The life of the Earl of Eldon is an important addition to public biography. Written by a lawyer, it has the advantage of professional knowledge—by a man of a certain experience in public, and even in official life, it exhibits that practical knowledge of affairs which nothing but practice can gain—and by a man of literary accomplishment, it adds, to its more solid merits, those graces of style which supply the last attraction to a work of manly utility. We feel even, in some degree, an uncritical, yet a not less authentic satisfaction in giving our tribute to the work of one connected with a family, whose name brings to the public mind such deep recollections of fine ability finely employed—of talents combined with the noblest triumphs of past genius and of forms and countenances eminently fitted to represent the grand and beautiful of the classic drama of England.

The father of Lord Eldon was William Scott, a merchant of good means and good repute at Newcastle, his principal business being connected with the coal trade. He lived to be seventy-nine years old, and his wife (a second marriage) to be ninety-one. By her he had thirteen children, of whom John (Lord Eldon) was the eighth. William (Lord Stowell) was born in 1745, the year of the Scottish invasion, in Heworth, where his mother had been sent for her accouchement, to avoid the perils, Newcastle then expecting a siege. After her return to Newcastle, she gave birth to John, June 4, 1751. The house was situated at the end of one of those narrow streets, which in the native dialect are called chares, the extremity being a "chare-foot." A bar story is told of a judge on circuit, who hearing a witness depose that he had seen three men come out of a "chare-foot," desired the jury to disregard his evidence altogether, as none but a madman could say that he saw three men come out of the "foot of a chair." Lord Eldon appears to have been so fond of the jest, that he once stated in the Court of Chancery, that "he had been born in a chair-foot." At the suitable age, John and his brothers were sent to the Foundation Grammar School of Newcastle, then under the headship of one Moises, fellow of Peterhouse. His predecessor had been Dawes, the well-known author of the "Miscellanea Critica"—an able scholar, but only an additional example of the frequent insufficiency of scholars to teach. Dawes was eccentric, and injured the reputation of the school. His predominant propensity while in Newcastle was bell-ringing. On his leaving that place he adopted a new taste, that of rowing. If Moises had any peculiar taste, it seems to have been flogging.

"I was once," said Lord Eldon, "the seventeenth boy whom Moises flogged, and richly did we merit it. There was an elderly lady who lived in Westgate Street, whom we surrounded, and would not allow her to go either backward or forward. She complained, and he flogged us all. When he came to me, he exclaimed, 'What, John Scott! were you there too?' And I was obliged to say, 'Yes, sir.' 'I will not stop,' said he, 'you shall all have it.' But I think I came off best, for his arm was rather tired with the sixteen who went before me."

A flogging may be all very well in its recollection fifty years after. But the impression of the moment was, we presume, not quite so favourable. The inevitable consequence of this habit was to spoil both master and scholars. It made the timid boy pusillanimous, while it made the fierce more indignant and resentful. What could be the feelings of the master who could inflict almost agony on seventeen mere children, let the offence be what it might? Yet the offence was trifling; troublesome behaviour to an old woman in the street. A slight reprimand, or trivial fine, would have properly finished the affair; but then comes the flagellation.

But our great public schools exhibit another offence; the system of fagging alike foolish and mischievous. It only teaches the elder boys to be tyrants, and the younger to be liars and slaves. In practice, it promises to correct itself, by destroying the great schools. The proprietary schools, and other institutions for the education of the people, have uniformly discountenanced this abominable nuisance; and we know none whose abolition would do more credit to the heads of the church, or, if they should remain indolent on the subject, to the heads of the legislature.

William Scott, in 1761, was sent to Oxford as a candidate for a Durham scholarship, which he obtained, but which was perilled by a blunder of the head of Corpus Christi college. This worthy person delivered his opinion in this style:—"I think, gentlemen, there can be no doubt that young Scott is by far the best scholar of them. But he has told us that his father is a fiddler, and I do not quite like to take the son of a fiddler into the college." The doctor was an ass for his dictum; and it is only to be regretted that he did not live to express this impudent opinion in our day. England is certainly growing more rational, whatever colleges may be. Language of that sort, used in a country which boasts that no artificial impediment can be suffered to exist in the career of genius and virtue, would quickly meet the reception merited by its arrogant absurdity. The "fiddler" was a blunder of the doctor for "fitter," the local name of the coal trade.

William, in his twentieth year, became a tutor; John was intended for a coal-merchant, but his brother desired that he should be sent to Oxford. "Send Jack up to me," were the words; "I can do better for him here." He was then under fifteen.

A striking anecdote marks his first starting in life. "When I left school to go to Oxford," said Lord Eldon, "I came up from Newcastle to London in a coach, then denominated, on account of its quick travelling, 'a Fly,' being three or four days and nights on the road. On the panels were the words, Sat cito, si sat bene, (Fast enough, if well enough,) which made a most lasting impression on my mind, and have had their influence on my conduct in all subsequent life." He then exhibits a specimen of that sly humour which characterized him to the last.

"A Quaker fellow-traveller stopped the coach at the inn at Tuxford to give the chambermaid a sixpence, telling her that he had forgotten it when he slept there two years before. I was a very saucy boy, and I said to him, 'Friend, have you seen the motto on the coach?' 'No.' 'Then look at it, for I think giving her only sixpence now is neither sat cito nor sat bene."

On his arrival in London, he was overturned, with his brother, in a sedan chair. "This," thought he, "is more than sat cito, and it certainly is not sat bene." He concludes more gravely by saying, "It was this impression which made me that deliberative judge, as some have said too deliberative. And reflection upon all that is past, will not authorize me to deny, that while I have been thinking, 'Sat cito, si sat bene,' I may not have sufficiently remembered whether 'Sat bene, si sat cito' has had its due influence."

The chief feature of this portion of the biography is its recollections of remarkable persons. We have heard this one of Johnson before: but the names and place are now first given from Lord Eldon's anecdote-book.

"I had a walk in the New Inn Hall garden with Dr Johnson, Sir Robert Chambers, and some other gentlemen, (Chambers was principal of the Hall, and Vinerian professor of law. He was at this period on the point of proceeding to India as judge.) Sir Robert was gathering snails, and throwing them over the wall into his neighbour's garden. The doctor attacked him roughly, and charged his conduct as being unneighbourly. 'Sir,' said Sir Robert, 'my neighbour is a dissenter.' 'Oh,' said the doctor, 'if so, toss away, toss away as hard as you can!'"

This was evidently one of Johnson's odd freaks, a piece of his growling humour; for though no man disliked sectarianism more, no man had a stronger sense of charity to all.

His manners now and then exhibited strange absence. Lord Eldon says that he had seen him standing for a considerable time, with one foot on each side of the kennel of the High Street of Oxford, gazing at the water.

It was proverbially dangerous to contradict him. Dr Mortimer, head of Lincoln college, happened occasionally to interrupt him, by saying, "I deny that," while Johnson was holding forth. At length he said, "Sir, sir, you must have forgotten that an author has said, (he then repeated in Latin,) one ass will deny more in one hour, than a hundred philosophers will prove in a hundred years."

