and self-possessed amidst the 
 general confusion. He continued taking his notes, as 
 though all were proceeding in the usual routine, and by 
 his countenance and deportment it was evident that his 
 thoughts were perfectly composed. From this the bar- 
 rister drew the conclusion that the great man whom he 
 was observing had his heart so stayed upon God, that no 
 surprise, however sudden, could discompose him; and 
 " he verily believed that, if the world were then really to 
 end, it would have given him no considerable dis- 
 turbance." 
 
 The great and good man of whom we have a passing
 
 .S7/- Matf/n-iv Hale. 53 
 
 glimpse thus piven us. w.ns one who, by common con- 
 sent, cannot easily be rated above his true worth. All 
 the judges ami lawyers of England admired him for his 
 skill in law and for his justice; scholars honoured him 
 for his learning ; and men of God rejoiced in beholding 
 his reverence for divine things, and his pious and con- 
 sistent deportment, amidst an age of tumult and changes. 
 By a remarkable providence, he was early in life " startled 
 into thoughtfulness" out of a course of folly and sin. 
 He was born at Alderly in Gloucestershire, on the ist 
 November 1609, of parents in the middle rank of life. 
 When he was only in his fifth year, he had the misfor- 
 tune to lose both father and mother; and he became the 
 ward of his kinsman, Mr. Kingscot, a gentleman of 
 ancient family, and a strict Puritan. He was sent to 
 school under the care of a pious clergyman, it being 
 designed to bring him up for the Church; and, in con- 
 sequence, religious impressions were early made on his 
 mind which were never effaced, although for a time he 
 yielded to the counsel of sinners, and walked in the paths 
 of folly. 
 
 In his seventeenth year he was sent to the University, 
 and entered the Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where, for a time, 
 he made great proficiency in his studies. Simple in his 
 attire and decorous in his habits, he was a diligent stu- 
 dent, and very regular in his attendance, not only in 
 chapel, but at prayer-meetings in private houses ; till 
 a strolling company of actors coming to Oxford, " he was 
 so much corrupted by seeing many plays, that he almost 
 wholly forsook his studies." Suddenly there seemed to 
 be a complete transformation of his character. He be- 
 came fond of fine clothes, took pleasure in gay company,
 
 54 Sir Matthew Hale. 
 
 and being of a robust, powerful frame, he began to excel 
 in all athletic exercises. He also learned fencing, and 
 was soon so expert in handling his weapons that he ex- 
 celled most of his comrades. We are told that although 
 thus given to dissipation, he remained pure in morals, a 
 strict observer of truth, and upright in all his conduct. 
 
 In consequence of this change, the young under- 
 graduate gave up his desire of being a scholar and a 
 divine, and turned his thoughts to soldiering. It chanced 
 that the tutor of his college was going into the Low 
 Countries as chaplain to the renowned Lord Vere, and 
 Hale resolved that he would accompany him, and trail a 
 pike in the army of the Prince of Orange. His friends 
 tried to dissuade him from this enterprise, and advised 
 him, if he felt disinclined to the Church, to follow the 
 profession of his father, who had been brought up to the 
 bar. But he answered 
 
 " Tell not us of issue male, 
 Of simple fee and special tail, 
 Of feoffments, judgments, bills of sale, 
 
 And leases. 
 
 Can you discourse of hand-grenadoes, 
 Of sally-ports and ambuscadoes, 
 Of counterscarps and palizadoes, 
 
 And trenches?" 
 
 Providentially these idle and mischievous fancies were 
 scattered by an unexpected series of events. Circum- 
 stances arose connected with a lawsuit, involving a part 
 of his estate, which took him to London, and brought 
 him into the society of Serjeant Glanville, an able lawyer, 
 and a man of rare worth, who, discerning the admirable 
 parts of his young client, especially his clearness of in- 
 tellect and solid judgment, urged him to embrace the
 
 Sir Matthew 1 1 ale. 55 
 
 study of the law. Happily this counsel was followed, 
 and perhaps in no other profession could this great genius 
 so well have served his generation. Baxter, the beloved 
 divine, who, in after years, enjoyed the friendship of 
 Judge Hale, owed his escape from the clutches of his 
 enemies mainly to his testimony and that of the four 
 judges of the Common Pleas, and he gratefully testified 
 " how large a part of the honour of the government and 
 the peace of the kingdom " consisted in the integrity and 
 worth of those great counsellors of the crown. He adds 
 that his lordship assured him he was fully persuaded by 
 his own acquaintance with them, that " there were as 
 many honest men among lawyers proportionally, as 
 among any profession in England, not excepting divines." 
 On the 8th November, 1629, Mr. Hale was admitted 
 a member of Lincoln's Inn, and, anxious to make 
 amends for time already lost, he at once brought to bear 
 upon his studies the whole energy of his powerful mind. 
 So intense was his ardour that for a while he laboured at 
 the rate of sixteen hours a day, laying down rules for 
 himself which show that, amidst all his ardour for the 
 acquisition of knowledge, he never forgot his religious 
 duties. But it was some time before he entirely relinquished 
 the company of his worldly associates, and he was in 
 danger of being again drawn into his former idle courses. 
 At length, going one day, with a company of young 
 students to a merry-making at a village near London, 
 one of their number went on drinking to such an excess 
 that he was seized with a violent disorder and became 
 insensible. For a time he was, to all appearance, dead. 
 Appalled and conscience- stricken, Mr. Hale withdrew 
 into a private room, and, closing the door, earnestly
 
 56 Sir Matt/tew Hale. 
 
 prayed God to spare the poor victim of profligacy, begged 
 for pardon on his own account, and solemnly vowed to 
 the Almighty that he would never again enter such 
 company, nor drink a health so long as he lived. 
 
 This proved to be the turning-point in his spiritual 
 history. The lesson thus painfully impressed was never 
 forgotten, and he was enabled to keep, in all its integrity, 
 die sacred covenant he had made. From this time his 
 course was steadily onward and upward. It awakens no 
 surprise when we find that the studious pains and exem- 
 plary deportment of the young man soon attracted the 
 notice and secured the regard of many distinguished men 
 of his own and other professions. It was his happiness 
 to count among his friends the illustrious Selden, Mr. 
 Vaughan, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, and the pious and learned Archbishop Usher. 
 Before long he became the theme of applauding conver- 
 sation, and was spoken of as likely to rise. Bishop 
 Burnet relates a curious incident in point Once, as he 
 was buying some cloth for a new suit, the draper, with 
 whom he bargained about the price, told him that he 
 should have it for nothing on the condition that he would 
 promise, when he came to be Lord Chief-Justice of 
 England, he would give him one hundred pounds. Of 
 course the offei*was declined ; but, many years later, they 
 met and recalled this conversation in the time of 
 Charles IL, when the law-student had risen to be Chief- 
 Justice, and the draper to be an alderman of London. 
 
 In the opinion of one most capable of judging, the 
 young lawyer's professional application must have been 
 remarkable. Before he was called to the bar he had 
 acquired a vast fund of knowledge. " He not only read
 
 Sir Mattkrv Half. 
 
 over and over again all the Year Books and Reports, and 
 law treatises in print, bat, visiting the Tower of London, 
 and other antiquarian repositories, be vent through a 
 course of records from the earliest tiroes down to his 
 own, and acquired a familiar acquaintance with the state 
 and practice of English jurisprudence during every reign 
 since the foundation of the monarchy. From his read- 
 ings and researches he composed what be called a 
 Comnum-Place Book, but what may in reality be con- 
 sidered a Corpus Juris, embracing and methodizing all 
 that an English lawyer, on any emergency, could desire to 
 know." So says Lord Campbell, and be adds that Hale 
 did not, like the great bulk of English jurists, confine 
 himself to our municipal law, but studied jurisprudence 
 liberally and on principle, not as a mere money-making 
 trade. He devoted himself to the study of the Roman 
 law, saying that " a man could never undersund law as 
 a science so well as seeking it there. 1 ' 
 
 It may be interesting to the young reader to know 
 that there was a custom among the Romans greatly 
 admired by Sir Matthew Hale. It was that their juris- 
 consults were the men of the highest quality, who were 
 trained to be capable of the chief employments in the 
 state ; and these men became the great masters of their 
 law. They gave their opinions on all important cases 
 which were brought to them without charge, thinking it 
 beneath them to accept any reward. Indeed they were 
 the only true lawyers among the Romans, and their rules 
 were of such high authority as to constitute one class of 
 those materials out of which were compiled the digests 
 under Justinian. On the contrary, the orators, or those 
 who pleaded causes, knew little of the law, and were but
 
 5 8 Sir Matthew Hale. 
 
 popular declaimers, trained up to be expert merely in 
 giving the gloss of rhetoric, to work upon the feelings of 
 their audience. There is a famous story told, in point, 
 about one Servius Sulpitius, who was a celebrated orator ; 
 and on a certain occasion, having to take the opinion of 
 one of these great lawyers, he was so ignorant that he 
 could not really understand it. Upon which the juris- 
 consult reproached him, saying it was a shame for him 
 who was a nobleman, a senator, and a pleader of causes, 
 to be thus ignorant of law. This rebuke touched him so 
 sensibly, that he set about the study with all diligence, 
 and eventually became one of the most learned men in 
 his profession that Rome produced. 
 
 Looking for solid fame rather than early profit or 
 notoriety, Hale was not called to the bar till he was in 
 the twenty-eighth year of his age. He was soon in full 
 business, but was at first chiefly employed as a consulting 
 or chamber counsel. He was not naturally eloquent, 
 and his voice was not powerful, so that he was, for some 
 time, thought unfit for jury trials or the Star Chamber 
 practice. When he had to take the lead, he was an 
 enemy to all eloquence or rhetoric in pleading. He 
 always pleaded in few words, and home to the point. 
 As in all the affairs of his life he was ruled by the strictest 
 integrity and love of truth, so he continued to plead with 
 scrupulous attention to the right of the case, and he used 
 to say, " It is as great a dishonour as a man can be 
 capable of to be hired, for a little money, to speak or to 
 act against his conscience." By degrees his merit came 
 to be more fully appreciated, and in the course of a few 
 years he was at the top of his profession. Still he was 
 courteous and unassuming, kindly to his juniors, and
 
 Sir Matthew Hale. 59 
 
 ready to do a good turn to those who needed countenance 
 and one good word from him was of more advantage 
 to a young man than all the favour of the court. 
 
 We are not about to dwell upon the eventful history 
 of the days in which Sir Matthew Hale lived, nor to 
 follow him throughout his public life. Amidst a time ol 
 unparalleled tumult and excitement he preserved a steady 
 equanimity of spirit, indicative of the mcns sibi conscia 
 rccti ; and while, with calm and steadfast soul he gazed 
 on the general turmoil, he seems to have been charmed 
 by the perturbations that prevailed into " quiet thoughts." 
 
 After the " Restoration " the flood-gates of iniquity 
 were thrown open, and it was a difficult matter to keep 
 an honest conscience, and to remain unsullied by the 
 defilements that abounded. Yet, none seem to have 
 found a serious charge that could be laid to him, and on 
 all hands he was regarded with respect and veneration, 
 even by men of various parts and interests most opposed 
 to each other. It has been remarked that there is 
 scarcely in history any fact more extraordinary than that 
 the advocate of Strafford, and Laud, and of Charles I. 
 (had leave been given to plead), should have been raised 
 to the bench by Cromwell ; and again, that a judge of 
 Cromwell's should not only be reinstated by Charles II., 
 but compelled by him, against his will, to accept of the 
 very highest judicial trust 
 
 He was made Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1660, 
 and continued in that office for eleven years. He is, 
 says Lord Campbell, " to be considered the most eminent 
 judge who ever filled the office, and we view with admira- 
 tion and reverence the rules which he laid down for his 
 conduct. They ought to be inscribed in letters of gold
 
 60 Sir MattJiew Hale. 
 
 on the walls of Westminster Hall, as a lesson to those 
 intrusted with the administration of justice." Accordingly 
 his appointment to this high trust was universally ap- 
 plauded ; " all people thought their liberties could not 
 be better deposited than in the hands of one who, as he 
 understood them well, so he had all the justice and 
 courage that so sacred a trust required." Nor were these 
 expectations disappointed. "While Hale sat in the 
 Court of Common Pleas, in the Court of Exchequer, or 
 in the Court of King's Bench, his qualifications as a judge 
 always shone with lustre in the proportion as the occa- 
 sion called forth their display. He was equally familiar 
 with every branch of English jurisprudence the criminal 
 code and the civil code, the law of real property and -the 
 law of personal property, antiquarian lore and modern 
 practice. He likewise had the advantage, so rare in 
 England, of having studied the Institutes, Pandects, and 
 Code of Justinian, with the best commentaries on those 
 immortal compilations. While free from every other 
 passion, he was constantly actuated by a passion to do 
 justice to all suitors who came before him. He was 
 not only above the suspicion of corruption or undue 
 influence, but he was never led astray by ill-temper, 
 impatience, haste, or a desire to excite admira- 
 tion." 
 
 What can be more delightful than such a picture of 
 justice on the Bench ! Would that all our magistrates 
 were formed upon the model of this admirable character ! 
 It is said the only complaint that was ever made of him 
 was that he did not despatch matters quick enough ; but 
 the great care which he exercised, while it made him 
 slower in deciding causes, had this good effect, that suits
 
 Sir Matthew Hale. 61 
 
 tried before him were seldom if ever tried again. Bishop 
 Burnet assures us he was naturally of a quick disposition; 
 but that by self-restraint he subdued this inclination, 
 having taken as his favourite motto Fcstina ////<*, which 
 he caused to be engraven on the top of his staff as a 
 perpetual memento. He certainly reminds one of those 
 ancient judges whom the sacred writers described as 
 "fearers of (lod. men of truth, haters of covetousness." 
 He sacredly regarded the business of his profession as a 
 charge given him by the dispensation of God ; and he 
 took " much comfort and satisfaction" in his employment. 
 The whole of his deportment indicated a constant re- 
 membrance of the Divine presence, and a reference to 
 the will of his Father in heaven. 
 
 As a citizen, Sir Matthew gained immense credit, after 
 the fire of London, by sitting many months in Clifford's 
 Inn for the decision of questions touching title and 
 boundary, and the obligation to rebuild. The restoration 
 of the city, one of the marvels of the age, was mainly 
 ascribed to his care in these respects ; anil for his services 
 on the occasion his portrait was placed ii. Gdldhall, 
 where it is now to be seen. He also received from the 
 Lord Mayor, as his only further recompense, a silver 
 snuff-box. 
 
 There is but one lamentable blot upon the character 
 of this most excellent man. The trial of the (so called) 
 witches at liury St. Edmunds, and the execution of the 
 p<K>r creatures accused of the crime, is still remembered 
 with a shudder. That Sir Matthew should have been 
 so blinded by superstition as to pass the awful sentence 
 with satisfaction, supposing that he was thereby serving 
 the cause of religion, appears incredible, and we can only
 
 62 Sir Matthew Hale. 
 
 marvel that such ignorance should have been found 
 combined with so great excellence and learning. 
 
 During four years and a half the honoured Chief- 
 Justice of England retained his post ; and it might have 
 been anticipated he would have long continued to give 
 the public the benefit of his services. Hitherto he had 
 enjoyed almost uninterrupted health ; but, in the autumn 
 of the year 1675, he was attacked by a violent disorder 
 from which he never rallied. His infirmities increased 
 upon him, and a distressing asthma afflicted him day 
 and night. His appearance sufficiently indicated his 
 condition, " he had death in his lapsed countenance, 
 flesh, and strength." Perceiving that his days were 
 numbered, he resigned his office, and shortly after bade 
 a final adieu to London, retiring to his early home, 
 Alderly, in the hope that he might be revived and 
 cheered by breathing once more his native air. 
 
 For a time the scenes of his infancy, and the recollec- 
 tions of his youthful sports, were efficacious in restoring 
 his spirits, but the improvement was but temporary. 
 " As the winter came on, he saw with great joy his de- 
 liverance approaching ; for, besides his being weary of 
 the world, and his longings for the blessedness of another 
 state, his pains increased so on him, that no patience 
 inferior to his could have borne them without great un- 
 easiness of mind. Yet he expressed to the last such 
 submission to the will of God, and so equal a temper 
 under them, that it was visible then what mighty effects 
 his philosophy and Christianity had on him, in supporting 
 him under such a heavy load." 
 
 He continued to enjoy the use of his reason to the last 
 moment ; a blessing which he had often earnestly prayed
 
 Sir Matthcrc Hale. 63 
 
 for during his sickness ; and when his voice was so sunk 
 that he could not be heard, those who stood by might 
 perceive, by the almost constant lifting up of his eyes and 
 hands that he was still aspiring towards that blessed state 
 of which he was speedily to be possessed. He expired 
 on the 25th December, Christmas day, a season he re- 
 garded with especial reverence; a time which he had 
 spent in much spiritual enjoyment, and which was now 
 to be the day of his final deliverance. 
 
 He was interred in the churchyard of Alderly, among 
 his ancestors. He used to disapprove the custom of 
 burying in churches as superstitious, saying, " Churches 
 are for the living, churchyards for the dead." He had 
 prepared for himself a simple epitaph, which was inscribed 
 on a plain marble monument, erected to his memory. 
 There was no need of elaborate eulogy or memorial 
 statue to preserve the remembrance of a man who. was 
 reverenced in his own time, and has been so ever since, 
 for the example he set of spotless purity and of genuine 
 piety.
 
 IV. 
 
 2forb-|Ucper (Umlfortr. 
 
 )MPARATIVELY little would have been 
 known of Francis North, afterwards Lord- 
 Keeper Guilford, had not his life been 
 chronicled by a friendly " Bozzy," in the shape of a 
 younger brother, who delighted to do him honour, and 
 who has minutely related the history of his distinguished 
 relative in a very singular and characteristic piece of 
 biography. This narrative is highly interesting, both on 
 account of the ardent fraternal affection it evinces, its 
 stores of anecdote concerning contemporary persons and 
 events, and the indescribable naivete of the style. In 
 the slight sketch given in this chapter the very language 
 of the biographer is preserved almost throughout. 
 
 Francis North was of noble birth, being the second 
 son of Dudley, Lord North, Baron of Kertling, in 
 Cambridgeshire, and Knight of the Bath. He was born 
 on the 22nd October 1637, and, in his early childhood, 
 was sent to a preparatory school at Isleworth, kept by a 
 master named Wallis, whose wife, a zealous Independent, 
 " used to instruct her babes in the gift of praying by the 
 spirit." " All the scholars," says the biographer, " were 
 made to kneel by a bedside and pray; but this petit spark
 
 Lord- Keeper G nil ford, 65 
 
 was too small for that posture, and set upon the bed to 
 kneel with his face to a pillow; and in this exercise they 
 had their direction from her. I have heard his lordship 
 say, that all he could remember of his performance was 
 praying for his distressed brethren in Ireland." 
 
 As soon as he was old enough the boy was removed 
 to a school at Bur)', under the superintendence of Dr. 
 Steven, " a cavalier master," and after remaining there 
 two or three years he was sent to the University, where 
 he entered as fellow-commoner of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, on the 8th June, 1653. During his residence 
 there it is said he principally applied himself to mathe- 
 matics and natural philosophy, in which he made con- 
 siderable progress. He left alma mater, however, without 
 taking a degree, nor does he appear in any way to have 
 distinguished himself at this stage of his history. 
 
 Having made choice of the law as a profession, he 
 was admitted a student of the Middle Temple in 
 November 1655, and there commenced his studies with 
 diligence and success. His brother says, " He used 
 constantly the commons in the hall at noon and at night, 
 and fell into the way of putting cases (as they call it) 
 which much improved him, and he was very good at it, 
 being of a ready apprehension, a nice distinguisher and 
 prompt speaker. He used to say that no man could be 
 a good lawyer that was not a good put-case." He kept 
 a common-place book, which soon became a massive 
 volume, and made himself well acquainted with the Year- 
 books and the elder writers of the law, thinking that one 
 of his profession could not be well grounded without a 
 thorough knowledge of these authorities. 
 
 But, for all he was thus attentive to his studies, it was, 
 
 U32, -
 
 66 Lord-Keeper G nil ford, 
 
 says his biographer, " singular and remarkable in him, 
 that together with this he continued to pursue his in- 
 quiries into all ingenious arts, history, humanity and 
 languages; whereby he became, not only a good lawyer, 
 but a good historian, politician, mathematician, and I 
 must add, musician in perfection. I have heard him say 
 that if he had not enabled himself by these studies, and 
 particularly, his practice of music upon his base, or lyra 
 viol (which he used to touch, lute-fashion, upon his 
 knees), to divert himself alone, he had never been a 
 lawyer. And, without acquiring a capacity of making a 
 solitary life agreeable, let no man pretend to success in 
 the law." 
 
 As before said, it was our young lawyer's constant 
 practice to "common-place" as he read, and thus, we are 
 told "he acquired a very small but legible hand; for, 
 where contracting is the main business," adds his bio- 
 grapher, " it is not well to write, as the fashion now is, 
 uncial or semiuncial letters, to look like pigs' ribs." 
 
 For his personal appearance, it is thus described : " He 
 was of low stature, but had an amiable ingenuous aspect, 
 and his conversation was answerable, being ever agreeable 
 to his company. His hair grew to a considerable length, 
 but was hard and stiff, and did not fall, as the rest of the 
 family, which made it bush sometimes, and not without 
 a mixture of red and gray. As to his humour, he was 
 free from vanity himself, and hated it in others. His 
 youthful habits were never gay and topping the mode, 
 like other inns of court gentlemen, but always plain and 
 clean, and showed somewhat of firmness or solidity 
 
 beyond his age I believe a more shame-faced 
 
 creature than he was never came into the world; he could
 
 Lord- Keeper Gnilford. 67 
 
 scarce bear the being seen in any public places, and 
 \\hen he was student, and ate in the Temple hall, if he 
 saw any company there he waited till others came, be- 
 hind whom, as he entered, he might be shaded, for it 
 was death to him to walk up alone in open view." 
 
 While a student he was frequently in the country 
 visiting his grandfather, who made him a small allowance, 
 and liked to have the lad's company, although he seems 
 to have behaved in a capricious and tyrannical manner 
 to him. " His entertainments at such times were as 
 usual with gentlemen cadets of noble families in the 
 country sporting on horseback, foe which there was 
 opportunity enough at his grandfather's house, where was 
 a very large and well-stocked deer-park, and at least 
 twiee a week in the season, there was killing of deer. 
 The method then was for the keeper, with a large cross- 
 bow and arrow, to wound the deer, and two or three 
 disciplined hounds pursued till he dropped. There was 
 most of the country sports used there for diverting a 
 large family, as setting, coursing, bowling, and he was in 
 it all; and within doors, backgammon and cards. His 
 most solemn entertainment was music, in which he was 
 not only master but doctor." But, notwithstanding these 
 many temptations to idleness, young Frank was always 
 industrious, and had his books sent down to him by the 
 carrier, spending much of his time in reading and 
 common-placing. 
 
 At length on the 28th June, 1661, his time being fully 
 out, he was called to the Bar, and applied himself 
 diligently to practice. For a time he was sorely puzzled 
 to find " ways and means." His father, who had hitherto 
 allowed him ^"60 per annum, being "hard pinched for
 
 68 * Lord- Keeper Guilford. 
 
 supplies towards educating and disposing many younger 
 children" reduced this small stipend to ^50, which 
 together with 20 from his grandfather was the whole 
 amount of his income. 
 
 His first step was to look about for " a practising 
 chamber." In order to procure this he raised near ^"300, 
 and with that sum " bought his life in a corner chamber, 
 one pair of stairs, in Elme Court A dismal hole for the 
 price; for it was not only dark next the court, but on the 
 back side an high building of the Inner Temple stood 
 within five or six yards of his windows: but yet, some 
 more room, and a Large study being gained, he thought 
 himself greatly preferred, and he soon filled his shelves 
 with all the useful books of the law which he wanted. 
 His mother had made a collection of legacies and gifts 
 to him, when very young; and when he first went to the 
 inns of court, she gave him an exact account to the time, 
 cast up with the interest, and paid him the sum total at 
 once; and with that stock, he made out a good student's 
 library." 
 
 Being thus settled satisfactorily, he gave himself 
 closely to business, attending the Courts at Westminster 
 and reporting diligently, and when any important cause 
 was to be argued, making a point of being present, 
 especially when Sir Matthew Hale presided in the 
 common pleas. It is related that very early in Mr. 
 North's career, when he found it difficult to get to his 
 place in a very crowded court, Sir Matthew said from 
 the bench : " Good people, make way for this little 
 gentleman; he will soon make way for himself." For 
 some time, however, he had great difficulty in keeping 
 free from debt, and he often declared that "if he had
 
 Lord- Keeper Gut/ford. 69 
 
 been sure of a hundred pounds a year he had never 
 been a lawyer." Indeed, his health began to suffer from 
 anxiety, and from " obliging himself to that spider-kind 
 of life which a young lawyer leads in his chamber," nor 
 did he wholly recover " until a deluge of business drowned 
 all such kind of thoughts." 
 
 Happily for this nervous young barrister, he was soon 
 much noticed and encouraged by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, 
 who was made Attorney-General on the restoration of 
 Charles II., and whose son, a very promising youth and 
 the intimate friend of Francis North, died about this time 
 in his arms, having been his chosen companion at 
 college. Thus patronized, he soon began to find him- 
 self engaged in practice, and stepped into the business 
 which had been destined for the deceased youth, Sir 
 Geoffrey rapidly bringing him forward by employing him 
 in various matters pertaining to the court 
 
 The first opportunity which Mr. North had of dis- 
 tinguishing himself in public was in arguing the writ of 
 error, brought on the conviction of Hollis and the other 
 five members in the reign of Charles I. On this occasion 
 he volunteered to argue on the king's side, and, although 
 he was unsuccessful, his fortune was made. The Duke 
 of York inquired " who that young gentleman was that 
 had argued so well," and being told that he was the 
 younger son of the Lord North, and, "what was rare 
 among young lawyers, of loyal principles," undertook to 
 encourage him by getting the king to appoint him one of 
 his majesty's counsel. Jealous of the distinction thus 
 conferred upon so young a man the benchers of the 
 Middle Temple refused to call him to the bench, in con- 
 sequence of which he complained to certain of the judges,
 
 70 Lord-Keeper Guilford. 
 
 who, upon the appearance of some of the benchers in 
 court, administered a severe rebuke to them, upon which 
 he was forthwith elected to their society on the 5th 
 June 1668. 
 
 The circuit selected by Mr. North was the Norfolk, 
 where his family interest lay. At first he did not receive 
 much encouragement, but he determined to persevere, 
 " knowing success in circuit business to be a cardinal' 
 ingredient in a lawyer's good fortune." This kinsman 
 very naively tells how craftily he managed to make his 
 way, being "exceeding careful to keep fair with the 
 cocks of the circuit and particularly with Serjeant Earl, 
 who had almost a monopoly." 
 
 To accommodate himself to the humours of his superiors, 
 and to court their favour, he found the most secure 
 means of advancing his ends, and, accordingly, when con- 
 cerned as counsel " he stood in great awe of the chief 
 practisers, who, having the conduct of the cause, take it 
 ill if a young man blurts out anything, though possibly to 
 the purpose, because it seems to top them; therefore, 
 when he 'thought he had a significant point to offer, 
 he first acquainted the foreman with it, which was 
 commonly well taken, and in return he would say, move 
 it yourself, and then he seconded it." The biographer 
 further adds, " In circuit practice there is need of an ex- 
 quisite knowledge of the judge's humour, as well as his 
 learning and ability to try causes; and he, North, was a 
 wonderful artist at watching a judge's tendency, to make 
 it serve his turn, and yet never failed to pay the greatest 
 regard and deference to his opinion : for so they get 
 credit, because the judge, for the most part, thinks that 
 person the best lawyer that respects most his opinion"
 
 Lord-Kit fir Guilford. 71 
 
 Alas, for the morality of the bench when such things 
 were patent to the view of a young aspirant for fame and 
 fortune, and no marvel if the taint spread from the 
 higher to the lower. By such means, joined to a constant 
 diligence and attention to business, the practice of North 
 gradually increased, and some appointments which he 
 received shortly after he was called to the bar contributed 
 to extend his reputation. He was put into the commis- 
 sion for draining the fens; constituted judge of Ely, and 
 made one of the king's counsel before the justices in eyre. 
 Before many years had passed, he became one of the 
 most rising men in Westminster Hall. His mode of 
 life at this period is thus sketched by his brother: 
 
 "His lordship's course of business, while he was in great 
 business, was most philosophical, till he was Solicitor- 
 Clencral and married, and then he kept house, and at 
 meals scarce ever failed his family; but before, he used 
 the commons in the hall at dinner personally and at 
 night in his chamber. And when he was out of commons, 
 the cook usually provided his meals; but at night he 
 desired the company of some known and ingenious 
 friends, to join in a costelet and a salad at Chattelin's, 
 where a bottle of wine sufficed, and the company dressed 
 their own feast, that consisted in friendly and agreeable 
 conversation. 
 
 . " When his practice was but little, and for the most 
 part, when he was a student, he made it a rule not to 
 leave his chamber before eight at night; and if he had 
 no appointed company, he hath often taken me to walk 
 with him about in the gardens till bed-time; for he never 
 loved at such times to be alone, but having any company, 
 he could discharge his thoughts by discourse. After he
 
 >j2 Lord-Keeper Guilford. 
 
 was of the king's counsel he kept a coach, and at leisure 
 times used to air himself in that, but with a friend to 
 receive his discourse and give handles for more. But 
 while I was 'with him, which was first while Sir Geoffrey 
 Palmer was just alive, I cannot say I ever knew him to 
 have been twice at any tavern." 
 
 Upon the death of the Attorney-General, interest was 
 made by Mr. North's friends to procure for him the 
 vacant office ; and a few months after, he was appointed 
 Solicitor-General, and according to custom was knighted. 
 From this time he practised in the Court of Chancery, 
 and ultimately entirely discontinued his attendance in 
 the King's Bench. So propitious an advancement in 
 his profession, and consequent increase of fortune, in- 
 clined him to enter upon a matrimonial project, as "he 
 had now dismissed all fears of the lean wolf," and in- 
 clined to take to himself a wife. To this he was 
 prompted by wish for companionship; he thought, too, 
 it " would be an ease to his mind to know continually, 
 after his business was done, what was to become of him, 
 and that he thought best provided for by a family and 
 house-keeping, which is never well settled without a 
 mistress as well as the master of a family. These con- 
 siderations induced him to look out for a suitable match." 
 He was, however, as cautious and keen for the main 
 chance in this matter, as in the pursuit of business. 
 
 " That which sat hardest upon his spirits was, how he 
 should give a fair answer to the question, ' What jointure 
 and settlement 1 ?' He used to own but one rood of 
 ground in the world that yielded him. any profit, which 
 was Westminster Hall; a meagre particular, unless he 
 might have added, as Finch did, his bar gown ^20,000.
 
 Lord-Keeper Gnilfoni. 73 
 
 There came to him a recommendation of a lady, who 
 was the only daughter of an old usurer of Gray's Inn, 
 supposed to be a good fortune in present, for her father 
 was rich, but after his death to become worth nobody 
 knew what. His lordship got a sight of the lady, and 
 did not dislike her; thereupon he made the old man a 
 visit, and a proposal of himself to marry his daughter. 
 There appeared no symptoms of discouragement; but 
 only the old gentleman asked him what estate his father 
 intended to settle on him. This was an inauspicious 
 question, for it was plain that the family had not estate 
 enough for a lordship, and none could be to spare for 
 him. Therefore he said to his worship only, that when 
 he would please to declare what portion he intended to 
 give his daughter, he would write to his father, and make 
 him acquainted with the answer; and so they parted, his 
 lordship glad of the escape, and resolved to give that 
 affair a final discharge, and never to come near that ter- 
 rible old fellow any more!" 
 
 His lordship's next amour was with " a flourishing 
 widow, and very rich." This lady was closely besieged 
 by lovers, there being no fewer than five suitors dancing 
 attendance upon her at one time. " She held them in 
 hand," says the narrative, " giving no definitive answer 
 to any of them, till she cut the thread; and after a clan- 
 cular proceeding and match with a jolly knight of a good 
 estate, she dropped them all at once, and so did herself 
 and them justice. As to his lordship, the unhappiness 
 was, he could never find out her resolution concerning 
 himself, and he was held at the long-saw for above a 
 month, doing his duty as well as he might, and that was 
 but clumsily, for he neither dressed nor danced, when his
 
 74 Lord-Keeper Guilford. 
 
 rivals were adroit at both; and the lady used to shuffle 
 her favours among them affectedly, and on purpose to 
 mortify his lordship, and at the same time be as civil to ' 
 him, with like purpose to mortify them; and his lord- 
 ship was not so mystified by his amour as not to discern 
 these arts. It was very grievous to him, that had his 
 thoughts upon his clients' -concerns, which came in thick 
 upon him, to be held in a course of bo-peep play with 
 a crafty widow. And I have heard him say that he 
 never was in all his life more rejoiced than when he was 
 told that madam was married, whereby he was escaped 
 from a miserable confinement." 
 
 Strange to say, notwithstanding his ill-fortune in both 
 these essays, he returned again to the charge; and this 
 time he made his advances to the daughter of a city 
 broker, who had many daughters, reputed beauties, and 
 the fortune was to be ^6000. " His lordship went and 
 dined with the alderman, and liked the lady, who (as the 
 way is) was dressed out for a muster. And, coming to 
 treat, the portion shrank to ^5000; and upon that his 
 lordship parted, but was not gone far before Mr. Broker 
 (following) came to him and said, ^300 more would 
 be given at the birth of the first child. But that would 
 not do, for his lordship hated such screwing. (!) Not 
 long after his lordship was made the King's Solicitor- 
 general, and then the broker came again, with the offer 
 of ;io,ooo. No! his lordship said, after such usage, 
 he would not proceed if he might have .20,000. So 
 that affair ended, and his mind was once more settled in 
 tranquillity." 
 
 At length his good mother came to his aid in this per- 
 plexing matter, and found him a match to his mind, in
 
 Lord- Keeper C nil font. 75 
 
 the Lady Franco Pope, one of the daughters and co- 
 heirs of the Earl of Down, who lived at Wroxton in 
 Oxfordshire, and had fortunes of .15,000 a piece. On 
 his part, having "mustered what sum of money he could, 
 in order to make an honourable proposition" (which was 
 but ^6000), he ventured to present himself as a suitor 
 to the lady and her family, and quickly obtaining the 
 fair one's consent, the necessary writings being sealed, 
 the lovers were happily married in Wroxton Church. 
 There was a great deal of " feasting and jollity" upon 
 the occasion, in the country round about; and the visits, 
 invitations, and rejoicings were kept up with so much 
 spirit, that it was full three weeks, says his biographer, 
 before the bridegroom could clear himself of these well- 
 intemled importunities; but "at length we decamped for 
 London, and his lordship took first lodging, and then a 
 hoiiM.-, and lived, consistent with his business, in a way 
 most agreeable to him." 
 
 A few happy years followed upon his marriage, during 
 which, as we are told, he was in the height of all the 
 felicity his nature was capable of. He had a seat in 
 St. Dunstan's Church appropriated to him, and con- 
 stantly kept the church in the mornings. He had the 
 esteem of the royal family, and of all the loyal and con- 
 formable people in the nation. His house was to his 
 mind; and having (with leave) a door into Serjeants' Inn 
 Gardens, he passed daily with ease to his chambers, 
 dedicated to business and study. His friends he enjoyed 
 at home, but formal visitants and politicians often found 
 him out at his chambers. 
 
 On the promotion of Sir H. Finch to the woolsack, 
 Sir Francis succeeded him as Attorney-General; and his
 
 76 Lord-Keeper G nil ford. 
 
 practice, which had before been very considerable, now 
 largely increased; insomuch that, if we may credit his 
 biographer, " it flowed upon him like an orage, enough to 
 overset one that had not extraordinary readiness in busi- 
 ness. His skull-caps (which he had formerly worn for 
 his health's sake) were now destined to lie in a drawer, 
 to receive the money that came in by fees. One had 
 the gold, another the crowns and half-crowns, and an- 
 other the smaller money. When these vessels were full, 
 they were committed to his friend (the biographer), who 
 was constantly near him, to tell out the cash, and put it 
 into bags according to the contents; and so they went 
 to his treasurers, Blanchard and Child, goldsmiths, 
 Temple Bar. 
 
 This was the busiest time of his life ; but even then 
 he neglected no opportunity of attending to his more 
 liberal studies, and acquired a general knowledge of the 
 modern languages. He even made some progress in the 
 study of the Dutch language, to which he was induced 
 by his friend, Sir Peter Lely, " who told him what sump- 
 tuous libraries they had, and magnified the elegance and 
 significancy of his country dialect." At the same time he 
 was as diligent a student of his professional lore as ever, 
 noting down in his " solemn common-place book" every 
 matter of importance, and making a copious index of 
 any valuable treatise in MS. that fell in his way. To 
 preserve his knowledge of real property law, he was 
 accustomed every Christmas to peruse Littleton's ten- 
 ures. 
 
