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 3 1924 018 821 367 
 
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 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924018821367 
 
James Cockcroft 6l Co. KewTork 
 
LORD BROUGHAM 
 
 ESI ROUS as Lord Brousfham was of leaving 
 a distinguished reputation as a statesman, 
 orator, pliilosopher, and lawyer, it was his 
 special weakness to be known as " Brougham 
 ^ of that Ilk," the representative of a great 
 family whose landed estates had been imme- 
 morially in their possession. He persuaded 
 himself, indeed, that his forefathers had lived 
 in a state of Baronial grandeur since the days 
 of Antoninus, and claimed, while yet a com- 
 moner, a right to be summoned to Parliament 
 as heir general of the old Barony of Vaux. 
 He also tried assiduously to make a mystery both of the 
 place and time of his birth, which, however, is proved clearly 
 to have taken place in St. Andrew's Square, Edinboro', on 
 the 19th of September, 1779. His father, who was a very 
 eccentric man, appears to have lived upon the small 
 patrimony of Brougham Hall, Westmoreland, which he in- 
 herited, and which is celebrated in Wordsworth's poems. 
 Migrating to Edinboro', he married a Mrs. Syme, the widow 
 of a clergyman, and of their marriage Henry, the future 
 
 Lord Chancellor, was the first issue. His mother was a 
 
 3 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 woman of both intellect and acquirements, to whom through- 
 out his life he was deeply attached, but he never seemed 
 to consider himself under any great obligations to his father. 
 He is described as a precocious child, speaking earlier and 
 more distinctly than children usually do, with a great ob- 
 jection to go to sleep at night with all the hushing of his 
 nurse. Being prevailed on, upon one occasion, to lie down 
 and shut his eyes, he suddenly started up saying, " Naw, naw, 
 bawby it wanna du," and thus lisping the broadest Scotch in 
 his infancy, he retained the accent throughout his life. Sent 
 to the High School at an early age, he began to learn 
 Latin of an undermaster named Fraser, who, not being a 
 profound scholar, the boy Brougham made it his great 
 endeavor to ridicule. On one occasion Fraser had punished 
 him for his alleged bad Latinity, when the next morning 
 Brougham came loaded with authorities, to show that his 
 alleged solecisms were the purest Latin of the Roman writers 
 of the Augustan age. His master had the magnanimity to 
 praise his industry, and from that time he was hailed as king 
 of the school. He possessed unbounded self-confidence and 
 a thirst for knowledge, and soon made great proficiency in 
 modern languages and mathematics. In 1792 he became an 
 alumnus of the Edinboro' University, then in its zenith, 
 where, during a curriculum of four years, he attended nearly 
 all the classes and acquired a prodigious store of information. 
 At the age of eighteen he wrote and sent to the Royal 
 Society of London a paper on " Inflection, Reflection, and 
 Colors of Light," which was published among their transac- 
 tions, and he subsequently continued to send papers to that 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 learned Society. In addition to those scientific exercises he 
 joined several of those debating societies which were regarded 
 as the ffrand stimulus to mental effort in the Scottish 
 
 o 
 
 Universities. He was not, however, an over-quiet student 
 at that time, for, after discussing literary and philosophical 
 questions, he would wind up the night by rollicking in 
 taverns, twisting off bell-pulls and knockers, smashing lamps, 
 and other fashionable gentlemanly irregularities. Having 
 completed his curriculum in " Humanity and Philosophy," 
 as understood at the Scottish universities, he determined, 
 with his father and mother's approval, to become an 
 advocate ; and while not neglecting his philosophic studies, 
 gave regular attendance to the law classes. At length, after 
 due examination he appeared, cocked hat in hand, before 
 the Judges at the bar of the ParHament House, on the loth 
 of June, 1800, and, after bowing to the Bench, retired an 
 advocate. He commenced his professional career by going 
 on circuit as counsel for the pauper prisoners, or, as it is 
 called in Scotland, "a brother of mercy." On the southern 
 circuit, on which he went. Lord Eskgrove presided, a foolish 
 old gentleman, of whom most ludicrous stories are told, and 
 Brougham seems to have laid down a systematic plan for 
 making game of him. The wonder is he was not committed 
 for contempt. At the very outset, as the Judge's procession, 
 led by the halbert men called "the Crailing guard," entered 
 Jedburgh, Brougham whipped his horse and charged the 
 procession, scattering the magnates of the place, and nearly 
 upsetting the Judge in the kennel. His lordship on reaching 
 the court house was in a great fume, but hadn't the courage 
 
 5 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 to deal with the assailant, who, with a respectful bow, said 
 he was afraid his lordship would suffer from the heat, and 
 asked him to order a window to be opened ; and no further 
 notice was taken of the fracas. Brougham had to defend 
 all the prisoners, and did all he could to show disrespect 
 of the Judge, whom he continued to persecute, and eventually 
 nearly tormented to death. The first trial was for sheep- 
 stealing, and Brougham objected to the relevancy of the 
 libel, on the ground that the charge did not state whether 
 the " pannel " had stolen a tup, ewe, or wether ; and in the 
 next case, a man being charged with stealing a pair of boots, 
 which turned out to be half boots, the learned counsel 
 argued that they were no more boots than a half guinea is 
 a guinea. His conduct on this and other occasions at this 
 time of his life was so eccentric as to give rise to a sus- 
 picion of insanity, and rerider his friends very uneasy about 
 him. Very shortly after this, however, we find him asso- 
 ciated with that galaxy of intellectual power which brought 
 out The Edinbord Review. His admission into that society 
 was long resisted by Sidney Smith, from a " strong impres- 
 sion of his indiscretion and rashness." Unsatisfied with the 
 career which was before him in Scotland, Brougham at the 
 end of the year 1803, removed to London, and entered 
 himself of Lincoln's Inn. He soon was made free of the 
 most agreeable society in Europe, that of Holland House, 
 and made the acquaintance of Wilberforce, the negro liberator, 
 being hailed by him as a coadjutor in the holy cause of the 
 abolition of slavery. . On the 22nd of November, 1808, he 
 was called to the EngHsh Bar, and joined the Northern 
 
L ORD BR O UGH A M. 
 
 Circuit, but he had for a lohg time but little practice, 
 showed no tact in conducting a case, and, although vigorous 
 as a speaker, was never a verdict-getting counsel. His pro- 
 fessional income mainly arose from Scotch Appeals in the 
 House of Lords, where the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, evinced 
 a strong prejudice against him. Eldon, it was supposed 
 designedly, always called him Mr. Bruffam, until Brougham, 
 getting angry, wrote the pronunciation of his name in large 
 letters and sent it to the Chancellor by the clerk. Lord 
 Eldon took it in good part, and, at the conclusion of the 
 argument, observed, "Every authority upon the question has 
 been brought before us : New Brooms sweep clean." For 
 the two years preceding 1812, when he got into Parliament, 
 Brougham complained that he was " going down in the world," 
 but when he entered the House of Commons as member 
 for the rotten borough of Camelford, his first effort was con- 
 sidered a failure. Yet before the end of his first session 
 he had conquered a commanding position, had even pre- 
 sented himself as a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal 
 party, and was ever ready to enter the lists with Castlereagh, 
 Canning, or Percival, the leaders of the opposite party. 
 After some brilliant speeches against slavery, and a complete 
 victory over the government, compelling them to rescind the 
 orders in Council, in a speech advocating conciliation with 
 America, and deprecating the impending war between the 
 two countries, there seemed a prospect of his being speedily 
 in office, but it soon vanished, only to be realized after twenty 
 years. He shortly after lost his seat for Camelford, and 
 
 remained for four years out of the House of Commons. It 
 
 7 
 
was about this time that Brougham was casually introduced 
 to Caroline of Brunswick, many years afterwards his illus- 
 trious client, by Mr. Canning, of whom her profligate 
 husband, the Prince of Wales, is said to have been jealous. 
 Pleased with Brougham's conversation, she asked him to visit 
 her at Blackheath, and, having expressed his sympathy for 
 her wrongs, he received a promise from her that when Queen, 
 he should be her Attorney-General. He also won the con- 
 fidence of the youthful Charlotte of Wales, who, on the 
 occasion of her elopement from Warwick House, under the 
 idea that her father, the Regent, was going to compel her 
 to marry the Prince of Orange, against her own wishes, sent 
 for Brougham to solicit his advice, which, it was highly 
 creditable to her, that she implicitly followed. Brougham at 
 length got into Parliament again as member for Winchelsea. 
 At last his star was destined to be in the ascendant by the 
 King's death, in 1820, and the proclamation of the Prince 
 of Wales, as George the Fourth, which made Caroline 
 de jure Queen of England. Brougham had been remiss in 
 his attention to Caroline's affairs, and had declined to meet 
 her on the continent the preceding autumn ; but she kept 
 her promise to him, and, having appointed Brougham and 
 Denman, respectively, her Attorney and Solicitor-General, 
 Lord Chief Justice EUenborough, though with a most sar- 
 castic smile, was compelled to bid them take their places 
 within the bar, with the rank belonging to their offices. The 
 King's offer to the Queen of ;^5o,ooo on condition of her 
 not assuming her proper style and title, or any title belonging 
 
 to the Royal family, having instantly aroused her to drive 
 
 8 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 from St. Omer, and to get with all speed to England, she 
 was met by a Bill, introduced by Lord Liverpool, to deprive 
 her of her prerogatives, rights, and privileges, and to dissolve 
 her marriage with the King. In spite of the suspicions which 
 had entered the mind of Caroline as regards Brougham, she 
 could not, in many respects, have had an abler defender. 
 His cross-examination of Majocchi is considered an unrivalled 
 effort, but the peroration of his speech, which he himself said 
 he wrote over seventeen times, concluding with the prayer 
 to the Peers, " Save the country that you may adorn it, — 
 save the crown which is in jeopardy, — the aristocracy, which 
 is shaken, — save the altar, which must stagger with the blow 
 Vv'hich rends its kindred throne ! " has been severely criticised 
 as a labored composition, — turgid, stiff, and affected. From 
 this great trial Brougham's practice at the bar increased five- 
 fold ; the freedom of corporations were offered him in any 
 number in gold boxes ; a splendid candelabra was presented 
 him, subscribed for by the pennies of mechanics and peasants, 
 and the head of the Queen's illustrious defender became a com- 
 mon sign for beer shops. The death of Queen Caroline, in 
 the following year, however, obliged him to doff his silk gown 
 and full bottomed wig, and going again in stuff to "take his 
 place in court without the bar accordingly ; " and it was not 
 until six years after, on his supporting Lord Canning's min- 
 istry, that he was found again " rustling in silk," with a patent 
 of precedence which gave him. the same rank as if he had 
 been a King's Counsel. Previous to that year, 1827, he had 
 been in violent o'pposition to Canning, and such strong words 
 
 of insult on one occasion had passed between them in the 
 
 9 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 House of Commons, that a motion was made to commit 
 them both to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms. The Duke 
 of Wellington having come into power in 1828, Brougham, 
 being reconciled to Lord Grey, co-operated with the Whigs. 
 He now set himself as a legislator with great energy to the 
 cause of Law Reform and Catholic Emancipation ; and, at 
 the election of the new Parliament, on the accession of Wil- 
 liam the Fourth, was chosen member for the County of 
 York. Within a few months Earl Grey was called upon to 
 submit to the King the list of a new administration, and his 
 greatest difficulty now was, " what was to be done with 
 Brougham ? " It is said that, having indulged in great sulki- 
 ness and sarcasm towards the new ministers, they were 
 compelled to admit him on his own terms, and he then 
 intimated to them that he expected an offer of the great seal, 
 which was accordingly delivered to him by the king, at 
 St. James' Palace, on the 22nd of November, 1830. He took 
 his seat on the woolsack the same night, being created a peer 
 by the title of Lord Brougham and Vaux, on the following 
 day. As Speaker of the House of Lords, he had to fight 
 in the van the whole battle of Lord Grey's two Reform Bills, 
 and in doing so, covered himself with great renown ; but 
 much ridicule has been cast on his great scenic performance, 
 when he concluded his speech to the Peers, " I solemnly 
 adjure you, — I warn you, — I implore you, — yea, on my 
 bended knees (he knelt) I supplicate you, reject not this bill." 
 It is said that he knelt some time, as if in prayer; but his 
 friends, alarmed for him lest he should be suffering from the 
 effects of the mulled port, picked him up and placed him 
 
 10 
 
L ORD BR O UGH A M. 
 
 safely on the woolsack. When Lord Grey, recalled by the 
 king after a very brief interregnum, returned to office, he 
 was at length able, with Brougham's assistance, to pass the 
 great measure through the upper House, by a majority of 
 nine, without the creation of new peers. It was then that 
 Brougham, bearing his blushing honors thick upon him, may 
 be considered to have been at the highest point of his great- 
 ness. Both in the House and in the Chancellor's Court he 
 was arrogant and dictatorial. On one occasion, when Sir 
 Edward Sugden was arguing before him, he was writing 
 letters the whole time. At length Sugden said : " I observe 
 that your Lordship is engaged in writing, and not favoring 
 me with your attention." The Chancellor replied : " I am 
 signing papers of mere form ; you may as well say that I 
 am not to blow my nose or take snuff while you speak." Sir 
 Edward sat down in a huff. Immensely popular as Brougham 
 had been throughout the country, on account of his conduct 
 on the Reform question, he now got so inordinately puffed 
 up, and behaved with such brusqtierie, even to the king, 
 that he was not long in setting seal to his doom. Claiming 
 to have had the offer of, and to have declined, the premier- 
 ship, — which Lord Campbell says he suspects only happened 
 to him in a dream, — he was in the habit of addressing Lord 
 Melbourne, the new premier, as " Lamb," or " William," and 
 of treating the other members of the cabinet as if they were 
 schoolboys, owing their continuance in office and allegiance 
 to him. During the Reform struggle he had been thoroughly 
 backed by " The Times" which had been most fulsome in 
 its praise of him ; and he had not hesitated to take credit 
 
 II 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 for — if he did not inspire — reports of his wonderful per- 
 formance in getting rid of the arrears in the Court of Chancery 
 when, in fact, there were about two hundred cases awaiting 
 their hearing. Having been called " the most accomplished 
 and brilliant intellect of his age and country," his deceit and 
 carelessness turned ''The Thunderer" into a most bitter 
 enemy. He received a note, when sitting in the Court of 
 Chancery, from Lord Althorp, saying, " What I want to see 
 you about is ' The Times' — whether we are to make war 
 on it or come to terms." This precious note Brougham tore 
 up, but a reporter picked up the scattered fragments and 
 took them to " The Times " office, while it so happened that 
 on the same day, some information, asked by that paper of 
 the government, was abruptly refused. " The Times " accord- 
 ingly " made war " on the Chancellor, exaggerating his pecu- 
 liarities, criticising his rhetoric, hinting that he was out of 
 his mind, and asserting that there were many arrears in the 
 Court of Chancery. As soon as Parliament was prorogued, 
 Brougham took a tour, or what might be better called a 
 " progress," in Scotland, and, as if to justify " The Times' s " 
 remarks as to the state of his mind, indulged in a series 
 of "high jinks" which brought on his crowning discredit. 
 Going from one Scottish town to another, he was received 
 with ovations, by his fellow-countrymen, as the one man 
 who had borne the Reform Act on his shoulders ; but he 
 probably excelled himself most in egotism and rhodomontade 
 at Inverness, where he told the citizens that they had evinced 
 their loyalty to the king by applauding the keeper of his 
 conscience, and assured them that by that night's post he 
 
 12 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 would convey the happy tidings to his majesty; and, viewing 
 himself as the accredited recipient of royal homage, the 
 Chancellor actually composed this fatal missive over tumblers 
 of whiskey toddy, in the presence of a Mr. McPherson, and 
 sent it to Windsor. An objection had been started, before 
 going on his tour, as to his right to take the great seal out of 
 the kingdom, for the ancient law says, that the " Clavis Rcgtn' 
 must be in the Chancellor's custody, and kept and used 
 within the realm. But Brougham insisted that, since the 
 union, Scotland was within the realm. The king, who had 
 complained to Lord Melbourne of some of Brouo-ham's 
 speeches as democratical, looked upon the whole matter with 
 amazement and consternation, and declared, privately, that 
 "he could not account for the Chancellor clandestinely run- 
 ning away with the great seal beyond the jur'sdiction of the 
 Court of Chancery, except upon the supposition that he was 
 out of his mind, of which there had for some time been 
 strong symptoms." It appears, indeed, that a serious, practical 
 joke was played with the great seal, for, at Rothiemarchus, 
 the residence of the dowager Duchess of Bedford, the 
 sprightly Chancellor had been romping so familiarly with 
 some English ladies that, to be avenged, they hid it where 
 neither he nor his attendants could discover it ; but, per- 
 ceiving Brougham's real distress, they blindfolded him and 
 made him find it by the music of the piano, when the rather 
 important bauble to the executive government of England 
 was dragged from a tea-chest. This awkward adventure of the 
 "Clavis Regni" was reported to the queen, and it was to her 
 influence that Brougham attributed the removal of himself 
 
 '3 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 and the Whigs from office, in the following November; 
 when the Duke of Wellington was sent for by the king to 
 form a new ministry. This charge against him of calumni- 
 ating Queen Adelaide in an article which concluded with 
 the words, "The queen has done it all," was never contra- 
 dicted; but " The Times'' attributed the downfall of the 
 government " to the unbecoming conduct of the Chancellor, 
 traveling about like a quack doctor through the provinces, 
 puffing himself and his little nostrums, and committing and 
 degrading the government of which he had the honor to be 
 a member." With an utter disregard of etiquette and de- 
 cency, — having heard that the king had spoken of him 
 resentfully, and said he " never wished to see his ugly face 
 again," — he sent the " Clavis Regni" to his sovereign in a 
 bag, as a fishmonger might send a salmon for the royal 
 dinner. At this juncture he also did a very mean and con- 
 temptible thing towards his brethren of the bench, which was 
 never forgotten by the profession, particularly as he had had 
 the indecency to describe hamsters as " gentlemen who ply 
 in Westminister Hall," as if they had been merely educated 
 peddlers. Lord Lyndhurst having again become Chancellor, 
 the office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer was vacated, 
 and Brougham wrote to Lyndhurst, — his political adversary, — 
 offering to accept that office without any salary beyond his 
 pension as ex-Chancellor. This oifer to do the work cheap 
 raised a pitiless storm, which led to Brougham's writing a 
 letter of revocation. The term of Brougham's office of Chan- 
 cellor extended to four years ; and, considering its setting 
 
 clouds, it is not to be wondered at that, although contrary to 
 
 14 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 his own expectation, he never held office again. Within six 
 months Lord Melbourne was back in office, and it was neces- 
 sary to dupe the Whig ex-Chancellor, so he was told that his 
 majesty's groundless prejudice against him might wear off, 
 and, in the mean time, the " Clavis Rcgni" lest it should 
 wander to Scottish tea-caddies again, was put into the safe 
 keeping of a commission, consisting of Vice-Chancellor Shad- 
 well, Pepys, the Master of the Rolls, and Judge Bosanquet. 
 By way of nursing his retiring dignities. Brougham now 
 assumed a kind of protectorate over Melbourne and the 
 Ministry, an officious interference which created a good deal 
 of ridicule, and, at the end of the session, he retired to his 
 seat in Westmoreland exuberantly gay, and with the profound 
 conviction that he had saved the government. He was, 
 however, rudely shaken out of his tranquillity by a pamphlet 
 of Sir Edward Sugden, afterwards Lord St. Leonards, and 
 then ex-Chancellor of Ireland, entitled, "What has become 
 of the Great Seal ? " The Cabinet met and came to a 
 hasty resolution that the commission should be put an end 
 to. Abandoning Brougham, they made Sir Charles Pepys 
 Chancellor and a peer, by the title of Lord Cottenham ; and, 
 making no effort to br.'^ak or soften the intelligence to him, 
 poor Brougham was left to learn his fate from the news- 
 papers. Considering what he had done for the Liberal Party, 
 it cannot be said that he was well treated ; and Lord 
 Campbell writes that he said to him, with tears in his eyes, 
 " If Melbourne had treated me openly and kindly, he might 
 have done what he liked with the Great Seal, and we might 
 
 have remained friends." He was absent from Parliament during 
 
 15 
 
L ORD BR O UGH AM. 
 
 the session of 1836, and returned the following year, in full 
 vigor, to "bide his time." While Parliament was sitting, 
 William the Fourth died, and Brougham thought that 
 Queen Victoria mig-ht wish to have him for her chief 
 adviser. She sent, however, for Lord Melbourne ; but 
 Brougham continued to sit on the Ministerial side of the 
 House, just keeping up a speaking acquaintance with his 
 quandam colleagues, and secretly vowing their political des- 
 truction. He never failed to make an adverse speech, and 
 chuckled with delight at the supposed fall of Melbourne, in 
 August, 1839. The Queen, however, refusing to discharge 
 the ladies of her bed-chamber, as if they were political ser- 
 vants, at Peel's institgation, the Whigs returned to the 
 Ministerial benches in a week, and held office for two more 
 years. From that time Brougham endeavored to exercise a 
 kind of protectorate over all Tory ministers, and had occasional 
 gleams of hope of being recalled by them to the woolsack. 
 He died at Cannes, on the 7th of May, 1868, in his 
 ninetieth year. There is scarcely a subject in history, the- 
 ology, mathematics, party controversy, criticism, or political 
 economy, on which Brougham did not write one or more 
 dissertations ; but, in spite of this marvelous fertility of mind, 
 it is a question whether he established anything like fame 
 in any one. The preservation of his memory to future gen- 
 erations will be more owing to the large space he occupied, 
 while living, in the public eye, than to any grand, legal, or 
 statesmanlike qualities. 
 
 16 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 the session of 1836, and returned the following year, in full 
 vigor, to "bide his time." While Parliament was sitting, 
 William the Fourth died, and Brougham thought that 
 Queen Victoria might wish to have him for her chief 
 adviser. She sent, however, for Lord Melbourne ; but 
 Brougham continued to sit on the Ministerial side of the 
 House, just keeping up a speaking acquaintance with his 
 quandam colleagues, and secretly vowing their political des- 
 truction. He never failed to make an adverse speech, and 
 chuckled with delight at the supposed fall of Melbourne, in 
 August, 1839. The Queen, however, refusing to discharge 
 the ladies . of her bed-chamber, as if they were political ser- 
 vants, at Peel's institgation, the Whigs returned to the 
 Ministerial benches in a week, and held office for two more 
 years. From that time Brougham endeavored to exercise a 
 kind of protectorate over all Tory ministers, and had occasional 
 gleams of hope of being recalled by them to the woolsack. 
 He died at Cannes, on the 7th of May, 1868, in his 
 ninetieth year. There is scarcely a subject in history, the- 
 ology, mathematics, party controversy, criticism, or political 
 economy, on which Brougham did not write one or more 
 dissertations ; but, in spite of this marvelous fertility of mind, 
 it is a question whether he established anything like fame 
 in any one. The preservation of his memory to future gen- 
 erations will be more owing to the large space he occupied, 
 while living, in the public eye, than to any grand, legal, or 
 statesmanlike qualities. 
 
IL®IM) (CMIIffilE' JWSinCCIE BffiMimMo 
 
 JAMES COCKCROFT JlCo 
 
LORD DENMAN 
 
 NLIKE his immediate predecessor, Lord Ten- 
 terden, — the self-made son of the Barber ol 
 Canterbury, — the eminent Chief Justice who 
 is the subject of the present memoir, sprang 
 ^^ from an old county stock of English pro- 
 vj;^ genitors. His father. Dr. Thomas Denman, 
 after nine years of service as a medical officer 
 in the English navy, established himself as a 
 a practitioner in London ; and ultimately ob- 
 tained a reputation as the first accoucheur 
 in the British metropolis. It was eight years 
 from the birth of twin daughters that an 
 addition was made to Dr. Denman's family by the birth 
 of his only son — the future Lord Chief Justice of 
 England — who was bom in the Doctor's then residence 
 in Queen street. Golden square — now called Denman street, 
 in his honor — on the twenty-third of February, 1779. The 
 birth of the boy is designated by his father as an " inex- 
 pressible blessing," and he naturally became the object of 
 unusual solicitude and aflFection. Of the earlier infantile his- 
 tory of this child very little is recorded save that, when about 
 
 arrived at his third year, the house in Queen street being ut- 
 
 19 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 terly destroyed by fire, he was rescued from the flames by 
 his father's intrepidity, and at the imminent risk of his own 
 life. It was only a few months after that occurrence, that, 
 fearing the little fellow would be spoiled by their own in- 
 dulgence, his parents heroically determined to separate him 
 from themselves for his own good, and to send him at that 
 early age to a boarding-school. This resolution on their part 
 turned out one of the most important events in his life. The 
 care and entire guidance of his youthful mind was intrusted 
 to a lady who was distinguished for her wonderful educational 
 powers, and who, both in her school and in her writings, 
 exercised at the time a kind of office of high priestess over 
 the juvenile training of the children of the upper and middle 
 classes in England. To the school of Mrs. Barbauld, at Pal- 
 grave, near Diss, in Norfolk, the child was accordingly sent, 
 where his natural powers, and especially those of memory and 
 elocution, were encouraged and developed, and he soon be- 
 came a little prodigy of learning. Mrs. Barbauld reports of 
 him : " I do not know a sweeter child ; " and at five years old 
 he writes verses, " has already begun Latin, has an excellent 
 memory, and delights in learning." To the four years spent 
 at Palgrave, and to the care of "my dear old instructress," 
 Lord Denman himself attributed, in after life, the force of 
 his memory, his love of literature, and the clearness and 
 power of his elocution. In his mother, also, who was a be- 
 liever in the then prevalent notions of human perfectibility, 
 and who had drawn up forty-six rules for the minute guid- 
 ance of her own daily life, he had the assistance of a relig- 
 ious and well-trained mind. In compliance with the expressed 
 
 20 
 
LORD DEN MAN. 
 
 wish of this beloved parent it is said that, from boyhood to 
 his death, he never omitted to read daily a chapter in the 
 Bible. Before the completion of his tenth year, Dr. Denman 
 sent the boy to Eton, where, no doubt, he went through his 
 ordeal of a "fag," duly "fagging" others in his turn; but the 
 records of his career at this period are scanty, and such as 
 exist are barren of interest. In his thirteenth year he is no- 
 ticed for a singular proficiency in Latin, and a taste for 
 music. In his eighteenth year, having passed seven years at 
 Eton, he matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and 
 entered upon a residence of four years, which terminated in 
 February, 1800. His course at the University, however, was 
 nothing exceptionally brilliant, and he left it with only an 
 ordinary degree, to the great disappointment of his father and 
 sister, Mrs. Baillie, who both expected him to come out a 
 Wrangler. To the latter he had written two years before, 
 " You need not be afraid of my applying too intensely to 
 mathematical studies; I was never too fond of them." And 
 after his failure to obtain honors, he again writes, "All 
 my views of ambition are at an end, and you must be con- 
 tent to see poor Tom Denman merely as a brother, without 
 any medal to adorn him, or any honors to recommend him." 
 Among Denman's intimate college friends were Launcelot 
 Shadwell, afterwards Vice Chancellor of England, who left the 
 University at the same time, with brilliant honors, and John 
 Hermon Merivale, afterwards Commissioner of Bankruptcy. 
 With the latter, on his return to London, he took rooms 
 and commenced his legal studies as a pupil of that eminent 
 real property lawyer, Charles Butler. At the University he 
 
 21 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 IS said to have employed much of his time in reading his- 
 tories of chivalry and romance; and he ever retained a won- 
 derful taste for the drama; even when a judge on circuit, 
 never failing to do all he could to assist the local drama at 
 the various assize towns. His physical appearance at this 
 period of his life, was that of "a gentleman in a remarkable 
 degree," and with the striking expression of one bom to 
 command ; while he is described as free from all affectation, 
 and possessing a very winning combination of gentleness and 
 power. Even as a boy at school, Denman, who was fond of 
 political discussion, displayed that love of liberty, and abhor- 
 rence of political oppression which he felt so strongly in 
 after life. He was wont to attribute his liberal political 
 opinions to the influence of his first teacher, Mrs. Barbauld, 
 and although at the cost of many sacrifices, he cherished the 
 same principles to his death. His father having taken cham- 
 bers for him in Lincoln Inn, he now became the pupil of 
 Mr. Dampier, afterwards Justice of the Court of King's 
 Bench, and tutoi of the two Chancellors, Cottenham and 
 Campbell. On December thirteenth, 1803, his mother records 
 that, he was appointed the special pleader of Mr. Alexander, 
 an attorney in large practice. About the same time the 
 young lawyer became entangled in the toils of love, with 
 the beautiful sister of a college friend, to whom, within a 
 year, he was married."' Miss Theodosia Anne Vevers was a 
 young lady rich in graces and virtues, the daughter of a 
 country clergyman in Leicestershire, and highly connected 
 on her mother's side ; but without fortune either in posses- 
 sion or prospect. Denman says, in one of his letters, "My 
 
 22 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 own feelings make me confident that we shall love one 
 another well enough to live happily on a little," and for many 
 years there is no doubt that their circumstances were consid- 
 erably straitened, while they gladly received an annual assist- 
 ance from Dr. Denman of four hundred pounds. As a hus- 
 band and father Denman ever bore the highest character for 
 indulgence and tenderness. His sister relates, that it was a 
 pleasure to see him in the midst of his children, nursing the 
 babies, and playing with the older ones, and their friend and 
 companion as they grew older. On May gth, 1806, he was 
 called to the bar by the Hon. Society of Lincoln Inn ; and 
 joined the Midland Circuit, and Lincolnshire Sessions. His 
 charming temper and conversational qualities soon gained him 
 friends, and he shortly writes, that he had had a prosperous 
 Session, and held four briefs at Derby. His sufficient legal 
 attainments were greatly assisted by a commanding figure, a 
 magnificent voice, and powerful and impressive style. There 
 are some very amusing entries in the circuit book respecting 
 him, a book of record which might be called the " Nemesis 
 of the Legal Mess Table." He is presented "for wearing 
 nankeen trousers at a Circuit Court" (the proper costume 
 being a black dress suit), " for saying in open court that 
 no wise man would ever think of going to law ; " " for danc- 
 ing with seven attorney's daughters at Derby Ball," and "for 
 traveling the circuits in stage coaches and without a servant," 
 for each of which a fine of one guinea is imposed. Again, 
 years after, we find him presented " for advertising for busi- 
 ness by telling an attorney where his lodgings were situ- 
 ated;" and, in the Spring Circuit, 181 5, there is this en- 
 
 23 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 try : — " Mr. Denman is congratulated on being attended by 
 his wife at Northampton, and condoled with on her de- 
 parture thence. Fine (as usual) one guinea." One of Den- 
 man's earliest retainers was connected with Lord Cochrane's 
 election for Westminster, whom Lord Ellenborough sentenced 
 to a fine of ;^i,ooo, and to stand an hour in the pillory, 
 although the latter part of the sentence was not carried out. 
 In the latter part of 1816 he was appointed Deputy Re- 
 corder of Nottingham, and was soon being gradually lifted 
 out of mere provincial fame. In the same year he under- 
 took the defense of Brandreth and other Luddite prisoners 
 accused of high treason, machine breaking, and rioting of 
 that kind, which is described by Charlotte Bronte in her 
 novel of " Shirley." He did his utmost to save them from 
 their fate, arguing that they had never levied war against 
 the king; but they were found guilty, and the barbarous 
 sentence for high treason, including beheading after death, 
 and only remitting the quartering as a special favor, was 
 duly executed. Having made one previous attempt to get 
 returned to Parliament for Nottingham, Denman eventually 
 took his seat in the House of Commons for the Borough 
 of Wareham on the 14th of July, 18 19; but his early career 
 in the legislature did not bear out the hopes of his friends, 
 or meet the anticipations of the chiefs of his party. He 
 showed himself, however, always forward and fearless in de- 
 nouncing all jobbery and corruption, and all oppression at 
 home and abroad, and particularly the crowning iniquity of 
 the African slave trade ; while his contributions to the prog- 
 ress of law reform were always well considered and in the 
 
 24 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 right direction. It was within a year of his entrance into 
 the legislature that his engagement in the great State trial 
 of Queen Caroline of Brunswick raised him to a high pin- 
 nacle of fame, constituting him one of the most renowned 
 lawyers and popular men in England. Poor Caroline hav- 
 ing become the wife of the Prince of Wales in 1795, after 
 one year of cohabitation, was obliged to take a different 
 path in life, and to leave her royal husband to his un- 
 broken course of bare-faced and notorious profligacy. She 
 eventually left England for foreign travel in 18 14, and, after 
 visiting Egypt and the Holy Land, spent a considerable 
 time on the continent of Europe. Upon the question of 
 her actual guilt opinions very much differ; but there is no 
 question that her conduct ran to the very verge of impru- 
 dence, that she liked the society of low associates, and 
 altogether conducted herself in a way which would have 
 been no credit to any lady in the land, and in a queen 
 was especially reprehensible. In the year 181 8, at the in- 
 stigation of Sir John Leach, then Vice-Chancellor of Eng- 
 land, a great favorite of the Prince Regent, and a rival of 
 Lord Eldon, the Chancellor, — whose office he coveted, — a se- 
 cret commission was authorized by the Cabinet to proceed to 
 Milan, and inquire into the various acts of immorality 
 charged against the queen, and especially into the facts of 
 an alleged adulterous intercourse with her Italian chamber- 
 lain, Bergami. On the nth of February, 1820, a fortnight 
 after the decease of George the Third, and the accession of 
 the Prince Regent to the throne, the name of the Queen 
 
 was by a solemn order of the Council directed to be omit- 
 
 25 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 ted from the Liturgy. This act, the crowning point of a 
 series of petty persecutions, induced the queen to brave all 
 risks and to return to England to clear her charactor and 
 claim her rights. Her case was particularly espoused by the 
 famous Alderman Wood, father of the late Lord Chancellor, 
 Lord Hatherley ; and Mr. Brougham, who had been appointed 
 her legal adviser, having been officially created her Attorney- 
 General, at this time asked Denman to act as Solicitor-Gen- 
 eral of the queen, of the duties of which office he was punc- 
 tually reminded by a retainer which was regularly placed at 
 the door of his chambers by a clerk from Coutts' Bank. 
 Brougham was by no means desirous that the queen should 
 return to England ; having hopes that he could obtain her 
 ^50,000 a year and all the rights of a queen consort if 
 she would remain abroad. From the very first moment of 
 her arrival she showed a preference for Denman over 
 Brougham, whose brusque manners no doubt contributed not 
 a little to put him out of her favor. She even said on 
 one occasion, " If my head is upon Temple Bar, it will be 
 Brougham's doing." On her arrival in London there was 
 hardly a well-dressed person to meet her in the crowd, and 
 the queen of England was conveyed in a hack conveyance 
 to her miserable residence in Portman Street, amid the ap- 
 plause of a very inferior mob. The Green Bag Papers hav- 
 ing arrived, an attempt was made to secure an amicable 
 arrangement. This conference having failed, a resolution was 
 proposed in the House of Commons declaratory of the de- 
 sire of the queen to acquiesce in the opinion of Parliament. 
 