During the year 1774 and 1775, John Scott held the office of a tutor of University college; but he appears to have left the duty to Fisher and William Scott, his brother, those two dividing the emoluments. However, he was more importantly employed when he gave lectures on the law as deputy to Sir Robert Chambers, for which he had L.60 a-year. His first essay was sufficiently ridiculous. The law professor sent him his first lecture, which he was to read immediately to the students, and which he began, without knowing its contents. It happened to be on the statute 4th and 5th, Philip and Mary, on young men running away with young women. "Fancy me," said his lordship, "reading with about 140 boys and young men giggling at the professor." While Scott was eating his terms at the Middle Temple, he had some opportunities of seeing Mr Sergeant Hill, the great lawyer of his day, eminent for learning, and scarcely less so for eccentricity. Hill one day stopped Scott in the hall, and said, "Pray, young gentleman, do you think herbage and pannage rateable to the poor's rate?" Scott replied "that he could not presume to give an opinion to so learned a personage." "Upon my word," said the sergeant, "you are a pretty sensible young gentlemen—I don't often meet with such. If I had asked Mr Burgess, a young leader upon our circuit, the question, he would have told me that I was an old fool." Hill began an argument in the King's Bench thus:—"My Lord Mansfield and judges, I beg your pardon."—"Why brother Hill, do you ask our pardon?"—"My lords," said he, "I have seventy-eight cases to cite."—"Seventy-eight cases!" said Lord Mansfield; "you can never have our pardon if you cite seventy-eight cases!" After the court had given its decision, which was against the sergeant's client, Lord Mansfield said, "Now, brother Hill, that the judgment is given, you can have no objections, on account of your client, to tell us your real opinion, and whether you do not think we are right; you know how we all value your opinion and judgment." Hill wished to be excused; but as he always thought it his duty to do what the court desired, "Upon my word," said he, "I did not think that there were four men in the world who could have given such an ill-founded judgment as you four, my lords, have pronounced." This style, however, must have been now and then intolerable.

When Baron Hotham was placed in the Exchequer, he gave a dinner, as is usual on those occasions, at Sergeant's Inn, to the judges and sergeants. Hotham had been unsuccessful at the bar. Hill, in drinking his health, called him Baron Botham. Somebody whispered the real name to him. Hill said aloud, "I beg your pardon, Mr Baron Hotham; but none of us ever heard your name in the profession before this day." In justice to the baron, however, Lord Eldon adds the following note:—"The Baron made an extremely good judge. He had not much legal learning; but he had an excellent understanding, great discretion, unwearied patience, and his manners were extremely engaging; and those qualities ensuring to him in a very large measure the assistance of the bar, he executed his duties as a judge with great sufficiency."

Shortly after his commencing the profession, Scott reduced himself into a state of invalidism by excessive study. In 1774, when he and Cookson, another invalid, were returning to Oxford from Newcastle, where they had gone to vote at the general election, the good-natured cook of the inn at Birmingham, where they arrived at eleven at night, insisted on dressing something hot for them, saying that she was sure neither of them would live to see her again. A medical friend remonstrated with him on the severity of his studies. "It is not matter," answered Scott, "I must either do as I am now doing, or starve." He rose at four in the morning, observed a careful abstinence at his meals, and, to prevent drowsiness, read at night with a wet towel round his head. At last it became necessary, as the time of being called to the bar approached, to provide a dwelling in London. In his latter days, he pointed out a house in Cursitor Street. "There," said he, "was my first perch. Many a time have I run down from that house to Fleet Market, to get sixpennyworth of sprats for supper." At this period, in mentioning to his brother the kindness of a great conveyancer, Mr Duane, whom he attended as a gratuitous pupil, he says—"This conduct of his has taken a great load of uneasiness off my mind; as, in fact, our profession is so exceedingly expensive that I almost sink under it. I have got a house barely sufficient to hold my small family, which will, in rent and taxes, cost me L.60. I have been buying books, too, for the last ten years; but I have got the mortification to find that, before I can settle, that article of trade—for so I consider it—will cost me near L.200." Of Duane's service to him, he said, a little more than a fortnight before his death, "The knowledge I acquired of conveyancing in his office, was of infinite service to me during a long life in the Court of Chancery."

In Hilary Term 1776, Scott was called to the bar by the Society of the Middle Temple. When we recollect what a leviathan of wealth the Lord Chancellor was in his latter days, it is amusing to read the statement of his early struggles, however painful they must have been at the time. "When I was called to the bar," said he, "Bessy (his wife) and I thought all our troubles were over. Business was to pour in, and we were to be almost rich immediately. So I made a bargain with her, that, during the following year, all the money that I should receive during the first eleven months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth month should be hers. What a stingy dog I must have been to make such a bargain! I would not have done so afterwards. But, however, so it was— that was our agreement; and how do you think that it turned out? In the twelfth month I received half-a-guinea. Eighteen-pence went for fees, and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I got not one shilling." This was but sorry encouragement; but such is the profession. Men must wait. Property, or perhaps life, will not trust themselves to inexperience; and thus, from the very nature of the Bar, a long period of probation must be borne by all.

There had been an old and invidious conception which represented the Lord Chancellor as the son of a coal-heaver. It appears from the memoir that his father was, on the contrary, possessed of property very considerable in those days. He was what we should now call a broker in the coal-trade—technically, a coal-fitter or factor—who transacted business between the coal-owner and the ship-owner. He was intelligent and industrious, and prospered accordingly; leaving, at his death, property worth L.25,000 to his eldest son William; another L.1000 to John; making, in the whole, L.3000, and respectable sums to his other children. He appears to have realized above L.30,000—a sum equal to nearly double at the present day.

Lord Eldon, though all gravity on the bench, and seldom indulging in any sportiveness in parliament, was a humorist at table, and fond of humorous recollections. His story of Dunning on his travels has got into print; but, in the hands of a genuine humorist, it must have been an incomparable ground for burlesque. Dunning, when solicitor-general, had gone to see the Prussian reviews. Some of these were profoundly secret, and were presumed to be experiments in those tactical novelties with which Frederick dazzled Europe. But others were showy displays, to which the king invited the princes and generals of the Continent. Dunning had announced himself as Solicitor-General of England. Frederick, either knowing nothing of solicitors, though much of generals, or what is more probable—for he was the most deliberate wag in existence—determining to play the lawyer a trick, ordered him to be received as a general officer, and provided him with a charger for his presence at the grand display. Dunning, long unused to ride, soon found that he had his master under him. The charger, as well disciplined as one of his majesty's grenadiers, and delighting, like the horse of Joab, in the "trumpets and the shouting" of the captains, rushed every where with his unwilling rider; and it was not till after a day of terror, in which his cavalry exploits must have exposed him to frequent laughter, that the lawyer escaped from the din of battles, and rejoiced to find himself with unfractured bones, resolved never to play the general officer again.

There may be "some things new under the sun," in contradiction to the proverb; but they are not many, at least in wit. The story of the celebrated cardinal, who proved that the sun went round the moon, and vice versa, is sufficiently wall known. Dunning's pleading pro and con. is vouched for from Scott's personal experience. Dunning led in a cause in which Scott was junior counsel. The leader so evidently reasoned against his own client, that Scott, after long amazement, at last touched his arm, and whispered that he was speaking on the wrong side. Dunning instantly perceived his mistake, and gave him a rough reprimand (we may presume sotto voce) for having suffered him to go on so long. He then recovered himself with his habitual dexterity; said that he had stated all that could be urged against his client, and that he would then proceed to show how utterly futile was the argument.

A good deal of his early life on the circuit was passed with Lee, then the leader of the northern circuit, and a man of great vigour of mind. A curious question once rose between them on professional morality. At supper one night, Scott made the remark, that Lee always exerted himself to gain a verdict by a display of his great legal knowledge; but not always with a regard to the accuracy of either his law or his facts. Lee contended that it was the duty of counsel to state what the party himself would have stated, and get a verdict if he could. He, however, pondered on it; and, as they were retiring for the night, said, "Scott, I have been thinking of the question you asked me; and I am not quite sure that the conduct you represented will bring a man peace at the last."

Lord Eldon quotes Johnson's opinion, which had been referred to—and which stated that it was the duty of counsel, after having stated the law and the facts exactly, to exert his abilities to the utmost to gain his cause—the judge being supposed the abler lawyer, and the reasoning of the bench amending what was erroneous in that of the bar. Lord Eldon adds, in his rather too dubious way—"It may be questioned whether even this can be supported." Of course it may. The object of law is to do justice; and justice is not done if the ingenuity of an able advocate is entitled to gain a false verdict. For how is this to be gained? Either by a suppression of the truth in part, or by a colouring of the falsehood, or by an invention of facts, aided by a misinterpretation of law; all palpably against conscience. The true rule appears to be—the lawyer stands in the place of the client, to do what the client would and could have done, if he had equal skill in exhibiting the circumstances, and equal knowledge of the law which bore upon them. But as the client has no right to tell an untruth of any kind for himself, so neither has the lawyer the right to tell it for him. The lawyer's taking a brief in a cause of which he has a bad opinion, is wholly a different matter. The custom of the bar justly decides that he must not refuse the brief, because he cannot be sure that he knows the whole cause; for facts unexpected, and even unknown, may start up; he may be mistaken in his personal conception of the facts, the motives, and the law: new facts may come out on the trial. There is a judge to decide on hearing both sides, and the counsel has no right to assume the office of the judge. Of course, if he is made aware of any fraud in the conduct of the case, or even suspects it, he must abandon his brief at once.