 Upon the death of Sir John Vaughan, the Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, in 1675, Sir Francis North 
 was promoted to the vacant office, which he retained
 
 Lord-Keeper G nil ford. 77 
 
 nearly eight years. This change procured him a con- 
 siderable degree of ease and leisure, although at a 
 pecuniary sacrifice his profits as Attorney-General being 
 about 7000 per annum, while the office of Chief- 
 Justice did not exceed ^4000. During the earlier 
 period of this appointment, we are told that he mixed 
 little in politics, and devoting himself to his judicial 
 duties, discharged them creditably. He applied his 
 attention especially to the reformation of the abuses 
 which existed in the law. One of his proposals was a 
 general register for lands, a scheme upon which, says 
 his brother, "he worked sincerely;" and he adds that 
 the first idea of the statute of frauds proceeded from him. 
 When presiding at the trial of causes as Chief-Justice, he 
 exerted himself to confine the counsel to the point in 
 question, and to cut down that redundancy of speech 
 which, as he said, " disturbed the order of his thoughts." 
 He was, we are told, " very good at waylaying the craft 
 of counsel, for he, as they say, had been in the oven 
 himself, and knew where to look for the pasty." Upon 
 one trying and difficult occasion he acquitted himself in 
 a manner deserving the highest commendation. "At 
 Taunton Dean," says Roger North, "he was forced to 
 try an old man for a wizard ; and for the curiosity of 
 observing the state of a male witch or wizard, I attended 
 in the court, and sat near where the poor man stood. 
 The evidence against him was the having bewitched a 
 girl of about thirteen years old; for she had strange and 
 unaccountable fits, and used to cry out upon him, and spit 
 out of her mouth straight pins; and whenever the man 
 was brought near her, she fell in these fits. His lord- 
 ship wondered at the straight pins, which could not be
 
 78 Lord-Keeper G nil ford. 
 
 so well couched in the mouth as crooked ones, for such 
 only used to be spit out by people bewitched. He 
 examined the witnesses very tenderly and carefully, and 
 so as none could collect what his opinion was, for he 
 was fearful of the jurymen's precipitancy if he gave them 
 any offence. When the poor man was told he must 
 answer for himself, he entered upon a defence as orderly 
 and well-expressed as I ever heard spoke by any man, 
 counsel or other; and if the Attorney-General had been 
 his advocate, I am sure he could not have done it more 
 sensibly. The sum of it was malice, threatening, and 
 circumstances of imposture in the girl, to which matters 
 he called his witnesses, and they were heard. After this 
 was done, the judge was not satisfied to direct the jury 
 before the imposture was fully proved, but studied and 
 beat the bush, while asking questions as he thought pro- 
 per. At length he turned to the justice of peace that 
 committed the man, and, ' Sir,' said he, ' pray, will 
 you ingenuously declare your thoughts, if you have any, 
 touching these straight pins which the girl spit, for you 
 saw her in her fits?' 'Then, my lord,' said he, 'since 
 your worship demands it, I must needs say I think the 
 girl, doubling herself in a fit as convulsed, bent her head 
 down close to her stomacher, and with her mouth took 
 pins out of the edge of that, then, righting herself a little, 
 spit them into some bystanders' hands.' This cast an 
 universal satisfaction upon the minds of the whole 
 audience, and the man was acquitted. As the judge 
 went down stairs out of the court, a hideous old woman 
 cried, 'God bless your worship!' 'What's the matter, 
 good woman 1 ?' said the judge. ' My Lord,' said she, 
 ' forty years ago they would have hanged me for a witch,
 
 Lord- Keeper G nil ford. 79 
 
 and they could not; and now they would have hanged 
 my poor son!' " 
 
 It would have been well for the reputation of Sir 
 Francis North had he always proved himself thus the 
 friend of justice and humanity, but unhappily such was 
 not the case. On more than one occasion his conduct 
 upon the bench rendered him the subject of severe and 
 just observation. His character was destitute of elevation, 
 yet he did not, like many in that corrupt age, stain him- 
 self by those evil practices which darkened the characters 
 of men like Sunderland and Jefferies. There is nothing, 
 however, like elevation or high-toned feeling about him; 
 he was mediocre in ability, and had not those loftier 
 principles which raise men above the level of their fel- 
 lows. Still he ought in justice to be regarded in con- 
 nection with the state of feeling and the general tone of 
 society in that day; and it should be also remembered 
 that he was, by early training and during all his career, 
 in favour of high Church and State principles, the policy 
 he observed as a statesman being that of the old English 
 Tory. 
 
 On the i8th December 1682 Lord-Keeper Finch died, 
 and the Lord Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas was 
 offered the Great Seal. An effort was made by Lord 
 Rochester, the treasurer, to induce him to take the office 
 without the usual allowance or pension from the Crown, 
 but this he fully resolved not to -do. He saw clearly 
 that there was none other to whom the Chancellorship 
 could be assigned, and he determined not to be out- 
 witted; to use the quaint expression of Roger North, 
 " his lordship was not a chicken that would peck at 
 shadows,'' and so he remained firm, and positively de-
 
 So Lord-Keeper Guilford. 
 
 clared he would not touch the Great Seal without an 
 adequate pension. Ultimately a compromise was made, 
 and he agreed to receive ^"2000 a year instead of 
 ^4000 a year assigned to his predecessor. When the 
 king put into his hands the purse containing the Seal, 
 he uttered this warning sentence, " Here, my Lord, 
 take it; you will find it heavy." "Thus," says Roger 
 North, "his Majesty acted the prophet as well as the 
 king, for shortly before his lordship's death he declared 
 that since he had the Seal he had not enjoyed one easy and 
 contented minute" Upon taking his seat in the Court of 
 Chancery, the Lord-Keeper applied himself very assidu- 
 ously to the reformation of abuses, so far as lay in his 
 power. He expressed himself strongly moved by a 
 sense of the excessive charges and delays of the court, 
 which he desired to remedy. But the variety of op- 
 posing interests rendered this a difficult task, yet some 
 progress was made, and had he continued to hold the 
 seals a few years longer, he purposed doing more " to 
 assist in purging out the peccant humours of the court." 
 His manner of life at this period is thus described by 
 his brother, " His lordship's method, with respect to 
 his great employment, was very commendable; for all 
 his time was devoted to the business incumbent on him. 
 He put but very little of it to his own use, and what 
 passed in easy conversation, which was the chief of his 
 pleasures, had still a regard to his employ by inquiring, 
 canvassing, and debating with those of his society such 
 points as concerned the republic. He had no kind of 
 vice or immorality within his walls. His chief remission 
 was in the use of music, of which he commonly took a 
 relish at his going to bed, for which end he had a harp-
 
 Lord-Keener G nil ford. 8 1 
 
 sichord at his bedchamber door, which a friend touched 
 to his voice. But he cared not for a set of masters to 
 consort it with him. 
 
 " The mornings were for the most part devoted to the 
 justice seat of the Chancery, either in the court at West- 
 minster or in the cause-room at home, during the usual 
 periods. His house was kept in state and plenty, though 
 not so polite as the court mode was. The nobility and 
 gentry coming to London were frequent at his table; 
 and after a solemn service of tea in a with draw ing room, 
 the company usually left him, and then the cause-room 
 claimed him, and held him in pain with causes and 
 exceptions often till late. He had little time to himself, 
 for he had this infirmity, that he could not bear to make 
 any one wait; but if his servant told him of any person, 
 small or great, that waited without, he could not apply 
 to think of or do anything till he had despatched him. 
 The interval between the business of the day and going 
 to bed was his chief refreshment, for then his most famil- 
 iar friends came to him, an3 the time passed merrily 
 enough ; then it was that the court spies found access to 
 plumb his most free sentiments, but with small profit, 
 for he had the same face and profession in public as he 
 had in private; they could only discover that he was an 
 honest man. His attendances at Whitehall were chiefly 
 at solemn times, as on Sunday morning to wait on the 
 king to chapel. That was usually a grand assembly of 
 the court, and the great men had opportunity to speak 
 in discourse to the king as he gave them occasion^ of 
 which his Majesty was no niggard; and very excellent 
 things said there on the one side and on the other were 
 a high regale to such as had the advantage to stand
 
 82 Lord-Keeper Guilford. 
 
 within hearing. On the week-days, those called council- 
 days always, and sometimes committees of council, re- 
 quired his lordship's attendance, and Thursday was 
 always public; others for private business upon sum- 
 mons." In the vacations, when he could be spared from 
 London, the Lord-Keeper retired to his seat at Wroxton. 
 For some years he likewise rented a villa at Hammer- 
 smith for the benefit of his wife's health, but this he gave 
 up shortly after her decease. He had the unhappiness 
 to lose her after they had been married but a few years. 
 She seems to have been an amiable and judicious woman. 
 She found out when her husband had any trouble weigh- 
 ing upon his spirits, and would divert it, saying, " Come, 
 Sir Francis (for so she always styled him), you shall not 
 think; we must talk and be merry, and you shall not 
 look on the fire as you do. I know something troubles 
 you, and I will not have it so." In his private relations 
 the Lord-Keeper was much beloved. Amidst all the toils 
 of office and the distractions of political life he main- 
 tained the same affectionate intercourse with his family, 
 sedulously promoting the interests of all its branches, 
 and regarded by them with grateful and admiring devo- 
 tion. The fervent attachment, approaching to venera- 
 tion, which his brothers entertained for him, and which 
 is so quaintly yet beautifully expressed by his biographer, 
 bears a striking and unimpeachable testimony to his 
 domestic virtues and excellence. 
 
 At the time when the Lord-Keeper accepted office he 
 found an administration with whose views for the most 
 part he concurred; but on the death of Charles II. 
 and the accession of Sunderland and Godolphin, and 
 especially of the noted Chief-Justice Jefferies to the Cabi-
 
 Lord- Keeper G nil ford. 83 
 
 net, his position became greatly altered ; " with the death 
 of this good master and sovereign all his lordship's hopes 
 and joys perished, and the rest of his life, which lasted 
 not long after, was but a slow dying." It soon appeared 
 evident that he would not be allowed to retain the seals and 
 the principles to which he had hitherto adhered. His resist- 
 ance to the unconstitutional and illegal proceedings of his 
 colleagues brought upon him the displeasure of the court, 
 and at the opening of Parliament, contrary to custom, 
 the Lord-Keeper was not even allowed to prepare the 
 King's speech, nor was he so much as consulted on that 
 which was delivered. 
 
 His enemies now triumphed over him, and, says Roger 
 North, " all the artillery of foul mouths was pointed at 
 him, the Earl of Sunderland being at the head of them. 
 To show their intent of fixing some scandal and con- 
 tempt on him, I shall allege a ridiculous instance or two. 
 .... A merchant of Sir D. North's acquaintance had 
 brought over an enormous rhinoceros, to be sold to 
 showmen for profit It is a noble beast, wonderfully 
 armed by nature for offence, but more for defence, being 
 covered with impenetrable shields, which no weapon 
 could make any impression upon, and a rarity so great 
 that few men in our country have in their whole lives 
 opportunity to see so singular an animal. Sir Dudley ac- 
 companied his brother, the Lord-Keeper, to see it at the 
 house of the merchant before it was sold, and they came 
 away exceedingly gratified with the curiosity they had 
 seen. Flying game soon carried an account of the 
 voyage to court, and it is certain that the very next 
 morning a bruit went from thence all over the town, and 
 as factious reports used to run, in a very short time,
 
 84 Lord-Keeper Gitilford. 
 
 namely, that his lordship rode upon the rhinoceros, than 
 which a more infantine exploit could not have been 
 fastened upon him. And most people were struck with 
 amazement at it, and divers ran here and there to find 
 out whether it was true or no; and soon after dinner 
 some lords and others came to himself, for the setters of 
 the lie affirmed it positively, as of their own knowledge. 
 That did not give his lordship much disturbance, for he 
 expected no better from his adversaries. But that his 
 friends, intelligent persons who knew him, should believe 
 it, was what roiled him extremely, and much more when 
 they had the face to come to him to know if it were true. 
 I never saw him in such a rage, and to lay about him 
 with affronts as then; for he sent them away with fleas 
 in their ears. And he was seriously angry with his own 
 brother, Sir Dudley, because he did not contradict the 
 lie in sudden and direct terms, but laughed, as taking 
 the question for a banter. . . . And so it passed, and the 
 noble earl (Sunderland), with JefFeries and others of that 
 crew, made merry, and never blushed at the lie of their 
 own making, but valued themselves upon it, as a very 
 good jest." 
 
 Thus " little less than derided," his decrees questioned, 
 discountenanced at court, displeased with the evil mea- 
 sures there favoured, harassed and dispirited, he found 
 himself unable to contend with the adverse circumstances 
 by which he was surrounded. He was attacked by a 
 severe illness, which incapacitated him for his duties, and 
 he became perturbed and full of nervous fancies, carrying 
 himself " as one ashamed, or as though he had done ill, 
 and not with that face of authority which he used to 
 wear." To such an extent did this feeling oppress him,
 
 Lord- Keeper GuUford. 85 
 
 that he fancied he looked out of countenance; and when 
 he went into Westminster Hall in the summer time, 
 would carry a nosegay of flowers to hold before his face 
 that people might not notice his dejection. In this 
 melancholy state he determined to resign office, and 
 applied to Lord Rochester to make application with this 
 view to the King. In the meantime he retired to his 
 mansion at Wroxton, where he hoped to find benefit by 
 the advice of the physicians, and in the enjoyment of 
 rest and fresh air. His affectionate brothers did all they 
 could to relieve and comfort his dejected spirits: music 
 was still his chief solace, " and if ever it was a relief to 
 a mind overwhelmed with troubles, it was so with him;" 
 in short, " with various amusements the heavy time, day 
 after day, was got off hand with what satisfaction could 
 be contrived." The patient, however, showed no signs of 
 amendment, and by-and-by was confined to his bed, where 
 he received the sacrament with his relations around him, 
 it being evident he could not live many hours. The 
 agonies of death came upon him, which he perceiving, 
 " desired his friends not to mourn for him," yet he com- 
 mended an old maid-servant for her good-will, who said, 
 " As long as there is life there is hope." At length he 
 sank into an apathy, " lay down for good and all," and 
 expired on the 5th September 1685, in his forty-eighth 
 year. 
 
 At the time of his death the Great Seal was in his 
 custody. Roger North gives us the following highly 
 characteristic account of what was done with it: "In 
 a few hours after his lordship's eyes were closed and his 
 will known in the family, all the officers of the Seal then 
 in the house (a Six-clerk, under-clerks, waxmen, &c., who
 
 86 Lord-Keeper Gidlford. 
 
 had made a good hand of it, being allowed travelling 
 charges out of the hanaper, and yet ate and drank in his 
 lordship's house) after having laid their wise heads together, 
 came in a body to know what the pleasure of the execu- 
 tors was touching the Great Seal, as if that had been a 
 matter in danger of being overlooked. The executors 
 immediately ordered them all to be ready the next morn- 
 ing to go along with it to Windsor, where the King then 
 was; and the state equipage being made ready for the 
 executors themselves, they took the strong box in which 
 the Seal was kept, and that enclosed in a silk bag, which 
 was also sealed with his lordship's seal. Such a sacred 
 thing is that pestiferous lump of metal. The same night 
 they arrived they waited upon the king, who said, ' he 
 heard that his lordship was much mended.' The seal 
 was delivered in the bag into the King's own hand, who 
 took the bag and asked if there was never a purse (of 
 state), and it was answered that none was brought down. 
 The King said no more to them, whereupon the execu- 
 tors retired; and as had long before been projected, the 
 Great Seal was put into Lord Jefferies' hands, with the 
 style of Lord High Chancellor of England. And what 
 effect that transition had upon the state and welfare of 
 England, let the succeeding times speak."
 
 V. 
 
 (flwf- Justice $olt. 
 
 |T was some time in the summer of 1659 that the 
 incident here narrated occurred. A party of 
 gay thoughtless young Oxonians resolved to 
 enjoy a merry excursion, and betook themselves to 
 wandering about the country, playing all sorts of idle 
 pranks. By-and-by their purses were exhausted, and the 
 question arose, how they might procure a fresh supply of 
 the " needful," without which it was certain they must 
 be compelled to give over their rambles, and put an end 
 to the fun. One of them, who was evidently the ring- 
 leader, after listening awhile to the proposals of his 
 comrades, exclaimed, " Now, then ! here we are come to 
 a place where four roads meet. 1 propose that we 
 should part company, each taking a different path, and 
 try to make our way singly, every one by the exercise of 
 his own wits." "Agreed !" cried the others, and, after 
 appointing a place of rendezvous at which they were to 
 meet again in a few days, they turned their horses' heads 
 in various directions, and quickly disappeared. 
 
 We shall follow the steps of the ringleader, a fine 
 spirited lad of sixteen, just entered a fellow-commoner 
 of Oriel College, and, if report told true, sadly mis-
 
 88 Chief -Justice Holt. 
 
 chievous and prone to folly. As he rode along, he 
 whistled a lively air, and checking the pace of his 
 animal, began to consider how he was to proceed. At 
 the end of an hour's ride he reached the little inn of a 
 straggling village, and putting the best face upon the 
 matter, dismounted, and, bidding the ostler look well to 
 his horse, sauntered into the house, and, .with the air of 
 a millionaire, bespoke the best supper and bed the place 
 would afford. The landlady, well pleased to have so 
 promising a customer, bustled about to make the neces- 
 sary preparations, and left the young gentleman in the 
 meantime to amuse himself as best he might, till supper 
 should be ready. After a glance around the humble 
 room, he went to look out at the window, and seeing 
 nothing to attract him abroad, sauntered into the 
 kitchen. There he found a girl about thirteen years 
 old, shivering with a fit of ague. The young fellow was 
 sad when he looked at the poor little sufferer, and ap- 
 proaching, kindly inquired what ailed her? She told 
 him that she had been ill nearly a year, and that, 
 although her mother had done all she could, and paid 
 several doctors' bills for physic, she was none the better. 
 And so she fell to crying. 
 
 Just then, the landlady came in, and in answer to the 
 youth's questions gave him, readily enough, a rather 
 diffuse history of her daughter's malady and her own 
 domestic affairs. She was a widow, and had only this 
 one child, and she declared, what with the badness of 
 the times and the money she had spent in doctoring the 
 poor invalid, she was half ruined. " Doctors ! " cried 
 the young collegian after patiently hearing her out 
 " I don't wonder the poor girl is so bad. Depend upon
 
 Chief -Justice Holt. 89 
 
 it, she'll never get well as long as she is poisoned with 
 physic ; but I could soon tell you of a certain cure." 
 And he looked as wise as a young owl. " Bless your 
 heart ! you don't say that V cried the poor woman, while 
 the sick girl, who was listening from her place in the 
 chimney-corner, pricked up her ears, and, wiping her eyes 
 with her apron, ceased to moan and cry. 
 
 " Depend upon it, my good woman, your daughter 
 shall never have another fit if you take my advice and 
 act as I shall direct ;" and then, leaving them to wonder 
 over the matter, he returned to the parlour, and ate, with 
 a hearty appetite, the meal that awaited him. Which 
 done, he returned to the kitchen, and was heartily wel- 
 comed by the widow and her poor little Sally. " And 
 what if I may ask you, sir," said the good woman, 
 " what is the advice you spoke about just now? If you 
 do really know of anything which would do the poor 
 thing good, it would be a true charity to tell us of it." 
 
 After suffering himself to be again urged, the youth 
 declared that he was acquainted with a wonderful charm, 
 which would infallibly cure the ague, and, indeed, every 
 other kind of ailment ! He then felt in his pocket, and 
 drew out from it a scrap of parchment, at the same time 
 bidding the landlady fetch him pens and ink. With 
 much ado, he forthwith proceeded to scrawl a few Greek 
 characters upon the parchment, and then, rolling it up, 
 while he muttered some mysterious words in a low tone, 
 he directed that it should be bound upon the girl's wrist, 
 and remain there until she was well. 
 
 His directions were implicitly obeyed, and the result 
 was all that he could wish, for Sally passed that night in 
 sound and refreshing sleep. It was evident that the girl
 
 90 Chief -Justice Holt. 
 
 had a profound confidence in the efficacy of the wonder- 
 ful charm, and, as the imagination is one of the most 
 powerful agents both upon mind and body, this was, of 
 itself, no small way toward the cure. From whatever 
 cause, she was quite another creature, and presently 
 began to laugh and chat merrily, to the infinite delight 
 of her mother, who had not seen her do the like for 
 months. 
 
 The next day proved warm and bright, and our young 
 scapegrace spent it most enjoyably, in rambling about, 
 in angling of which he was very fond and in various 
 ways best known to himself. The next day, and the 
 next, he" found amusement, and you may be sure he was 
 feasted with all the dainties mine hostess of the inn could 
 procure. Her chicken roost, her bee-hive, her dairy and 
 orchard, were put in requisition, and nothing seemed to 
 her nice and dainty enough for " the dear, sweet, young 
 gentleman " (as she called him), who had worked such 
 wonders for her poor child. When, on the fourth day, 
 he talked of leaving, she besought him to prolong his 
 stay, and, with great persuasion, she succeeded. He 
 yielded to her wish, and stopped the week out, making 
 the little inn his head-quarters, during all which time 
 there was no return of the ague. At length he prepared 
 to go, and called for his bill, with as much assurance 
 as though his pockets were lined with silver pieces. In- 
 stead of complying with this demand, the grateful hostess 
 told him that so far from accepting a stiver of his money 
 she was only sorry she could never pay him as she ought 
 for the surprising cure he had made, and she added : 
 " What would I have given if you had chanced to come 
 in my way sooner ! Had I lighted upon you ten months
 
 Chief -Just ice Holt. 91 
 
 before, it would have saved me a pretty penny. Take 
 your money, sir ! No, no ; all I can do is to thank and 
 bless you, and may you meet good luck wherever you 
 go, and the widow's blessing go with you." 
 
 * * * 
 
 And now, a long lapse occurs in my story. Years 
 many have rolled away, and all is changed. Still the 
 scene is laid in the same county (Oxford), in one of the 
 principal towns. It is the summer assize, and the judges 
 have just commenced their sittings. In the criminal 
 court a cause has been called, and is now about to be 
 heard. As we look at the bar we see a wretched, 
 decrepit, and very old woman, tottering beneath the 
 weight of years, and trembling with terror. And with 
 good reason she is terrified ; for she is going to be tried 
 for her life on a charge of witchcraft ; and there is but 
 small probability that she will escape, for the general 
 feeling is so strong against the so-called " witches," that 
 a man stands great risk of being dejsmed an atheist if he 
 venture to question the existence of such a crime, and to 
 declare against the foolish and impious prejudice of the 
 vulgar in this respect. 
 
 There is silence in court as the judge takes his place, 
 a portly dignified personage, approaching his sixtieth 
 year, and one who has acquired the veneration of his 
 contemporaries, as a man of unsullied honour, profound 
 learning, and the most enlightened understanding. He 
 has, moreover, the character for being apt at detecting 
 false pretences of all sorts, and befriending the interests 
 of truth and freedom. 
 
 The case proceeds, and the witnesses are called. 
 They give their evidence with great earnestness, and it
 
 9 2 Chief -Justice Holt 
 
 is plain they have a firm faith in the truth of what they 
 allege against the miserable being they accuse. The 
 principal charge against her is that she has, in her pos- 
 session, a powerful spell, which enables her to spread 
 diseases among the cattle, or to cure such as were 
 diseased, at her will ; and that she had lately been de- 
 tected in the use of this mysterious implement. " Has 
 anybody seen the charm?" inquired the judge. "Yes \ 
 please you, my Lord ; and it is now here ready to be 
 produced in the court." The judge immediately directed 
 that it should be handed to him, which was accordingly 
 done, a dirty ball, wrapped round with several rags, 
 and bound with packthread. These coverings he pro- 
 ceeds carefully to remove, and beneath them he dis- 
 covers a piece of parchment, stained and discoloured, 
 and having some scarcely legible characters which he 
 immediately recognises as his own fabrication ! 
 
 For a few moments there is a deep silence in court, 
 while every eye is turned upon the judge. The judge 
 remains silent, and covers his face perchance in prayer. 
 Then, lifting his head, he thus addresses the jury : 
 " Gentlemen, I must now relate a particular of my life 
 which very ill suits my character and the station in which 
 I sit ; but to conceal it would be to aggravate the sinful 
 folly for which I ought to atone, to endanger innocence, 
 and to countenance superstition. This so-called charm, 
 which these poor ignorant people suppose to have the 
 power of life and death, is a senseless scroll which, with 
 my own hand, I wrote, and gave the poor woman, who, 
 for no other reason, stands before me accused of witch- 
 craft." He then related the particulars of the transac- 
 tion, which produced such an effect upon the minds of
 
 Chief -Justice Holt. 93 
 
 the people, that his old landlady was the last person 
 tried for that crime in the county. 
 
 This story is told of Chief-Justice Holt, a judge whose 
 memory is still cherished with high veneration, and to 
 whose eminent services, we are assured, may be in no 
 small degree ascribed the stability of the constitutional 
 system, introduced when hereditary right was disregarded 
 in this country, and the dynasty changed. He was of a 
 respectable gentleman's family, and was born in 1642, at 
 Thane, in Oxfordshire. When about sixteen years of 
 age he was sent to Oxford University, but the complaints 
 of his misconduct which reached his father's ears made 
 him determine quickly to remove the youth from a scene 
 of so great temptation. He was accordingly sent to 
 London, and put under suitable care, being required to 
 keep his terms, with a view to his being called to the 
 bar. These wise measures were perfectly successful ; 
 his reformation was complete ; he gave himself, with the 
 utmost diligence, to the study of the law, and his moral 
 conduct was thenceforward irreproachable. It is certain, 
 says his biographer Lord Campbell that the devoted 
 application to business, the unwearied perseverance, and 
 the uniform self-control which characterized Sir John 
 Holt, could only have been the result of a submission to 
 strict discipline in early years. Shortly after he came of 
 age he was called to the bar, but, like many before and 
 since him, he long remained without clients. When at 
 last he was known, business poured upon him very 
 rapidly. This is not wonderful when we learn that " his 
 mother u'it was equal to his cicrgy ;" and that he seemed 
 to be gifted with an instinctive faculty " to distinguish 
 genuine law, applicable to real business, from antiquated
 
 94 Chief-Justice Holt. 
 
 rubbish of no real service." He made himself master of 
 all that is useful in our municipal code, and it is evident 
 that he must have thoroughly imbued his mind with the 
 principles of the Roman civil law. 
 
 But that for which he is most to be loved and hon- 
 oured is his love of liberty ; which shone conspicuously 
 in all his career. In that troubled age he associated 
 himself with those who were struggling for the great in- 
 terests of freedom, civil and religious, in our fatherland. 
 In the year 1683 he was counsel for Lord Russell. Un- 
 happily he had no power to serve the interests of the ac- 
 cused, with whom his warmest sympathies were enlisted. 
 He could but look on while the illustrious prisoner, 
 assisted by his heroic wife, vainly defended himself 
 against the chicanery of the counsel for the crown, and 
 the brow-beating of corrupt judges. There is a consola- 
 tion in the belief that his own merciful and upright 
 demeanour in the seat of justice may in part be ascribed 
 to the horror which this sad tragedy inspired. 
 
 Sir John Holt took his seat in the Court of King's 
 Bench in 1689 ; and so high was his reputation for law, 
 so great satisfaction had he given in dispensing justice, 
 and such the respect in which he was held for his admir- 
 able conduct in his professional character, that his ap- 
 pointment was hailed with universal satisfaction. His 
 contemporaries speak of him with enthusiasm, and it is 
 delightful to read the heart-felt praise bestowed on him 
 by his latest biographer. Lord Campbell says that he 
 " ever reasoned logically appearing at the same time 
 instinctively acquainted with all the feelings of the human 
 heart, and versed by experience in all the ways of man- 
 kind." He adds : " During a century and a half this
 
 Chief -Justice Holt. 95 
 
 country has been renowned above all others for the pure 
 and enlightened administration of justice, and Holt is the 
 model on which, in t England, the judicial character has 
 been formed." 
 
 For two things all will hold his memory dear. He 
 had the merit of effectually repealing the Acts against 
 witchcraft, and after his day no helpless woman was in 
 danger of being hanged and burned in England for being 
 old, wrinkled, and paralytic. He was also the first to 
 lay down the doctrine that the status of slavery cannot 
 exist in England, and that, as soon as a slave breathes 
 the air of this country, he is free. No wonder the man 
 who thus made Law the handmaid of Right, was beloved 
 and venerated. 
 
 He died at the age of sixty-eight, early in the year 
 1710; and was buried at Redgrave, his estate in Suffolk, 
 where he had spent his vacations as a private gentleman, 
 mixing familiarly with all ranks, and particularly with 
 the most humble. A vast assemblage from the sur- 
 rounding country flocked to his funeral, impelled by the 
 desire to pay their last respects to one whose face they 
 were to see no more, but whom they were to talk of to 
 their children's children. " They cared little about his 
 political conduct, but they had heard, and they believed, 
 that he was the greatest judge that had appeared on the 
 earth since the time of Daniel, and they knew that he 
 was condescending, kind-hearted, and charitable." 
 
 A magnificent monument of white marble was erected 
 over his grave by his brother at the cost of ^1500, re- 
 presenting him seated in his judicial robes, under a 
 canopy of state, between the emblematic figures of Justice 
 and Mercy.
 
 96 Chief -Justice Holt. 
 
 I will add, as I think it may amuse the reader, a 
 pleasing anecdote of Chief-Justice Holt, related in Mr. 
 Harford's " Recollections of Wilberforce." Many per- 
 sons, even of superior education, contract the habit of 
 interlarding their conversation with one or two peculiar 
 phrases without being aware of it. An example of this 
 was this celebrated lawyer, whose perpetually recurring 
 expression was, " Lookie, d'ye see!" An admirer of the 
 Chief-Justice one day said to his nephew, " Your uncle 
 is a great man, but, what a pity it is he can't talk any 
 time together without bringing in, ' Lookie, d'ye see 1 ' " 
 ' I'll break him of it," said the nephew, and the mode 
 he adopted was the following : Holt had often found 
 fault with the youth for not giving his mind to legal 
 studies. One day the young fellow surprised him not a 
 little by saying, " Well, uncle, I have thought much of 
 your advice, and have been acting upon it so intently 'as 
 to have versified parts of ' Coke upon Lyttleton ;' shall 
 I give you a specimen ? " Holt nodded assent, and he 
 proceeded thus : 
 
 " He that is tenant in fee, 
 Need neither quake nor quiver, 
 For he hath it, ' Lookie, d'ye see?' 
 To him and his heirs for ever." 
 
 "Ah, you rogue," said the old judge, "I understand 
 you."
 
 VI. 
 
 orb Hbnsficlt). 
 
 [OR much of what is known concerning the youth 
 of this eminent personage we are indebted to 
 Lord Campbell, who, with evident delight, 
 traces the progress of his renowned countryman from 
 the cradle to the grave. Fortunately his lordship had 
 access to family records and sources unknown to former 
 biographers, and was thus enabled to throw a great deal 
 of light upon the obscurity of the early annals of a man 
 destined to become Chief-Justice of England, and one 
 of the most renowned judges who ever adorned the 
 bench. 
 
 From his pages we leam that William Murray, the 
 fourth son of Andrew, Viscount Stormont, was born near 
 Perth, on the zd March, 1705, in the ruinous Castle of 
 Scone, the hereditary abode of his ancestors for many 
 successive generations. His parents, though of noble 
 birth, were poverty-stricken, and found it a difficult 
 matter to provide for their numerous family, numbering 
 in all fourteen children. Strictest economy was essen- 
 tial in their domestic me'nage, and, instead of being 
 taught by masters at home, little Willie, so soon as he 
 could say his alphabet, was sent to school at the neigh- 
 
 132) 7
 
 c;S Lord Mansfield. 
 
 bouring town of Perth, distant a mile and a half from 
 his father's residence, where he remained until his four- 
 teenth year. In after days, when Mr. Solicitor-General 
 Murray was rising into greatness, envious libels were 
 circulated, sarcastically referring to the straitened circum- 
 stances of his boyhood, and giving the following descrip- 
 tion of his school days at Perth : 
 
 " Learning was very cheap in his countiy, as it might 
 be had for a groat a quarter, so that a lad went two or 
 three miles of a morning to fetch it; and it is very 
 common to see there a boy of quality lug along his 
 books to school, and a scrip of oatmeal for his dinner, 
 with a pair of brogues on his feet, and nothing on his 
 legs." 
 
 Report says, that Willie Murray, with his hardy fare 
 and scant raiment, proved himself a boy of quality in the 
 best sense, giving early indications of the sharp intellect, 
 vigorous power of understanding, and regularity of 
 conduct which subsequently distinguished him. He 
 was almost always dux, or leader, of his class; and 
 although, according to the custom of the day, the 
 ancient punishment of the taws was administered for 
 even small faults, his palm never showed a blister. 
 
 At the age of fourteen he was supposed to have 
 learned all that he could acquire at the Perth Grammar- 
 school, and his parents looked around them with anxiety 
 as to the choice of a profession for the lad. His family 
 were decidedly Jacobite in their political opinions, and 
 his elder brother, James, had associated himself with the 
 fortunes of the exiled Stuarts in their banishment. It 
 was therefore in vain to hope for court favour so long as 
 the House of Hanover reigned, and there was no chance
 
 Lord Mansfield. 99 
 
 of preferment in the Church. In this perplexity, Lord 
 Stormont consulted his elder son, who urgently advised 
 that William should be sent to Westminster school, 
 where he would be certain to obtain a scholarship, and 
 might probably find the path open to him before long. 
 This plan was accordingly adopted, and the decision 
 was doubtless satisfactory to the boy, who anticipated 
 with delight the novelties of the English metropolis, so 
 much more attractive than the gloomy cloisters of the 
 University of St. Andrews, to which there had been some 
 thought of sending him. 
 
 The most thrifty mode of travelling at that time 
 was on horseback; for the solitary coach which per- 
 formed the journey from the Scottish to the English 
 metropolis occupied ten days in the transit, and was not 
 only tedious and incommodious, but very expensive. It 
 was therefore determined that young Murray should be 
 carried on the back of a "Galloway," or home-bred pony, 
 which was to be sold on his arrival at the great city to 
 help in paying the expenses of his outfit Accordingly, 
 on the 22d March, 1718, he quitted Edinburgh, after 
 taking a final leave of his parents, neither of whom he 
 ever again beheld. 
 
 The history of his migration and settlement is thus 
 narrated in the "Lives of the Chief Justices:" "His 
 long, but not wearisome, journey was concluded on the 
 8th of May. He had been consigned to the care of one 
 John Wemyss, an emigrant from Perth, who had settled 
 in London as an apothecary. This canny Scot had been 
 born on the Stormont estate, and was most eager to be 
 of service to any of that family. He did all that was 
 necessary to launch Mr. William in London, by assisting
 
 ico Lord Mansfield. 
 
 him to sell his horse, by advancing him money and 
 making payments for him, by buying him a sword, two 
 wigs, and proper clothes, by entering him with the head- 
 master of Westminster school, and by settling him at a 
 dame's in Dean's Yard 
 
 " William was a good boy, and stuck very steadily to 
 his books. His strange dialect at first excited a little 
 mirth among his companions, and they tried to torment 
 him by jokes against his country; but he showed his blood, 
 and they were speedily soothed by his agreeable manners, 
 and awed by the solidity of his acquirements. 
 
 "At the end of a year he was elected a King's scholar. 
 Beyond his own merits there must have been some 
 powerful interest required to procure this step, for West- 
 minster school was then crowded, and the foundation 
 was much coveted." 
 
 This important event was communicated to his family 
 in a letter from Mr. Wemyss, the apothecary, addressed 
 to the Viscountess of Stormont, in which the good man 
 says : " Your Ladyship no doubt has heard that your 
 son, Mr. William, has not only had merit but good luck 
 to be chosen a Queen's schollar, ffor I can tell your 
 Ladyship that there is favour oftner that prevails against 
 ineritt, even in this case as well as in other affairs of the 
 world. Though, give him his due, there can't be a finer 
 youth, or one who minds his business more closely. 
 Your Ladyship sees that he spends a good deall of money. 
 But he won't spend near so much next year," &c. 
 
 During the next four years of the young gentleman's 
 career at Westminster school, the following is the only 
 anecdote of him handed down to us : Lady Kinnoul, in 
 one of the vacations, invited him to her home, where
 
 Lord ^lansficld. IOI 
 
 observing him with a pen in his hand and seemingly 
 thoughtful, she asked him if he was writing his theme, 
 and what, in plain English, the theme was. The school- 
 boy's smart answer rather surprised her ladyship " What 
 is that to you?" She replied, "How can you be so 
 rude ? I asked you very civilly a plain question, and did 
 not expect from a school-boy such a pert answer." 
 " Indeed, my lady," he replied, " I can only answer once 
 more, What is that to you ? " In reality the theme was 
 " Quid ad te pertineL" 
 
 Favourable mention is made of his diligence and rapid 
 progress in his studies during these years. One of his 
 biographers, after mentioning that the school had never 
 been in a more flourishing condition than at the time 
 when he entered it, that the number of boys amounted 
 to five hundred, and that they enjoyed the advantage of 
 having the most eminent scholars for their daily instruc- 
 tors, adds : " In the constant competition of talent, to 
 which additional stimulus was thus given, none shone 
 more conspicuous than Murray. It is particularly 
 recorded of him that his superiority was more manifest 
 in the declamations than in any of the other exercises 
 prescribed by the regulations of the school, a fact not 
 to be overlooked in the history of one who afterwards, 
 as an orator, equalled if not excelled such competitors 
 as it falls to the lot of few nations or ages to possess. 
 His proficiency in classical attainments was almost 
 equally great." 
 
 Similar testimony is borne by Bishop Newton, the 
 schoolfellow of Murray, and his "chum;" who says, 
 " He gave early proof of his uncommon abilities, not so 
 much in his poetry as in his other exercises, and parti-
 
 102 L ord Mansfield. 
 
 cularly in his declamations, which were sure tokens and 
 prognostics of that eloquence which grew up to such 
 maturity and perfection at the bar and in both Houses 
 of Parliament." 
 