 In the course of the debate which ensued, Denman, with the 
 
 26 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 deepest and most solemn pathos, said, in reference to her 
 name being struck out of the Liturgy, that Her Majesty was 
 at least included in the prayer, " for all that are desolate and 
 oppressed." The trial commenced on the 17th of August, 
 and on the following day Denman made a powerful address 
 against the second reading of the bill to the Peers. Ex- 
 hausted with his labor, he afterwards repaired to the queen's 
 lodgings, where, lounging upon one sofa, and having flung his 
 wig on another, Her Majesty relieved his distress at the lib- 
 erty he had taken with her room by laughingly saying, " It 
 is indeed a most unbecoming familiarity," and then announced 
 her approval of his efforts on her behalf by the words, " My 
 God, what a beautiful speech." So thoroughly was Denman 
 recognized as being on the side of the people against a 
 dissipated and unprincipled king, that going for a week's 
 holiday to Cheltenham, the populace on his arrival drew his 
 carriage for nearly a mile, and would not be satisfied, amid 
 shouts of " Queen," until he had made them a speech. In 
 the October following, the Court of Peers resumed their sit- 
 ings, and in Denman's speech on that occasion his com- 
 parison between Caroline of Brunswick, and Octavia, the 
 innocent Bride girl of Nero, led to Carlton House being 
 called "Nero's Hotel;" an offense for which George the Fourth 
 must have ever retained a very lively memory, for within 
 nearly a" year of his death he writes to the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, " I must express a hope that this will be the last time 
 that I shall be troubled relative to Mr. Denman, as no con- 
 sideration shall ever induce me to admit that individual into 
 my presence." In consequence of Denman's able profes- 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 sional advocacy of the queen he had to see all his juniors 
 at the Bar passed over his head, and remained for twenty- 
 two years with a stuff gown. He had, however, been 
 appointed Common Sergeant of the City of London, which 
 gave him a certainty in the way of a competency, and 
 he held that post until, under Lord Grey's ministry, he 
 was appointed Attorney-General. In that office, under 
 the instructions of the committee, consisting of Lords 
 Durham and Duncannon, Lord John Russell and Sir James 
 Graham, he drew the great constitutional act, which has made 
 that administration memorable, and a copy of it has been 
 preserved indorsed " Original Reform Bill drawn by Mr. 
 Denman." At length, on the sudden death of Lord Ten- 
 terden, who had been Chief Justice of the Court of King's 
 Bench for fourteen years, and on Lord Brougham's instant 
 and urgent suggestion, Denman was sworn in at the Privy 
 Council on the 6th of November, 1832, as Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice of England, the king, after a short struggle assenting to 
 the appointment. When presiding on the Norfolk Circuit, 
 at the Spring assizes of 1834, Sir Thomas Denman received 
 a letter from Lord Grey intimating the desire of the Gov- 
 ernment to elevate him to the Peerage, the Lord Chancellor 
 having particularly expressed an anxious desire to obtain his 
 assistance in the House of Lords. Aware that William the 
 Fourth might still retain no very pleasant memory of his 
 famous apostrophe, " Come forth, thou slanderer," addressed to 
 him when Duke of Clarence, in his great speech on the 
 trial of Queen Caroline, Denman requested in his reply that 
 
 Lord Grey would withdraw the offer if it would prove un- 
 
 28 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 acceptable to the king, for he said, " Nothing would give me 
 more pain than to cause any difficulty in conducting the ad- 
 ministration." The Sailor King, however, at once assented in 
 the most gracious manner, and expressed himself in terms of 
 praise of Denman's conduct since he had been Chief Justice. 
 On the 22nd of March the London Gazette consequently an- 
 nounced that letters patent had passed the Great Seal 
 creating Sir Thomas Denman, Kt, Chief Justice of the 
 Court of King's Bench (and his male heirs lawfully begot- 
 ten), a Baron of the United Kingdom, by the title of Baron 
 Denman of " Dovedale," which is one of the most lovely 
 spots in the beautiful county of Derby, and in close vicinity 
 to the Town of Bakewell, where his grandfather, Dr. John 
 Denman, had led a struggling life of professional industry as 
 a medical practitioner. Not having communicated Lord 
 Grey's offer to his wife, the news of his elevation was first 
 conveyed to Lady Denman by Lord Brougham. She re- 
 plied in a short note expressing great surprise, and inquiring 
 whether her husband was coming to town. To this 
 Brougham sent the following quaint reply: "I see the 
 Chief Justice is well worthy of promotion to be an heredi- 
 tary councilor, for he can keep a secret. He will not, I 
 suppose, be in town any the sooner for being a lord." 
 The new peer seems to have been full of fun on the oc- 
 casion, addressing his daughter as " Dear and Honorable 
 Fanny," and commencing a letter to his wife, "I will not 
 address you as I intended, 'my Peerless Peeress,' because 
 that might look as if you had lost your new-made peer." 
 
 Although he thus received his new and well-earned dignity 
 
 29 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 with his usual cheerful sanguineness, it was always felt by 
 himself and family that the want of a fortune to support a 
 Peerage, necessitating a change of residence, and to some ex- 
 tent alterations in his style of living, constituted no little 
 drawback from the pleasure of his elevation. He writes on 
 the occasion to another daughter, " My lot has indeed been 
 fortunate ; far above my talents or merits of any kind. But 
 there is one merit of a kind entirely within one's own com- 
 mand — the determination to do what is right, whenever that 
 can be discovered." In the autumn of the same year, the en- 
 tire Whig Cabinet resigned, and were succeeded by the ad- 
 ministration of the Duke of Wellington. On that occasion 
 for a fortnight, Lord Denman, as is customary with the Lord 
 Justices of England, when the office is vacant, held the 
 seal of the Chancellor of Exchequer, until the return 
 of Mr. — afterward Sir Robert — Peel, who was at the time 
 on the continent. In the Parliamentary session of the 
 following year — 1835 — Denman, during the period that the 
 great seal was in commission, acted for some months as ex- 
 ofiicio speaker of the House of Lords. On the occasion of 
 Lord Brougham presenting his celebrated Fourteen Resolu- 
 tions to the House for the establishment of an Education 
 Board, the Chief Justice addressed the Lords in a very im- 
 pressive speech, in the course of which, alluding to the con- 
 nection between ignorance and crime, he said that, " He 
 doubted how far the state was justified in inflicting punish- 
 ment for offenses against which it had taken no means to 
 guard." For nearly four years from the commencement of 
 
 1837, Lord Denman was engaged in a most important 
 
 30 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 struggle, which occurred between the House of Commons 
 and the Legal Bench of England. This memorable conflict 
 arose out of the case of Stockdale v. Hansard, the printer 
 of the Parliamentary papers, and concerned the great question 
 of the privileges of the House. A report had been made in 
 the year 1836 by the Inspectors of Prisons, to the House 
 Secretary, and ordered by the House of Commons to be 
 printed, in which the Inspectors complained that they had 
 found a work pubHshed by one Stockdale, which they charac- 
 terized as an obscene book, in the hands of the prisoners in 
 Newgate. Stockdale claimed that the book in question was 
 purely a scientific one, and brought an action against Messrs. 
 Hansard for libel. It was contended, on behalf of the Han- 
 sards, by Sir John Campbell, the Attorney-General, that the 
 publication of the Inspector's report was privileged. The 
 , Chief Justice, in his charge, said : " I am not aware of the 
 existence in this country of any body whatever, which can 
 privilege any servant of theirs to publish libels on any indi- 
 vidual ; if that point were to be left unsatisfactorily explained, 
 the Judge might become an accomplice in the destruction of 
 the liberties of his country, and expose every individual who 
 lived in it to a tyranny no man ought to submit to." The 
 House of Commons was infuriated, and passed resolutions 
 asserting that it had the sole right to determine the extent 
 of its own privileges, and that any action or suit before any 
 court or tribunal to decide upon such matters of privilege or 
 bring them under discussion, was a high breach and contempt 
 of the privileges of Parliament, rendering all concerned 
 
 amenable to the just displeasure and punishment of the 
 
 3i 
 
LORD DENMAN. 
 
 House. Stockdale having brought a second action, the case 
 came by demurrer before the full Court of Queen's Bench, 
 when the Chief Justice delivered a written judgment, in 
 which he said : " This is a claim for an arbitrary power, to 
 authorize the commission of any act whatever on behalf of a 
 body which, in the same argument, is admitted not to be the 
 supreme power in the State. The supremacy of Parliament, 
 the foundation upon which the claim is made to rest, appears 
 to me completely to overturn it, because the House of Com- 
 mons is not the Parliament, but only a co-ordinate and com- 
 ponent part of the Parliament. This proposition, therefore, 
 is absolutely untenable and abhorrent to the first principles of 
 the Constitution of England." Messrs. Hansard having been 
 levied on by the Sheriffs for six hundred pounds, Stockdale 
 and his attorney were both arrested by order of the House ; 
 and the Sheriffs, who were ordered to return the moneys 
 having failed to do so, were committed to the custody of 
 the sergeant-at-arms. Lord John Russell at length got the 
 House to pass an act, entitled "The Printed Papers Bill," by 
 which the unfortunate collision was terminated. But the 
 dignity and firmness displayed by Lord Denman endeared 
 his name greatly to the people of England. Having held the 
 office for over thirteen years, this "great and good" Chief 
 Justice was at length compelled, by a third attack of par- 
 alysis, to resign it in 1850. His only regret was, that he 
 had not the appointment of his successor, who proved to be 
 Lord Campbell, with whom he had had serious differences 
 of opinion. 
 
 32 
 
Jamas Cookreft, & Co,¥ewTort. 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH 
 
 |DWARD LAW, the first Lord Ellenborough, 
 and great Chief Justice, was the younger son 
 of Dr. Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle, an 
 eminent prelate of the Church of England, 
 He was boi-n at the parsonage of Salkeld, of 
 which his father was rector, on the i6th of 
 November, 1 750. Dr. Law was a particularly 
 mild and studious divine, with a tranquil 
 voice, which he never raised ; but it is said 
 that Ellenborough, who resembled his mother 
 in features, also inherited from her many 
 other qualifications. At all events, he was 
 notorious for his irascibility at an early age, and little Ned 
 bore the reputation of being a very naughty boy. He spoke 
 his native dialect with great force, and retained his Cum- 
 brian pronunciation to his dying hour. Having been for a 
 short time at a school at Bury St. Edmunds, he was re- 
 moved to the foundation of the Charter-house in London, 
 of which school he eventually became captain ; and where, 
 by the special directions of his will, he lies buried. At this 
 period of life he was distinguished for good-nature, but was 
 burly and bluff, exhibiting a mixture of arrogance with 
 
 35 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 bonhomie. At eighteen he went to Cambridge, and entered 
 Peterhouse, of which his father was master, as an under- 
 graduate. He was there distinguished for his industry and 
 self-denial, and for an overbearing love of sarcasm. He left 
 the university as thiid wrangler, and had among his life- 
 friends who were fellovz-collegians, Vicary Gibbs, Le Blanc, 
 and Lawrence, his after-associates on the Bench. He was 
 noted for thoroughly enjoying himself in society, and said, 
 " the greatest struggle he ever made was in leaving a pleas- 
 ant party and retiring to his room to read." Although 
 urged to go into the Church, and with unusually good 
 prospects, — his elder brother became Bishop of Elphin, — he 
 preferred the profession of the law, and entered as a stu- 
 dent of Lincoln's Inn on the loth of June, 1769. He then 
 entered himself as the pupil of the celebrated George Wood, 
 on whom Lord Mansfield made the great special-pleading 
 joke, that " his horse was ' demurring ' when he should have 
 ' gone to the country.' " He became soon famous at debat- 
 ing clubs, and for a particular oration which he delivered 
 at Coachmakers' Hall. A great deal of business now flowed 
 in upon him as a special pleader under the Bar, which was 
 greatly owing to his charging such small fees for answering 
 cases. At Nisi Prius, years afterwards, when an attorney 
 was overruled by him, he was greeted on the Bench with 
 the observation, " My Lord, although your Lordship is a great 
 man now, I remember when I could get your opinion for 
 five shillings." By the time he had continued this drudgery 
 for five years he was making a handsome income, and in 
 Hilary term, 1780, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's 
 
 36 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 Inn, and joined the circuit at York. His rough manners 
 frequently got him into altercations with his opponents and 
 with the Bench ; but in spite of them, after wearing a stuff 
 gown for seven years, he found himself rapidly getting 
 ahead of his seniors. Freely indulging in the gallantries of 
 of the age, like the Lord Chancellor, he had kept a mis- 
 tress ; but taking a fancy to the beautiful Miss Towry, 
 daughter of the Commissioner of the Navy, he proposed to 
 her. In spite of his ungainly figure and awkward address, 
 he prevailed, and was married to that lady on the 17th of 
 October, 1789. Her grace and beauty were so conspicuous 
 that it is said that crowds would collect outside his house 
 to see her water her flowers. His ambition now led him 
 sensitively to feel that without any London practice his 
 fame was merely local, and he became despondent. He 
 was, however, just on the verge of the grandest opportunity 
 that ever presented itself to an aspiring barrister, and of 
 attaining a position which was even more important to him 
 than his subsequent elevation to the Chief Justiceship. He 
 received a general retainer for Warren Hastings, whose trial, 
 beginning in one reign was ended in another, was carried 
 over two generations of peers, and engaged the attention 
 of all the greatest orators and statesmen of the time. Law 
 was appointed leading counsel. He retired to a cottage at 
 Windermere to study the Rohilla war, the spoliation of the 
 Begums, and the cruelties of Debi Sing, and to make notes, 
 — as was his wont,— on scraps of paper of what he should 
 say. The scene in Westminster Hall, before Lord Chancel- 
 lor Thurlow and the ermined peers, was gorgeous in the 
 
 37 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 extreme. Law, opposed to the indignation of Fox and 
 Burke, had a great struggle to induce the Lords to abide 
 by the rules of evidence followed in the courts below, and 
 frequently had to repeat the question, " Why do you sum- 
 mon the judges of the land to assist you ? " Twenty-three 
 times the peers retired to refer questions to the judges, 
 whose advice they always took. The trial commenced on 
 the 15th of February, 1788, and finished on the 23rd of 
 April, 1795; and during its progress, there were constant 
 passages between Law and the Parliamentary managers. 
 Burke was particularly mad at the rejection of evidence of 
 the alleged cruelties of Debi Sing and the spoliation of the 
 Begums, and accused Law repeatedly of using insolent obser- 
 vations, and told the Peers that the counsel did not deserve 
 an answer. He did his duty, nevertheless, in a manly and 
 effective manner ; and, on the one hundred and forty-fifth day 
 of the trial, was gratified by a verdict of acquittal for his 
 client. His fees during the whole of the trial only amounted 
 to three thousand pounds, but it attained him the foremost 
 position as an advocate. On the breaking out of the French 
 Revolution, Law went over to the Tories with a large body 
 of Whig alarmists. He was shortly after appointed Attorney- 
 General of the County Palatine, and was employed in the 
 State prosecution at Manchester of a Mr. Walker, and others, 
 for conspiring to overthrow the Constitution, and to assist 
 the French to invade England. On this trial Erskine was 
 special against him. A point arising about the admissibility 
 of a printed paper, Erskine theatrically exclaimed, " Good 
 
 God, where am I?" Law (with affected composure): "In a 
 
 38 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 British court of justice." Erskine (indignantly) : " How are 
 my clients to be exculpated ? " Law (in a still quieter tone) : 
 " By legal evidence." Erskine (much excited) : " I stand 
 before the people of England for justice." Laiv (bursting 
 out furiously) : " I am equally before the people of England 
 for the protection of the people of England ; if you rise in 
 this tone I can speak as loudly and as emphatically ; 
 there is nothing which has betrayed improper passion on my 
 part ; but no tone or manner shall put me down." In the 
 course of the trial the rivals were reconciled. He also won 
 great applause at the trial of Lord Thanet and Mr. Ferguson, 
 for assisting in the attempt to rescue Arthur O'Connor, and 
 had now distanced all his competitors on the Northern 
 Circuit, being known by the title of " the almighty of the 
 north." It was then that, in his fifty-first year, he rose like 
 an aeronaut. Mr. Pitt having stepped down from the pre- 
 miership, Mr. Addington, the new minister, sent for him and 
 offered him the attorney-generalship, saying, that in two days 
 he would expect an answer. Law replied, " I shall think 
 myself disgraced if I took two days, two hours, or two 
 minutes to deliberate upon it ; I am yours, and let the storm 
 blow from what quarter of the hemisphere it may, you shall 
 always find me at your side." Attending the king, — who had 
 recovered a state of derangement, — in his closet, to kiss 
 hands and be knighted, George the Third said : " Sir Ed- 
 ward, Sir Edward, have you ever been in Parliament ? " 
 And being answered in the negative, added : " Right, Sir 
 Edward, quite right. Sir Edward, for now when you become 
 my attorney-general," Sir Edward, you will not eat your own 
 
 39 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 words, Sir Edward, as so many of your predecessors have 
 been obliged to do, Sir Edward." He was now returned 
 for a close Borough, and took his seat in the House March 
 2nd, 1801. He was, however, by no means a skillful debater, 
 and his principal speeches in the House of Commons were 
 upon measures of coercion as regards Ireland. During the 
 short period he was first law officer, he had the conduct of 
 a very memorable prosecution, that of Joseph Wall, Governor 
 of Goree, on the coast of Africa, who had sentenced Ben- 
 jamin Armstrong, a sergeant and ringleader in a rebellion, 
 to three hundred lashes, in the course of the administration 
 of which brutal punishment, he died. Governor Wall fled to 
 France, but afterwards surrendered himself, and was tried by 
 special commission. Sir Edward showed a determined reso- 
 lution to convict the prisoner, who was hanged on a gibbet 
 in front of the jail of Newgate, amidst the shouts and execra- 
 tions of the most numerous mob ever assembled in England 
 to witness an execution. On the death of Lord Kenyon, in 
 April, 1802, Mr. Addington, with the King's approval, offered 
 Sir Edward Law the Chief Justiceship, and his majesty also 
 approved the suggestion that he should at the same time be 
 raised to the Peerage. He took the title of EUenborough 
 from a little fishing village in Cumberland, in which his 
 mother's family had, for generations, held property. On the 
 Bench he proved himself to be incorruptible; but, although 
 anxious to avoid, as a judge, the faults of Lord Kenyon, he 
 probably dealt out quite as many rebuffs and sarcasms, and 
 was equally arbitrary. In supporting the Volunteer Consol- 
 idation Bill, Lord EUenborough very stoutly defended, in the 
 
 40 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 House of Lords, the prerogative of the King to call out the 
 whole population for the defense of the Realm, and said, 
 " No individual who bears the semblance of a man, who 
 values his country and his domestic ties, and who knows his 
 duty to fight body to body, pro aris et focis, will stickle 
 about the mode in which his energies can most advan- 
 tageously be brought into action." His martial ardor ap- 
 peared the more wonderful from his being attired, when 
 speaking, in a silk gown and judicial wig, which is no longer 
 customary with chief or other justices sitting as Peers. 
 His appearance and manner, when delivering sentence of 
 death, were particularly dignified, impressive, and awe-inspiring, 
 especially when, as occasion required in the cases of Colonel 
 Despard and other traitors, he came to the dreadful enumera- 
 tion of the barbarities which the law at that time adjudged 
 to be inflicted. On the death of Mr. Pitt, Lord Ellenborough 
 declined the office of the chancellorship, made to him by Mr. 
 Addington, now Lord Sidmouth ; but he became a cabinet 
 minister, although the constitutionality of a chief justice acting 
 in that capacity is very questionable. Lord Ellenborough 
 had a violent hatred for libelers, and did all in his power to 
 convict Leigh Hunt, the Editor of the Examiner, who was 
 prosecuted for an article against flogging in the army, but, 
 to his great mortification, the jury brought in a verdict of 
 not guilty. The manner in which public prosecutions for 
 libel were carried on at this time was a great disgrace to the 
 government, and the subject was eventually brought before 
 the House of Lords. On that occasion Lord Ellenborough 
 
 got the title from Lord Stanhope of the " Vituperative Chief 
 
 41 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 Justice," and concluded his speech with the foUowinsf words : 
 " Were I to die next moment, I will not yield to violence. 
 My abhorrence of the licentiousness of the press is founded 
 on my love of civil liberty. The most certain mode of 
 upsetting our free constitution is by generating a groundless 
 distrust of the great officers of justice, and teaching the 
 people to despise the law along with those who administer 
 it. I repeat that I know nothing more mischievous in its 
 tendency than inoculating the public mind with groundless 
 apprehensions of imaginary evils." On another occasion, when 
 attacked by Earl Grey for something he had said on a pre- 
 vious evening, who said that the question had been brought 
 forward in the " proud display of a noble and learned Lord," 
 the Chief Justice said : " I rise, my Lords, to repel 
 with indignation the base and calumnious imputation against 
 me by the noble Earl, of having falsified a document, namely, 
 the Petition of the City of London to Edward I. I hold 
 in my hand a copy of that document, and its contents v/ill 
 '.how how unjustly I have been attacked." Having read it 
 n a loud and angry voice, he added in a very softened tone, 
 IS he was about to resume his seat : " I thought it due, my 
 Lords, to my own character to make this explanation, and 
 I trust that I have done it without any asperity of language, 
 (A loud laugh from both sides of the House.) That laugh 
 awakens a sentiment in my mind which I will not express. 
 All I shall say is, that a man who is capable of patiently 
 enduring the imputation of having falsified a document is 
 capable of that atrocity." There can be but little question 
 
 that the overbearing and excitable disposition of Lord Ellen- 
 
 42 
 
L ORD ELLENB OR O UGH. 
 
 borough hastened his end. Juries at length rejoiced to return 
 verdicts in opposition to his dictation. On the trial of Dr. 
 James Watson for high treason, which lasted seven days, — 
 whom he had done his utmost to get convicted, — he asked 
 the jury if they desired refreshments before retiring. His 
 countenance visibly collapsed as the foreman replied, " We 
 shall not be long, my Lord," and, without retiring at all, they 
 immediately returned a verdict of " not guilty." It was, how- 
 ever, the trial of William Hone, for three parodies, claimed 
 to be offensive, on George the Fourth, which terminated his 
 legal existence. The enfeebled Chief Justice would insist on 
 presiding, and, at the conclusion of his charge, said : " I will 
 deliver to you my solemn opinion, as I am required by Act of 
 [Parliament to do. Under the authority of that Act, and still 
 more in obedience to my conscience and my God, I pronounce 
 it to be the most impious and profane libel. Hoping and be- 
 lieving that you are Christians, I doubt not that your opinion 
 is the same." The usual question being put when the jury, 
 after a short deliberation, returned into Court, the Chief Justice 
 had the mortification to hear the words " not guilty " pro- 
 nounced, followed by a tremendous burst of applause, which he 
 did not even attempt to quell. His resignation followed shortly 
 after, the execution of which cost him a deeper pang than 
 drawing his last breath ; and within a month afterwards he 
 calmly expired at his house in St. James's Square, on the 13th 
 of December, 181 8. In spite of his bad temper, cruelty, and 
 arrogance, his learning, vigorous intellect, intrepidity, and un- 
 spotted integrity, point to him as one of the greatest of 
 English Judges. He lived in an age when every page of 
 
 43 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 England's Statute Book smelled of blood, and when the Epis- 
 copal Bench, and the wisdom, worth, and learning of the 
 judgment-seat, combined to uphold a system utterly irrecon- 
 cilable with Divine Revelation. The dread archon of Athens 
 was far outstripped in needless severity by the ministers of 
 that religion whose Divine Author had supplanted the 
 Judaical ''lex ialwnis" by the holy principle of forgiveness of 
 injuries, when they rendered their legislative aid to retain on 
 the blood-stained statute book the law which extended Chris- 
 tian England's universal panacea for crime to the theft of a 
 pocket-handkerchief by a hungry boy. Who can realize the 
 fact that it is only two generations since England hanged for 
 the theft of one shilling ; for a sheep ; for a horse ; for cattle ; 
 coining, witchcraft, and forgery; or that in the last century, 
 one hundred and fifty offenses were statutably capital! Yet 
 even with these Lord Ellenborough was not satisfied, and 
 he introduced a bill to make ten new felonies capital, and 
 was as much shocked at a proposal to repeal the punishment 
 of death for stealing to the value of five shillings in a shop 
 as if it had been a proposal to abrogate the ten command- 
 ments. On the occasion of the introduction of the bill for 
 this terrible innovation into the House of Peers, after 
 speaking of it as pregnant with danger, he said : " My 
 Lords, if we suffer this bill -to pass, we shall not know where 
 to stand, — we shall not know whether we are on our heads 
 or on our feet. If you repeal the Act which inflicts the 
 penalty of death for stealing to the value of five shillings 
 in a shop, you will be called upon next year to repeal a law 
 
 which prescribes the penalty of death for stealing five shillings 
 
 44 
 
LORD ELLENBO ROUGH. 
 
 in a dwelling-house, there being no person therein, — a law, 
 your Lordships must know, on the severity of which, and 
 the application of it, stands the security of every poor cot- 
 tager who goes out to his daily labor. He, my Lords, can 
 leave no one behind to watch his little dwelling and preserve 
 it from the attacks of lawless plunderers ; confident in the 
 protection of the laws of the land, he cheerfully pursues his 
 daily labors, trusting that on his return he shall find all his 
 property safe and unmolested. Repeal this law, and see the 
 contrast ; no man can trust himself for an hour out of doors 
 without the most alarming apprehensions that on his return 
 every vestige of his property will be swept away by the 
 hardened robber. My Lords, painful as is the duty, — anxious 
 as the feelings of a Judge are, — unwilling as he is to inflict 
 the tremendous penalties of the law, — there are cases where 
 mercy and humanity to the few would be injustice and 
 cruelty to the many. There are cases where the law must 
 be applied in all its terrors. My Lords, I think this, above 
 all others, is a law on which so much of the security of 
 mankind depends in its execution, that I should deem myself 
 neglectful of my duty to the public if I failed to let the 'law 
 take its course." Lord Ellenborough was equally opposed to 
 eveiy improvement of the law of Debtor and Creditor, and 
 foretold the utter ruin of commercial credit and the Empire, 
 should the right of arresting on " mesne " process ever be 
 taken away, or the fatal principle of " cessw bonoruni " be 
 recognized in the country, so that an honest insolvent might 
 be discharged from prison on yielding the whole of his prop- 
 erty to his creditors. Perhaps no Judge, on his retirement 
 
 45 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 from the Bench, ever received from the head of the State so 
 graceful and complimentary a letter as that in which George 
 Prince Regent, eulogized him, saying : " My Lord, your career, 
 since the moment you took your seat, and presided in the 
 high court committed to your charge can admit of but one 
 sentiment and but one opinion ; it has been glorious to your- 
 self, and beneficial to the nation. You have afforded an 
 example combining wisdom with every other talent and 
 virtue, which exalt your character, and place it beyond all 
 praise." It has been said that Ellenborough was not a man 
 of ambition, and still less of vanity, but that he was a 
 thorough lover of strict justice; and it might have been 
 added, that the justice of his age was as brutal as it was 
 strict, utterly ignoring Shakespeare's words, that " earthly 
 power doth then show likest God's when mercy seasons 
 justice." His funeral, at the cemetery of the Charterhouse, 
 was attended by all the dignitaries of the law, eminent 
 statesmen, and distinguished men of the day, and its effect 
 was rendered more solemn by a dense fog which only 
 permitted to the eye a dim glimpse of the procession. 
 Some excellent stories have attached themselves to Lord 
 Ellenborough 's name, of which we quote the following: 
 A young counsel who had the reputation of being a very 
 impudent fellow, but whose memory failed him when beginning 
 to recite a long speech which he had prepared, having uttered 
 these words, — " The unfortunate client who appears by me, — 
 the unfortunate client who appears hj me, — My Lord, my 
 unfortunate client," — the Chief Justice interposed, and almost 
 whispered in a soft and encouraging tone, — " You may go on, 
 
 46 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 Sir, — so far the court is with you." A counsel arguing before 
 a full Court thus began his erudite harangue, — " An estate 
 in fee simple, my Lords, is the highest estate known to the 
 law of England." "Stay, stay," said the Chief Justice, with 
 consummate gravity, "let me take that down," He wrote 
 and read slowly and emphatically, "An estate,— in fee simple, 
 — is.^the highest estate, — known to, — the law of England;" 
 adding, " Sir, the Court is much indebted to you for the 
 information." A Quaker coming into the witness-box at 
 Guildhall without a broad brim or dittoes, and rather smartly 
 dressed, the crier put the book into his hands and was about 
 to administer the oath, when he required to be examined on 
 his affirmation. Lord Ellenborough, asking if he was really 
 a Quaker, and being answered in the affirmative, exclaimed, 
 " Do you really mean to impose upon the Court by appearing 
 here in the disguise of a reasonable being .? " A witness 
 dressed in a fantastical manner having given very ram- 
 bling and discreditable evidence, was asked in cross-examina- 
 tion, " What he was .? " Witness : " I employ myself as a 
 surgeon." Lord Ellenborough, Ch. J.: "But does any one 
 else employ you as a surgeon?" On one occasion the Chief 
 Justice was going on Circuit, when Lady Ellenborough said 
 that she should like to accompany him. He replied that he 
 had no objection, provided she did not encumber the carriap-e 
 with bandboxes, which were his utter abhorrence. Durino- 
 the first day's journey. Lord Ellenborough, happening to 
 stretch his legs, struck his foot against something below the 
 seat. He discovered that it was a bandbox. Up went the 
 window and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped, 
 
 47 
 
LORD ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 and the footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled 
 out of the window by some extraordinary chance, was gomg 
 to pick it up, when Lord EUenborough furiously called out, 
 " Drive on ! " The bandbox, accordingly, was left by the 
 ditch side. Having reached the county-town where he was 
 to officiate as Judge, Lord EUenborough proceeded to array 
 himself for his appearance in the Court House. " Now," 
 said he, " where is my wig, — where is my wig ? " " My Lord," 
 replied his attendant, " it was thrown out of the carriage win- 
 dow." Lord EUenborough amassed a large fortune, and left two 
 hundred and forty thousand pounds to his family. His son, 
 only a few years deceased, became distinguished as a states- 
 man, and, as Governor-General of India, contributed greatly 
 to the honor of his distinguished name. 
 
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 QTTT LET® R 
 
 ,TanL-,,3 Cjckciufc ik. Go N.York 
 
LORD LITTLETON 
 
 DWARD LITTLETON, the subject of this 
 memoir, was of an ancient family of the robe. 
 He was born at Mounslow, in Shropshire, in 
 the year 1589, being the eldest son of Sir 
 Edward Littleton, of Hewley, in the same 
 county, likewise of the profession of the law, 
 having been one of the Justices of the Marches, 
 and a Judge of North Wales. Young Edward 
 Littleton was educated at a provincial gram- 
 mar school till he was sent to Oxford, and 
 entered a gentleman commoner at Christ 
 Church. Here he applied very diligently to 
 study, and in 1609 he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
 having gained great applause for his proficiency in logic and 
 in classical learning. Being removed to the Inner Temple, 
 he devoted himself to the Year Books and antiquarian lore. 
 He was a bosom friend of Selden, and for some years they 
 carried on their studies in common, often going together 
 to the Tower of London, there to regale themselves with a 
 smell of ancient parchment. He continued at the same time 
 to keep up an acquaintance with more elegant pursuits. He 
 was a famous swordsman, and he showed in his youth a taste 
 
 SI 
 
for the military art, which afterwards broke out in maturer 
 years, and placed him at the head of a regiment, — with the 
 Great Seal in one hand, and a pike in the other. But he 
 was determined to rise by his profession, and when he was 
 called to the Bar he was reckoned the be£t grounded common 
 lawyer which his society had sent forth for many years. He 
 soon rose into very extensive practice. In 1626 he was 
 returned a member of the House of Commons, and eagerly 
 joined the patriotic party then struggling against the ascen- 
 dency of the Duke of Buckingham, and he took an active part 
 in supporting the impeachment carried on against that powerful 
 favorite. He again sat in Charles's third parliament, called in 
 1628, and fought zealously for the cause of liberty. He was 
 chosen chairman of the committee which examined into 
 grievances since the preceding dissolution, and prepared the 
 " Petition of Right." He moved four resolutions, which were 
 unanimously agreed to by the House: — ist, "That no freeman 
 ought to be committed or detained in prison, or otherwise 
 restrained by command of the King or the Privy Council, 
 unless some cause of the commitment, detainer, or restraint be 
 expressed, for which by law he ought to be committed, 
 detained, or restrained." — 2ndly, " That the writ of habeas corpus 
 can not be denied, but ought to be granted to every man that 
 is committed or detained in prison, or otherwise restrained by 
 the command of the King, the Privy Council, or any other, he 
 praying for the same." — 3rdly, " That if a freeman be committed 
 or detained in prison, or otherwise restrained by command 
 of the King, Privy Council, or any other, no cause of such 
 
 commitment or detainer being expressed and the same be 
 
 52 
 
L ORD LITTLE TON. 
 
 returned upon a habeas corpus granted for the said party, that 
 
 then he ought to be deUvered or bailed." — 4thl7, "That the 
 
 ancient and undoubted right of every freeman is, that he hath 
 
 a full and absolute property in his goods and estate, and that 
 
 no tax, tallage, loan, benevolence, or other like charge, ought 
 
 to be commanded or levied by the King or his ministers, 
 
 without common assent of parliament." In a subsequent stage 
 
 of the proceeding, Heath, the Attorney-General, having 
 
 attempted to prove that commitments by the King himself 
 
 were not subject to the ordinary rules of law, and stood up for 
 
 lettres de cachet, Littleton made a furious attack upon him, 
 
 and successfully demolished his authorities and arguments, 
 
 showing that " it is equal whether the King do it himself or by 
 
 the agency of others." He had a no less triumphant conflict 
 
 with Secretary Cooke, who, although he had signed most of the 
 
 illegal warrants by which members had been sent to jail for 
 
 their conduct in the House, now found it convenient strongly 
 
 to recommend moderation. He could not, however, resist the 
 
 tempting offers made to him when the system was begun of 
 
 buying off opposition, and he went over to the court along 
 
 with Noy, Saville, and Wentworth. His first preferment was a 
 
 Welsh Judgeship (in after times so perilous to patriotism), 
 
 and soon after, by the support of the government, he was 
 
 elected Recorder of London. He still continued to practice 
 
 at the bar, and without political office was easily at the top of 
 
 his profession. Noy, the Attorney-General, a most learned 
 
 man, confined himself to his official duties, and was day and 
 
 night among the musty records from which he was inventing, 
 
 and preparing to justify, his writ of ship-money. The solicitor 
 
 i)3 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 was one Shilton, silly and ignorant — put in by a caprice of 
 the Duke of Buckingham, and universally despised. Bramp- 
 ston, the King's Sergeant, was lengthy and laborious, but 
 seldom went beyond the drowsy atmosphere of the Common 
 Pleas. Littleton, who had "taken great pains in the hardest 
 and most knotty part of the law as well as that which was 
 more customary, and was not only very ready and expert in 
 the books, but exceedingly versed in records, so that he was 
 looked upon as the best antiquary of the profession, and upon 
 the mere strength of his own abilities had early raised himself 
 into the first rank of the practices in the Common-Law 
 Courts, now grew into the highest practice in all the other 
 Courts," and he was eagerly retained in every cause of con- 
 sequence. "When the King found he should have much to 
 do in Westminster Hall, he made Littleton Solicitor-Gen- 
 eral, much to his honor but not to his profit, the obliga- 
 tion of attendance upon that office depriving him of much 
 benefit he used to acquire by his practice." In Rex v. 
 Hampden, Littleton took the leading part. Ship-money was 
 to be proved to be legal by precedents, processes, records, 
 and writings of different seras, from the Heptarchy down- 
 wards, — which were to upset all the acts of parliament which 
 had been passed to forbid taxation without authority of par- 
 liament, and were to show that acts of parliament upon 
 such a subject were ultra vires and void. His argument is 
 certainly very learned and ingenious, and much more modest, 
 or rather less outrageously offensive, than that of Chief 
 Justice Finch and several of the Judges, who openly avowed 
 the principles of pure despotism, insisting that the preroga- 
 