Lee's manner was of that rough and ready kind which always tells with a jury. Once, after a very keen cross-examination, the witness charged him with severity to one who was his relation. "Why, how do you make that out," said Lee. The man stated the genealogy. "Well," said Lee, "I believe you are right. I only wish, my good fourth or fifth cousin, you would speak a little truth for the honour of the family; for not one word of truth have you spoken yet."

Even this able man had gone many years to York without a single brief; and even then began only on a burlesque case, fabricated by his brother barristers.

Accuracy of recollection is obviously of peculiar importance at the bar; but the profession has sometimes exhibited surprising instances of this faculty. Lord Eldon spoke of Chief Justice De Grey's powers of memory as extraordinary. De Grey suffered so much from the gout, the he used to come into court with both hands wrapped in flannel. He thus could not take a not. "Yet I have known him," said Lord Eldon, "try a cause that lasted nine or ten hours, and then, from memory, sum up all the evidence with the greatest correctness. When counsel offered any intimation of his inaccuracy, his answer was—'I am sure I am right; refer to your short-hand writer's notes;' and he was invariably found to be right." A similar faculty is possessed by that very distinguished person, Lord Lyndhurst.

It is remarkable that none of the lucky accidents which have raised so many inferior men into prosperity ever occurred to Scott, who was yet destined to rise to such opulence and eminence. His first steps in life might be regarded as all but ruin. He abandoned his college, where he had secured at least existence; and he abandoned it for a profession proverbially hazardous, and in which, for whole years, he made nothing. At this period, too, when scarcely able to support himself, he ran away with a portionless wife; and thus began the world not merely helpless, but with a new weight which has broken down many a strong mind. The opinion of every one who took an interest in him was, that this marriage was fatal to all his prospects. It necessarily compelled him to give up all collegiate objects; and we recollect to have seen in print a fragment of a letter from his elder brother (afterwards Lord Stowell) to a friend, in these words—"Have you seen what my foolish brother has done? He has made a runaway match; he is utterly ruined." The opinion of Moises, his schoolmaster, was equally decided. "Jack Scott has run off with Bessy Surtees, and the poor lad is undone."

Scott entered as a student of the Middle Temple in January 1773. In six years after, what was his progress? We have this letter from Lord Stowell about 1779. "Business is very dull with poor Jack, very dull indeed, and of consequence he is not very lively. I heartily wish that business may brighten a little, or he will be heartily sick of his profession. I do all I can to keep up his spirits, but he is very gloomy. But mum, not a word of this to the wife of your bosom."

At length, however, day began to dawn, and his powerful understanding and solid knowledge found the opportunity, which to such means is generally all that is wanting. A conversation with an old friend lets us into a curious trait of Lord Mansfield. "Was the Court of Chancery your object when you first came to the bar?" asked Farrar. "Certainly not," answered Lord Eldon. "I first took my seat in the King's Bench; but I soon perceived, or thought I perceived, a preference in Lord Mansfield (the Chief Justice) for young lawyers who had been bred at Westminster School and Christ Church; and so, as I had belonged to neither, I thought I could not have fair chance with my fellows, and therefore I crossed over to the other side of the hall. (The Courts of King's Bench and Chancery were at that time on the opposite sides of Westminster Hall.) Lord Mansfield, I believe, was not conscious of the bias; he was a good man." Mansfield's goodness was sufficiently questioned by his contemporaries; yet if he exhibited this bias, he could not have been a just man. The cause which first made Scott known was Acroyd v. Smithson. The question was—whether, in a property willed in fifteen shares to fifteen people, one of them dying in the testator's lifetime, the lapsed share did not belong to the heir at law. He argued the case before the Master of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Sewell. "He has argued it very well," said Sewell. But he gave it against Scott. An appeal came before Lord Thurlow. Scott argued his point. Thurlow took three days to consider, and then gave his decision in favour of the heir-at-law—a decision which has settled all similar questions ever since. He then had an omen of his prosperity. As he left the hall, a solicitor of some note touched him on the shoulder, and said, "Young man, your bread and butter is cut for life."

He then had another golden opportunity. Fatigued with waiting for fortune, he was on the point of leaving London, and taking up his abode at Newcastle, of which he was offered the recordership. A house was even taken for him, when, one morning at six o'clock, Mr, afterwards Lord, Curzon, and four or five other gentlemen, came to his door, mentioning that the Clitheroe election case was to come on that morning at ten before a committee of the Commons; that one of their counsel was detained at Oxford by illness, and their second was unprepared and would not appear; and that they were sent to him as a young and promising counsel. Scott told them that, on so short a notice, all he could do would be to give a dry statement of facts. The cause thus put into his hands went on for fifteen days. "It found me poor," said Lord Eldon, "but I was to be rich before it was done. They left me fifty guineas at the beginning; then there were ten guineas every day, and five guineas every evening, for a consultation—more money than I could count. But, better still, the length of the cause gave me time to make myself thoroughly acquainted with the law." After all this, the side on which Scott was, was beaten by a single vote. But Mansfield, (afterwards Sir James,) on hearing his speech in the committee, came up to him in Westminster Hall, and strongly advised him to remain in London. Scott answered that an increasing family compelled him to leave London. Wilson, a barrister, advised as Mansfield had done, and even generously offered to make up his income to L.400 a-year. He received the same answer. "However," said the chancellor, with natural selfgratulation, "I did remain, and lived to make Mansfield chief justice of the common pleas, and Wilson a judge." Moreover, his sagacity gave him additional triumphs on the northern circuit, where he soon took the lead. He was counsel in a cause which depended on his being able to make out who was the founder of an ancient chapel in the neighbourhood. "I went to view it," said Lord Eldon. "There was nothing to be observed which gave any indication of its date or history. However, I remarked that the ten commandments were written on some old plaster, which, from its position, I conjectured might cover an arch. Acting on this, I bribed the clerk with five shillings to allow me to chip away a part of the plaster; and after two or three attempts, I found the keystone of an arch, on which were engraved the arms of an ancestor of one of the parties. This evidence decided the cause. Here was an instance of good-luck, undoubtedly, but also of great diligence and great sagacity. A negligent counsel would never have thought of examining the chapel in person; a dull counsel would never have thought of examining the arch; but it happens that the sagacious are generally lucky, and that, therefore, the first quality is sagacity."

Another remarkable case occurred at Durham. On this occasion, Scott, though a junior counsel, was appointed to lead by his seniors, the case being relative to collieries, and he being a Newcastle man. When Buller the judge, who was a coarse man, and fond of saying abrupt things, saw him, he said, "Sir, you have not a leg to stand upon." Scott answered, "My lord, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I should sit down on hearing the judge so express himself; but so persuaded am I that I have the right on my side, that I must entreat your lordship to allow me to reply, and I must also express my expectation of gaining a verdict." He replied, and the jury, after consulting six or eight hours, gave the verdict in his favour. When he went to the ball that evening, he was received with open arms by every one.

When he went to Carlisle, Buller sent for him, and told him that "he had been thinking over that case on his way from Newcastle, and that he had come to the conclusion that he was entirely wrong, and that I was right. He had, therefore, sent for me to tell me this, and to express his regret for having attempted to stop me in court. This cause," said Lord Eldon, "raised me aloft."

Yet this man, with all his ability, had already attended the Cumberland assizes for seven years without receiving a brief. After the celebrity of this cause, when he next attended, he received seventy guineas in fees at Carlisle.