 It must have told no little to his honour that, at the 
 election in May, 1723, after a rigorous examination, it 
 was found that William Murray was still " Dux," for he 
 stood the first on the list of the King's scholars who were 
 to be sent on the foundation to Christ Church, Oxford, 
 where he was entered on the i8th June in that year. It 
 was at first intended that the young Oxonian should 
 qualify himself for taking orders in the English Church. 
 He had, indeed, before he left home, expressed a 
 preference for the study of the law; but his wish had 
 been overruled on consideration of the great expenses of 
 a legal education, which were far more than his father 
 could afford. There seemed no alternative but that he 
 should take orders, and in this necessity he acquiesced ; 
 having, however, while at Westminster, occasionally 
 visited the great Hall, and listened to the pleadings of 
 the eloquent leaders there, he felt, as he described it, 
 " a calling" for the profession of the law which sharpened 
 his regret at being prevented from following the bent of 
 his inclination. After his removal to Oxford, he casually 
 mentioned his disappointment to a schoolfellow, the son 
 of the first Lord Foley. That gentleman, who had 
 amassed a vast fortune by his ingenious inventions in 
 some branch of industrial science, possessed a liberal 
 and enlightened mind, prompting him to value and 
 encourage talent wherever he discovered it. It chanced 
 that, having seen young Murray at his country-house 
 during the holidays, he had been pleased with his con-
 
 Lord Mansfield. 103 
 
 versation, and discovered in him marks of unusual ability. 
 J -earning subsequently that, on account of straitened 
 domestic circumstances, this promising young man was 
 about reluctantly to prepare himself for ordination, 
 instead of following the promptings of his genius in the 
 study of the law, he, in a most delicate and generous 
 manner, encouraged him to enter the career for which 
 nature had fitted him, and engaged to supply him with 
 the requisite means of doing so, until the success which 
 he confidently predicted awaited him should enable his 
 protdge to repay the advance with interest The offer 
 was frankly accepted, and both had reason to rejoice in 
 the happy results of this friendly act. 
 
 Having obtained the consent of his family to the pro- 
 posed arrangement, Murray entered himself of an Inn of 
 Court while he remained an under-graduate at Oxford, 
 where he resided four years, " making all his studies 
 subservient to the profession which of his own liking he 
 had adopted, his energy being doubled from his con- 
 sidering the responsibility which he had incurred by 
 deviating from the beaten track to obscure competence 
 which lay open before him." Although we have no 
 record of the method he pursued in carrying on these 
 studies, there is not wanting abundant evidence that he 
 laboured diligently to acquire those gifts he afterwards 
 exercised so greatly to the admiration of the public, and 
 to the substantial benefit of the suitors in that great court 
 over which he presided for thirty years. Thus says his 
 biographer " Those who look upon him with admira- 
 tion as the antagonist of Chatham, and who would rival 
 his fame, should be undeceived if they suppose that 
 oratorical skill is merely the gift of nature, and should
 
 IO4 Lord Mansfield. 
 
 know by what laborious efforts it is acquired. He read 
 systematically all that had been written upon the subject, 
 and he made himself familiar with all the ancient orators. 
 Aspiring to be a lawyer and a statesman, Cicero was 
 naturally his chief favourite, and he used to declare that 
 there was not a single oration extant of this illustrious 
 ornament of the forum and the senate-house which he 
 had not, while at Oxford, translated into English, and 
 after an interval, according to the best of his ability 
 retranslated into Latin. He likewise diligently practised 
 original composition both in Latin and English, know- 
 ing that there is no other method by which correct- 
 ness and condensation in extempore speaking can be 
 acquired."* 
 
 In short, it is evident that " long before he ever spoke 
 in public, Mr. Murray had reflected long and deeply on 
 the principles of the art in which, with a view to the 
 distant future, he was earnestly endeavouring to improve 
 himself, and that he had been early accustomed to cal- 
 culate by what means a particular effect is most likely to 
 be produced on the passions or the understandings of a 
 popular assembly." 
 
 The next step of the young aspirant was to transfer 
 himself to London, where he took a small set of cham- 
 bers, three stories high, in Lincoln's Inn, and set himself 
 in good earnest to acquire a knowledge of his profession. 
 Of the course of study which produced the most accom- 
 plished judge who ever presided in the court of King's 
 Bench, we have, says his biographer, only an imperfect 
 account, but we know that he owed everything to 
 private and spontaneous exertion. " First, he thoroughly 
 
 * " Lives of Chief-Justices."
 
 L ord Mansfield. \ 05 
 
 grounded himself in ancient and modern history by a 
 perusal of the most eminent original historians. He 
 then applied diligently to ethics, which he mastered ; and 
 from his own experience he always strongly recommended 
 the philosophical works of Cicero. The foundation of 
 jurisprudence he maintained to be the Roman civil law. 
 Thence he proceeded to international law, doing full 
 justice to the learning and genius of Grotius, its codifier 
 and almost its founder. Next, he entered on the feudal 
 law, without which our law of real property must be very 
 imperfectly understood. Next came the English municipal 
 law, and this he was obliged to search for in very crabbed 
 and uncouth compositions, which often filled him with 
 disgust and sometimes with despair. . . . ." 
 
 While by such multifarious and severe studies he was 
 preparing himself to be a great advocate and the prince 
 of judges, by a wise disposition of his time he still mixed 
 in general society and attended to elegant literature. In 
 his life of Johnson, Boswell speaks of Mr. Murray as a 
 young man who was then " drinking champagne with the 
 wits," referring probably to the fact of his intimate friend- 
 ship with Pope. 
 
 " To this prince of poets he had been introduced, while 
 at Westminster school, by his countryman Lord March- 
 mont, and a warm and steady friendship sprang up 
 between them. The young Scot was at first exceedingly 
 flattered and delighted by the notice of a writer of such 
 celebrity, whose ' Pastorals' he had got by heart when 
 a child, but whom, till he was sent to England, he had 
 never hoped to behold. Afterwards he had the good 
 taste to relish the exquisite powers of conversation which 
 the bard could display in the company of those he liked,
 
 io6 Lord Mansfield. 
 
 and he was touched by experiencing constant kindness 
 from one who was disposed to treat nobles and kings 
 with disdain. Pope, on the other hand, intuitively dis- 
 covered the genius of this juvenile worshipper, was 
 struck by his extraordinary accomplishments, agreeable 
 manners, and, it is said, above all, by the silvery tones oj 
 his voice, which seem then and ever after to have doubled 
 the effect of all his other powers to win his way in the 
 world."* In such favour was Murray with his illustrious 
 friend that he had frequent invitations to Pope's villa at 
 Twickenham, and Pope, coming to Lincoln's Inn, would 
 instruct the youthful neophyte in the graces of oratory. 
 It is related that one day a gay Templar having uncere- 
 moniously entered Murray's rooms, surprised him in the 
 act of practising before a mirror, while Pope sat by in the 
 character of preceptor. There must have been some- 
 thing unusually prepossessing about the youth who could 
 thus inspire in the fastidious poet a warmth of affection 
 rare indeed to be met with in such a personage ; nor did 
 the feeling prove evanescent, but was prolonged till the 
 death of Pope, and its genuineness was evinced by the 
 interchange of all the offices of a generous and true 
 friendship. 
 
 After so diligent a preparation we do not wonder to 
 find the young lawyer qualified, when the opportunity 
 presented itself, to shine in the profession for which he 
 had displayed so rooted an attachment. He appears 
 from the first to have formed a settled resolve to attain 
 the highest honours it can confer, and he panted for the 
 lucky moment when he might begin to scale the ladder. 
 For a few years his gains were comparatively small. It 
 
 * " Lives of the Chief-Justices."
 
 L ord Mansfield. \ 07 
 
 is a pleasant trait in his character that he dedicated his 
 first professional earnings to the purchase of a set of tea- 
 china, with suitable silver-plate, for his sister-in-law, Lady 
 Stormont, who, after his father's death, had sent him 
 supplies of Scotch marmalade, as well as pecuniary con- 
 tributions to assist him while he was a student at Lin- 
 coln's Inn. It was not long before he began to be 
 engaged in important cases of appeal, and his connec- 
 tions, personal character, and the reputation which he 
 had acquired at the University, all contributed to his 
 success. Yet, in spite of his rising fame, he was unsuc- 
 cessful in an affair of the heart The lady of his choice 
 had beauty, accomplishments, and birth for her dower, 
 and listened favourably to his suit, but her friends, from 
 pecuniary considerations, refused their sanction, and 
 married her to a wealthy squire. This disappointment 
 for a time inflicted a deep wound; and Pope endea- 
 voured as best he might to cheer his downcast spirits 
 by addressing to him an imitation of the Sixth Epistle 
 of the First Book of Horace. The following lines have 
 been often quoted : 
 
 " If not so pleased, at council board rejoice 
 
 To see their judgments hang upon thy voice ; 
 From morn to night, at Senate, Rolls, and Hall, 
 Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all. 
 But wherefore all this labour, all this strife, 
 For fame, for riches, for a noble wife? 
 Shall one whom native learning, birth conspired 
 To form, not to admire, but be admired, 
 Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth, 
 Weds the rich dullness of some son of earth? 
 Yet time ennobles or degrades each line ; 
 It brightened Craggs's, and may darken thine 
 And what is fame ? the meanest have their day ; 
 The greatest can but blaze and pass away."
 
 IO 8 Lord Mansfield. 
 
 How far the poet's friendly skill availed appears doubt- 
 ful. But before many months had passed the growing 
 celebrity of Mr. Murray placed him in a position to 
 aspire again after the happiness of wedded life, and this 
 time his suit was urged with success. He married a lady 
 of rank and accomplishments, and one whose love formed 
 the happiness of a long life crowned with honour, and in 
 no small degree beneficial to his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 " The great Lord Mansfield " was the epithet by which 
 he was known to the men of his own generation, and 
 few, if any, have excelled him in the peculiar excel- 
 lencies that most adorn the position he so long filled. 
 Among the numerous tributes paid to his genius, we find 
 the testimonies of some of the wisest and most renowned 
 of his contemporaries. Not only did Pope celebrate 
 him in undying verse, but the gentle Cowper wrote some 
 pleasing stanzas bewailing the outrage committed by the 
 mob at the time of the celebrated riots of 1780, when 
 the house of the venerable Chief-Justice was destroyed 
 by fire, and his invaluable library of books and manu- 
 scripts perished in the flames. Lord Mansfield's per- 
 sonal appearance is thus characteristically described by 
 Cowper in a letter to Hayley : " The monument of Lord 
 M., for which you say Flaxman is engaged, will, I dare 
 say, prove a noble effort of genius. Statuaries, as I have 
 often heard an eminent one say, do not much trouble 
 themselves about likeness, else I would give much to be 
 able to communicate to Flaxman the perfect idea I have 
 of this subject, such as he was forty years ago. He was 
 at that time wonderfully handsome, and would expound 
 the most mysterious intricacies of the law, or recapitu- 
 late both matter and evidence of a cause as long as from
 
 L ord J I an s fif Id. 1 09 
 
 here to Eartham, with an intelligent smile on his fea- 
 tures that bespoke plainly the perfect ease with which 
 he did it. The most abstruse studies, I believe, never 
 cost him any labour." Lord Chesterfield wrote to his 
 son in glowing terms of the rising talents of Mr. Pitt 
 and Mr. Murray : " No man," says he, " can make a 
 figure in this country but by Parliament. Your fate de- 
 pends on your success as a speaker, and, take my word 
 for it, that success turns much more upon manner than 
 matter. Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Murray, the Solicitor-Gene- 
 ral, are beyond comparison the best speakers. Why] 
 Only because they are the best orators. They alone can 
 inflame or quiet the House; they alone are attended to 
 in that numerous and noisy assembly, that you might 
 hear a pin fall while either of them is speaking. Is it 
 that their matter is better or their arguments stronger 
 than other people's? Does the House expect extraor- 
 dinary information from them? Not in the least; but 
 the House expects pleasure from them, and therefore 
 attends; finds it, and therefore approves." 
 
 Bishop Hurd, after passing a fine eulogium upon the 
 talents displayed by Lord Mansfield in every department 
 of the State, and more especially " in the Supreme Court 
 of Justice, his peculiar province," adds, " his lordship's 
 public senatorial character much resembled that of Mes- 
 sala, of whom Cicero says, addressing himself to Brutus, 
 that for worth, honour, and a warm love of his country, 
 hardly any one is comparable to Messala, so that his 
 eloquence (in which he wonderfully excels) is almost 
 eclipsed by those virtues; and even in his display of 
 that faculty his superior good sense shows itself most, 
 with so much care and skill hath he formed himself to
 
 no L ord Mansfield. 
 
 the truest manner of speaking. His powers of genius 
 and invention are confessedly of the first size, yet he 
 almost owes less to them than to the diligent and stu- 
 dious cultivation of judgment." 
 
 Not less eulogistic is Bishop Warburton, who declares 
 that during Lord Mansfield's administration, " the stream 
 of justice ran as pure as from its own celestial source ; 
 purer than Plato dared to conceive it, even in his feigned 
 republic." Another admirer writes that his words might 
 be said to " drop manna ;" and that, if the bolder meta- 
 phor of Anacreon could be anywhere justified, it might 
 be here that " he spoke roses." 
 
 These lively pictures of the individual, drawn by con- 
 temporary pens, are usually more effective than those 
 which are traced only from the relation of others. We 
 seem to have, as it were, the features and the tones con- 
 veyed to us, together with the language of the orator. 
 Everywhere Lord Mansfield's advent excited a general 
 interest, and men ran eagerly to listen to him, as we 
 read in the memoirs of various writers of the day. Once 
 only was the Midland Circuit honoured by his presence, 
 on which occasion the utmost curiosity was displayed to 
 see and hear him; with what results we learn from the 
 pen of a spectator: "The second judge only arrived 
 with the cavalcade, while the superior stole into Leices- 
 ter late at night on a saddle-horse. Next morning, 
 however, he appeared in all his splendour, and might 
 justly be pronounced to be Grace and Dignity personi- 
 fied. But when every eye was strained, and every ear 
 attentive, and the crier of the court in due form had 
 proclaimed silence, his lordship only coldly got up and 
 said, that as he was certain the grand jury were so well
 
 Lord Mansfield. \ 1 1 
 
 informed of their duties, he should give no charge, but 
 proceed immediately to the trials. Thus, by compli- 
 menting a few, he disobliged the many; and this con- 
 duct was the more reprehended, as he was not restricted 
 for time, and could have gratified all without giving him- 
 self the least trouble."* 
 
 Of the unparalleled ascendency enjoyed by this great 
 judge in Westminster Hall, there are some remarkable 
 proofs on record. One of the most so, perhaps, is the 
 fact that, of the many thousand judgments which he pro- 
 nounced during the third part of a century, two only 
 were reversed ; while, throughout that whole period, 
 there were only two cases in which his opinion was not 
 unanimously adopted by his brethren who sat with him on 
 the bench. No judge, according to Mr. Roscoe, ever 
 impressed so forcibly upon the jurisprudence of this 
 country the peculiar qualities of his own mind, insomuch 
 that " many of the most important branches of modern 
 law derive their character, and almost their existence, 
 from his genius." 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter by quoting yet one more 
 passage from Lord Campbell's Memoir of Lord Mans- 
 field, which especially deserves the attention of the young 
 reader. He says: 
 
 " It would be highly instructive, considering his mul- 
 tiplicity of engagements, all of which he fulfilled so 
 admirably, to have learned what were the rules he laid 
 down for the distribution of his time; but we all know 
 and this should ever be borne in mind by those who 
 would rise to eminence that he was habitually indus- 
 trious and habitually temperate. A sentence given him 
 
 " Cradock's Memoirs," voL L
 
 H2 Lord Mansfield. 
 
 as a copy, when he began to learn text-hand at Perth 
 school, was, ' Opere peracto ludemus.' This he used 
 often to repeat in after life, and always to act upon. 
 For example, when the great case of Doe ex Dem. 
 Taylor v. Horde was depending, which required a research 
 into some of the most recondite points of the law of real 
 property, he thus wrote to a friend : ' I am very impa- 
 tient to discharge myself entirely of it. While the com- 
 pany is at cards, I play my rubbers at this work, not the 
 pleasantest in the world ; but what must be done, I love 
 to do and have it over.' "
 
 VII. 
 
 Sir J. (Barblen 
 
 " Oread and water are nectar and ambrosia, when contrasted 
 supremacy of a court of justice." 
 
 ith the 
 
 'RANGE words these in the mouth of a suc- 
 cessful lawyer, and of one, too, who did not, 
 as so many have done, cry " sour grapes." 
 More than once Sir E. Wilmot refused the Great Seal 
 when it was within his grasp; and, throughout his long 
 and prosperous career, he desired nothing so much as to 
 enjoy the luxury of retirement, and to bury himself in 
 the shades of oblivion. " The withdrawing from the 
 eyes of mankind," he said, " has always been my favourite 
 wish ; it was the first, and will be the last of my life." 
 
 Undoubtedly, and perhaps it may be said happily, 
 such a character is a very rare and exceptional one. 
 The life of a distinguished, yet unambitious lawyer, 
 claims notice on account of its singularity; and it be- 
 comes interesting when we find that this eccentricity was 
 combined with excellence of moral character, and the 
 most pure and elevated feelings. This remarkable man 
 was the second son of a respectable country gentleman 
 residing in the neighbourhood of Derby, and his birth 
 8
 
 114 Sir J. Eardley Wilmot. 
 
 took place on the i6th August 1709. He was at first 
 sent to the free school at Derby, and was then placed 
 under the care of the celebrated Mr. Hunter at Litch- 
 field, five of whose pupils afterwards sat together as 
 judges in the superior courts at, Westminster. Another 
 renowned scholar trained by the same master was Samuel 
 Johnson, whom Wilmot, when Chief-Justice, used fre- 
 quently to mention as a " long, lank, lounging boy, whom 
 he distinctly remembered to have been punished by 
 Hunter for idleness." The great lexicographer gave 
 this account of the formidable dominie : " The head- 
 master was very severe, and wrong-headedly severe. He 
 used to beat us unmercifully, and he would beat a boy 
 equally for not knowing a thing as for neglecting to 
 know it. He would call up a boy and ask him Latin for 
 a candlestick, which the boy did not expect to be asked. 
 While Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used 
 to say, ' And this I do to save you from the gallows.' " 
 
 It appears that under this harsh discipline the pupils 
 became adepts at their tasks, and were imbued with a 
 love of learning ; and it is said Johnson himself had so 
 high an idea of the beneficial effects of such discipline, 
 that when he heard of a schoolmaster having abolished 
 flogging, he exclaimed, " I am afraid what his boys gain 
 at one end they will lose at the other." Another of the 
 illustrious roll-call of Mr. Hunter's pupils was David 
 Garrick, then a very little fellow, silting on the lowest 
 form, and who, many years afterwards, told the following 
 anecdote of Mr. Wilmot, at the time he was a barrister 
 ' of well-known eminence. A case of considerable in- 
 terest had arisen, in which one of the parties, being an 
 old school-fellow, insisted on retaining Wilmot for his
 
 Sir J. Eardley Wilmot. \ \ 5 
 
 counsel ; and Garrick, who took a lively interest in the 
 affair, attended in court, placing himself in a snug cor- 
 ner, where he expected to remain unobserved. He thus 
 described what occurred : 
 
 " There appeared much contradiction and confusion 
 in the evidence given by the witnesses, till at length rose 
 Mr. Wilmot, who immediately explained the whole in so 
 clear and animated a manner, as to charm as well as in- 
 form every one who heard him. I was delighted with 
 the wit and sprightliness with which he unravelled the 
 whole affair pluming myself upon being quite private 
 and unnoticed in so great a crowd, and little thinking 
 that I should be soon brought upon the stage myself. But 
 the counsel, having developed the plot which had been 
 laid against his client, observed, ' In short, gentlemen of 
 the jury, it is nothing more than the story of The In- 
 trigiti>iChamber-maid 1 xn<\ The Lying Varlet? [These two 
 farces, written by Garrick, were then acting with great 
 applause.] And, immediately casting his sparkling eye 
 upon me in my retired corner, in a moment he drew the 
 notice of the whole court upon me, and I thought I 
 should have sunk into the earth." 
 
 After young Wilmot had passed some years at Litch- 
 field, he was removed to Westminster School, where we 
 learn that he applied himself diligently to his books, but 
 without mixing in the usual sports and associations of his 
 companions. The next few years he spent as a recluse 
 student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, his desire being to 
 make the Church his profession, in the hope of obtain- 
 ing some small living, and spending his days in the quiet 
 seclusion of a country parson's life. But to this his 
 father made strenuous objection. " You have," said he,
 
 n5 Sir y. Eardley Wilmot. 
 
 " such talents and acquirements as will qualify you to 
 make a figure in the world, and it is my express desire 
 and earnest wish that you should devote yourself to the 
 study of the law." This parental counsel, urged with the 
 warmth of affection, prevailed over the natural inclina- 
 tion of the dutiful son, and he complied, though with 
 reluctance. Accordingly, before he left Trinity Hall, 
 he was initiated in the Roman civil law; "a study for 
 which," says Lord Campbell, " this place of education 
 has always been renowned, and to which he afterwards 
 ascribed his proficiency in the common law of England." 
 The young lawyer afterwards kept terms in the Inner 
 Temple, and at the end of three years' residence there, 
 was called to the bar. Nothing is known of his plan of 
 study; the result alone was unquestionable he ren- 
 dered himself a consummate jurist. Far, however, from 
 seeking to display his acquirements, he studiously endea- 
 voured to conceal them, lest his familiarity with " black- 
 letter learning" should bring him into favour with the 
 attorneys, and thus force him into notice. For a con- 
 siderable time he preserved his incognito, and thus 
 secured himself from molestation, avoiding every oppor- 
 tunity of exhibiting his abilities. At length, " arguing 
 some demurrers and new trials in causes from his circuit, 
 he was betrayed to Westminster Hall as a deep lawyer 
 and powerful advocate. Thereupon Sir Dudley Ryder, 
 the Attorney-General, appointed him ' Treasury Devil;'* 
 and deriving important aid from his services, and being 
 very desirous of bringing him forward, mentioned him 
 to.the Lord Chancellor, as a man who might be an orna- 
 
 * " Treasury Devil," the familiar title of the junior counsel to whose care the 
 legal business of the Government is entrusted.
 
 Sir J. Eardlcy Wilmot. 117 
 
 ment to his profession, and would one day show himself 
 qualified for the highest judicial station." * 
 
 Had he been so disposed, he might now to use the 
 expression of a friend whom he consulted have " hoisted 
 the sail, sure of a trade-wind." Nothing was further 
 from his wish. In spite of all remonstrances, he reso- 
 lutely refused to " wear silk," and persisted in declining 
 the rank of King's Serjeant. Nor was he even to be 
 tempted by the offer of a seat in the House of Commons 
 free of expense. This he despised, " equally disliking 
 the notion of making a speech either as a patriot or as a 
 courtier; and the notion suggested to him that Parlia- 
 ment might speedily make him a law officer of the Crown, 
 filled him with consternation." t 
 
 At once and finally to escape such perils and soli- 
 citations, and bent upon enjoying the delights of retire- 
 ment and domestic bliss, he determined altogether to 
 abandon Westminster Hall, and settle in his native 
 county as a provincial counsel. Thus, he flattered 
 himself, he should secure the first wish of his heart, and 
 never more be troubled with intrusive alarms of pro- 
 fessional advancement. Twelve happy months glided 
 by, and it seemed that he might believe himself forgotten 
 and left in peace. He was happily married to the lady 
 of his choice, and he asked and desired nothing better 
 than to be suffered alone to pursue his unambitious 
 career. Suddenly, however, a report reached him that, 
 in consequence of the death of Sir M. Wright, one of the 
 judges of the Court of King's Bench, his Majesty had 
 been pleased to appoint himself successor to the vacant 
 office. At first he refused to believe this, but an official 
 
 " Lives of the Chief-Justices," vol. ii. p. 282. t /**
 
 ii8 Sir J. Eardley Wilmot. 
 
 intimation of the fact put it beyond all doubt; and the 
 reluctant, home-loving, peace-coveting Wilmot was com- 
 pelled, notwithstanding all his protestations arjd en- 
 treaties, to do his duty, and serve the public cause 
 according to the best of his ability. In Hilary Term 
 1755 he took his seat as one of the Puisne judges of the 
 King's Bench, and according to custom, was knighted. 
 
 In the following year Sir E. Wilmot received another 
 proof of the high esteem in which he was held, when he 
 was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Great 
 Seal, on the resignation of Lord Hardwicke ; and so well 
 did he acquit himself in the discharge of the novel duties 
 of this office that there was a general expectation he 
 would soon be appointed Lord Chancellor, an event the 
 possibility of which rilled him with apprehension. In a 
 letter to his brother he said, "The acting junior of the 
 commission is a spectre I started at, but the sustaining 
 the office alone I must and will refuse at all events. I 
 will not give up the peace of my mind to any earthly 
 consideration whatever." And to this resolution he ad- 
 hered when the offer was actually made to him once and 
 again. Shortly after this period, in the year 1757, while 
 presiding at the Worcester assizes, Sir Eardley had a very 
 narrow escape of his life. In a letter to his wife he gave 
 the following account of the occurrence: 
 
 " I send this by express on purpose to prevent your 
 being frightened, in consequence of a most terrible acci- 
 dent. Between two and three, as we were trying causes, 
 a stack of chimneys blew upon the top of that part of 
 the hall where I was sitting, and beat the roof down upon 
 us ; but, as I sat close up to the wall, I have escaped 
 without the least hurt. When I saw it begin to yield and
 
 Sir J. Eardley Wilinot. 119 
 
 open I despaired of my own life and the lives of all with- 
 in the compass of the roof. Mr. John Lawes is killed, 
 and the attorney in the cause which was trying is killed, 
 and I am afraid some others. It was the most frightful 
 scene I ever beheld. I was just beginning to sum up the 
 evidence to the jury, and intending to go immediately 
 after I had finished. Most of the counsel were gone, 
 and they who remained in court are very little hurt, 
 though they seemed to be in the place of the greatest 
 danger. If I am thus preserved for any good purpose, 
 I rejoice at the event, and both you and the little ones 
 will have reason to join with me in returning God thanks 
 for this signal deliverance ; but if I have escaped to lose 
 either my honour or my virtue, I shall think, and you 
 ought to concur with me in thinking, that the escape is my 
 greatest misfortune. 
 
 " I desire you will communicate this to my friends, lest 
 the news of such a tragedy, which fame always magnifies, 
 should affect them with fears for me. Two of the jury- 
 men who were trying the cause are killed, and they are 
 carrying dead and wounded bodies out of the ruins still." 
 
 In another letter the judge says: " It was an image of 
 the last day, when there shall be no distinction of persons, 
 for my robes did not make way for me. I believe an 
 earthquake arose in the minds of most people, and there 
 was an apprehension of the fall of the whole hall." It is 
 said that he owed his safety to the presence of mind he 
 manifested in remaining quietly in his place till the con- 
 fusion was over. " His ' mens sana,' " says one to whom 
 he was personally known, " in every position of life always 
 predominated." 
 
 For ten years Sir Eardley continued to act as Puisne
 
 120 Sir J. Eardky Wilmot. 
 
 Judge of the King's Bench ; but he seems to have per- 
 petually sighed after an opportunity of exchanging this 
 situation for one less conspicuous and laborious, and he 
 was meditating some step of the kind when, to his alarm, 
 he found himself summoned to " go up higher ; " Lord 
 Camden, then raised to the Chancellorship, having de- 
 termined that Wilmot should succeed him as Chief-Jus- 
 tice of the Common Pleas. When the intimation of this 
 promotion reached him he wrote imploringly to his brother, 
 saying, " Is it not possible for you to divert a measure 
 which will be so injurious to my peace if accepted, and 
 so much censured if refused 1 " His brother, who did not 
 share his scruples, replied, " I am clearly of opinion your 
 removal to the Common Pleas will be a fortunate and 
 happy event. Every mortal says how honourable it is 
 for you to have no competitor. Sit but serene in your 
 chief seat, and out of it you may rage like Boreas." 
 There was nothing left but to submit ; yet the horror of 
 promotion was so great in the mind of this strangely con- 
 stituted man that he positively wrote a letter to refuse, 
 with all respect and gratitude, the honour designed him. 
 This he communicated to his friend and colleague Sir 
 Joseph Yates, who, by urgent solicitation and with skilful 
 persuasion, induced him to revoke his determination, and 
 himself sketched a letter of acceptance which he made 
 Sir Eardley sign. 
 
 On the evening of the day when the new Chief-Justice 
 " kissed hands " on being appointed, he thus addressed 
 his son, a lad of seventeen, who attended him to his bed- 
 side : " Now, my son, I will tell you a secret worth 
 knowing and remembering. The elevation I have met 
 with in life, particularly this last instance of it, has not
 
 Sir J. EardUy Wilnwt. 121 
 
 been owing to any superior merit or abilities, but to my 
 humility to my not having set myself up above others, 
 and to an uniform endeavour to pass through life void of 
 offence towards God and man." 
 
 During four years he continued to fulfil with charac- 
 teristic good sense and wisdom his judicial office; at 
 length, finding himself, on the death of Lord Chatham, 
 urged to accept the highest place in his profession, and 
 being resolutely fixed not to yield, he resigned his justice- 
 ship on. the plea of ill-health, and with no other condition 
 than that he should not be pensioned out of the civil list. 
 " I would much rather resign," he wrote, " without any 
 remuneration at all. The plus or the minus of sufficiency 
 lies only in my own breast I hate and detest pensions, 
 and hanging upon the public like an almsman." 
 
 Being thus relieved from the toils of office, Sir Eardley 
 devoted much of his time to the pursuits in which he had 
 always taken delight. For a considerable time he also 
 continued to hear appeals in the Privy Council, and 
 afterwards devoted himself entirely to the duties and en- 
 joyments of private life. In his own family he was greatly 
 beloved, and the pious hand of his son has memorialized 
 his life in a most pleasing manner. Nothing seems to 
 have solaced and delighted him so much as the society 
 of his domestic circle, and in the formation of his chil- 
 dren's character he exercised assiduous care, inculcating 
 in the most affectionate manner the noblest lessons of 
 virtue and honour. His letters to his family have been 
 preserved, and abound in pure and elevated sentiments. 
 Thus he wrote to his son, a boy of fifteen : " I take the 
 first vacant hour I have this month to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter, and to assure you of my love and
 
 122 Sir J. Eardley Wilmot. 
 
 affection. I do not in the least doubt but you will merit 
 them by seconding my endeavours to cultivate your mind, 
 and chiefly to imbue it with those principles of honour 
 and truth which constitute a gentleman, and which I re- 
 ceived, in the utmost purity, from my own father, and 
 desire to transmit to you, and your brothers and sisters, 
 as unsullied as I received them ; and however fortune 
 may exalt or depress you in the world, the consciousness 
 of having always acted upon those principles will give 
 you the only perfect happiness that is to be found in this 
 world. But, above all things, remember your duty to 
 God, for without his blessing my love and affection for 
 you will be as ineffectual to promote your happiness here 
 as hereafter; and whether my heart be full of joy or grief 
 it will always beat uniformly with unremitting wishes that 
 all my children may be more distinguished for their good- 
 ness than for their greatness." 
 
 So good a father deserved all the encomiums which 
 were bestowed on him by the voice of filial piety, and Sir 
 E. Wilmot seems to have been greatly beloved and ad- 
 mired by all his associates. None has spoken unkindly 
 of him save Horace Walpole, and his criticisms are so 
 evidently unjust that they have been attributed to the 
 influence of party malignity. His life was prolonged to 
 an advanced age, and he died venerated by his contempo- 
 raries and lamented by his friends. An impartial bio- 
 grapher has said of him, that although he never shone 
 as a statesman or an orator, he is to be placed in a very 
 high rank in the order of judges. To the most exemplary 
 patience and purity he joined an unusual store of juridical 
 knowledge, which enabled him to decide with prompti- 
 tude. the various questions of law on which the settlement
 
 Sir F. Eardley Will not. 123 
 
 of each case depended, and to determine them with 
 perfect accuracy. 
 
 Although never fond of the practice of law as a pro- 
 fession, Sir E. Wilmot often declared his partiality for 
 the study of it as a science ; and, as a proof of this, after 
 he had retired from office, he always bought and read 
 the latest reports, and sometimes borrowed MS. notes 
 from young barristers.
 
 VIII. 
 
 glarksiotte. 
 
 THE LAWYER'S FAREWELL TO HIS MUSE. 
 i. 
 
 Companion of my tender age, 
 
 Serenely gay and sweetly sage, 
 
 How blithesome were we wont to rove 
 
 By verdant hill or shady grove, 
 
 Where fervent bees, with humming voice, 
 
 Around the honied oak rejoice, 
 
 And aged elms, with awful bend, 
 
 In long cathedral walks extend; 
 
 Lulled by the lapse of gliding floods, 
 
 Cheered by the warbling of the woods, 
 
 How blest my days, my thoughts how free, 
 
 In sweet society with thee ! 
 
 Then all was joyous, all was young, 
 
 And years unheeded rolled along. 
 
 II. 
 
 But now the pleasing dream is o er, 
 These scenes must charm me now no more : 
 Lost to the fields and torn from you, 
 Farewell, a long, a last adieu. 
 Me wrangling courts and stubborn law, 
 To smoke, and crowds, and cities draw ;
 
 Sir William Blackstone. 125 
 
 There selfish faction rules the day, 
 And pride and avarice throng the way; 
 Loose revelry and riot bold 
 In frighted streets their orgies hold ; 
 Or, where in silence all is drowned, 
 Fell murder walks his nightly round. 
 No room for peace, no room for you, 
 Adieu, celestial nymph, adieu ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Shakspeare, no more thy sylvan son , 
 Nor all the art of Addison, 
 Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease, 
 Nor Milton's mighty self must please. 
 Instead of these, a formal band 
 With furs and coifs around me stand, 
 With sounds uncouth and accents dry 
 That grate the soul of harmony. 
 Each pedant sage unlocks his store 
 Of mystic, dark, discordant lore, 
 And points, with tottering hand, the ways 
 That lead me to the thorny maze. 
 
 Then, welcome business, welcome strife, 
 Welcome the cares, the thorns of life ; 
 The visage wan, the pore-blind sight, 
 The toil by day, the lamp at night, 
 The tedious forms, the solemn prate, 
 The pert dispute, the dull debate, 
 The drowsy bench, the babbling hall ; 
 For thee, fair Justice, welcome all. 
 Thus let my noon of life be past ; 
 Yet, let my setting sun at last 
 Find out the still, the rural cell 
 \Vhere sage retirement loves to dwell, 
 There let me taste the home-felt bliss 
 Of innocence and inward peace,
 
 126 Sir William Blackstone. 
 
 Untainted by the guilty bribe, 
 Uncursed amid the harpy tribe; 
 No orphan's cry to wound my ear, 
 My honour and my conscience clear. 
 Thus may I calmly meet my end, 
 Thus to the grave in peace descend ! 
 
 |F the eminent lawyer who wrote the above verses 
 I will subjoin a short memoir, for the gratifi- 
 cation of those readers who will perhaps some 
 day find themselves studying his renowned " Commen- 
 taries." 
 
 William Blackstone was born July loth, 1723, in 
 Cheapside. His father was a silk mercer, 
 
 " A citizen of credit and renown," 
 
 himself the son of an eminent London apothecary. Of 
 his four children William was the youngest. Sad to tell, 
 he was a posthumous child : no fond father's welcome 
 greeted his entrance into this fair world, and his mother, 
 a delicate and gentle woman, after a few years of anxious 
 widowhood, sank into an early grave before her youngest 
 born had reached his twelfth year. 
 
 Happily the care of the boy's education was under- 
 taken by his maternal uncle, Mr. Thomas Biggs, a sur- 
 geon of some reputation in the metropolis, and to whose 
 affection his three orphan nephews were indebted for 
 the liberal education which prepared them to work their 
 way to respectability and competence, and, in the case 
 of the youngest, to the acquirement of distinction and 
 permanent renown. 
 
 I feel disposed here to digress for a moment, to ob- 
 serve what a blessing are family ties, the endearing 
 bonds of consanguinity, and in how many happy ways
 
 Sir William R lacks tone. 127 
 
 their influence is exerted. Surely it is a peculiar and 
 most delightful appellation given in Holy Scripture to the 
 Almighty : " The God of the families of the whole earth," 
 sealing, as it seems to do, with a special divine benedic- 
 tion, family love, work, and co-operation. 
 
 When about seven years old, little Willie was put to 
 school at the Charter-House, and a few years later was 
 admitted upon the foundation. It soon appeared that 
 he was a diligent and industrious boy, and before long he 
 became the favourite of his masters, who, perceiving 
 that he would repay their care, encouraged him in his 
 studies, and brought him forward as much as possible. 
 Thus it came to pass that, by the time he was fifteen 
 years old, he was the acknowledged head of the school, 
 and, young as he was, was deemed well qualified for the 
 university. 
 
 Accordingly, he was entered a commoner at Pembroke 
 College, Oxford, and was elected to one of the Charter- 
 House exhibitions, when an opportunity was afforded him 
 of delivering the usual anniversary oration; upon which 
 occasion he came off with flying colours, and shortly after 
 obtained the gold prize medal for verses upon Milton. 
 From boyhood he cherished a fondness for the Muses, 
 and took delight in the study of our classical poets. 
 Like many youths of a similar turn, he produced a 
 variety of " juvenile poems," which he read for the enter- 
 tainment of his chosen playmates and associates; yet he 
 did not venture to publish these early effusions, although 
 the friendly critics whom he consulted pronounced them 
 worthy of so promising a genius. 
 
 In the meantime, he studied with unremitting diligence, 
 and, prompted by his natural predilection, devoted much
 
 128 Sir William Blacks tone. 
 
 attention to the Greek and Roman poets, yet not ne- 
 glecting logic, mathematics, and the other sciences. To 
 one branch of mathematics he gave especial care that 
 of architecture, of which he was through life very fond. 
 By such diligent application he gradually laid the foun- 
 dation of future excellence. It does not appear how 
 he was led to the choice of the law as his profession ; 
 evidently the "pleasing dreams" of his youth had turned 
 to very different scenes from those presented by " wran- 
 gling courts and stubborn law;" but to these fond visions 
 necessity compelled him to bid adieu, and on the 2oth 
 of November 1741, he entered himself of the Middle 
 Temple, and prepared to betake himself seriously to the 
 business of studying the " mystic, dark, discordant lore." 
 
 No wonder he heaved a sigh, and cast a lingering look 
 behind. So has many a one done before and since; but, 
 in the end, this labour has turned to profit. To be sure, 
 he was only eighteen years old, and, in his case, it re- 
 quired no common self-denial and resolution to give his 
 whole and undivided attention to the uncongenial task. 
 
 To succeed in the path he had chosen, he must be 
 prudent, patient, and persevering. Doubtless he called 
 to mind the classical adage 
 
 " Qui studet obstatam cursu contingere metam 
 Multa tulit fecitque puer." 
 