 54 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 tive of the Crown was essentially absolute, and could not 
 be controlled by legislative enactments. Finch being made 
 Lord Keeper on the death of Coventry, a vacancy occurred 
 in the office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to 
 which Banks had the best right, this being called "the 
 Attorney-General's cushion ; " but Mr. Attorney being of a 
 stouter heart, and not unwilling to enjoy a little longer the 
 sweets of his lucrative place, waived his claim, and Littleton, 
 to his inexpressible delight, from being tossed on a tem- 
 pestuous ocean, found himself at once in the delicious har- 
 bor for which he had long prayed, and which he had hardly 
 hoped ever to reach. He was soon after made a Privy 
 Councillor, against the wishes of Lord Keeper Finch, who 
 was desirous of preventing other lawyers from entering into 
 any rivalship with himself When the Long Parliament met, 
 he little thought that his further elevation and his troubles 
 were approaching ; and he still hoped that he might long 
 repose on his " cushion " in the Common Pleas. In the 
 morning after Finch's flight, he suddenly found himself on 
 the woolsack, as Speaker of the House of Lords. Still he 
 trusted that this appointment was only temporary, till the 
 Great Seal should be delivered to another Lord Keeper. 
 But he discovered in a little time that the King, by the 
 secret advice of Strafford and Laud, wished that be should 
 become Lord Keeper. He received the Great Seal, as Lord 
 Keeper, at Whitehall, on the 19th of January, 1641. On the 
 1 8th of February following, he was raised to the peerage by 
 the title of Lord Littleton, of Mounslow. We now come to 
 
 a passage in his life which justly subjects him to the charge 
 
 55 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 of the basest pusillanimity. On the day when Strafford was 
 to be arraigned, the King unexpectedly came to the House 
 of Lords, and seating himself on the throne without his 
 robes, merely said that he wished to hear the nature of the 
 charges. The ceremony having been once gone through, he 
 withdrew, and several Peers testified high resentment at this 
 intrusion, insisting that it was an attempt to intimidate, 
 and that all that' had taken place while the King was present 
 was to be considered coram no7t judice, and void. Now 
 it was expected that " Baron Littleton of Mounslow" 
 would have stood up for the King. But the Lord 
 Keeper was so frightened by this sudden storm, that 
 he had not a word to say even by way of apology 
 for the King, and a motion being carried without oppo 
 sition, that the Earl of Strafford be again called to the 
 bar, that the articles of impeachment might be read to him 
 and his plea taken de novo ,— without leaving the woolsack 
 he a second time went through the ceremony of the ar- 
 raignment. Some thought that the Lord Keeper would make 
 amends when the trial actually came on ; but the day be- 
 fore that fixed for its commencement, he sent a message to 
 the House of Lords, intimating that he was taken so ill 
 that it was im.possible for him to attend. This was justly 
 considered a material advantage gained for the impeachment. 
 The Earl of Arundel, the Earl Marshal, an enemy of 
 Strafford, was elected by the House to sit Speaker in the 
 absence of the Lord Keeper. The truth was, that when 
 Littleton heard of the preparations in Westminister Hall for 
 this great solemnity, — the comt for the Peers, the closet 
 
 S6 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 for the King and royal family, the galleries for the House 
 of Commons, the seats for the Scottish Commissioners and 
 the deputation from the Irish parliament, and, above all, the 
 crowds that were to assemble, and the cries for vengeance 
 that had already been uttered in the streets, — his heart 
 entirely failed him, and a real illness afterwards came on, 
 which confined him for some weeks to his bed. Before he 
 would acknowledge that he had recovered, Strafford, by an 
 unparalleled display of constancy and talent, — without pro- 
 fessional assistance, — and three nations marshalled against 
 him, — had defeated the proceeding by impeachment; a bill of 
 attainder had been brought in to put him to death without 
 the forms of justice. After Strafford's execution, Littleton 
 resumed his place on the woolsack ; but he offered no re- 
 sistance to any of the bills which came up from the 
 Commons. He was well justified in agreeing to those for 
 abolishing the High Commission Court and the Star Cham- 
 ber. At last there was some respite from these troubles, the 
 two Houses having adjourned while the King went on a 
 visit to Scotland, and Littleton was allowed to enjoy repose 
 at his villa at Cranford. Meanwhile the Irish rebellion 
 broke out; the alarm of a counter-revolution by a Roman 
 Catholic force was universally spread, and parliament again 
 meeting, measures were proposed by the popular leaders in- 
 consistent with monarchical government. None of these had 
 the Lord Keeper the spirit to resist. His excuse was, that 
 he cultivated the good-will of the republican party so that 
 he might be able more effectually to serve the King. He 
 then suddenly took another turn, which was still more 
 
 57 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 fatal to the royal cause. The Queen, the ladies of the .court, 
 and Lord Digby, resolved that they would put down the 
 movement by a display of vigor, and that the prosecutors 
 of Strafford should share his fate. A charge of high treason 
 was to be suddenly brought against Lord Kimbolton, Pym, 
 Denzill HoUis, Sir Arthur Hazelrig, Hampden, and Strode, 
 upon which they were to be committed to prison, and it 
 was thought that the disaffected, thus deprived of their 
 leaders, would instantly become powerless. The charge was 
 to be made — not by indictment before a grand jury, or by 
 the impeachment of the Commons, — but by the Attorney- 
 General ex officio in the House of Lords. When this 
 scheme was disclosed to the Lord Keeper, he must have 
 seen the madness of it. As a lawyer, he must have known 
 that the House of Lords had no jurisdiction to try com- 
 moners for a capital offense; and that the Attorney-General 
 had no power to originate such a prosecution. But finding 
 that the King was strongly bent upon it, he had not the 
 courage to oppose it; and he communicated a royal message 
 to the Lords, "that the Attorney-General, by the King's 
 special command, was to lay before them a charge for high 
 treason, against one member of that House and five mem- 
 bers of the other House of Parliament," The articles being 
 read, they were found to charge the accused with subvert- 
 ing the fundamental laws of the kingdom, — with attempting 
 to alienate the affections of the people from the King, — 
 with sowing disaffection in the army, — with inviting the 
 Scots to invade England, — with endeavoring to overturn the 
 
 rights and being of parliaments, — with exciting tumults, — 
 
 58 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 and with conspiring to levy war against the King. Mr. 
 Attorney then moved, that their Lordships would take care 
 for securing the persons of the accused. Lord Kimbol- 
 ton was in the House sitting by Lord Digby, with 
 whom he had a great private intimacy ; and who, although 
 he had recommended the measure, pretended to him that 
 it struck him with surprise and horror. According to 
 the concerted plan, and according to the course pursued 
 with Strafford and Laud, the Lord Keeper ought to 
 have moved the immediate commitment of Lord Kimbolton ; 
 but his courage failed him, and the House adjourned. 
 Since the failure of the prosecution of the five members, 
 Littleton had abandoned all effort to put on a show of vigor 
 in the House of Lords, and had silently suffered the most 
 objectionable votes to be carried without opposition. He 
 was even suspected of perfidy, for he had private conferences 
 with the leaders of the parliamentary party, who frequently 
 resorted to him, and whom he appeared very much to court. 
 At last, having supported the Militia Bill to which the King 
 refused the royal assent,— when it again came up from the 
 Commons in the form of an ordinance by the two Houses, 
 omitting the King's name, — he put the question upon it 
 from the woolsack, and himself actually voted for it, "to the 
 infinite offense and scandal of all those who adhered to the 
 King." This was in reality the abolition of monarchy, and 
 the establishment of a republic. When the news of the 
 Lord Keeper's vote on the Militia Bill reached York, the 
 whole Court was thrown into amazement and dismay. The 
 King, exceedingly displeased and provoked, sent a peremp- 
 
 59 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 tory order to Lord Falkland instantly to demand the Great 
 
 Seal from the traitor, and desired him to consult with Hyde 
 
 as to who would be the fittest person to be appointed to 
 
 succeed, suggesting the names of Banks, now Chief Justice 
 
 of the Common Pleas, and Selden, the celebrated antiquary. 
 
 The positive order to require the Seal from the present 
 
 Lord Keeper would have been obeyed, had not Falkland 
 
 and Hyde been so much puzzled about recommending a 
 
 successor ; but they thought the Lord Chief Justice Banks 
 
 might be as timorous as the other in a time of so much 
 
 disorder, although he had been bold enough in the absence 
 
 of danger, and they concluded that he was not equal to the 
 
 charge. "They did not doubt Mr. Selden's affection to the 
 
 King any more than his learning and capacity, but they 
 
 were convinced that he would absolutely refuse the place if 
 
 it were offered to him, as he was in years and of a weak 
 
 constitution, and had long enjoyed his ease, which he loved, 
 
 and was rich, and would not have made a journey to York, 
 
 or lain out of his own bed, for any preferment." Hyde 
 
 finished by offering to stake his own credit with the King 
 
 that Littleton would be true. They resolved to give an 
 
 account of the whole to the King, and expect his order. 
 
 Charles naturally had great misgivings of the fidelity and 
 
 firmness of Littleton, notwithstanding Hyde's confidence, but 
 
 approved of the course recommended, and wrote back that 
 
 on Saturday in the following week, as soon as the House 
 
 of Lords had adjourned, a messenger from him should 
 
 arrive at Exeter House, and order the Keeper of the Seal 
 
 to repair to him forthwith at York. This resolution was 
 
 60 
 
L ORD LITTLE TON. 
 
 communicated by Hyde and Falkland to Littleton. On the 
 Saturday he privately intimated that he was going to his 
 villa at Cranford for his health, and induced the Lords to 
 adjourn the House to as late an hour as ten o'clock on 
 the Monday morning, that he might sleep two nights in the 
 country. He had not long got back to his house in the 
 Strand, when about two o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Elliot, 
 a groom of the bed-chamber to the Prince, entered his 
 study, where he was awaiting the royal messenger, and de- 
 livered to him an autograph letter from the King, requiring 
 him, with many expressions of kindness and esteem, to make 
 haste to him. At day-break the next miorning, the Lord 
 Keeper and his purse-bearer stepped into his carriage, as if 
 they had been going to Cranford ; but when they had got 
 into the part of the country where Piccadilly nov/ stands, 
 they discovered by the side of the hedge the groom and 
 two led horses. They immediately mounted, and before the 
 end of the third day he kissed the King's hand at York. 
 Littleton's conduct at York was extremely mysterious, and 
 seems to show that he is liable to the charge of duplicity 
 as well as timidity. He was again declared Lord Keeper, 
 though for some time the King would not trust the 
 Seal out of his own presence, and when it was to 
 be used, produced it to Littleton, and received it back 
 from him as soon as the sealing was over. Although 
 Littleton was continued in his office by the King till 
 the time of his death, and although he ever after ad- 
 hered to the royal cause, he does not seem to have been 
 
 much trusted, and his name seldom occurs in subsequent 
 
 6i 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 transactions. He was not admitted with Hyde and Falkland 
 into the secret consultations of the royalists, and his only 
 official duty was to put the Great Seal to proclamations and 
 patents. He fixed his residence at Oxford, now considered the 
 seat of government, but was sometimes called upon to attend 
 the King in his campaigns. Without a bar, solicitors, or 
 suitors, he pretended to sit in Chancery, and he went through 
 the form of passing a commission under the Great Seal, 
 appointing certain other persons to hear and determine causes 
 in his absence. His most solemn judicial act at Oxford was 
 calling Sir Richard Lane to the degree of Sergeant-at-Law, 
 and swearing him in Chief Baron of the Exchequer. After 
 the battles of Edge Hill and Newbury there was, in the 
 beginning of 1644, the form of a parliament at Oxford, and 
 a much greater number of Peers attended here than at West- 
 minster, although the Bishops were not allowed to sit, in 
 consequence of the act for excluding them from parliament, 
 to which the King had given his assent. The Hall of one 
 of the Colleges was fitted up in the fashion of the House of 
 Lords, and Littleton presided on the supposed woolsack. 
 But though Charles so far complied with the forms of parlia- 
 ment as to make the two Houses a short speech at the 
 opening of the session, he did not say, according to the pre- 
 cedents, that the Lord Keeper would further explain to them 
 the causes of their being assembled. He had fled so suddenly 
 from London, that he had been obliged to leave all his books 
 and manuscripts behind him. The parliament did not 
 generously send them after him for his consolation, but 
 
 made an order that " in respect to the learning of Mr. 
 
 62 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 Whitelock, and his other merits in regard to the public, 
 all the books and manuscripts of the Lord Littleton, late 
 Keeper of the Great Seal, which should be discovered, should 
 be bestowed on Mr. Whitelock, and that the Speaker grant 
 his warrant to search for them, seize them, and put them 
 into his possession." Being particularly without civil occu- 
 pation, the Lord Keeper thought that he might agreeably 
 fill up his leisure, and that he might raise his reputation, 
 by looking like the times and becoming a soldier. We 
 have mentioned that he was a famous swordsman in his 
 youth. Though so notorious for moral cowardice, he was by 
 no means deficient in natural bravery, and on whichever side 
 he had happened to fight, he would : :ve shown an Eng- 
 lish heart. He now proposed to raise a volunteer corps, 
 which he himself was to command, — to consist of lawyers 
 and gentlemen of the Inns of Court and Chancery, officers 
 of the different Courts of Justice, and all who were will- 
 ing to draw a weapon for Church and King under the 
 auspices of the Lord Keeper. The offer was accepted, and 
 a commission was granted to him, of which the doquet 
 remains among the instruments passed under the Great Seal 
 of King Charles I. at Oxford. 
 
 " A commission granted to Edward Lord Littleton, Lo. Keep, of the Create Seale, 
 to raise a regiment of foot soldiers, consisting of gent, of the Inns of Court and 
 Chaun^ and all ministers and officers belonging to the Court of Chauncy, and their 
 servants, and of gent, and others who will voluiilaiily put themselves under his com- 
 mand to sei-ve his Ma"» for the security of the Universitie and Cittie of Oxford. T« 
 
 apud Oxon. xxi° die Maij A° R. R. Caroli, xx°. 
 
 " per ipsra Regem.'' 
 
 The Lord Keeper devoted himself to this new pursuit 
 with great zeal and energy, and as he was a remarkably tall, 
 
 63 
 
LORD LITTLETON. 
 
 handsome, atheletic man in a green old age, he made an 
 excellent officer. All connected with the Law flocked 
 to his standard, and their number was greatly increased 
 by recruits from the different colleges who mixed mil- 
 itary exercises with their logical contentions in the 
 schools. As a niark of respect for his military prowess 
 the University now conferred upon him the degree of 
 Doctor of the Civil Law. Whether these learned volun- 
 teers could ever have been made capable of facing the psalm- 
 singing soldiers of Cromwell — commanded by " Colonel Fight- 
 the-good-fight-of-faith," and " Captain Smite-them-hip-and- 
 thigh," — is left in doubt, for the " Lord Keeper Command- 
 ant," while drilling his corps one morning in Bagley Wood, 
 Vi^'as overtaken by a thunder-storm, and caught a violent cold. 
 This being neglected turned into a fever, which carried him 
 off on the 27th of August, 1645, — to the regret of the royal- 
 ist party, notwithstanding his backslidings and the serious 
 suspicions which had formerly been entertained of his fidelity. 
 He was buried with military honors in the cathedral of Christ 
 Church, not only his own regiment, but the whole garrison 
 attending. All the nobility at Oxford, and the heads of 
 houses, joined in the procession. The solemnity was closed 
 with a funeral eulogium upon him, by the " incomparable 
 Dr. Hammond," then Orator of the University. After the 
 Restoration, a monument was erected over his grave — record- 
 ing his origin, the high offices he had held, and the virtues 
 his family wished to have attributed to him, — above all, — 
 
 64 
 
KIQJ [SQ=®W 
 
 James Coidccroti &_ Co, New York 
 
LORD THURLOW 
 
 TOWARD THURLOW was born at Bracon- 
 Ash, county of Norfolk, in the year 1732. 
 His father was a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, a man of but ordinary ability, whose 
 sole ambition was to pass his life in the per- 
 formance of the duties of his small parish. 
 Edward soon developed traits of character 
 which made him a source of grief and anxiety 
 to his parents. His waywardness seemed to 
 increase with his years, and his insolence and 
 intractableness became so notorious that a 
 gentleman who bore a strong resentment 
 against Mr. Talbot, the head-master of Canterbury School, 
 on account of a severe punishment received for some student 
 follies, induced Mr. Thurlow to send his son there, in order 
 that the hated master might have under his care "a daring, 
 refractory, and clever boy, who would be sure to torment 
 him." Whether young Thurlow fulfilled the desires of his 
 friend we are not informed. Probably he did not, as Mr. 
 Talbot seems to have won his love and respect, and he ever 
 in after life spoke of the master in the kindest manner. 
 
 From Canterbury School he was sent to Caius College, at 
 
 67 
 
LORD THURLOW 
 
 Cambridge. Here his character appears to have displayed 
 itself in its worst form. While at Canterbuiy he studied 
 hard, and distinguished himself by his fine scholarship ; but 
 at Cambridge he passed his time in apparent idleness and 
 continued rebellion against the laws of the college. His fre- 
 quent breaches of academic discipline made him familiar with 
 impositions, confinements within the college, privations of 
 sizings and threats of rustication. He is reported to have 
 often taken upon himself the blame of acts in which he had 
 no hand, for the pleasure of arguing the case and showing 
 his ingenuity in justifying what he had done. Equally cel- 
 ebrated was he for waywardness in getting into scrapes, and 
 for cleverness in getting out of them. The statutes of the 
 university enjoin that all undergraduates shall wear habits of 
 either of black or a subdued color, and specially prohibit col- 
 lars and cuffs of a different color from the coat. Thurlow 
 had been a frequent offender against this rule. On one occa- 
 sion, meeting a fellow when in the prohibited dress, he boldly 
 denied that he had transgressed. " What, " said the Don, " am 
 I not to believe my own eyes ? " " Not always," and casting 
 off his coat, he proved that the gay cuffs and collars were 
 affixed to his vest, and ingeniously turned over his coat. On 
 another occasion, the master having thus rebuked him, " Sir, 
 I never come to the window without seeing you idling in 
 the court," the unabashed undergraduate answered : " Sir, I 
 never come into the court but what I see you idling at the 
 window." At last he was summoned before the dean of his 
 college — a worthy man, but weak and formal— for non-attend- 
 ance at chapel, and had an imposition set him — to translate a 
 
 68 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 paper of the Spectator into Greek. He duly performed the 
 task, taking considerable pains with it ; but instead of bring- 
 ing his translation, as he well knew duty required, to the 
 imposer, he intimated to him that he had delivered it to the 
 college tutor, who had the reputation of being a good Gre- 
 cian. This Mr. Dean construed into an unpardonable insult, 
 and he ordered the delinquent, as in cases of the gravest 
 complexion, to be summoned before the Master and Fellows of 
 the College. The charge being made and proved, Thurlow was 
 asked what he had to say in defense or extenuation of his 
 conduct ? " Please your worships," said he, " no one respects 
 Mr. Dean more than I do ; and, out of tenderness to him, I 
 carried my exercise to one who could inform him whether I 
 had obeyed his orders." This plain insinuation that the Dean 
 was little acquainted with the Greek tongue was the more 
 galling as being known to be well-founded, and was consid- 
 ered by him an enormous aggravation of the original injury. 
 He denounced it as a flying in the face of all authority, and 
 foretold that the discipline of the College was at an end if 
 they did not now proceed with the utmost severity. In con- 
 clusion, he declared that " rustication would only be laughed 
 at by the offender, and that expulsion was the only adequate 
 punishment." There was no denying that the offense was a 
 serious one, but considerable sympathy was felt for the young 
 gentleman, who, although his future greatness was little 
 dreamed of, was known to possess social good qualities, and 
 to evince excellent abilities when he chose to exert them. 
 In mitigation, they likewise remembered the dash of absurd- 
 ity about Mr. Dean which had often made him the butt of 
 
 69 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 the combination room. In particular, Smith, the tutor (after- 
 wards head of the house), put in a good word for the cul- 
 prit, and, to avoid setting a brand upon him which might 
 ruin him for life, proposed that he should be permitted to 
 remove his name from the college books, and that no other 
 proceedings should be taken against him. Notwithstanding 
 the stout resistance of the Dean, this suggestion was adopted. 
 Thurlow gratefully acquiesced, and thus left Cambridge with- 
 out a degree. Notwithstanding his irregularities, there can 
 be no doubt that he derived great benefit from his residence 
 there. He had occasional fits of severe application ; and, al- 
 ways having a contempt for frivolity, when he seemed to be 
 idle he was enlarging his stock of knowledge, and sharpening 
 his intellect by conversing with men of strong sense and solid 
 acquirements. Among the strange vicissitudes of life, it did 
 so happen that the refractory disciple, thus discarded from the 
 bosom of Alma Mater, reached the highest civil dignity in 
 the state ; and it is pleasant to relate, that, when presiding on 
 a woolsack, he recollected the friendly interference of Dr. 
 Smith, and caused him to be appointed chancellor of the 
 diocese of Lincoln. It is even said that he afterwards hand- 
 somely made atonement to " Mr. Dean." The story goes, that 
 he had had an earlier quarrel with this functionary, who had 
 interrupted him, rather sharply, with the question, " Pray, sir, 
 do you know to whom you are speaking .? " bidding him to 
 recollect that he was in the presence of no less a person than 
 the Dean of the college. This hint was not lost upon Thur- 
 low, who then, and ever after, began and interlarded every 
 
 sentence he addressed to him with the vocative, " Mr. Dean ; " 
 
 70 
 
LORD THURLOVV. 
 
 this banter being doubly galling to the assertor of the title 
 as he could not consistently appear to be offended by it. 
 When the flippant youth, who had been so nearly expelled 
 from his college, had a little while held the Great Seal, the 
 individual who had proposed and pressed his expulsion obey- 
 ing a summons to wait upon him, the Chancellor's first sal- 
 utation to him was, " Mr. Dean, how d'ye do .? I am very 
 happy to see you, Mr. Dean." " My Lord," he observed, some- 
 what sullenly, " I am no longer Mr. Dean." " That is as you 
 please; and it shall not be my fault if the title does not be- 
 long to you, for I have a deanery at my disposal, which is very 
 much at your service, Mr. Dean." His early destination for the 
 bar remaining unaltered, he had been entered of the Inner Tem- 
 ple while an undergraduate at Cambridge ; and as soon as he 
 quitted the University he took chambers, and began to keep 
 terms by eating a certain number of dinners at the hall. He 
 evidently studied hard, although the poet, Cowper, who was 
 a fellow-student with him, was accustomed, in after life, to say 
 that Thurlow never appeared to study, was "constantly em- 
 ployed, from morning to night, in giggling and in making 
 his fellow-students giggle." In 1754 he was called to the 
 bar, and selected the western circuit as the field of his labors. 
 So slender were his resources, that he was obliged to resort 
 to many expedients to support himself It is said that at one 
 time, he was actually reduced to the following stratagem to 
 procure a horse to carry him round the circuit : He went to 
 a horse-dealer, and said to him that he wished to purchase a 
 good roadster — price being no object to him — but that he 
 must have a fair trial of the animal's paces before he con- 
 
 71 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 eluded the bargain. The trial being eonceded, he rode off to 
 Winchester, and having been well-carried all the round, but 
 still without any professional luck, he returned the horse to 
 his owner, saying that "the animal, notwithstanding some 
 good points, did not altogether suit him." At last, fortune 
 smiled upon him. By some chance he had a brief in the case 
 of Luke Robinson v. Earl of Winchelsea, tried before Lord 
 Mansfield, at Guildhall. The leader on the opposite side was 
 Sir Fletcher Norton, then the tyrant of the bar, who began 
 by treating the unknown junior with his usual arrogance. This 
 Thurlow resented with great spirit. They got into an alter- 
 cation, in which Thurlow had with him the sympathies of the 
 bar and the bystanders, and, with a happy mixture of argu- 
 ment and sarcasm, he- completely put down his antagonist. 
 The attorneys who had smarted much under Norton's despotic 
 rule were exceedingly delighted, and resolved to patronize the 
 man who had shown so much courage and capacity. Briefs 
 in cases of a peculiar character did come in, and he was now 
 known and talked of in the profession, as one supposed to be 
 possessed of great resources, and likely one day to make a 
 figure ; but still he had few constant clients, and little regu- 
 lar business. According to legal tradition, soon after the de- 
 cision of the Court of Session in Scotland, that the alleged 
 son of Lady Jane Douglas was a supposititious child pur- 
 chased at Paris, the question, which excited great interest all 
 over Europe, was discussed one evening at Nando's coffee- 
 house — Thurlow's favorite haunt. Thurlow, like his contem- 
 porary. Dr. Johnson, took great pains in gladiatorial discussion, 
 
 knowing that he excelled in it, and he was pleased and ex- 
 
 72 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 cited when he found a large body of good listeners. On the 
 evening in question, a friend of his at the English bar 
 strongly applauded the judgment against the supposed heir of 
 the house of Douglas. For this reason, probably, Thurlow 
 took the contrary side. Like most other lawyers, he had read 
 the evidence attentively, and in a succinct but masterly state- 
 ment, he gave an abstract of it to prove that the claimant 
 was, indeed, the genuine issue of Lady Jane and her hus- 
 band, — dexterously repelling the objections to the claim, and 
 contending that there were admitted facts which were incon- 
 sistent with the theory of the child being the son of the 
 French rope-dancer. Having finished his argument and his 
 punch, he withdrew to his chambers, pleased with the victory 
 he had obtained over his antagonist. It so happened that 
 two Scotch law agents, who had come up to Edinburgh to 
 enter the appeal, having heard of the fame of Nando's, and 
 having been told that some of the great leaders of the English 
 bar were to be seen there, had at a side table been quiet lis- 
 teners during the disputation, and were amazingly struck with 
 the knowledge of the case and the acuteness which Thurlow 
 exhibited. The moment he was gone, they went to the land- 
 lady, and inquired who he was. They had never heard his 
 name before ; but, finding that he was a barrister, they re- 
 solved to retain him as junior to prepare the appellant's case, 
 case, and to promt those who were to lead it at the bar of 
 the House of Lords. Next morning a retainer, in Douglas v. 
 Duke of Hamilton, was left at Thurlow's chambers, with an 
 immense pile of papers, having a fee indorsed upon them ten 
 times as large as he had ever before received. At a confer- 
 
 73 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 ence with the agents (who took no notice of Nando's), an 
 explanation was given of what was expected of him, — the 
 Scotchmen hinting that his fame had reached the " Parliament 
 House at Edinburgh." He readily undertook the task, and 
 did it the most ample justice, showing that he could com- 
 mand, upon occasion, not only striking elocution, but patient 
 industry. He repeatedly perused and weighed every deposition, 
 every document, and every pleading that had ever been 
 brought forward during the suit ; and he drew a most mas- 
 terly case, which mainly led to the success of the appeal, and 
 which is invaluable to the law student as a model of lucid 
 arrangement and forcible reasoning. While so employed, he 
 made the acquaintance of the Duchess of Queensberry, the 
 well-known friend of Gay, Pope, Swift, and the other wits of 
 the reign of Queen Anne. When she had got over the 
 bluntness of his manners, she was greatly pleased with him, 
 and, at his solicitation, procured for him the privilege of a 
 silk gown. In December, 1761, Thurlow boldly doffed his 
 stuff gown for the silk, renouncing his privilege to draw law 
 papers, or to appear as junior counsel for any plaintiff. In 
 the following term he was elected a Bencher of the Inner 
 Temple, but it was some time doubtful whether he would reap 
 any other fruit from his new rank. Rival barristers complained 
 much, that in the seventh year of his call, being known for 
 nothing except his impertinence to Sir Fletcher Norton, he 
 should be put over the heads of some who might have been 
 his father ; while the general consolation was, " that the silk 
 gown could never answer to him, and that he had cut his 
 
 own throat." When Thurlow appeared in court with his silk 
 
 74 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 robe and full-bottom wig — lowering frowns and contemptuous 
 smiles successively passing across his visage as the arguments 
 or the judgment proceeded — the solicitors could not behold 
 him without some secret awe, and without believma; that he 
 was possessed of some mysterious powers which he could 
 bring into activity in their service. When he had an oppor- 
 tunity of opening his mouth, he spoke in a sort of oracular 
 or judicial tone, as if he had an undoubted right to pronounce 
 the verdict or judgment in favor of his client. He appeared 
 to think that his opponent was guilty of great presumption 
 in controverting any of his positions ; and, unless his cause 
 was desperately bad (when he would spontaneously give it 
 up), he tried to convey the notion that the judges, if they 
 showed any dispositition to decide against him, were chargeable 
 with gross ignorance, or were actuated by some corrupt 
 motive. By such arts he was soon in first-rate business, and 
 all of a sudden, — from extreme poverty, — in the receipt of a 
 very large income. During Lord Chatham's second ministry, 
 the Whigs had gone down in the world most lamentably, 
 and they seemed to have lost forever their illustrious chief 
 Toryism was decidedly favored at Court, and had the ascend- 
 ency in both Houses of Parliament. Thurlow declared him- 
 self a Tory, and, in the interest of the party he had joined, 
 in the new parliament which met in May, 1768, he was 
 returned for Tamworth, since illustrated by a still more dis- 
 tinguished representative. To this party he most zealously 
 and unscrupulously adhered till he was deprived of the Great 
 Seal by the younger Pitt. Meanwhile the Douglas appeal, 
 after eight years' preparation, came on to be heard at the bar 
 
 75 
 
of the House of Lords, and attracted a greater share of 
 public attention than any political debate in either House. 
 Thurlow led for the appellant, and, having for years devoted 
 himself to the case, by his admirable pleading he showed 
 what excellence he might have reached, and what solid fame 
 he might have acquired, if his industry had been equal to 
 his talent. This was a very brilliant passage of his life, for 
 he was not only rapturously applauded as an advocate, but 
 he gained immense iclat for his courage and gentlemanlike de- 
 portment in an affair of honor to which the cause gave rise. 
 In 1 771 Thurlow was appointed Attorney-General. He distin- 
 guished himself by his zealous advocacy of all the government 
 measures, and made many enemies by his extreme arrogance. 
 At the bar he won fresh laurels in the celebrated Duchess of 
 Kingston's case. The government was in sad need of aid in 
 debate in the House of Lords. It was therefore resolved to 
 accept the res'gnation of Lord Bathurst, which had been 
 tendered, and, on June 3rd, 1778, Thurlow was sworn in 
 Lord Chancellor. As a judge he has usually been rated very 
 highly, but the tendency^ of modern opinion has been to 
 estimate him somewhat lower. Mr. Butler has described his 
 decrees as " strongly marked by depth of legal knowledge, 
 and force of expression, and by the overwhelming power 
 with which he propounded the result ; but they were," he 
 adds, " too often involved in obscurity, and sometimes reason 
 was rather silenced than convinced." This method, as it has 
 been remarked,, is precisely that which we might expect in 
 a judge who is indebted to the learning of others for the 
 
 judgments which he dehvers, and who is not himself familiar 
 
 76 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 with the chain of reasoning, the conclusion of which con- 
 stitutes his decree. It is well known that most of his judg- 
 ments were framed by Mr. Hargrave. Thurlow has been 
 charged with having allowed the causes in his court to 
 accumulate ; but we doubt if this accumulation be not rather 
 due to the imperfect constitution of the court, than imputable 
 to the Chancellor himself. When on the bench, he is said 
 to have restrained with difficulty those forms of expression, 
 which, though habitual to him, would hardly have suited the 
 dignity of his office. He disliked, and always checked in his 
 court, any tendency to what is sometimes called eloquence. 
 He once cut short a flowery advocate in the middle of a 
 metaphor, and bid him read his brief His behavior towards 
 the bar was rough and uncouth ; but not overbearing. 
 He was probably too conscious of his deficiencies in 
 knowledge of law to have attempted such conduct. 
 In the House of Lords he realized the anticipa- 
 tion of the government, and proved a valuable and zeal- 
 ous supporter. But, both on the Woolsack and in the 
 Court of Chancery, his peculiar traits of character were ever 
 prominent. One would have thought that, by his natural 
 disposition, he was utterly disqualifed for discharging the 
 duties of a judge, or performing the part of a courtier. His 
 violent and often ungovernable temper, — which, in its subdued 
 moods, deserves the name of surliness, or bluntness, — seemed 
 to form an insuperable impediment to success in either of 
 these capacities. Yet despite it Lord Thurlow was a supple 
 and pliant courtier; and, although his learning has possibly 
 been overrated, an able and impartial judge. The following 
 
anecdotes will illustrate forcibly the peculiarity of his temper. 
 One day he was sitting in his private room to hear some 
 application at the time that the lords were assembling in their 
 house. Being unable to commence business without their 
 speaker, they desired Mr. Quarme, deputy-usher of the black 
 rod ,to go to the Chancellor and tell him the house had met. 
 Mr. Quarme went and delivered his message. " Umph," was 
 the only reply which the chancellor vouchsafed. The deputy- 
 usher returned to the house, — some time passed, and Lord 
 Thurlow did not make his appearance. A peer went down 
 to Mr. Quarme, and begged him to go again and tell the 
 chancellor plainly that the lords were waiting for him, — that 
 the hour appointed for the house meeting had long passed, — 
 and that they could wait no longer. The deputy-usher 
 returned to the Chancellor, and with some emphasis repeated 
 the message with which he was charged. The Chancellor 
 deigned to reply no otherwise than with his accustomed 
 growl. " But, my lord," said Quarme, with some warmth, " I 
 must have your lordship's answer ; the lords are waiting." 
 " D — n the lords," said Thurlow, quickly, fixing a look of rage 
 on the usher. " You may d — n the lords as much as you 
 
 like," exclaimed the undaunted official, " but I'm d d, were 
 
 you twenty times Chancellor, if you shall d — -n me!" 
 The Chancellor gazed with astonishment at Quarme, — the 
 audacity of a mere servant of the house thus bearding its 
 chief excited his amazement ; at length his features expanded 
 into a smile, and rising from his chair he exclaimed, " Bv 
 Jove, you are a bold fellow ; come and dine with me to- 
 morrow." " And so I will," replied Quarme ; with whom, 
 
 78 
 
LORD THURLOVV. 
 
 ever after, tne Chancellor continued on terms of friendship. 
 As speaker of the House of Lords, Thurlow was distin- 
 guished for the dignity with which he enforced the rules of 
 debate. Upon one occasion he called the Duke of Grafton 
 to order, who, incensed at the interruption, insolently re- 
 proached the Chancellor with his plebeian origin, and recent 
 admission into the peerage. When the Duke had concluded 
 his speech, Thurlow rose from the woolsack, and advanced 
 slowly to the place from whence the Chancellor generally 
 addresses the house ; then fixing upon the duke the look of 
 Jove when he grasps the Thunder, — "I am amazed," he said, 
 in a level tone of voice, " at the attack v/hich the noble lord 
 has made upon me. Yes, my lords," considerably raising his 
 voice, " I am amazed at his grace's speech. The noble duke 
 can not look before him, behind him, or on either side of him 
 with seeing some noble peer, who owes his seat in this house 
 to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. 
 Does he not feel that it is as honorable to owe it to these 
 as to being the accident of an accident.? To all these noble 
 lords, the language of the noble duke is as applicable and as 
 insulting as it is to myself But I do not fear to meet it 
 single and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than 
 I do; but, my lords, I must say the peerage solicited me, 
 not I the peerage. Nay, more, I can say, and will say, that 
 as a peer of Parliament, as Speaker of this right honorable 
 house, as keeper of the Great Seal, as guardian of his 
 Majesty's conscience, as Lord High Chancellor of Eng- 
 land, nay, even in that character alone in which the 
 duke would think it an affront to be considered, but 
 
 79 
 
LORD THURLOW. 
 
 which none can deny me, — as a MAN, — I am at this 
 moment as respectable, — I beg leave to add, I am at this 
 moment as much respected, as the proudest peer I now 
 look down upon." The effect of this speech, both within 
 the walls of Parliament and out of them, was prodigious. 
 It gave Lord Thurlow an ascendency in the house, which 
 no Chancellor had ever possessed. He retained the office of 
 Lord Chancellor in the Rockingham and Shelburne adminis- 
 trations — which succeeded that of Lord North — by command 
 of the King, over whom Thurlow had acquired a won- 
 derful influence. He was politically opposed to his associates, 
 and his constant opposition to their measures caused many 
 dissentions in the ministry, and at length caused the resigna- 
 tion of Mr. Fox, and in the Coalition ministry which suc- 
 ceeded, it was stipulated that Thurlow should not have a 
 place. Upon the accession of Mr. Pitt to power in 1783, 
 Thurlow again received the Great Seal, which he held for 
 nine years. But his course finally became so objectionable to 
 Mr. Pitt, that he was removed. He never afterward held 
 office or took a leading part in politics. He died on the 
 twelfth of September, 1806, in the seventy-sixth year of 
 
 his age. 
 