So much has been said in parliament, and in the newspapers lately, of Gentlemen of the Turf, and the very dubious nature of that appellation, that the following case comes curiously in point. A question arose as to the winner of the stakes in a race—there having been a condition, that the horses should be ridden by gentlemen; and it was disputed whether the winning horse had been ridden by a gentleman or not. The judge finally addressed the jury in these words—"Gentlemen of the jury, when I see you in that box I call you gentlemen, for I know you are such. Custom has authorized me, and, from your office there, you are entitled to be called gentlemen; but out of that box, I do not know what may be deemed the requisites that constitute a gentleman—therefore I can give you no direction," (a laugh.) The jury returned a verdict that he was not a gentleman. The next morning he challenged the two counsel, Law and Scott. They answered, they could not possibly fight one who had been pronounced by the verdict of a jury to be no gentleman.

Politics now began to rise in the prospects of this intelligent and indefatigable mind. The condition of the English lawyer forms as striking a contrast to that of the Continental jurisconsult, as the English constitution to the despotisms of Europe. Abroad, the lawyer may be a man of whatever extent of attainment, but his sphere is strictly professional; within that range he lives, makes a scanty income, with a still more scanty fame, disputes for forty or fifty years, and dies. France, of late years, is partially an exception, for France now extends the range of her professions; but in all the rest, the existence of the lawyer closely resembles the existence of the quadruped in the mill. In England all is of a different and a higher order. The bar itself is but a step; distinction in the courts is only the first stage of an ascent which may raise the individual to eminence in government, as well as dignity in the high places of his profession—it is the preparative for wearing those honours which form a family, and give a pledge to fortune. As the ancients said of the eagle, that, before he takes his flight for the day, he prepares his wings by plunging them in the mountain stream, the great lawyer has plunged in the depths of his profession only to ascend into a higher range of power and prospect, and there to steer his strong flight to the possession of all that man can desire.

On the formation of the Coalition ministry under North and Fox in 1783, the great seal being in commission, Scott was appointed king's counsel; but in this instance, so important to a young barrister, he yet showed manliness. Saturday was the day on which he was to receive this honour; but on ascertaining the Erskine and Pigot, both his juniors, and who were also to have silk gowns, were to be sworn in on the Friday, he instantly retracted his acceptance, as, "he could not submit to any waiver of his professional rank." The lords-commissioners called him before them, and argued the matter pressingly. But he would not give way. At last, as the patents for the two other counsel had already passed the great seal, they were sworn in on the Friday; but a patent of precedence was given to Scott, by which he took rank before them. The day of his patent was the 4th of June 1783: he was then thirty-two years old. Late in life, a friend asked whether he thought it was important thus to insist on retaining his rank. Eldon, with the experience of half a century, answered with great earnestness, "It was every thing. I owed my future success to it." There is a moral in the words of Wiseman—"The man who begins by humiliation, will soon find that the world will judge of him by his own deed."

Lord Eldon, in one of those conversations, strikingly remarked a similar conduct in the celebrated Lord Collingwood, who had been his schoolfellow. "Medals were given," said his lordship, "on the 1st of June, but not to him. When the medal was sent to him for Cape St Vincent, he returned it, saying that he felt conscious he had done his duty as well on the 1st of June as at Cape St Vincent; and that, if he did not merit the first medal, neither could he merit the second. He was quite right," said Lord Eldon, "he would have both or neither. Both were sent to him."

Parliament now opened to his ambition. Lord Thurlow, at Lord Weymouth's request, offered him Weobly, a borough in his patronage, (extinguished by the Reform Act of 1832.) Scott accepted the offer, on the condition that he should be left independent in his opinions. Thurlow said the "he had stipulated that already." Scott went down to the borough accordingly, made a "long speech," which the electors said they expected from him, "as he was a lawyer: it being also a treat which they had not enjoyed for thirty years." Lord Surrey, (afterwards Duke of Norfolk,) a prodigious reformer—a profession which, however, did not prevent him from constantly dabbling in the intrigues of electioneering—had harangued against him at Hereford, while Scott retorted at Weobly by smartly saying—"That though then unknown to them, he hoped he should entitle himself to more of their confidence, than if, being the son of the first Duke of England, he had held himself out to them as a reformer, whilst riding, as the Earl of Surry rode, into the first town of the county, drunk, upon a cider-cask, and talking in that state of reform!" Lord Surrey had been his client, and on meeting him in France afterwards, good-humouredly said—"I have had enough of meddling with you; I shall trouble you no more."

An odd incident, valuable to those who value foresightedness in this world's affairs, occurred at the time Scott was lodged at the vicar's, Mr Bridges. He had a daughter, a young child, and he said—"Who knows but you may come to be chancellor. As my girl can probably marry nobody but a clergyman, promise me you will give her husband a living when you have the seals." His answer was, "My promise is not worth half-a-crown; but you may have my promise." In after life, the child, then in womanhood, walked one morning into the chancellor's drawing-room, and claimed the fulfilment of his promise. It was duly performed, and she married.

There is perhaps no subject of human interest more entitled to an anxious and solemn curiosity, than the sentiments of a man of powerful and fully furnished mind in the immediate prospect of death. The coming change is so total and so tremendous, alarm and a sense of the unknown are so natural, that to find unpresuming confidence, and virtuous constancy of heart, in that awful time, cheers human nature. William Scott, always distinguished for great capacity and remarkable acquirements, about this period being seized with an illness, which he thought mortal, writes these memoranda on the verge of the grave:—

My great comfort is, to write on to my dearest Jack, and about my wife. Act for me. Wife, child. She knows I recommend her to your care.

Object of my life, to make my sisters easy.

Save ——— from ruin if we can.

Protect my memory by your kindness. Life ebbs very fast with me. My dying thoughts are all kindness and fraternal love about you.

While sensation remains, I think on my dearest brother, with whom I have spent my life. I die with the same sentiments. As the hand of death approaches, it is a consolation to think of him. Oh, cherish my wife! If you loved me, be a brother to her. You will have trouble about my affairs; you will not grudge it. Oh, take care of her! I leave you that duty. It is the last relief of my failing mind. Cherish my memory. Keep ——- from ruin, if you can, by any application of any part of my child's fortune that is reasonable. Once more, farewell! God bless you.

These are affecting testimonials, and show singular tenderness of heart and truth of attachment; for they were written, to be transmitted only in case of death. Those who in after times saw Lord Stowell on the bench, the solemn, and even the stern depository of justice, could scarcely imagine, in that searching glance and compressed lip, the softness of heart which those fragments indicate. Death may be a great subduer of the fierce spirit of man as it approaches; but their language is not the phrase of puling softness, or pusillanimous alarm; it is at once calm and fond, collected and fervid. The writer's natural and honourable feelings are all alive at the moment when the last pang might seem to be at hand; and though nothing is said of his Christian hopes, (probably because the care of his family demanded more urgent consideration than his personal conceptions,) language like theirs could scarcely have come but from a Christian. His disorder was a violent bilious fever, which exhausted him so much that his recovery was slow. But to those who are in the habit of consigning their friends to "inevitable death" on every infliction of disease, it may excite some useful doubt of their own infallibility, to know that this dying man, then thirty-eight, survived for half a century, dying in his ninety-first year.

But the whole biography is a warning—especially against despondency. Who could suppose that, after Lord Eldon's success up to this point; his distinction on the principal circuit; the compliments of the judges; the respect of his seniors in the profession, some of them very remarkable men; his silk gown in the days of Erskine; his seat in Parliament; and, more than all, the consciousness which men of large faculties naturally have of their suitableness, and almost their certainty, to command fortune at some tine or other; we should find the future peer and chancellor desponding? Yet what but deep complaints of his cloudy prospects could have produced this reply from his clever friend Lee, (who, within three weeks' became Attorney-General?)

DEAR SCOTT—Your letter, which I received this minute, was a very cheering one to me. But keep up your spirits, and let it not be said that a good understanding, and an irreproachable life, and an uncommon success, and every virtuous expectation, are insufficient to support tranquility and composure of mind. If you are cast down who is to hold up? In a few days I hope to meet you in good health and good heart; and, in the mean time, remain your faithful and affectionate.