 In the month of November 1743 Mr. Blackstone was 
 elected member of All Souls' College, and, three years 
 later, was called to the bar. After an experience of 
 seven years in the courts at Westminster, it became 
 evident that his talents were not adapted to forensic dis- 
 play. In fact, he was deficient in the more attractive 
 qualifications of an orator. He had neither grace of
 
 K.SY;- William Black stone. 129 
 
 delivery nor a lively flow of eloquence, and his manners 
 were reserved and diffident. Owing, in a great measure, 
 to his being very near-sighted, his brow was contracted, 
 .UK! the- impression he made upon a casual observer was 
 that of a somewhat stern and rigid man. In reality, 
 In- was benevolent, kind, and charitable; but, like many 
 men who have to exercise constant self-discipline, he was 
 impatient of the trifling and thoughtless habits of too 
 many of those with whom he was associated. 
 
 In his college he was valued as he deserved to be, 
 and his friendships there were warm and steady. Dis- 
 heartened by want of success, as he advanced into mature 
 life he determined to retire to his fellowship, intending 
 to lead an academic life, and content himself with the oc- 
 casional practice of his profession as a provincial counsel. 
 It surely may afford some encouragement to struggling 
 young lawyers to know, that the talents of such a man as 
 lllackstone were, for a long time, so much overlooked, 
 that his limited business failed even to cover his very 
 moderate expenses, and, in order to support himself, he 
 was compelled to depend upon his fellowship and on pri- 
 vate lecturing. 
 
 Accordingly, in Michaelmas Term 1753, he com- 
 menced reading two lectures on the laws of England, to 
 a numerous and interested audience. In a short time, 
 so great was the attraction offered by these readings, 
 together with the acknowledged abilities of the lecturer, 
 that they came to be attended by crowded classes of 
 young men of the first families and of the highest ex- 
 pectations. Among these auditors was one a keen- 
 witted lad of sixteen* who afterwards became the 
 
 * Jeremy Bcntham. 
 (132) 9
 
 130 Sir William Blackstone. 
 
 severest critic of his master's great work, the "Com- 
 mentaries," and who pretended that, even at that early 
 age, he listened with doubt and dissatisfaction to many 
 of the axioms of the lecturer. Nevertheless, he has done 
 ample justice to that which all unite in admiring the 
 beauty of Blackstone's style : " Correct, elegant, unem- 
 barrassed, ornamented, it could scarcely fail to recom- 
 mend itself to all readers. ... In short, it is Blackstone 
 who, first of all institutional writers, has taught jurispru- 
 dence to speak the language of the scholar and the 
 gentleman ; put a polish upon that rugged science ; 
 cleansed her from the dust and cobwebs of the office; 
 and, if he has not enriched her with that precision which 
 is drawn only from the sterling treasury of the sciences, 
 has decked her out to advantage from the toilet of 
 classical erudition, enlivened her with metaphors and 
 allusions, and sent her abroad in some measure to in- 
 struct, and in still greater measure to entertain, the most 
 miscellaneous and even the most fastidious societies. 
 The merit to which, as much, perhaps, as to any, the 
 work stands indebted for its reputation, is the enchanting 
 harmony of its numbers." 
 
 After reading such a critique, we wonder not that the 
 young Oxonians flocked to listen to the enchanter who 
 could make the dullest theme so attractive. Almost the 
 first publication of Blackstone was a useful manual en- 
 titled, " An Analysis of the Laws of England," designed 
 to serve as a guide to the host of his students, and, at the 
 same time, as an assistance to himself in performing the 
 duties of his class-room. In 1758 he was unanimously 
 elected first Vinerian professor, with a salary of ^"200. 
 His introductory lecture was greatly admired, and was
 
 Sir William Black stone. 131 
 
 afterwards prefixed to the first volume of the Commen- 
 taries. By this time his fame had spread far and wide, 
 and he was requested to read before the Prince of Wales; 
 an honour which he declined, pleading that he did not 
 think himself justified in breaking his engagements with 
 his class at Oxford. So devoted, indeed, was he to the 
 duties of his lectureship, that, it is said, during the many 
 years he read his lectures at the university, no one could 
 remember that he had ever kept his audience waiting for 
 him even for a few minutes. " Melancthon himself," 
 says his biographer, " could not have been more rigid in 
 observing the hour and minute of an appointment" 
 
 The great Oxonian law-lecturer had now only to make 
 his re-appearance in the legal courts of the metropolis 
 to find himself at once in extensive practice, and to be 
 offered the honours of his profession. Still, however, 
 he continued to pass some part of the year at the uni- 
 versity, and continued to read his lectures as before; 
 while, in the autumn of 1759, he published a new edition 
 of " The Great Charter, and the Charter of the Forest." 
 This work added greatly to his reputation, not only as 
 an accomplished lawyer, but as an accurate antiquary 
 and an able historian. 
 
 Shortly after this time, a dissolution of Parliament 
 having taken place, Mr. Blackstone was returned as one 
 of the representatives of Hindon in Wiltshire, and had a 
 patent of procedure granted him to rank as King's coun- 
 sel, having declined the office of Chief-Justice of the 
 Common Pleas in Ireland. His practice now being 
 amply remunerative, he married, in the spring of 1761, 
 Sarah, the daughter of James Clitherow, Esq., of Boston 
 House, Middlesex. He was blessed with a large family
 
 132 Sir William Blacks tone. 
 
 of children, and enjoyed in domestic life the happiness 
 for which his natural disposition especially fitted him. 
 In the year 1765 appeared the first volume of the re- 
 nowned " Commentaries on the Laws of England." The 
 history of a work which has become so universal a text- 
 book, and which has "almost rendered the abstruse 
 science to which it is devoted a popular study," cannot 
 be devoid of interest. The period at which the author 
 first contemplated the composition of the " Commen- 
 taries" does not appear; but unquestionably he was led 
 to the subject by the preparation of his private lectures 
 at the university. It is, therefore, to these readings, and 
 the studies connected with them, that the public is in- 
 debted for this opus magnum. 
 
 A very interesting passage in Halliday's Life of Lord 
 Mansfield relates that, in the earlier part of Justice Black- 
 stone's professional life, the chair of civil law at Oxford 
 having become vacant, the Duke of Newcastle consulted 
 Mr. Murray, the Solicitor-General (afterwards Lord 
 Mansfield), on the selection of a proper person to fill the 
 vacancy. The Solicitor-General warmly recommended 
 Mr. Blackstone, who was accordingly introduced to the 
 Duke. Being desirous of ascertaining the principles of 
 the candidate, his Grace observed that, in case of any 
 political agitation in the University, he might, he pre- 
 sumed, rely upon Mr. Blackstone's exertions in behalf of 
 Government. " Your Grace may be assured that I will 
 discharge my duty in giving law-lectures to the best of 
 my poor ability," was the reply. " And your duty in the 
 other branch, too?" added the Duke. Mr. Blackstone 
 merely bowed in reply; and a few days afterwards Dr. 
 Jenner was appointed to the vacant chair.
 
 Sir William Blacks tone. 133 
 
 The reception which the " Commentaries" met with 
 was most flattering. By Sir W. Jones they were pro- 
 nounced " the most correct and beautiful outline that 
 ever was exhibited of any human science;" and Lord 
 Mansfield, shortly after their publication, being requested 
 to point out the books proper for the perusal of a stu- 
 dent, is said to have replied : " Until of late, I could 
 never, with any satisfaction to myself, answer that ques- 
 tion ; but since the publication of Mr. Blackstone's 
 ' Commentaries/ I can never be at a loss." On the 
 other hand, the work did not escape the severity of criti- 
 cism, and a host of censors arose to attack many of its 
 positions with determined zeal and ability. 
 
 Although moderate in his political sentiments, Black- 
 stone was a firm supporter of constitutional views, and 
 was patronized by the Conservative Government of the 
 day. In 1770 he was offered the situation of Solicitor- 
 General, which he declined. He was then made one of 
 the justices of the Court of Common Pleas. As he 
 disliked the contentions of parties, one of the conse- 
 quences of his elevation on which he most congratulated 
 himself, was his removal from the House of Commons, 
 " where," he used to remark, " amidst the rage of con- 
 tending parties, a man of moderation must expect to 
 meet no quarter from any side." 
 
 As a judge, he does not seem to have distinguished 
 himself above his fellows, although, as might have been 
 expected, his judgments were never deficient in learning 
 and good sense. His talents for general business were 
 very superior, and he discharged, with great advantage 
 to the interests of the University, the various offices he had 
 undertaken there.
 
 134 Sir William Blackstone. 
 
 He did not for any long time enjoy the honours 
 and distinction to which his learning, his literature, 
 and his diligence had raised him. His death occurred 
 on the 14th February 1780, in the fifty-seventh year 
 of his age. 
 
 The notes of decisions which Sir William had col- 
 lected, both at the bar and while on the bench, were 
 published after his death, pursuant to the directions of 
 his will.
 
 IX. 
 (irrshinc. 
 
 " Noctne eloquent!* forensis facile princeps." 
 
 [HE line placed at the head of the page is in- 
 scribed upon an admirable bust of Lord 
 Erskine, by Nollekens; and, according to 
 universal award, this great Nisi Prius leader bore the 
 palm from all his compeers nay, it is even doubted 
 whether his eloquence was ever surpassed by ancient or 
 modern forensic orator. 
 
 Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, has 
 given a striking sketch of his truly surprising career. 
 He has told how, on the loth January, 1750, in a small, 
 ill-furnished room, in an upper " flat " of a very lofty 
 house in the Old Town of Edinburgh, was born the 
 youngest son of Henry David, tenth Earl of Buchan, a 
 peer of ancient pedigree, but now reduced to the verge 
 of poverty, and burdened with a numerous family. The 
 Honourable Thomas Erskine had two brothers older 
 than himself, for whom it was necessary first to provide, 
 and the means of his parents were exhausted before his 
 turn came. There was nothing they could do but send 
 him to sea as a midshipman; and though he had no
 
 1 3 6 / ord Erskine. 
 
 liking for the profession, he was obliged to submit, and, 
 when fourteen years old, entered the royal navy. 
 
 At the age of eighteen he lost his father, when, 
 resolved not to return to sea, he decided to try his 
 fortune in the army. Scarcely had he passed two years 
 of military life, when he fell in love and married. 
 Shortly after this event his regiment 'was ordered to 
 Minorca, and there, for two years, he was stationed. 
 Shut up in this small island, far removed from congenial 
 society, and thrown upon his own resources, he applied 
 himself diligently to study, and to the cultivation of the 
 naturally powerful genius with which he was endowed. 
 Laboriously and systematically he went through a course 
 of English literature, and familiarized himself with the 
 immortal classics of our language. Shakspeare and 
 Milton, Dryden and Pope were read and re-read, until 
 he had them almost by heart. 
 
 At length, in the spring of 1772, he returned to 
 England j and we catch the first glimpse of him in the 
 pages of Boswell, who relates that, dining with Dr. 
 Johnson at Sir A. Macdonald's, he met a young officer 
 in the regimentals of the Scots Royals, "who talked 
 with vivacity, fluency, and precision so uncommon, that 
 he attracted particular attention. On inquiry, he proved 
 to be the Honourable Thomas Erskine, who afterwards 
 attained such brilliant reputation at the bar in West- 
 minster." The prospects of the young ensign at this 
 time were dismal in the extreme; he had no money to 
 purchase a higher commission, and the irksomeness of 
 his situation was increased by his having to keep his 
 wife and family in a barrack-room or in lodgings, while 
 he moved about with his regiment from place to place.
 
 L ord Erskinc. 137 
 
 Conscious of the great powers he possessed, he felt that 
 he was fitted for better things than the wretched existence 
 which seemed to await him to be spent in listlessness 
 and penury. 
 
 At this juncture of his history it so chanced that, in a 
 town in which he was quartered, the assizes were held, 
 and the lounging lieutenant -fautc de mieux strolled 
 into the court to pass an idle hour. His appearance 
 attracted the attention of Lord Mansfield, the presiding 
 judge, who inquired concerning him, and upon learning 
 that he was the younger brother of the Earl of Buchan, 
 who had sailed with his nephew, invited him to sit on 
 the bench by his side, explained to him the nature of 
 the proceedings that were going forward, and showed 
 him the utmost civility. 
 
 " Erskine heard a cause of .considerable interest tried, 
 in which the counsel were supposed to display great 
 eloquence. Never undervaluing his own powers, he 
 thought within himself that he could have made a better 
 speech than any of them, on whichever side he had been 
 retained. The thought then suddenly struck him that it 
 might not even now be too late for him to study the law 
 and be called to the bar. Lord Mansfield invited him 
 to dinner, and being greatly struck with his conversation 
 and pleased with his manners, detained him till late in 
 the evening. When the rest of the company had with- 
 drawn, the lieutenant, who ever showed great moral 
 courage, in consideration of the connection between the 
 Murrays and the Erskines, and the venerable Earl's great 
 kindness and condescension, disclosed to him his plan 
 of a change of profession, with a modest statement of his 
 reasons. Lord Mansfield by no means discouraged him,
 
 138 Lord Erskine. 
 
 but advised him, before he took a step so serious, to 
 consult his near relations." 
 
 Such was the " accident " that gave the turn to all his 
 future history, and led to his attaining the highest 
 honours of the profession he embraced. With the 
 consent of his family he immediately entered himself at 
 Lincoln's Inn, arid matriculated at Cambridge, being 
 entered on the books of Trinity College as a gentleman 
 commoner. While a law student, during the three years 
 which followed his retirement from the army, notwith- 
 standing the assistance of friends, he was in great 
 pecuniary straits. Although exercising the strictest 
 economy and the most rigid self-denial, he found it a 
 difficult matter to provide for the necessities of every 
 day, and was pronounced by Jeremy Bentham to be "so 
 shabbily dressed as was quite remarkable." Another of 
 his associates gives the following lively description of 
 him at this juncture: "The young student resided in 
 small lodgings near Hampstead, and openly avowed that 
 he lived on cow-beef, because he could not afford any of 
 a superior quality, dressed shabbily, expressed the 
 greatest gratitude to Mr. Harris for occasional free 
 admissions to Covent Garden, and used boastingly to 
 exclaim to my father, ' Thank fortune, out of my own 
 family, I don't know a lord ! "' 
 
 The time, however, arrived when all this was to be 
 changed, and a sudden and surprising transition from 
 want to abundance, and from obscurity to splendour 
 awaited him. So speedy a rise is unexampled, save in 
 the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights. On the 3d day 
 of July, 1778, he was called to the bar, and on the 24th 
 November, in Michaelmas Term, he made his first
 
 /. ord Erskine. 1 39 
 
 appearance before the public. It was the critical day in 
 his life, and exhibited the most remarkable scene ever 
 witnessed in Westminster Hall. His prospects seemed 
 dark enough, for he was unknown and had no connections 
 to assist him, nor were any of the attorneys acquainted 
 with his merits. But he had one retainer, which came 
 to him in a singular manner and most unexpectedly. 
 '1 here was a certain Captain Baillie, a veteran seaman 
 of great worth, who, for his services, held an office at the 
 Greenwich Hospital, in which establishment he discovered 
 the grossest abuses. After vainly endeavouring by re- 
 monstrance to procure a redress of these evils, he pub- 
 lished a statement of the case, relating simply the actual 
 facts, and reflecting with just severity upon Lord Sand- 
 wich, First Lord of the Admiralty, who, for electioneering 
 purposes, had placed in the Hospital a great number of 
 landsmen. Captain Baillie was immediately suspended 
 by the Board of Admiralty, and some of the inferior 
 agents, instigated by Lord Sandwich, who himself hung 
 back, filed a criminal information for libel against him. 
 The case excited great public interest, and the circum- 
 stances were everywhere canvassed. During the Long 
 Vacation Erskine had met Captain Baillie (to whom he 
 was personally unknown) at a friend's house, and, after 
 dinner, expressed himself warmly on the corrupt and 
 scandalous practices imputed to Lord Sandwich in the 
 matter. Inquiring who the young man was, Baillie was 
 informed that he had just been called to the bar, and 
 had formerly been in the navy; when he immediately 
 said, "Then, I'll have him for my counsel." They 
 parted without having been introduced to each other, 
 but the Captain did not forget his purpose, and the next
 
 140 Lord Erskine. 
 
 day, as the young advocate sat briefless and desponding 
 in his chambers, a slip of paper was brought to him with 
 the words written upon it : 
 
 " King's Bench. The King v. Baillie. 
 
 Retainer for the Defendant, the Honourable Thomas Erskine, 
 one guinea ; " 
 
 and a yellow golden guinea, his first fee (which he long 
 preserved as a curiosity), was put into his hand. 
 
 When Michaelmas Term came round, a brief was 
 delivered him ; but to his dismay he found upon it the 
 names of four senior counsel, and, despairing of being 
 heard after so many predecessors, he gave himself no 
 trouble to prepare for the occasion. Yet fortune favoured 
 him. When the cause came on, the affidavits were so 
 long, and the four senior counsel so tedious, that it was 
 almost dark when the last argument was brought to a 
 conclusion. Lord Mansfield therefore adjourned the 
 case till the next morning, and thus was time given to 
 the young advocate to prepare his thoughts and nerve 
 himself for his first speech at the bar. On the following 
 day, the judges having taken their seats, and the court 
 being crowded with an eager audience, to the general 
 surprise, " there arose from the back row a young gentle- 
 man, whose name as well as whose face was unknown to 
 almost all present, and who, in a collected, firm, but 
 sweet, modest, and conciliating tone" commenced his 
 address. After a short exordium, he proceeded to show 
 that his client had written nothing but the truth, and 
 had acted strictly within the line of his duty. He then 
 denounced, in vehement and indignant language, the 
 injustice which had suspended such a man from his
 
 Lord Erskiuc. 141 
 
 office without proof of his guilt, and mentioned Lord 
 Sandwich by name ; when Lord Mansfield interfered, 
 reminding the counsel that the First Lord of the Ad- 
 miralty was not before the Court 
 
 Erskine, " I know that he is not formally before the 
 Court, but, for that very reason, / will bring him before 
 the Court. He has placed these men in the front of the 
 battle, in hopes to escape under their shelter, but I will 
 not join in battle with them; their vices, though screwed 
 up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of 
 dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will 
 drag him to light who is the dark mover behind this 
 scene of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of Sandwich 
 has but one road to escape out of this business without 
 pollution and disgrace and that is by publicly disavow- 
 ing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain 
 
 Ilaillie to his command If, on the contrary, he 
 
 continues to protect the prosecutors in spite of the 
 evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhorrence 
 of the numerous audience who crowd this Court, if lie 
 keep this injured man suspended, or dares to turn that 
 suspension into a removal, I shall then not scruple to declare 
 him an accomplice in their guilt, a shameless oppressor, a 
 disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to his trust. 
 
 "My lords, this matter is of the last importance. I 
 speak not as an advocate alone I speak to you as a man 
 as a member of a state whose very existence depends 
 upon her naval strength. If our fleets are to be crippled 
 by the baneful influence of elections, we are lost indeed. 
 If the seaman, while he exposes his body to fatigues and 
 dangers, looking forward to Greenwich as an asylum for 
 infirmity and old age, sees the gates of it blocked up by
 
 142 Lord Erskine. 
 
 corruption, and hears the riot and mirth of luxurious 
 landsmen drowning the groans and complaints of the 
 wounded helpless companions of his glory he will 
 tempt the seas no more. The Admiralty may press his 
 body indeed, at the expense of humanity and the con- 
 stitution, but they cannot press his mind; they cannot 
 press the heroic ardour of a British sailor; and instead 
 of a fleet to carry terror all round the globe, the Admir- 
 alty may not be able much longer to amuse us with even 
 the peaceable unsubstantial pageant of a review. (There 
 had just before been a naval review at Portsmouth.) 
 
 " Fine and imprisonment ! The man deserves a palace 
 instead of a. prison who prevents the palace built by the 
 public bounty of his country from being converted into 
 a dungeon, and who sacrifices his own security to the 
 interests of humanity and virtue ! " 
 
 The impression made by this address is said to have 
 been unprecedented. Lord Campbell thus remarks upon 
 it, " I must own, that, all the circumstances considered, 
 it is the most wonderful forensic effort of which we have 
 any account in our annals. It was the debut of a barris- 
 ter just called and wholly unpractised in public speaking, 
 before a court crowded with the men of the greatest 
 distinction, belonging to all parties in the state. He 
 came after four eminent counsel, who might have been 
 supposed to have exhausted the subject. He was called 
 to order by a venerable judge whose word had been law 
 in that hall above a quarter of a century. His exclama- 
 tion, 'I will bring him before the court!' and the 
 crushing denunciation of Lord Sandwich, in which he 
 was enabled to persevere, from the sympathy of the by- 
 standers and even of the judges, who, in strictness, ought
 
 Lord Erskinc. 143 
 
 to have checked his irregularity are as soul-stirring as 
 anything in this species of eloquence presented to us by 
 ancient or modern times." 
 
 Such was the first effort of this extraordinary man a 
 brilliant commencement to an unexampled career of 
 success and honour. What must have been the emotions 
 that he experienced when he received the congratulations 
 of all around him, and knew that his anxieties were at 
 an end that he had won fame for himself and indepen- 
 dence and comfort for those he loved 1 "I succeeded," 
 he afterwards said, "quite to my own satisfaction, (some- 
 times the surest proof that you have satisfied others,) 
 and, as I marched along the hall, after the rising of the 
 judges, the attorneys flocked around me with their briefs." 
 He was asked how he had the courage to stand up so 
 boldly against Lord Mansfield, when he made this 
 charming answer, that he thought his little children were 
 plucking his robe, and that he heard them saying, "Now, 
 father, is the time to get us bread ! " 
 
 He was at once in full business. Briefs and fees 
 large and small flowed in a continual stream into the 
 chambers of the counsellor who had so astonished the 
 world. It is said that when, shortly after, he joined the 
 Home Circuit where his fame had preceded him, and 
 he was immediately in full employment he astonished 
 one of his companions by a prophecy of his future 
 honours. Riding over an extensive heath between 
 Lewes and Guildford with William Adam, afterwards Lord 
 Chief Commisioner of the Jury Court in Scotland, he 
 suddenly exclaimed, "Willie ! the time will come when I 
 shall wear the robes of Lord Chancellor, and the star of 
 the thistle will blaze on my breast!"
 
 144 Lord Erskine. 
 
 The name of Lord Erskine recalls vividly to my mind 
 the recollection of my honoured friend, Mrs. Opie. 
 Shortly before her marriage she was present at the 
 famous trials of Home Tooke, Holcroft, and others, for 
 treason, at the Old Bailey, in the year 1794, when Lord 
 Erskine won his greatest triumphs in the defence of the 
 liberties of his countrymen and the independence of the 
 press. That was indeed a day of alarm, and the whole 
 nation trembled in a state of excitement almost incon- 
 ceivable at the present day. The venerable city of 
 Norwich, in which Miss Alderson resided, had rather an ' 
 evil reputation ; for it was suspected that not a few 
 turbulent spirits there were in correspondence with the 
 parent societies, whose professed object was parliamentary 
 reform, and whose proceedings were often very objec- 
 tionable and unwise. 
 
 The greatest apprehension was felt on the part of the 
 government ; the whole land swarmed with spies and 
 informers ; and at length ministers adopted the almost 
 incredible course of a prosecution for high treason. It 
 may be imagined with what intense interest these pro- 
 ceedings were regarded by a young and ardent woman, 
 who sympathized warmly with those whom she had been 
 taught to think "patriots." She had, besides, personally, 
 much at stake, for upon the issue of these trials depended 
 her future lot in life. Had the prosecution been suc- 
 cessful, Dr. Alderson and many of his friends and 
 associates had determined to quit England and emigrate 
 to America. Under these circumstances she hailed with 
 eager satisfaction the opportunity of accompanying a 
 friend to the Old Bailey, and in her letters home gave a 
 lively account of the events which transpired. It is a
 
 Lord Erskine. 145 
 
 curious proof of the terrorism which prevailed that it 
 was judged prudent to destroy these letters, written in 
 confidence by a young lady to her domestic circle!* 
 
 Many years subsequently, when recalling the events 
 of that period, Mrs. Opie related an anecdote with 
 reference to these trials, in which Lord Erskine played 
 the principal part The incident took place in the year 
 1813, when Madame de Stael was residing for some 
 months in London, having been exiled by Napoleon 
 from France. One morning Mrs. Opie, who had formed 
 the acquaintance of the illustrious stranger, called on her 
 by appointment, accompanied by a friend whom she 
 desired to see on some particular business. Scarcely had 
 that business been concluded when the servant announced 
 Ix>rd Erskine, who came in with a book in his hands, 
 and, as soon as he perceived Mrs. Opie, exclaimed, " I am 
 rejoiced to see you here, for I want you to read some- 
 thing for me." He then bowed gracefully to Madame 
 1 and presented her two books, which, he said, 
 contained his most celebrated speeches, and opening the 
 
 I remember to have heard of a curious scene enacted in one of the dissenting 
 chapels of Norwich on the occasion. The well-known Mark Wilks was in the 
 pulpit, conducting the service on Sunday morning. One of his congregation was 
 expected home from London, having been eagerly watching the trials, which ter- 
 minated on the day previous. His return was awaited with intense interest ; for 
 in those days there were no magical wires to carry tidings with lightning-speed. 
 The slow-moving stage-coach performed its tedious journey, and was, that event- 
 ful morning, " over time." The hour for worship had arrived, and the congregation 
 had entered upon the solemn duties, but, every now and then, an involuntary 
 glance in the direction of the entrance told that attention was distracted. At 
 length the door opened, and the well-known figure of the expected traveller was 
 seen advancing up the aisle. Mr. Wilks immediately paused, and looking towards 
 him exclaimed, " How is it, brother?" "All is well," was the reply. " Then," 
 said the minister, in a voice of deep emotion, "let us sing, 'Praise God from 
 whom all blessings flow.'" This invitation was responded to by the simultaneous 
 rising of the assembly who joined heart and soul in the anthem. 
 
 iw) 10
 
 146 Lord Erskine. 
 
 first volume, he turned to the blank page, on which he 
 had written a dedication to La Baronne de Stael in 
 English, which he begged Mrs. Opie to read to her. 
 But the lady, eagerly taking the book, said, " I can read 
 it myself." Accordingly she began, though with very 
 poor success, the writing being probably difficult for a 
 foreigner to decipher; and the unfortunate author had to 
 endure the misery of hearing his smooth and elegant 
 sentences deprived of their charm, by being stammered 
 out, and possibly not perfectly understood. 
 
 It must have been no small trial to the nerves of a 
 man so sensitive and so vain as was Lord Erskine, but 
 he endured it with politeness, and quickly recovered his 
 equanimity. Then taking the second volume, which 
 contained his speeches at the Old Bailey trials, he read 
 her some favourite passages ; and finished by alluding to 
 the evident dislike which the Lord Chief Baron Eyre, 
 who presided at them, entertained for him, and how 
 strongly he proved it during the trial of Home 
 Tooke : 
 
 " He then," says Mrs. Opie, " related what had 
 passed between himself and the Chief-Justice after the 
 trial was over and the crowd dispersed, and which I, 
 who was present, well remembered, having, by accident, 
 overheard. Liking to be near the eloquent man, and to 
 hear him speak, I had contrived to get so near as to 
 overhear what passed, and which I thought was too loud 
 not to be intended to be heard. The judge had, I saw, 
 to repeat what he said ; but at length he was answered 
 in a manner which he little expected, for the indignant 
 speaker replied, ' My lord, I am willing to give your 
 lordship such an answer as an aggrieved man of honour
 
 Lord Erskine. 147 
 
 like myself is willing to give to the man who has repeat- 
 edly insulted him, and I am willing and ready to meet 
 your lordship at any time and place which you may 
 choose to appoint' At this point of the story Madame 
 cle Stae'l cried, 'What, my lord? that was a challenge 
 n'fst ce pas ? ' ' Yes, ma'am.' ' Well, what did he say V 
 'Oh, nothing to the purpose, but I assure you that I was 
 irritated into saying what I did.' 'Yes, indeed. I was 
 behind you, Lord Erskine (said I), and heard all that 
 passed ; and though such things were quite new to me, I 
 felt sure what was said by you amounted to a challenge ; 
 but when I told your friends with whom I went home 
 what had passed, they said I was a silly girl, and that I 
 was mistaken.' He looked at me with some surprise, 
 and, I fear, with a doubt of my veracity. Probably he 
 thought I was romancing. Certainly it was a curious 
 fact or coincidence, that this conversation, overheard by 
 me in the year 1794, I should be present to hear related 
 by Lord Erskine himself in the year 1813. The circum- 
 stance and the words he has published at the end of the 
 trial of Home Tooke." 
 
 On another occasion she thus describes the impression 
 his appearance made upon her at first sight, "Well do I 
 remember him, as I first saw him, entering for a few 
 minutes and taking a hasty survey of the court. I was 
 immediately struck with the look of intelligent inquiry 
 which he cast over the eager crowd assembled to hear 
 him; that eye reminded me of the description of Ledyard, 
 the eastern traveller's eye, for it seemed 'bright and 
 restless;' and its rapid glance appeared to observe, in 
 its brief survey, as much as other eyes in a more length- 
 ened one." Not long after this they became personally
 
 148 Lord Erskine. 
 
 acquainted with each other at the house of a mutual 
 friend near London, when, in the course of conversation, 
 Lord Erskine mentioned that he was going down special 
 to Huntingdon on a most interesting occasion. A young 
 man, lately come into possession of a large fortune, had 
 been proceeded against by the next heir as being a 
 supposititious child; and he said that he was counsel for 
 the defence, and added that the cause was likely to be 
 very long and very interesting, as the defendant was 
 universally beloved. He finished by promising that on 
 his return he would .call and give his friends an account 
 of the trial. 
 
 Mrs. Opie, with characteristic vivacity, describes the 
 next meeting, " Great was my impatience till the ap- 
 pointed day came,' and the great orator arrived. But 
 though he talked most pleasantly, and on law subjects 
 too, not one single allusion did he make to the Hunting- 
 don case. In vain did I try to take courage and remind 
 him of his promise. I was not then a married woman, 
 and fancied it would be presuming to do so; but when I 
 heard his carriage announced, and saw him about to 
 depart, made valiant by despair, I exclaimed, 'Oh, Mr. 
 Erskine, you have not fulfilled your promise ! You have 
 not told us the particulars of the Huntingdon cause. 
 'True,' he replied, starting and turning back, ' but you 
 shall not be disappointed;' and leading me to the sofa, 
 he seated himself beside me, and went through the whole 
 of the proceedings. He gave us the evidence on both 
 sides, told us what his opponent had said for the plaintiff, 
 and he for the defendant; and, warming as he proceeded, 
 he soon grew as much interested in the proceedings as 
 we were; and when he came to the verdict of the jury,
 
 Lord Erskinc. 149 
 
 which was in favour of his client, his countenance beamed 
 \vith animation while he described the general plaudit 
 with which the verdict was received in the court, and the 
 shouts which were heard outside the walls from the as- 
 sembled multitude. He then hastily jumped into his 
 carriage, leaving me exulting in having drawn from him 
 a gratification so unusual and so complete." 
 
 The greatest treat was still in store for this enthusiastic 
 admirer. It was in the year 1805 that she again heard 
 Mr. Erskine, when he made a brilliant speech at the 
 Norwich assizes, in a Right of Way case. Through life 
 Mrs. Opie was in the habit of attending the assize court, 
 and she was usually among the very earliest personages 
 who entered its precincts, eagerly awaiting the com- 
 mencement of proceedings. Of this propensity, the 
 following note, which she once addressed to me, is an 
 amusing evidence: 
 
 "Mv CECILIA LUCY, The judges always, as I be- 
 lieve, go to church first, and take the sacrament after- 
 wards. But I always go early to be sure of a good seat; 
 so I mean to call thee at nine ; and we can talk there as 
 well as here and the time will soon fly. I went in a 
 chariot fly to see them come in. Farewell ! little dear; 
 I fear thou art a lazy-bones, but indeed, by ten I have 
 often seen the best places filled. Often, how often, 
 both as a young and old woman, have I been in that 
 court by half-past seven in the morning was, this time 
 twelve-month. A. O." 
 
 Urged by the desire to hear the Prince of Pleaders, 
 she was very early in court to obtain a seat by the 
 side of the judge, Sir Alexander Macdonald, and saw 
 and heard everything to the greatest advantage. There
 
 150 L ord Erskine. 
 
 she remained the whole day, excepting a short time 
 when she retired to take tea, but soon returned to her 
 post and stayed all night unwilling to leave lest she 
 should miss hearing the great orator. As hour after 
 hour passed by, and witness succeeded witness, the 
 audience became gradually smaller, some even of the 
 jury began to nod for very weariness, and it seemed 
 likely that, except the judge, the high sheriff, the bar- 
 risters, the officers of the court, and herself, there would 
 soon be no hearers left awake, and the beams of the 
 rising day were beginning to show themselves through 
 the windows ! 
 
 " The observant Erskine took the hint, so palpably 
 given, and coming up to me kindly said, 'Go home, go 
 home ! I shall not reply to-night, but you had better 
 be here by eight in the morning;' and soon after the 
 
 court adjourned to that hour I was in court again 
 
 by half-past seven, but too late to obtain a seat, and I 
 stood many hours in a painful position, but I was soon 
 made unconscious of it by the eloquence of Erskine; 
 for during those hours he spoke, and hushed a court, 
 crowded even to suffocation, into the most perfect still- 
 ness. Never was the power of an orator over his 
 audience more evident or more complete. 
 
 " The plaintiff gained the cause, and her advocate new 
 laurels ; for I know that those best qualified to form a 
 correct judgment on the subject, namely, his brother 
 lawyers who were present, declared that they had 'never 
 before heard Mr. Erskine so great in reply.' Fortunate, 
 therefore, were those who heard him that day, as never 
 again was he heard to equal advantage. A few months 
 afterwards he was made Lord Chancellor, and when,
 
 Lord Er skint. 151 
 
 while talking to him at a party in London, I told him I 
 was every day intending to go into the Court of Chan- 
 cery in hope of hearing him speak in his new capacity, 
 his reply was, 'Pray, do not come, you will not hear 
 anything worth the trouble. I am nothing now; you 
 heard the last and best of me at Norwich last year!' 
 
 " This was indeed too true, and those powers of forensic 
 eloquence for which he was so celebrated were not 
 necessary on the judgment seat or in the court of chan- 
 cery, and would have been in a measure thrown away 
 in the House of Lords. Fortunate, therefore, I repeat 
 it, were those who heard him in the Right of Way cause 
 in Norwich ; and when he forcibly reminded me of the 
 portrait of Garrick, so admirably drawn by the pen of 
 Sheridan in his unequalled monody a portrait which 
 might have been supposed to be that of the Honourable 
 Thomas Erskine, for his indeed were 
 
 ' The grace of action, the adapted mien, 
 Faithful as nature to the varied scene ; 
 The expressive glance, whose subtle comment draws 
 Entranced attention, and a mute applause : 
 Gesture that marks, with sense of feeling fraught, 
 A sense in silence, and a will in thought. 
 Harmonious speech, whose pure and liquid tone 
 Gives verse a music scarce efefessed its own : 
 As light from gems assumes a brighter ray. 
 And clothed with orient hues transcends the day. 
 Passion's wild break, and frowns that awe the sense, 
 And every charm of gentler eloquence. ' " 
 
 It seems by common consent agreed that the finest of 
 all Lord Erskine's orations is his speech in the defence 
 of Stockdale, "whose trial may be termed the Case of 
 Libels." It is justly regarded by all English lawyers as 
 a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury,
 
 1 5 2 L onl Erskine. 
 
 and is besides a model of all that constitutes the poetry 
 of eloquence. Lord Abinger, who was present in court 
 when this speech was delivered, told his son-in-law, Lord 
 Campbell, that the effect upon the audience was wholly 
 unexampled. They were, so to speak, electrified by the 
 marvellous power of sympathy which the accomplished 
 orator knew so perfectly how to awaken and to sustain. 
 It is, I think, very interesting to learn that Lord 
 Erskine himself set a pre-eminent value on his speech in 
 the prosecution of Paine for his blasphemous publication, . 
 "The Age of Reason." This speech is, indeed, a noble 
 apology for Christianity, and appears to have been the 
 utterance of his sincere conviction. "The people of 
 England," he said emphatically, "are a religious people, 
 and with the blessing of God, so far as it is in my power, 
 I will lend my aid to keep them so." In his opening 
 address to the jury, he said, " For my own part, gentle- 
 men, I have ever been deeply devoted to the truths of 
 Christianity, and my firm belief in the holy gospel is by 
 no means owing to the prejudices of education, but has 
 arisen from the fullest and most continued reflections of 
 my riper years and understanding. It forms at this 
 moment the great consolation of a life which as a shadow 
 passes away; and without it I should consider my long 
 course of health and prosperity (too long, perhaps, and 
 too uninterrupted to be good for any man) only as the 
 dust which the wind scatters, and rather as a snare than 
 a blessing." Then, having adverted to some of the most 
 obnoxious parts of the book, he burst into a glowing 
 apostrophe of the devout, holy, and sublime spirits who 
 have, in all ages, held to the faith of God's word, and 
 appealed to the testimony of Milton, Boyle, Locke, and
 
 . L ord Erskinc. 153 
 
 Hale, finishing with Milton, the illustrious one, who, 
 having been deprived of the natural light of the body, 
 enjoyed the clear shining of the celestial day, which 
 enabled him to "justify the ways of God to man!" 
 
 Before concluding, he uttered the following passage, 
 full of simple pathos and beauty: " I can conceive a 
 distressed but virtuous man, surrounded by his children, 
 looking up to him for bread, when he has none to give 
 them, sinking under his last day's labour, and unequal 
 to the next, yet still supported by confidence in the hour 
 when all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of affliction, 
 bearing the burden laid upon him by a mysterious Provi- 
 dence which he adores, and anticipating with exultation 
 the revealed promises of his Creator, when he shall be 
 greater than the greatest, and happier than the happiest 
 of mankind." 
 
