Meantime the quarter-sessions commenced, and the prisoner was brought up

for trial. An immense concourse of persons had assembled to witness the

proceedings in this remarkable case. Every thing was done to induce the

accused to confess, but all in vain. Promises of free pardon, and even

of reward, were made to him, if he told where the child was; but the man

maintained an obstinate silence. He at last again changed his story,

retracted his previous declaration as to his knowledge of where the boy

was, said he had found the clothes, which he had recognised by the

descriptions that had been every where advertised, and that it was that

which had put it into his head to write to the father, in hopes of

making his profit by so doing. In the absence of witnesses, although

there was strong suspicion, there could be no proof of his having

committed the crime in question. In America, circumstantial evidence is

always received with extreme caution and reluctance; and even the fact

of the child's clothes having been found in the place the prisoner had

pointed out, was insufficient to induce the jury to find the latter

guilty of the capital charge brought against him. Many of the lawyers,

indeed, were of opinion, that the man's last story was true, that he had

found the clothes, and, being a desperate character and in needy

circumstances, had written the letter for purposes of extortion. Of this

offence only was he found guilty, and condemned, as a vagrant and

impostor, to a few months' imprisonment. By the American laws no severer

punishment could be awarded. The one, however, was far from satisfying

the public. There was something so infernal in the malignant sneer of

the culprit, in the joy with which he contemplated the sufferings of the

bereaved father, and the anxiety of the numerous friends of the latter,

that a shudder of horror and disgust had frequently run through the

court during the trial. Even the coolest and most practised lawyers had

not been free from this emotion, and they declared that they had never

witnessed such obduracy.

The inhabitants of Natchez, especially of the upper town, are, generally

speaking, a highly intelligent and respectable class of people; but upon

this occasion they lost all patience and self-control, and proceeded to

an extreme measure, which only the peculiar circumstances of the case

could in any degree justify. Without previous notice, they assembled in

large numbers upon the night of the 31st of January, with a firm

determination to correct for once the mildness of the laws, and to take

the punishment o the criminal into their own hands. They opened the

prison, brought out the culprit, and after tying him up, a number of

stout negroes proceeded to flog him severely with whips of bullock's

hide.

For a long time the man bore his punishment with extraordinary

fortitude, and remained obstinately silent when questions were put to

him concerning the stolen child. At last, however, he could bear the

pain no longer, and promised a full confession. He named a house on the

banks of the Mississippi, some fifty miles from Natchez, the owner of

which, he said, knew where the child was to be found.

The sheriff had, of course, not been present at these Lynch-law

proceedings, of which he was not aware till they were over, but of which

he probably in secret did not entirely disapprove. No sooner, however,

was he told of the confession that had been extorted from the prisoner,

than he set off at once in the middle of the night, accompanied by

Clarke, for the house that had been pointed out. They arrived there at

noon on the following day, and found it inhabited by a respectable

family, who had heard of the child having been stolen, but, beyond that,

knew nothing of the matter. The mere suspicion of participation in such

a crime, seemed in the highest degree painful and offensive to them. It

was soon made evident that the prisoner had invented the story, in order

to procure a cessation of his punishment of the previous night.

The fatigues and constant disappointments that poor Clarke had endured,

had worn him out, and at last again stretched him on a bed of sickness.

His life was for a long time despaired of, but he finally recovered, and

shortly afterwards the term of imprisonment to which the child-stealer

(for such the public persisted in considering Tully) had been condemned,

expired. There was no pretext for detaining him, and he was set at

liberty. Clarke was advised to endeavour to obtain from him, by money

and good treatment, some information concerning the child. Both father

and mother threw themselves at the man's feet, implored him to name his

own reward, but to tell them what had become of their son.

"You have flogged and imprisoned me," replied the man, with one of his

malicious grins; "you would have hung me if you could; you have done all

in your power to make me miserable. It is now my turn."

And he obstinately refused to say a word on the subject of the lost

child. He left town, accompanied by Clarke, who clung to him like his

shadow, in the constant hope that he would at last make a revelation

They crossed the Mississippi together, and on arriving behind Concordia,

the bereaved father once more besought Tully to tell him what had become

of his son, swearing that, if he did not do so, he would dog him day and

night, but that he should never escape alive out of his hands. The man

asked how long he would give him. "Six-and-thirty hours" was the reply

Tully walked on for some time beside Clarke and his wife, apparently

deep in thought. On a sudden he sprang upon the backwoodsman, snatched a

pistol from his belt, and fired it at his head. The weapon missed fire.