(Nov. 1783) "J. LEE."

On the opening of the session, great popular feeling was excited against the coalition. The furious invectives which Fox had been for some years heaping on Lord North's luckless head, were now flung upon his own. Traitor, liar, swindler, were "house-hold words;" and Fox, with all his ability, and that happiest of all ability for the crisis, great constitutional good-humour, found himself suddenly overwhelmed. In the House he was still powerful; but, outside its doors, he was utterly helpless. Like the witches recorded in some of the German romances, though within the walls chosen for their orgies they could summon spirits, and revel in their incantations uncontrolled, yet, on passing the threshold, they turned into hags again. But as if to make the coalition still more odious in the popular eye, there was presented the most resistless contrast to both its chiefs in the young and extraordinary leader of the Opposition, Pitt; with the ardour of youth and the wisdom of years, at once master of the most vigorous logic, and the loftiest appeal to the public feelings; honoured as the son of Chatham; and yet, even at that immature period of his life and his career, still more honoured for the promise of talents and services which were to throw even his own eminent predecessor into the shade.

But North, apart from the cabinet, was always delightful. He had more of easy pleasantry in his manner than any favourite of English recollection. Lord Eldon, in his anecdotal book thus tells—"Lord North had gone, at the Prince of Wales's desire, to reconcile the King to him. He succeeded, and called on the Prince to inform him of his success. 'Now,' said he, 'let me beseech your Royal Highness in future to conduct yourself differently. Do so, on all accounts; do so, for your own sake; do so, for your excellent father's sake; do so, for the sake of that good-natured man, Lord North; and don't oblige him again to tell the King, your good father, so many lies, as he has been obliged to tell him this morning'"

Lord Eldon's personal narrative is a sort of comment on the whole public history of his time. Why did not such a man write his own "Life and Times?" Intelligent as are the Volumes before us, the personal conceptions arising on the personal knowledge, would have been invaluable as experience. His view of transactions in their embryo, in their full growth, and in their impression on the general policy and progress of the government, would have formed an important lesson for statesmanship to come. But what an indulgence must it have furnished to the national curiosity, which, seeing the origin of all things in individual character, justly regards the eminent characters of that day as the founders of every remarkable change which has shaped the constitution in our own! Public life has never before or since abounded in such variety, strength, and brilliancy of character. A combination of talents of the very highest order was exhibited in both the Lords and Commons; and it would actually seem as if this combination were preparatory to the tremendous demands which, before the close of the century, were to be made upon the wisdom, the courage, and the constancy of the British legislature. And why should there not be such preparation? We see preparation a principle in the whole course of nature. We see, in the formation of individual character, a preparative, and sometimes a most distinct and powerful one, for the duty which the coming crisis is yet to demand; and why shall not legislatures, as well individuals, be placed in that condition of effectiveness, and trained to that exertion of power, which is subsequently to be required for the providential deliverance of nations? It is remarkable that the discussions in which parliament at this period was engaged, though local, and of course altogether inferior to those comprehensive struggles which were to follow, were yet of a nature singularly calculated to call forth practical ability. There never was a period since the Revolution of 1688, in which party was so vigorously brought into conflict, in which personal interests gave so strong a stimulus to the association of principles, in which office so rapidly shifted hands, and power was so much the creature of reputation. Thus the whole character of this period was an appeal to popularity; an appeal of all others the most calculated to bring out every latent faculty of the orator, the constitutionalist, and the statesman. A still greater period, unknown and unexpected by every man, was to have the advantage of this preparation. The French Revolution, which burst with such irresistible violence over the Continent, was to find the ramparts of public principle and legislative wisdom repaired and strengthened in England, and those ramparts manned with defenders who had learned the use of their weapons in the mock conflicts of peace, and, when the day of danger came, showed themselves invincible.

The India bill broke down the Coalition ministry; it was the most insolent experiment ever made on the constitution—a compound of republican daring and despotic power. It would have made the king a cipher, and parliament a slave. The exclusive patronage of India would have enabled the minister to corrupt the legislature. The corruption of the legislature would have made the minister irresponsible: the constitution would thus have been inevitably suspended, and the national liberties incapable of being restored except by a national convulsion. But those evils were happily avoided by the manliness of the king and the loyalty of the lords. The India bill was thrown out in the House of Lords on the 17th of December. The king lost no time in giving effect to this discomfiture. At the extraordinary hour of twelve o'clock on the following night, an order was sent to the two secretaries of state, North and Fox, that they should deliver up the seals by his majesty's command; adding the contemptuous injunction, that they should send them by the under-secretaries, the king not suffering a personal interview.

Pitt was placed at the head of the new administration as first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. Thurlow was again made lord chancellor, and Kenyon and Arden attorney and solicitor-generals. In the debates on the India bill, one of Sheridan's pleasantries is recorded. As Fox's majorities declined, it was hinted by his party that John Robinson, the secretary of the treasury, was purchasing the votes. On Sheridan's making the charge without naming the supposed culprit, a great outcry arose in the House of "Name him, name him!" "Sir," said Sheridan, addressing the Speaker, "I shall not name the person; it is an invidious and unpleasant thing to do; but don't suppose that I could find any difficulty in naming him: I could do it as soon as you could say Jack Robinson."

Pitt having waited with consummate judgment, though against the advice of all his supporters, until Fox had worn down his majorities in the House, and totally disgusted the nation, dissolved the parliament. The measure was triumphant; an unequaled Tory majority was returned in the next session, and the Whigs were extinguished as a party for nearly twenty years. Lord Eldon records a curious acknowledgment of Fox with respect to the power of the pencil. "Sayers's caricatures," said he, "did me more mischief than the debates in Parliament or the attacks of the press." Lord Eldon observes that the prints of Carlo Khan; Fox running away with the India House; Fox and Burke quitting Paradise when turned out of office, and similar publications, had certainly a vast effect on the public mind. Let HB triumph on this, and make his claim on the ministry. Scott was again returned for Weobly, and gives a curious instance of the slight incidents by which elections are sometimes determined. In crossing the country from Lancaster to the hustings at his borough, he stopped at the last stage to have his hair dressed. The hairdresser asked him whether Sir Gilbert Elliott was not one of the seven kings—a name of ridicule given to Fox's seven proposed commissioners for India. "Because," said the man, "there is a Sir Gilbert Elliott a candidate for the borough; and we are all agreed that, if he is one of the seven kings, we will have nothing to say to him; and as we wish to be sure about it, and as you must know, sir, excuse my freedom in asking whether he really is one of the seven kings." Scott answered that he certainly was. The hairdresser immediately made proclamation of the fact, and Sir Gilbert was totally defeated.

Very curious instances of character occur in the experience of counsel. Lord Eldon gives one of them as occurring to himself. "Once," said he, "I had a very handsome offer made to 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 in the Isle of Man were no beggars," (the words are, 'The inhabitants of this Isle are religious, industrious, and true people, without begging or stealing.') "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, 'Young gentleman, I tell you what, you shall have my daughter if you will marry her, and one hundred thousand pounds for her fortune.' That was a very handsome offer, but I told him that I happened to have a wife who had nothing for her fortune, therefore I must stick to her." In December of this year 1784, Johnson died. "He was a good man," said Lord Eldon; "he sent me a message on his death-bed, to request that I would make a point of attending public worship every Sunday, and that the place should be the Church of England."

An excellent anecdote, illustrative of the advantages of knowing some thing of every thing, is given on a trial at Carlisle. Bearcroft, a celebrated advocate, was brought down on a special retainer of three hundred guineas, in a salmon fishery cause. Scott led on the other side; and at a consultation held the evening before, it was determined to perplex Bearcroft, by examining all the witnesses in the dialect of Cumberland, and, as it appears, in the patois of the fishermen. Accordingly, when Scott began to cross-examine his first witness, who said a good deal out the salmon good and bad, he asked whether they were obliged to make ould soldiers of any of them. Bearcroft asked for an explanation of the words, which Scott would not give him. He then asked the judge, who answered that he did not know. After a squabble, the phrase was explained; but nearly every other question produced a similar scene. The jury were astonished that neither judge nor Bearcroft understood what they all understood so well, and they inferred from Bearcroft's ignorance that he had a rotten cause. The consequence was, that Bearcroft lost the cause; and he swore that no fee should ever tempt him to come among such a set of barbarians as the Cumberland men again.