 In a letter he afterwards wrote with reference to this 
 prosecution, he says, " My opening speech, correctly as 
 it was uttered in court, is in Mr. Ridgway's collection oi 
 my speeches at the bar. It was first printed by the 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice, and circulated to a 
 very wide extent, which gave me the greatest satisfaction, 
 as I would rather that all my qther speeches were com- 
 mitted to the flames, or in any manner buried in oblivion, 
 than that a single page of it should be lost." 
 
 One naturally asks, What were the characteristics 
 of this great man's eloquence, which made it so sur- 
 passingly impressive? We are told by Lord Campbell 
 that he was not indebted for his success to the richness 
 of ornament or of illustration, to wit, to humour, or to 
 sarcasm. His first great excellence was his devotion to 
 his client ; he utterly forgot himself in the character he
 
 154 Lord Erskine. 
 
 represented. From the moment the jury were sworn he 
 thought of nothing but the verdict, till it was recorded in 
 his favour. Earnestness and energy were ever present 
 throughout his speeches, impressing his argument on the 
 mind of his hearer with a force which seemed to 
 compel conviction. Another marked peculiarity was the 
 familiar knowledge he displayed of the secret workings 
 of the human mind. " He spoke as his clients would 
 respectively have spoken, being endowed with his genius." 
 There must also be taken into account "the exquisite . 
 sweetness of his diction, pure, simple, and mellifluous 
 the cadences not being borrowed from any model, nor 
 following any rule, but marked by constant harmony and 
 variety." Nor did he neglect attention to those trifling 
 matters which might add to the effect of his eloquence. 
 He was always careful to be well dressed, and when he 
 went into the country on special retainers, it was his 
 custom to examine the court beforehand, that he might 
 select the most advantageous place for addressing the 
 jury- 
 But what his biographer especially notes and regards 
 as more useful to hold up for imitation is his admirable 
 demeanour, while engaged in business at the Bar, " to 
 which, perhaps, his success was not less due than to his 
 talents." 
 
 " Respectful to the judges, though ever ready to assert 
 his independence, courteous to the jury, while he boldly 
 reminded them of their duties, free from asperity towards 
 his opponents, constantly kind and considerate to his 
 juniors, treating the witnesses as persons, generally 
 speaking, reluctantly attending to assist in the investiga- 
 tion of truth, . . . looking benevolently even on the circum-
 
 L ord Erskinc. 1 5 5 
 
 stantcs, and glad when he could accommodate them with 
 a seat, of a gay and happy temperament, enjoying unin- 
 terruptedly a boyish flow of animal spirits, and enlivening 
 the dullest cause with his hilarity and good humour, he 
 was a universal favourite; there was a general desire, as 
 far as law and justice would permit, that he should 
 succeed, and the prestige of his reputation was considered 
 the sure forerunner of victory." 
 
 In his later years Lord Erskine withdrew entirely from 
 public life. His friends and admirers delighted to enjoy 
 his society and to visit him at his beautiful villa at 
 Hampstead, called "Evergreen Hall." Here he gave 
 gay parties, of which he was the life, by his mirth, 
 bon-hommie, and eccentricities. A lively description of 
 one of these is given by Sir Sam. Romilly: "I dined 
 to-day at Lord Erskine's. Among the light and trifling 
 topics of conversation after dinner it may be worth while 
 to mention one, as it strongly characterizes him. He 
 has always expressed and felt a great sympathy for 
 animals. He has talked for years of a bill he was to 
 bring into Parliament to prevent cruelty towards them. 
 He has always had several favourite animals to whom he 
 has been much attached, and of whom all his acquain- 
 tance have a number of anecdotes to relate : A favourite 
 dog which he used to bring, when he was at the Bar, to 
 all his consultations another favourite dog, which, at 
 the time when he was Lord Chancellor, he himself 
 rescued in the street from some boys who were about to 
 kill it under pretence of its being mad a favourite 
 goose which followed him wherever he walked about his 
 grounds a favourite macaw and other dumb favourites 
 without number. He told us now that he had got two
 
 i$Q L ord Erskine. 
 
 favourite leeches. He had been blooded by them last 
 autumn when he had been taken dangerously ill at 
 Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and he had brought 
 them with him to town had ever since kept them in a 
 gl ass _had himself every day given them fresh water, 
 and had formed a friendship with them. He said he 
 was sure they both knew him and were grateful to him. 
 He had given them different names, Home and Cline 
 (the names of two celebrated surgeons), their dispositions 
 being quite different. After a good deal of conversation 
 about them, he went himself, brought them out of his 
 library, and placed them in their glass upon the table. 
 It is impossible, however, without the vivacity, the tones, 
 the details, and the gestures of Lord Erskine, to give an 
 adequate idea of this singular scene." 
 
 Many diverting stories are related of his "Sayings and 
 Doings." After he had resigned the Chancellorship he 
 used to amuse himself with horticultural pursuits. 
 Sometimes he would take a spade in his hand and pre- 
 tend to dig in his kitchen garden. On such occasions 
 he would say, "Here I am enjoying my 'otium, cum 
 diggin a taity!'" The garden was under the care of a 
 Scotch gardener, who once coming to complain to him, 
 as of a grievance to be remedied, that the drought had 
 burnt up all the vegetables and was killing the shrubs; 
 he said to him, "Well, John, all that I can do for you is 
 to order the hay to be cut down to-morrow morning; 
 and if that does not bring rain, nothing will !" 
 
 With a view to improve his property (an estate in 
 Sussex), he began to study farming, and put himself 
 under the celebrated Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, afterwards 
 Earl of Leicester, observing that "having been instructed
 
 L ord Erskine. 157 
 
 by Coke at Westminster, he was now to be instructed by 
 Coke of Holkham, as great a man in his way." But the 
 master found him a very unapt pupil, and used to relate 
 that "coming to a finely cultivated piece of wheat, the 
 first specimen he bad seen of drill husbandry, Erskine 
 exclaimed in a delighted tone, 'What a beautiful piece 
 of ICITCI. 
 
 Not long after his resignation of the great Seal, he was 
 invited to a fete at Oatlands, where the Duchess of York 
 had upon the lawn a number of rare animals, and among 
 others a black monkey with a long white hairy mantle 
 flowing gracefully over his head and shoulders. Erskine 
 was late in making his appearance; but at length, while 
 a group of distinguished guests were standing near the 
 entrance to the court yard, he drove up. Immediately 
 alighting, instead of paying his respects to these gentle- 
 men, he suddenly stepped up to the monkey, and in a 
 very formal manner, making a profound conge'e to the 
 animal, amid the laughter of the by-standers, thus ad- 
 dressed it: "Sir, I sincerely wish you joy. You wear 
 your wig for life ! " 
 
 Of his jokes, consisting chiefly of puns, many were 
 long remembered. Polito, the keeper of the wild beasts 
 in Exeter Change, having brought an action against the 
 proprietors of a stage-coach for negligence, whereby his 
 portmanteau was stolen from the boot of the vehicle, he 
 himself having been riding on the box, "Why did he 
 not," said the defendant's witty counsel, " take a lesson 
 from his own sagacious elephant and travel with his 
 trunk before him ? " 
 
 When he was Chancellor, being asked by the Secre- 
 tary to the Treasury, whether he would attend the grand
 
 158 Lord Erskine. 
 
 ministerial fish-dinner to be given at Greenwich, at the 
 end of the session, he answered, "To be sure, I will; 
 what would your fish-dinner be without the Great Sealf ' 
 
 He could not resist a witticism though at the expense 
 of a friend. His acquaintance, Mr^ Maylem of Rams- 
 gate, having mentioned that his physician had ordered 
 him not to bathe, " Oh, then," said Erskine, " you are 
 Malum prohibitum" " My wife, however," resumed the 
 other, "does bathe." "That's worse still," was the 
 retort/'for she is Malum in se." 
 
 Occasionally in his exuberant fun he indulged in what 
 may be called a practical joke. A worthy gentleman 
 having proposed that a public testimonial should be 
 presented to himself for his eminent services in answer 
 to one of his circulars, Erskine wrote on the first page 
 of a letter in a flowing hand these words, which filled it 
 to the bottom : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR JOHN, I am certain there are few in 
 this kingdom who set a higher value on your public 
 services than myself and I have the honour to sub- 
 scribe" 
 
 Then, on turning over the leaf was to be found, 
 
 " Myself, 
 
 " Your most obedient, faithful servant, 
 
 T. ERSKINE. 
 
 I will conclude this chapter with what appears to me 
 an admirable vindication of the office of an ADVOCATE, 
 by Lord Campbell: 
 
 " Let us imagine to ourselves an advocate inspired by
 
 L ord Er ski nc. 1 5 9 
 
 a generous love of fame, and desirous of honourably 
 assisting in the administration of justice, by obtaining 
 redress for the injured and defending the innocent, 
 who has liberally studied the science of jurisprudence, 
 and has stored his mind, and refined his taste, by a 
 general acquaintance with elegant literature, who has 
 an intuitive insight into human character and the work- 
 ings of human passion, who possesses discretion as 
 well as courage, and caution along with enthusiasm, 
 who is not only able, by his powers of persuasion, to give 
 the best chance of success to every client whom he 
 represents in every variety of private causes, but who is 
 able to defeat conspiracies against public liberty, to be 
 carried into effect by a perversion of the criminal law, 
 and who, by the victories which he gains, and the prin- 
 ciples which he establishes, places the free constitution of 
 his country on an imperishable basis ! Such an advocate, 
 in my opinion, stands quite as high in the scale of true 
 greatness as the parliamentary leader, who ably opens a 
 budget, who lucidly explains a new system of commercial 
 policy, or who dexterously attacks the measures of the 
 Government. 
 
 " I boldly affirm that there is no department of human 
 intellect in which the mens divinior may be more reful- 
 gently displayed."
 
 X. 
 
 1 Ellenborough was a real chief such as the rising generation of lawyers may 
 read of and figure to themselves in imagination, but may never behold to 
 
 |HUS does Lord Campbell begin his delightful 
 memoir of Lord Ellenborough; and he adds: 
 "He was a man of gigantic intellect; he had 
 the advantage of the very best education which England 
 could bestow; he was not only a consummate master of 
 his own profession, but well initiated in mathematical 
 science, and one of the best classical scholars of his 
 day ..... When I first entered Westminster Hall in my 
 wig and gown I there found him 'monarch of all he 
 surveyed,' and, at this distance of time, I can hardly 
 recollect without awe his appearance and his manners 
 as he ruled over his submissive subjects." 
 
 The early history of so remarkable a man cannot be 
 without interest, and we trace with pleasure his upward 
 progress. As the younger son of an English prelate of 
 very great learning and very little wealth, his lot in life 
 was highly favourable to his gaining distinction in the 
 world, affording him the best facilities and the strongest
 
 L ord Ellcnborough. \ 6 1 
 
 incentives for exertion. His father was Dr. Edmund 
 1,a\v, ISishop of Carlisle, who had distinguished himself 
 in early life at St. John's College, Cambridge, and after- 
 wards became noted in the literary world for his varied 
 acquirements and numerous theological works, the most 
 famous of which was a treatise " On the Intermediate 
 State." He was married to Mary, daughter of John 
 Christian, Esq., and they had a family of twelve children, 
 among whom were two bishops and a Chief-Justice. 
 
 Edward, the last mentioned, was one of the youngest 
 of this numerous race, and was born in the parsonage of 
 Salkeld, on the :6th November, 1750. Resembling his 
 mother much in features, he is said to have derived from 
 her likewise his manners and the characteristic qualities 
 of his mind ; and when he had reached old age he often 
 expressed a fond respect for her memory. The good 
 bishop is thus described by his friend, Archdeacon Paley: 
 " His lordship was a man of great softness of manners, 
 and of the mildest and most tranquil disposition. His 
 voice was never raised above its ordinary pitch. His 
 countenance seemed never to have been ruffled; it 
 invariably preserved the same kind and composed aspect, 
 truly indicating the calmness and benignity of his temper. 
 His fault was too great a degree of inaction and facility 
 in his public station. The bashfulness of his nature, 
 with an extreme unwillingness to give pain, rendered 
 him sometimes less firm and efficient in the administra- 
 tion of authority than was requisite." 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a character less resembling 
 that of the sarcastic Chief-Justice, who certainly did not 
 " take after" his amiable father. 
 
 The boy, though very troublesome, was a great favour- 
 (13-2;
 
 1 62 L ord Ellenborough. 
 
 ite at home, where he remained till he was eight years 
 old, when he was sent into Norfolk to live with his 
 maternal uncle, the Rev. H. Christian, a clergyman 
 settled at Dorking in that county. Having been for a 
 short time at a school in Bury St. Edmunds, he was 
 removed to the foundation of the Charter House in 
 London. To his solid acquisitions there, he ever grate- 
 fully ascribed his subsequent eminence in public life; 
 and there, by the special direction of his will, his 
 remains were deposited, near those of the founder. 
 
 For six years Law continued at the Charter House, 
 and rose to be captain of the school. He used to say 
 that while enjoying this dignity he felt himself a much 
 more important personage than when he rose to be 
 Chief-Justice of England and a Cabinet minister. It is 
 said that at this early period he showed the same vigour 
 of character, and the same mixture of arrogance and 
 bon-hommie which afterwards distinguished him. He was 
 described by a class-fellow as a bluff, burly boy, at once 
 moody and good-natured ever ready to inflict a blow 
 or perform an exercise for a school-fellow. 
 
 At the age of eighteen he was sent to Cambridge, and 
 entered at Peterhouse, of which his father was Master. 
 There he worked hard, and his straightforward manly 
 character, joined to his brilliant talents, procured him, 
 while at the University, friends as well as admirers. One 
 of these was William Coxe, afterwards Archdeacon, who 
 described the future Chief-Justice, in flattering terms: 
 " Of a warm and generous disposition, he breathes all 
 the animation of youth and the spirit of freedom. His 
 thoughts and conceptions are uncommonly great and 
 striking; his language and his expressions are strong
 
 Lord Ellenboroitgh. 163 
 
 and nervous, and partake of his sentiments. As all his 
 views are honest and his intentions direct, he scorns to 
 disguise his feelings or palliate his sentiments. This 
 disposition leads him to use a warmth of expression 
 which sometimes assumes the appearance of fierte and 
 has frequently disgusted his acquaintance. But his 
 friends know the goodness of his heart and pardon a 
 foible that arises from the candour and openness'of his 
 temper. Indeed, he never fails, when the heat of 
 conversation is over, and when his mind becomes cool 
 and dispassionate, to acknowledge the error of his nature, 
 and, like a Roman Catholic, claim an absolution for past 
 as well as future transgressions." 
 
 It would have been better had the youth, instead of 
 simply acknowledging his fault, determined to conquer 
 it In the end it mastered him, and was a sad blot upon 
 his character. That he exercised self-government in 
 other things is evident, for, though he delighted in con- 
 viviality, he never wasted his time in idle amusements, 
 but owned " the greatest struggle he ever made was in 
 leaving a party and retiring to his rooms to read." 
 
 When the time came for taking his bachelor's degree, 
 it was confidently expected that he would be senior 
 wrangler and first medallist; but in this he was dis- 
 appointed, being surpassed in the mathematical examina- 
 tions by two men much inferior to him in talent, but of 
 more steady application. He was deeply mortified, and 
 though his classical acquirements carried the first medal, 
 his pride was by no means assuaged, and he continued 
 for the rest of his days to scoff at academical honours. 
 
 It was the earnest wish of Dr. Law to have all his 
 sons in the Church; but Edward was bent upon trying
 
 1 64 Lord Ellen borough. 
 
 his fortune at the bar, and by embracing the profession 
 of the law against the strong desire of a father he sincerely 
 respected and loved incurred a heavy responsibility. He 
 had therefore the most powerful motives for exertion 
 that he might justify his own opinion and soothe the 
 feelings of a fond parent. Resolved to make his way 
 he started on his career with a dogged determination to 
 overcome every difficulty he might encounter in his pro- 
 gress, and to attain the object on which his heart was set. 
 
 His first step was to obtain a small set of chambers in 
 Lincoln's Inn, and to begin, in good earnest, the study 
 of jurisprudence. 
 
 A student, intended for the common law courts, was 
 expected to work at least two years in the office of a 
 special pleader, copying precedents, drawing declarations 
 and pleas, and having an opportunity of seeing the run 
 of his master's business. The most distinguished in- 
 structor in this line at that time was George Wood, in 
 whose office Law, by great interest, obtained a desk. 
 
 The following letter, addressed to his friend Coxe, 
 gives a lively notion of the young man's habits and 
 sentiments at this period : 
 
 " June i&tk, 1773, TEMPLE, Friday Night. 
 
 " After holding a pen most of the day in the service 
 of my profession, I will use it a few minutes longer in 
 that of friendship. I thank you, my dearest friend, for 
 this and every proof of confidence and affection. Let 
 us cheerfully push our way in our different lines: the 
 path of neither of us is strewed with roses, but they will 
 terminate in happiness and honour. I cannot, however, 
 now and then help sighing when I think how inglorious
 
 /. ( 'rd Ellcnborough. \ 65 
 
 an apprenticeship we both of us serve to ambition 
 while you teach a child his rudiments, and I drudge at 
 the pen for attorneys. But if knowledge and a respect- 
 able situation are to be purchased only on these terms, 
 I, for my part can readily say 'hac mercede placet.' 
 Do not commend my industry too soon; application 
 wears for me at present the charm of novelty; upon a 
 longer acquaintance I may grow tired of it." 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that a student just 
 graduated at Cambridge, who had rejoiced in classical 
 themes and associations, should at first find the study of 
 the law dry and repulsive. In that study the labour is 
 long, and the elements wearisome and uninteresting; but, 
 we arc assured by one whose experience had instructed 
 him, " in the exquisite logic of special pleading, rightly 
 understood, there is much to gratify an acute and 
 vigorous understanding. ' 
 
 Young Law continued working very hard as a special 
 pleading pupil for two years, during which period he 
 became a great favourite with his instructor, and at- 
 tracted the favourable attention of the attorneys who 
 frequented Mr. Wood's chambers. When the time of 
 his pupilage ceased he wisely determined not to be im- 
 mediately called to the bar, but to commence " special 
 pleader under the bar," sacrificing the chance of present 
 eclat, and confining himself entirely to chamber practice, 
 drawing law papers and giving opinions to the attorneys 
 in cases of smaller consequence. " During five long and 
 irksome years he continued to devote himself to this 
 drudgery, (says his biographer), but his perseverance was 
 amply rewarded, for he not only gained a reputation
 
 1 66 L ord Ellenborongh. 
 
 which was sure to start him with full business at the bar, 
 but he acquired a thorough knowledge of his craft which 
 few possess, who, after a mere course of solitary study, 
 plunge into forensic wrangling." 
 
 In Hilary Term, 1780, he was called to the Bar by 
 the Hon. Society of Lincoln's Inn. On the very day of 
 his call he had several retainers given to him by great 
 Northern attorneys; and from family connection, and his 
 reputation as a special pleader, he reckoned he must 
 speedily be at the head of the great Northern Circuit. In 
 the beginning of March, he made his ddbut at York, and 
 appeared at the opening of the Nisi Prius court, with a 
 large pile of papers lying before him. He was also pro- 
 vided with a bag an honour of which no junior could 
 ever before boast on his first circuit.* 
 
 The assizes being over, Mr. Law returned to London 
 well pleased with his success and his prospects. During 
 seven years he continued pursuing, with great ability and 
 increasing reputation, the course on which he had entered; 
 at the end of that period he pretty nearly monopolized 
 the business of the six counties which form the Great 
 Northern Circuit, and it was judged desirable that he 
 should " have silk," a promotion which he attained in 
 1787. Shortly after this time he married the only 
 daughter of Mr. Towry, a commissioner of the navy, a 
 lady of great beauty and possessing a considerable 
 
 * " Now-a-days any young barrister buys a bag, and carries it as soon after he 
 is called to the bar as he likes ; but when I was called to the bar, and long after, 
 the privilege of carrying a bag was strictly confined to those who had received 
 one from a King's counsel. The King's counsel, then few in number, were con- 
 sidered officers of the crown, and they not only had a salary of .40 a year, but an 
 annual allowance of paper, pens, and purple bags. These they distributed among 
 juniors, who had made such progress as not to be able to carry their briefs con- 
 veniently in their hands." Lord Campbell in loc.
 
 Lord Ellcnborough. 167 
 
 fortune. She was born to be the wife of a great lawyer, 
 being descended, on the mother's side, from Sir Thomas 
 More, and is described as having been so singularly 
 lovely that passers by would linger to watch her as she 
 watered the flowers in the balcony of their house in 
 Bloomsbury Square. The marriage was a truly happy 
 one, and crowned with a numerous family, several of 
 whom combined their father's talents with their mother's 
 comeliness. 
 
 But, though supreme within the limits of the Northern 
 Circuit, Mr. Law was unknown in the Law courts of 
 London. Scarcely had he been employed in a single 
 cause of interest there, and he panted for a fair oppor- 
 tunity to display his powers, believing that he wanted 
 but this to become distinguished in the Court of King's 
 Bench. How great must have been his surprise and 
 delight when he found, one evening at his chamber, a 
 general retainer from Warren Hastings, Esq., with a fee 
 of five hundred guineas ! At once he perceived that his 
 fortune was made, and anticipated the satisfaction of his 
 friends, and his own triumph, when entering the lists 
 against such antagonists as Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, 
 and the honours of the profession which he must 
 eventually reap. What a high and arduous task for a 
 young man of only eight years' standing at the bar, to 
 lead the cause of the defendant in a trial of such unpre- 
 cedented magnitude and interest! It appears that he 
 owed this unexpected good fortune to the friendly repre- 
 sentations of his kinsman, Sir Thomas Rumbold, who had 
 been in office under the impeached governor in India, 
 and mentioned Mr. Law in such high terms of praise as 
 proved successful in procuring him the retainer.
 
 1 68 L ord Ellenborongh. 
 
 This famous case called by the illustrious Lord 
 Brougham "the opprobrium of English justice, and, 
 through mismanagement and party violence, the destruc- 
 tion of the greatest remedy afforded by our constitution, 
 the impeachment of public wrong-doers " commenced in 
 the month of February 1788. In the mean time our 
 lawyer had been preparing himself for the task he had 
 undertaken with the utmost diligence. " Carrying along 
 with him masses of despatches, examinations, and reports, 
 which might have loaded many camels, he retreated to 
 a cottage near the Lake of Windermere, and there spent 
 a long vacation more laborious than the busiest term he 
 had ever known in London." 
 
 At length the preparations for the trial were complete, 
 and on the i3th February the sittings of the Court com- 
 menced. The scene has been depicted by the magical 
 pen of Macaulay, and if any of my readers be acquainted 
 with his description, I am sure he will be glad to read it 
 again. 
 
 " There have been spectacles more dazzling to the 
 eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more 
 attractive to grown-up children than that which was then 
 exhibited at Westminster; but perhaps there never was a 
 spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, 
 a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds 
 of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to 
 the present and to the past, were collected on one spot and 
 in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments 
 which are developed by liberty and civilization were now 
 displayed with every advantage that could be derived both 
 from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the 
 proceedings carried the mind either backward, through
 
 Lord Ellenborough. 169 
 
 many troubled centuries, to the days when the founda- 
 tions of our constitution were laid; or far away, over 
 boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under 
 strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing 
 strange characters, from right to left. The High Court of 
 Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down 
 from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman 
 accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy 
 city of Benares, and over the ladies of the princely house 
 of Oude. 
 
 "The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the 
 great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded 
 with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the 
 hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon, and 
 the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the 
 eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and 
 melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, 
 the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court 
 of Justice with the placid courage which has half re- 
 deemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was 
 wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The 
 streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in 
 gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under 
 Garter- King-at-arms. The judges, in their vestments of 
 state, attended to give advice on points of law. Near a 
 hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper 
 House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn 
 order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. 
 The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, 
 Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and 
 by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came 
 the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and
 
 170 L ord Ellenborough. 
 
 noble bearing. The gray old walls were hung with 
 scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience 
 such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of 
 an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts 
 of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, 
 grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the repre- 
 sentatives of every science and of every art. There were 
 seated round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters 
 of the house of Brunswick. There the ambassadors of 
 great kings and commonwealths gazed with admiration 
 on a spectacle which no other country in the world could 
 present 
 
 *' The serj eants made proclamation. Hastings advanced 
 to the bar and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed 
 not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an 
 extensive and populous country; had made laws and 
 treaties; had sent forth armies and pulled down princes. 
 And in this high place he had so borne himself that all 
 had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred 
 itself could deny him no title to glory except virtue. 
 He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. 
 A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from 
 a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the 
 court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self- 
 respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive 
 but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face 
 pale and worn but serene, on which was written, as 
 legibly as under the picture in the Council Chamber at 
 Calcutta, Mens aqua in arduis ; such was the aspect 
 with which the great proconsul presented himself to his 
 judges. 
 
 "His counsel accompanied him; men all of whom were
 
 L ord Ellcnborough. 171 
 
 afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the 
 highest posts in their profession, the bold and strong 
 minded Law, afterwards Chief-Justice of the King's 
 Bench ; the more humane and eloquent Dallas, after- 
 wards Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas ; and Plomer, 
 who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in 
 the same court the defence of Lord Melville, and sub- 
 sequently became Vice-Chancellor and Master of the 
 Rolls. 
 
 "But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so 
 much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze 
 of red drapery a space had been fitted up with green 
 benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, 
 with. Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. The 
 collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, 
 generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to 
 the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag 
 and sword. The box in which the managers stood 
 contained an array of speakers such as perhaps had not 
 appeared together since the great age of Athenian 
 eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the English 
 Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. There was 
 Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the art of 
 adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and 
 taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension 
 and richness of imagination superior to every orator, 
 ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixed 
 on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, the 
 ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. 
 Nor, though surrounded by such men, did the youngest 
 manager pass unnoticed He is the sole representa- 
 tive of a great age which has passed away. Those who,
 
 \"j2 Lord Rllenborong'i, 
 
 within the last ten years, have listened with delight, till 
 the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of 
 Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles, 
 Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers 
 of a race of men, among whom he was not the fore- 
 most." * 
 
 To combat, with any hope of success, so formidable 
 an array of professional talent, seconded by such a world 
 of eloquence and rhetoric, required strong 'nerves, readi- 
 ness of mind, perfect self-possession, and undaunted 
 energy, and, happily for his client, Mr. Law possessed 
 the requisite courage and ability. No wonder that, at 
 first, he appears to have been daunted by the strangeness 
 and grandeur of the scene and by his appreciation of the 
 matchless powers of intellect and oratory opposed to him, 
 to such a degree as to manifest symptoms of timidity, and 
 to look pale and alarmed, while his voice trembled. 
 But this emotion, after he had somewhat become ac- 
 customed to his novel position, subsided, and he acquitted 
 himself so as to obtain the highest approbation of the 
 great men in whose presence he appeared. "I have 
 been so fortunate," says Lord Brougham, " as to obtain 
 the shorthand writer's notes of Mr. Law's celebrated 
 Defence of Hastings, and a careful perusal of it has fully- 
 satisfied me that its merits fully answer its reputation, 
 and that his great forensic powers have not been over- 
 rated by the general opinion of Westminster Hall. 
 There is a lucid order in the statement of his details, 
 struggling as he did with the vast compass and repulsive 
 materials of his subject, and a plain, manly vigour in the 
 argument, far more valuable to his cause than any 
 
 * Lord Macaulay's Essays, vol. iii. 445.
 
 L ord Ellenborongh. 1 73 
 
 rhetorical display. But there is also much of the purest 
 and most effective eloquence. The topics and the 
 illustrations are felicitously chosen; the occasional figures 
 are chastely but luminously introduced ; the diction is 
 pure and nervous, marked by the love of strong and 
 homely phrase which was breathed in his discourse ; the 
 finer passages have rarely been surpassed by any effort 
 of forensic power, must have produced a great effect 
 under all the disadvantages of an exhausted auditory and 
 a worn out controversy, and would have ranked with the 
 most successful exhibitions of the oratorical art had they 
 been delivered in the early stage of the trial." 
 
 Not until the 23d of April, 1795, being the one 
 hundred and forty-fifth day of the trial, and in the tenth 
 year from the commencement of the crimination did this 
 celebrated impeachment close, when the first counsel for 
 the accused had the satisfaction to hear his client 
 acquitted by a large majority of Peers, and was himself 
 warmly congratulated by his friends upon the happy 
 event. 
 
 Mr. Law's fees, amounting to upwards of ^3000, were 
 but an inadequate compensation for his exertions and 
 sacrifices in this great cause ; but he was amply rewarded 
 by the increase of his reputation and consequent access 
 of business. The highest walks of the bar were soon 
 opened to him ; and from this time he was regarded as 
 second only to the wondrous master of eloquence, 
 Erskine. 
 
 To his professional success was afterwards added the 
 political promotion which he had long awaited. In 
 1 80 1 he was made Attorney-General, was knighted by 
 George III., and was returned to Parliament, where he
 
 1 74 Lord E lien borough. 
 
 did not, however, distinguish himself. Soon after, Lord 
 Kenyon's death made way for him on the bench, and he 
 was, at the same time, raised to the peerage. Of his 
 qualifications as a judge his biographer speaks in high 
 praise. He was particularly famous for mercantile law, 
 and by his practice under the bar had become familiarly 
 versed in all the intricacies of special pleading. " When 
 his powerful mind was brought to bear upon any question 
 that came before him, whether sitting alone at Nisi Prius, 
 or with his brethren in Banco, the impression which he 
 made upon it was immediate, sure, and deep," says Lord 
 Brougham. He adds, "He was sometimes irascible, 
 and occasionally even violent. But no one could accuse 
 him of the least partiality ; his honest and manly nature 
 ever disdained as much to trample overbearingly on the 
 humble, as to crouch meanly before the powerful. He 
 was sometimes impatient; and, as his mind was rather 
 strong than nimble, he often betrayed hastiness of con- 
 clusion more than he displayed quickness of apprehension. 
 On the bench it is not to be denied that Lord Ellen- 
 borough occasionally suffered the strength of his political 
 feelings to break forth, and to influence the tone and 
 temper of his observations. That he ever, upon any one 
 occasion, knowingly deviated one hair's breadth from 
 justice in the discharge of his office, is wholly untrue." 
 
 Lord Campbell's lively pages relate, with evident 
 gusto, some of the sarcastic effusions in which Lord 
 Ellenborough indulged from the Bench, and by which he 
 acquired renown among the habitue's of Westminster 
 HalL A few of these may be given here. On one 
 occasion a witness, dressed in a fantastical manner, 
 having given very rambling and discreditable evidence,
 
 Lord Ellenborongh. I7C 
 
 was asked, in cross-examination, what he was. Wit- 
 ness." I employ myself as a surgeon." Lord Ellen- 
 borough, C. J. " But, does any one else employ you as a 
 surgeon ?" 
 
 A great sessions lawyer, but known as a dreadful bore, 
 was arguing a question upon the rateability of certain 
 quarries to the relief of the poor, and contended at 
 enormous length that, " like lead and copper mines, they 
 were not rateable because the limestone in them could 
 only be reached by deep boring, which was matter of 
 science." Lord Ellenborough, C. J. " You will hardly 
 succeed in convincing us, sir, that every species of boring 
 is ' matter of science! " 
 
 A declamatory speaker, who despised all technicalities, 
 and tried to storm the court by the force of eloquence, 
 was once, when uttering these words, " In the book of 
 nature, my Lords, it is written " stopped by this ques- 
 tion from the Chief-Justice, " Will you have the goodness 
 to mention the page, sir, if you please?" 
 
 Towards the end of Easter Term, a tiresome con- 
 veyancer having occupied the whole day about the merger 
 of a term, the Chief Justice said to him, "I am afraid, 
 sir, the Term, although a long one, will merge in your 
 argument." 
 
 A very tedious bishop having yawned during his own 
 speech, Lord Ellenborough exclaimed, " Come, come, 
 the fellow shows some symptoms of taste, but this is 
 encroaching upon our province." 
 
 At the coming in of the "Talents" in 1806, Erskine 
 himself pressed the Great Seal upon Ellenborough, saying 
 that " he would add to the splendour of his reputation as 
 Lord Chancellor." Ellenborough, knowing that on his
 
 176 L ord Ellenborough. 
 
 own refusal Erskine was to be the man, exclaimed, 
 " How can you ask me to accept the office of Lord 
 Chancellor, when I know as little of its duties as you 
 do 1 " 
 
 Although thus he frequently indulged in sharp say- 
 ings, he was acquitted of any malignant disposition, since 
 it was evident he spoke from a love of fun, and he had 
 in him a large stock of good humour and bon-hommie, 
 which made him a very pleasant and entertaining com- 
 panion. 
 
 In domestic life his lordship was exceedingly amiable, 
 very rarely yielding to his natural hastiness of temper. 
 On one occasion it appears he paid, by his own discom- 
 fiture, for a little domestic irritability. The tale used to 
 be told by Mr. Rogers, as follows : 
 
 "Lord Ellenborough was once about to go on the circuit, 
 when Lady Ellenborough said she should like to accom- 
 pany him. He replied that he had no objection, pro- 
 vided that she did not encumber the carriage with band- 
 boxes, which were his utter abhorrence. During the 
 first day's journey, Lord Ellenborough, happening to 
 stretch his legs, struck his foot against something below 
 the seat. He discovered that it was a bandbox. Up 
 went the window, and out went the bandbox. The 
 coachman stopped, and the footmen, thinking that the 
 bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some extra- 
 ordinary chance, were going to pick it up, when Lord 
 Ellenborough called out furiously, ' Drive on !' The 
 bandbox was accordingly left by the ditch side. Hav- 
 ing reached the county town where he was to officiate 
 as judge, his lordship proceeded to array himself for his 
 appearance in the court house. ' Now,' said he, ' where's
 
 Lord Ellcnborongh. 177 
 
 my wig where is my wig?' 'My lord,' replied his 
 attendant, ' it was thrown out of the carriage window." " 
 
 In person Lord Ellenborough was above the middle 
 size, but ungraceful, and his walk singularly awkward. 
 His portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence gives a favourable 
 and impressive representation of him, portraying cor- 
 rectly his broad, commanding brow, his projecting eye- 
 brows, dark and shaggy, his stern black eyes, and the 
 deep lines of thought that marked his countenance. 
 His robust, though ungainly frame, presented an appear- 
 ance of great strength, until shattered by disease. His 
 labours had been truly enormous, and proved too severe 
 a burden for even his iron frame. Symptoms of decay 
 began to exhibit themselves before he had reached an 
 advanced age, and he found himself compelled to retire 
 from public life. He did not long survive the excite- 
 ment of office, and expired on the i3th December i8i8,in 
 the sixty-ninth year of his age. For some time before his 
 resignation, he appears to have had a serious foreboding 
 that his earthly career was drawing to a close, and, during 
 a visit he made to Paris in the autumn before his death, 
 he composed the following beautiful prayer, indicative of 
 a Christian's hope, combined with pious thankfulness 
 and humble resignation : 
 
 " O God, heavenly Father, by whose providence and 
 goodness all things were' made and have their being, and 
 from whom all the blessings and comforts of this life, 
 and all the hopes and expectations of happiness here- 
 after, are, through the merits of our blessed Saviour, 
 derived to us Thy sinful creatures, I humbly offer up 
 my most grateful thanks and acknowledgments for Thy 
 divine goodness and protection, constantly vouchsafed 
 
 (132) 12
 
 178 Lord Ellenborough. 
 
 to me through the whole course of my life, particularly 
 in indulging to me such faculties of mind and body, and 
 such means of health and strength, as have hitherto 
 enabled me to obtain and to enjoy many great worldly 
 comforts and advantages. 
 
 " Grant me, O Lord, I humbly beseech Thee, a due 
 sense of these, Thy manifold blessings, together with a 
 steadfast disposition and purpose to use them for the 
 benefit of my fellow-creatures, and Thy honour and 
 glory. And grant, O Lord, that no decay or diminution 
 of these faculties and means of happiness may excite in 
 my mind any dissatisfied or desponding thoughts or 
 feelings, but that I may always place my firm trust and 
 confidence in Thy divine goodness. And, whether the 
 blessings heretofore indulged to me shall be continued 
 or cease, and whether Thou shalt give them or take 
 them away, I may still, in humble obedience to Thy 
 divine will, submit myself in all things with patience and 
 resignation to the dispensations of Thy divine providence, 
 humbly and gratefully blessing, praising, and magnifying 
 Thy holy name for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 " PARIS, 1817."
 
 XL 
 
 is not easy to imagine a more lawyer-like 
 cautious record than the following, " I was 
 bom, I believe, on the 4th June, 1751." This 
 is the first entry in a MS. book, written by the celebrated 
 Lord Eldon in his latter years for the amusement and 
 information of his grandson, and the autobiographical 
 notices there given contain many entertaining anecdotes 
 of this great lawyer and remarkable individual. He 
 was the younger son of Mr. William Scott, a worthy, in- 
 dustrious and prudent man, who carried on the business 
 of a coal-fitter at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His mother, 
 Jane, the daughter of Mr. Atkinson, a tradesman of the 
 same town, is said to have been remarkable for shrewd- 
 ness and superior ability. She had a very numerous 
 family, two of whom attained to eminence, the eldest, 
 William, afterwards Lord Stowell ; and John, nearly six 
 years his junior, the future Lord Eldon. 
 
 As soon as they were old enough the two brothers 
 were sent, successively, to the Free Grammar School at 
 Newcastle, and one of the first pages of the " Anecdote 
 Book " contains this affectionate remembrance of their 
 early instructor : " The head-master was that eminent
 
 j8o Lord Eldon. 
 
 scholar and most excellent man, the Rev. Mr. Moises. 
 I shall hold his memory in the utmost veneration, whilst 
 I continue to exist. There were also excellent ushers in 
 that school whilst I continued in it. I gratefully mention 
 the names of Mr. Clarkson, Mr. Hall, Mr. King, and 
 Mr. Walters." Both William and John were diligent 
 scholars and great favourites with their master, but they 
 were widely different in character, and even at that early 
 period the distinctive peculiarities of their minds were 
 shown. It is related that when asked to give an account 
 of the Sunday sermon their father's weekly custom 
 the eldest would repeat a sort of digest of the general 
 argument, a condensed summary of what he had heard ; 
 John, on the other hand, would recapitulate the minutiae 
 of the discourse, and reiterate the very phrase of the 
 preacher. He showed a memory the most complete and 
 exact ; but failed in giving the whole scope and clear 
 general view of the sermon, embodied in half the number 
 of words by the elder brother. 
 