 80 
 
^^■^-•^^"J^>^-i^^^ - 
 
 Eag hy WlVellitoodi Cc. iflB 
 
 
 
LORD ERSKINE 
 
 YOUNGER son of the noble house of Erskine, 
 Earls of Buchan, Thomas Erskine was born on 
 the loth of January, -1 750, in a "small and ill- 
 furnished room," in an upper " flat " of a lofty 
 house in the old town of Edinburo-h. His fam- 
 ^g ^ ily, who derived their name from, or possibly 
 gave it to the lands of Erskine on the banks 
 of the Clyde, were connections of the still older 
 house of Mar, — of whom Lord Hailes says 
 that their earldom dates from times anterior 
 to history. But the Earls of Buchan, in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had scat- 
 tered to the winds a^ large portion of their hereditary wealth, 
 so that, according to Lord Campbell, an income of ;^20o a 
 year was all that was left to Henry David, the tenth Earl, 
 on which to maintain and bring up his family. His Coun- 
 tess, however, Agnes, second daughter of Sir James Stewart 
 of Goodtrees, in the county of Midlothian, was a woman 
 of great energy, high character, and piety ; and she straggled 
 nobly with the disadvantages of her husband's narrow means. 
 She brought her children up in a somewhat strict Presby- 
 terian faith, as befitted the descendants of a religious house 
 
 83 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 which had suffered much in the Covenanting cause. Still the 
 " flat " which she occupied with her husband and children 
 was frequented not only by eloquent Presbyterian divines 
 but also by leaders of the " Parliament House," and by 
 members of the best families who wintered in the Scottish 
 metropolis. A child of high spirit and very good abilities, 
 young Thomas Erskine was sent to the High School of his 
 native city, where it is recorded that he rose to be " Dux," or, 
 as we should say in England, " captain," or head-boy in his 
 class. But unfortunately, in spite of its educational advan- 
 tages. Lord Buchan found " Northern Athens " too expensive 
 a place to live in, and accordingly, in 1762, removed with 
 his children to St. Andrews. Here, at the grammar-school, 
 under a Mr. Hacket, Thomas Erskine maintained his early 
 character for ability ; but he does not appear to have been 
 very industrious, since he picked up little Greek beyond 
 the alphabet, and never attained to more than a very 
 moderate stock of Latin. He was, however, fond of reading 
 the English writers, both of prose and verse, and he 
 devoured whole volumes of travels, voyages, and plays, with 
 avidity. After leaving school, he attended several courses of 
 lectures in the classes of mathematics and natural philosophy 
 at the University of St. Andrews, but he never appears to 
 have become a member of it by formal matriculation. It 
 was his early wish to have entered one of the learned pro- 
 fessions ; but the family purse was not well-lined enough 
 to admit of this idea being realized ; so it was settled that 
 he should be a midshipman. He vainly strove against this 
 
 destination, and indeed went so far as to try, through his 
 
 84 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 relatives, to obtain instead - a commi-ssion in the army with- 
 out purchase : but the fates were against him, and to sea 
 he was forced to go. Accordingly, in the spring of 1765, 
 he was put under the charge of Sir David Lindsay, then 
 captain of H.M.S. " Tartar," with v/hom some little interest 
 had been made on his behalf through his uncle, the Earl 
 of Mansfield. Having been duly fitted out with his blue 
 jacket, cocked-hat, and sword, he joined his ship at Leith, 
 and spent four years very pleasantly and happily, if we may 
 judge from allusions in his letters, in cruising about the 
 American station and in various parts of the West Indies. 
 On returning home, however, at the age of nineteen, he 
 found, on his ship being paid off, that he he had no 
 chance of going to sea again except as a " middy," and 
 this did not suit his pride, as he had been employed by 
 his captain as acting-lieutenant. His father died in 1767 
 and he again thought of entering a learned profession ; but 
 the scantiness of his inheritance prevented him from enter- 
 ing either of the English Universities; so, through the 
 interest of the Duke of Argyll, he was glad to obtain an 
 ensign's commission in the " Royals," or " First Regiment of 
 Foot." But the purchase-money absorbed all his means. 
 The first two years of his military life were spent, not on 
 foreign service, but in barracks at various towns in England 
 and Ireland. He appears, however, to have made good use 
 of his leisure in one respect ; for on the 29th of April, 
 1770, when only just twenty years of age, he manied a 
 young lady of good family and connections, though not 
 much more wealthy than himself, the daughter of Mr 
 
 85 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 Daniel Moore, M.P. His wife accompanied him to Minorca, 
 whither his regiment was ordered, and where he spent two 
 years, busily employing himself in going through a course 
 of English literature. Lord Campbell tells us that he also 
 " showed the versatility of his powers by acting as chaplain 
 to the regiment, the real chaplain being absent on furlough." 
 No doubt the extemporary prayers to which he must have 
 listened, and in which he probably joined, at his mother's 
 house, here stood him in good stead. Returning to Eng- 
 land in 1772, we find him mixing in the society of Lon- 
 don, in which he was well fitted to shine even at that 
 time ; and he was a constant frequenter of the salon of 
 Mrs. Montagu in Portman Square, where he used to meet 
 most of the literary celebrities of the day, including Dr. 
 Johnson; and if we may believe Boswell, he was bold 
 enough on one occasion to maintain a contest of words 
 against that Goliath of criticism on the subject of the 
 slaughter of the Assyrian host under Sennacherib by the 
 destroying angel. Fired with literary ambition, or a zeal 
 for the army, or both, he now became an author, though 
 anonymously. The title of his work explains the author's 
 purpose, and shows that from very early convictions he was 
 a genuine Liberal and Reformer. It was entitled, " Obser- 
 vations on the Prevailing Abuses in the British Army, aris- 
 ing from the Corruption of Civil Government ; with a Pro- 
 posal to the officers towards obtaining an Addition to their 
 Pay. By the Hon. , an Officer. 1773." The pam- 
 phlet had a large circulation. " The name of its author 
 
 (says Lord Campbell) was well known, though it did not 
 
 86 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 appear on the title-page ; and he acquired much celebrity 
 by the boldness and eloquence with which he had pleaded 
 for his profession." In 1773 he was promoted to the rank 
 of lieutenant ; but there seemed to be little or no chance 
 of a war ; and in peace he knew that he could not afford 
 to purchase his commission as captain. It so happened, one 
 day in the following year, that his regiment was quartered 
 in a town where his relative. Lord Mansfield, was Judge 
 of Assize. He came into court, was invited to sit by the 
 Judge's side on the bench, and afterwards to dine with his 
 Lordship at the Judge's lodgings. He communicated to 
 Lord Mansfield his early desire in the direction of the Bar; 
 and finding no discouragement in that quarter, and on the 
 contrary great sympathy from his mother, he resolved to 
 carry out his design. Accordingly, in April, 1775, he was ad- 
 mitted as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and in the following Jan- 
 uary entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a fellow-com- 
 moner. At Cambridge, however, he did not follow the 
 studies of the place; but concentrated his attention upon 
 English literature, in which he proved his ability by carry- 
 ing off the college prize for English declamation. While 
 still a student at Cambridge he contrived to keep his terms 
 at Lincoln's Inn, and became a pupil, at first in the cham- 
 bers of Mr. Justice Duller, then a special pleader, and after 
 his elevation to the Bench, in those of Mr. George Wood, 
 afterwards a Baron of the Exchequer. At this time he lived 
 in small lodgings in Kentish Town, at the foot of Hamp- 
 stead and Highgate Hills, and he had the greatest difficulty 
 in keeping the expenses of his young and increasing family 
 
 87 
 
LORD . ERSKINE. 
 
 within his slender means. Reynolds, in his " Life and 
 Times," relates that " The young student resided in small 
 lodgings near Hampstead, and openly avowed that he lived 
 on cow-beef, because he could not afford any of a superior 
 quality, dressed shabbily, expressed the greatest gratitude to 
 Mr. Harris for occasional free admissions to Covent Garden, 
 and used boastingly to exclaim to my father, ' Thank for- 
 tune, out of my own family, I don't know a lord.' " In 
 the evenings he used to take part in the debates of the 
 Robin Hood, Coachmakers' Hall, and other " spouting shops," 
 which, according to the custom of the time, were attended 
 by shoemakers, weavers, Quakers, law-students, and members 
 of Parliament, each person paying sixpence, and being enti- 
 tled to a glass of porter or punch, and in which there is 
 said to have been often a display of high oratorical powers. 
 Though he never became a profound jurist, yet, with his 
 lively imagination, he had a sound and logical understand- 
 ing ; and his legal, and commonplace books, which are still 
 in existence, show that at this period his application to the 
 studies of his newly-adopted profession was close and unre- 
 mitting. Hence his progress was respectable, if not brilliant ; 
 and in a very short space of time he was able to collect 
 and arrange the authorities upon most questions of law 
 which he had to consider, and so to arrive at a thorough 
 comprehension of the issue at stake. He was called to the 
 Bar in Trinity Term, 1778, but continued working in the 
 chambers of Baron Wood until the following month of 
 November, when, by one of those extraordinary chances 
 which from time to time happen in some paths of life, he 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 was suddenly called upon to defend Captain Baillie, the 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, against whom 
 an action was brought for publishing statements relative to 
 the abuses of that institution, and which were construed 
 into a reflection on Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of 
 the Admiralty. A fee of a guinea was dropped into his 
 hand as a retainer, and the case came on before Lord 
 Mansfield. The expectation was, that the Solicitor-General 
 would have no difficulty in making the rule absolute, and 
 that Captain Baillie would lose his cause. But the speech 
 of young Erskine at once electrified the Court and the 
 audience. His connection with this case was related by 
 himself many years afterward, as follows : " I had scarcely 
 a shilling in my pocket when I got my first retainer. It 
 was sent to me by a Captain Baillie of the navy, who 
 held an office at the board of Greenwich Hospital ; and I 
 was to show cause, in the Michaelmas Term, against a rule 
 that had been obtained in the preceding term, calling upon 
 him to show cause why a criminal information for a libel, 
 reflecting on Lord Sandwich's conduct as governor of that 
 charity, should not be filed against him. I had met, during 
 the long vacation, this Captain Baillie, at a friend's table, and 
 after dinner I expressed myself with some warmth, probably 
 with some eloquence, on the corruption of Lord Sandwich 
 as First Lord of the Admiralty, and then adverted to the 
 scandalous practices imputed to him with regard to Green- 
 wich Hospital. Baillie nudged the person who sat next to 
 him, and asked who I was. Being told that I had just 
 
 been called to the Bar, and had been formerly in the navy 
 
 89 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 Baillie exclaimed, with an oath, 'Then I'll have him for my 
 counsel ! ' I trudged down to Westminster Hall when I got 
 the brief, and, being the junior of five who would be 
 heard before me, never dreamed that the court would hear me 
 at all. Bearcroft, Peckham, Murphy, and Hargrave were all 
 heard at considerable length, and I was to follow. Har- 
 grave was long-winded, and tired the court. It was a bad 
 omen ; but, as my good fortune would have it, he was 
 afflicted with strangury, and was obliged to retire once or 
 twice in the course of his argument. This protracted the 
 cause so long that, when he had finished. Lord Mansfield 
 said that the remaining counsel should be heard the next 
 morning. This was exactly what I wished. I had the whole 
 night to arrange, in my chambers, what I had to say the 
 next morning, and I took the court with their faculties awake 
 and freshened, succeeded quite to my own satisfaction (some- 
 times the surest proof that you have satisfied others), and, as 
 I marched along the hall, after the rising of the judges, 
 the attorneys flocked around me with their retainers. I have 
 since flourished, but I have always blessed God for the provi- 
 dential strangury of poor Hargrave." The rule was dis- 
 charged with costs ; Erskine's fame as an advocate was 
 established, and his fortune virtually made. Being afterwards 
 asked how he had dared to face Lord Mansfield with so 
 bold a front, he replied that it had seemed to him as though 
 his little children were plucking his robe and saying to 
 him, "Now, father, is the time to get us bread." Briefs 
 and fees now flowed in upon him in a golden stream ; 
 
 he practiced in the King's Bench, and there were few more 
 
 90 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 popular barristers in Westminster Hall than Thomas Erskine. 
 In January, 1779, he gained fresh credit as counsel for Lord 
 Keppel, who was tried by a court-martial, and whose ac- 
 quittal he secured, and from whom he received a present 
 of /i,ooo as a mark of his gratitude. In the spring of this 
 year, he joined the Home Circuit, and "soon found himself 
 fully employed. In the same year he appeared at the bar 
 of the House of Commons against a bill which very nearly 
 touched the liberty of the press, — the bill introduced by 
 Lord North, vesting the right of printing and issuing alma- 
 nacs in the Stationers' Company, and the two Universities of 
 Oxford and Cambridge. The bill was rejected by a large 
 majority, and mainly through his eloquence, which converted 
 Lord North's brother-in-law from a supporter to an opponent. 
 In 1780 he defended Lord George Gordon, who was tried 
 before Lord Mansfield for high treason on account of his 
 share in the Protestant Riots of 1780. Here, too, in spite 
 of the whole power of the Crown being put into force 
 against the prisoner, and of a somewhat severe and un- 
 favorable summing up from the Judge, he obtained for his 
 client a verdict of " Not guilty." This acquittal, it need 
 scarcely be added, gave a heavy blow to the law of con- 
 structive treason, as laid down by the Tory judges of the 
 time. In 1783, on the formation of the "Coalition" Ministry, 
 he entered Parliament as M.P. for Portsmouth, his Whig 
 friends being anxious for the assistance of his eloquent ad- 
 vocacy in the House of Commons ; and it is not a little 
 singular that both he and his rival and successor in the 
 Chancellorship, John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, made their 
 
 91 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 maiden speeches in the same debate, — that on Mr. Fox's 
 famous India Bill. But Erskine's speech was tame, and fell 
 somewhat flat upon the ears of his audience, who possibly 
 expected that in St. Stephen's he would equal the flights of 
 his eloquence on the other side of Westminster Hall. 
 He spoke on tht motion for stopping the supplies 
 in consequence of the King's refusal to dismiss his 
 Ministers. The motion was carried, but Pitt resolved to 
 appeal to the nation. Parliament was dissolved, and failing 
 to secure his re-election at Portsmouth, Erskine remained 
 for seven years out of Parliament. Perhaps it was well for 
 him that such was the case. He had not made any great 
 success at St. Stephen's ; but though he had been only five 
 years at the bar, he had already obtained a patent of prece- 
 dence which entitled him to wear a silk gown, and to sit 
 within the bar. His first " special retainer " was in the 
 case of Rex v. Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph, for a " se- 
 ditious libel," — which was nothing else than the publication 
 of a " Dialogue between a Gentlerhan and a Farmer," written 
 by the Dean's brother-in-law. Sir William Jones, in illustra- 
 tion of the general principles of political economy, and 
 quietly recommending some very moderate parliamentary re- 
 forms. The jury, in spite of a very adverse summing up of 
 the Judge, found Dr. Shipley "guilty of publishing only," 
 but declined to find "whether a libel or not." In the next 
 Michaelmas Term, the case was re-opened, and practically 
 re-heard ; and Erskine moved in arrest of judgment, and with 
 success. " This prosecution," says Lord Campbell, " seemed 
 
 to establish forever the fatal doctrine that libel or no libel 
 
 92 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 was a pure question of law, for the exclusive determination 
 of judges appointed by the Crown. But in the event it led 
 to the subversion of that doctrine, and the establishment of 
 the liberty of the press, under the guardianship of English 
 
 juries He also gave up his circuit business, and 
 
 confined himself to special retainers. He kept up also his 
 intimacy with the leaders of the Whig party, especially 
 Fox and Sheridan, through whom he became personally ac- 
 quainted with the Prince Regent — then a zealous Whig — 
 who made him his Attorney-General. In the year 1789, 
 as counsel for Stockdale, the publisher, he made what 
 Lord Campbell does not hesitate to call " the finest speech 
 ever delivered at the English bar, and which forever estab- 
 lished the freedom of the press in England," and of which 
 the Edinburgh Review says, " It is justly regarded by all 
 English lawyers as a consummate specimen of the art of ad- 
 dressing a jury — as a standard and sort of precedent for 
 treating cases of libel." The offense of Mr. Stockdale was 
 the publishing of a pamphlet by the Rev. Mr. Logan, a 
 Scottish minister, in which Warren Hastings was exculpated 
 from the charges brought against him, and the House of 
 Commons compared to the tribunal of the Inquisition. It 
 is almost needless to add that the speech was followed by 
 a verdict of " Not guilty." In 1 789, he was again returned 
 to Parliament for Portsmouth, which he continued to rep- 
 resent until he was raised to the Peerage. In the following 
 year, contrary to the advice of Lord Loughborough and 
 some of his best friends, he held a brief for " Tom Paine," 
 the author of "The Rights of Man." Here, however, he 
 
 93 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 failed. For taking this brief, he was suspended from his 
 office as Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales. He was 
 equally unsuccessful in defending John Frost, against a Gov- 
 ernment presecution for seditious words spoken in a public- 
 house ; but he won a verdict, as counsel for the defense, in 
 a far more important cause, the Government prosecution of 
 Messrs. Perry and Grey, the proprietors of the Morning 
 Chronicle, for inserting in their paper an address from a 
 society at Derby, complaining of the unsatisfactory state of 
 the representation of the people in Parliament. The year 
 1793, and the following years, have been called, in a legal 
 sense, " The Reign of Terror," on account of the constant 
 efforts of the Tory Administration to put down all outward 
 expressions of political dissatisfaction by the strong hand of the 
 law, and by arbitrary and summary prosecutions. It was in 
 consequence of the prevalence of this spirit that Tom 
 Hardy, a shoemaker, and eleven other obscure individuals, 
 were put upon trial for high treason, simply as belonging to a 
 society, or societies, whose end was parliamentary reform. 
 Erskine was engaged for the defense of Hardy, who was 
 acquitted, and the speech delivered on that occasion by his 
 advocate will live forever. On the death of Pitt, Lord 
 Grenville was sent for to form an Administration. Erskine 
 was given the custody of the Great Seal. He took his 
 seat on the woolsack February, 1806, as Baron Erskine. 
 Of the principles of equity, he knew but little ; and al- 
 though he did his best, by the aid of other men, and by 
 great attention to the arguments of counsel, to satisfy him- 
 self as to the merits of each case, and was eminently fair, 
 
 94 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 honest, and impartial. In March, 1807, with his party, he 
 was obliged to resign office. He now came forward only on 
 rare occasions, and to oppose measures which he considered 
 thoroughly objectionable. In 1823, he resolved to pay a 
 visit to his brother, the Earl of Buchan, at Dryburgh 
 Abbey, and he took ship at Blackwall for Edinburgh. On 
 the voyage he was attacked by a serious illness ; was 
 landed at Leith, and reaching the residence of his sister-in- 
 law, the Hon. Mrs. Henry Erskine, at Almondell, he died 
 on the 17th of the November following, at the age of 
 seventy-three. There is no marble monument erected by the 
 nation to Erskine's memory, nor any mural inscription to 
 celebrate his genius and public services ; " but," to use the 
 words of his biographer. Lord Chancellor Campbell, " the 
 collection of his speeches will preserve his name as long as 
 the English language endures;" and a simple narrative of 
 his life will best show his claim to the gratitude of pos- 
 terity as one who labored, and not wholly in vain, in the 
 cause of human progress and freedom, and the advancement 
 of enlightened legislation. " Let us imagine to ourselves," 
 adds his biographer, " an advocate inspired by a generous 
 love of fame, and desirous of honorably assisting in the 
 administration of justice by obtaining redress for the injured 
 and defending the innocent, — one who has liberally studied 
 the science of jurisprudence, and has stored his mind and 
 refined his taste by a general acquaintance with elegant 
 literature, — one who has an intuitive insight into human 
 character, and into the workings of human passion, — one 
 
 who is able not only by his powers of persuasion to give 
 
 95 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 the best chances of success to every client whom he rep- 
 resents in every variety of public causes, but also to defeat 
 conspiracies against the public liberty founded on a perver 
 sion of the criminal law, — and one who, by the victories 
 which he gains and the principles which he establishes, 
 helps to place the free constitution of his countrymen on 
 an imperishable basis. Such an advocate was Erskine. . 
 . . [Such an advocate, in my opinion, stands quite as high 
 in the scale of true greatness as the parliamentary leader 
 who ably opens a budget, or who lucidly explains a new 
 system of commercial policy, or who dexterously attacks the 
 
 measures of the existing Government ] I will not 
 
 here enter into a comparison of the respective merits of 
 the different sorts of oratory handed down to us from 
 antiquity ; but I may be allowed to observe that among 
 ourselves, in the hundred and fifty volumes of " Hansard's 
 Debates," there are no specimens of parliamentary harangues 
 which, as literary compositions, are comparable to the 
 speeches of Erskine at the bar, with the exception of 
 Burke's, and these were delivered to empty benches. . . , 
 There will probably again be a debater equal to the elder 
 or the younger Pitt, to Fox or Sheridan, Burke or Grey, 
 before there arises another advocate equal to Thomas 
 
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LORD ELDON 
 
 ILLIAM SCOTT, the father of Lord Eldon, 
 was what is known at Newcastle-on-Tyne, the 
 great coal depot of England, as a coal-fitter, 
 and owner of " keels." A " fitter " is a person 
 who buys and sells coals at the pit's mouth, 
 and who conveys them in barges or keels 
 to where they are loaded for exportation. In 
 this employment the paternal Scott — who was 
 destined to be the father of two illustrious 
 self-made men, both created Peers of the 
 realm. Lord Stowell and Lord Eldon — 
 amassed considerable substance. To increase 
 his profits he is said at one time to have kept a sort of 
 public house, for supplying his own keelmen with liquor, and 
 he was held in high esteem among the trading community of 
 his native town, for his strict industry and frugality. His wife 
 was a model of domestic virtue, and of such superior under- 
 standing, that the great talents of her two distinguished sons 
 are said to have been inherited from her. The birth both of 
 William — Lord Stowell — and of John, the future Chan- 
 cellor, was in each case accompanied by a twin sister, and 
 
 there is quite a romance attached to Mrs. Scott's accouchment 
 
 99 
 
LORD ELD ON. 
 
 with the former pair, which happened in the year 1745 
 when Bonnie Prince Charlie crossed the border. Newcastle 
 being fortified, all egress was prohibited to the inhabitants ; so 
 Mrs. Scott, being in fear of the violence of the Flighlanders, 
 had herself hoisted over the wall in a large basket, and safely 
 descending to the water-side, was conveyed to a neighboring 
 village, where her confinement took place. The future 
 Chancellor's birth was six years later, and after the retreat of 
 the Chevalier from Derby. It occurred on the 4th of June, 
 1 75 1, at his father's house in Love Lane, Newcastle, which is 
 a narrov/ passage between two streets, called in Scotland a 
 " wynd," but in Northumberland a " chase." Very little is 
 related of Master Jackey, save that he had a great faculty 
 when tumbling down flights of steps, of always alighting on 
 his legs. He was educated at the Free Grammar School, 
 where he showed a habit of steady application, and contrived 
 to lay in a large stock of classical knowledge. His father, 
 whose Bible and ledger were his sole library, when requiring 
 from his two boys on Sunday evenings an account of the 
 sermon, is said to have remarked, that whereas William could 
 give a digest of the general argument, John could recapitu- 
 late the minutiae of the discourse, and repeat the very phrases 
 of the preacher. John appears to have been a thoroughly 
 reckless and daring schoolboy, given to playing truant and 
 robbing orchards, for the latter of which offenses he relates 
 that, being brought before the magistrates, his father was 
 fined thirty shillings, which he says occasioned his first being 
 flogged by his father, then again by the schoolmaster. He 
 
 also relates that he possessed the art of blowing out the 
 
 100 
 
LORD ELD ON. 
 
 candles in the shops, and escaping detection, and how having 
 lost his hat in a scuffle, his father made him go three months 
 bare-headed except on Sundays. " We used," he also says, 
 "early on Sunday evenings, to steal flowers from the gardens 
 in the neighborhood, and present them to our sweethearts. 
 Oh! those were happy days, — we were always in love!" In 
 spite of those youthful pranks, he had made great progress in 
 his studies, and was well exercised in English composition, 
 and a good classical scholar at fifteen. His father was then 
 about to bind him apprentice to his own trade of a coal- 
 fitter, but first wrote to his eldest son William, who at six- 
 teen had gained a Durham scholarship at Corpus Christi 
 College, Oxford, to inform him of his intention. He wrote 
 back to his father : " Send Jack up to me ; I can do better for 
 him here;" and Jack was accordingly sent off by the stage- 
 coach, which, bearing in its panels the inscription, " Sat cito 
 si sat bene," took three days and four nights to reach 
 London, by what was then considered rapid traveling. Under 
 the admirable tuition of his brother, he became very regular 
 in his habits at the University, and, as a proof of his wonder- 
 ful proficiency, was elected a fellow of his College, when he 
 had just completed his sixteenth year. On the 20th of July, 
 1770, he took his bachelor's degree, but he still continued to 
 reside in the classic bowers of Oxford, prosecuting his studies 
 diligently, and in the following year, took the prize for the 
 Oxford English essay, the subject being "The advantages 
 and disadvantages of foreign travel." Just after he came 
 of iige, John Scott committed the indiscretion of marriage, 
 not only without having any means wherewith to support a 
 
 lOI 
 
LORD ELDON. 
 
 wife, but by the very act losing his college fellowship and 
 its emoluments. Had it not been for his wonderful industry 
 and mental powers, his brother William's remarks, when the 
 news transpired at Oxford, might have come true, who said 
 to a friend : " I suppose you have heard of the very foolish act 
 of my very foolish brother. He is completely ruined, nor 
 can anything now save him from beggary. I had good hopes 
 of him till this last confounded step destroyed them all." 
 Miss Bessy Surtees was the daughter of a wealthy Newcastle 
 banker, whose acquaintance Scott made accidentally, when she 
 was traveling in company with a maiden aunt. Her father 
 held his head high in Newcastle, and bankers and coal-fitters 
 were considered the opposite extremes of the trading world. 
 It was thought, too, that he had destined her to be the wife 
 of Sir William Blackett, member of Parliment, who went, by 
 the title of the " King of Newcastle." Her flirtations with the 
 future Chancellor were therefore surreptitious, and the Surtees 
 family getting an inkling of the affair, and their pride being 
 hurt by the veiy idea of their beautiful daughter marrying the 
 son of old Scott, who kept a public house for his keelmen, 
 they sent the young lady to London, where she was intro- 
 duced into society by the Duchess of Northumberland as " my 
 Newcastle beauty." The strict injunction that she should have 
 no intercourse, by word, letter, or signal, with Mr. John Scott, 
 was obeyed as such commands usually are. The eager lover 
 followed her, and although he sought her in vain at mas- 
 querade, at Ranelagh, and at the opera house, at last, by 
 watching in Park Lane, he traced her to Hyde Park, and, 
 
 contriving interviews with her, their vows were renewed. 
 
 1 02 
 
LORD ELDON. 
 
 On her return to Newcastle, she contrived a meeting with 
 him, and, having consented to an elopement, on the night 
 of November i8th, 1772, she descended a ladder from her 
 father's house, and, a post-chaise waiting for them, they 
 crossed over the border, and were married at Blackshiels, 
 within two stages of Edinburgh, on the following day. On 
 the third day after their wedding, their funds being entirely 
 exhausted, Eldon's younger brother, Henry, brought them 
 an olive branch from the old coal-fitter and they returned 
 to Love Lane, Newcastle. The old banker was mightily 
 displeased, but was ultimately induced to recognize his son-in- 
 law. So abject were John Scott's fortunes at this time that a 
 wealthy grocer, who was childless, and took compassion on his 
 destitute condition, offered to give him a half share of his 
 lucrative business without premium ; and the great lawyer 
 barely escaped being doomed to sell figs and raisins for the 
 remainder of his life. William, however, again stood by him, 
 and at his request he returned, wife and all, to Oxford, en- 
 tering himself on the 28th of June, 1773, a member of the 
 Middle Temple. His wife's extreme beauty passed as a good 
 apology for his indiscretion. She would sit up with him dur- 
 ing his midnight studies, watching him with silent affection, 
 and was ever ready to exercise self-denial for his sake. He 
 was shortly appointed Vice Principal of New Inn Hall, and 
 Vice Law Professor, in which latter capacity he relates the 
 amusing fact that his d6but as a professor consisted in a read- 
 ing upon the statute relating to young men running away 
 with maidens. He says, " Fancy me reading with about 140 
 
 boys and young men, all giggling at the Professor ! Such a 
 
 103 
 
LORD ELDON. 
 
 tittering audience no one ever had ! " During his residence 
 at Oxford, Dr. Samuel Johnson was a frequent visitor at his 
 house, of whom he was in after-life very fond of relating stories. 
 One of the best is the following. He says, " I had a walk in 
 New Inn Hall garden with Dr. Johnson, Sir Robert Cham- 
 bers, and some other gentlemen. Sir Robert was gathering 
 snails, and throwing them over the wall into his neighbor's 
 garden. The Doctor reproached him very roughly, asserting 
 that this was unmannerly and unneighborly. ' Sir,' said Sir 
 Robert, ' my neighbor is a dissenter.' ' Oh ' ! said the Doctor, 
 ' if so. Chambers, toss away, toss away as hard as you can.' " 
 Before he was called to the Bar, which was in 1776, he left Ox- 
 ford, and diligently attending the Courts at Westminster, took 
 a house in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, but he was too 
 poor to be able to pay a pupil's fee to a special pleader, or 
 equity draughtsman, and relates that " many a time have I run 
 down from Cursitor Street to Fleet market to buy sixpcnn'- 
 orth of sprats for our supper." Mr. Duane, an emiment con- 
 veyancer, however, very kindly gave him the run of his cham- 
 bers for six months, without a fee, where he was able to 
 make a gigantic collection of precedents. He was cheated 
 out of his maiden fee by a dapper-looking attorney's clerk, 
 who professed to have forgotten it, and never returned ; and 
 all the emolument he derived from his profession during the 
 first twelve months was half a guinea ; but, being employed 
 as counsel in the following year, in a petition against the 
 Newcastle election, he received an honorarium of 200 guineas 
 for his services, and in the same year had a general retainer 
 
 from the Corporation of Newcastle, and a brief to support 
 
 104 
 
LORD ELD ON, 
 
 a claim of the Duke of Northumberland. He now trans- 
 ferred himself from the King's Bench to the Court of Chan- 
 cery ; but this did not immediately succeed, and had he not 
 shortly made more progress he would doubtless have ex- 
 changed his metropolitan for a provincial practice. His 
 fortune was, however, made by his magnificent argument in 
 the case of Akroyd v. Smithson, which caused him next day 
 to wake and find himself famous, and an uninterrupted tide 
 of prosperity now flowed in upon him for the remainder of 
 his life. He was wont to assert that he first got into notice 
 on circuit by " breaking the ten commandments," the explana- 
 tion of which was that, being counsel in a cause in which 
 everything depended on proving who was the founder of 
 an ancient chapel, he found a hidden arch in it, concealed by 
 plastering which he removed, on which the commandments 
 were written, and the engraved arms of the ancestors of one 
 of the parties to the action underneath. At the grand Courts 
 of the Circuit, he was wont to enter freely into the trial for 
 mock offenses, and other frolicsome proceedings of his 
 brethern of the Bar, of some of which he left very amusing 
 accounts. He relates also the following very extraordinary 
 story, as having occurred to Dr. Johnson's friend. Jemmy Bos- 
 well, at the Lancaster Assizes. He says, " Boswell having been 
 found lying upon the pavement, inebriated, we subscribed a 
 guinea for him, and sent him a brief, with instructions to 
 move for what we denominated the writ of ' quare adhoesit 
 pavimento.' He sent to all the attorneys of the town for 
 books to guide him, but in vain. The Judge said : ' I never 
 
 heard of such a writ, — what can it be, that 'adhoesit pavi- 
 
 loS 
 
menta' " At length one of the Bar said : " My Lord, Mr 
 Boswell last night 'adhoesit pavimento.' There was no mov- 
 ing him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and 
 he has been dreaming about himself and the pavement." In a 
 very short time Scott was making ^3,000 a year, in case an- 
 swering alone, and on June 4, 1 783, he was promoted to a silk 
 gown. Up to this time he had never meddled in party politics, 
 but in the same year he was induced by Lord Thurlow to 
 enlist under the banner of the opposition, and to become a 
 "King's friend." The ex-Chancellor speedily got him re- 
 turned for a village in Herefordshire— long ago disfranchised 
 —called Weobly, where by ancient custom the aspirant to 
 Parliamentary honors began his canvass by kissing the 
 prettiest girl in the place, and was of course returned with- 
 out opposition. His earlier speeches in the House were by no 
 means a success, but he distinguished himself shortly in a 
 speech on the Westminister Election, and in a discussion 
 upon the liability of the East India Company to pay the cost 
 of the military force in their territory ; and at length, to the 
 high contentment of the Bar, Mr. John Scott was made 
 Solicitor-General. He did not care for the dignity of knight- 
 hood which he wished if possible to avoid, and writes to his 
 brother : " I kissed the King's hand yesterday, as Solicitor- 
 General. The King, in spite of my teeth, laid his sword upon 
 my shoulder, and bade ' Sir John ' arise. I was completely 
 taken in, having no idea that the King had any such inten- 
 tion. My wife is persecuted with her new title, and we 
 laugh at her from morning till evening." Immediately after 
 
 his elevation the King's intellect became so much disturbed, 
 
 106 
 
LORD ELD ON. 
 
 that the royal authority was in complete abeyance, and his 
 person under restraint. At this important juncture, Sir John 
 Scott ably supported Mr. Pitt in asserting the right of the 
 two Houses of Parliament to appoint a regent, and confer 
 upon him such powers as they thought fit. In 1792, after a 
 very quiet official life of four years, he was appointed Attor- 
 ney-General, and in that capacity, as prosecutor for the Crown, 
 he carried out a "reign of terror." He had induced the King 
 to believe that he had lost in emolument by undertaking the 
 office of Crown lawyer, in reply to which George the Third 
 rather cunningly said, " Oh, then, for the first time I compre- 
 hend what I never could before understand, — why it has been 
 always so difficult to get any opinions from my law officers." 
 It appears, however, that instead of being compelled to sup 
 on six-penn'orth of sprats, Sir John in a few years was able to 
 buy the fine estate of Eldon in Durham, from which he after- 
 wards took his title, and that during the thirteen years he 
 was Solicitor and Attorney-General, his official income alone 
 averaged ^^ 10,000 a year. As public prosecutor, he con- 
 ducted the case against John Frost for foolish words spoken 
 after dinner in a coffee-house, in a country professedly allow- 
 ing of liberty of speech, who was condemned to six months 
 in Newgate, and to stand in the pillory at Charing Cross : 
 while during his prosecution of Hardy, Home Tooke, and 
 Thelwall for high treason, he became about the most unpopu- 
 lar man in the country. On the trial of Home Tooke, speak- 
 ing of the design imputed to the conspirators to compel the 
 King to govern against his coronation oath, Mr. Attorney- 
 General said, " He ought to lose his life, and I trust will be 
 
 107 
 
LORD ELDON. 
 
 willing to lose his life, rather than to govern contrary to that 
 coronation oath." Mr. r^^/^^. — " What ! is the Attorney -Gen- 
 eral talking treason ? I should be unhappy to mistake you ; did 
 you say the king ought to lose his life?" Attorney-General. — 
 " It is really difficult to decide for one's self whether this inter- 
 ruption is or is not proper." Mr. Tooke. — "I ask pardon of 
 the learned gentleman; and I promise I will not interrupt 
 him again during the whole of his reply. I only wished to 
 know whether, in prosecuting me for high treason, the At- 
 torney-General intentionally said something far worse than 
 anything he has proved against me." On the verdict of "not 
 guilty" being pronounced, Tooke declared, in a solemn 
 manner, that if he should have the misfortune to be indicted 
 for high treason again, he would immediately plead "guilty," 
 as he considered hanging and beheading preferable to the 
 long speeches of Sir John Scott. His last prosecutions for high 
 treason were against Arthur O'Connor, John Binns, and the 
 Rev. James O'Coigley, for inviting foreign invasion, the latter 
 of whom was convicted; but it was the Attorney-General's 
 almost invariable fate to be defeated in the Criminal Courts. 
 The dangers of French principles were quite as formidable 
 to his mind at this period as the perils of French invasion, 
 and he never neglected an opportunity of descanting on the 
 former; while, in view of the latter, he relates that he bought 
 a gun and a bayonet, although he says that, having, with 
 Lord EUenborough, joined the Lincoln's Inn Volunteers, 
 they were both " turned out of the awkward squad for 
 awkwardness." In July, 1799, on the death of Sir James 
 