Tully saw that his murderous attempt had failed, and apprehensive

doubtless of the punishment that it would entail, he leaped, without an

instant's hesitation, into the deepest part of a creek by which they

were walking. He sank immediately, the water closed over his head, and

he did not once reappear. His body was found a couple of hours

afterwards, but no trace was ever discovered of the Stolen Child.[1]

[1] Various particulars of the above incident may be found in the

Mississippi newspapers, of the years 1825-6.

M. GIRARDIN.

A word, before we speak of the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, on a

topic which stands at the threshold of dramatic criticism. What is the

nature of that _imitation_ of life at which the drama aims, and of that

_illusion_ which it creates?

Before the time of Dr Johnson, the learned world were accustomed to

insist upon the observance of the _unities_, on the ground that they

were necessary to uphold the illusion of the theatre. The doctor, in his

preface to Shakspeare, demolished this argument, by showing that the

illusion they were declared so necessary to support, does not, in fact,

exist. No man really believes that the stage before him is Rome, or that

he is a contemporary of the Caesars. To insist, therefore, upon the

unities of time and place, is to sacrifice to a grave _make-belief_ the

nobler ends of the drama--the development of character and passion. "The

objection," says Dr Johnson, "arising from the impossibility of passing

the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that, when

the play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and

believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and

that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. _Surely he that

imagines this may imagine more._ He that can take the stage at one time

for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the

promontory of Actium."

If the delusion of the theatre, we will add, should, at certain moments,

reach such a point that we may be said to believe ourselves transported

to the place represented on the stage, this, not being a _continuous_

delusion, cannot be disturbed by the mere changing of the scene; it will

not the less take place at the promontory of Actium, because we had felt

it, five minutes before, in the city of Alexandria.

Since the appearance of the celebrated preface to Shakspeare, it has

been the habit of critics to speak, not of a delusion, but of an

imitation, which is _felt to be_ an imitation, and which pleases us in

great part by this perceived resemblance to an original. "It will be

asked," continues Dr Johnson, "how the drama moves, if it is not

credited? It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is

credited wherever it moves, _as a just picture of a real original_--as

representing to the auditor what he would himself feel if he were to do

or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The

reflection that strikes the heart is not that the evils before us are

real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be

exposed."[1] * * * _The delight of tragedy proceeds from our

consciousness of fiction_; if we thought murders and treasons real,

they would please no more. Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not

because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring

realities to mind.

[1] _Cours de Littérature Dramatique; ou de l'Usage des Passions dans le

Drame_. Par M. SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN, Professeur à la Faculté des Lettres

de Paris, &c. &c.

This appears to us a very indifferent account of the matter. In the far

greater number of instances, we can never have formed any conception of

an _original_ of which the actor and the scene are supposed to present

us a _picture_. Who that witnesses the play of _Venice Preserved_, has

formed any other image of Jaffier or Pierre than what the actors are

presenting to him, or may already, on some previous occasion, have

presented to him? Even when the characters are strictly historical, the

imagination is little better provided. The spectator does not refer to

any faint conception in his own mind of a Brutus, or a Mark Antony, and

then derive his pleasure from watching how closely the mimic

representation imitates the original. Very often the scene must present

something entirely new to the imagination, and yet the pleasure is not

diminished on this account. A simple man, who has never seen the

interior of a palace, never looked on royalty, never beheld even a

veritable courtier, feels no embarrassment when he is suddenly called to

witness the pomps and miseries of "imperial tragedy."

The imitation of the drama is not that of any specific original; it is a

mimic scene, having human nature for its type. It has a life of its own,

constructed from the materials which the records and observations of

real life have supplied. In order to move us, it needs no reference to

any recognised original. It is there in virtue of the vesture of

humanity in which it is clothed, and makes its appeal at once and

directly.

It is usual to speak of all the fine arts as _imitative arts_. The term

is not always applicable, and, when most applicable, requires

explanation. What does the poetry of sentiment imitate? What does a song

imitate? How can the term be applied to all that class of poetry where

the writer pours out his own reflections and feelings? The poetry of

Wordsworth or of Burns can no more be said to be imitative, than the

conversation of the same men, when, in their hours of intimate

intercourse, the one may have given expression to his philanthropy, and

the other to his friendship. But where the term is most applicable, it

requires to be used guardedly. Even in painting and sculpture, the

artist does not imitate the object in its totality--does not strive to

make an approximation to a _fac-simile_--but he selects certain

_qualities_ of the object for his imitation. The painter confines

himself to colour and outline; the sculptor abstracts the form, and give

it us in the marble.