 Although very diligent in his studies, the future Lord 
 Chancellor was, according to his own account, much 
 given to play idle pranks out of school hours. Several 
 of these he has related among others, the following : 
 ' I remember stealing, with a playmate, down the Side 
 and along the Sandhill, and creeping into every shop, 
 where we blew out the candles. We crept in along the 
 counter, then pop't our heads up, out went the candles, 
 and away went we. We escaped detection." Many 
 other practical jokes he indulged in, and some of a more 
 objectionable kind. To his solicitor, Mr. Chisholme, he 
 gave the following grave piece of evidence against his 
 own juvenile character : " My father," said he, " agreed
 
 Lord Eldon. 181 
 
 with a master who kept a writing-school to teach me the 
 art of penmanship there, for half a guinea a quarter. In 
 the whole of the three months, I attended that school 
 but once. My father knew nothing of this, and at the 
 quarter's end gave me half a guinea to pay the master. 
 When I took it to the school, the master said he did not 
 know how he could properly receive it, since he had 
 given nothing in exchange for it. I said that he really 
 must take it ; that I could not possibly carry it back to 
 my father. ' Well,' replied he, ' if I am to take it, at all 
 events I must give something for it : so come here." 
 And, upon my going up to him, he took the money with 
 one hand, and with the other gave me a box on the 
 ear, which sent me reeling against the wainscot ; and 
 that was the way I first learned to write." 
 
 Every admirer of Bewick's genius will be reminded of 
 him by the next anecdote, for he has, in one of the 
 inimitable " tail-pieces " of his " History of British Birds," 
 depicted to the very life the boyish pastime in which the 
 embryo judge delighted : " Between school-hours we 
 used to amuse ourselves with playing at what we called 
 ' cock nibSy that was, riding on grave-stones in St. John's 
 church-yard, which, you know, was close to the school. 
 Well, one day, one of the lads came shouting, ' Here 
 comes Moises' that's what we always called him, 
 Moises so away we all ran as hard as we could, and I 
 lost my hat ; at which my father was very angry, and he 
 made me go without one till the usual time of taking my 
 best into every-day wear." One of the ladies of the 
 family added to this story, "On this occasion Lord 
 Eldon went three months, Sundays excepted, without a 
 hat."
 
 1 82 Lord Eldon. 
 
 His next exploit, and for which he was carried before 
 a magistrate, was robbing an orchard, or, as the boys 
 called it, " boxing the fox." " There were three of us. 
 The magistrate acted upon what I think was rather 
 curious law, for he fined our fathers each thirty shillings 
 for our offence. We did not care for that, but then they 
 did : so my father flogged me, and then sent a message 
 to Moises, and Moises flogged me again. We were very 
 good boys; very good boys, indeed; we never did any- 
 thing worse than a robbery." 
 
 Thus in after days he told " the follies of his youth ;" 
 but chiefly it pleased him to recall to mind his early 
 gallantries: "I believe," he said to his niece, Mrs. 
 Forster, "no shoemaker ever helped to put on more 
 ladies' shoes than I have done. At the dancing school 
 the young ladies always brought their dancing-shoes with 
 them, and we deemed it a proper piece of etiquette to 
 assist the pretty girls in putting them on. In those days 
 girls of the best families wore white stockings only on 
 the Sundays, and one week day which was a sort of 
 public day ; on the other days they wore blue Doncaster 
 woollen stockings with white tags. 
 
 " We used, when we were at the Head School, early 
 on the Sunday mornings, to steal flowers from the gardens 
 in the neighbourhood of the Forth, and then we pre- 
 sented them to our sweethearts. Oh, these were happy 
 days we were always in love then." 
 
 School-days fly all too swiftly away, and the merry, 
 fun-loving boy becomes the shy and awkward lad. Then 
 comes the posing question, What is to be done with 
 him? Young John Scott had nearly reached the age of 
 fifteen when his worthy father began to consider that
 
 Lord Eldon. 183 
 
 matter, and arrived at the conclusion that the best thing 
 would be to bind him apprentice to his own trade as a 
 coal-fitter ; but before taking the final step he mentioned 
 his intention to William, his eldest son, who was then at 
 the University of Oxford ; " Send Jack up to me," was 
 his answer, " I can do better for him here." And he 
 was sent accordingly, and duly became a Commoner of 
 University College. " I was entered," he notes in his 
 book, " under the tuition of Sir R. Chambers, and my 
 brother Lord Stowell." He then wanted a few weeks of 
 fifteen, and was so small of his age that he looked a 
 mere boy. 
 
 Very pleasant is the account he himself has given of 
 his first launch from off the native perch into the big 
 world in which he was destined to make, during his little 
 day of life, a somewhat conspicuous figure. " I have 
 seen it remarked," he says, "that something which in 
 early youth captivates attention influences future life in 
 all dts stages. When I left school in 1766 to go to 
 Oxford, I came up from Newcastle to London in a coach, 
 then denominated, on account of its quick travelling, 
 as travelling was then estimated, a fly ; being as well as 
 I remember, nevertheless, three or four days and nights 
 on the road. On the panels of the coach were painted 
 the words, 'Sat cito, si sat betie? words which made 
 a most lasting impression on my mind, and have had 
 their influence upon my conduct in all subsequent life. 
 Their effect was heightened by circumstances that 
 occurred during and immediately after the journey. 
 
 "Upon the journey a Quaker, who was a fellow-traveller, 
 stopped the coach at the inn at Tuxford, desired the 
 chambermaid to come to the coach door and gave her a
 
 1 84 Lord Eldon. 
 
 sixpence, telling her he forgot to give it her when he 
 slept there two years before. I was a very saucy boy 
 and said to him, ' Friend, have you seen the motto on 
 the coach V ' No.' ' Then look at it; for I think giving 
 her only sixpence now, is neither sat cito nor sat bene.' 
 
 " After I got to town my brother met me at the White 
 Horse in Fetter Lane, Holborn, then the great Oxford 
 house, as I was told. He took me to see the play at 
 Drury Lane. When we came out of the house it rained 
 hard. There were then few hackney-coaches, and we 
 got both into one sedan-chair. Turning out of Fleet 
 Street into Fe'tter Lane, there was a sort of contest 
 between our chairmen and some persons who were 
 coming up Fleet Street. In the struggle the sedan chair 
 was overset with us in it. This, thought I, is more than 
 sat cito, and it certainly is not sat bene. In short, in all that 
 I have had to do in life, professional and judicial, I have 
 always felt the effect of this early admonition." 
 
 He had not been many weeks at Oxford when the 
 long vacation arrived, and he was sent back by his 
 judicious father to school, to continue his studies there 
 in the interim; "a sad pull- down," said he, "to my 
 dignity." In the autumn he returned to his Alma Mater, 
 where he remained as undergraduate three years ; at the 
 age of sixteen he was elected a Fellow of his college, an 
 honour which he ascribed entirely to his brother's 
 influence. 
 
 William Scott was born, by a fortunate accident, as it 
 afterwards proved, in the county of Durham, and by this 
 fortuitous circumstance the destiny of both brothers was 
 materially affected. His mother was alarmed by the 
 approach of the rebel army in 1745, and being near her
 
 Lord Eldon. 185 
 
 confinement, retreated to her husband's country house 
 a few miles distant from Newcastle, and situate in the 
 county of Durham. Taking advantage of this accidental 
 qualification, the wonderfully precocious lad became a 
 candidate for the Fellowship in Oxford which he after- 
 wards obtained. By his influence the same advantage 
 was secured for his younger brother, and to both, said Lord 
 Eldon, "these fellowships were of great use in life and 
 in our subsequent success. We owe much, therefore, to 
 what it is to be wished nobody should profit by, namely, 
 rebellion." 
 
 The young collegian took his B.A. degree on the 2oth 
 February, 1770. This was a very different affair to 
 what it is in our day. According to his account an 
 examination for a degree at Oxford was then a mere 
 farce. He was examined in Hebrew and in history. 
 " What is the Hebrew for the place of a skull ?" He 
 replied, "Golgotha." " Whofounded University College?" 
 He stated that " King Alfred founded it." " Very well, 
 sir," said the examiner, "you are competent for your 
 degree." 
 
 In the following year his prize essay, "On the 
 Advantages and Disadvantages of Foreign Travel," was 
 adjudged to bear the palm, and his success was hailed 
 with delight by his friends in Newcastle, most of all by 
 his old preceptor, who on receiving the tidings rushed 
 into the school with a copy of the essay in his hand, 
 exclaiming, " See, boys, what Jack Scott has done." 
 
 To this early triumph Lord Eldon used, in later years, 
 to recur with undisguised pride and satisfaction, dwelling 
 upon the encouragement it gave him at the time, acting 
 as a spur to future exertion. When entering the theatre
 
 1 86 Lord Eldon. 
 
 on the eventful day of the contest he drew back from 
 feelings of diffidence and modesty, and his friend the 
 Bishop of Clonfert was obliged "to take him by the 
 shoulders and push him forward," he hesitated so much 
 about. venturing in. 
 
 It should seem this success emboldened him to take 
 a rash step, and one which at the time was regarded by 
 his friends as subversive of all his prospects and bright 
 hopes for the future. It was the old, old story, love at 
 first sight 
 
 " The mutual flame, so quickly caught, 
 And quickly, too, revealed ; " 
 
 followed by opposition on the part of prudent relatives, 
 and difficulties threatening to part the lovers ; and then, 
 that summary method of cutting such a gordian knot a 
 runaway marriage. 
 
 The object of the youth's attachment was the lovely 
 daughter of Mr. Surtees, a banker in Newcastle, and 
 whose portrait is thus pleasantly drawn by one of her 
 relations : " Her figure was slight and of a short middle 
 size. Her hair, of the deepest brown, streamed in rich 
 ringlets over her neck. From her mother the beauty 
 of a preceding generation, she had inherited features of 
 an exquisite regularity as well as a strongly marked 
 character, and a warm temper." 
 
 The youthful pair very young indeed they were ; he 
 was but just of age, and she had hardly completed her 
 eighteenth year conducted their affair in the approved 
 fashion: "On the night of the i8th Nov. 1772, Miss 
 Surtees, 'having made up her mind to a decisive 
 measure,' descended by a ladder into the arms of her 
 lover, from a window of her father's house in the Sand-
 
 Lord Eldon. 187 
 
 hill, Newcastle;" and after narrowly escaping discovery 
 the runaways reached their postchaise safely, crossed 
 the Border that night, and were married the following 
 morning at the village of Blackshiels, in Scotland. 
 
 Great was the consternation of their respective families 
 when they learned what had taken place; "Jack Scott 
 has run off with Bessie Surtees, and the poor lad is 
 undone," exclaimed the worthy Moises; and his nearest 
 relations shared the same grievous forebodings. "I 
 suppose you have heard of this very foolish act of my 
 very foolish brother," said Mr. William Scott, to a mutual 
 friend, " he is completely ruined, nor can anything now 
 save him from beggary; you do not know how unhappy 
 this makes me ; for I had good hopes of him till this 
 last absurd step has destroyed all." On their part the 
 sisters of the rash bridegroom acted as women commonly 
 do on such occasions. They had been let into the secret 
 on the previous evening, and sobbed and cried all night 
 long; then, drying their eyes, they looked the next 
 morning at breakfast with anxious glances at their father, 
 while he read, in gloomy silence, a letter from the 
 culprit. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. John Scott were 
 awaiting the result of this epistle with no small impa- 
 tience. They stayed at an hotel in Morpeth for two or 
 three days, uncertain and expectant. The bride, it is 
 said, used to describe this interval as passed very 
 miserably. Their funds were exhausted, they had no 
 home to go to, and they knew not what reception they 
 should meet with from their friends. In this sad state 
 of things she suddenly espied from the window of their 
 room a fine large wolf-dog called Loup, walking along
 
 1 88 LordEldon. 
 
 the street; a joyful sight, for she felt sure that a friend 
 was at hand ; and in a few minutes Henry Scott, a third 
 brother, entered the room, bringing with him a message 
 of forgiveness and an invitation to Love Lane, which was 
 most gladly accepted. Not long after, the two fathers 
 of the newly-married pair agreed to allow them jointly a 
 small income for present necessities, and then John 
 Scott was cast on his own resources, and " having," as 
 he says in his Anecdote Book, " the world before me, 
 and as it proved, a most kind providence my guide, I 
 gave up the purpose of taking orders, and entered as a 
 student in the Middle Temple, in January 1773." 
 
 Shortly after his marriage, Mr. John Scott, writing to 
 a fellow-collegian, said : " I have married rashly, and 
 have neither house nor home to offer my wife ; but it is 
 my determination to work hard to provide for the woman 
 I love as soon as I can find the means of doing so." 
 And to this purpose he adhered with unflinching diligence 
 and self-denial. For the greater part of three years 
 which must elapse before he could be called to the Bar, 
 he continued to live in or near Oxford, and his eldest 
 son, John, was born at New Inn Hall in the month of 
 March 1774. Among his anecdotes of this period are 
 the following. "The most awkward thing that ever 
 occurred to me was this : immediately after I was married 
 I was appointed Deputy Professor of Law at Oxford, 
 and the law professor sent me the first lecture, which I 
 had to read immediately to the students, and which I 
 began without knowing a single word that was in it. It 
 was upon the statute of young men running away with 
 maidens. Fancy me reading with about one hundred 
 and forty boys and young men, all giggling at the
 
 Lord Eldon. 189 
 
 professor. Such a tittering audience no one ever 
 had." 
 
 "The first cause I ever decided was an apple pie 
 cause. I was a senior fellow at University College, and 
 two of the undergraduates came to complain to me that 
 the cook had sent them an apple pie that could not be 
 eaten. So I said I would hear both sides. I summoned 
 the cook to make his defence, who said that he never 
 had anything unfit for the table, and that there was then 
 a remarkably fine fillet of veal in the kitchen. Now 
 here we were at fault ; for I could not understand what 
 a fillet of veal in the kitchen had to do with an apple 
 pie in the hall. So that I might come to a right under- 
 standing of the merits of the case, I ordered the pie 
 itself to be brought before me. The messenger returned 
 and informed me that the other undergraduates had 
 taken advantage of the absence of the two complainants 
 and had eaten the whole of the apple pie; so you know 
 it was impossible for me to decide that that was not 
 eatable which was actually eaten. I have often wished 
 in after life that all the causes were apple pie causes ; 
 fine easy work it would have been." 
 
 During his probationary three years he had to visit 
 London periodically, for the purpose of keeping his 
 terms, and on one of these occasions the following 
 amusing incident occurred : Mr. Serjeant Hill, a most 
 learned lawyer, but a very eccentric man, stopped him 
 in the hall of the Middle Temple, and said, " Pray, 
 young gentleman, do you think herbage and pannage 
 rateable to the poor's rate?" He answered, "Sir, I 
 cannot presume to give any opinion, inexperienced and 
 unlearned as I am, to a person of your great knowledge
 
 190 Lord Eldon. 
 
 and high character in the profession." " Upon my word," 
 said the Serjeant, "you are a pretty sensible young 
 gentleman : I don't often meet with such. If I had- 
 asked Mr. Burgess, a young man upon our circuit, the 
 question, he would have told me that I was an old fool. 
 You are an extraordinary sensible young gentleman." 
 
 So severe was the labour to which he now submitted 
 himself, that before long it began to tell upon his health, 
 and his cadaverous looks awakened the anxiety of his 
 friends. One of them, a physician, remonstrated and 
 urged the necessity of some abatement in the severity of 
 his application. " It is no matter," was his reply, " I 
 must do as I am now doing, or starve." Accordingly he 
 read with pertinacious zeal, rising at the early hour of 
 four in the morning, observed a careful abstinence at his 
 meals, and that he might drive away the oppressive 
 drowsiness which interfered with his studies at night, 
 wrapped a wet towel round his head. When he was an 
 old man he recurred to these days as not unhappy, though 
 so laborious. At length, in the long vacation of 1775, 
 he bade adieu to Oxford, and moved with his little family 
 to a small house in Cursitor Street, near Chancery Lane. 
 Pointing to this house in his days of prosperity he would 
 say, " There was my first perch. Many a time have I 
 run down from Cursitor Street to Fleet Market to buy 
 sixpenn'orth of sprats for our supper." He received at 
 this juncture the kindly assistance of an eminent con- 
 veyancer, into whose office he was admitted without re- 
 muneration. This was Mr. Duane, a Roman Catholic, 
 and a most worthy and excellent man. Lord Eldon 
 loved to refer to this act of liberality, saying, " It was a 
 great kindness to me. The knowledge I acquired of
 
 Lord Eldon. 191 
 
 conveyancing in his office was of infinite service during 
 a long life in the Court of Chancery." Throughout the 
 six months agreed upon he worked almost night and day, 
 and to' supply the deficiency arising from his never 
 having been with any special pleader or equity draughts- 
 man, he copied all the MS. forms he could lay his hand 
 upon. Two large volumes compiled in this manner he 
 afterwards lost. He supposed he had lent them to some 
 forgetful borrower; and of such delinquents would some- 
 times say, " Though backward in accounting, they seem 
 to be practised in book-keeping? 
 
 For several years he found it very uphill-work, and 
 afterwards used to relate his troubles when climbing the 
 ladder, thus making his subsequent success the more 
 telling. " When first I was called to the Bar," he would 
 say, " Bessy and I thought all our troubles were over ; 
 business was to pour in, and we were to be almost rich 
 immediately." Alas ! these golden dreams were quickly 
 dissipated ; during the first year he received but one half 
 guinea, of which one shilling and sixpence went for fees ! 
 But he had a never-failing solace in his darkest hours of 
 discouragement in the loving devotedness of his wife, 
 who was his constant companion, accustomed herself to 
 his hours, and would sit up with him far into the night, 
 silently watching his studies, and moving cautiously lest 
 she should disturb or interrupt him. Her affection for 
 him was something touching to witness, and it was repaid 
 by the deep, earnest, and enduring love he bore her. 
 After a happy union of almost forty years he thus ad- 
 dressed her on the anniversary of their marriage : 
 
 " Can it, my lovely Bessy, be 
 That when near forty years arc past
 
 192 Lord Eldon. 
 
 I still my much-loved charmer see 
 Dearer and dearer at the last? 
 
 Nor time, nor years, nor age, nor care, 
 Believe me, lovely Bessy, will- 
 Much as this frame they daily wear 
 Affect the heart that's faithful still." 
 
 If these lines prove the great law lord then Chancellor 
 of England was not gifted with poetic genius, they 
 speak of something better even than that, and one's 
 heart warms with a feeling of kindly regard toward him 
 which would never have been awakened by anything 
 independent of the personal character and domestic ex- 
 cellence of the man. It is these endearing relationships 
 of life that produce and cherish true worth, and are the 
 appointed providential means of perpetuating all that is 
 good and lovely in the families of men upon the earth. 
 
 In his later years, we are told, Lord Eldon recurred 
 to the period of his poverty and obscurity as the happiest 
 of his life : for then, he said, " we were all in all to each 
 other, and she did many things for me which have never 
 been so well done since." There were fond attentions 
 none could pay as she did, cutting his hair, arranging 
 his linen and clothes for dress, and stealing to the win- 
 dow when he went out to watch him as he passed by. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this sweet drop in the cup, he 
 was not insensible to the discouragements that he en- 
 dured from the long delay in his professional rise. 
 " Business is very dull with poor Jack," wrote his kind 
 and ever-watchful brother; "and in consequence he is not 
 very lively ; I heartily wish that it may brisken a little, 
 else he will be heartily sick of his profession." In fact, 
 the "hope deferred" brought on such continued low 
 spirits that his health began to be seriously undermined.
 
 Lord Eldon. 193 
 
 He consulted an eminent physician, who sent him to 
 IJath in the expectation that the waters would bring on 
 a crisis of his disorder, as in fact proved to be the case, 
 and he came back improved. He used to tell that, 
 when he put his hand in his pocket to give the doctor 
 his fee, he was stopped with the question, "Are you the 
 young gentleman who gained the prize for the essay at 
 Oxford 1 Then I shall take no fee from you." 
 
 The Anecdote Book contains many stories of the in- 
 cidents that occurred to him when going the northern 
 circuit, where it was long before he obtained adequate 
 remuneration. One spring circuit he was absent from 
 York and Lancaster, being, as he said, unable to afford 
 the expense of attendance. It is related that the Rev. 
 Sidney Smith, in an assize sermon preached in York 
 Cathedral in 1824, said, for the encouragement of de- 
 sponding young barristers, " Fifty years ago, the person 
 at the head of the profession, the 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 individual of the profession here present." 
 
 But his time was at hand. At the very juncture when 
 he was about to leave London in despair, and to settle 
 as a provincial counsel in his native town, the tide turned 
 in his favour ; an admirable opportunity was afforded 
 him for the exhibition of his extraordinary merit as a 
 lawyer, and from that time his advancement was rapid 
 and steady. The circumstances of the case were thus 
 told by himself little more than three weeks before his 
 death, to Mr. Farrer, the Master in Chancery, who was 
 dining with him, and who inquired, "Whether Ack- 
 
 (132) 13
 
 194 Lord Eldon. 
 
 royd v. Smithson was not the first cause in which he 
 distinguished himself]" " Did I never tell you the his- 
 tory ?" was his reply. " Come, help yourself to a glass 
 of Newcastle port, and give me a little. You must 
 know that the testator in that cause had directed his real 
 estates to be sold, and, after paying his debts and funeral 
 and testamentary expenses, the residue of the money to 
 be divided into fifteen parts, which he gave to fifteen 
 persons whom he named in his will. One of these per- 
 sons died in the testator's life-time. A bill was filed by 
 the next of kin, claiming amongst other things the lapsed 
 share. A brief was given me to consent for the heir at 
 law, upon the hearing of the cause. I had nothing then 
 to do but to pore over this brief. I went through all 
 the cases in the books, and satisfied myself that the 
 lapsed share was to be considered as real estate, and 
 belonged to my client (the heir at law). The cause 
 came on at the Rolls, before Sir Thomas Sewell. I told 
 the solicitor who sent me the brief that I should consent 
 for the heir at law, so far as regarded the due execution 
 of the will, but that I must support the title of the heir 
 to the one-fifteenth, which had lapsed. Accordingly I 
 did argue it, and went through all the authorities. When 
 Sir Thomas Sewell went out of the court, he asked the 
 Register who that young man was ] The Register told 
 him it was Mr. Scott ' He has argued very well,' said 
 Sir Thomas Sewell, ' but I cannot agree with him.' This 
 the Register told me. He decreed against my client 
 
 "The cause having been carried, by appeal, to the 
 Lord Chancellor Thurlow, a guinea fee was again brought 
 to me to consent I told my client if he meant by 
 * consent ' to give up the claim of the heir to the lapsed
 
 Lord Eldon. 195 
 
 share, he must take his brief elsewhere, for I would not 
 hold it without arguing that point. He said something 
 about young men being obstinate, but that I must do as 
 I thought right. You see, the lucky thing was, there 
 being two other parties, and, the disappointed one not 
 being content, there was an appeal to Lord Thurlow. 
 
 " In the meanwhile they had written to Mr. Johnston, 
 Recorder of York, guardian to the young heir at law, 
 and a clever man, but his answer was, ' Do not send 
 good money after bad : let Mr. Scott have a guinea to 
 give consent, and if he will argue, why let him do so, but 
 give him no more.' 
 
 "So I went into court, and when Lord Thurlow 
 asked who was to appear for the heir at law, I rose, and 
 said modestly, that I was ; and as I could not but think 
 (with much deference to the Master of the Rolls, for I 
 might be wrong), that my client had the right to the 
 property, if his lordship would give me leave I would 
 argue it. 
 
 " It was rather arduous for me to rise against all the 
 eminent counsel. I do not say that their opinions were 
 against me; but they were employed against me. How- 
 ever, I argued that the testator had ordered this fifteenth 
 share of the property to be converted into personal pro- 
 perty, for the benefit of one particular individual, and 
 that therefore he never contemplated its coming into 
 possession of either the next of kin or the residuary 
 legatee; but, being land at the death of the individual, 
 it came to the heir at law. Well, Thurlow took three 
 days to consider, and then delivered his judgment in 
 accordance with my speech, and that speech is in print, 
 and has decided all similar questions ever since.
 
 196 Lord Eldon. 
 
 "As I left the hall, a respectable solicitor of the name 
 of Forster, came up and touched me on the shoulder, and 
 said, ' Young man, your bread and butter is cut for life,' 
 or, ' you have cut your bread and butter.' 
 
 "But the story of Ackroyd \. Smithson does not stop 
 there. In the Chancellor's Court of Lancaster, where 
 Dunning (Lord Ashburton) was Chancellor, a brief was 
 given me in a cause in which the interest of my client 
 would oblige me to support by argument the reverse of 
 that which had been decided by the decree in Ackroyd 
 v. Smithson. When I had stated to the court the point 
 I was going to argue, Dunning said, ' Sit down, young 
 man.' As I did not immediately comply, he repeated, 
 'Sit down, sir; I won't hear you.' I then sat down. 
 Dunning said, ' I believe your name is Scott, sir.' I said 
 that it was. Upon which he went on ' Mr. Scott, did 
 you not argue that case of Ackroyd z/. Smithson?' I said 
 that I did argue it. He then said, ' Mr. Scott, I have 
 read your argument in that case, and I defy you or any 
 man in England to answer it. I won't hear you.' " 
 
 It is no wonder that this argument made a great sensa- 
 tion in Westminster Hall. From that day the happy and 
 deservedly successful debutant took rank among those 
 greatly envied lawyers who 
 
 " From morn to night at Senate, Rolls, and Hall, 
 Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all." 
 
 With diligence, ability, and usefulness he worked his 
 upward way, the door being now open to him, which 
 was, in fact, all he had needed. In a short time, as he 
 was found to be rapidly getting into the lead, a silk gown 
 was offered to him without solicitation; and, soon after. 
 lie was returned to Parliament, under the auspices of
 
 Lord Eldon. 197 
 
 Lord Thurlow, who thenceforward was his steady friend 
 and patron, while, from his circuit and town practice, he 
 began to count a yearly saving, which at length accumu- 
 lated to a princely fortune. 
 
 Here, then, having seen the future Lord Chancellor on 
 the high road to wealth and distinction, we will take our 
 leave of him; but, for the amusement of the reader, I 
 shall add a few of the more characteristic and piquant 
 anecdotes which he stored up, and, as long as he lived, 
 delighted in his jocular hours to relate. 
 
 The Anecdote Book contained some amusing recol- 
 lections belonging to the period of his official service. 
 " When I was Solicitor or Attorney-General," said he, 
 " we had this ingenious case of smuggling proved : 
 A person at Dover smuggled three thousand pairs of 
 French gloves. He sent all the right-hand gloves to 
 London. They were seized and sold. Nobody would 
 buy right-hand gloves; the smuggler, therefore, bought 
 them for a mere trifle. He then, having secured the 
 right-hand gloves, sent the three thousand left-handed 
 gloves to London. They were also seized, sold, and 
 of course bought by him for a nominal price. Thus 
 he became possessed of them, though contraband, ac- 
 cording to law, and, as a smuggler would say, in an 
 honest way." 
 
 At another time, a case was brought before him for 
 the recovery of a dog, which the defendant had stolen, 
 and detained from the plaintiff, its owner. " We had," 
 said he, " a great deal of evidence, and the dog was 
 brought into court, and placed on the table between 
 the judge and witnesses. He was a very fine dog, very 
 large and very fierce, so much so, that I ordered a
 
 198 LordEldon. 
 
 muzzle to be put on it. Well, we could come to no 
 decision, when a woman all in rags came forward, and 
 said, if I would allow her to get into the witness-box, she 
 thought she could say something that would decide the 
 cause. Well, she was sworn just as she was, all rags 
 and tatters, and leant forward towards the animal, 
 and said, 'Come, Billy, come and kiss me!' The 
 savage-looking dog instantly raised itself on its hind legs, 
 put its immense paws around her neck, and saluted 
 her. She had brought it up from a puppy. These 
 words, 'Come, Billy, come and kiss me,' decided the 
 
 Lord Eldon was very fond of dogs. He had a New- 
 foundland which, for many years, acted as guard at 
 Encombe House, his country mansion;" and for this 
 animal he designed a tombstone, and wrote an elaborate 
 inscription, recording its fidelity and attachment But 
 his great favourite, the constant companion of his latter 
 days, was Pincher, a poodle dog, which had belonged to 
 his eldest son, a most promising young man, who died 
 in the prime of life. He used to caress this animal, and 
 tell how his poor son, when he was in extremis, said, 
 " Father, you will take care of poor Pincher." The dog 
 was brought to his new master's house as soon as all was 
 over. In a short time he was missed, and being imme- 
 diately sought for, was found lying on the bed beside his 
 dead master. 
 
 Pincher was often introduced into the portraits of the 
 Chancellor, who said, "Poor fellow! he has a right to 
 be painted with me, for when my man Smith took him 
 the other day to a law bookseller's, where there were 
 several lawyers assembled, they all received him with
 
 /, ord Eldon. \ 99 
 
 great respect; and the master of the shop exclaimed, 
 ' How very like he is to old Eldon, particularly when he 
 wore a wig!' But, indeed, many people say he is the 
 better looking chap of the two!" 
 
 Lord Eldon used to relate many stories of the stu- 
 pidity and incapacity of jurymen. " I remember," said 
 Mr. Justice Gould trying a cause at York; and 
 when he had proceeded for about two hours, he ob- 
 served, ' Here are only eleven jurymen in the box: where 
 is the twelfth?' ' Please you, my lord,' said one of the 
 eleven, 'he is gone away about some business; but he 
 has left his verdict with me.' At another time, coming 
 down the steps from the Exchequer into Westminster, 
 I followed two common jurymen, when I was a law 
 officer of the crown, and I overheard one say to the 
 other, ' I think we have given the crown verdicts enough: 
 we may as well give them no more.'" 
 
 " Once," said he, " I had a very handsome offer made 
 me. I was pleading for the rights of the inhabitants of 
 the Isle of Man. Now, I had been reading in Coke, and 
 I found there that the people of that island were no 
 beggars. So, in my speech, I said, ' The people of the 
 isle are no beggars; I therefore do not beg their rights 
 I demand them.' This so pleased an old smuggler 
 who was present, that, when the trial was over, he 
 called me aside and said, ' I'll tell you what, young 
 gentleman ; you shall have my daughter if you will 
 marry her, and ^100,000 for her fortune.' That was a 
 very handsome offer; but I told him I had a wife who 
 had nothing for her fortune, therefore I must stick to 
 her." 
 
 When Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, the follow-
 
 200 Lord Eldon. 
 
 ing amusing case came before him at Exeter. He had 
 to try a number of tailors, who were indicted before him 
 for a riot arising out of a combination for a rise of 
 wages. A witty barrister, who was retained for the 
 defendants, cross-examining a witness as to the number 
 present, his lordship reminded him, that as, according 
 to law, " three may make a riot," the inquiry was irrele- 
 vant. " Yes, my lord," was the reply, " Hale and 
 Hawkins lay down the law as your lordship states it, and 
 I rely on their authority; for, if there must be three men 
 to make a riot, the rioters being tailors, there must be 
 nine times three present; and, unless the prosecutor 
 makes out that there were twenty-seven joining in this 
 breach of the peace, my clients are entitled, to an ac- 
 quittal." The Lord Chief-Justice (joining in the laugh) 
 said, " Do you rely on common law or statute?" " My 
 lord, I rely on the well-known maxim, as old as Magna 
 Charta, Nine tailors make a man!" Lord Eldon over- 
 ruled the objection; but the jury took the, law from the 
 counsel instead of the judge, and acquitted all the de- 
 fendants. 
 
 It is well known that Lord Eldon's dilatoriness and 
 propensity to doubt were a constant subject of complaint 
 and lamentation with the unfortunate suitors in Chan- 
 cery. The following admirable/*?/* d 1 esprit, from the pen 
 of Sir George Rose, professed to be a full record of all 
 that occurred during one day's sitting of the court when 
 his lordship presided : 
 
 " Mr. Leach 
 
 Made a speech, 
 Impressive, clear, and strong ; 
 
 Mr. Hart, 
 
 On the other part, 
 Was tedious, dull, and long.
 
 Lord Eldon. 201 
 
 Mr. Parker 
 
 Made that darker 
 Which was dark enough without ; 
 
 Mr. Bell, 
 
 He spoke so well, 
 That the Chancellor said, ' I doubt ! ' " 
 
 This effusion, flying about Westminster Hall, reached 
 the Chancellor, who was greatly amused by it, notwith- 
 standing its allusion to his own great defect. Shortly 
 after, Mr. Rose, having to argue a case before him, 
 received from him the following well-turned retort : 
 Giving his opinion with much gravity, he concluded 
 thus " For which reasons, the judgment must be 
 against your clients; and here, Mr. Rose, the Chancellor 
 does not doubt" 
 
 Lord Eldon was fond of telling a story of a very old 
 lady, a peeress, who came into court in person, when 
 Lord Thurlow was Chancellor, to be examined touching 
 her consent to the transfer of some property. This busi- 
 ness being done, Lord Thurlow said he would not 
 detain her. " But," said she, " I should be glad if your 
 lordship would let me stay a little longer, for my cause 
 has now been in court eighty-two years, and I want to 
 know how they are going on about settling it." This 
 anecdote served him very well when there were al- 
 lusions made to the delays in Chancery in his own 
 time. 
 
 His facetiousness was often embellished by the kind- 
 heartedness and good humour which accompanied it. 
 Once when travelling the circuit in company with a 
 friend, who (according to a not uncommon usage in those 
 days) carried pistols with him, which he placed beside 
 his bed at night, they slept at a village inn, when, at
 
 2O2 Lord Eldon. 
 
 dawn of day, Mr. Scott found in his chamber a figure 
 dressed in black. Being sharply challenged, the in- 
 truder said, " I am only a poor sweep, sir, and I believe 
 I have come down the wrong chimney."" My friend," 
 was his answer, you have come down the right; for I 
 give you a sixpence to buy a pot of beer, and the gentle- 
 man in the next room sleeps with pistols at his pillow, 
 and he would have blown your brains out had you paid 
 him a visit." 
 
 It chanced, one day, as he was looking at his own 
 picture in the Exhibition, two lively damsels placed 
 themselves in front of him, and began to criticise it; one 
 saying to the other, " I think, dear, we have seen enough 
 of that 'stern-looking Chancellor, so let us go on." Where- 
 upon he said, with a smile and his best bow, " And yet, 
 young ladies, if you knew him, he would be happy to 
 convince you that he is really a good-tempered old gentle- 
 man." 
 
 When in his eightieth year, he was still robust and 
 hale enough to take exercise on foot; and being one day 
 walking in St. James's Street, he fell in with a crowd 
 gathered to see some passing cavalcade. Suddenly he 
 felt a man's hand in one of his pockets; but as, luckily, 
 it was not the one which contained his purse, he was 
 content to laugh at the thief's disappointment; and quietly 
 turning to him, said, " Ah, friend ! you were wrong there : 
 this other was the side where the grab lay!" 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, when in the countiy, amused 
 himself with feeding his dogs and following the game, 
 but, although he had all his life been fond of handling a 
 gun, he was a wretched sportsman. As he wandered 
 about the fields in a shabby jacket, with gaiters and
 
 Lord Eldon. 203 
 
 a weather-beaten hat, his official dignity was little guessed 
 at by strangers. In consequence he had several curious 
 rencontres ; one of which he thus related : " I unfor- 
 tunately crossed a lane in pursuit of my game, and in 
 the second field from this lane I was accosted by a 
 powerful and almost savage looking farmer, who chal- 
 lenged me as the poacher for whom he had long been 
 in wait. I at once acknowledged that I might have 
 made a mistake as to his land, and offered to turn back 
 immediately, but this did not at all pacify him, for put- 
 ting himself in front of me, he declared that I should not 
 stir till he knew who I was and where to be found. I 
 tried to evade giving a description of myself by renewed 
 offers of departure and a promise not to return, but this 
 did but increase his violence, and so I was at last forced 
 to acknowledge that I was the Lord Chancellor, a com- 
 munication which was so far from allaying his ire that it 
 did but increase its fury, for in language which looked 
 very like earnest, he swore that, of all the impudent 
 answers he ever got, mine was the most impudent, and 
 I verily believe he would have laid hands on me if 
 my tall footman (one of the finest young men I ever 
 saw), had not come up to us and addressed me as, My 
 lord." 
 
 In his own adopted county, Dorsetshire, he was re- 
 garded with great veneration, as the following ludicrous 
 anecdote proves : " When out shooting at Encombe 
 (said he), we went through a field where a boy was em- 
 ployed to drive off the crows and the rooks from the 
 new-sown wheat I perceived the boy following us in 
 our sport at least a mile from that field. ' My boy,' said 
 I, ' how came you to leave your work 1 The birds will
 
 2O4 Lord Eldon. 
 
 get all the wheat.' ' Oh, no, my lord,' said the boy 
 (he must have been an own cousin of the " Artful 
 Dodger "), ' they saw your lordship in the field, and they 
 won't dare come again, now they know your lordship 
 has been there.' " 
 
 He was rather a strict preserver of his game, though 
 generally disposed to deal leniently with offenders in a 
 personal encounter. One day he required a half-pay 
 captain to show his certificate. " Who are you ?" said 
 the trespasser, " I suppose one of old Bags' keepers." 
 " No," replied the Chancellor with a smile, " I am old 
 Bags himself." 
 