 Eyre, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Sir John Scott 
 
 108 
 
LORD ELD ON. 
 
 was promoted to that dignity, and made a Peer by the title 
 of Baron Eldon, under which designation he first signed 
 his name in a letter to his mother, who was still living. 
 Two years later he reached the height of his ambition as 
 Chancellor. On the 14th of April, 1801, the transfer of 
 the Great Seal took place, and Eldon thus describes the 
 scene as a striking proof of the King's fondness for him : 
 " When I went to him he had his coat buttoned thus (one 
 or two buttons fastened at the lower part), and, putting his 
 right hand within, he drew out the seals from the left side, 
 saying, ' I give them to you from my heart ! ' " From that 
 time through the remainder of George the Third's life, and 
 during all his states of mental alienation. Lord Eldon ever 
 exercised a peculiar control over him, which he turned to 
 full account. He always called himself "the King's Chan- 
 cellor," as if his position were altogether separate from the 
 tenure of office by the Ministry and the Premier. As keeper 
 of the Royal conscience he may have had special privileges 
 in his own opinion; while as Chancellor, during the severer 
 attacks of the King's illness, it was his duty to pay a daily 
 visit to him to ascertain his condition. George quite favored 
 his idea, and as a specimen of his style of address, would write, 
 " on returning from walking, the King has found his Chancellor's 
 letter," thus always giving him precedence before his other 
 Ministers. Visiting his majesty on one occasion at Bucking- 
 ham Palace, Eldon was told by Dr. Simmons, his medical 
 attendant, that he could not allow the King to walk in the 
 garden of that palace with an attendant, as it was so over- 
 looked and reports would spread. Eldon immediately volun- 
 
 109 
 
LORD ELDON. 
 
 teered, and the doctor told the King the Chancellor had 
 come to take a walk with him. "With all my heart," said 
 the King, as he called for his hat and cane. Eldon says " there 
 was a momentary incoherence in his talk, but during the 
 rest of the walk there was not the slightest aberration in his 
 conversation, and he gave me the history of every administra- 
 tion in his reign. When he returned into the house, His 
 Majesty, laying down his hat and cane, placed his head upon 
 my shoulder, and burst into tears." Lord Eldon must in fact 
 have seen more of this mad and obstinate monarch than 
 any public man of his day, and in a communicative mood, 
 the wary Chancellor related that on one occasion the King 
 complained to him that a man in the employ of one of his 
 physicians had knocked him down. " When I got up again," 
 added the King, " I said my foot had slipped, and ascribed 
 my fall to that : for it would not do for me to admit that a 
 King had been knocked down by any one." So complete 
 was Lord Eldon's mastery over the King, that in 1804, by a 
 well-managed intrigue, Mr. Addington was shoved out of 
 office to give place to Mr. Pitt, Eldon still remaining keeper 
 of the Great Seal, which occasioned his being not unjustly 
 called, " the ally within the besieged garrison, who opened 
 the gate under the cloud of night, while the rest slept." He 
 was soon employed in a very difficult negotiation between 
 the King and the Prince of Wales, who had long been at 
 open emnity. He was therefore for a long time distasteful to 
 the latter. Having, at Lady Eldon's request, when he was 
 raised to the Bench, requested the King to allow him to wear 
 
 his own hair save when sitting in Court, the Prince of Wales, 
 
 no 
 
being deeply annoyed with him once, said, " I am not the 
 sort of person to let my hair grow under my wig to please 
 my wife." Lord Eldon. — ''Your Royal Highness condescends 
 to be personal. I beg leave to withdraw." He accordingly 
 bowed very low, and retired. The Prince caused a note to 
 be written to him next day, to say that " the phrase he made use 
 of was nothing personal, but simply a proverb," and Eldon 
 lived not only to be called his Chancellor, but to be endear- 
 ingly addressed by him as " Old Bags." On the death of Pitt, 
 in January, 1806, Lord Eldon ceased to be chancellor, when 
 the new government of Fox and Grenville, which he did not 
 intrigue to prevent, came into office, and he was succeeded on 
 the woolsack by Lord Erskine. Even on that occasion the 
 King could not take leave of him without emotion. When 
 about to surrender his insignia of office he says, "the King 
 appeared for a few moments to occupy himself with other 
 things" suddenly looking up he exclaimed, 'Lay them down 
 on the sofa, for I can not and I will not take them from you. 
 Yet I admit you can't stay, when all the rest have run away.' " 
 However, in the April of the following year, Eldon was 
 again Chancellor, and so remained during the thirteen more 
 years of George the Third's reign. As long as the King was 
 able to execute the functions of government, Eldon served 
 him zealously and faithfully ; but it was equally his interest 
 and duty to worship " the rising sun," and we find him, after 
 gradually endeavoring to ingratiate himself into the good 
 graces of the Prince, so far succeeding, that he is addressed 
 by the Prince as his dear friend, who signs himself "most 
 sincerely yours ; " and invited him and Lord Stowell to warm 
 
 III 
 
LORD ELD ON. 
 
 beds, turkey, and chine, and last, though not least in 
 love, a Newcastle dish known as liver and crow, adding, 
 in a postscript, — for he was always asking him for chancery 
 livings: — " N. B. No church preferment will be requested on 
 this occasion." Eldon was created an earl by George the 
 Fourth, and finally delivered up the Great Seal on the ist 
 of May, 1827. Having been officially present as Lord 
 Chancellor on the 24th of May, 1819, when the Duchess 
 of Kent gave birth to a princess, who was heir to the throne. 
 Lord Eldon was particularly desirous of taking his seat in 
 the House of Peers when the young Queen of eighteen 
 should deliver her first speech from the throne. With this 
 object he went down to the House of Lords and took the 
 oaths and signed the roll of the new Parliament ; but his last 
 illness was coming rapidly upon him, and he was unable to be 
 present. As he looked upon his conduct as a public man as 
 perfectly consistent, if not spotless, he is said to have shown 
 quite a refractory disposition when Dr. Philpotts, the Bishop 
 of Exeter, in the spirit of a faithful Christian pastor, 
 pointed out to him his need of pardon as a dying 
 man ; and as if, indeed, some personal disrespect had been 
 shown him. His last words are singular. His medical 
 attendant having greeted him with the remark, " It is a cold 
 day, my lord," he replied, " It matters not to me where I 
 am going whether the weather here be hot or cold." And 
 he expired, without a groan, on the afternoon of the same 
 day, Jannary 13th, 1838, in his eighty-seventh year. 
 
 112 
 
~-\ -^N? 
 
 OjEL W^KDSEKl 
 
 JmiES Coctaoft S-. Co.lTBwYoilt. 
 
SAMUEL WARREN 
 
 ETTER known to the community at large 
 by his " Diary of a Late Physician," 
 and "Ten Thousand a Year," than as the 
 author of numerous valuable contributions 
 to legal jurisprudence, Dr. Samuel Warren — 
 for he possesses the dignity of a doctor of 
 civil law — will always be esteemed not only 
 as a sound and learned lawyer, but as a re- 
 markably able novelist, whose works evince 
 great vividness and marvelous descriptive power. 
 Had he not lived in the days of such giants of 
 fiction as Dickens, Lytton, and Thackeray, he 
 would have had few to match him in original creative power 
 and his delineation of the pathetic. He has not — as too 
 many authors do — over-written himself; and for more than 
 twenty years has contributed nothing to fiction, which by the 
 reading public can not be viewed otherwise than as a subject 
 for regret. Samuel Warren was born in Denbighshire, in the 
 year 1807. His father, the Rev. Samuel Warren, LL.D., 
 having been trained as a minister of the Wesleyan Com- 
 munion, eventually took orders in the Church of England, 
 
 and became the Incumbent of All Souls' Church, Manches- 
 
 115 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 ten As a preacher, the Rev. Dr. Warren enjoyed considera- 
 ble reputation, his style being remarkably clear, and his 
 evangelical doctrine ever breathed in a devout spirit ; while 
 he was not unknown as an author. Having been carefully 
 trained by this excellent father, young Warren was. sent to 
 Edinburgh with the intention of qualifying himself for the 
 medical profession. He seems, however, to have addicted 
 himself more to other studies than those properly belonging 
 to a medical student, for we find that in his first year at 
 Edinburgh, he carried off two prizes from the University, one 
 being for poetry, and the other for an essay upon compar- 
 ative jurisprudence. In the year 1828, having changed his 
 idea of a profession, and preferring law to medicine, Samuel 
 Warren entered himself as a student of the Inner Temple, 
 London ; and, three years later, beginning to practice as a 
 special pleader, continued chamber practice until he was called 
 to the Bar in 1837. In 1830, when he was only twenty-two 
 years of age, he commenced, in the pages of '' Blackwood'' s 
 Magazine" a series of sketches which he entitled, " Passages 
 from the Diary of a Late Physician," in which he seems to 
 have turned to wonderful account the unfinished medical 
 education for which he had preferred to substitute the study 
 of law. The Diary, commencing in August, 1830, was carried 
 on at intervals in the pages of the great Northern review, to 
 which he offered it, after having in vain endeavored to dispose 
 of it to the London publishers, who all concurred to rejecl 
 it ; generally alleging as a reason that the subject was an un- 
 attractive one, and that the papers would find no readers. Not 
 
 many numbers of it, however, had appeared before the anony- 
 
 it6 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 mous author took a foremost rank in the estimation of the 
 hterary world, and gained for himself from cotemporaneous 
 authors — who could never have imagined that he was only 
 a mere boy, and a tyro in letters — the profoundest expres- 
 sions of respect. The variety of incident and character, 
 fidelity of delineation, vigorous style, pathos, and commanding 
 knowledge of men and human passions displayed in these 
 sketches, made them at once eagerly sought and greedily 
 perused. Some of the titles of the sketches of life and death 
 would have been very suitable to low-class novelettes and 
 sensation plays, but the manner in which Warren handled 
 such subjects as " Intrigue and Madness," " The Spectral 
 Dog," the " Man about Town," who dies with hideous frights 
 of hell, and others, redeems them from the over-expressiveness 
 of their titles. For those who love horrors, a perfect feast 
 was provided by this juvenile law student ; and by the relig- 
 ious world the work was highly applauded, as tending to pro- 
 mote a general terror of evil-doing, and frightening from vice. 
 Warren's graphic power of delineation was admirably ex- 
 pressed by Sir Archibald Alison, the historian, in the follow- 
 ing terms. He says : " Mr. Warren has taken a lasting place 
 among the imaginative writers of this period of English 
 history. He possesses in a remarkable manner the tenderness 
 of heart and vividness of feeling, as well as powers of descrip- 
 tion, which are essential in the delineation of the pathetic, 
 and which, when existing in the degree in which he enjoys 
 them, fill his pages with scenes which can never be forgotten." 
 Two of his most startling delineations in " Passages from the 
 
 Diary of a Late Physician," are to be found in " A Scholar's 
 
 117 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 Deathbed " and " Death at the Toilet." In the former, Warren 
 depicts a starved scholar's slow death, whose powerful intellect 
 is not enfeebled by the ravages of disease, and who quotes 
 Aristophanes and ^Eschylus almost with his dying breath. 
 The last scene is thus related : " ' Why are you taking the 
 candles away, nurse?' he inquired. They had not been 
 touched. His cold fingers gently compressed my hand — ^they 
 were stiffened with death. ' Don't ! don't ! put the candles out, 
 doctor,' he commenced again, looking at me with an eye on 
 which the thick mists and shadows of the grave were settling 
 fast — they were filmy and glazed. ' Don't ! don't ! blow them 
 out — don't ! don't ! ' he exclaimed almost inaudibly. ' No, we 
 
 will not, Mr. ; both candles are burning brightly beside you 
 
 on the table,' I replied tremulously, for I saw the senses were 
 forgetting their functions, and that life and consciousness were 
 fast retiring. ' Well,' he murmured almost inarticulately, ' I am 
 now quite in darkness ! Oh there is something at my heart 
 cold, cold. Doctor, keep them off!' and he was dead." " Death 
 at the Toilet" occurs to a vain, frivolous, conceited creature, 
 a young lady twenty years of age, who, with severe liver com- 
 plaint, persists in dissipation ; and in spite of her mother's remon- 
 strances, insists on going to a ball, saying, " I will go, if I die 
 for it." The terrible scene on the arrival of the physician is 
 described in the following words: "The room was occupied 
 by a white-curtained bed. There was but one window, and 
 before it was a table, on which stood a looking-glass, hung 
 with a little white drapery, and various articles of the toilet 
 lay scattered about, — pins, brooches, curling-papers, ribbons, 
 
 gloves, etc. An arm-chair was drawn to the table, and in 
 
 ii8 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 it sat Miss J , stone dead. The head rested upon her 
 
 right hand, her elbow supported by the table, while her left 
 hung down by her side grasping a pair of curling irons. 
 Each of her wrists was encircled by a showy gilt bracelet. 
 She was draped in a white muslin frock with a little bordering 
 of blonde. Her face was turned toward the glass, which by the 
 light of the expiring candle reflected with frightful fidelity the 
 clammy, fixed features, daubed over with rouge and carmine, 
 and the fallen lower jaw, and the eyes directed full into 
 the glass with a cold, dull stare that was appalling. On ex- 
 amining the countenance more narrowly, I thought I detected a 
 smirk of conceit and self-complacency which not even the 
 palsying touch of death could wholly obliterate. The hair of 
 the corpse, all smooth and glossy, was curled with elaborate 
 precision, and the skinny, sallow neck was encircled with a 
 string of glistening pearls. The ghastly visage of death, thus 
 leering through the tinselry of fashion — the vain show of ar- 
 tifical joy was a horrible mockeiy of the fooleries of life. I 
 have seen hundreds of corpses, as well in the calm composure 
 of natural death, as mangled and distorted by violence, but 
 never have I seen so startling a satire upon human vanity, so 
 repulsive unslightly and loathsome a spectacle as a corpse 
 dressed for a ball." In spite of some severe criticism in the 
 pages of the "-British Quarterly" and other reviews, which 
 accused Warren of morbid sentimentalism and an over-dispen- 
 sation of horrors, and asserted that the book was made up 
 entirely of fainting fits, hysteria, and sal volatile, the " Diary 
 of a Late Physician " had an enormous nan, was translated 
 
 into French and German, and stereotyped in America. These 
 
 119 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 literary labors of Warren were, however, concurrent with the 
 severest application to the study of the Law, and he soon ob- 
 tained a reputation not only as a legal plodder and very care- 
 ful special pleader, but as the author of some very valuable 
 Law books. Eight years clasped between the publication 
 of the " Diary of a Late Physician," and his next contribution 
 to light literature in the pages of "Blackwood's Magazine" 
 " Ten Thousand a Year." During that time he published 
 first a " Popular and Practical Introduction to Law Studies," 
 and two years later edited " Select Extracts from Blackstone," 
 while he also gave to the public an able pamphlet upon the 
 " Opium Question," which was then engaging the atten- 
 tion of the English people. His " Introduction to Law 
 Studies" met with the marked approval of the profession 
 generally, and called forth the praise of Sir Frederick 
 Thesiger, afterwards Lord Chancellor Chelmsford, who said 
 that it was " admirably planned and equally well executed." 
 Some years later he published many more works, both of a 
 legal and political character, including a dissertation on "the 
 Moral, Social, and Professional Duties of Attorneys," " a 
 Letter to the Queen on a recent Court Martial," a pamphlet 
 on " the Queen and the Pope," considered in the political and 
 legal aspects of their separate authorities, a " Manual of the 
 Law and Practice of Elections," another edition of Black- 
 stone, and also a work on the " Intellectual and Moral Devel- 
 opments of the Present Age." In 1839, there appeared in 
 "Blackwood's Magazine " the first pages of " Ten Thousand a 
 Year," which may be called Warren's first novel. Being no 
 
 longer a writer of mere sketches, the plot in this work is not 
 
 120 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 found subordinate to its composition ; but in a masterly tale 
 the author reveals the secret springs of human action, and the 
 hidden soul of the world. Like his former work in Blackwood, 
 it was published anonymously, and, during the two years 
 of its gradual appearance, public attention never flagged, 
 while the incognito of authorship was preserved to the end. 
 In this novel, the whole story hangs upon a miserable 
 creature named Tittlebat Titmouse, an uneducated, sensual 
 wretch, who suddenly finds himself, through an advertisement 
 for the next of kin of Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse, a deceased 
 cordwainer of Whitehaven, the heir to a large fortune. He 
 is a very much lower type of coarse vulgarity than Dickens's 
 famous Dick Swiveller, and having at length risen by his 
 wealth, so far as to get elected a member of Parliament, he 
 gradually subsides, until, by the discovery of his illegitimate 
 birth, he gets again into the station which he is most quali- 
 fied to adorn. Warren's sketches in this work of the English 
 system of Parliamentary elections are most entertaining, but 
 he immortalized himself most in his wonderful creation of 
 the firm of Quirk, Gammon and Snap, Attorneys-at-Law, 
 through whom Tittlebat Titmouse hears of his good fortune. 
 " The British Quarterly" which somewhat severely criticised 
 this and Warren's other works, says of the character of 
 Gammon, who has an ingenious method of making his part- 
 ner, Quirk, his invariable scapegoat : " As a work of art we 
 consider Gammon decidedly the finest and most finished of his 
 productions. His character is well conceived, and its devel- 
 opment is worked out with equal strength and precision. 
 He is a harmonious whole ; there are no inconsistencies 
 
 121 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 about him. The concentration of thought and energy which 
 he brings to bear upon his ends, and the unswerving steadiness 
 with which those ends are pursued, are, as a mere intellectual 
 manifestation, beautiful. He is a man all head, without a 
 heart to mar its operations, for even his love for Kate Aubrey 
 is ungenerously woven into his plans, so as in his design to 
 bear its part in the accomplishment of his purpose. Mere 
 cleverness might suffice to create that detestible animal, Tit- 
 mouse, who excites in us mere loathing, but a Gammon re- 
 quires and evinces qualities of a much higher order, and him 
 we regard with a kind of respectful horror." Six years now 
 elapsed before he produced another novel, which he did in 
 1847, under the title of "Now and Then." It fully bore out 
 his established literary reputation, and was fresh, racy, and 
 pure, investing the institution of Christmas with its legitimate, 
 beneficent, and catholic associations. The gentle Lady Emily, 
 the indefatigable clergyman Hylton, and the old Saxon 
 Ayliffe subHmely illustrating feeling, and the influence of 
 faith, are all characters which will live : and the work altogether, 
 as vindicating in the lives of fictional persons God's ways 
 to man, may be said to contain a current of piety as lucid as 
 a stream. Nor is it only in the higher walks of Hfe that 
 Warren's characters were faithful portraitures, for he is es- 
 pecially careful to do justice in all respects to humbler life 
 In 1 85 1, on the occasion of the opening of the first great 
 International Exhibition in London, which was projected 
 by the Prince Consort, and carried out under his immediate 
 auspices, Warren published a work of prose poetry, entitled 
 
 "The Lily and the Bee." It was subjected to a good deal of 
 
 122 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 unfavorable criticism ; and, standing alone, would not certainly 
 maintain the fame of an author. It contains a great deal of 
 adulation of the Oueen and Prince Albert, for each of whom 
 he claims a direct descent from Alfred the Great — who was 
 known by the titles of " the Shepherd of his People," and 
 "the Darling of the English" — ^and Charlemagne. The great 
 occasion of the opening of this magnificent Industrial under- 
 taking by the English Court, in the presence of 61,000 spec- 
 tators, Warren compares to two events in scripture history, — 
 the erection of the Tower of Babel, and of the golden image 
 by King Nebuchadnezzar. The event of 185 1, however, 
 as he points out, was not to inaugurate an idol, or dedicate 
 an image, but, in the hallowed presence of Him whom 
 Nebuchadnezzar had dishonored, to bow before Him, the 
 Lord of heaven and earth, to cement universal brotherhood, 
 telling in sublime accents of man in his relations to the 
 earth, man in his relations . to man, and man in his relations 
 to God. The following beautiful passage will give some idea 
 of the work : " Where shall the eye find rest, and where the 
 mind, in this Palace, vividly bright and vast ! I catch con- 
 tagion from the eager life, restlessly streaming round. All 
 ear, all eye, all sense, all soul, and all assailed at once. Rarer 
 and rarer seems the air, with the spirit of mankind mys- 
 teriously instinct to powei", daring highest feats, crowning 
 defeats. Achievement looking proudly down on vanquishing 
 impossibility. Where'er I go, where'er I look, I see triumph- 
 ant intellect. Reason, supreme, severe — all real. Ah ! yonder 
 — Fancy, with fantastic, unreality, gracefully frolicking. 
 Puck ! Ariel ! Oberon ! Titania ! sprites mimicking grand 
 
 123 
 
airs of man. Up, master Puck, thou merry wanderer of the 
 night ! go put thy girdle round about the earth in forty 
 minutes ! Off on thy journey, lingering not in this enchanted 
 Palace. Haste ! haste for our Titania's bidding has already 
 flown on hidden wire the globe all round, over land and 
 under ocean, and all her folk are looking out to see thee 
 flying by, binding her realms with unseen cincture. Quick ! 
 Puck, outrun the lightning ! " Comparing the England of 
 Alfred with that British Empire upon which the sun 
 never sets, he says : " But Alfred also mused upon his own 
 dear sceptred isle, his little realm, — little once, not now, — 
 so great become, — grown like a grain of mustard-seed ; when 
 sown less than all seeds in earth — but grown and waxed a 
 great tree, and shooting out great branches. Yes, venerable 
 shade — majestic gliding o'er the spot where stood so short 
 awhile ago — she wears your crown ! " In the same year in 
 which the " Lily and the Bee " appeared, Warren was made 
 a Queen's Counsel, and three years later he was appointed to 
 the Recordership of Kingston-upon-Hull, generally known as 
 Hull, the great seaport town of Yorkshire. In 1856, War- 
 ren entered Parliament, where he failed to make any mark as 
 a debater. He had always been a staunch conservative, and 
 had rendered the cause of Lord Derby and the Tories con- 
 siderable assistance by his series of able political articles in 
 the pages of ''Blackwood's Magazine^ Services of this kind 
 to a government, or an opposition, must sooner or later bring 
 their reward; and although in the two Parliaments in which 
 he sat for Midhurst, Warren by no means distinguished him- 
 self as a politician, his time was sure to come when the 
 
 124 
 
Tories, so long kept out of power by the Peelite secession, 
 had an opportunity of requiting them. We accordingly find 
 that Sir Frederick Thesiger, when placed on the woolsack by 
 the title of Lord Chelmsford, not only bore him in mind, 
 but provided for him in a way which was as suitable to him 
 as useful to the country. In those marvelous studies which 
 were presented to the public, under the title of " Passages 
 from the Diary of a Late Physician," Warren paid great atten- 
 tion to the phenomena of mental disease which he depicted 
 with most vivid power. He seems to have " supped full of 
 horrors," in all the details of maniacal delusions, and gives his 
 I readers the idea that his forte would have been in mad 
 doctering. This peculiar feature in his earlier writings, com- 
 bined with his acknowledged and profound legal acquire- 
 ments, pointed to him as an unmistakably fit Commissioner 
 of Lunacy. In "the Turned Head," "the Spectral Dog," 
 " Intrigue and Madness," " the Spectre-Smitten," and other 
 sketches, he not only shows an intimate knowledge of the 
 workings of mental disease, but also of the best curative 
 systems. Who, then, better to decide in cases of appeal upon 
 every issue raised upon the subject, or in behalf of his afflicted 
 fellow-countrymen ? Some of the passages in the " Diary " 
 upon this subject are deserving of quotation. In the " Ruined 
 Merchant " the following affecting scene is depicted : " Mr. 
 Dudleigh is hard at work, making his daughter a cowslip 
 wreath out of some flowers given him by his keeper. When 
 I took my leave to-day he accompanied me as usual down 
 stairs, and led the way into the little back parlor. He then 
 shut the door, and told me he wished me to bring him an 
 
 I 2-, 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 honest lawyer to make his will, for that he was going to 
 settle 200,000/. upon his daughter. Of course I put him 
 off with promises to look out for what he asked. As I 
 shook his hand at parting, he stared suddenly at me, and 
 
 said : ' Doctor D , my daughter is very slow getting 
 
 well, isn't she ?'.... I am still in attendance on 
 poor unfortunate Miss Dudleigh. The scenes I have to 
 encounter are often anguishing, and even heart-breaking. 
 She lingers on day after day, and week after week, in increas- 
 ing pain. By the bedside of the dying girl sits the figure 
 of an elderly, gray-haired man, dressed in neat and simple 
 mourning ; now gazing into vacancy with lack-lustre eyes, 
 and th&n suddenly kissing her hand with childish eagerness, 
 and chattering mere gibberish to her. It is her idiot father. 
 She insisted on his being allowed to continue with her, and 
 consented that a proper person should be in constant attend- 
 ance on him. She herself could manage him, she said, and 
 so it proved. He is a mere child in her hands. If he is 
 inclined to be mischievous or obstreperous, — which is very 
 seldom, — if she do but say ' hush ! ' or lift up her trembling 
 finger, or fix her eye upon him reprovingly, he is instantly 
 cowed, and runs up to kiss her and be friends. He often falls 
 down on his knees when he thinks he has offended her, and 
 cries like a child." In the " Spectre-Smitten " Warren gives 
 the following awful scene of a deluded mind : " He took 
 the candle in his hand, and was making for bed, when his 
 eyes caught the glimpse of an object which brought him 
 senseless to the floor. The furniture of his room was dis- 
 posed as he had left it, for his laundress had neglected to 
 
 126 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 come and put things in order. The table, with a few books 
 on it, was drawn towards the fire-place, and by its side 
 stood the ample-cushioned arm-chair. The first object visible 
 with sudden distinctness, was a figure sitting in the arm- 
 chair. It was that of a gentleman, draped in dark-colored 
 clothes ; his hands, white as alabaster, closed together over his 
 lap, and the face looking away, but it turned slowly toward 
 
 Mr. , revealing to him a countenance of ghastly hue ; 
 
 the features glowing like steel heated to a white heat, and 
 tqe two eyes turned full towards him, and blazing — abso- 
 lutely blazing, he described it — with a most horrible lustre. 
 
 The appalling spectre, while Mr. 's eyes were riveted upon 
 
 it, though glazing fast with fright, slowly rose from its seat, 
 stretched out both arms, and seemed approachinp- him, when 
 he fell senseless on the floor, as if smitten with apoplexy." 
 But the following outline of remedial treatment, which he 
 gives in " Intrigue and Madness," deserves to be studied by 
 every one who has charge of the mentally afflicted : " To me 
 nothing is so affecting, so terrible, so humiliating, as to see 
 a powerful intellect like that of Mr. Warningham, the prey 
 of insanity; exhibiting glimpses of greatness and beauty amid 
 all the chaotic gloom and havoc of madness, reminding one of 
 the mighty fragments of some dilapidated structure of Greece 
 or Rome, mouldering apart from one another ; still displaying 
 the exquisite moulding and chiseling of the artist, and enhanc- 
 ing the beholder's regret that so glorious a fabric should have 
 been destroyed by the ruthless hand of Time. Insanity, indeed, 
 makes the most fearful inroads on an intellect distinguished 
 by its activity, and the flame is fed rapidly by the fuel 
 
 127 
 
SAMUEL WARREN. 
 
 afforded from an excitable and vigorous fancy. A tremendous 
 responsibility is incurred in such cases by the medical attend- 
 ants. Long experience has convinced me that the only 
 successful way of dealing with such patients as Mr. Warning- 
 ham, is by chiming in readily with their fancies, without 
 seeming in the slightest degree shocked or alarmed by the 
 most monstrous extravagances. The patient must never be 
 startled by any appearance of surprise or apprehension from 
 those around him ; never irritated by contradiction, or indi- 
 cations of impatience. Should this be done by some in- 
 experienced attendant, the mischief may prove irremediable 
 by any subsequent treatment ; the flame will blaze out 
 with a fury which will consume instantly every vestige of 
 intellectual structure, leaving the body or shell — the bare 
 blackened walls alone — a scoff", a jest, a by-word through 
 the world." The appointment of Commissioner of Lunacy, 
 which was bestowed upon him in February, 1859, Warren still 
 retains. To it is attached an income of 2,000/. a year; but 
 in consequence of ill-health, and the increasing business of his 
 more important office, he has recently resigned the Record- 
 
 ership of Hull 
 
 128 
 
n 
 
 Lo^>ruy^ tTI 
 
 CZi^ 
 
 ^ft "^ Cij MJ''r'\ 
 
w 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE 
 
 |HE extreme purity of life, and deep religious 
 convictions of Sir Thomas More, coupled with 
 the fact that he was hounded to the scaffold 
 by the courtly myrmidons of Henry the Eighth, 
 ff^i^j for refusing the oath of Royal supremacy in 
 matters of religious belief, place him on a 
 very high pedestal of personal virtue ; and en- 
 title him, equally with St. Thomas A'Becket, 
 to be considered a martyr Chancellor of Eng- 
 land. He was the son of Sir John More, a 
 puisne Judge of the Court of King's Bench, 
 and was born in the year 1480, near the end 
 of the reign of Edward the Fourth. His father lived to see 
 him Chancellor, and died at the age of ninety ; and it is 
 related as a beautiful indication of More's filial piety, that, 
 before taking his seat as Chancellor in his own Court, he 
 was wont to repair to the Court of King's Bench every 
 morning to ask on his knees his father's blessing. Sir 
 Thomas had been early indoctrinated by his father with 
 habits of frugality, and with a conviction of the necessity of 
 industry, energy, and perseverance to gain distinction in the 
 world. Even when sent to the University, his father kept 
 
 131 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE 
 
 him so scantly supplied with money, that he says he had 
 barely sufficient to pay for the mending of his clothes, a pri- 
 vation however to which, when he came to riper years, he 
 traced his having been "curbed from vice, and withdrawn 
 from gaming and naughty company." As the lawyers of 
 those days, both Judges and barristers, lived in the city, we 
 find that the future Chancellor first saw the light in Milk 
 Street, Cheapside ; and that to the school of St. Anthony, 
 in Threadneedle Street, — which produced Archbishops 
 Heath and Whitgift, and other eniment men, — he was in- 
 debted for his early education. At the age of fifteen he 
 became page to Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, and Chancellor, who, having united the red and white 
 roses, and as a wary courtier flourished under all political 
 vicissitudes, now enjoyed the full confidence of the founder 
 of the House of Tudor. The venerable Cardinal took a great 
 interest in More, who with sons of the best families in 
 England waited at his table, and was instructed in all learn- 
 ing and exercises in the palace. He was so delighted with 
 his wit and jests when he performed at the Christmas merri- 
 ments and other occasional plays, that he is reported to have 
 said of him, "this child here waiting at the table, whosoever 
 shall live to see it, will prove a marvelous rare man." By 
 the advice of his patron, he was shortly sent to the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, where he devoted himself with much assiduity 
 and enthusiasm to study at Canterbury College, now known 
 as Christ Church. Besides profiting in rhetoric, logic, and 
 philosophy, he evinced extraordinary precocity in the compo- 
 sition of poems, both Latin and English, and was soon recog- 
 
 132 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 
 
 nized as a distinguished orator, and an English prose writer 
 of remarkable elegance. At Oxford he formed a close friend- 
 ship with Erasmus, who was then spreading a taste for 
 Greek literature, and became the personal friend of Grocyn, 
 Linacre, and Colet, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's. Havino- 
 completed his course in two years, he was transferred to 
 New Inn, London, an " Inn of Chancery," to apply to the 
 study of law; and subsequently belonged to Lincoln's Inn, "an 
 Inn of Court," where he was taught the profounder branches 
 of the profession. In these Inns were then presented the dis- 
 cipline of a well-constituted University, law was systematically 
 taught by " Readers," and the pupils being exercised at 
 "Mootings," were severely tested in their proficiency before 
 they were permitted to practice at the Bar. It was not long 
 before More was appointed Reader at Furnival's Inn, where 
 he distinguished himself by his lectures for three years. He 
 also appears to have delivered lectures on moral philosophy 
 and history at the Church of St. Lawrence, old Jewry, to 
 which the learned Londoneis much resorted, his marked 
 ability in which was so great as to induce his friend Colet 
 to say that there was but one wit in England, and that was 
 young Thomas More. At this time he became so enraptured 
 with the pleasures of piety, that he had serious thoughts of 
 entering the order of St. Francis. He accordingly took lodg- 
 ings close to the Carthusian monastery, and, as a lay brother, 
 practiced upon himself all the austerities of that rigid order. 
 He found eventually, however, that sleeping on the bare 
 ground, and flagellation, — although he is said to have worn 
 a hair-shirt next his skin for the remainder of his life,— 
 
 133 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 were not edifying to his piety ; and being convinced that 
 God had allotted him for another state, he returned to his 
 profession. He shortly afterwards, considering himself well 
 adapted to domestic life, determined to marry ; and to make 
 himself a pattern of piety, humility, obedience, and conjugal 
 chastity. Having formed this resolution under the advice 
 and direction of his confessor, he was shortly invited by a 
 gentleman of ancient family in Essex, named Colt, to the 
 choice of any of his daughters, who were " young gentle- 
 women of very good carriage, good complexion, and very re- 
 ligiously inclined." He seems to have fallen in l«ve with the 
 second, who was the best looking; but thinking "it would be 
 a grief, and some blemish to the eldest to have the younger 
 sister preferred before her," he, out of a kind of compassion, 
 settled his fancy upon the eldest, whom he soon after 
 married. From the time of their union till her death, they 
 lived in uninterrupted harmony and affection. He now 
 rose rapidly at the bar, became particularly famous for 
 his skill in international law, and was raised to the 
 dignity of Under-Sheriff of the City of London, holding 
 a court weekly, in which causes of importance were 
 tried by him, with great dignity and uprightness. In 1504, 
 he was returned to the House of Commons, where he was 
 the first member who distinguished himself by public speak- 
 ing, and as a successful leader of opposition, incurred the 
 enmity of the Court. This he did on the occasion of Henry 
 the Seventh asking a subsidy for his daughter Margaret, on 
 her marriage with James the Fourth of Scotland. The crafty 
 and avaricious monarch requiring a greater sum than he ever 
 
 134 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 
 
 intended to bestow upon his daughter, his faithful Commons 
 refused all his demands at the instigation, as he was told, of 
 "a beardless boy," More being then only - four-and-twenty 
 years of age. In order to spite the son, Henry devised a 
 causeless quarrel with his father. Sir John More, whom he 
 sent to the Tower until he had paid a fine of a hundred 
 pounds. The Bishop of Winchester, appropriately named Fox, 
 now tried to inveigle the future Chancellor into making con- 
 fession to the King with a view to pardon and court ad- 
 vancement, which More wisely declined. The young patriot, 
 who knew that Heniy was only biding his time to wreak 
 his vengeance on him, then meditated exile to avoid danger, 
 when the death of the tyrant preserved him for his great 
 career and those honorable sufferings which preceded his 
 sacrifice for the principle of liberty of conscience in matters 
 of faith, twenty-six years later. When Henry the Eighth as- 
 cended the throne he contrived by his manners, accomplish- 
 ments, and fine person to render himself immediately a most 
 popular monarch, and he showed a royal disposition to patro- 
 nize merit wherever it could be found. More, having risen 
 to greater eminence than ever in Westminster Hall, was making 
 not less than ^400 a year, — a sum now equivalent, to /"io,ooo, 
 — when he undertook a case which became a " cause c^l^bre," 
 and at once brought him under his new Sovereign's special 
 notice. A ship having been seized at Northampton belonging 
 to the Pope, the Papal Nuncio retained More to plead for 
 its restitution before the Star Chamber, which he did with 
 such astonishing power, and such unanswerable arguments, 
 
 that, in the presence of the King, judgment was given in his 
 
 135 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 favor. Henry praised More for his upright and commendable 
 demeanor in this case, and, we are told, could "be induced no 
 longer to forbear his service." He was consequently created 
 m 1 5 14 Master of the Requests, knighted, and sworn of the 
 Privy Council. Having lost his first wife, he now married a 
 widow seven years older than himself, thereby rather verifying 
 a quaint and not over-polite saying of Sir John More, his 
 father, that women chosen for wives are like a bag full of 
 snakes with one eel among them, and that the chances of men 
 are consequently ninety-nine to one to be stung by a snake. 
 Over this lady, who was not of the sweetest disposition, More 
 is said to have attained, by gentleness and pleasantry, greater 
 influence than husband ever acquired by severity ; even induc- 
 ing her to take lessons on the cithera, the viol, and the lute. 
 He had built a house for himself, with an extensive garden 
 and farm surrounding it, at Chelsea, where his daughters, their 
 husbands and children, all residing under the same roof, are 
 said to have formed a model household, where no wrangling 
 or angry word was ever heard, every one did his duty, and 
 all was piety and peace. Sir Thomas, also, even when he 
 became Lord Chancellor, was wont to attend his parish 
 church at Chelsea, and, putting on a surplice, devote his 
 musical talents among the choristers to the service of the 
 temple. On the ground of his very learned conversation and 
 pleasant jests, the King often had him to his palace to sit 
 and confer with ; but it is said that, finding he was making 
 himself too agreeable, so that he could scarcely get leave once 
 in a month to go home to his wife and children, he was 
 
 forced to dissemble his mirthful conceits, and to become a 
 
 136 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 
 
 duller companion. His profound legal knowledge, also, led 
 to his being often sent on embassies to the Low Countries 
 to negotiate treaties, and settle disputes about trade, when 
 he was longing for the repose of his country retreat. In 
 1 52 1, he was made Treasurer of the Exchequer, an office of 
 dignity and profit, and two years later was advanced to the 
 chair of the House of Commons. Although the Speaker was 
 nominally the elected officer of the Parliament, the appoint- 
 ment was actually dictated by the Court, and the selection of 
 More on this occasion, whose fame was so wide-spread and 
 established, met with unexceptional approbation. In pleading 
 for liberty of speech, as has ever been the habit of the Speaker 
 of the House, he asked his "Noble Majesty" to "take all in 
 good part, interpreting every man's words, how uncunningly 
 however they may be couched, to proceed yet of good zeal 
 towards the profit of your realm and honor of your royal 
 person." Within a few days, however, he was brought into 
 collision with the great power of Wolsey, and had to make a 
 decided stand for the privileges of the House of Commons. 
 According to Erasmus, More was now regarded by the Cardi- 
 nal in the light of a rival, and an attempt was made to get 
 rid of him by banishment to Spain as Ambassador, but he 
 besought Henry "not to send a faithful servant to his grave." 
 Detecting Wolsey's motives, Henry said, "it is not our mean- 
 ing to do you any hurt, but to do you good we should be 
 glad. We shall, therefore, employ you otherwise." He was 
 accordingly appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 
 in 1525, an office held by distinguished lawyers and statesmen 
 
 down to the present time ; and he continued in such favor 
 
 137 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 with the King, that royal visits to his house at Chelsea were 
 
 of great frequency. His son-in-law, Roper, having on one 
 
 occasion congratulated More on the distinguished honor 
 
 shown him by the King, who had been walking with him 
 
 for an hour in his garden holding his arm about his neck, 
 
 his reply shows a thorough knowledge of Henry's intense 
 
 selfishness. " Howbeit, son Roper," he said, " I may tell thee 
 
 I have no cause to be proud thereof; for if my head would 
 
 win him a castle in France, it should not fail to go." More's 
 
 reputation was now extended all over Europe, and his 
 
 " Epigrams," his " Utopia," had been reprinted in Germany 
 
 and France. He was also personally known to the foreign 
 
 monarchs, having to make addresses of congratulation, as he 
 
 did with grace and eloquence at the meeting of the English 
 
 and French monarchs on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and 
 
 at the landing of the Emperor Charles in England. His last 
 
 foreign mission was as Ambassador to Cam bray, to treat of 
 
 a general peace between England, France, and the states 
 
 ruled by Charles the Fifth, on which occasion he wrote to 
 
 Erasmus, saying : " I do not like my office as an Ambassador ; 
 
 it doth not suit a married man thus to leave his family ; it is 
 
 much fitter for you ecclesiastics, who have no wives and 
 
 children at home, or who find them wheresoever you go." 
 