Accordingly, when we stand before a statue, we do not think of a man,

and then of the statue as the imitation of this original; but the statue

is itself clothed with some of the qualities of the human being, which

give to the cold marble that _half-life_ which we feel the moment we

look upon it. In the same manner, when the dramatist puts his characters

on the stage, they are not imitations of any definite originals, but

they are invested with certain accidents and attributes of humanity,

which give them at once the interest we feel in them, and set them

living and moving in their own mimic world.

And this mimic world is capable of creating an illusion--not such as Dr

Johnson combated--but of a kind he does not appear to have taken into

account. The doctor is triumphant when he denies the existence of that

theatrical delusion presupposed as a ground for the unities. We do not,

as soon as the curtain rises, believe ourselves transported to Rome, nor

do we take the actor upon his word, and believe him to be Caesar the

moment he proclaims his imperial dignity. The illusion of the theatre

springs directly from the _passion_ with which we are infected, not from

the outward pomp and circumstance of the stage. These, even on the most

ignorant of spectators, produce barely the sentiment of wonder and

surprise, never a belief in their reality. The real illusion of the

drama begins, so to speak, not at the beginning, but at the end; it is

the last result, the result of the last vivid word which sprung from the

lips of the actor; and it diffuses a momentary reality over all that

stage apparatus, animate and inanimate, which was there only as a

preparation for that vivid word of the poet.

When the curtain rises, we see very plainly--quite unmistakeably--the

boarded stage before us. It may fill with men and women most gorgeously

attired, and these may proceed to declare their rank and condition, and

the peculiar dangers which environ them, and still there is nothing

better before us than the boarded stage and the talking actor. But, by

and by, the word of passion is uttered, and the heart beats, and the

wooden stage is seen no more, and the actor is forgotten in his griefs

or his anger, and the fictitious position is a real life, and the pomp

and circumstance of the scene, if not believed in, are no longer

questioned. We are not perhaps at Rome, nor is that Mark Antony--for we

never knew Mark Antony to recognise him--but this mimic world has

assumed an independent life and reality of its own. When, indeed, the

passion subsides, and the eloquence of the poet is mute, things revert

to their matter-of-fact condition, the actor is again there, and the

boards of the stage again become visible.

To the passage we last quoted from Dr Johnson, some other objections

suggest themselves; but, as we have not quoted it in a polemical spirit,

but merely to illustrate our own position, we have no wish to enter upon

them. One remark only we will make, and that because it admits of a

general application. Dr Johnson describes the sympathy we feel at the

theatre, as the result of a reference to what our own _personal_

feelings would be in the situation we see represented on the stage. The

auditor represents to himself "what he would himself feel, if he were to

do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The

reflection that strikes the heart is not, that the evils before us are

real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be

exposed." We do not think that, in order to sympathize with what takes

place on the stage, or in real life, there is any necessity for this

circuitous proceeding. We do not detect in ourselves this constant

reference to our own personality, and, least of all, in those moments

when we are most moved. It is enough that there be a vivid conception of

any passion, for this passion to become for a moment our own. If this

reference to our probable feelings, in such or such a position, were

necessary, how is it that we men sympathize so promptly and so keenly in

the distresses of the heroine? We certainly do not, for instance, set to

work to imagine ourselves women and mothers--which would be a difficult

exercise of the imagination--before we feel the grief of Constance for

the loss of her child. In short, we at once assume to ourselves the

passions of another; we do not wait, as it were, to try them on; to make

experiment how we, with all our dispositions, natural and acquired,

should feel in the supposed predicament.

It is far from our intention to give a full and methodical account of

the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, the perusal of which led us to a

reconsideration of some of our critical principles. They are far above

mediocrity, distinguished by strong sense and vivid expression. Their

principal feature is the just and animated protest they contain against

the literary taste of the present day in France; a taste for the

perverted, the horrible, the monstrous; a taste that welcomes Victor

Hugo with outstretched arms, and retains but a frigid recollection of

Racine. With this literary taste is intimately connected an unhealthy

and feverish condition of the moral sentiments, against which the

lecturer directs his most eloquent attacks; so that his book may be

commended for its sound ethical as well as critical instruction. The

circumstance that the lectures were delivered before the University of

Paris, renders this strain of remark still more appropriate and useful.