 His conclusion of each sporting season at Encombe is 
 said to have been a perfect jubilee for all his dogs. 
 Pointers, spaniels, Newfoundlanders, terriers, &c., all, in 
 short, of every kind and description, were turned out, 
 and permitted to share in the fun. Their kind-hearted 
 master took more pleasure in the enjoyment of these 
 four-footed retainers, than in securing a large amount of 
 game. It is said that one day, as he was preparing to 
 leave the house for a day's sport, the gamekeeper 
 ordered back some useless dogs of the pack, which forth- 
 with uttered a whine of lamentation. Lord Eldon desired 
 they should be allowed to accompany the party, and on 
 the gamekeeper's remonstrating and saying they would 
 probably destroy the sport, " Oh, never mind," was the 
 answer, " let them go, poor things, 'tis a pity they should 
 not have the enjoyment." 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter by quoting one more 
 illustration of his kind-heartedness, united in this in- 
 stance also with his characteristic love of fun. This 
 was his answer to an application for a piece of prefer-
 
 Lord Eldon. 205 
 
 ment from his old friend Dr. Fisher, of the Charter 
 House : 
 
 " DEAR FISHER, I cannot, to-day, give you the prefer- 
 ment for which you ask. 
 
 " I remain your sincere friend, 
 
 "ELDON. 
 " Turn over." 
 
 Then, on the other side, 
 
 " I gave it you yesterday." 
 
 Referring to Lord Eldon's powers of conversation, 
 Lord Brougham says : " In relating anecdotes he ex- 
 celled most men, and had an abundant store of them, 
 though, of course, from the habit of his life they were 
 chiefly professional, his application of them to passing 
 events was singularly happy. The mingled grace and 
 dignity of his demeanour added no small charm to his 
 whole commerce with society, and, although ( the two 
 brothers differed exceedingly in this respect, it was usual 
 to observe that, except Sir W. Scott, no man was so 
 agreeable as Lord Eldon."
 
 XII. 
 
 Sir Smmittl |latmlltj. 
 
 )RD BROUGHAM, in his "Sketches of 
 Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of 
 George III.," has given a most eloquent 
 eloge of Sir S. Romilly. After dwelling with delight on 
 the unsullied purity and elevated morality of his char- 
 acter, he pronounces him " a person of the most natural 
 and simple manners, and one in whom the kindest 
 charities and warmest feelings of human nature were 
 blended in the largest measure with firmness of purpose 
 and unrelaxed sincerity of principle." He goes on to 
 say, further, that his capacity was of the highest order, 
 and that the rare qualities he possessed, under the 
 guidance of the most persevering industry, and with the 
 stimulus of a lofty ambition, rendered him unquestionably 
 the first advocate and the most profound lawyer of the 
 age he flourished in, and placed him high among the 
 ornaments of the senate. He adds, "As his practice, 
 so his authority at the bar and with the bench was un- 
 exampled, and his success in Parliament was great and 
 progressive." 
 
 After reading this eloquent eulogium,we eagerly inquire 
 by what training did this admirable individual succeed
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly. 207 
 
 in reaching so rare an excellence, and who were the 
 great masters that taught him knowledge, directed him 
 in the acquirement of his various information, and regu- 
 lated the method of his self-culture ? Happily he has 
 given us a beautiful sketch of his early life, in which he 
 satisfies our curiosity on these points to the utmost. 
 
 Sir S. Romilly was born in London, on the ist March 
 1757. His grandfather, a French Protestant, was en- 
 titled by inheritance to a considerable landed estate at 
 Montpellier, but, when about seventeen years old, he 
 made a journey to Geneva, where he met with the cele- 
 brated Saurin, who happened to be on a visit there. So 
 great was the impression left upon the mind of the 
 youth by the conversation he had with this extraordinary 
 man, that he came to a determination to abandon for 
 ever his native country, his friends, and the inheritance 
 that awaited him, and to trust to his own industry for a 
 subsistence amidst strangers and in a foreign land, that 
 he might enjoy the blessings of civil and religious 
 liberty. 
 
 This purpose he carried into effect, and after a time 
 succeeded in establishing himself in the business of a 
 wax-bleacher, near London. He had a numerous family, 
 and enjoyed a season of prosperity, but in the end ex- 
 perienced sad reverses of fortune. His father, who had 
 assisted him with remittances, died, and a distant rela- 
 tion, being the next Catholic heir, succeeded to the 
 family estate. Difficulties soon multiplied upon him, and 
 bankruptcy and poverty were the consequences. Unable 
 to endure these calamities, his spirit sank, and he died 
 broken-hearted at the early age of forty-nine, leaving a 
 widow with eight children.
 
 208 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 The youngest of this orphan family was Peter, the 
 father of Sir Samuel, who was brought up to the trade of 
 a jeweller, in which he became successful and eminent 
 His illustrious son drew an attractive portrait of this 
 worthy man : 
 
 " He used often to talk to his children of the pleasure of 
 doing good, and of the rewards which virtue found in itself; 
 and from his lips that doctrine came to us, not as a dry 
 and illusive precept, but as a heart-felt truth, and as the 
 fruit of the happiest experience. All his amusements 
 were such as his home only could afford him. He was 
 fond of reading, and he had formed for himself a small, 
 but a tolerably well-chosen library. He was an admirer 
 of the fine arts, but pictures being too costly for his pur- 
 chase, he limited himself to prints ; and in the latter 
 part of his life, as he grew richer, indulging himself in 
 this innocent luxury to a degree perhaps of extravagance, 
 he had at last a very large and valuable collection. He 
 took pleasure in gardening, and he hired a small garden, 
 in which he passed during the summer most of the few 
 leisure hours his business afforded him. 
 
 " Naturally, my father was of the most cheerful disposi- 
 tion, always in good humour, always kind and indulgent, 
 always even in the worst circumstances disposed to expect 
 the best, enjoying all the good he met with in life, and con- 
 soling himself in adversity with the hope that itwould not be 
 of long duration." Having lost several children in infancy, 
 Mr. Romilly, thinking the air of the town was unhealthy, 
 hired some lodgings for his family at Marylebone, " then 
 a small village, about a mile distant from town," and he 
 had the happiness of succeeding in this experiment, for 
 all the three children born afterwards lived to years of
 
 Sir Samuel Koinilly. 209 
 
 maturity. His mother's health being very ailing, little 
 Samuel, with his brother and sister, were principally 
 brought up by a kind and pious relative, Mrs. Margaret 
 Facquier, who had lived in the family many years. 
 When she was incapable of attending to her charge from 
 sickness, they were intrusted to the care of a maid- 
 servant, named Mary Evans, a kind-hearted, loving girl, 
 who completely won the affections of the children, 
 especially Samuel, who says of her : " She was to me in 
 the place of a mother. I loved her to adoration. I 
 remember when quite a child, unseen by her, kissing the 
 clothes which she wore, and when she once entertained 
 a design of quitting our family, going up into my room 
 in an agony of affliction, and imploring God upon my 
 knees to avert so great a calamity." 
 
 From his earliest infancy this gifted child was of a 
 serious and somewhat melancholy disposition. He was 
 also possessed of a lively imagination, easily alarmed by 
 stories of witches and apparitions, and filled with terror 
 by relations of murders and acts of cruelty. The prints 
 which he found in the " Lives of the Martyrs " and the 
 " Newgate Calendar " cost him many sleepless nights, 
 and he was often so agitated with these impressions as 
 to be equally afraid of remaining awake in the dark, and 
 of falling asleep to encounter the terrors of his dreams. 
 
 This morbid sensitiveness took the shape of a constant 
 dread lest his beloved father should be seized from him 
 by death, and, if he were absent from home but an hour 
 longer than usual, the little self-tormentor conjured up a 
 thousand accidents, and when put to bed, lay sleepless 
 and wretched until he heard the well-known knock at 
 the hall door. 
 
 f 14
 
 2io Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 " My imagination," he says, " was the faculty which I 
 most exercised, and it was often very busily employed 
 when those about me were little aware of it. During 
 the winter months we were always very regular on Sun- 
 days in our attendance at church. My father had a pew 
 in one of the French chapels which had been established 
 when the Protestant refugees first emigrated into Eng- 
 land, and he required us to attend alternately there and 
 at the parish church. It was a kind of homage to the 
 faith of his ancestors, and it was a means of rendering 
 the French language familiar to us ; but nothing was 
 ever worse calculated to inspire the mind of a child with 
 respect for religion than such a kind of religious wor- 
 ship. ... A large uncouth room, which presented to the 
 view only irregular unpainted pews and dusty plastered 
 walls ; a congregation consisting principally of some 
 strange-looking old women, scattered here and there ; 
 and a clergyman reading the service and preaching in a 
 monotonous tone of voice and in a language not familiar 
 to me, was not likely either to impress my mind with 
 much religious awe, or to attract my attention to the 
 doctrines which were delivered. In truth, I did not even 
 attempt to attend to .them ; my mind was wandering to 
 other subjects, and disporting itself in much gayer scenes 
 than those before me, and little of religion was mixed in 
 my reveries." 
 
 His education "if, indeed," he says, "the little 
 instruction I ever received from masters deserves to be 
 so called " was miserably defective. He was sent with 
 his brother to a day school frequented by the children 
 of the French refugees in London, the master of which 
 was ignorant, and tyrannical, and incompetent to instruct
 
 Sir Samuel Ron illy. 21 1 
 
 his pupils in anything beyond reading, writing, and the 
 elements of the French language. It had been Mr. 
 Romilly's particular wish that his younger son should 
 learn Latin, but, although it was professedly taught at 
 the school, neither master nor ushers could construe a 
 sentence of the easiest Latin prose ; it is needless to say 
 their pupils remained ignorant The motive of the 
 worthy jeweller in this wish had been his intention to 
 bring up Samuel to the business of a solicitor. He 
 accordingly endeavoured by his conversation to give the 
 lad a favourable opinion of the way of life of a lawyer 
 ' or rather of an attorney, for his ideas certainly soared 
 no higher." But unfortunately for the success of his 
 plan, the only attorney known to Mr. Romilly's family 
 was by no means an attractive specimen of the genus. 
 " He was a shortish fat man, with a ruddy countenance, 
 which always shone as if besmeared with grease; a large 
 wig, which sat loose from his head ; his eyes constantly 
 half shut and drowsy; all his motions slow and deliberate, 
 and his words slabbered out as. if he had not exertion 
 enough to articulate. His dark and gloomy house was 
 filled with dusty papers and voluminous parchment 
 deeds ; and in his meagre library I did not see a single 
 volume which I should not have been deterred by its 
 external appearance from opening. The idea of a lawyer 
 
 and of Mr. L were so identified in my mind, that I 
 
 looked upon the profession with disgust, and entreated 
 my father to think of an> way of life for me but that" 
 
 It was then proposed to place him in the commercial 
 house of the Fludyers, who were near relations of his 
 family, and one of whom, Sir Samuel Fludyer, was his 
 godfather. With a view to this employment, he received
 
 2 1 2 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 instruction in book-keeping and mercantile accounts, but 
 the death of both the partners in the house of Fludyer 
 put an end to this promising project; and his father, 
 having failed in several other schemes for his settlement, 
 eventually employed him in his own trade, at first merely 
 to give him employment, and afterwards with the in- 
 tention that both brothers should succeed to his business, 
 which, if skilfully managed, would afford an ample 
 provision for them. 
 
 During the intervals of leisure which this new employ- 
 ment afforded him, the youth amused himself by reading 
 indiscriminately all kinds of books which fell in his way. 
 After a short experience he found his father's business 
 not at all to his taste, and began to lament that he had 
 not been educated for some literary profession. He 
 considered that it was not yet too late for him, with an 
 abundance of zeal, to make a very great progress ; and 
 when between fifteen and sixteen years of age, applied 
 himself seriously to learn Latin, and having mastered the 
 grammar, took daily an hour's lesson of a Scotchman 
 named Paterson, who was a good scholar and carefully 
 corrected the Latin exercises of his pupil. With this 
 assistance, by means of hard study, he acquired con- 
 siderable proficiency. He says, " In the course of three 
 or four years during which I thus applied myself, I had 
 read every prose writer of the ages of pure Latin ity, 
 except those who have treated merely of technical 
 subjects, such as Varro, Columella, and Celsus. I had 
 gone three times through the whole of Livy, Sallust, and 
 Tacitus ; I had read all Cicero (with two or three ex- 
 ceptions). I had studied the most celebrated of his 
 orations, his Lcelius, his Cato Major, his treatise DC
 
 Sir Samuel Roini/ly. 2 1 3 
 
 Oratore, and his Letters, and had translated a great part 
 of them. Terence, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Juvenal I 
 had read again and again. From Ovid and from Virgil 
 I made many translations in verse. At the time, they 
 appeared to me to have such merit, that I remember 
 reading with triumph, first Dryden's translation and then 
 my own, to my good-natured relations, who concurred 
 with me in thinking that I had left poor Dryden at a 
 most humiliating distance ; a proof certainly, not of the 
 merit of my verses, but of the badness of my judgment, 
 the excess of my vanity, and the blind partiality of my 
 friends." 
 
 He adds that he also attempted the study of Greek, 
 but without success, and contented himself with studying 
 the Greek authors by means of Latin versions. . In 
 addition to his classical studies he also read books of 
 travel and history, and this always with maps before him, 
 by which means he acquired a tolerable knowledge of 
 geography. He also gave some attention to natural 
 history, and attended private lectures on natural philo- 
 sophy, and lectures on painting, architecture, and 
 anatomy delivered at the Royal Academy. 
 
 " Such," he says, " were my pursuits and my amuse- 
 ments ;" and by his perseverance and unaided efforts to 
 refine his taste and store his mind with elegant and 
 useful knowledge, he was gradually preparing himself for 
 his future honourable and exalted career. About this 
 time a series of happy events took place in the young 
 man's family. His mother's health, as she advanced in 
 years, greatly improved, and the family circle was 
 enlarged and enlivened by the addition of two young 
 girls, the daughters of Mr. Romilly's brother, and who
 
 214 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 had been left orphans by the sudden death of their 
 parents within a few days of each other. The pecuniary 
 means, too, of the household had been largely increased 
 by considerable legacies, among them a bequest of 
 ^2000 to Samuel Romilly; a most seasonable and 
 happy event for him, as it enabled him to gratify his 
 wish and to adopt a profession in accordance with his 
 aspirations. 
 
 All these important occurrences came like sunshine to 
 cheer the spirit and animate the hopes of the future 
 Solicitor-General. His description of the domestic 
 manage is charming : " Upon receiving so large an 
 accession to his fortune my father removed out of his 
 country lodgings into a house still, however, at Maryle- 
 bone. There our whole family now resided throughout 
 the year, what had been our town house being appro- 
 priated entirely to business. Our new house was in 
 High Street, and, to judge from its external appearance, 
 its narrow form, its two small windows on a floor, and 
 the little square piece of ground behind it, which was 
 dignified with the name of a garden, one would have 
 supposed that very scanty and very homely indeed must 
 have been this our comparative opulence and luxury. 
 But those who had mingled in our family, and had hearts 
 to feel in what real happiness consists, would have formed 
 a very different judgment. They would have found a 
 lively, youthful, and accomplished society, blest with 
 every enjoyment that an endearing home can afford ; a 
 society united by a similarity of tastes, dispositions, and 
 affections, as well as by the strongest ties of blood. 
 They would have admired our lively, varied, and innocent 
 pleasures ; our summer rides and walks in the cheerful
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly. 2 \ 5 
 
 country, which was close to us ; our winter evening 
 occupations of drawing, while one of us read aloud some 
 interesting book, or the eldest of my cousins played and 
 sang to us with exquisite taste and expression ; the little 
 banquets with which we celebrated the anniversary of 
 my father's wedding, and of the birth of every member 
 of our happy society; and the dances with which, in 
 spite of the smallness of our rooms, we were frequently 
 indulged. 
 
 " I cannot recollect the days, happily I may say the 
 years, which thus passed away, without the most lively 
 emotion. I love to transport myself in idea into our 
 little parlour with its green paper, and the beautiful 
 prints of Vivares, Bartolozzi, and Strange, from the 
 pictures of Claude, Caracci, Raphael, and Correggio 
 with which its walls were elegantly adorned ; and to call 
 au,aiu to mind the familiar and affectionate society of 
 young and old intermixed, which was gathered round 
 the fire ; and even the Italian greyhound, the cat, and 
 the spaniel, which lay in perfect harmony, basking before 
 it. I delight to see the door open that I may recognise 
 the friendly countenances of the servants, and, above all, 
 of the old nurse, to whom we were all endeared, because 
 it was while she attended my mother that her health had 
 so much improved." 
 
 It is distressing to learn that, with such means of 
 happiness and in the midst of enjoyments so well suited 
 to his temper and disposition, this amiable being was 
 not completely happy. The melancholy to which he 
 had from childhood been subject, at intervals oppressed 
 him ; and his enjoyment was often poisoned by the 
 reflection that at some time or other it must end. There
 
 216 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 can be no question these anxious feelings were the effect 
 of disease, and it is deeply painful to reflect that he 
 eventually fell a victim to a paroxysm of this congenital 
 malady. 
 
 In the meantime, the dislike which young Romilly 
 conceived for his father's business increasing every day, 
 he earnestly longed for some other employment. His 
 indulgent father readily listened to his wishes, and it was 
 determined, after consultation with friends, that he should 
 be articled for five years to one of the sworn clerks in 
 Chancery. The mechanical duties of this office, though 
 in some degree enlivened by his master's practice as a 
 solicitor, were scarcely more attractive to him than his 
 attendance upon his father's business. He found no amuse- 
 ment, and took but little interest in them ; but they left him 
 a great deal of leisure, which he turned to the best possible 
 account. " I had soon laid out," he says, " the plan of 
 my future life ; which was to follow my profession just 
 as far as was necessary for my subsistence, and to aspire 
 to fame by my literary pursuits." With this object he 
 resumed his studies with the utmost diligence, particularly 
 devoting himself to strenuous exercise in prose composi- 
 tion; and also reading and studying the best English 
 writers, noting with critical accuracy their modes of 
 expression. 
 
 While thus engaged, he formed an acquaintance which 
 had no small influence upon all the subsequent events of 
 his life. It was that of Mr. John Roget, a clergyman 
 and a native of Geneva, who had been chosen minister 
 of the French chapel at which the Romillys attended. 
 Of this gentleman, who afterwards became his brother- 
 in-law, he speaks with ardent praise, describing his official
 
 Sir Samuel Rom illy. 2 1 7 
 
 services as marked by taste and eloquence, and himself 
 as possessed of an ardent mind, a rich imagination, and 
 exquisite sensibility. Immediately upon his arrival in 
 England he became intimate with the family of Mr. 
 Romilly, and greatly attached himself to Samuel, with 
 whom he conversed about his studies, encouraging him 
 to persevere in them, and often pronouncing the most 
 favourable predictions as to his success in the attainment 
 of superior excellence, and his rise in the profession he 
 had chosen. 
 
 Sir S. Romilly's narrative is divided into two parts. 
 The former was written when he had just attained his 
 twenty-first year, and when his prospects were uncertain 
 and his fortune yet to be made. He resumed his story 
 when he had reached his fifty-sixth year. He was then 
 the object of public attention, had attained to the highest 
 rank in his profession, had filled the office of Solicitor- 
 General, been knighted, and long occupied a place in 
 the highest council of the realm, deservedly beloved and 
 honoured as a public benefactor, by whose wise and 
 philanthropic counsels the best interests of his country- 
 men were largely promoted. 
 
 During fifteen years he had tasted the choicest bless- 
 ings of domestic life, and it was indeed for the sake of 
 his children he was induced to resume the narrative of 
 his early days. After a short introduction he thus con- 
 tinues his autobiography: 
 
 " I had completed my twenty-first year before my 
 resolution was taken, as to the course I should adopt 
 The encouragement 1 had received from Roget had in- 
 clined me, not only to continue in my profession, but to 
 look up to a superior rank in it, and I accordingly
 
 2 1 8 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 determined, at this late period of life, to qualify myself 
 for the bar, and entered myself of the Society of Gray's 
 Inn, took there a very pleasant set of chambers, which 
 overlooked the gardens; arranged my little collection of 
 books about me, and began with great ardour the painful 
 study of the law." 
 
 He was principally influenced in adopting this decision 
 by a dislike to embarrass his father by withdrawing from 
 his hands the bequest before alluded to, a step which 
 would have been necessary had he carried out his 
 original intention of purchasing a seat in the Six Clerks' 
 Office, at the expiration of his articles. " At a later 
 season of my life," he writes, "after a success at the bar 
 which my wildest and most sanguine dreams had never 
 painted to me, when I was gaining an income of ^"8,000 
 or ^9,000 a year, I have often reflected how all that 
 prosperity had arisen out of the pecuniary difficulties and 
 confined circumstances of my father. There was another 
 circumstance, which, though a trifling one, I ought to 
 mention, for it certainly had some influence over the 
 judgment which I exercised. The works of Thomas 
 had fallen into my hands; I had read with admiration 
 his Eloge of Daguesseau ; and the career of glory which 
 he represents that illustrious magistrate to have run, had 
 excited to a very great degree my ardour and my 
 ambition, and opened to my imagination new paths of 
 glory." 
 
 He was now advised to become the pupil of some 
 Chancery draftsman for a couple of years, and for the 
 first year to confine himself merely to reading under his 
 direction and with his assistance. This plan he pursued 
 with great advantage, forming a common-place book as
 
 Sir Samite/ Romilly. 2 1 9 
 
 he read, which he found of the greatest use, indeed, in- 
 dispensable to the profitable study of law reports. Nor 
 did he confine himself to law alone, but still pursued his 
 literary exercises, translating and composing, endeavour- 
 ing to form for himself an elegant and correct style, 
 employing much of his time in translating the Latin 
 historians and orators, occasionally writing political 
 essays for the newspape'rs (which he was much gratified 
 to find were always inserted), and sometimes attending 
 the houses of Parliament, exercising his powers by 
 making imaginary answers to the speeches which he 
 heard there. 
 
 The close application with which he pursued these 
 studies before long proved injurious to his health, and in 
 the spring of 1780 he went to drink the waters at Bath, 
 but did not experience much benefit In the beginning 
 of June in that year broke out that extraordinary insur- 
 rection excited by Lord George Gordon, which, says Sir 
 S. Romilly, has hardly any parallel in our history. " In 
 a moment of profound peace and of perfect security the 
 metropolis found itself on a sudden abandoned, as it 
 were, to the plunder and the fury of a bigoted and frantic 
 populace. One night, the flames were seen ascending 
 from nine or ten different conflagrations, kindled by 
 these unresisted insurgents. The Inns of Court were 
 marked out as objects of destruction, and Gray's Inn, 
 in which many Catholics resided, was particularly ob- 
 noxious. The barristers and students of the different 
 Inns of Court determined to arm themselves in their own 
 defence; I did as others did, was up a whole night under 
 arms, and stood as sentinel for several hours at the gate 
 in Holborn."
 
 22O Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 This fatigue and the excessive heat of the weather 
 greatly aggravated his malady, and throughout the whole 
 of the following winter he was a confirmed invalid. The 
 following spring saw him no better, and he became 
 possessed with the idea that his health was irrevocably 
 lost, that he should be a wretched valetudinarian for the 
 rest of his days, and that all his bright hopes for the 
 future were at an end. 
 
 Fortunately he was induced to try the effect of a 
 journey to Switzerland, and a visit to his sister and brother- 
 in-law, M. Roget, who had taken up their residence at 
 Geneva, and the change of scene, with the novelty and 
 entertainments of the journey, and the congenial society 
 of his relatives, soon dissipated his melancholy and 
 gradually improved his health. Returning by way of 
 Paris, he became acquainted in that capital with a great 
 variety of persons artists, advocates, and authors ; 
 amongst these were d'Alembert and Diderot, the most 
 celebrated authors then remaining in France; and the 
 conversation and correspondence of these and other 
 eminent personages produced no small effect upon his 
 subsequent opinions and character. 
 
 In Easter term, 1783, Mr. Romilly was called to the 
 bar, but his entrance upon the business of the profession 
 was delayed for some months in consequence of a second 
 journey he took to Switzerland for the purpose of attend- 
 ing his sister to England on the death of M. Roget. 
 The first long vacation was passed in the performance 
 of this melancholy duty. By Michaelmas term, he says, 
 "I had returned to business; or rather to attend the 
 courts, and receive such business as accident might throw 
 in my way. I had endeavoured to draw Chancery
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly. 221 
 
 pleadings before I was called to the bar ; in that way, 
 however, the occupation I got under the bar was very 
 inconsiderable; but soon after I was admitted I was 
 employed to draw pleadings in several cases. This 
 species of employment went on very gradually increasing 
 for several years, during which, though I was occupied 
 in the way of my profession, I had scarcely any occasion 
 to open my lips in court. 
 
 "In the spring of 1784 I first went upon the circuit. 
 All circuits were indifferent to me, for I had no friends 
 or connections on any one of them; and my choice fell 
 on the Midland, because there appeared to be fewer 
 men of considerable talents or of high character as 
 advocates upon it than upon any other, and consequently 
 a greater opening for me than elsewhere; it was besides 
 shorter than some other circuits, and what was no unim- 
 portant consideration, my travelling expenses upon it 
 would be less." 
 
 A most amiable trait of his character is shown in the 
 following incident. When he was called to the bar, it 
 became necessary that he should have a servant to be 
 always in chambers to receive briefs, &c., and to attend 
 him upon the circuit in the various characters of clerk, 
 valet, and groom. He chose, to fill this office, a poor 
 infirm creature named Bickers, for no other reason than 
 that he might show kindness to his old servant, Mary 
 Evans the much-loved attendant of his childhood. She 
 had married this man, and they had fallen into poverty. 
 Not having the means to provide for them in any other 
 way, Mr. Romilly adopted this method. But, "I cer- 
 tainly suffered," he says, "during several years for my 
 good nature. He could ride, and stand behind my chair
 
 222 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 at dinner; but this was almost all he could do; and 
 though I sometimes employed him to copy papers for 
 me, he wrote very ill and made a thousand faults of 
 spelling." But this was not the worst of the thing. The 
 man was a Methodist, and his appearance was singular 
 and puritanical, affording an admirable butt for the 
 ridicule of the young barristers who went the circuit, 
 and who, on the first day of his appearance, bestowed on 
 him the sobriquet of "the Quaker." To his other 
 defects, he added a disposition occasionally to indulge 
 in drinking, and at such times his young patron was 
 under the constant apprehension he should say or do 
 something which would afford an inexhaustible fund of 
 mirth to the whole circuit. 
 
 Yet all this did the kind-hearted youth patiently 
 endure for the sake of doing good, and he actually 
 retained the man in his service till the day of his death 
 a period of some years. Bickers was not ungrateful. 
 He was anxious to prove his zeal and attachment for his 
 benefactor, and he took a curious method of showing his 
 good will. " I shall not soon forget," says Sir Samuel, 
 "the earnestness with which he once ventured to offer 
 me his advice on a matter he judged to be of great im- 
 portance. I had sometimes employed him to copy 
 papers which I had amused myself with writing upon 
 abuses existing in the administration of justice, and upon 
 the necessity of certain reforms. He had seen with great 
 regret the little progress I had made in my profession, 
 and particularly upon the circuit, and had observed those 
 whom he thought much my inferiors in talents, far before 
 me in business, and putting these matters together in his 
 head, he entertained no doubt that he had at last dis-
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly. 223 
 
 covered the cause of what had long puzzled him. The 
 business of a lawyer depends upon the good opinion of 
 attorneys; and attorneys never could think well of any 
 man who was troubling his head about reforming abuses, 
 when he ought to be profiting by them ! All this he 
 one day took the liberty of representing to me with very 
 great humility. I endeavoured to calm his apprehen- 
 sions, and told him what I wrote was only seen by him- 
 self and by me, but this, doubtless, did not satisfy him." 
 
 In the year after that in which he was called to the 
 bar Mr. Romilly first formed the acquaintance of the 
 Count de Mirabeau, who was then in England. For 
 this introduction he was indebted to his Parisian friends, 
 and in a short time he became very intimate with this 
 extraordinary man, in whose society he found a rich 
 treat He had not then attained to the great celebrity 
 he afterwards acquired, but " as he had read much, 
 had seen a great deal of the world, was acquainted 
 with all the most distinguished persons who adorned 
 either the royal court or the republic of letters in 
 France, had a great knowledge of French and Italian 
 literature, and possessed a very good taste, his con- 
 versation was extremely interesting and not a little 
 instructive. 
 
 By Mirabeau he was introduced to Benjamin Vaughan, 
 who made him acquainted with Lord Lansdowne, at the 
 request of that nobleman, who upon learning that he was 
 the author of an anonymous tract entitled " A Fragment 
 on the Constitutional Power and Duties of Juries," had 
 become desirous of his acquaintance, and begged that 
 Mr. Romilly would call on him, in compliance with which 
 desire the meeting took place. " H.e received me," says
 
 224 $i r Saniuel Romilly. 
 
 the autobiography, "in the most flattering manner. From 
 that time he anxiously cultivated my acquaintance and 
 my friendship; and to that friendship I owe it that I 
 ever knew the affectionate wife who has been the author 
 of all my happiness." 
 
 Lord Lansdowne's estimate of his character, and his 
 high anticipation of his eventual success, are evinced by 
 the fact that, in the first years of their acquaintance, and 
 before Mr. Romilly's professional fortunes had begun to 
 flow, he was twice offered a seat in Parliament by that 
 nobleman, which he declined from a feeling of indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne was very desirous that his young 
 friend should distinguish himself in his profession, and 
 urged him to write some work which might bring him 
 into notice. He especially directed his attention to a 
 tract then recently published, and which excited at the 
 time much attention, Madan's " Thoughts on Executive 
 Justice." This pamphlet was said to have had consider- 
 able influence with the judges in enforcing capital 
 punishments. Being thus induced to examine the book, 
 he represents himself as so much shocked by the folly 
 and inhumanity of it, that, instead of enforcing the same 
 arguments, he sat down to refute them, and shortly after 
 produced a tractate entitled, " Strictures upon the 
 Thoughts," accompanied by a letter of Dr. Franklin's 
 upon the same subject. Thus was he first induced to 
 consider with attention the principles of Criminal Law, 
 to which, at a later period, he devoted himself with 
 distinguished ability, energy, and perseverance, labouring 
 in each successive session to procure the repeal of those 
 harsh and terrible laws which were a disgrace to our
 
 Sir Sawncl Roinilly. 22$ 
 
 statute books. He observes, " The little success of this 
 pamphlet (of which not more than a hundred copies 
 were sold) did not deter me from occupying my leisure 
 hours in writing observations on different parts of our 
 criminal law. Upon the circuit, too, I made the 
 criminal law very much my study and attended as much 
 as I could to the Crown Court, and noted down all the 
 most remarkable things that passed there, not merely the 
 points of law that arose, but the effects which the different 
 provisions of the law, the rules of evidence, and our forms 
 of proceeding appeared to me to produce on the manners 
 of the people, and on the administration of justice." 
 
 For these studies he had, unfortunately, ample leisure. 
 At the end of his sixth or seventh circuit he had made 
 no progress, and this might have continued to be the 
 case had he not adopted a measure which he heard 
 Mr. Justice Heath strongly recommend : he said, "There 
 was no use in going a circuit without attending sessions." 
 This experiment proved very successful in the case of 
 Mr. Romilly; and he had not attended many sessions 
 before he was in all the business there. This naturally 
 led to business at the assizes, and he tells us that he had 
 obtained a larger portion of it than any man upon the 
 circuit before his occupation in London compelled him 
 to relinquish it altogether. 
 
 In the vacation of the year 1788 Mr. Romilly made 
 another visit to Paris, where he saw all the notabilities 
 of the day and renewed his acquaintance with Mirabeau. 
 It is interesting to read the following observations made 
 by so intelligent an observer on the eve of the great 
 French Revolution: 
 
 " The state of public affairs during this visit was highly
 
 226 Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 interesting. The administration of the Archbishop of 
 Sens had become extremely unpopular, and there were 
 some trifling commotions in the streets. Crowds assem- 
 bled on the Pont Neuf, and obliged all the passers-by to 
 take off their hats in token of respect, before the eques- 
 trian statue of Henry IV. In the coffee-houses of the 
 Palais Royal the freest conversations were indulged, and 
 in the midst of the public ferment which prevailed a 
 change of ministry was announced, and M. Necker was 
 recalled to the administration. He had not long returned 
 to office before the king declared his determination to 
 assemble the States General. Such an event, as may 
 well be supposed, produced a very great effect, and was 
 the subject of every conversation. The best and most 
 virtuous men saw in it the beginning of a new era of 
 
 happiness for France, and for all the civilized world 
 
 There was not, however, to be found a single individual, 
 the most gloomy, the most timid, or the most enthusiasti- 
 cally sanguine who foresaw any of the extraordinary 
 events to which the assembling the States was to lead. 
 Who indeed could, in that single measure, have dis- 
 covered the seeds of what followed 1 ? the abolition of 
 the monarchy; the public execution of the king and 
 queen; the destruction of the nobility; the annihilation 
 of all religion ; the erection of a petty but most sanguinary 
 tyranny in almost every town of France; a succession of 
 wars; all contributing to increase the martial glory of the 
 nation ; and, finally, the establishment of a military 
 despotism, the subjugation of almost all the rest of 
 Europe, and the nearest approach that is to be found in 
 the history of modern times to universal empire ?" 
 
 He was himself among those who, in the early stages
 
 Sir Samuel RomiUy. 227 
 
 of the French Revolution, entertained the most sanguine 
 expectations of the happy effects which were to result 
 from it, not to France alone, but to the rest of the world, 
 and in 1790 he published a short pamphlet on the 
 subject, entitled, " Thoughts on the Probable Influence 
 of the French Revolution on Great Britain ; " but a sub- 
 sequent visit to Paris, just on the eve of the insurrection 
 which ended in bringing the royal family to Paris, served 
 to give him a much less favourable opinion of the state 
 of affairs than he had previously entertained. 
 
 At this point in his history the narrative closes. I shall 
 conclude this chapter with an extract from a letter written 
 by him the year before his lamented decease, at a time 
 when it was supposed that he aspired to the office of Lord 
 Chancellor: "Already I have attained the very summit 
 of my wishes. The happiness of my present condition 
 cannot be increased : it may be essentially impaired. I 
 am at the present moment completely independent both 
 of the favours and of the frowns of Government. The 
 large income which I enjoy and which is equal to all my 
 wishes, has been entirely produced by my own industry 
 and exertion ; for no portion of it am I indebted to the 
 Crown; of no particle of it is it in the power of the 
 Crown to deprive me. The labours of my profession, 
 great as they are, yet leave me some leisure both for 
 domestic, and even for literary enjoyments. In those 
 enjoyments, in the retirement of my study, in the bosom 
 of my family, in the affection of my relations, in the 
 kindness of my friends, in the good-will of my fellow- 
 citizens, in the uncourtcd popularity which I know that 
 I enjoy, I find all the good that human life can supply."
 
 XIII. 
 
 LABORE. 
 
 FIRST BEGINNINGS. 
 
 iT me advise the thoughtful reader to spell over 
 and over again the single word that stands at 
 the head of this chapter. It is the motto 
 which Lord Tenterden selected on his promotion to the 
 Bench, as indicative of the cause of his success in life. 
 
 And, true indeed it is, that, without steady application, 
 whatever may be a man's abilities, he cannot expect to 
 make a lawyer of distinction, nor will he ever write his 
 own passport to rank and fortune. 
 
 I feel it is a pleasant task to trace the upward progress 
 of this excellent individual ; a man of very obscure 
 origin, and by no means naturally gifted with brilliant 
 abilities; but who, by dint of industry, self-denial, and 
 unsullied integrity, won for himself the esteem of his 
 contemporaries, and will ever be respected as a great 
 magistrate and a man of true worth. 
 
 Charles Abbott was born in Canterbury on the 7th 
 October, 1762; his father, who followed the trade of a
 
 Lord Tcntcrdcn. 229 
 
 barber, lived at the corner of a narrow street, opposite 
 the stately western portal of the cathedral. There, in a 
 small, mean-looking house, the future Chief-Justice of 
 England first saw the light, being the youngest child of 
 his parents, a respectable and hardworking couple. The 
 father was described by one who knew him well, as " a 
 tall, erect, primitive-looking man, with a large pig-tail, 
 which latterly assumed the aspect of a heavy brass 
 knocker of a door." The mother was a devout, praise- 
 worthy woman, and both struggled meritoriously to bring 
 up their children in habits of honest industry. Little 
 did they imagine their domestic cares should one day be 
 rewarded by a son who would rise to distinction, and 
 with loving remembrance record their merits upon his 
 tomb, in the following line : 
 
 " Patrc vero prudent!, nutre pil ortus." 
 
 Having learned to read at a dame's school, the child took 
 to accompanying his father, on his daily rounds, and we 
 have a graphic picture of the old man " going about with 
 the instruments of his business under his arms, and 
 attended frequently by his son Charles, a youth as decent, 
 grave, and primitive-looking as himself." There seemed 
 every likelihood that the boy would, in due time, step 
 into his father's shoes, and run a course as obscure, but 
 happily for him the excellent grammar-school of his 
 native city offered to humble day-scholars the means of 
 a sound education at small expense. Thither he was 
 sent, at the age of seven years, being admitted on the 
 foundation of the King's School, established by Henry 
 VIII., and then under the tuition of Dr. Osmund 
 Beauvoir, an admirable classical scholar, and a man of 
 refined taste and discrimination.
 
 230 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 There he had for school-fellow, the well-known literary 
 baronet Sir Egerton Brydges, who was through life his 
 attached and steadfast friend, and who has given a 
 pleasing account of him in his boyish days : 
 
 "From his earliest years he was industrious, appre- 
 hensive, regular, and correct in all his conduct even in 
 his temper, and prudent in everything. I became 
 acquainted with him in July, 1775, when I was removed 
 from Maidstone to Canterbury school. I wa.s nearly his 
 age, and was placed in the same class with him, in which 
 I won the next place to him, and kept it, till I quitted 
 school for Cambridge, in 1780. 
 
 "Though we were in some degree competitors, oui 
 friendship was never broken or cooled. He always 
 exceeded me in accuracy, steadiness, and equality of 
 labour; he knew the rules of grammar better, and was 
 more sure in any examination or task. He wrote Latin 
 verses and prose themes with more correctness, and in 
 temper was always prudent and calm. Each knew well 
 where the other's strength lay, and yielded to it." 
 