 But now arose that little cloud which was destined to change 
 
 the whole aspect of affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, in 
 
 England — the argument in reference to the divorce of Henry 
 
 from Queen Catherine. Between the two parties, More was 
 
 for awhile able to maintain a strict neutrality. The Duke 
 
 of Norfolk and the Earl of Wiltshire, the uncle and father of 
 
 138 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 
 
 Anne Boleyn, had hopes of making a partisan of him ; while 
 Queen Catherine is reported to have said that the King had 
 " but one sound Counsellor in his kingdom, and that was 
 Sir Thomas More." For a long time there had been " no love 
 lost," between Wolsey and More ; but when, in October, 
 I5:!9, Henry had finally taken leave of the Cardinal, deprived 
 him of the Great Seal, and banished him to Esher, appointing Sir 
 Thomas in his place, Wolsey was fain to admit that " he was 
 the fittest man to be his successor." The office having, how- 
 ever, been held by a Cardinal Archbishop and Pope's Legate, 
 it was feared that it would be lowered in dignity from the 
 prejudices of the vulgar, from being bestowed on one of no 
 hereditary rank, and whose judicial reputation had only been 
 acquired as Under-Sheiiff of London. To obviate this im- 
 pression, M ore's installation was made a most imposing 
 pageant, being headed by the Duke of Norfolk, and joined 
 in by all the nobility, Judges, and professors of Law. In his 
 charge to the people to receive " their Chancellor " with joyful 
 acclamation, the Premier Duke said, " it may perhaps seem to 
 many a strange and unusual matter, that this dignity should 
 be bestowed upon a lay man, none of the nobility, and one 
 that hath wife and children : because heretofore none but 
 singular learned prelates, or men of greatest nobility have 
 possessed this place ; but what is wanting in these respects, 
 the admirable virtues, the matchless gifts of wit and wisdom 
 of this man doth plentifully recompense the same." More's 
 elevation did not require this apology, for it was not only 
 popular in England, but also in foreign countries : and during 
 the two and a half years that he held the Great Seal, he 
 
 139 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 rendered solid satisfaction by an assiduous, honest, and upright 
 exercise of his high functions, and by a purity which is in 
 grand contrast with the mean, sordid, and unprincipled Chan- 
 cellors who were his immediate successors. It would seem 
 that at that period, it was not the custom for the Kings of 
 England to open Parliament by prepared speeches spoken by 
 themselves, or by commission, for we find that at the open- 
 ing of the Parliament, which was immediately summoned for 
 the impeachment of Wolsey, the King being on the throne, 
 the new Chancellor made the opening address to the temporal 
 and spiritual Peers, with the Commons attending, as is still 
 the custom, at the bar of the upper House. On that occasion 
 it is rather a stain upon his generosity that he should have 
 spoken of Wolsey in the way he did, who was awaiting 
 trial by those to whom his name was odious, and who were 
 determined, in compliance with the Royal displeasure, to pro- 
 nounce a severe sentence upon him. He is reported to have said, 
 •' as you see amongst a great flock of sheep, some be rotten 
 and faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the sound 
 sheep, so the great 'wether' which is lately fallen, as you all 
 know, juggled with the King so craftily, scabbedly, and 
 untruly, that all men must think that he imagined himself 
 that the King had no sense to perceive his crafty doings, or 
 presumed that he would not see, or understand his fraudulent 
 juggling and attempts." Some very valuable statutes were 
 suggested and passed by Lord Chancellor More, who, how- 
 ever, not being a member of the House, could not take part 
 in the debates, although the proceedings of the Lords were 
 
 entirely governed by him. On the judgment-seat he afforded 
 
 140 
 
S/R THOMAS MORE. 
 
 a striking contrast to the iiaughty Cardinal, hearing causes 
 daily from eight to eleven, and sitting in open hall after din- 
 ner, when "the poorer and meaner the suppliant was, the more 
 affably he would speak to him, the more heartily he would 
 hearken to his cause, and, with speedy trial, despatch him." 
 Although it is doubtful whether More did not look with a 
 certain kind of mild approval upon the principle of promoting 
 uniformity of faith by persecution and cruelty, yet he never 
 himself strained or vigorously enforced the laws against the 
 Lollards. Erasmus says : •' It is a sufficient proof of his clem- 
 ency that, while he was Chancellor, no man was put to death 
 for these pestilent dogmas, while so many at the same period 
 suffered for them in France, Germany, and the Netherlands." 
 When it became evident that the King had both the power 
 and the will to break with the Papacy, More found himself 
 placed in a most difficult dilemma ; and at length, clearly 
 seeing that it was impossible that the divorce could be granted 
 by the Court of Rome, he made suit to the King to be 
 allowed to resign the Great Seal, alleging declining health 
 as a plea. After much hesitation, Henry assured him that 
 for his good service " he should not fail to find him a good 
 and gracious Lord," a promise which the Royal polygamist 
 carried out by robbing him of all his estates and property, 
 and causing him to be beheaded. To this good and simple- 
 minded man, it was a pleasure to step down from his exalted 
 station, and to pass his retirement among the advancing literature 
 of the age, and in the promotion of the good of his fellow- 
 creatures. On the 25th of January, 1533, Henry privately 
 
 married Anne Boleyn, but the matter was kept secret till 
 
 141 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 Easter, when, being declared Queen, orders were given for her 
 coronation. On that occasion, More made a mortal enemy of 
 Anne, for he declined an invitation to the ceremony, although 
 waited on by three Bishops as the King's messengers, who 
 offered him ^20 to buy a suitable dress for the occasion. 
 The mother of Queen Elizabeth must necessarily have had strong' 
 points in her character, and there is no doubt that from that 
 moment the unobtrusive and upright-minded More incurred the 
 displeasure of Queen Anne Boleyn, even to death. A short 
 time after, having asked his daughter Roper, how the world 
 went, and how Queen Anne did, she replied, " In faith, father, 
 never better; there is nothing else in the Court but dancing and 
 sporting." "Never better!" said he. "Alas, Meg, it pitieth me 
 to remember unto what misery, poor soul, she will shortly 
 come. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she 
 will spurn our heads off like footballs ; but it will not be 
 lonsf ere her head will dance the like dance." This remarka- 
 ble prophecy of his own and Anne's death, was not long of 
 fulfillment. Attempts to wreak vengeance on him soon com- 
 menced. He was charged before the Privy Council with 
 being guilty of bribery when Lord Chancellor, but on 
 that occasion even false-witness seems to have failed 
 for the purposes of conviction. He was then accused as 
 an accomplice of Elizabeth Barton, a religious fanatic, known 
 as the " Holy Maid of Kent," who was charged with saying 
 that Catherine was still the King's lawful wife. Afraid of his 
 legal knowledge arid eloquence, the charge was heard privately 
 before Cranmer, Audley, the Duke of Norfolk, and Cromwell, 
 
 who tried all persuasion at first to induce him to ask any 
 
 142 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 
 
 favor of the King on submission to the doctrine of the Royal 
 supremacy. This being of no use, they threatened him, and 
 among his " villainies " to his Prince pointed out that having 
 provoked the King to set forth his book in favor of the 
 Pope, whereby the title of " Fidei Defensor" was obtained, he 
 had put into the Pope's hands a sword to wield against his 
 Sovereign. Informing their Lordships, "these terrors be for 
 children, and not for me," he requested them to remind 
 Henry that he had only put in order the materials, but that 
 the book was the Sovereign's own suggestion. Owing to his 
 firmness, however, the King's thirst for his blood was not im- 
 mediately gratified. On the 13th of April, 1534, having 
 refused every inducement to take the oath of supremacy, 
 beinaf summoned before the Commissioners at Lambeth, he left 
 his home, and was that night committed a close prisoner to the 
 Tower of London. Under all the pressure of his severe imprison- 
 ment, his cheerfulness and wit never left him. He was greatly 
 consoled in his imprisoment by his daughter, Margaret Roper; 
 but his wife who came to see him, and was a plain, rude 
 woman, upbraided him with playing the fool to li^ in a clos°, 
 filthy prison, when he could get his liberty by doing as the 
 Bishops and all the learned in the land had done. He re- 
 phed with cheerful countenance, " I pray thee, good Mrs. Alice, 
 tell me one thing." " What is it ? " she said. " Is not this 
 house as near heaven as my own." His "gracious" Sovereign 
 now thought his retirement was too much consoled by the 
 use of a small library with which he had hitherto soothed his 
 solitude, and to deprive him of it Solicitor-General Rich was 
 
 sent, who inveigling him in conversation under pretense of 
 
 143 
 
S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 
 
 ancient friendship, had the villainy to get into the witness- 
 box and give false testimony regarding it on M ore's trial. A 
 packed jury and partial Judges, with this miscreant's assistance, 
 — to whom after conviction, More said, " In good faith, Mr. 
 Rich, I am more sorry for your perjury than for mine own 
 peril," — soon settled the matter; and with the edge of the axe 
 now carried towards him, More was taken back to the Tower. 
 On arrival at the wharf he was met by his estimable 
 daughter, whose farewell embraces made even his guards 
 to weep. He was executed on Tower Hill, on the 
 6th of July, 1535, all parts of the frightful sentence being re- 
 mitted by special favor of Henry save the beheading, which 
 caused him to say he "hoped that none of his friends might 
 experience the like mercy from the King." To the Lieu- 
 tenant of the Tower, having some difficulty in mounting 
 the scaffold, he said, " Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me 
 safe up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself." 
 Having knelt and said the " Miserere," and told the exe- 
 cutioner to pluck up his spirit, at one blow the sufferings 
 and pleasantries of this faithful, upright man and good 
 Christian, were ended. His great learning, his child-like 
 simplicity of faith, his unsullied character as a judge, and great 
 attainments as a lawyer, added to his constancy, even unto 
 death, against the idea of binding consciences by kingly 
 power, and the establishment by penal legislation of a 
 o-overnment of State and Church, combine to render his 
 memory alike that of one of the noblest martyrs and the 
 
 greatest of England's Chancellors. 
 
 144 
 
James Cockcroft & Co. H.York: 
 
LORD ABINGER 
 
 AMES SCARLETT — by which name he will 
 always be better known than by the title of 
 Lord Abinger, only held by him for the 
 last few years of his life — was the descend- 
 ant of an illustrious English family on both 
 sides. On that of his mother, it was partic- 
 ularly interesting as connected with the Eng- 
 lish Commonwealth. The family of Scarlett 
 was settled in the little town of Eastbourne, 
 Sussex, in England, early in the seventeenth 
 century. After Oliver Cromwell's conquest 
 of the island of Jamaica, we find a Thomas 
 Scarlett emigrating to that Island in 1655, whose son be- 
 came member of the Assembly, and the possessor of large 
 estates and property. Robert, the father of Lord Abinger, 
 came from this stock, and married Elizabeth Anglin, whose 
 direct ancestor was President of the Lord Protector Crom- 
 well's Council during the Commonwealth. Of their union 
 two distinguished lawyers were born — Sir William Anglin 
 Scarlett, who became Chief Justice of Jamaica, and James 
 Scarlett, the eloquent English lawyer who is the subject of 
 
 the present sketch. First seeing the light in that important 
 
 147 
 
English colony in the year 1769, James was sent to the 
 old country for his education ; and having gone through the 
 usual course of school studies, eventually entered himself as 
 a student of Trinity College, Cambridge. Before he was of 
 age he took his Bachelor of Arts degree at that Univer- 
 sity, and three years subsequently, that of Master of Arts. 
 Having entered himself and studied law in the Temple, he 
 was eventually called to the Bar on the 28th July, 1791, 
 and within a year from that date married the daughter of 
 an Irish gentleman. There seems to have been no great 
 necessity for Scarlett to exert himself particularly in his 
 profession, for his circumstances were easy, and he was by 
 no means dependent on the Bar for a living. For many 
 years he appears to have merely attained a character for in- 
 dolence, and he may be cited as an illustration of the few 
 cases in which men have risen to great eminence at the 
 English Bar without the stimulant given to application and 
 talent, in the dry details of the legal profession, which is 
 afforded by poverty of circumstances. He joined the Nor h- 
 em Circuit, and also practiced in the court at Lancaster; 
 but for twenty-five years he remained a junior counsel, 
 although the greater part of that time he was making a 
 good business. His personal appearance was greatly in his 
 favor, — particularly distinguished and prepossessing, — so that he 
 enjoyed the reputation of being par excellence in the Courts 
 which he attended, " the handsome barrister." The ladies 
 who visited them were invariably attracted by these his 
 special merits, perhaps even more tb.an by his great forensic 
 
 powers ; and a biographer somewhat maliciously says that he 
 
 14S 
 
was the object of their envy for his fine complexion and 
 regular features. That he should be a favorite with the fair 
 sex is, therefore, not to be wondered at, while there is little 
 doubt that he reciprocated their admiration, and would at 
 all times prove their most powerful advocate when they 
 had causes in court. His great intellectual power and elo- 
 quence at length worked out for him a foremost position 
 in the courts at Westminster and on Circuit ; and in the 
 year 1816, he was made a King's Counsel. In the argu- 
 ments in Banco he was particularly successful. He hit the 
 most subtile points of a case with singular power; was 
 clear in his definitions, and always fortunate in extricating 
 the mind of the Court from entanglement, and putting the 
 questions in dispute into lucid form. So wonderfully did he 
 influence the minds of the Judges, where other men thought 
 by the Bar to be his equals and superiors entirely failed, 
 that it was said of him that " Scarlett had invented a ma- 
 chine to make the Judges nod and assent." Nor was his 
 influence less effectual with juries, who seemed to be power- 
 less, and to have no opinion of their own, under his en- 
 trancing powers. His diction was without effort; his periods 
 brilliant ; his manner invariably gentlemanly and persuasive ; 
 and he is said never to have had recourse to a violent 
 expression. At times, however, there is said to have been 
 an indistinctness in his enunciation, and he occasionally, 
 though not often, stammered a little. This latter defect, 
 however, has, singularly enough, existed in some of the 
 greatest orators of ancient and modern times. Mr. Scarlett 
 
 was never in the habit of running about from court to 
 
 149 
 
 
LORD ABINGER. 
 
 court for practice, and it has been specially recorded of 
 him, that whoever his client might be, rich or poor, or 
 whatever the fee marked on his brief, the case always com- 
 manded from him the same eloquence, energy, and careful 
 thought. He was reckoned as the most successful lawyer of 
 his time as regarded the number of the cases in which he pre- 
 vailed ; and in this respect was very unlike Brougham, who, 
 with transcendent talents, was not at all a fortunate advo- 
 cate for his clients. His knowledge of law was both exten- 
 sive and accurate ; more so, in fact, than any of his con- 
 temporaries. He showed, also, great tact, not only in 
 assuming his own positions, — which were laid down in a way 
 to render it almost impossible for contending counsel to 
 controvert them, — but he could detect with special acumen 
 the false steps and legal errors of the adverse party. By 
 his tact in this respect he could turn the tables on his 
 adversary, and whenever he discovered such an error in the 
 arguments opposed to him, he was accustomed to dwell 
 upon it at such length, and with such earnestness, that the 
 Court itself would frequently by his magnifying its impor- 
 tance, be induced to give it a consideration of which it was, 
 perhaps, by no means worthy. In addition to this great ability 
 for enlarging the holes in his adversary's legal armor, he exer- 
 cised consummate judgment in the selection of points of 
 even minor importance, which he would present on beh If 
 of his client. He would not suffer a jury to give cnly a 
 c;.rsory glan:e at any such particulars; while no man, per- 
 haps, that ever practiced at the English Bar displayed the 
 
 same ingenuity as Scarlett in concentrating into a focus the 
 
 ISO 
 
LORD A BINGE R. 
 
 material facts in favor of his own client, and marshaling at 
 the same time before judge and jury the errors and adverse 
 points of the opposite side. By such perspicacity he would 
 strip much of his opponent's case of professional technicali- 
 ties, and intelligently appeal to the plainest and most un- 
 sophisticated mind. His talents for simplifying abstruse 
 points and popularizing his arguments, have caused to be 
 said of him that he could make any subject perfectly in- 
 telligible to a jury of bricklayer's hodmen. In " Nisi Prius " 
 cases, he was in the habit of picking out and specially ad- 
 dressing himself to the juryman whom he thought the most 
 intelligent, and likely to influence the others when consid- 
 ering their verdict. The juryman so distinguished was natur- 
 ally flattered, and in a better condition to receive a satis- 
 factory impression from his speech. His singular personal 
 gifts and powers have been happily described in the following 
 words : " In Mr. Scarlett's manner, when addressing a jury, 
 there was something remarkably winning. He looked the 
 very incarnation of contentedness and good-nature. A per- 
 petual cheerfulness, amounting to a partial smile, irradiated 
 his sleek countenance. His laughing and seductive eyes did 
 infinitely more, in many instances, for his client than all the 
 legal knowledge he brought to bear on the question before 
 the Court. The very moment he rose to address the jury, 
 he looked at them quite as much in the ' How-do-you-do ' 
 style as if he had been on terms of particular intimacy with 
 each and all of them all his life. And from the commence- 
 ment to the close of his address, he spoke with as much 
 familiarity to them, as if he and they had formed some 
 
LORD A BINGE R. 
 
 ' free-and-easy ' club." Having made up his mind to seek 
 admission into the House of Commons, Scarlett twice con- 
 tested the Borough of Lewes between the years 1812 and 
 1 8 16, but on both occasions unsuccessfully. In 18 18, Earl 
 Fitzwilliam at length gave him a seat for Peterborough. 
 His free-and-easy style, however, did not suit the Legisla- 
 tive Chamber ; and we find that his Parliamentary efforts 
 did not realize the expectations of his friends. In the year 
 1822, he was returned for the University of Cambridge, and 
 subsequently represented Maldon and Cockermouth ; while 
 after the Reform Bill, he was member for the City of Nor- 
 wich. He rendered some considerable assistance to Sir Sam- 
 uel Romilly in his great measures for the reform of the 
 Criminal Law ; and at least on one occasion is said to have 
 delivered a first-rate speech. This was on the introduction 
 of a bill by Lord Castlereagh to pay / 10,000 a year to 
 the Duke of York for expenses incurred as the custodian 
 of the person of his father, George the Third. Mr. — after- 
 wards Lord — Denman criticised the measure as an outrageous 
 attempt to increase the burdens of the people for the pur- 
 pose " of inducing a son to perform the most sacred of all 
 duties to an aged parent," and Scarlett made a famous 
 speech, " one of the ablest," Brougham said, " that any pro- 
 fessional man ever made," and he sat down amid loud and 
 general cheers. In 1827, at the amalgamation of the politi- 
 cal parties by Canning, Scarlett was made Attorney-General 
 — in succession to Sir Charles Wetherell, who had resigned — 
 and was knighted. He held the office, however, for only 
 
 one year, but again succeeded Sir Charles Wetherell in 
 
 152 
 
LORD ADINGER. 
 
 1829, when he "ratted" and took office under a Tory ad- 
 ministration. On that occasion, D^nman fully supported the 
 course he took, in a letter in which he says, "If, as I have 
 heard it reported, so very important a step has been taken, 
 from whatever laudable motives, against the general views 
 of the Whig paity, I now deliberately repeat the opin- 
 ion I declared to you tvvo hours ago, that you would 
 be fully justified in accepting office under Canning ; and if 
 your doing so could give stability to his government, I do 
 not think you would be justif.ed in lefusing it." His very 
 first act under the influence of the Tory party was to in- 
 stitute criminal proceedings against " The Mor7iing Post '' 
 and "Atlas" newspapers for libels on the government, which 
 was rather a melancholy commentary on all the fine speeches 
 he had been in the habit of making, in and out of Par- 
 liament, in favor of the liberty of the Press. He, however, 
 amended the law relating to libels by a modification of the 
 six acts. The legal profession was also indebted to him for 
 several valuable measures. He got rid of movable terms, 
 and made them fixed, and abolished the separated Welsh 
 Judicature, and gave the Judges of the West undisputed 
 ascendancy in the Courts. In reference to the trials for 
 libel in which Scarlett was engaged, the following is a re- 
 markably good anecdote, showing his power of inflicting 
 torture as counsel. It was on the trial of Cobbett for the 
 libel ot an attorney, and the editor of " T/ie Register " had 
 for many months been treating Scarlett in almost every issue 
 to that unrivalled abuse of which he was so complete a 
 master. That it might be done the more effectually, and the 
 
 '53 
 
LORD ABINGER, 
 
 reader be prepared for what was to follow, Cobbett put his 
 diatribes in the form of letters, each one of which com- 
 menced " Base lawyer Scarlett." Mr. Scarlett sensibly smarting 
 under the castigation thus administered, found the opportunity 
 of retaliation when Cobbett was brought into a court of 
 law. Against the libeller of " The Register" were arrayed 
 Brougham, Denman, and Scarlett, a formidable trio to be 
 pitted against an unprofessional man. In Brougham and 
 Denman's denunciations of him as the alleged author of the 
 libel — which were probably quite as severe — Cobbett did 
 not imagine that any personal vindictiveness was paramount, 
 but in Mr. Scarlett's address to the jury, he could see noth- 
 ing but a personal affair, and the gratification of private 
 revenge. Scarlett concluded his speech in the following 
 words : " Gentlemen of the Jury, it is impossible for me to 
 estimate the amount of injury which this malignant and 
 systematic libellei " — pointing to Cobbett — "has inflicted on 
 my client ; and no damages, however great, can afford him 
 compensation for the injury thus done him. Gentlemen, my 
 client is at present an attorney, but had the intention of 
 preparing himself for the Bar; and being a young man of 
 great talents, there was no distinction in the profession to 
 which he might . not have reasonably expected to attain. 
 Nay, gentlemen, I will say that even the woolsack itself was 
 an elevation to which he would have been justified in aspir- 
 ing. But, gentlemen, the virulent calumnies with which this 
 notorious trader in libels has heaped upon him, have blasted 
 all his fair prospects, and well-nigh broken his heart. It is, 
 
 therefore, for you, gentlemen, to mark your abhorrence of 
 
 154 
 
the atrocious conduct of this person, by giving a corre- 
 sponding amount of damages." Cobbett rose immediately on 
 Mr. Scarlett's resuming his seat, and putting both hands be- 
 neath his coat, and eyeing the jury with a bland and hu- 
 morous expression of countenance, said : " Gentlemen, you 
 are men of the world, and must laugh in your own minds 
 at all the flummery you have just heard. You know, gen- 
 tlemen, such stuff" about injury to character, and blasting 
 one's prospects, and destroying one's peace, is to be heard 
 in this court at every hour of the day. The lawyer" — 
 pronouncing the word in a way to give it a very peculiar 
 and emphatic meaning — "the lawyer who has been vilifying 
 me for the last hour and a half, would do the same, gen- 
 tlemen, in either of your cases, if hired for the purpose. 
 You know, gentlemen, that, like the girls who walk the 
 streets, these persons" — pointing to Brougham, Denman, 
 and Scarlett — " will prostitute themselves to any dirty work 
 for which they may be engaged. They are always, gentlemen, 
 at the sei'vice of the highest bidder. The great crime, it 
 seems, gentlemen, which I have committed, is that of having 
 crushed a lawyer in the egg." Here Mr. Cobbett turned 
 about his ponderous body, pointed to Mr. Scarlett, and 
 looked at him at the same time with a look of unut- 
 terable scorn. The allusion was at once felt, both by the 
 Court and the jury, in all its force, as applicable to the cas- 
 tigations Cobbett had so often given Scarlett, and it told with 
 amazing effect. Brougham and Denman looked at each other 
 as if struck with the singular felicity of the hit. Cobbett 
 proceeded for a couple of hours raking up and pouring out 
 
 155 
 
LORD ABINGER. 
 
 afresh on the head of Mr. Scarlett all the abuse he had 
 heaped on him in his "Register" so that the learned gentle- 
 man, to use a legal phrase, " took nothing by his motion." 
 On December 24th, 1834, Sir James Scarlett was raised by 
 Sir Robert Peel to the Bench, succeeding Lord Lyndhurst 
 as Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, and in the 
 following month he was elevated to the House of Peers by 
 the title of Lord Abinger, of Abinger, in Surrey, an estate 
 which he had purchased. Singular to relate, with his eleva- 
 tion to the Bench, Lord Abinger seems quite to have lost 
 his peculiar powers, and in the ermine and the full-bottomed 
 wig he was no longer omnipotent with juries. A great ad- 
 mirer of him, when, as Mr. Scarlett, he led the Bar, says : 
 ' It was his face that did it all ; there was no resisting its 
 seductive aspect. To the cause of many an opposing party 
 Mr. Scarlett's smile proved fatal. I have often thought that 
 his making a speech in the usual way was a mere was'e 
 of time, and an unnecessary exertion of his lungs. It 
 would, I am convinced, have been in many cases quite 
 enough, if he had simply told the jury that everything that 
 was said on the other side was pure nonsense — that it had 
 no relevancy to the case before the Court — that the law 
 and the justice of the case were in favor of his client, and 
 that he was sure they would not hesitate a moment in re- 
 turning a verdict to that effect. The resistless logic of his 
 face would have done all the rest ; his fascinating smile 
 would have filched the desired verdict from the jury." 
 As regards the judges themselves, it is an undoubted fact that 
 their views and decisions were imperceptibly influenced by the 
 
 156 
 
].ORD A BINGE R. 
 
 extraordinary fascination of his mode of addressing them. 
 With his gown folded in hand at the sides, and his aims 
 on his breast, he smiled in their faces from the beginning to 
 the end of his address ; talking all the while to them as if he 
 were engaged in a mere matter of friendly conversation. 
 As it was impossible for them under these circumsi;ances to 
 to be on other than the best of terms with the advocate, 
 his clients often reaped the benefit of the conciliatory and 
 seductive character of his speeches. The triumphs which 
 woman achieves by her smiles are proverbial. History and 
 works of fiction abound with records of the trophies which 
 the softer sex have won, by what a lawyer would call their 
 skill in the art of smiling. Woman's smile has often 
 achieved triumphs where all the intellectual and physical 
 power in the world would have utterly failed ; but for a 
 man to gain a series of distinguished moral victories by his 
 smiles is another matter. Its occurrence in the case of a 
 lawyer is still more extraordinaiy. Milton speaks of an 
 orator of antiquity, who by the charms of his eloquence 
 could wield the fierce democracy at his will. In the case 
 of lawyers, there are also instances of great effects being 
 produced by powerful oratory. Generally speaking, however, the 
 weapon with which they fight, and by means of which they 
 gain their conquests, is the tongue, associated with true elo- 
 quence ; though the mere gift of the gab, as the common ex- 
 pression has it, often proves the most eifective armor} in 
 Courts of Law conflicts. That is a gift which sometimes 
 proves more than a match for the highest order of intellect, 
 
 and the loftiest eloquence. Hence the most distinguished 
 
 157 
 
LORD ABINGER. 
 
 men, either as orators or philosophers, belonging to the pro- 
 fession,, are not always the most successful pleaders, and are 
 often defeated by men who are as innocent of brains as 
 their own wigs, but who chance to have what is called an 
 abundance of tongue. It is also stated of Sir James Scar- 
 lett, that in his most bitter denunciations of an opposing 
 party, he still preserved the same smiling countenance, and 
 that his face and manner were most playful at the very 
 time that he was pounding some opposing party to powder, 
 or some unhappy wight was writhing under the excruciating 
 tortures to which he was subjecting him. As Shakespeare 
 informs us, however, that a man " can smile and smile, and 
 be a villain," it is clear that the human countenance is not 
 always to be depended upon. That in spite of his impertur- 
 bable expression, Scarlett could wound and sting to the point 
 of retaliation, rousing the just indignation of his brethren 
 of the bar, is proved by what occurred between himself and 
 Denman at the trial of the Mayor of Bristol, in which 
 Denman appeared for the Crown, and he for the defense. 
 In one of Lord Brougham's letters he thus alludes to it : 
 " Denman's attack on Scarlett you may have heard spoken 
 of as ferocious; but all admit it was deserved, and was 
 purely in retaliation of a most wanton attack on us all. I 
 hear there was never anything more savage, but nobody 
 blames it." Whether as a Judge he entirely altered the ex- 
 pression of his face, or however otherwise it is to be ac- 
 counted for, it is certain that Samson was not more surely 
 deprived of his strength when his locks were shorn by 
 
 Delilah, than did Scarlett lose his peculiar fascinating influ- 
 
 158 
 
LORD ABINGER. 
 
 ence, when he exchanged the position of a Commoner for 
 the Peerage — the Bar for the Bench. He was no longer 
 the invincible Scarlett, and juries refused to be led by him. 
 It has been attempted to be accounted for by the fact that 
 he betrayed too much of the advocate in all his summings up 
 on the Bench. Instead of leaving the points at issue to 
 the jury, he almost invariably, in his mode of charging them, 
 intimated to them m terms which could not be misunder- 
 stood, what his opinion was of the decision to which they 
 ought to come. His decisions are also said to have been 
 marked by an absence of that reference to parallel cases 
 which the Bar expects at the hands of the Bench. Per- 
 haps the highest compliment ever paid to Scarlett, was that 
 of the venerable Sir John Coleridge, late Judge of the Court 
 of Queen's Bench, and father of the present Chief Justice 
 of the Court of Exchequer, who, speaking of his literature, 
 his science, his variety of legal learning, his appreciation of 
 facts, and soundness of legal principles, said in the year 
 1859, that his place at the Bar, twenty-five years after his 
 leaving it, was yet unfilled. As a Judge he would have been 
 expected to have rivaled the singular dignity of deportment on 
 the Bench of Lord EUenborough, or the particularly elegant 
 judicial bearing of Lord Denman ; but all who knew him con- 
 curred in the opinion that, with all his personal advantages, he 
 never appeared to advantage on the judgment-seat. At the Bar 
 he had, however, only one rival among his cotemporaries, 
 and that was the lamented Sir William FoUett, who always 
 appeared to move with a similar grace and ease under the 
 heaviest burthens. He piesided in the Court ol Ex- 
 
 159 
 
LORD A B IN G Eli. 
 
 chequer for ten years. Having attended the Norfolk Circuit 
 as one of the judges in 1844, he had reached Bury St. Ed- 
 munds, and discharged the business of a court day apparently 
 in full health, when he was struck with a fit of paralysis, 
 which left him speechless. He never rallied during five days, 
 and died at the advanced age of seventy-five. He lies buried 
 at Abinger, in Surry, the place from whence he took his 
 
 title. 
 
 160 
 
^.. . 
 
cx^. 
 
 ^^ /L^<^yjr-f''^- 
 
 ,.rivj- Coclrc:-olli Co/NXoik. 
 