Such a strain of remark, based as it is upon general principles, cannot

be useless in our own country; although we do not suspect that the same

perverted taste which meets its reproof in these lectures is common

amongst us. Were we called upon to describe the malady under which our

countrymen labour in respect to literary taste, we should describe it as

a state of torpor and lethargy, rather than of virulent disease. It is

indifference, more than any morbid taste, which an imaginative work

would have to struggle against in this country. There is little

necessity here to guard the public against any species of literary

enthusiasm; certain writers of very dubious merit may be extensively

read, but they are not esteemed. It is only necessary to listen to the

conversation that goes on around us, to be convinced that the extensive

circulation of a book has ceased to be a decisive proof even of its

_popularity_. We seem too idle, or too busy, to give attention to a

thoughtful literature which is not at the same time _professional_--and

we have too much good sense amongst us to admire the sort of clever

trash we are contented to read and to talk about. For something in

leisure hours must be read. A book must be had, if only as a companion

for the sofa, if only to place in the hand, as we place the ottoman

under our feet, to steady and complete our repose.

We will at once introduce a striking quotation from the author before

us, which has immediate reference to the _Lucrèce Borgia_ of Victor

Hugo. To those who have not read the play it is only necessary to

observe, in order to understand what follows, that Victor Hugo, with

that violent effort after a moral novelty which distinguishes him, has

chosen to represent the infamous Lucretia Borgia as under the influence

of maternal love, while in all other respects she fully sustains her

odious and infernal reputation.

The author wished, he tells us in his preface, to retrieve

the moral deformity of Lucretia Borgia by the beauty of the

maternal sentiment; he wished, according to his own

energetic expression, 'to place the mother in the monster.'

Here let us make a distinction. I admire the tenderness

which the most ferocious animals have for their offspring,

and when the dying lioness covers her young with her wounded

and bleeding body, I admire and am moved. But a woman who is

a mother ought, in her tenderness to her children, to have

more intelligence, more of elevation of thought, than the

lioness. Instinct is not enough; there must be a sentiment,

a sentiment which does not exclude, but perfects and

purifies the instinct. Thus, when in Florence, a mother cast

herself in desperation before the lion who had taken her

child, and the lion, astonished at her despair, or perhaps

comprehending it, replaced the infant at her feet, it was

instinct which impelled the mother, and it was probably

instinct in the lion which responded to her. But good

instincts, whatever admirable actions they may occasionally

produce, are but the germ and commencement of human virtues;

they are indeed radically distinguished from human virtue by

this, that, of themselves, however strong, they are sterile:

a good instinct dwells by the side of a bad without effort

to reform or to purify it, and equally without danger of

being itself perverted. One virtue only in a vicious

character might convert it entirely to virtue, as one vice

only in a virtuous might lead it to utter depravation. But

an instinct, however good, supports without disquietude the

neighbourhood of evil, and it is thus that, in Lucretia

Borgia, the mother and the monster are placed side by side,

without affecting, without combating each other. Now there

is nothing less natural, and nothing less dramatic than this

mutual toleration. Characters wherein good and evil are

mixed together, are dramatic, only because the conflict of

opposite sentiments which takes place in the mind, is

brought before the view of the spectator. But where, in

Lucretia, is the struggle between good and evil? At what

moment does the maternal virtue enlighten and purify this

soul lost in darkness? When does this transfiguration take

place, so marvellous and yet so natural? * * *

It is singular, and marks the change which has taken place

in our moral notions. Formerly poets gave to their

personages one only vice or passion, taking care in other

respects to render them virtuous, in order that they should

be worthy of interest; at the present day, our poets give

their personages I know not how many passions and vices,

with one only virtue as a counterpoise. And this virtue,

weak and solitary, is by no means charged with the task of

purifying the corrupted mind in which it has by chance been

preserved. It carefully respects the independence of those

vices which permit it to dwell with them. Neither is it

commissioned to inspire an interest in the spectator;

because it is vice which now inspires all our interest,

thanks to a certain noble and proud bearing which has been

assigned to it, and which has been imitated from the heroes

of Lord Byron.