 Another schoolfellow of the patient, industrious 
 Abbott, who himself rose to high preferment in the 
 church, adds, " I remember him well; grave, silent, and 
 demure, always studious and well-behaved; reading his 
 book, instead of accompanying us to play, and recom- 
 mending himself to all who saw and knew him by his 
 quiet and decent demeanour. The clergy of Canterbury 
 always took great notice of him, as they knew and 
 
 respected his father When Lord Tenterden and Mr. 
 
 Justice Richards, on going the circuit, once visited the 
 cathedral of Canterbury, the latter took notice of a sing- 
 ing man in the choir who had an excellent voice. ' Ay,
 
 Lord Tcntcnicn. 231 
 
 brother,' said Lord Tenterden, ' that is the only man I 
 ever envied; when at school in this town, we were 
 candidates together for a chorister's place, and he 
 obtained it'" 
 
 Subsequent events proved that this was a most fortu- 
 nate disappointment for the future Chief-Justice, who, 
 like a sensible lad, instead of yielding to discouragement, 
 applied with increased diligence to his studies, and in 
 this manner secured the regard of his master, and in due 
 time rose to the captaincy of the school. At the age of 
 seventeen it became necessary that he should determine 
 on his future course in life. There seemed no alternative 
 but for him to drudge at his father's trade, since he had 
 not the means of completing his education, and thus 
 fitting himself for a liberal profession. There was, how- 
 ever, a general wish that his industry and abilities should 
 be rewarded, and by the aid of private generosity his 
 outfit was quickly provided, and the trustees of the 
 school conferred on him a small exhibition in their gift, 
 afterwards adding a pittance from the funds of the 
 establishment sufficient, with rigorous economy, to support 
 him until he should have obtained his B.A. degree. 
 
 He was accordingly entered as a member of Corpus 
 Christi College, Oxford, in the spring of the year 1781, 
 about six years after Lord Eldon and his brother Lord 
 Stowell had become members of University College. 
 Thus, at the same time, there were three men at the 
 university (one of them a scholar holding an exhibition 
 not exceeding sixteen pounds per annum; the two others, 
 holding fellowships, not exceeding one hundred and 
 twenty pounds annually), who were destined to become 
 the three heads of the Law the one as Lord Chancellor,
 
 232 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 the second as Lord Chief-Justice, and the third, as judge 
 of the Admiralty and Prerogative Courts. Perhaps there 
 were not at the time three more simple, humble, modest- 
 looking men within the precincts of the university, and 
 certainly not three men from whose precedents and 
 deportment any one would less have augured so splendid 
 a future.* 
 
 We have an interesting account of the young gowns- 
 man's first entrance upon college life. Immediately 
 after his arrival at Oxford he became candidate for a 
 vacant scholarship, and thus described his feelings on the 
 occasion in a letter to his fides Achates; who was then 
 just entered at Queen's College, Cambridge : 
 
 " March 18, 1781. 
 
 " DEAR EGERTON, I have been a week in Oxford, and 
 almost finished the examination ; the day of election is 
 next Tuesday. I cannot look forward without great 
 dread, for my expectations of success are by no means 
 
 sanguine As yet I have kept to my resolution of 
 
 drinking nothing. How long further I shall, I know not, 
 but I hope my pride will soon serve to strengthen it. I 
 wish Tuesday were over." 
 
 " Monday Night. 
 
 " This has been a heavy day indeed. I would not 
 pass another in such anxiety for two scholarships. Dis- 
 appointment would be easier borne than such a doubtful 
 situation. It is a great pleasure to me to be able to reflect 
 that there is one person who will feel for me. What 
 happiness would it have been to me had we had the good 
 fortune to be both of the same university. Our examina- 
 tion has been very strict Good-night." 
 
 * See Gentleman 's Magazine for 1832.
 
 Lord Tenter (fen. 233 
 
 " Tuetday, 12 o'clock. 
 
 "At last it is all over, and now your expectations 
 are at the highest I am guess elected. You will see, 
 from my manner of writing that I am very much pleased, 
 and so, in truth, I am. The president said to me (but don't 
 mention it to any one), that I had gained it entirely by 
 my merit that I had made a very good appearance, and 
 so had all the other candidates, Yours most affection- 
 nately, C. ABBOTT." 
 
 This agitated epistle, written in the midst of suspense 
 and excitement was followed by one which cannot fail 
 to enlist our sympathies cordially on his behalf : 
 
 "C C. C. 
 
 " Yes, my dear Egerton, it does give me the most 
 heartfelt pleasure to hear how kindly my friends rejoice 
 in my success. Believe me, the chief pleasure that I feel 
 on this occasion is reading my letters of congratulation. 
 I needed nothing to assure me of your friendship. Had 
 any proof been wanting, your kind letter would have 
 been sufficient The examination was indeed a tedious 
 piece of work, but I would go through twice the trouble 
 for the pleasure of knowing that I had answered the 
 expectation of my friends. 
 
 " I have received two letters from my dearest mother, 
 in which she gives me an account how sincerely all my 
 friends at Canterbury have congratulated her on my 
 success and friends so much superior to our humble 
 condition, that she says, ' such a universal joy as appeared 
 on the occasion I believe hardly ever happened in a 
 town left by a tradesman's son.' Who would not 
 undergo any labour to give pleasure to such parents ? . . . .
 
 234 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 You have heard me wish that I had never been intended 
 for the university. It was impious; it was ungrateful. 
 I banish the thought for ever from my heart. Not that 
 I foresee much pleasure in a college life ; but I know 
 that my present situation is perhaps the only comfort to 
 those whose age and misfortunes have rendered some 
 alleviation of care absolutely necessary. Pardon the 
 expression of these sentiments to you, and consider that 
 they flow from the breast of a son. 
 
 " What a dissatisfied wretch I am ! But a little while 
 past to be a scholar of Corpus was the height of my 
 ambition; that summit is (thank heaven) gained; when 
 another and another appears still in view. In a word, I 
 shall not rest easy till I have ascended the rostrum in 
 the theatre." 
 
 His biographers mention with praise the exemplary 
 conduct of the youth during the whole of his academical 
 career. With strict economy and care he was able to 
 preserve a decent appearance, and giving his undivided 
 attention to the object he had in view, was preserved 
 from those temptations which idleness and luxurious 
 habits present to the unwary " freshmen," so many of 
 whom fall victims to such snares. Instead of incurring 
 debts by giving wine-parties and buying hunters, he, from 
 the first hour of his college career, resolutely abstained 
 from all self-indulgence, and on the authority of Lord 
 Campbell it is stated as a curious fact that he never, in 
 the whole course of his life, mounted on horseback. 
 This he related, in his latter years, to an old friend who 
 recommended him to try horse-exercise. He said, " he 
 should be sure to fall off, like an ill-balanced sack of 
 corn, as he had never crossed a horse any more than a
 
 Lord Tenter den. 235 
 
 rhinoceros, and had now become too stiff and feeble to 
 begin a course of cavaliering." 
 
 At the time when Abbott ran his college career, there 
 was no opportunity of shining as "first wrangler;" and 
 the only academical honours that could be gained were 
 chancellor's medals for Latin and English composition, 
 both which he eventually carried off. His first attempt 
 was unsuccessful, but in the following year he was more 
 fortunate. The subject of his prize poem was " Globus 
 ^Erostaticus;" the wonders of Lunardi's air-balloon 
 having filled the minds of men with amazement and 
 speculation. " I have often," says Lord Campbell in his 
 " Lives of the Chancellors," " I have often heard my 
 father relate the consternation excited by this same 
 Lunardi in the county of Fife. He had ascended from 
 Edinburgh, and the wind carried him across the Frith of 
 Forth. The inhabitants of Cupar had observed a speck, 
 which was at first supposed to be a bird, grow into a large 
 globe, and pass at no great height over their heads, with 
 a man in a boat depending from it Some thought they 
 could descry about him the wings of an angel, and 
 believed that the day of judgment had arrived." 
 Apparently inspired with enthusiasm by this novel theme, 
 the young orator, as victor, mounted the rostrum, and 
 amidst loud plaudits, recited his beautiful lines, number- 
 ing one hundred and fifty-eight. He thus announced 
 his success to his friend Egerton : 
 
 "C.C.C.,7u*t 16,1784- 
 
 " I have delayed writing to you for some time, partly 
 because I waited for the decision of the prizes, but 
 principally because I have been constantly employed in 
 endeavouring to escape my own thoughts by company
 
 236 Lord Tenterden. 
 
 and every means I could. I am now, however, repaid 
 for my anxieties. They say it was a hard run thing. 
 
 There were sixteen compositions sent in All 
 
 that has happened since this morning appears a 
 dream." 
 
 Not long after, this dutiful son had to lament the 
 death of his excellent father. His poor widowed mother 
 became now the object of his affectionate concern, and 
 for her sake he declined an advantageous offer to go to 
 Virginia as tutor to a young man of very large fortune 
 there. He was willing to forego a considerable part of 
 his own salary, so that ^50 a year might be settled upon 
 her for life. "This," he wrote to his friend, "with the 
 little left her by my father, would afford her a comfortable 
 subsistence without the fatigue of business, which she is 
 becoming very unable to bear." But this condition was 
 declined, and consequently the matter dropped. 
 
 The following year found him again a successful can- 
 didate for the English Essay. The subject was, The Use 
 and Abuse of Satire. In this composition he displayed 
 " nice critical discrimination, and exquisite good sense," 
 and showed he had already acquired that superior 
 English style which afterwards distinguished his celebrated 
 book on the Law of Ships, and his written judgments 
 when Chief-Justice of the King's Bench. 
 
 These hardly-won honours secured for Mr. Abbott the 
 general admiration of his compeers, and he was soon 
 rewarded with a college fellowship and appointed junior 
 tutor with Mr. Burgess (afterwards the Bishop of 
 Salisbury), who entertained a warm regard for him, arid 
 in after life used often to mention his early history as 
 remarkably illustrative of the intimate connection be-
 
 Lord Tcntcrdcn. 237 
 
 t\vcen studious and moral habits, and future professional 
 success. 
 
 In addition to this engagement he took private pupils 
 in classics, and became tutor to Mr. Yarde, the son of 
 Mr. Justice Buller, at a salary of a hundred guineas per 
 annum. This introduction proved in the end very 
 advantageous for him, as it brought him under the notice 
 of that learned and sagacious judge, who immediately 
 perceived and appreciated his solid and useful talents, 
 and recommended him to embrace the profession of the 
 law, rather than that of the church, to which he had 
 hitherto inclined. This may be regarded as the turning- 
 point of his history, for he was induced to follow the 
 sage counsel of his new friend, and to submit to the 
 sacrifices and incur the risks necessarily attending this 
 change of purpose. 
 
 He was then in his twenty-sixth year, and had resided 
 seven years in his college. Henceforward he devoted 
 his whole attention to preparation for his new pursuit, 
 and on the i6th November 1787, was admitted a student 
 of the Middle Temple, and soon afterwards hired a small 
 set of chambers in Brick Court We may imagine him 
 patiently submitting to all the drudgery of attendance at 
 Attorney's offices, and pupilage under the celebrated 
 George Wood, the great master of Special Pleading. 
 Nothing could exceed his industry, and there seemed to 
 be a natural adaptation in his mind for the acquirement of 
 the mysteries of this peculiar science, insomuch that " he 
 is supposed to have more rapidly qualified himself for its 
 practice than any man before or since." By-and by he 
 commenced business, as a pleader under the bar, and 
 by diligence, despatch, and reasonable terms secured
 
 238 Lord Tenterden. 
 
 clients in greater numbers than he had hoped for, and 
 no client that once entered his chambers ever forsook 
 him. During seven years he continued after this fashion 
 steadily advancing in the regard of his associates, and 
 securing, by his pupils and his business, an income 
 sufficiently large to venture upon an early marriage. 
 
 On the 3oth July, 1795, he wedded Mary, daughter 
 of Mr. Lamotte, a gentleman of fortune, residing at 
 Basilden, in Kent, to whom he had been for some time 
 attached. The father of the lady is said to have called 
 at the chambers of the young lawyer, and upon asking 
 him " what means he had to maintain a wife?" received 
 this pithy answer, "The books in this room, and two 
 pupils in the next." 
 
 To such good account did he turn these resources 
 that in a short time his professional gains amounted to 
 some thousands a year. During each succeeding year 
 his income continued to increase, and, at the time of his 
 death, the thrifty lawyer was in possession of a large 
 real estate, and of personal property to the amount of 
 
 ;l 20,000. 
 
 There is not much of stirring interest in the subsequent 
 course of Mr. Abbott ; and instead of tracing his history 
 step by step, it may be preferable to relate a few charac- 
 teristic traits of his official and personal character. 
 
 His legal abilities ranked very high in the opinion of 
 the men best qualified to judge, those who were them- 
 selves skilled in the science of the law, and in the 
 practice of the courts. Lord Brougham has drawn a 
 portrait of him which is not only full of wise discrimina- 
 tion, but most instructive in the lessons it conveys to all 
 who aspire to tread in such high places, and for whom
 
 Lord Tentcrdcn. 239 
 
 the virtues of self-control and impartiality are pre- 
 eminently requisite. He says : 
 
 " A man of great legal abilities and of a reputation, 
 though high, by no means beyond his merits. On the 
 contrary it may be doubted if he ever enjoyed all the 
 fame that his capacity and his learning entitled him 
 
 to Although his reputation at the bar was firmly 
 
 established for a long course of years, it was not till he 
 became a judge, hardly till he became Chief-Justice, that 
 his merits were fully known. It then appeared that he 
 had a singularly judicial understanding, and even the 
 defects which had kept him in the less ambitious walks 
 of the profession his caution, his aversion to all that 
 was experimental, his want of fancy contributed, with 
 his greater qualities, to give him a very prominent rank 
 indeed among our ablest judges. 
 
 One defect alone he had, which was likelyto impede 
 his progress towards this eminent station; but of that he 
 was so conscious as to protect himself against it by 
 constant and effectual precautions. His temper was 
 naturally bad; it was hasty and it was violent; forming 
 a marked contrast with the rest of his mind. But it was 
 singular with what success he fought against this, and 
 how he mastered the rebellious part of his nature. In- 
 deed it was a study to observe this battle, or rather 
 victory, for the conflict was too successful to be 
 apparent on many occasions. On the bench it rarely 
 broke out, but there was observed a truly praiseworthy 
 feature, singularly becoming in the demeanour of a 
 judge. Whatever struggles there might be carried on 
 with the advocate during the heat of a cause, and how 
 great soever might be the asperity shown on either
 
 240 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 part, all passed away all was, even to the vestige of 
 the trace of it, discharged from his mind, when the 
 peculiar duty of the judge came to be performed; and he 
 directed the jury in every particular, as if no irritation 
 had ever passed over his mind in the course of the 
 cause 
 
 "Whoever has practised at Nisi Prius, knows well how 
 rare it is to find a judge of an unquiet temper, especially 
 one of an irascible disposition, who can go through the 
 trial without suffering his course to be affected by the 
 personal conflicts which may have taken place in the 
 course of it. It was, therefore, an edifying sight to 
 observe Lord Tenterden, whose temper had been visibly 
 affected during the trial (for on the bench he had not 
 always the entire command of it, which we have described 
 him as possessing while at the bar), addressing himself 
 to the points in the cause, with the same perfect calm- 
 ness and indifference with which a mathematician pur- 
 sues the investigation of an abstract truth, as if there 
 were neither the parties nor the advocates in existence, 
 and only bent upon the discovering and the elucidation 
 of truth." 
 
 Some rather amusing tales are told of Lord Tenterden's 
 occasional impatience and causticity by Mr. Townsend, 
 in his " Lives of the Judges." In his eagerness to cut 
 off all the fringes of rhetoric and to compel despatch he 
 would break in upon the discussions of the long-robed 
 gentlemen in a manner the reverse of courteous. 
 
 Thus, one day in banco, a learned counsel, who had 
 lectured on the law, and was much addicted to oratory, 
 came to argue a special demurrer. " My client's oppon- 
 ent," he commenced, " worked like a mole underground,
 
 Lord Tenter den. 241 
 
 clam ft secrete;" to this no response came but an in- 
 dignant grunt from the Chief-Justice. " It is asserted in 
 Aristotle's Rhetoric." " I dont want to hear what is as- 
 serted in Aristotle's Rhetoric," interposed Lord Tenterden. 
 The advocate shifted his ground and took up, as he 
 thought, a safe position. " It is laid down in the 
 Pandects of Justinian." "Where are you got to now?" 
 14 It is a principle of the civil law." " Oh, sir!" exclaimed 
 the judge, with a tone and voice which abundantly justi- 
 fied his assertion, " we have nothing to do with the civil 
 law in this court" 
 
 At another time Mr. Brougham opened an action for 
 the amount of a wager laid upon a dog fight, which, 
 through some unwillingness of dogs or men, had not 
 been brought to an issue: "We, my Lord," said the 
 advocate, " were minded that the dogs should fight." 
 44 Then I t " replied the Judge, " am minded to hear no 
 more of it ! Call the next cause." 
 
 Correct, appropriate, and succinct in his own state- 
 ments, he could not endure conceit or affectation in the 
 language of others. He was irate if a shop were called a 
 warehouse, or a shopman dubbed himself assistant. A 
 gentleman pressing into a crowded court complained that 
 he could not get to his counsel. " What are you, sir?" 
 asked the Judge. 44 My Lord, I am the plantiffs 
 solicitor." " We know nothing of solicitors here, sir, 
 had you been in the respectable rank of an attorney I 
 should have ordered room to be made for you." A 
 country apothecary, in answer to some plain questions 
 using very unnecessarily high-sounding medical phrase- 
 ology, the Chief-Justice roared out, " Speak English, sir, 
 if you can; or I must swear an interpreter." 
 
 (132) 1 6
 
 242 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 What our judge best loved was a direct reply, and he 
 was for keeping himself and everybody else to the pre- 
 cise matter in hand. Latterly, when oppressed with 
 labour and disease, his formerly handsome and impres- 
 sive features assumed an aspect of settled severity. 
 " Sallow and care-worn, they seemed to borrow the ex- 
 pression of the lion in the royal arms on the tapestry 
 behind him, while with determination he frowned down 
 any attempt to raise useless quibbles, and harshly stopped 
 all unnecessary speech."* 
 
 Although it was supposed he rather shrank from any 
 allusion to his obscure origin and boyish days, unless in 
 the company of intimate friends, he was once compli- 
 mented upon his rise under circumstances so extra- 
 vagantly ludicrous, that he joined in the general shout 
 of laughter the orator called forth. Sir Peter Laurie, 
 the saddler, when Lord Mayor of London, gave a dinner 
 at the Mansion House to the judges, and, in proposing 
 their health, observed in impassioned accents : " What a 
 country is this we live in ! In other parts of the world 
 there is no chance, except for men of high birth and 
 aristocratic connections; but here, genius and industry 
 are sure to be rewarded. See before you the examples 
 of myself, the Chief Magistrate of the Metropolis of 
 this great empire, and the Chief-Justice of England, 
 sitting at my right hand, both now in the highest offices 
 of the state, and both sprung from the very dregs of 
 the people ! " 
 
 As a family man Lord Tenterden appears to great 
 advantage: an attached husband and judicious father, 
 he ever found his highest satisfaction and purest enjoy- 
 
 Townsend in Ice.
 
 Lord Tenter den. 243 
 
 ments in his domestic circle. A pleasing evidence of 
 this is given in the following verses, found among his 
 papers, and probably written to his wife when he was on 
 the circuit at Hereford: 
 
 " In the noise of the bar, and the crowds of the hall, 
 
 Though destined still longer to move, 
 Let my thoughts wander home, and my memory recall 
 The dear pleasures of beauty and love. 
 
 The soft looks of my girl, the sweet voice of my boy, 
 
 Their antics, their hobbies, their sports ; 
 How, the houses he builds, her quick fingers destroy, 
 
 And with kisses his pardon she courts. 
 
 With eyes full of tenderness, pleasure, and pride, 
 
 The fond mother sits watching their play ; 
 Or turns, if I look not, my dulness to chide 
 
 And invites me, like them, to be gay. 
 
 She invites to be gay, and I yield to her voice, 
 
 And my toils and my sorrows forget : 
 In her beauty, her sweetness, her kindness rejoice, 
 
 And hallow the day that we met 
 HEREFORD, Augutt 6, 1800." 
 
 There is an anecdote related by Macready, the cele- 
 brated tragedian, which shows Lord Tenterden in a very 
 amiable point of view. The narrator is describing a 
 visit which he had paid to Canterbury Cathedral, under 
 the escort of a verger, who, by reading and observation, 
 had acquired a large amount of architectural and local 
 knowledge; he thus proceeds: "The guide directed 
 my attention to everything worthy of notice; pointed 
 out, with the detective eye of taste, the more recondite 
 excellence of art throughout the building, and with con- 
 vincing accuracy shed light on the historical traditions 
 associated with it. It was opposite the western front 
 that he stood with me before what seemed the site of a
 
 244 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 small shed or stall, then unoccupied, and said, ' Upon 
 this spot a little barber's shop used to stand. The last 
 time Lord Tenterden came down here he brought his 
 son Charles with him, and it was my duty, of course, to 
 attend them over the Cathedral. 
 
 " ' When we came to this side of it, he led his son up 
 to this very spot and said to him, "Charles, you see 
 this little shop : I have brought you here on purpose to 
 show it to you. In that shop your grandfather used to 
 shave for a penny. That is the proudest reflection of 
 my life. While you live never forget that, my dear 
 Charles." ' " 
 
 It is no small addition to the pleasing characteristics 
 of this admirable man that he continued through life to 
 preserve an ardent and unabated devotion to classical 
 literature, "thus showing that the indulgence of such 
 elegant tastes is consistent with a steady, and long con- 
 tinued, and successful application to abstruse juridical 
 studies, and with the exemplary performance of the most 
 laborious duties of an advocate and of a judge." In his 
 busiest time Lord Tenterden would refresh himself in 
 leisure hours by reading a satire of Juvenal, or a chorus 
 of Euripides; he read poetry, especially the classics, 
 with great feeling and taste, and wrote some elegant Latin 
 poems on flowers and plants. In a letter to Sir E. 
 Bridges, dated i$th September, 1830, he gave an 
 interesting account of this "hobby" : 
 
 " I have always felt that it might be said that a Chief- 
 Justice and a peer might employ his leisure hours better 
 than in writing nonsense verses about flowers. But I 
 must tell you how this fancy of recommencing to hammer 
 Latin metres, after a cessation of more than thirty years,
 
 Lord 7' enter den. 245 
 
 began. Brougham procured me from Lord Grenville a 
 copy of some poems printed by him under the title of 
 " Nugae," chiefly his own, one or two, I believe, of Lord 
 Wellesley's, written long ago, and a piece of very good 
 Greek humour by Lord Holland. The motto in the 
 title page is four or five hendoecasyllabic lines by 
 Fabricius. At the same time, John Williams of the 
 Northern Circuit, now the Queen's Solicitor-General, 
 who is an admirable scholar, sent me four or five Greek 
 epigrams of his own. I had a mind to thank each of 
 them, and found I could do so with great ease to myself 
 in ten hendoecasyllables. This led me to compose two 
 trifles in the same metre on two favourite flowers, and 
 afterwards some others, now I think twelve verses in all, 
 in different Horatian metres, and one, an Ovidian epistle, 
 of which the subject is the ' Forget me Not' One of 
 the earliest is an 'Ode on the Conservatory,' in the 
 Alcaic metre, of which the last stanza contains the true 
 cause and excuse of the whole, and this I will now 
 transcribe, 
 
 ' Sit fcbulosis fas raihi canlibu* : 
 Lcnirecuras! Sit mihi floribiw 
 Mulcere me fessum, senemque 
 Carpcre quos juvtnis solebam.' " 
 
 Thus, to cheer his declining days, the aged Chief- 
 Justice recurred to the pursuits of younger years and 
 " dreamed he was a boy again." 
 
 To the end of his days his mental faculties remained 
 wholly unimpaired, and he was determined " to die like 
 a camel in the wilderness, with his burden on his back." 
 An important Government prosecution connected with 
 the Reform Bill riots at Bristol was appointed to be tried
 
 246 Lord Tenter den. 
 
 immediately before Michaelmas term, 1832. Notwith- 
 standing his infirm health Lord Tenterden appeared on 
 the bench with the other judges, and continued to pre- 
 side during the first two days of the trial. On the third 
 day he was seized with illness, and was put to bed, from 
 which he never rose. 
 
 His disease baffled the skill of his medical attendants. 
 He became delirious and talked very incoherently, and 
 shortly before his death, his mind evidently reverting to 
 the scene at which he had last assisted, he raised his 
 head from his pillow, and in the slow and solemn tone 
 in which he used to conclude his summing-up in cases 
 of great importance, he said, " And now, gentlemen of 
 the jury, you will consider of your verdict." 
 
 These were his last words; when he had uttered them 
 his head sank down, and in a few moments he expired 
 without a groan. He had just entered upon his seven- 
 tieth year at the time of his death.
 
 IMONG the remarkable doings of our great 
 Lawyers we should not perhaps omit to notice 
 the production of a valuable theological 
 work "by Sir Peter King, afterwards Lord Chancellor 
 of England. This work is a learned and profound 
 treatise upon the " Constitution and Discipline of the 
 Primitive Church," in which the author endeavours to 
 establish the usages of the early Christian assemblies 
 within the first three centuries, by an appeal to the 
 "authentic writings of those ages," and advocates 
 the right of the Protestant Dissenters from episcopacy 
 to be comprehended within the pale of the national 
 establishment 
 
 The work excited no small attention at the time of its 
 appearance, passed through several editions, and called 
 forth several learned answers. What is more it has 
 ever since continued to hold rank as the best treatise 
 upon the subject, and not long ago I heard an erudite 
 Non-con divine speaking in its praise, and saying that it 
 has never been superseded. 
 
 There seems something strange at the present day in
 
 248 Conclusion. 
 
 the idea of a theological lawyer, and one is naturally dis- 
 posed to inquire a little about the man and his history. 
 Peter King was born in the year 1669 at Exeter, in 
 which city his father Mr. Jerome King, carried on the 
 business of a grocer and salter. He is said to have 
 descended from a good family in Somersetshire; was a 
 dissenter and a man of piety and worth, and was married 
 to the sister of the illustrious John Locke. It was the 
 intention of the good man to bring up his only son to 
 his own business; and for some years the future 
 Chancellor of Great Britain served in his father's shop. 
 There are no authentic records of his early days, but it 
 is reported that he quickly made a surprising proficiency 
 in learning, being what is commonly called "a self- 
 taught genius." We may be sure he searched his father's 
 bookshelves, and probably found there a goodly number 
 of books on divinity, to which study he early addicted 
 himself, thus laying the foundation for his future distinc- 
 tion as the author of the " Inquiry into the Discipline 
 of the Primitive Church." 
 
 As he advanced towards manhood he was noticed with 
 friendly regard by his celebrated kinsman, who, finding in 
 the lad abilities of no common order, advised that he 
 should be sent to the University of Leyden, where he 
 continued some years in the diligent pursuit of his 
 studies. After the lapse of more than a century and a 
 half it is difficult to trace with accuracy those minute 
 features of character which bring us, so to speak, per- 
 sonally acquainted with the individual man. Of Lord 
 Chancellor King few such traits are preserved. That he 
 was admirable in his domestic relationships, we gather 
 from the ardent affection with which he inspired his
 
 Conclusion. 249 
 
 great relative, who addressed to him a number ofletters 
 directing and counselling him in every important step of 
 his life, and finally wrote to him, shortly before his own 
 decease, the following touching epistle. 
 
 " June i, 1704. 
 
 " I remember it is the end of a term, a busy 
 
 time with you, and you intend to be here speedily, which 
 is better than writing at a distance. Pray be sure to 
 order your matters so as to spend all the next week with 
 me; as far as I can impartially guess, it will be the last 
 week I am ever like to have with you; for, if I mistake 
 not, I have very little time left in the world. This com- 
 fortable, and to me usually restorative, season of the 
 year has no effect upon me for the better : on the con- 
 trary, all appearances concur to warn me that the dis- 
 solution of this cottage is not far off. Refuse not, there- 
 fore, to help me to pass some of the last hours of my 
 life as easily as may be, in the conversation of one who 
 is not only the nearest, but the dearest to me of any 
 man in the world. I have a great many things to talk 
 with you about, which I can talk to nobody else about. 
 I therefore desire you again, deny not this to my affec- 
 tion. I know nothing at such a time so desirable and 
 so useful as the conversation of a friend one loves and 
 relies on." 
 
 Such confidence and attachment on the part of the 
 dying philosopher, testify in an unmistakeable manner 
 the worth and true excellence of King. At the time of 
 Locke's decease he had reached his 35th year, and was 
 just settled in a happy marriage. He had already at-
 
 250 Conclusion. 
 
 tained to great eminence at the bar, and was the ac- 
 knowledged leader of the Western Circuit, and a short 
 time after was elected Recorder of London, and knighted 
 by Queen Anne. In the year 1714 he was raised to the 
 dignity of Lord Chief-Justice of Common Pleas, which 
 he enjoyed for a period of eleven years, and acquitted 
 himself in his high office to the universal satisfaction, 
 being acknowledged on all hands to merit the highest 
 praise as a common law judge. We are assured that 
 his judgments, as handed down in the reports, are 
 "marked by great precision of definition, subtlety of 
 distinction, breadth of principle, lucidness of arrange- 
 ment and felicity of illustration." 
 
 On the impeachment and conviction of Lord Mac- 
 clesfield, who had held the Great Seal, Sir Peter King 
 was made Lord Chancellor, and a peer; but he did not 
 in his new capacity satisfy public expectation; and is 
 said to have injured his health by his laborious efforts to 
 master the especial department of professional learning, 
 necessary for the performance of his new duties. His 
 death happened in the sixty-sixth year of his age, shortly 
 after he had resigned the cares of office in consequence 
 of a paralytic seizure which gave warning that his end 
 was approaching. 
 
 He rose from obscurity to distinction and honours, 
 solely by his own energy and worth ; and he was beloved 
 for his goodness and amiability. An example worthy of 
 the imitation of any youthful spirit which aspires to 
 surmount the obstacles of poverty and humble birth, and 
 to attain a place among the good and the prosperous. 
 He himself ascribed all his success in life to his laborious 
 endeavours, and he took for his motto the very character-
 
 Conclusion. 251 
 
 istic and fitting one ; " Labor ipse voluptas," which gave 
 occasion to the following lines : 
 
 " Tis not the splendour of the place, 
 The gilded coach, the purse, the mace, 
 Nor all the pompous train of state 
 With crowds that at your levee wait, 
 That make you happy, make you great. 
 But whilst mankind you strire to bless 
 With all the talent you possess ; 
 Whilst the chief joy that you receivo 
 Arises from the joy you give ; 
 This takes the heart, and conquering spite, 
 Makes e'en the heavy burden light ; 
 For pleasure rightly understood 
 Is only Labour to do Good." ,
 
 VALUABLE WORKS ON THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 BY THE REV. WILLIAM THOMSON, D.D. 
 
 "THE LAND AND THE BOOK; or, Biblical Illustrations drawn 
 from ihe Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land. 
 With Landscape Illustrations and numerous Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, cloth, Price 
 7 ..6d. 
 
 "In the ' Land and the Book,' the author brings the treasures of twenty-five 
 years' observation and experience to bear on the illustration of Scripture, and with 
 to eminent success, that it may safely be said his work at thisctnoment stands alone 
 and unapproached in its department, at once in the multitude and importance of its 
 details, and in the skill with which these are grouped and presented to the mind of 
 the reader." ED. Family Treasury. 
 
 BY THE REV. DR. PORTER. 
 
 T)A SHAN'S GIANT CITIES AND SYRIA'S HOLY PLACES. 
 JJ With Illustrations. Crown 8 vo, cloth, Price 75. 6d. 
 
 " We know of no volume which throws so strong a light on all those passages of 
 Holy Writ in which geographical and topographical details are introduced. Pos- 
 sessed of a perfect knowledge of the country, gifted with a graphic pen, and having 
 withal a reverent appreciation of the sacredness of the places which he describes, 
 Mr. Porter's volume will be welcomed by all who know how much the vividness of 
 the scriptural narrative depends upon the knowledge possessed by the reader him- 
 clf."-!?Vfc Ckurckman. 
 
 BY BARTLETT. 
 
 'ERUSALEM REVISITED. With beautiful Steel Engravings 
 from Drawings by this great Artist Royal 8vo, Price 6s. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR BALFOUR. 
 
 THE PLANTS OF THE BIBLE, ist Trees and Shrubs. 
 2nd. Herbaceous Plants. By JOHN H. BALFOUR, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.S.L., 
 &c., Regius Keeper of the Botanic Gardens, and Professor of Medicine and Botany 
 in the University of Edinburgh. With Twenty-four Tinted Plates. Post 8vo, 
 cloth, Price 3*. 6d. 
 
 BY THE REV. DR. KEITH. 
 Thirty-ninth Edition. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. Illustrated by the History 
 of the Jews, and by the Discoveries of Recent Travellers 
 
 Small 8vo Edition. Price 5 s. ; Crown 8vo Edition, 7* 6d. ; Illustrated Edit.on, 
 with Daguerreotype Views, Royal 8vo, izs. 6d. 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK.
 
 THE SCHO'NBERG-COTTA SERIES OF BOOKS. 
 
 Crown 8vo, Price 53., cloth; or, IDS. 6d., morocco binding. 
 QHRONICLES OF THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 
 
 " The book is thoroughly Protestant, in the highest and best sense of the word. 
 
 And there is a commendable freedom from that twaddling mode of treatment 
 
 which is too often adopted by writers on religious subjects We are confident 
 
 that most women will read it with keen pleasure, and that those men who take it 
 up will not easily lay it down without confessing that they have gained some pure, 
 and ennobling thoughts from the perusal." The Times, October 13, 1865. 
 
 Crown 8vo, Price 6s. 6d. ; or, izs., morocco binding. 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND THE WORLD SHE LIVED 
 
 S 
 
 Crown 8vo, Price 6s. ; or, 123. , morocco binding. 
 
 KETCHES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ENGLAND IN 
 THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 A striking characteristic of these sketches is their real literary merit." Watch- 
 
 Crown 8vo, Price 6s. 6d., cloth; or, 125., morocco binding. 
 T)IARY OF MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. A Story of the 
 
 Times of Whitefield and the Wesleys. 
 
 " We can scarcely believe that only a hundred years ago scholars and gentlemen 
 who preached the exact doctrines promulgated in the Thirty-Nine Articles, that 
 these men were persecuted with as much rancour by their Christian fellow-country- 
 men as St. Paul encountered among the Pagan mob of Ephesus. Yet such is the 
 
 fact The great evangelical movement of the present century undoubtedly 
 
 owes its origin to the labours of Whitefield and the Wesleys." The Times, 
 October 13, 1865. 
 
 w 
 
 Crown 8vo, Price 6s. 6d. ; or, izs., morocco binding. 
 ANDERINGS OVER BIBLE LANDS AND SEAS. With 
 
 two Photographs and other Illustrations. 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK.
 
 VALUABLE WORKS. 
 
 BY THE REV. WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 T AWS FROM HEAVEN FOR LIFE ON EARTH-ItLus. 
 
 - L< TKATIONS OP THB BOOK OF PROVERBS. New Edition. Complete in one 
 volume. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 75. 6d. 
 
 "A noble volume bv one of the freshest and most vigorous writers of the present 
 day." ED. Family Treasury. 
 
 " The work of a master." If. P. Magazine. 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Crown 8vo, cloth antique 
 Price 75. 6d. 
 
 " The best family book on the Parables." Kev. James Hamilton, D.D. 
 " Mr. Arnot is the fittest man living to expound the Parables, for he is himself a 
 great master of metaphorical teaching. Happy are the people who statedly listen 
 to his highly pictorial, and yet solid instruction ; and here they who read will share 
 the blessing. Bells of golden music, and pomegranates of richest sweetness, are 
 the true emblems of a sanctified teacher, and these in equal proportions enliven and 
 adorn Mr. Amot's discourses. In the valuable work before us there is, as is usual 
 with the author, much striking originality, and much unparaded learning. The first 
 will make it popular, the second will commend it to the thoughtful. Many writers 
 have done well upon this subject, but in some respects, as far as space would per- 
 mit him, our friend excels them all. ' The Parables ' will be a fit companion to 
 roverbs,' and both books will be immortal." Spurgeon. 
 
 By tkt same Author. 
 
 OOTS AND FRUITS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 7*. 6d 
 
 R 
 
 BY THE REV. ISLAY BURNS, D.D. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST : With a Special 
 View to the Delineation of Christian Faith and Life. With Notes, Chrono- 
 logical Tables, Lists of Councils, Examination Questions, and other Illustrative 
 Matter. (From A.D. I to A.D. 313.) Crown 8vo, cloth antique, red edges. Price 53. 
 " Your able and eloquent History of the Church of Christ.' " Rev. Dr. 
 Kennedy, Head Master of Shrewsbury. 
 
 BY THE REV. A. A. HODGE. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY. Edited by the Rev. W. H. 
 GOOLD, D.D.. Professor of Biblical Literature and Church History, Edin- 
 burgh. Crown 8vo. Price 6s. 6d. 
 
 " In systematic theology, I am glad that the Committee sanctioned the use of 
 ' Hodge's Outlines.' a book of incomparable excellence as a compendious digest of 
 theology." Rev. 7. B. Paton, Congregational Institute, Nottingham. 
 
 " We can best show our appreciation of this able body of Divinity by mencionmg 
 that we have used it in our college with much satisfaction both to tutor and students. 
 We intend to make it a class-book, and urge all young men who are anxious to be- 
 come good theologians, to master it thoroughly. Of course we do not endorse the 
 charter on baptism. To a few of the Doctor's opinions in other parts we might 
 St bu? aTaS-book of theology, in our judgment, it is like Goliath's sword- 
 1 there is none like it' "Spurgeon. 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK.

 
 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 022 350 3