LORD LYNDHURST 
 
 JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, — known as 
 Lord Ljndhurst, when he became Lord High 
 Chancellor of England, — will always be re- 
 membered for his qualities as a courtier and his 
 talents as a politician, rather than for those dis- 
 tinctive attributes which adorn the judgment- 
 seat. He was four times Chancellor ; and, on 
 two occasions, by designating to the Sover- 
 eign whom he should send for in a special 
 emergency, may be said to have had the 
 formation of Cabinets. America has a right to 
 claim him for her own. His grandfather, an 
 Englishman by birth, married an Irish woman named Mary 
 Singleton, and came with him to Boston, where both their 
 son and grandson were born. The son, the father of, and 
 bearing the same names as Lyndhurst, became an emiment 
 artist and Royal Academician of London, and is most notably 
 remembered by his picture of "the Death of Chatham." 
 When he sent copies of the print of this celebrated historical 
 picture to Washington and Adams, the former wrote "it is 
 rendered more estimable in my eye when I remember that 
 
 America gave birth to the celebrated artist who produced it," 
 
 163 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 and Adams replied, " I shall preserve my copy, both as a 
 token of your friendship and as an indubitable proof of 
 American genius." It was barely two years before the artist 
 set sail for Europe, for the purpose of studying the wonders of 
 the Vatican, and the various schools of ancient art, that his son 
 — whom he must have left behind him for some years with 
 his wife — was born at Boston on the 21st of May, 1772. It is 
 believed that the young Copley continued to reside in Boston 
 sufficiently long after the treaty of peace recognizing 
 American independence, to fix upon him indelibly the stamp 
 of American citizenship. At all events he exhibited an early 
 devotion to republican principles, took what he called the 
 "go-ahead side," at the risk of serious animadversion, and 
 was looked upon in England as a Jacobin, with opinions of' 
 an ultra-political complexion, before he was tempted by office 
 to adopt those high-Tory principles the honesty of which may 
 fairly be questioned throughout his life. When Chancellor, 
 having on one occasion denounced the Irish as " aliens," 
 Daniel O'Connell retorted that he was himself an alien, and 
 liable to be reclaimed as a refugee Yankee. He only once 
 again visited America, just before commencing his forensic 
 career, having obtained the appointment of Traveling Bachelor 
 for the University of Cambridge ; but the account he trans- 
 mitted of his travels to the University authorities is unfortu- 
 tunately lost. While here, however, he paid a visit to the 
 illustrious Washington, and traveled with Louis Philippe, 
 afterwards King of France, and then a refugee in the 
 United States. Of his youthful history very little is recorded, 
 
 but his memory is preserved as a lover and a poet, at the age 
 
 164 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 of fourteen, by some verses written when he was at school at 
 Clapham. At eighteen he was possessed of sufficient classical 
 knowledge to be admitted a pensioner at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, where his solid acquirements, the result of 
 steady application, caused him to be elected a Fellow, and in 
 four years he came out second wrangler. He then returned 
 to London, and, entering himself as a member of the Honor- 
 able Society of Lincoln's Inn, took chambers in the Temple, and 
 became the pupil of Mr. Tidd, the famous special pleader. 
 He got up a debating society at his chambers, where he 
 could indulge in the eloquence of which he was denied exer- 
 cise as a pleader under the bar, and soon proved himself a 
 capital and animated speaker. He was thirty-two years old 
 when, on the 7th of June, 1804, he was called to the Bar; 
 and, his progress for nine years having been remarkably slow, 
 he resolved to take the " coif," and was accordingly hence- 
 forth known as Mr. Sergeant Copley. One of those miracles 
 which consist in the conjunction of an opportunity to make 
 a great speech in a popular cause, and the ability to improve 
 the advantage, then befell him. He had not only shown his 
 sympathy for the numerous demagogues, who flourished in 
 that time of general discontent among the laboring classes, 
 but was in no sense particularly patriotic. On hearing of 
 Napoleon's escape from Elba, while walking in the street, he 
 enthusiastically threw up his hat and shouted, " Europe is 
 free," and although he did not mix with the radicals of the 
 day, who were men of low education and vulgar manners. 
 Sergeant Copley was looked upon by them as a likely de- 
 fender in cases of sedition and treason, as one indeed who 
 
 165 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 had faith in democratic revolution, and even contemplated 
 without dismay the establishment of an Anglican Republic. 
 Just at this time a Doctor Watson, a physician without 
 patients, who collected large assemblages of people in Spa 
 fields, near London, having caused a dangerous riot, was put 
 on trial for high treason ; and Copley, with Sir Charles 
 Wetherell, was called upon to defend him against the Crown 
 officers. His speech, which was calm and persuasive, was a 
 close chain of reasoning against the assumption that Watson 
 " had levied war against the King," and his concluding words 
 to the Jury were, '" although you can not approve of all the 
 prisoner has said and done, you will, without hesitation, 
 acquit him of this weighty and unfounded charge." Although 
 Lord Ellenborough strongly charged for a conviction. Dr. 
 Watson was acquitted. This trial made Copley. Lord Castle- 
 reagh was present in Court, watching the trial with great 
 anxiety, and, meeting the witty Jekyll in the street, said, " If 
 Copley had been for the Crown, the prosecution would have 
 succeeded." Jekyll replied, " Bait your rat-trap with Cheshire 
 cheese, and he will soon be caught." This was an allusion 
 to the office of Chief Justice of Chester, a government ap- 
 pointment freely used to seduce to the Ministerial ranks the 
 most promising politicians, who were members of the Bar. 
 Castlereagh is reported to have responded, " I think I can 
 discover in him something of the rat." And, true enough, 
 Copley proved himself thoroughly venal. On reception of 
 overtures by a government medium, he became a thick-and- 
 thin supporter of the administration, on the understanding 
 
 that everything in the law which the government had to 
 
 1 66 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 bestow, should be within his reach. He was returned to Par- 
 Uament as member for Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, and 
 in the following year was made Chief Justice of Chester. 
 His name was now among the Ministerial majority in every 
 division, and he forced himself to bear the odium, sarcasm, 
 and railleries which awaited him, with astonishing coolness, 
 only escaping by his previous absence from Parliament, the 
 disgrace of having to walk across the House, and front his 
 former associates. He went "the whole hog" in all the 
 measures of the ultra-Tory Ministry, and we shortly find the 
 eulogist of the French Revolution defending the arbitrary 
 and unconstitutional Alien Act, whereby, without cause assigned, 
 all but natural-born subjects, however long or peacefully they 
 might have lived under allegiance to the English Crown, were 
 turned out of the kingdom. In 1819, he was made Solicitor- 
 General, and became a regular member of Lord Liverpool's 
 government, and while his agreeable manners made him 
 popular with all branches of the profession, his spirited bear- 
 ing always secured him a favorable hearing in the House of 
 Commons. In the same year he married the widow of an 
 officer who was killed at Waterloo, and who was niece of Sir 
 Samuel Shepherd, the late Attorney-General. Having en- 
 larged the house in George Street, Hanover Square, in which 
 his father had lived, the handsome Lady Copley now reflected 
 fresh honors on her husband as the leader of fashion, and by 
 entertainments, admission to which was sought by the most 
 distinguished society. During the five years that Sir John 
 Copley held the office of Solicitor-General, he had to take 
 part in some important State prosecutions. Among them was 
 
 167 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 the trial of the Cato Street conspirators, against whom he re- 
 plied for the Crown, the result being that five of them 
 suffered all the barbarities attached to the punishment of the 
 crime of high treason. Then came the Manchester massacre, 
 or the " battle of Peterloo," as it was called, the result of the 
 popular discontent which broke out in licentious publications 
 from the press, and ended in tumultuary assemblages of the 
 people. These produced the celebrated Six Acts, which were 
 carried through the House of Commons by* Copley, by which 
 the Constitution was virtually suspended, oral discussion was 
 interfered with both in debating societies and philosophical 
 meetings, and no man could venture to write upon political 
 subjects except at the peril of being sent beyond the seas 
 as a felon. In supporting them, he affirmed that it would be 
 impossible to conciliate the reformers, and said that the very 
 attempt would give a triumph to the disaffected, and encour- 
 age them to rally round the banners of sedition. On one 
 occasion during the discussion of these Acts, Lord Tavistock 
 having alluded to his former opinions, Copley said, " Why am 
 I taunted with inconsistency .? " and added, " I confess that 
 during my short parliamentary experience I have seen noth- 
 ing in the views of the gentlemen opposite, to induce me to 
 join them." It is said that Macintesh, knowing how 
 thoroughly mercenary a Parliamentary soldier Copley was, 
 whispered to Lord John Russell, " instead of quarreling with our 
 views, he should have said that he did not like our prospects." 
 Now came the death of George the Third, and the great 
 trial of Queen Caroline, in which Giflford the Attorney- 
 General, with Copley, were matched against Brougham and 
 
 168 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 Denman. Copley infinitely surpassed his colleague upon that 
 occasion, and succeeded at the conclusion of a brilliant speech 
 in turning Denman 's unfortunate quotation, " go and sin no 
 more," against the Queen and her advocate. No change 
 took place in the Law officers till October, 1824, when Gif- 
 ford, being made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Copley 
 succeeded him as Attorney-General ; but in that capacity he 
 was a mild public prosecutor, the spirit of the Six Acts having 
 died out with the decease of Lord Castlereagh. He resisted 
 all reforms in the Law proposed by opposition members, and 
 denounced as unnecessary and dangerous the " Prisoner's 
 Counsel Bill," maintaining that in trials for felony, the Judge 
 was counsel for the accused. His great stock of general im- 
 formation, superior oratorical powers, and fascinating manners, 
 made him at this time such a general favorite with the high 
 Tories, that he entertained the idea of quitting the legal pro- 
 fession, and striving against Perceval to be the successor of 
 Lord Liverpool in the Premiership. He affected all the 
 ways of a man of fashion, was desirous when he took a trip 
 to Paris of being thought to have indulged in all the gayeties 
 of that dissipated capital, and greatly shocked Lord Eldon by 
 driving about town in a smart cabriolet with a " tiger " be- 
 hind him. Having been returned as member for his own 
 University, he now declared himself a strong anti-Catholic 
 which he was specially induced to do by the death of GifiFord, 
 which opened the way for him to the woolsack as an anti- 
 Catholic Chancellor. Against Lord Eldon's advice in a 
 private letter to Sir Robert Peel, Copley was now made 
 Master of the Rolls, an office which he only held from 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 Michaelmas to April, and of his judicial performances in 
 which not a vestige remains. It is only recorded of him that 
 while holding it "he sat as seldom as possible, rose as early 
 as possible, and did as little as possible." He then devoted 
 himself almost entirely to politics, and in March of the fol- 
 lowing year, — 1827, — on Mr. Plucket's motion for removing 
 the disabilities of His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, 
 made a celebrated speech against the Catholics, despite the 
 sneers which were excited by his complete conversion from 
 Jacobinism to bigotry. Following Lord Eliot, — afterwards as 
 Earl of St. Germans, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, — Copley 
 argued that the Protestants of England were put upon their 
 defense, and that the misdeeds of the Catholics down to the 
 Irish massacre of 1641, made it natural to guard against the 
 repetition of such outrages ; while the attempt to reintroduce 
 popery in the reign of James the Second justified the penal 
 code of William the Third ; and he had the effrontery to con- 
 clude a speech which he nearly borrowed verbatim from 
 Dr. Phillpotts, Prebendary of Durham, — afterwards made 
 Bishop of Exeter, for " ratting " on the same question, — by 
 boldly claiming credit for sincerity ! Having fully established 
 his capability on this great religious political controversy, 
 and Lord Eldon having resigned the Great Seal, under the 
 idea that Canning, the new Minister, could not stand, Copley 
 on the 1 2th of April was created Lord Chancellor, and raised 
 to the Peerage by the title of Baron Lyndhurst. The King, 
 doubtless not forgetting all Copley's efforts to degrade the 
 persecuted Caroline, expressed his high satisfaction at being 
 
 able to place the ' clavis regni ' in " the hands of one in 
 
 i;o 
 
L ORB L } 'NDHURS T. 
 
 whom he reposed entire confidence." At the death of Can- 
 ning, a few months subsequently, the premiership was con- 
 ferred upon Lord Goderich, whose wisest act was, just 
 previously to the meeting of Parliament, to announce his 
 incapacity to Lyndhurst, who accompanied him to Windsor 
 to present his resignation to the King. On the Chancellor's 
 solicited advice, George the Fourth sent for the Duke of 
 Wellington, only saying, "but remember, whosoever is my 
 Minister, you, my lord, must remain my Chancellor." During 
 the Duke's administration, Lyndhurst concurred in carrying 
 two measures of liberal tendency which were forced upon the 
 government, one being the repeal of the Corporation and Test 
 Acts, and the other Catholic emanicipation, which he had so 
 strenuously opposed in the lower House. Lyndhurst, on the 
 latter occasion, was violently assailed by Lord Eldon ; but his 
 wonderful self-possession and dignity got him through all diffi- 
 culties. He assured the noble and learned Lord that his fears 
 were vain, for Catholics had sat in both Houses long after the 
 Reformation, without any danger to the Reformed faith. 
 "This," he said, "is proved by a speech of Colonel Birch, who 
 in the course of his argument in the House of Commons, in 
 the reign of Charles the Second, said, 'will you at one step 
 turn out so many members.?' alluding to the Roman 
 Catholics. I state this as one of the many facts that never 
 were disputed, to show that the Roman Catholics sat in Par- 
 liament under our Protestant government." Lord Eldon. — 
 " Did the noble and learned Lord know that last year 1 " 
 Chancellor. — " I confess that I did not : but, my Lords, I 
 have since been prosecuting my studies ; I have advanced in 
 
 '7' 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 knowledge ; and, in my humble opinion, even the noble and 
 learned Lord might improve himself in the same way." This 
 sally set the House in a roar, and it was generally agreed 
 that Lyndhurst's speech in favor of emancipation, was quite as 
 able as that which he had delivered against it in the previous 
 year. The bill passed by a large majority. Some of the 
 duties of Chancellor he performed with great vigor and dclat. 
 Regardless of parties, he was liberal in the distribution of the 
 honors of the bar, and he claimed, and always acted on his 
 right, as holder of the Great Seal, to appoint the puisne 
 Judges, taking the pleasure of the Sovereign, but without con- 
 sultation with his colleagues or the Premier. His private 
 practice had not been lucrative, and although his official pay 
 had been considerable, he had spent money as fast as he 
 earned it. Entertaining in splendid style, and heightening 
 the performances of his French cook and Italian con- 
 fectioner by his wit and convivial powers, it is said that 
 executions were so frequent in his house, that his band of 
 attendants at table was generally swelled by sheriff's officers 
 put into livery. George the Fourth, having died on the 26th 
 of June, 1830, the Ministry of the Duke of Wellington 
 struggled on until November of the same year. Lyndhurst 
 would have been quite willing to intrigue with Lord Grey 
 for the retention of the Great Seal, and it is said he had a 
 powerful all)" in Lady Lyndhurst, whose beauty and lively 
 manners had fascinated the venerable Whig Earl ; but the 
 claims, or rather the threats, of Brougham proved too power- 
 ful. Such was Lyndhurst's influence that he was shortly after 
 
 appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer, although it was 
 
 172 
 
L ORD L \ ^NDHURS T. 
 
 quite unprecedented for a Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, 
 after resigning the Great Seal, to become a Common-Law 
 Judge. In that capacity he gave clear, convincing, and dig- 
 nified judgments ; and was a great favorite with the Bar by 
 reason of his courtesy. As a Chancellor, his character is 
 admirably summarized by Lord Campbell in the following 
 words: "He took no bribes, and he never was influenced by 
 any improper motives in deciding for one party rather than 
 the other — further than taking the course which would give 
 him the least trouble, and which least exposed him to un- 
 pleasant criticism. His excellent good sense and admirable 
 tact kept him out of scrapes. Avoiding danger, he was care- 
 less about glory; and not by any means over-anxious or scru- 
 pulous about the business of the Court being disposed of 
 satisfactorily. He sat in the Court of Chancery as little as he 
 possibly could, and his great object was to shirk the decision 
 of perplexed and difficult questions. Upon appeals from the 
 Master of the Rolls, and the Vice-Chancellors, he almost always 
 ' affirmed ' ; by which he had the treble advantage of lessen- 
 ing the number of appeals, of having the good word of 
 the Judge appealed from, and of shunning the necessity for 
 giving reasoned judgments." Although owing his new 
 appointment to the Whigs, he did his utmost to oppose 
 their government, and was one of the most formidable 
 opponents of Lord Grey's Reform Bill. On its second 
 reading he spoke after Brougham, of whom he said : " The 
 noble Lord on the woolsack, with his buoyancy and nimble- 
 ness, may for a time float upon the tide and play his 
 
 gambols on the surface, but the least check will submerge 
 
 173 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 him, and he will sink to rise no more." Speaking of his 
 
 oricrin on this occasion, he said, " I can not boast an 
 
 illustrious descent. I have sprung from the people. I owe the 
 
 situation I have the honor to hold in this House, to the 
 
 generous kindness of my late Sovereign. But if I thought 
 
 that your Lordships were capable of being influenced by the 
 
 threats which have been audaciously held out to you, and 
 
 that you should be so induced to swerve from the discharge 
 
 of your duty, when everything valuable in our institutions 
 
 is at stake, I should be ashamed of this dignity, and take 
 
 refuge from it in the comparative obscurity of private life, 
 
 rather than mix with men .so unmindful of the obligations 
 
 imposed upon them by their high station and illustrious 
 
 birth." These words were uttered in October, 1831. When 
 
 the Peers had rejected the bill, and William the Fourth had 
 
 declined Lord Grey's suggestion to create new Peers for the 
 
 express purpose of passing it, the King sent for the Chief 
 
 Baron to advise him. Lyndhurst told His Majesty that he 
 
 was in favor of a well-considered measure of reform, and 
 
 could he have got the party to support him, he no doubt 
 
 would, in spite of his former language, have attempted to 
 
 carry a measure on the subject. As it was. Lord Grey 
 
 returned to power, and Lyndhurst ceased his opposition, 
 
 retiring from the House with many other peers in order to 
 
 let the Bill pass. Again in November, 1834, the Great Seal 
 
 passed into the hands of Lyndhurst during the one hundred 
 
 days, when Lord Melbourne being " sent for," and Brougham 
 
 being distrusted by his party, the Great Seal was put into 
 
 commission. Not long after a violent passage of arms oc- 
 
 174 
 
curred in the House of Lords between Brougham and Lynd- 
 hurst, in which the latter evinced remarkable command of 
 temper. When, in after years, Lord Brougham had finally given 
 up all hope of again being seated on the woolsack, the two 
 ex-Chancellors became ostensibly the closest of friends, but 
 Brougham never seemed to be aware that Lyndhurst was 
 perpetually making a cat's-paw of him, and leading him on to 
 attacks on the Whigs for the gratification of the Tory party. 
 Nothing delighted Lyndhurst more than, having put the recreant 
 ex-Whig Chancellor to the utmost use, to turn him privately 
 to ridicule, and exaggerate all his eccentricities. In the year 
 1834, Lyndhurst lost his beautiful and accomplished wife, who 
 was absent from him at the time in Paris. Three years after 
 he fell in love with a beautiful Jewess, to whom he gave his 
 hand in his 66th year, who also became a leader of fashion, 
 and led a life of devotion to him. On the 6th of 
 September, 1841, Lyndhurst became Chancellor under Sir 
 Robert Peel's Ministry, for the fourth and last time, and re- 
 mained keeper of Queen Victoria's conscience for five years. 
 No Chancellor since the days of the Plantagenets had ever 
 received the Great Seal so often from different Sovereigns. 
 At the passing of the Corn Law Abolition Act by Sir 
 Robert Peel, after his conversion by Richard Cobden, Lynd- 
 hurst was bound to defend it when it came to the House of 
 Lords. He is said thus to have addressed a protectionist Peer 
 who apologizingly complained that he was compelled to vote 
 against the government on the measure. " Bad opinion of 
 the Bill, my Lord ! You can't have a worse opinion of it 
 than I have ; but it was recommended from the Throne, it 
 
 17s 
 
L ORD L YNDHURS T. 
 
 has passed the Commons by a large majority, and we must 
 support it. The Queen's government must be supported." 
 Long and strenuously did Lyndhurst strive, after he had 
 stepped down and out for the last time from the " marble 
 chair," to bring about a reconciliation and fusion between 
 Peel and the Protectionists. The rupture was "beyond all 
 surgery," and he had to be content for eight years to fight 
 Lord John Russell, and all the forms of the new Coalition, 
 until Lord Derby's first Ministry came into office. He re- 
 fused then to be President of the Council, but at once 
 crossed over to the Ministerial side of the House, and, spread- 
 ing his aegis at all times over the Premier, said, " I am 
 content he shall reign, but I'll be protector over him." At long 
 past fourscore, while spending his autumn at Dieppe, he was 
 in the habit of assisting his friend Baron Alderon to fly paper 
 kites; but he could hardly be said to have attained a second child- 
 ishness, when he would amuse himself by turns in perusing the 
 writings of the Greek and Latin fathers on divorce — in order to 
 reply to the Bishop of Oxford on the indissolubility of mar- 
 riage — and in the amorous novels of Eugene Sue. The 
 affection shown him by his illustrious confreres. Lords Camp- 
 bell, Wensleydale, and Cranworth, in the latter years of his 
 life, is proof of the personal respect in which his character 
 was held. He made his last speech in the House of Lords 
 in his ninetieth year, speaking even then with much of his 
 wonted brilliancy and power, and peacefully sinking to his 
 rest, breathed his last on the 13th of October, 1863, in his 
 ninety-second year. 
 
 176 
 
Iw,-, 
 
K© (SAfflff^lELL 
 
 James Cocfc.crofr &. Co. New York. 
 
LORD CAMPBELL 
 
 S the writer of the lives of the Lord Chancel- 
 lors and Chief Justices of England, Lord 
 Campbell, who has now been dead more than 
 a decade, has failed to receive the same bi- 
 g ographical favor from any cotemporaneous 
 judge, the personal facts necessary for a good 
 life of him are singularly scarce. His ca- 
 reer presents altogether a powerful illustra- 
 tion of the value of Scottish intellectual 
 plodding, of thorough uprightness of charac- 
 ter, and a political consistency, based on en- 
 lightened and moderate views. " Plain John 
 Campbell" — -as he described himself when seeking the suffrages 
 of the Edinburgh electors, on being appointed attorney- 
 general, after he had been rejected by his former constituency 
 of Dudley, in 1834 — was the son of a Scotch Presbyterian 
 clergyman, who was, for more than fifty years, pastor of 
 his congregation, at Cupar, in Fife. The future Lord Chan- 
 cellor first saw the light in his father's manse on the 15th of 
 September, 1779; but none of those anecdotes of his infantile 
 peculiarities and Scottish manners with which he has illus- 
 trated the life of Brougham and other chancellors, are 
 
 179 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 obtainable. He was placed by his father, at the usual age, 
 at St. Andrews' College, and was a cotemporary there of the 
 great Dr. Thomas Chalmers. Having thence imbibed a sound 
 and practical education, John Campbell left his natal locality, for 
 the British metropolis, at the age of nineteen. He describes 
 himself at the time, as being " poor and obscure ; " but his 
 indomitable energy never failed him, and he was determined 
 that in whatever he embarked, he would succeed. He was 
 admitted as a student of Lincoln's Inn on the 5th of No- 
 vember, 1800, and at the same time became the pupil of Mr. 
 Warren, an eminent special pleader, and the tutor of many 
 distinguished legists. To assist himself in the means of life, 
 Campbell now applied himself to newspaper literature and 
 reporting. " The Morning Chronicle " was at that time a daily 
 London journal of great power, and edited with much ability, 
 while in parliamentary and other reporting, it always, until 
 it became defunct, some twenty years ago, held the foremost 
 place among the metropolitan dailies. Having formed the 
 acquaintance of the proprietors, Campbell was now employed 
 bj them in various ways; and amongst others, as their theat- 
 rical critic. With such a journalistic training, Campbell was 
 well fitted to undertake, as he did, after he was called to the 
 bar of Lincoln's Inn, in 1806, his very careful labors as law 
 reporter in the courts. His reports of cases bear evidence 
 of intense industry and judicious selection, and extend nearly 
 over ten years, when his increase of legitimate business in 
 the courts, and particularly at the Old Bailey in criminal 
 cases, compelled their abandonment. He was the first law 
 
 reporter who adopted the practice of printing solicitors' name.'? 
 
 180 
 
L ORD CA MPBELL. 
 
 at the end of each case, a practice which, although at first much 
 objected to, has prevailed subsequently, and been adhered to 
 by the highest authorities in legal reporting. The prudent 
 and canny Scotchman was now, by laborious diligence, making 
 his way, and was proving himself a successful barrister. As, 
 however, there is nothing like assistance from holding to the 
 skirts of other and foremost men, John Campbell most 
 judiciously paid attention to the eldest daughter of the 
 then leader of the legal profession, Sir James Scarielt, — 
 subsequently Lord Abinger, — to whom he was married 
 in 182 1. This soon gave him a lift in social status, 
 and in his professional career, while his ambition en- 
 larged itself, and he was now bent on entering the legisla- 
 lative chamber. At Trinity term, 1827, he received a silk 
 gown, and was made a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and three 
 years later he was returned to the first Parliament of William 
 the Fourth, as member for the borough of Stafford, being, at 
 that date, forty-nine years of age. He entered the House of 
 Commons as a very liberal Whig, and consistently espoused 
 the same political principles throughout his life. Fully ac- 
 quainting himself with all the forms and modes of proceeding 
 in Parliament, he became a useful ally to his party, and 
 seized, with judgment, every favorable opportunity of address- 
 ing the house. He had long seen the imperfection of the then 
 English system for the registration of deeds, and having 
 made the subject his own, and got nominated the head of a 
 commission to inquire into it, he brought in a bill, which, how- 
 ever, he was eventually, on that occasion, compelled to withdraw, 
 
 for a general register for all deeds and instruments affecting 
 
 181 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 real property in England and Wales. He made a lengthy 
 and effective speech upon the introduction of the Reform Bill 
 by Lord John Russell into the House of Commons ; and the 
 description he gave of the manufacture of a member of Parlia- 
 ment at that period, has become memorable. He said, " A 
 solicitor of Lincoln's Inn took down with him six friends in a 
 post-chaise, — that is, he took six pieces of parchment, which 
 would constitute as many voters, and by the aid of these 
 pieces of parchment, the member was made. The six pieces 
 of parchment were delivered to the nominal voters, the 
 election took place, the members were returned, and the 
 bits of parchment were replaced in the green bag — the 
 solicitor and his friends replaced themselves in the post- 
 chaise, and returned to London, having performed the duties 
 of electors of 'Old Sarum,' and sent a representative to that 
 House, not one inhabitant or resident in ' Old Sarum ' having 
 had anything to do with the matter." Fully to understand 
 this system of old-time British representative government, it 
 is necessary to explain that " Old Sarum " boasted but one 
 house — an inn, inhabited by its solitary landlord and his 
 family. He was a very useful and effective supporter of the 
 bill in its passage through the Commons, and strongly testi- 
 fied that all classes, high and low, were in favor of it ; and 
 that it particularly commended itself to the people, from the 
 belief, that it would give them cheaper bread and beer, and 
 higher wages. In 1832 he voted in favor of the abolition of 
 capital punishment ; and, as an ex-dramatic critic, took great 
 interest in a motion of the late Lord Lytton to inquire into 
 
 dramatic performances and the drama advocating " Free 
 
 182 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 trade in theaters, as well as in everything else." He also 
 strenuously denounced the newspaper tax; and on the ques- 
 tion of the public right to be present at the sittings of all 
 the courts of justice, said that the people were entitled to it, 
 "blackguards and all;" and that not even an appearance of 
 secrecy in judicial proceedings should be permitted. He 
 was very prone to display in debate that species of dry 
 wit for which — in spite of Sidney Smith's assertion that it 
 takes a surgical operation to get a joke into the head of a 
 Scotsman — his countrymen are remarkable ; and on a mo- 
 tion for the abolition of the Court of Exchequer, in Scotland, 
 urged his perfect disinterestedness, on the ground that, being 
 eligible for the office, he could not well desire a more perfect 
 " otium cum dignitate " than "a salaiy of ;^zi,ooo a year to 
 dispose of five cases in four years." On the dissolution of 
 Parliament, after the failure of Lord Grey's first Reform Bill, 
 Campbell was returned for the town of Dudley, in Worces- 
 tershire, and retained that seat — being, in the meantime, 
 appomted solicitor-general, and knighted — until 1834. Having 
 then to undergo re-election, when promoted to the higher 
 office of attorney-general, he found he had lost favor with his 
 , constituency on the ground of some intemperate expressions 
 which had seriously prejudiced some of them ; and, being 
 defeated in that quarter, he sought the suffrages of his fellow- 
 countrymen at Edinburgh, and was elected for that city. His 
 tenure of the two offices of solicitor and attorney-general 
 extended, with one slight interruption, over twelve years; and 
 his success at the bar, outside the liberal emoluments of law 
 
 offices, was eminently remunerative. The trials of the most 
 
 183 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 considerable public interest on which he was engaged, were the 
 cases of Norton v. Lord Melbourtte, then Prime Minister ; the 
 great case against " The Times " newspaper ; The Queen 
 V. Lawson ; the trial of the Earl of Cardigan, in the House 
 of Lords, for shooting Captain Tuckett, which was, in fact, a 
 duel on Wimbledon common ; and the trial of Hetherington 
 for a blasphemous libel, vilifying the Christian religion : the 
 particulars of all of which are reported in the collection 
 of his speeches. His elevation to the peerage occurred in 
 1 841, when Lord Melbourne eventually gave place to 
 Sir Robert Peel, as Prime Minister, and at the fag end 
 of their tenure of office by the Whigs, Lord Campbell 
 was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland, an office which 
 he had the honor of holding for the lengthened period of 
 sixteen days. The proceedings in this case, by the gov- 
 ernment, have not inaptly been described as " questionable 
 in their inception, precipitate in their progress, and extremely 
 ludicrous in their close." In that year, the ministry being iu 
 a very precarious position, and a bill brought in by them " for 
 facilitating the administration of justice," which could more 
 truly have been called a bill " for providing for Sir John 
 Campbell," having failed, it became necessary, in some way 
 to look out for the fortunes of the attorney-general, who stood, 
 as he would have said, " betwixt the de'il and the deep sea." 
 The learning and tact of Sir John were beyond doubt, and 
 his right to advancement unquestionable, while the only place 
 into which he would exactly be made to fit, was the Lord 
 Chancellorship of Ireland. This was held by the venerable 
 Lord Plunket, a judge equally distinguished by his eloquence 
 
 184 
 
and the association of his name with the intellectual history 
 of his country ; but as that learned man would not move 
 aside easily, it was found necessary, to carry out the govern- 
 mental job, to wrest the seals of his office from his grasp. Lord 
 Ebrington, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, accordingly, at 
 the dictation of the premier, wrote a letter, couched in no 
 ambiguous terms ; and intimating that, being aware of the 
 many favors which he had experienced from the government, 
 his resignation would be taken as a return favor. Of course 
 no man of honor could retain the seals of the Lord Chancel- 
 lor's office for one day after such a letter, without degradation ; 
 and Lord Plunket immediately forwarded his resignation to 
 Lord Melbourne. Campbell was at the time seeking to regain 
 the suffrages of the people of Edinburgh, in association with 
 his colleague, Macaulay ; and great indignation stirred the 
 people and the bar of Ireland, when they learned of the 
 outrage that had been accomplished. On the occasion of the 
 address presented to him by the Irish Bar, Lord Plunket said : 
 '' With regard to the particular circumstances which have 
 occasioned my retirement, I think it a duty that I owe to 
 mj'self, and to the members of the bar, to state that for my 
 retirement I am not in the smallest degree answerable. I 
 have neither directly nor indirectly sanctioned it, and in giving 
 my assent to the proposal which was made to me of retiring, 
 I was governed solely by its having been requested of me 
 as a personal favor to do so, by a person to whom I owe 
 such deep obligations, that an irresistible sense of gratitude 
 made it impossible for me to do anything but what I have 
 
 done." Perhaps a man of nicer and more sensitive feelings 
 
 185 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 than Campbell would have been loath, under such circum- 
 stances, to take the seat vacated by such a man as Plunket. 
 However, circumstances ordained that he should make no 
 mark as Irish Chancellor. He landed at Kingstown on the 
 28th of June, and, sitting in the Court of Chancery on the 2d 
 of July, heard one or two causes ; but a change of ministry 
 immediately occurred, and, after sixteen days' tenure of office, 
 he took his departure for England, leaving behind him not one 
 single trace of official duties discharged or public benefits 
 conferred. It is questionable, however, whether Lord Camp- 
 bell's fame would have been as great as it is, had he either 
 remained in the Irish Chancellorship for the following years 
 or been earlier created Lord Chief Justice of England; for, 
 to the nine years from 1841 to 1850 we owe almost his entire 
 work as a legal historian. It is strange to reflect how much 
 more perishable are the best efforts of oratory than the quiet 
 labors of the biographer — -new speeches, unlike new books, being 
 seldom popular. From Ulysses to a Gambetta, a Bright, an 
 Evarts, or a Wendell Phillips, orations have not been famil- 
 iarly read. The men who made the bar of France illustrious 
 by their eloquence, are forgotten ; and few know, even, that 
 Robespierre was a brilliant speaker. Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and 
 Erskine enjoyed but an evanescent celebrity, and Burke is 
 only occasionally taken from the shelf; while, of the great 
 orators of the two great nations of antiquity, only Cicero and 
 Demosthenes retain their hold on later generations. Those, 
 however, who have enriched literature with good histories and 
 biographies, have secured the permanence of their names, just 
 
 as Samuel Johnson is best known by his lives of the poets, 
 
 186 
 
LORD CAMPBELL 
 
 his journey to the Hebrides, and Boswell's voluminous work 
 of small gossip relating to him. Whatever be their faults, 
 there is no question that Lord Campbell will live most in his 
 histories of the English Chancellors and Chief Justices. There 
 is certainly an " ad captandtwi " vein running throughout them, 
 which may be thought a little undignified in so eminent a 
 judge in recounting the principal incidents in the lives of 
 his predecessors in office ; but Lord Campbell was, in every 
 respect, a first-rate, teller of stories, and had the gift of placing 
 interesting details in the strongest light. That he thoroughly 
 realized in his own mind the dignity and eveiy other quality 
 necessary to adorn the judicial bench, the following extract 
 will show. He says: "According to the ancient traditions of 
 Westminster Hall, the anticipations of high judicial qualities 
 have been often disappointed. The celebrated advocate, when 
 placed on the bench, embraces the side of the plaintiff" or the 
 defendant with all his former zeal, and, unconscious of partiality 
 or injustice in his eagerness for victory, becomes unfit fairly 
 to appreciate conflicting evidence, arguments, and authorities. 
 The man of a naturally morose or impatient temper, who had 
 been restrained while at the bar by respect for the ermine, or 
 by the dread of offending attorneys, or by the perils of being 
 called to personal account by his antagonist for impertinence, 
 when he is constituted a living oracle of the lavi^, puffed up 
 by self importance, and revenging himself for past subser- 
 viency, is insolent to his old competitors, bullies the witnesses, 
 and tries to dictate to the jury. The sordid and selfish prac- 
 titioner who, while struggling to advance himself was indus- 
 trious and energetic, having gained the object of his ambition, 
 
 187 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 proves listless and torpid ; and is quite contented if he can 
 shuffle through his work without committing gross blunders 
 or getting into scrapes. Another, having been more laborious 
 than discriminating, when made a judge, hunts after small 
 or irrelevant points : and obstructs the business of his court 
 by a morbid desire to investigate fully, and to decide con- 
 scientiously. The recalcitrant barrister, who constantly com- 
 plained of the interruptions of the court, when raised to the 
 bench, forgets that it is his duty to listen and be instructed, 
 and himself becomes a by-word for impatience and loquacity." 
 His eulogy upon Lord Chief Justice Holt is also a masterly 
 exposition of the highest estimate of the judicial character. 
 He says : " He may be considered as having a genius for 
 magistracy as much as our Milton had a genius for poetry, 
 or our Wilkie for painting. Perhaps the excellence which he 
 attained may be traced to the passion for justice by which he 
 was constantly actuated. This induced him to sacrifice ease 
 and amusement, and literary relaxation, and the allurements 
 of party, to submit to tasks the most dull, disagreeable, and 
 revolting, and to devote all his energies to one object. The 
 lustre of his fame in latter times has been somewhat dimmed 
 by our being accustomed to behold judges little inferior to 
 him ; but we ought to recollect that it is his light which has 
 given splendor to those luminaries of the law. During a cen- 
 tury and a half, this country has been removed above all 
 others for the pure and enlightened administration of justice, 
 and Holt is the model on which, in England, the judicial 
 character has been formed." There is little doubt that Camp- 
 bell's " Lives," will ever remain a standard work ; but the wide 
 
 i88 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 difference of various criticisms upon them may be judged by 
 the following. One critic says : " These works acquired a 
 greater popularity than might have been expected, and indeed 
 they are written in a sufficiently flowing and readable style. 
 Lord Campbell was not only fond of literature, but he had a 
 keen relish for popularity. He did his best to accumulate 
 anecdotes and dash off graphic sketches like the regular " light 
 writers" of his time, and he achieved considerable success in 
 this new sphere. But accuracy is not by any means a charac- 
 teristic of those " Lives," and there are often faults, which 
 detract from their merit. The style, though lively, is loose, 
 and sometimes even vulgar, and the gossip of each period 
 about the gTcat men of whom Lord Campbell is writing, is 
 produced with a gusto which says little for his delicacy of 
 taste, and argues, perhaps, some want of real kindness and 
 generosity." On the other hand, one of the ablest of the re- 
 views says of these works : " Lord Campbell does not flatter, 
 but he is perfectly candid. His leanings seem generally favor- 
 able to his sitters. He delights in bringing out their courage, 
 their justice, their generosity, their learning, and their acuteness. 
 That he should be equally honest in marking their defects, 
 is what would have been required by themselves, and we 
 trust would not be regretted by their friends." Some of the 
 " Lives " which were not finished at his death, have been pub- 
 lished posthumously, under the editorship of his daughter, and 
 particularly that of Lord Lyndhurst, who outlived him by two 
 years. During this period of judicial retirement and literary 
 labor, Campbell was ever a useful auxiliary to his party in the 
 
 House of Peers, and sat regularly in all cases of appeal, and 
 
 189 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 particularly Scotch. At the conclusion of this period of en- I 
 
 forced retirement from government office and judicial functions, 
 Campbell was fortunate enough to appear again before the 
 public in a more exalted position. In the year 1850, the 
 health of Lord Denman having completely broken down, he 
 was compelled, most reluctantly, to resign the office of Lord 
 Chief Justice ; and his regret was the more poignant, that he 
 had no chance of nominating his successor, and that he was 
 aware that the office would in all probability be offered to 
 Campbell, who, of all men, he was the most unwilling should 
 succeed him. Between those two learned Lords harmony 
 had long ceased to exist, owing to the parts which they had 
 respectively taken in the great cause relating to the privileges 
 of the House of Commons of Stockdale v. Hansard. Camp- 
 bell, then Attorney-General, laid down the doctrine that the 
 House of Commons is the sole judge of its own privileges, 
 which Lord Denman characterized as "an audacious propo- 
 sition," implying, as he said, " that the House of Commons 
 has power, by the Constitution of England, to make anything 
 lawful which it declares to be done in virtue of its privilege ; 
 or, in still more general language, that we in England live 
 under an absolute despotism, wielded by the majority of the 
 knights, citizens, and burgesses in the Parliament assembled 
 for the time being." Lord Denman never forgave Campbell 
 for the part he took in those proceedings; and, more espec- 
 ially, for repeatedly insinuating, both in writing and orally, 
 that Denman, in denouncing as he did the claim to privi- 
 lege set up by the House, was actuated by a vain desire of 
 
 putting himself forward as a champion of the people's rights, 
 
 190 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 with a view of obtaining popular applause. In reality, none 
 knew better than Campbell that the expression of the Chief 
 Justice's opinion on the question of privilege was not in any 
 sense volunteered by him, but was forced from him by the 
 leading counsel for the defendant, in insisting on a decision 
 upon it. Lord John Russell having offered him the post 
 on the first day of Easter term, 1850, Lord Campbell 
 took his seat in court as Lord Chief Justice, a position 
 in which his general bearing and great urbanity, combined with 
 the correctness of his legal decisions and the thorough 
 integrity of his character, combined for nine years to add to 
 his fame. Having, during several years, been mainly occupied 
 in public as a Peer of Parliament and Judge in appeal cases 
 in the House of Lords, he had now an opportunity of display- 
 ing his immense experience at the bar, and the general 
 accuracy of his legal knowledge. Remarkable for his clear 
 and rapid appreciation of the important points of a case, and 
 for his unwearied attention to the proceedings before him, his 
 legal decisions have been regarded as sound and indisputable, 
 while, if he had any judicial failing, it is said to have been 
 that in cases at Nisi Prius he was too anxious to win over the 
 jury to his own opinions, and to accomplish that he was occa- 
 sionally apt to descend to the arts of an advocate. As a judge 
 at common law, his patience was exemplary, and his decisions 
 those of a mind well stored with legal and forensic knowledge, 
 while his early occupation as a law reporter, and the 
 production of his famed reports of cases, which had earned a 
 reputation as models of correctness and propriety of selection, 
 
 contributed not a little to the accuracy and facility of his 
 
 191 
 
LORD CAMPBELL. 
 
 decisions as a judge. At length, in the year 1859, Lord Camp- 
 bell attained the last rung in the ladder of his legal elevation. 
 Lord Derby and his conservative ministr}'^ having then resigned 
 and given place to Lord Palmerston's second administration, 
 the great seal was offered by the Premier to Lord Chief 
 Justice Campbell. He sat on the woolsack for nearly two 
 years, adding to his fame ; and, at the advanced age of eighty, 
 fulfilling with distinguished grace and ability the duties of 
 Chairman of the House of Lords. Having sat in the Court 
 of Chancery on the previous day, he was suddenly taken with 
 a severe and immediately fatal illness on the 24th of June, 
 1 86 1, leaving an unsullied reputation behind him, and the 
 
 character of a most laborious and painstaking lawyer. 
 