M. Girardin, it will have been remarked from the above extract, is

disposed to reproach our Lord Byron as the source from which some of his

countrymen have drawn their dark inspiration. This may be true. But

without defending our Byron from charges to which he is manifestly

exposed, let us say thus much for him, that in his poetry he was still

too much a classic not to be a worshipper of the beautiful; that he did

not court for itself the monstrous, the ugly; his mind did not willingly

associate with what was revolting in outward form or human passion. If

there was any thing Satanic, as some were pleased to express it, in his

poetry, he was not, at all events, of the hobgoblin or demoniac school.

It was the Satan of Milton, with its ruined beauty and clouded dignity,

that had taken possession of his imagination. He delighted to depict the

pride, the love, the generosity, of hearts at war with man, and not on

too good terms with heaven; but still it was their pride, their love,

their generosity, that occupied his imagination. They are bad men; he

takes care to tell us so himself; but he has not the heart to make them

act otherwise than as noble fellows while they are under his guidance.

The Corsair, from his very name and profession, is a declared criminal;

but this once said, the poet occupies himself and his reader with

nothing but what is generous and heroic in Conrad. Byron had no

disposition, had a certain antipathy, to paint the virtuous man; but it

was a virtue, nevertheless, that attracted his pencil. He felt it

necessary, as a preliminary condition, to remove his hero from the

category of good men; but this being fairly done, he resigned himself to

the natural bent for what is good and great. A Borgia, whether male or

female, in all its native deformity, was not the subject to allure him.

Nowhere is the rebuke of M. Girardin of certain of his contemporaries,

more dignified, or more justly merited, than where, discoursing on the

manner in which the moderns have delineated paternal love, he reproves

that exaggeration and falsification which has represented the father

describing the affection he bears to his daughter in a style of language

devoted to another species of love. Nothing can be more odious and

offensive than to transgress, even in language, the bounds between the

two affections, and to put into the mouth of a parent, as Victor Hugo

and Balzac have done, a style appropriate to the lover speaking of his

mistress. But we will not quote these passages from M. Girardin, because

they will require long quotations in order to justify the censure

contained in them. At the close of the lecture upon paternal love, we

find the following general remarks on the composition of a modern French

drama; and the slightest acquaintance with this drama will enable the

reader to appreciate their justice and analytic accuracy:--

Formerly a dramatic character was an assemblage of

qualities good and bad, which, on the one hand, were in

conflict amongst themselves, and, on the other, were

subjected to some superior law of religion, of honour, or of

patriotism. This twofold struggle constituted the interest

of the person brought upon the scene, and this superior law,

which he strove to accomplish, constituted the morality of

his character. According to the incidents of the piece, each

passion might take the ascendant, none being represented as

irresistible; and the moral law which predominated over the

drama, did not prevent this play of the passions--it being

visibly suspended during the whole piece over the heads of

the personages, and receiving its fulfilment only at the

close. In the present day dramatic characters are composed

differently. Instead of representing the whole of the

character, and the struggle between its good and evil

passions, one only passion is selected, which is made

violent, irresistible, fatal, the absolute mistress of all

the others; that is to say, a part is taken instead of the

whole. At the same time the moral law which, in the ancient

drama, (_i.e._ the drama of Racine and Corneille,) sustained

also a struggle against the passions--this law which those

even avowed who transgressed it, which had always its place

in the piece, whether through virtue or remorse--this law

also disappears before the ascendency of the sovereign

passion. No counterpoise of any kind, whether on the side of

rival passions or on the side of duty. What remains, then,

to struggle against this arbitrary passion? Nothing but

chance--circumstance--the hazard of events. And thus it is

that, in the modern drama, the interest resides rather in

the strange complication of events than in the shock of

opposite passions. The poet has only the power of chance, a

power sovereignly capricious, to contend against the passion

he has chosen to represent. And thus it is that the modern

drama has something also of arbitrary and fantastic.

Incidents and theatrical effects are accumulated, but the

incidents do not spring from the natural movement of the

passions brought upon the stage; they have no longer their

cause in the characters of the drama; they issue from the

fancy of the poet, who, feeling the necessity of arousing

his spectators from time to time, complicates the action

after a strange fashion, and aims always at surprise.