An ould soldier is made by hanging up in a chimney a salmon caught out of season, when the fish is white instead of red, and it acquires by hanging the colour of an old red coat.

Cross-examination may sometimes produce peril to the performer. At the assizes, Scott once examined a barber severely. The barber got into a great passion, and Scott desired him to moderate his anger, and that he should employ him to shave him as he passed through Kendal to the Lancaster assizes. 'The barber said, with great indignation, "I would not advise you, lawyer, to think of that, or risk it."

Scott's reputation was now rising year by year, in both Parliament and his profession; and Lord Mansfield's resignation, in 1788, of the chief-justiceship of the King's Bench making a general move in the higher orders of the bar, Scott was appointed solicitor-general, Kenyon being appointed to the chief-justiceship, and the attorney-general, Arden, succeeding to the Rolls. On this occasion he was knighted. A melancholy event soon gave him the most public opportunity for the display of his official faculties. In the autumn of 1788, the king was attacked with disorder of the mind, and the great question of the regency necessarily came before Parliament. The Whigs, who regarded the Prince of Wales as their dependent, if not as their dupe, insisted on his succession to the unlimited prerogatives of the sovereign; the Tories insisted, on the other hand, that Parliament alone had a right to confer the regency and to assign its powers, though they admitted that the choice, in the present instance, ought to fall upon the Prince of Wales. A question of this importance naturally brought out all the ability on both sides. Pitt and the solicitor-general took the lead on the side of limitation, and the prince ultimately accepted the regency on their terms. It became unnecessary, however; for, while the bill was in the House of Lords, a communication was made by the chancellor, that the king's health was in a favourable state.

His majesty was able to return to business in March.

Lord Thurlow had been universally charged with carrying on an intrigue with the Opposition, for the purpose of continuing in office under the regency. Lord Eldon's belief is introduced against that charge; but there can be no doubt whatever that the charge was universally rumoured at the time; that anecdotes confirmatory of the fact were told in every direction; that no known attempt was ever made to answer them; and that, from the period of the regency, an alienation arose, which finally determined his dismissal by the minister. The well-known boast of the chancellor's loyalty to the incapacitated king, which produced such animadversion in the House, and such burlesque out of it—Burke's ridicule of his official sensibilities, "the iron tears down Pluto's cheeks," were all founded on the public belief of this intrigue. And it is certainly no answer, at the end of half a century of uncontradicted opinion, to say that no formal accusation on the subject was made on the king's recovery, when the whole subject of the regency had become alike distasteful to both sides of the House—to Ministers, from delicacy to the king; and to Opposition, from a sense of failure.

Soon after Scott became solicitor-general, the king, at Weymouth, said, "Well, I hope your promotion has been beneficial to you?" He asked his majesty if he meant his professional income. "Yes," said the king, "in that and in other respects." Scott told him that he must lose by it about L2000 a-year; and on the king expressing surprise, he said "That the attention of the law-officers was called to matters of international law, public law, and revenue law—matters which, as they were not familiar to them, took up a good deal of their time, and that the fee usually given to the solicitor-general with the government cases was only three guineas, while those from private cases were from ten to twenty-five." "Oh!" said the king, "then for the first time I comprehend what I never could understand, why it has always been so difficult to get any opinion from my law-officers."

At the close of the session of 1792, Lord Thurlow gave up the great seal. "What it was," said Lord Eldon afterwards, "that occasioned the rupture between Lord Thurlow and his colleagues, I never could find out." We here see an instance of the ignorance in which a high official was content to remain, on a subject which might naturally and fairly excite his curiosity. It is obvious that he wished to keep himself out of the melee and took the best probable way of doing so, by asking no questions. But a dilemma arose out of this resignation to Scott himself. Pitt sent for him, and said, "I have a circumstance to mention to you, which, on account of your personal and political connexion with Lord Thurlow, I wish that you should first hear from myself. Lord Thurlow and I have quarreled, and I have signified to him his Majesty's commands that he should resign the great seal." Scott replied, that he was not at all surprised at the event which had taken place; but added, that he owed too great obligations to Lord Thurlow to reconcile it to himself to act in political hostility to him, and he had also been too long in political connexion with the minister to join any party against him; so that nothing was left but to resign his office, and make his bow to the House of Commons. Pitt argued against this, and finally induced him to consult Lord Thurlow. Thurlow at once told him, that to resign would be a foolish thing; adding in the spirit of a prediction, which was afterwards strikingly realized, "it is very possible that Mr Pitt, from party and political motives, at this moment may overlook your pretensions; but, sooner or later, you, must hold the great seal. I know no man but yourself qualified for its duties."

If the ex-chancellor was complimentary to Scott, it notoriously was not his habitual style; the fierceness of his tone was well known. His language of Loughborough, who succeeded him, was savagely contemptuous. On one occasion, when the latter was speaking with considerable effect on a subject on which Lord Thurlow had an adverse opinion, though he did not regard himself as sufficiently master of it for direct refutation, he was heard to mutter, "If I was not as lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well, I could kick that fellow Loughborough heels over head, any day in the week."

Thurlow told the Prince that though Loughborough "had the gift of the gab in a marvellous degree, he was no lawyer;" and added, "in the house of Lords I get Kenyon or somebody to start some law doctrine, in such a manner that the, fellow must get up to answer it, and then I leave the woolsack, and give him such a thump in his bread-basket that he cannot recover himself."

The solicitor-general was now growing rich, and he purchased for L.22,000 the manor of Eldon, a property of about 1300 acres in the county of Durham. He was an "improving landlord," and for several years he expended the income of the estate on planting—which at once much increased its value, and added to the beauty of that part of the county of Durham.

In 1793, he ascended another step in his profession, by his appointment to the great office of attorney-general, in succession to Sir Archibald Macdonald, who was made chief baron of the exchequer. The new attorney-general was soon summoned to the highest exercise of his abilities, his learning, and his courage; he commenced office in the midst of national convulsion.

The Revolution of France, which had been growing violence and havoc for the last four years, had now arrived at its height. The change, beginning with popular reform in 1789, had, in 1793, been consummated in regicide. The republic proclaimed in the year before, within three months had darkened into a democracy. The general alarm of the continental kings; combined them in an attempt to overthrow a government which threatened them all; the attempt was found to result only in consolidating its power; and, in the first year of war, France presented to the disaffected of all nations, the tempting spectacle of a land in which the foremost prizes of power had fallen into the hands of men of the humblest condition; and in which those men humbled to the dust the proudest diadems of Europe. Obscure pamphleteers, country advocates, monks, and editors of struggling journals, were suddenly seen in the first offices of state, wielding the whole power of the mightiest kingdom of the Continent, absorbing its revenues, directing its armies, and moving in the rank of princes among the proud hereditary sovereignties of the world. To the crowd of unprincipled men, engendered by the habits of European life, and their consciousness of abilities fully equal to those which had won such opulent enjoyments and lofty distinctions in France, the success of the Revolution was an universal summons to conspiracy. On the Continent that conspiracy was, according to the habits of the people, crafty and concealed. In England, equally according to the habits of the people, it was bold and public, daring and defying. Great meetings of the population were held in the open air; committees of grievance were appointed; correspondences were spread through the country; the whole machinery of overthrow was openly erected, and worked by visible hands. Even where secresy was deemed useful by the more cautious or the more fearful, it was of a different character from the assassin-like secresy of the foreign insurgent; it was more the solemn and regulated observance of a secret tribunal. The papers which have transpired of those secret committees have all the forms of diplomacy, combined with a determination of language, and an intensity of purpose, which would do honour to a nobler cause. But the contest was now at hand, and on three men in England depended the championship of the monarchy. These three were the King, the Minister, and the Attorney-General. There were never three individuals more distinctly, and we shall scarcely hesitate to say, more providentially, prepared to meet the crisis. George III., a sovereign of the most constitutional principles, and of the most unshaken intrepidity; William Pitt, the most sagacious and the most resolute statesman that England had ever seen, formed by his manly eloquence to rule the legislature, and, by his character for integrity, to obtain the full confidence of the empire; and Sir John Scott, at once wise, calm, and bold, profoundly learned in his profession, personally brave, and alike incapable of yielding to the menaces of party or the corruptions of power. It is not to be forgotten, as a portion of that genuine public respect which in England is always withheld from even the most shining personal gifts, when stained by private profligacy, that those three were wholly and alike above the breath of slander. The king, eminent for domestic virtue; Pitt, unstained by even an imputation; and Scott, fondly attached to his wife and family.

In January 1793, the cruel murder of the innocent and unfortunate Louis XVI. had been perpetrated by the National Convention—an act which Napoleon long afterwards pronounced "a grand political error; sufficient to stamp the government not merely with guilt, but with infatuation." The French minister at the Court of St James's was ordered to leave the country, and war was proclaimed. The revolutionary committees in England now assumed increased activity. Communications were established between them and the Jacobin government; and while France prepared for War, English republicanism prepared for revolution. The time of the struggle was fully come. The English minister now buckled on his armour. A succession of vigorous measures employed the legislature during the whole period; they were fiercely combated, but they were all ultimately carried. Opposition never exhibited more brilliant parliamentary powers. Fox was matchless in declamation, alternately solemn and touching; Sheridan, Grey, and a long list of practised and indefatigable talent, were in perpetual debate; but Pitt, "with huge two-handed sway", finally crushed them all. The classic illustration of Hercules destroying the Hydra, was frequently used to express the solitary prowess of this extraordinary man in resisting the multiplied, wily, and envenomed attacks of his opponents; and he realized the fable to the full—he not merely crushed the heads, but he seared them. He extinguished that principle of evil increase, by which all the efforts of foreign governments had been baffled in their contests with Jacobinism; and in the midst of an empire at all times inclined to look with jealousy on power, and at that moment nervous for the suspended privileges of its constitution, Pitt utterly extinguished the Whigs. Fox was defeated so hopelessly, that he gave up Parliament altogether, and his party followed his example. Pitt had not merely cut down the statelier trunks of Opposition, but he had swept away the brushwood, and smote the ground with sterility. His bold enterprise had not merely taken the citadel Of faction by storm, and driven its defenders, faint-hearted and fugitive, over the face of the land, but he had sown the foundations with salt. The total solitude of the Opposition benches, during the greater part of the minister's political life, was the most unequivocal and striking evidence ever given to ministerial supremacy.

The services of the attorney-general were in another less wide, but not less important province. On the Continent, the conspirators against the state would have been thrown into dungeon for life, or shot. In France, the idol of the revolutionist of all countries, they would heave been carried before a mob tribunal, their names simply asked, their sentences pronounced, and their bodies headless within the first half hour. In England, they had the benefit of the law in all its sincerity, the assistance of the most distinguished counsel, the judgment of the most impartial tribunal, and the incalculable advantage of a trial by men of their own condition, feelings, and passions. On the 28th of October, at the Old Bailey, commenced the trial of Hardy, one of the secretaries of the chief treasonable society. The bill brought in by the grand jury had included twelve. The charges were those of "compassing the death of the king, and the subversion of the government." Hardy was a shoemaker, a man of low attainments, but active, and strongly republican. His activity had made him secretary to the London Corresponding Society, and by its direction a member of a similar body, named the Society for Constitutional Information. The direct object of all those societies was the same—to summon a national convention, which must, of course, supersede Parliament. As those societies grew more mature, instead of becoming more rational they exhibited more savage ferocity. Placards were distributed in the form of a playbill, announcing, "For the Benefit of John Bull, La Guillotine," or, "George's Head in a Basket." The airs of their meetings were Ca Ira and the Marseillaise. Attempts were made to corrupt the army. It was openly declared in their harangues, that it was "impossible to do any thing without some bloodshed, and that Pitt's and the King's heads would be upon Temple Bar." The sentiment was general, but at the conclusion of the especial harangue in which this atrocious language was first used, the whole meeting rose up, and shook hands with the madman by whom it was uttered.

The attorney-general's speech on this occasion was masterly; English jurisprudence had never before witnessed so striking a combination of refined knowledge with clear arrangement and unanswerable facts. It had one disadvantage, it was overwhelmingly long; it lasted nine hours, a period, if not beyond the strength of the advocate, palpably beyond any power of attention in the jury. But even this disadvantage arose from an honourable public feeling. The judges who examined the papers declared them to be high treason. The warrants of commitment had declared them to be high treason. Lord Eldon, in his "anecdotes" of this period, says, that, "after this, he did not think himself at liberty to let down the character of the offence." An additional and still stronger reason is given, that "unless the whole evidence was laid before the jury, it would have been impossible that the country should have ever been made fully acquainted with the danger to which it was exposed. And it appeared to him more essential to the public safety that the whole of those transactions should be published, than that any of these individuals should be convicted." This was a sentiment which does honour to the memory of a great man. He had been urged by his fellow counsel, and probably by others, to bring the accused to trial only for a misdemeanour, in the expectation of thus being sure of a verdict. But he determined to bring the case before the jury in its true shape, be the result what it might. It has been rumoured that this, too, was the opinion of Pitt, in contradiction to that of some of the cabinet. With that pre-eminent man the blood of these criminals could never have been the object. No servant of the British crown was ever less chargeable with cruelty. But the true object was, to expose the treason; to prove to the nation the actual hazards of revolutionary intrigue, and to extinguish conspiracy, however the conspirators might escape. The consequence amply justified this bold and candid determination. The conspiracy was crushed; all conspiracy was crushed. Nothing of the same degree of guilt, nor even of the same shape of guilt, ever recurred. The lesson was not the less complete, for its sparing the country the sight of the abhorred scaffold. The conspirators, though successively acquitted, were so warned by their peril that they never sinned again. All, if not converted, sank into total obscurity. The nation, freed from this nightmare, started up in fresh vigour, and began, with a unanimity in its heart, and irresistible strength in its hands, that illustrious battle for Europe, which accomplished the liberation of mankind.

The attorney-general had now given such undeniable proofs of fitness for the highest rank of his profession, that office seemed to fall to him by right of universal acknowledgment; and on a vacancy in the Common Pleas, he was promoted to the chief-justiceship in 1799, and at the same time raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Eldon. It is an instance of the dutiful and affectionate nature, which long connexion with the world and the pride of success—the two strongest temptations to heartlessness—could not extinguish, that he made a point of writing the first letter which he signed with his title to his aged mother. In this interesting document, after mentioning his double promotion, and attributing it, "under the blessing of Providence," to the lessons of virtue which he had received from his parents; he adds—"I hope God's grace will enable me to do my duty in the station to which I am called. I write in some agitation of spirits; but am anxious to express my love and duty to my mother, and affection to my sisters, when I first subscribe myself, your loving and affectionate son, ELDON."

Lord Kenyon, then chief-justice of the King's Bench, pronounced a panegyric on this promotion, congratulating the profession, and especially those who practised in the Common Pleas, on the appointment of one who would probably be found "the most consummate judge that ever sat in judgment."

The step from the office of attorney-general to the presidency of one of the courts, has been not unusual; but, as modern experience has shown, it is by no means a necessary procedure. In Lord Eldon's instance, it received the universal approval of the bar. But he held the chief-justiceship only for a year and a half, when he was raised to the summit of the bar, and sat down lord chancellor.

We hasten over the melancholy details of the following period. The labours of the attorney-general were light and cheerful compared with the toils and responsibilities of the chancellor; the disturbed state of the king's mind; the growing difficulties of that millstone round the neck of English legislation, the Popish claims; the retirement of Pitt, and the general alarm of the nation at its external hazards, formed a trial of unexampled severity to all public men. The death of the Great Minister in 1806, (23d of January,) at length broke up the Tory administration; the Whigs assumed power, and Lord Eldon, of course, resigned the Seals.