M. Girardin has a lecture upon suicides, in which he attacks that

sentimentality--a mixture, in reality, of weakness and impatience--which

in modern literature, and in modern life, often conducts to suicide. The

following passage will be acknowledged to be eloquent, and even poetic,

unless our translation of it shall have entirely obscured its beauty.

After having described the proud and _philosophical_ suicides of ancient

Rome, he adds:--

There is another species of suicide more in credit in our

days, which is rather occasioned by the weakness and

impatience of men than by the violence of their passions, or

the eccentricity of their philosophies. This species of

suicide is so much the peculiar malady of our times, that we

are tempted to think that men are now for the first time

infected by it. But no; there exists a literature which has

already expressed this our state of restlessness and

disquietude, which has described men consuming with

melancholy in the midst of riotous joys, and seeking suicide

rather as the natural termination of their career than the

remedy of their evils. It is the literature of the fathers

of the church.

I find amongst the homilies of St Chrysostom a certain

Stagyra who was possessed by a demon. To be possessed by a

demon is certainly not a malady of our times; but yet we do

not wander from our theme. For the demon of Stagyra--it is

melancholy, despondency, or, in the much more powerful

expression of the Greek, it is _athumia_--exhaustion of all

energy, all vitality of the soul. This is the demon of

Stagyra. He is one of those sick and agitated souls who

think they belong to the selected portion of mankind,

because they want the energy of the vulgar; who contrive for

themselves pleasures and afflictions apart from the rest of

the world, and who (last trait of weakness and impatience)

at once despise and envy the simplicity and the calm of

those whom they call little souls. Stagyra, in order to

deliver his spirit from its disquietudes, had entered into a

monastery; but neither there did he find the peace and

lightness of heart which he craved; for man finds at first,

in solitude, that only which he brings to it. Stagyra

complains to the saint--and the complaint is curious, for it

indicates the knowledge of a cure for the evils which

torment him, and shows that Stagyra, like many other

patients, had neither resolution to support his disease, nor

to accept its remedy. 'You complain,' says St Chrysostom,

'that while you, with all your fasts, and vigils, and

monastic austerities, have failed to appease your

disquietudes, others who, like yourself, had been tormented

by the demon of melancholy, while living in the midst of

idle pleasures and luxurious indulgence, have found a remedy

in marriage, and felt themselves cured the moment they

became fathers.' A sentence this full of sound instruction.

It is not, then, because life is devoid of pleasure, that

men are the prey of melancholy. That demon pierced, it is

true, like a gnawing worm, through all the luxuries of the

Roman world; there was no resource against it, either in

beautiful slaves, or Ionian dances, or magnificent repasts,

or the combats of gladiators, or Milesian tales, or the

voluptuous pictures which garnish the walls of Pompeii and

Herculaneum. _Athumia_ poisoned all, and the demon possessed

the voluptuary in the midst even of the debauch. But if,

fatigued with these alternate pleasures and disgusts, he

adopted regular and simple manners, married and had

had children, then, as if by enchantment the demon quitted him.

No more despondency, no more bitterness. The spirit of the

possessed was revived, refreshed, renewed by the caresses of

his children. There is no demon, not even the demon of

melancholy, which dares to encounter the presence of a

little child. There is in the innocent fresh breathing of

these creatures, something mortal to evil spirits, and a

cradled infant in the house is sure talisman against all

demoniac possession.

What is it, in fact, which man requires, in order to escape

from this _athumia_, this exhaustion of the heart? Hope--a

future. He must have a faith in the future. This is the

nourishment of his soul; without it he cannot live, he

despairs and dies. Well, the very charm of children, that

which has ranked them, from of old, amongst the blessings of

God, is this, that they form the future of every family--

that they sustain in every house that sentiment by which the

soul of man lives. Children represent the future, and in a

form the most joyous and attractive. It is this which

constitutes their irresistible fascination--it is this which

sheds around their little heads that light of happiness and

joy which reflects itself on the countenances of the

parents--which warms the heart--which gives to the poor the

force to labour, and to the miserable the force to live.

Blessed be infancy, which chases the demon!--Blessed be

infancy, which keeps alive in each family the sentiment of

hope, indispensable to run as the air and the light!

Amongst the faults of his contemporaries, M. Girardin remarks a

disposition to _materialize_ the expression of passion, depicting it

constantly by violent physical distortions; and also, a tendency to

carry that expression to the extremity of rage, where, as he finely

observes, all distinction between the various passions is lost, and man

deserts his rational nature.

According to the ancient classic imagination, when passion becomes

excessive, the man disappears; and this, he adds, is the foundation of

what we call the philosophy of the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid.

In the course of this censure he makes use of a common-place expression,

which, we think, includes a common-place error, and therefore we pause

for a moment to take notice of it. "It is the pretension of modern art,"

he tells us, "to say all. What then is left to the imagination of the

public? It is often well to trust to the spectator to complete the idea

of the poet or the statuary."

This is a mode of expression frequently made use of. Even Lessing has

sanctioned it, when in his _Laocoon_, he speaks of "the highest

expression leaving nothing to the imagination."

The leaving something to the imagination can mean this only, that the

expression of the artist is suggestive, and kindles thought, and in fact

conveys more than is found in its literal interpretation. Now, whatever

is highest in art, and especially in poetry, is pre-eminently

suggestive; and the highest expression does in fact leave most, or, in

other words, suggest most, to the imagination. M. Girardin, in common

with many others, speaks of this suggestive quality, the characteristic

of the highest form of art, as if it were the result of a voluntary

surrender of something by the poet to the reader, as if it were an act

of moderation on his part. Surely the poet does not proceed on the

principle of saying half, and permitting us to say the other half--out

of compliment, perhaps, to our understanding, and as a little bribe to

our vanity. The more vivid and powerful his expressions, the more must

he leave, or rather the more must he give, indirectly as well as

directly, to the imagination of the reader. He will sometimes even

bestow what he himself never possessed. The great poet, in pouring out

his feelings, must always give something less and something _more_ than

was in him at the time.

It has been the fashion to illustrate the principle of leaving something

to the imagination, by the ancient picture of the sacrifice of

Iphigenia, where we are told that Agamemnon, the father, was painted

hiding his face in his robe. The expression of grief and horror had been

given in the countenance of the other bystanders, and it was left to the

imagination to divine what passion would have been seen depicted on the

face of Agamemnon if that robe had been torn aside. Lessing, and after

him M. Girardin, have indeed given a different account of the intention

of the painter. The Greek artist, say they, sedulously avoided that

distortion of features through excessive grief, which was incompatible

with beauty of form. They would _tone down_ the expression, as Lessing

argues that the sculptor did in the features of Laocoon, until it became

consistent with the lines of beauty. Timanthes, therefore, finding that,

in order to render with fidelity the expression of Agamemnon, he must

admit such a distortion of the features as would violate the rule, chose

rather to veil the countenance. But we would suggest that something else

must have weighed with the artist; for if it was an acknowledged

principle of Greek art rather to sacrifice a portion of the passion, so

to speak, than to admit a distortion of the features, why should

Timanthes have felt any scruple, in this instance, in modifying the

expression of the father's countenance in obedience to a known rule of

art? Why should he have thought himself obliged to resort to the

expedient of concealing the face?

We make bold to adopt neither one account nor the other. We neither

believe that Timanthes concealed the expression of the father's face

upon some principle of "leaving it to the imagination of the reader,"

nor that he acted in obedience to the rule of art which Lessing lays

down with so much ingenuity. We are persuaded that Timanthes painted

Agamemnon in the attitude he did, simply because it was the most

natural--because it was, in fact, the only attitude in which it was

possible to conceive a father present at the sacrifice of his own

daughter. Other spectators might have looked on with different degrees

of grief or horror, but we feel that the father could not _look_; he

must veil his head. This natural attitude, bespeaking the grief it only

seemed to hide, was no doubt highly expressive.

And in this point of view, it may afford no bad illustration of that

suggestive language of poetry, which sometimes throws the veil, not to

conceal the passion, or to leave it to another imagination to discover,

but as the best means of betraying it.

We repeat that we do not profess to give any thing approaching to an

analytical review of the lectures of M. Girardin; the illustrations,

being taken from the poetry of another nation, would often require a

length of explanatory detail quite inconsistent with our limits. We

persist, therefore, in regarding them in the one point of view already

indicated-namely, as a protest against certain vitiated tastes and

deleterious sentiments which prevail at the present day.

We again revert, therefore, to the lecture upon suicide, for the sake of

a remark that we find there upon _Werther,_ and on its celebrated

author. It is rarely that we hear any one speak out so plainly upon

Goethe. After speaking of the "moral vitality" which supports the

fatigues and inures us to the self-denials of life, he says:--

There are characters, on the contrary, who we perceive, at

first sight, are predestined to die. Ardent and enthusiastic,

wanting force and patience--life is evidently not made for them.