But the mere official routine of a chancellor's life is tremendous. Lord Eldon's account of one of his days, shows at what a price the honour of the Seals must be purchased. In one of his letters he says—"Mine has been no easy life. I will tell you what once happened to me. I was ill with the gout, it was in my feet, and so I was carried into my carriage, and from it was carried into court. There I remained all the day, and delivered an arduous judgment. In the evening, I went straight from my court to the House of Lords. There I sat until two in the morning, when some of the lords came and whispered to me, that I was expected to speak. I told them that I really could not, that I was ill, and could not stand. It was an important question, (the peace of Amiens,) I forgot my gout, and spoke for two hours. Well, the House broke up, I was carried home, and at six in the morning I prepared to go to bed. My poor left leg had just got in; when I recollected that I had important papers to examine; so I put on my clothes, and went to my study. I examined the papers; they related to the Recorders' Report, which had to be heard that day. I was again carried into court, where I had to deliver another arduous judgment. Again went to the House of Lords, and it was not till the middle of the second night that I got into bed!" Such desperate performances do not occur every day in the life even of lord chancellors; but the judicial labours, combined with the political, are too heavy a task for the body or the mind of any man.

The Whigs are never destined to a long supremacy. They have never come into power but in some perverted state of the public feelings. There must be some terror, or some infatuation, in the public mind, before it calls in the quack; but the moment that sees quiet succeed to disturbance, and the nation has recovered its composure, always sees the Whigs driven out of office. The death of Fox, in 1806, unquestionably deprived the party of a great popular name, but the whole strength of Whiggism survived. It was in full possession of power, and the late dissolution had filled Parliament with its adherents; still its old fate prevailed. Like ships floating over the land only by the help of an inundation, when the waters return to their channel the ships remain, only to be broken in pieces, the Whig government was broken up never to be restored, until a new convulsion in France, producing a corresponding convulsion in England, brought them into office, after a lapse of another quarter of a century.

In March 1807, a bill having been prepared as a preliminary to the Popish concession, the king pronounced it contrary to his coronation oath, and insisted on its withdrawal; the Whigs consented; but the king further insisting on a pledge that they would attempt no similar measure, they demurred, and his majesty instantly dismissed them, amidst the general rejoicing of the empire. The Duke of Portland was placed at the head of a new ministry, and Lord Eldon received the Seals.

We have now seen his lordship secure in that station which he was to retain until the close of his useful and vigorous life; we shall, therefore, abandon politics, and turn to his more numerous recollections of incident and character.

Lord Eldon as a warrior. "During the war," says his lordship, "I became one of the Lincoln's Inn volunteers—Lord Ellenborough, at the same time, being one of the corps. It happened, unfortunately for the military character of both of us, that we were turned out of the awkward squad for awkwardness! I think Ellenborough was more awkward than I was; but others thought that it was difficult to determine which was the worse." His brother William, however, was a smart officer, and commanded a corps.

Of Chief-Justice Eyre, whom he succeeded in the Common Pleas, he told—"Eyre once demanded of Wilkes, why he abused him so unmercifully in his speeches to the Livery while he was Recorder, though in private he expressed a regard for him?"—"So I have," said Wilkes, "and it is for that reason I abuse you in public. I wish to have you promoted to a judgeship."

"When Sir Robert Henley was keeper of the Great Seal, and presided in the House, he was often indignant at seeing his decrees reversed, while, not being a peer, he was not entitled to support his decisions. In the famous case of Drury and Drury, his decision having been reversed, though the bar then and still pronounced it valid, the lord keeper was very angry; and, in driving home, his coachman checked the horses. He asked—'Why he did not drive on?' The man saying—'My lord, I can't. If I do, I shall kill an old woman.'—'Drive on,' cried Henley; 'if you do kill her, she has nothing to do but to appeal to the house of Lords.' He was afterwards made lord chancellor, and this habit of reversals came to an end."

On his quitting the chancellorship, and accepting the inferior office of lord president, the Archbishop of Canterbury congratulating him on his removal from an office of unceasing fatigue to one of so much quiet, the ex-chancellor not being at all satisfied with the difference of the emoluments, answered very sulkily, "I suppose, now, you would think I was extremely civil and kind if I were to congratulate your grace on a transition from Canterbury to Llandaff."

Taylor, an extravagant personage who called himself a chevalier, and who professed extraordinary skill in the diseases of the eye, dining one day with the bar on the Oxford circuit, related many wonders which he had done. Bearcroft, a little out of humour at his self-conceit, said—"Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us a great many things which you have done, try to tell us something which you cannot do." "Nothing so easy," said Taylor; "I cannot pay my share of the dinner-bill; and that, sir, I must beg of you to do."

Lord Thurlow's oddity and abruptness, both sometimes amounting to brutality, were the constant source of amusement—at least to all but the sufferers. On a trial in which an attorney gave evidence respecting the will of a man whose death was in question, the attorney, after some puzzling, said—"My lord, hear me, the man is dead; I attended his funeral; he was my client." "Why, sir," said Thurlow, "did you not mention that at first? a great deal of time and trouble might have been saved. That he was your client is some evidence that he was dead; nothing was so likely to kill him."

At Buxton, Thurlow lodged with a surgeon, opposite to a butcher's shop. He asked his landlord whether he or his neighbour killed the most.

Thurlow, on being asked, how he got through all his business as a chancellor, answered—"Just as a pickpocket gets through a horse-pond. He must get through." Dunning, when a similar question was put to him, answered in much the same spirit, though in a more professional style. "I divide my business into three parts: one part I do; another does itself; and the third I leave undone."

In 1807, Lord Eldon purchased the estate of Encombe in the Isle of Purbeck, for which he paid between L52,000 and L53,000, comprising a mansion with 2000 acres, a fertile valley, with a fine sea view.

In 1809, the charges brought by Colonel Wardle against the Duke of York excited great public interest. The very sound of malversation in high employments excites all the feelings of a nation with whom character is the first requisite; and the rumour that the Duke had been a party to the sale of commissions in the army by Mrs Clarke, with whom he had formed an unfortunate connexion, produced a public uproar. After discussions and examination of witnesses, which lasted six weeks, and brought infinite obloquy on the Duke and his defenders, the House of Commons resolved, by 278 to 196, that the charge of corruption, or even of connivance, against the Duke, was wholly without foundation. Upon this clearance of his character, the Duke resigned the command of the army; a subsequent motion for a censure on his conduct, was negatived without a division. The Duke of York was, beyond all question, clear of any knowledge of the practices of the very ingenious person with whom he associated, but few men have ever paid more dearly for their offence. The storm of public abuse which poured on him for months, must have been torture; and his resignation of office must have stung every feeling; and even his pecuniary sacrifice during the three years of his retirement, must have been severely felt by a prince with a narrow income for his rank. That loss could not have been less than L50,000. In 1811 he resumed the command. We must hasten to the conclusion. Lord Eldon, after witnessing the two great changes of the constitution, the Popish bill of 1829—which he calls the "fatal bill," and which he had resisted with all his vigour and learning for a long succession of years—and the Reform bill of 1832, at length found that period coming to him which comes to all. Retiring from public life, he devoted himself to his study, the society of a few old friends, and those considerations of a higher kind which he had cultivated from early life, and which returned to him, as they return to all who reverence them, with additional force when their presence was more consolatory and essential. But old age naturally strips us of those who gave an especial value to life; and after seeing his brother Lord Stowell, and Lady Eldon—his Elizabeth, for whom he seems to have always retained the tenderness of their early years—taken from him, he quietly sank into the grave, dying in 1838, January 13th, aged 87. He deserved to rest in peace—for he had lived in patriotism, integrity, and honour.

The three volumes exhibit a research which does much credit to the intelligence and industry of Mr Twiss, their author. They abound in capital anecdotes, but a few of which we have been able to give—possess passages of very effective writing—and form a work which ought to be in the library of every lawyer, statesman, and English gentleman.

THE END