Such is Werther. Goethe had not created him to live, and he knew

this well; so that when some German author, I know not whom,

undertook to correct the catastrophe of the romance, and make

Werther live instead of committing suicide, Goethe said--'The poor

man has no idea that the evil is without remedy, and that a mortal

insect has stung our Werther in the flower of his youth.'

What is this mortal insect that has stung the youth of

Werther? Mistake it not, it is the spirit of doubt, the

spirit of the eighteenth century; and it is not Werther only

that the insect has stung--it is Goethe himself. Goethe

belongs to the eighteenth century; he is its disciple, its

heir; he is, like it, the sceptic, but he is also the poet.

It is this which conceals his universal doubt. Besides, as

he perceived, with that admirable tact which accompanies his

genius, that his scepticism would injure his poetry, he has

laboured to correct its influence, and, for this purpose,

has called to his aid all the resources of art and science.

He has adored nature, he has been a pantheist, he has distributed

God everywhere, to compensate for not having him in his own heart;

he has adored Greece, and rendered a sort of worship to beauty

such as the Greeks conceived it, and endeavoured to find an

enthusiasm in the arts; he has adored the south, and sung the Land

of the orange grove, because the south is the region of strong

faiths, and is repugnant to scepticism; he has adored the middle

ages, because they were ignorant of doubt, everywhere he has

sought to cure the wound of that insect which had stung his youth.

But no; his scepticism pierces through all his enthusiasm, and the

very variety of his inspirations proves his indifference. He is

neither philosopher, nor devotee, nor Christian, nor pagan, nor

courtier, nor citizen, nor of times ancient or modern, nor of the

north, nor of the south-or rather, he is all these at once. He is

the echo of nature, he repeats to us all her harmonies; but he

fails to add that utterance, which unites so well with the

harmonies of the world the utterance of his own heart. Ask of

Goethe to represent man and nature in all their variety and

extent, and he will do it. There is one thing you must not ask of

him--himself. This _self_ fails in Goethe; not the self which

knows it is a great poet, and will to be one; but that other self,

which has a thought, a principle to contend for, which, in

short, believes in something. It is there the insect stung; both

in Goethe and in Werther.

After discussing the character of modern French literature, there

remains the important question to determine, how far the state of

literature represents the state of society--how far the one is a

faithful picture of the other. Upon this subject M. Girardin concludes

his volume with some excellent remarks; but here we must also conclude

our notice of this interesting work.

LORD ELDON.

In a free country, if there ever was or will be a truly free country

besides our own, the life of every public man ought to be written. All

would supply a lesson of more or less value; and it is upon lessons of

that order that the vigour of the rising generation can alone be

trained. Undoubtedly, in the mixed qualities of human nature, there

might now and then be formidable displays; the development of the heart

might often startle the eye which looked to it for healthy action; the

machinery of the mind would require to be examined with the hand of

charity as well as the hand of science: but the general result must be

knowledge--always interesting, and often of the highest value; for the

tendency of manners is, to disappoint that research. The habits, the

associations, almost the general peace of society, unite in covering the

actual nature of man with a uniform aspect. The unquestionable effect of

civilization is, not merely to smooth the inequalities of the surface,

but to conceal the actual material--the rough, the hard, the cold, or

the pernicious within. But there is no one operation of man, by which

human nature is so deeply and so distinctly penetrated and tested, as a

true narrative of the career of men acting a prominent part in the

world. History is comparatively feeble to this powerful searcher. Its

heroes and heroines are placed so palpably on a stage; its _dramatis

personae_ are so distant and so disciplined; its positions are so openly

arranged for effect, that the nearest approach is only conjecture, as

the nearest approach to reality is only illusion. Courts and campaigns

are not human life. Kings and ministers, in their court pageantry, are

scarcely more entitled to the name of human beings. They are factitious

forms, showy spectacles, glittering effigies. But strip off the state

costume; stand beside them while they are unconscious of a spectator;

enter into their minds; seize their motives; measure their impulses: it

is only then that we discover their affinity to the family of man, and

by their vigour and virtue model our own.

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 £2000 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 mêlée 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 £52,000 and £53,000, 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 £50,000. 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.