 192 
 
 L 
 
sa^ [E©Wz?i^© 
 
 ^n 
 
 .Taiii-es C'"K:\-i:Gi'Oit 8c Co i"'l /Xc'xIl 
 
SIR EDWARD COKE. 
 
 HATEVER may have been the infirmities 
 and defects of character of Sir Edward Coke 
 when he held the office of attorney-general 
 of England, there can be no question that, 
 besides affording a bright example of judicial 
 independence — on which ground he was dis- 
 missed from the Chief Justiceship — England 
 was indebted to him for one of the main 
 pillars of its constitutional rights. When 
 the other Judges basely succumbed to the 
 despotism of the sovereign, and to the 
 blandishment, craft, and violence of the court 
 of Charles I., Coke framed and carried the Petition of 
 Right, containing an ample recognition of the liberties of 
 Englishmen, which bore living evidence against the lawless 
 tyranny of a King who governed without Parliaments, and 
 which, when Parliaments were resumed in 1688, was made 
 the basis of the settlement then permanently established. 
 Chief Justice Coke's father, although possessed of good 
 patrimonial estate, was bred to the law, practised at the 
 bar till his death, and reached the dignity of a Bencher of 
 
 Lincoln's Inn. He married Winifred Knightley, daughter and 
 
 IPS 
 
S/J? EDWARD COKE. 
 
 co-heiress of William Knightley, of Margrave Knightley, in 
 Norfolk ; and at the estate of Mileham, in that county on 
 the first of February, 155 1, their only son, Edward, was 
 born. He came into the world unexpectedly, at the parlor 
 fireside, before his mother could be carried to her bed, and 
 from the extraordinary energy he displayed on that occasion, 
 high expectations were entertained of his future greatness. 
 His mother taught him to read, and to her tuition he 
 ascribed the habit of steady application which stuck to 
 him through life. He was sent to the grammer-school at 
 Norwich in his tenth year, shortly after which he lost his 
 father who died in Lincoln's Inn, and was buried at St. 
 Andrew's, Holborn. His mother ,some time after, married 
 again, and he continued his education at the same school 
 for seven years, but exhibited there much greater powers of 
 memory than of imagination. At his sixteenth year, on 
 October 25th, 1567, he was admitted a pensioner of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, being his tutor ; but he left the University without 
 taking a degree. As the family estates were charged with 
 his mother's jointure and portions for his seven sisters, he 
 determined to follow the profession of the law, in which his 
 father had attained prosperity ere he was so untimely cut off. 
 He therefore went to London with a determination to be- 
 come a barrister, and rise, if possible, in the profession. He 
 began his studies at Clifford's Inn, one of the Inns of 
 Chancery, and on the 24th of April, 1572, became a student 
 of the Inner Temple. He now addicted himself to a most 
 laborious course of study, which he steadily pursued. He 
 
 196 
 
went to bed at nine, and rose at three, in the winter-time light- 
 ing his own fire. He read Bracton, Littleton, the Year Books, 
 and the folio abridgments of the Law, till the court met at eight, 
 where he remained till they rose at twelve. He attended read- 
 ings or lectures in the afternoon, and resumed his private read- 
 ings till supper-time, at five o'clock. He then attended the 
 "Moots," where difficult questions of law were proposed and 
 discussed. He then shut himself up in his chamber, and worked 
 at his common-place book till bed time. He never indulged in 
 plays or in such unprofitable reading as poetry, and it is said that 
 during the whole course of his life he never either read or saw 
 a play. His proficiency in legal studies was so great that the 
 Benchers of the Inner Temple called him to the bar on the 20th 
 of April, 1578, being one year before the usual time ; and the first 
 brief he held was in a case of " scandal magnatum," in which he 
 defended the Vicar of Norlinghara against Lord Cromwell, the 
 son of the Earl of Essex, the great ecclesiastical reformer. He 
 was soon after appointed Reader of Lyons Inn, where he lectured 
 to students of law and attorneys with such applause that crowds 
 of clients soon came to him. He was about this time engaged 
 in the great "Shelley" case, which by Queen Elizabeth's own 
 order was removed into the Exchequer Chamber before the 
 twelve judges, and from henceforth he got to be employed in 
 every case of importance tried in Westminster Hall, from which 
 he derived an immense income. Being always very avaricious, he 
 now began to add manor to manor, until the Crown was alarmed 
 at the possibility of his possessing too much for a subject ; but 
 having obtained leave to buy " one acre more," he became pro- 
 prietor of the great Castle Acre estate, of itself equal to all his 
 
 197 
 
57/? EDWARD COKE. 
 
 other domains. A few years after he had been called to the bar, 
 he married Bridget Paston, a young lady of beauty, learning, and 
 high connections, who brought him a fortune of ;^30,ooo, with 
 whom he lived in entire harmonv, and who bore him ten chil- 
 dren. In 1585 he was elected Recorder of Coventry; in 1586, of 
 Norwich ; and in 1592, of London, and he was also appointed 
 Reader, or Law Professor, of the Inner Temple. The Recorder- 
 ship of London he held but a very short time, for in May, 1592, 
 he was appointed Solicitor-General to the Queen, although, 
 unlike his great rival, Francis Bacon, — who was a polished cour- 
 tier, and had taken " all knowledge for his province," — he never 
 enjoyed Elizabeth's personal favor. He was shortly after re- 
 turned to Parliament as member for his native county of Nor- 
 folk, an honor which was quite unsolicited and which led to his 
 being chosen Speaker of the House. In that capacity he offered 
 the most fulsome adulation to the Queen, whose reply to him, 
 when he appealed for the usual liberty of speech, and the other 
 ancient privileges of the Commons, was a definition of that 
 liberty as "not to speak every one what he listeth, or what 
 Cometh into his brain to utter ; but your privilege is aye and no" 
 and she specially guarded her "faithful commons" against med- 
 dling with reforming the church, or transforming the common- 
 wealth. It is almost impossible to reconcile the subsequent 
 framer of the bill of rights with the " Mr. Speaker Coke," who 
 even refused to read a bill for reforming ecclesiastical abuses, " on 
 his allegiance ;" and, on the dissolution of Parliament, assured her 
 majesty " our lands, our goods, our lives are prostrate at your feet 
 to be commanded." Coke was shortly after made Attorney- 
 General, and, out of mere jealousy, prevented Bacon being 
 
 198 
 
appointed Solicitor General — an act which Bacon afterwards 
 more than requited by instigating and working Coke's " super- 
 sedeas" from the Bench. Coke's conduct as a criminal pros- 
 ecutor for the Crown incurred him never-dying disgrace by the 
 manner in which he insulted his victims. In the case of Robert, 
 Earl of Essex, after a gross exaggeration of the facts, he thus 
 concluded : " But now in God's most just judgment he of his earl- 
 dom shall be Robert the last that of the kingdom was thought 
 to be Robert the first." About this time he had the misfortune 
 to lose his first wife, at the age of thirty-four, whom he called 
 " most beloved and most excellent," and he married secondly 
 Lad}'' Hatton, grand-daughter of Lord Burleigh, in 1598. She was 
 a beautiful young widow, without children and with an immense 
 fortune, and was induced by family influence to marry him, but 
 she would not do it in public, refusing "to be paraded in the face 
 of the church as the bride of the old wrinkled Attorney-Gen- 
 eral " bordering on fifty. So the wedding was private; but for 
 marrying at an uncanonical hour, and against the injunction 
 otherwise of Whitgift, the Archbishop, a libel was exhibited 
 against him and his wife, involving excommunication, so that 
 Mr. Attorney had to make a most humble submission and plead 
 " ignorance of the ecclesiastical law," at the commencement of a 
 union which turned out a most unhappy one through discrep- 
 ancy of tastes and manners. She refused to take his name or to 
 be known as " Mrs. Coke," or " Cook," as she wrote it ; for it was 
 not till James's reign that Coke was knighted. On Elizabeth's 
 death, he was continued in office, and as public prosecutor his 
 first appearance in the new reign was on the trial of Sir Walter 
 
 Raleigh, charged with high treason in a plot to put Lady 
 
 199 
 
S/J? EDWARD COKE. 
 
 Arabella Stuart on the throne. His conduct on that occasion 
 was perfectly brutal, and among his violent torrents of abuse to 
 hide the weakness of his evidence, he said, " Thou art a monster. 
 Thou hast an English face, but a Spanish heart. Thou viper, thou 
 traitor, I protest before God I never knew a clearer treason." 
 Lord Salisbury, one of the commissioners, rebuked Coke by 
 saying, " Be not impatient, good Mr. Attorney, give him leave to 
 speak ;" but on this very verdict, so disgracefully obtained, Raleigh 
 was many years after hung, drawn, and quartered. To Coke also 
 fell the prosecution of Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators of 
 the Gunpowder Plot, which ^ he carried out with the most cold- 
 blooded cruelty. Having filled the office of Attorney-General 
 for twelve years, and amassed an enormous fortune, he was, in 
 1606, made Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. How- 
 ever odious may have been the defects of Coke's character as the 
 law officer of the Crown, which have merited and justly received 
 the severest censure, he certainly made most noble amends for 
 them in the subsequent part of his career, which entitle him to 
 our highest admiration as a bright example of judicial indepen- 
 dence. Holding his office at the will of a King and Ministers 
 who were disposed to make the courts the instruments of 
 tyranny, he held himself as loftily on the Bench as any judge 
 who has ornamented it since the time that judges could be re- 
 moved from office for misconduct only on the joint address of the 
 two Houses of Parliament. His purity was unsuspected in an 
 age of prevalent corruption ; and, while he contemned the threats 
 of power, he was never seduced by the love of popular applause 
 to pronounce decisions devoid of precedent or principle. His 
 
 manner even changed to blandness, and he was quite courteous 
 
 200 
 
in the discharge of the office of Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, which he retained for seven years. The only case in which 
 he is ever supposed to have yielded to the government is in that 
 of the " Postnati," when he concurred in the opinion that all 
 persons born in Scotland after James the First's accession to the 
 throne of England, were entitled to the privileges of native-born 
 English subjects. Coke was not, however, much acquainted 
 with international law, and seems to have been contented with 
 the doctrine of "remitter" as laid down by Littleton. The first 
 contest into which Coke got with the Royal power was in 
 reference to the Court of High Commission, which was being 
 used as one of the chief engines of James, who considered him- 
 self entitled to rule England as an absolute Sovereign. This 
 court had been established by Elizabeth for cases purely ecclesi- 
 astical ; but it was now attempted to subject all persons to it, lay 
 and spiritual, and to give it cognizance of temporal rights and 
 offenses. As a commencement, the court claimed the right to 
 send a pursuivant at once into the house of any person com- 
 plained against, to arrest, and to imprison him. The matter 
 being discussed in the Common Pleas, Lord Chief Justice Coke, 
 supported by his brethren, determined that the practice was con- 
 trary to Magna Charta; and that, if the pursuivant was killed 
 in the attempt to enforce the mandate of the Court of High 
 Commission, it would not be murder. This decision it was 
 attempted to set aside, and as a last device it was sought to in- 
 clude Coke himself among the judges of the Commission, but he 
 most resolutely refused. After his removal from the Bench, how- 
 ever, this court continued its usurpations until it was swept away 
 by one of the first acts of the Long Parliament. After this 
 
 20 1 
 
SIR EDWARD COKE. 
 
 check, the truckling, miserable Archbishop Bancroft suggested 
 the expedient of " the King judging whatever cause he pleased 
 in his own person, free from all risk of prohibition or appeal." 
 Accordingly, James had all the judges before him to consider this 
 proposal, and nobly did the character and independence of Coke 
 distinguish him on the occasion. Bancroft argued from Scrip- 
 ture the Divine wisdom of a King, and that he, the principal, 
 must be able to do what his agents, the judges who administered 
 law in his name, did. The pedant Sovereign then said, " I always 
 thought, my Lords, and by my 'saul' I have often heard the 
 boast, that your English law was founded on reason. If that be 
 so, why have not I and others reason as well as you, the judges.'" 
 Coke at once told James, with all reverence, that he was not 
 learned in the law of England, "which law is an art which 
 requires long study and experience before a man can attain to 
 the cognizance of it. The law is the golden met-wand and 
 measure to try the causes of your Majesty's subjects, and it is by 
 the law that your Majesty is protected in safety and peace." 
 King James (in great rage), "Then I am to be under the law, 
 which it is treason to affirm." Coke, C. J., " Thus wrote Bracton, 
 Rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege.'" This 
 rebuke caused a profound sensation, but in spite of it the con- 
 ceited monarch is said sometimes to have tried his hand as a 
 judge, although he at length abandoned the trade in despair, say- 
 ing, '' I could get on very well hearing one side only, but when 
 both sides have been heard, by my 'saul,' I know not which is 
 right." Terror of Coke was apparently the real reason for 
 abandoning this piece of folly, to which James's sycophants 
 
 were urging him. Coke now incurred the still deeper dis- 
 
 202 
 
pleasure of the King by declaring against a " pretension " 
 called a " prerogative," which if not checked might soon have 
 superseded Parliament. Proclamations by the Crown to en- 
 force law from ancient times had been admitted, but James had 
 got into the habit of issuing these proclamations whenever he 
 chose to think that the law required amendment. At length, 
 on the 7th of July, 1610, the Commons, being fully aroused by 
 these attempts to supersede their functions, presented an ad- 
 dress to the Crown, in which they complained not only of the 
 frequency of them, but that James's "proclamations tended to 
 alter points of law, and to interfere with men's liberty, goods, 
 and inheritances." The presentation of this remonstrance was 
 assigned to Bacon, now Solicitor-General, who endeavored to 
 smooth over the matter to the King, yet James was much 
 alarmed, and eventually referred the matter to the judges. 
 Their answer was drawn by Coke, and stated that the King 
 by proclamation can not create an offense which was not an 
 offense before, but, "for prevention of offenses, may admonish 
 his subjects by proclamation, that they keep the laws and do 
 not offend them, upon punishment to be inflicted by the law." 
 Through the intrigues of his rival, Bacon, Coke was now re- 
 moved from the Court of Common Pleas to the Chief Jus- 
 ticeship of the King's Bench, which, although a higher office, 
 was less lucrative, and Sir Francis Bacon, at the same time 
 became Attorney-General. Coke was proud of his new dignity, 
 and was fond of styling himself "Chief Justice of England," 
 a title which only some of his predecessors had assumed. He 
 subscribed ;^2,ooo towards a " Benevolence," to meet the urgent 
 
 necessities of the Crown, but stoutly maintained that a " Benevo- 
 
 203 
 
S/J^ EDWARD COKE. 
 
 lence " was a free-will offering, and not a tax. The last and 
 deadly offense given by Coke to the King, was in the case of 
 " Commendans," or the right to hold other ecclesiastical pre- 
 ferments with a bishopric. The Bishop of Winchester rep- 
 resented to the King that the judges, in denying this, were 
 attacking the prerogative of the Crown ; and a prohibition was 
 issued to the judges. They replied in a bold and respectful 
 letter, and James, in a fury, again summoned them before 
 him at Whitehall, telling them "your letter is both couched 
 indecently and fails in the form thereof." Upon this they 
 all fell on their knees, and begged for pardon ; while Bacon 
 became personally offensive to the Chief Justice. Thinking 
 that Coke was equally humbled with the others, the follow- 
 ing question was then put to them : "In a case where the 
 King believes his prerogative or interest concerned, and re- 
 quires the judges to attend him for their advice, ought they 
 not to stay proceedings until His Majesty has consulted 
 them.? All the judges except Coke; "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Coke, 
 C. J. : " When the case happens I shall do that which shall 
 be fit for a judge to do." This simple and sublime answer 
 perfectly abashed the servile judges, and it may be said that 
 from that moment, with Bacon's connivance and hate. Coke's 
 judicial fate was sealed. About this time he refused to 
 give the Clerkship of the Court of King's Bench to a Court 
 favorite, and insisted on his right to dispose of it for the 
 benefit of the judges. He was shortly after summoned 
 before the Privy Council and charged with some frivolous 
 breach of duty when Attorney-General twelve years before. 
 
 He was also charged with misconduct in a dispute with the 
 
 204 
 
SIJ^ EDWARD COKE. 
 
 Lord Chancellor, and with insulting the King when called 
 before him in the case of commendams. He was shortly 
 after put under suspension by the King's command, so far 
 as that he should forbear to sit at Westminister; and finally 
 Bacon drew up the following " supersedeas," which received 
 the sign manual, and passed the Great Seal : " For certain 
 causes now moving us, we will that you shall no longer be 
 our Chief Justice to hold pleas before us, and we command 
 you that you no longer interfere in that office, and by 
 virtue of this presence we at once remove and exonerate 
 you from the same." When this document was delivered to 
 Coke, he is said to have received it with dejection and tears, 
 but the momentary weakness may fairly be forgiven him 
 for a still brighter part of his life followed, to which he 
 quickly rallied, and wherein he conferred lasting benefits on 
 his country. The vengeance of Bacon, who was now Lord 
 Chancellor, was by no means satiated ; and, among other 
 spiteful designs, he even meditated bringing Coke before the 
 Star Chamber. To regain his influence at Court, Coke now 
 entered into an intrigue to marry his little daughter, by 
 Lady Hatton, to the elder brother of the favorite, Bucking- 
 ham, who was three times her age and very poor. Lady 
 Hatton had offered the girl in marriage to the Earl of 
 Oxford, and she carried her off to Oatlands, the residen:e 
 of her cousin, as soon as she knew of her husband's scheme. 
 There Coke followed them with a band of armed men, 
 broke into the house, and brought back the daughter, on 
 whom vast estates were settled. He then instituted proceed- 
 ings against his wife and put her under restraint. Bucking- 
 
 20S 
 
ham of course supported him, and Bacon now trembled lest 
 the great seal should be transferred to Coke, and he stopped 
 at once the prosecution in the Star Chamber, and agreed 
 to keep Lady Hatton in confinement. The marriage was 
 accomplished with Buckingham's brother, and turned out 
 most inauspiciously, while Lady Hatton remained as spite- 
 ful as ever against her husband. Sir Edward was now 
 partially reconciled to the Lord Chancellor, occasionally sat 
 at the Council Table, and in the Star Chamber, and also 
 on Government Commissions. At length he was elected 
 member of Parliament for Liskeard, and there seemed for a 
 time some chance of his co-operating with the government. 
 The Puritans had been gaining ground, however, and he 
 put himself at their head with the desire of obtaining a 
 legal redress of grievances. He was chosen chairman of the 
 committee of supply, where the questions of grievances and 
 supplies were taken together. Just at this period occurred 
 the downfall of Lord Bacon, who confessed to high crimes 
 and misdemeanors, and whose disgrace afforded Coke some 
 ground for hope of office with Buckingham's assistance, but 
 they were both outwitted by a shrewd Welsh parson, named 
 Williams, who was made Lord Keeper. The King having 
 insisted that the Commons had no privileges except such 
 as were granted by him, the House made a protestation of 
 their liberties, franchises, and undoubted birthright for the 
 redress of mischiefs and grievances, which was described by 
 James as " an usurpation which the Majesty of a King can 
 by no means endure," and he immediately dissolved the 
 
 Parliament. Coke, with Seldon, Prynne, and other leaders 
 
 206 
 
S/J? EDWARD COKE. 
 
 of the opposition, were sent as prisoners to the Tower of 
 London. The locks and doors of his house and chambers 
 were sealed up, and his papers seized ; but he was brought 
 before the Council only on old and frivolous charges, and 
 after a few months he was set at liberty, at the intercession 
 of Prince Charles. At the next Parliament, two years later, 
 he was returned for Coventry, in his seventy-third year, and 
 at the close of the session retired to the country, till he 
 heard of James' death, in the spring of 1623. In the new 
 Parliament he was again returned for Coventry, and, having 
 great hopes of the new Sovereign, his immediate demeanor 
 was marked by great moderation. In order to disquahfy 
 Coke from sitting, when Charles summoned his second 
 Parliament, he was appointed Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, 
 the duties of which office he discharged in a most ex- 
 emplary manner; he, the Ex-Chief Justice, standing behind 
 the Circuit Judges worshipfuUy, with a white wand in his 
 hand. A war with France being engaged in, Charles, who 
 had endeavored to do without Parliaments, found himself 
 compelled, in 1628, to summon the great council of the 
 nation. Coke's popularity was so great that he was now 
 returned for two counties. This was the great crisis of the 
 English Constitution. In this Parliament resolutions were 
 carried by Coke which, half a century after, were made the 
 foundation of the Habeas Corpus Act ; and the famous 
 Petition of Right, England's second Magna Charta, was 
 passed. For the good of the Constitution, the Lords on 
 this occasion gave way to the Commons in not insisting on 
 
 their own amendments. Buckingham would not venture to 
 
 207 
 
advise a direct veto by tiie words " Le Roy s'avisera," but 
 framed a most evasive and fraudulent answer in the King's 
 behalf, wherein Charles said that he held himself in conscience 
 as much bound to preserve the just rights and liberties of 
 his subjects as to maintain his own prerogative. The Com- 
 mons then laid all the blame upon the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, and the Lords and Commons agreed to a joint address, 
 which obtained the Royal assent in the usual form, " Soit 
 droit fait come il est desir6," and the Petition of^ Right 
 became a statute of the realm, amid transports of joy 
 from the whole nation. Sir Edward Coke had now reached 
 his zenith. Immaculate as a judge, and distinguished as the 
 greatest expounder of the Common Law of England by 
 his commentary on Littleton, he was also admired by the 
 nation as a statesman and a patriot. He had never taken 
 medicine in his life, and when he was over eighty, upon 
 receiving a severe accident, he refused to have recourse to 
 the doctors. He was watched during a long illness by his 
 daughter, whom he had forgiven. He gradually sank to 
 rest, in the eighty-third year of his age, on the 3rd of 
 September, 1634, enjoying the full possession of his faculties 
 to the last, and devoutly ejaculating, " Thy kingdom come ! 
 
 Thy will be done!" 
 
 208 
 
 /tr-*--/ 
 
 
-^•'iiywweustiioa. SiCii'S.t: 
 
 ^i,, / i^(.^l^^ 
 
 Jamas CockcTof i 8- Co Ife-wTcrJi 
 
CHARLES O'CONOR. 
 
 T is not without reason that the title of Nestor 
 of the Bar has been universally accorded lo 
 Mr. Charles O'Conor, and it is too modest an 
 estimate of his legal altitude to assert that all 
 his great success and attainments may be sum- 
 med up in the word "study." Men may plod 
 and plod, and yet without other qualifications 
 be very far off from the golden gates of fame. 
 In the case of Charles O'Conor, there will 
 be found an absolute genius for law, and a 
 passionate love of his profession, a very legal 
 inspiration, conjoined with tireless energy and 
 plodding labor. Brought up under the most unfortunate 
 circumstances, and early accustomed to the most severe priva- 
 tions, the great leader of the New York Bar, so steeled in the 
 school of adversity, may well be regarded as the very highest 
 type of an intellectually self-made man, coining from his natural 
 ability, in the school of adversity, what far exceeds the value 
 of gold. He is the descendant of an old and distinguished 
 family in Connaught, Ireland, whose lineage can be traced back 
 to those kings who were the last Milesian monarchs in that 
 
 oppressed island ; and the present head of the family in the 
 
 307 
 
CHARLES O'CONOR. 
 
 old country, is a patriotic and eloquent statesman who repre- 
 sents the county of Roscommon in the British Parliament, 
 and bears the ancient title of the O'Conor Don. The great 
 patriotic and other qualities of Charles O'Conor might, upon 
 the principle " fortes creantur fortibus," be presaged by the 
 ardent character of his father, Thomas O'Conor, who took 
 refuge in this country in 1801 to escape the persecution of 
 English tyranny. At a very early age, in fact when" quite 
 a boy, Thomas had entered ardently into the spirit which ended 
 in the rebellion of 1798, shaking Ireland to its centre. Had 
 it not been for his extreme youth, he would have shared the 
 fate of Robert Emmet, and our great lawyer would never 
 have seen the light. With feelings of resentment .against 
 British oppression, and a desire to enjoy that liberty which he 
 said existed only under the glorious Constitution of the 
 United States, he arrived here in the year 1801. The father 
 of John McKeon's mother came out in the same ship with 
 him, and their remains now occupy the same vault in St. 
 Patrick's Cathedral. On his arrival in New York, Thomas, 
 finding the name of a Hugh O'Conor in some directory of the 
 period, hunted up his supposed relative, but it turned out 
 that there was no immediate relationship. This, however, was 
 a matter which was very soon accommodated, for the said Hugh 
 O'Conor having a very pretty daughter, and receiving the 
 refugee, his namesake, with great cordiality, Thomas O'Conor 
 was soon after married to the young lady, and of this union 
 sprang the illustrious legist and advocate. Charles O'Conor 
 was born on the 22d of Januiry, 1804, at 125 Front Street, very 
 
 near his present office in Wall street. Meanwhile his father had 
 
 308 
 
CHARLES O'CONOR. 
 
 purchased four thousand acres of land in Steuben county, which 
 then bore the name of Genesee, and he shortly after remov^ed 
 to his wilderness home, where he was joined by Gen. Kernan, 
 uncle of John McKeon. In this uncultivated district little 
 Charles passed the first six years of his life, his earliest recollec- 
 tions being of the wild and pioneer life led in that part at 
 the time, when the settlers were alarmed by lurking Indians 
 by day, and at night terrified by wolves, and were quite sn-owcd 
 up in the winter months. His father, however, returned to 
 New York, and got into deep embarrassments; being even- 
 tually arrested and lodged in the debtors' prison at No. i 
 Chatham street. Here it was that Charles O'Conor, brought 
 back from the wilderness, first saw him, to his recollection, 
 surrounded by bars, and all the painful associations of prison 
 life ; but he soon learnt that it was no disgrace, but the result 
 of sheer misfortune. He says : " I saw the truth in his eye 
 and mien." In this gloomy place, however, the little boy 
 spent many a happy month with his father and mother. 
 
 Released at last, Thomas O'Conor — who was a very able 
 and highly educated man, and who died at length at the 
 age of eighty-four with the knowledge of his son's opening 
 greatness — entered the ranks of literature and started a paper 
 called " War," which was afterwards changed to the title of 
 the " Military Monitor." This was just at the outbreak of 
 the war of 1812, and Thomas O'Conor, with burning in- 
 dignation towards England, wrote most vigorous and slash- 
 ing articles against the foe of his adopted country. Charles 
 at the age of between eight and nine became office boy in 
 
 his father's literary establishment, representing him when 
 
 309 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 absent, and doing the outside work of delivering the papers. 
 New York had at that time only a population of ninety 
 thousand, Brooklyn two thousand, and Jersey City was but a 
 village; and it was Charles's Saturday work to deliver the 
 papers all around, crossing by small boats to the adjacent 
 towns. He says, " I went boldly up door-steps, chucking 
 papers under doors, plunging into areas, and diving into 
 alleyways, regardless of police or anybody, for my bundle of 
 "papers was a perfect safeguard, as good to me as the segis 
 and crested helmet of Hector." On one occasion a tall 
 gentleman of military bearing called at the office, and ask- 
 ing for the subscription-book, inserted his name in it. The 
 little boy was greatly astonished at the tremendous flourish 
 which followed his name, coming naturally to the conclu- 
 sion that none but a very great man would make so great 
 a flourish. His delight when he found out that it was 
 General Zebulon Pike, a real general in the army, whose 
 signature he had had the pride of taking, was only equalled 
 by his sorrow when he learnt that the general had been 
 killed at the battle of Little York. Six months at a public 
 school was all the tuition that Charles O'Conor received, 
 save in the office of the " Shamrock," which was his father's 
 last paper, and at his father's hand. A ripe and accom- 
 plished scholar, Thomas O'Conor instructed his son in Eng- 
 lish, the classics, the higher mathematics and French, so 
 that at the very early age of twelve Charles was able to 
 enter upon legal studies. He read law first in the office 
 of Mr. Henry W. Stannard, then in that of Mr. Stephen 
 
 P. Lamoyne, and thirdly with Mr. Josiah D. Fay, father of 
 
 310 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 the United States Minister to Switzerland. With undevi- 
 ating energy he applied himself to master its principles, sit- 
 ting up part of the night even, to pursue an unremitting 
 study, which he followed with the force and fervor of pas- 
 sion. This, too, amid the greatest privations, so much so 
 that the pangs of hunger were not strange to him, while 
 he was poorly clad, and he could never think of any such 
 indulgence as amusement, for want of means. Often he says 
 himself, "I went all day without eating, and to bed without 
 any supper." Perhaps this early starvation may have laid 
 the seeds of that weakness of the digestive system from 
 which he has suffered so much, and which has so recently 
 brought him so near death. Conscious of his great latent 
 powers and of the possession of "the true Promethean spark, 
 kindling all souls and his own," and with unutterable yearn- 
 ings after the honor and dignity of his profession, he boldly 
 struggled on, contented for awhile with obscurity. He knew 
 no excellence without labor, "sic itur ad astra." 
 
 Mr. Lemoyne, with whom he was for some time read- 
 ing law, upon one occasion asked him why he did not join 
 the regiment of militia of which he was colonel, and on 
 O'Conor telling him he could not bear the expenses, said he 
 would gladly pay them for him. At the age of seventeen 
 the young law student accordingly joined the one hundred 
 and forty-second militia regiment, and sorrowfully related his 
 remembrance of one Fourth of July, on which, after having 
 been marching and countermarching all day, he went home 
 supperless to bed, leaving the remainder of the regiment to 
 feasting, roystering, and merrymaking. He said that Mr. 
 
 311 
 
CHARLES aCONOR, 
 
 Lemoyne had evidently made no provision for his eating 
 expenses, and after that refused to do any further military 
 duty. In the year 1824 he was admitted to the bar, but 
 did not frequent the courts or undertake minor cases, as was 
 usual with the junior members of the profession. His first 
 practice was in the Marine Court, the Civil Justice, and tiie 
 Court of Sessions, where he carried everything before him, 
 not only against young men of brilliant talent, but with old 
 and practiced lawyers, and showed himself a complete master 
 of the nicest metaphysics of law. His objection to under- 
 take small cases was very great, and is illustrated by the 
 following story. A second mate of a vessel, who was a 
 friend of his and was constantly getting into scrapes, had 
 required his services in these matters so often that he at 
 length told him not so reckon on him any longer. The 
 sailor came rushing into court on one occasion in breath- 
 less haste, saying he wanted him upon something very im- 
 portant, but O'Conor refused to listen to him. He assured 
 him, however, that it was a big case, for he was under charge 
 of an officer, having been arrested on a charge of murder. 
 The case being large enough, O'Conor undertook it, and 
 succeeded in clearing his client. 
 
 The first really important case in which O'Conor was 
 engaged had reference to the election of the trustees of St. 
 Peter's Church, and is reported in Cowen's Reports. On that 
 occasion he had to contend against the high genius, power, 
 and experience of Thomas Addis Emmet, but he gained his 
 cause triumphantly. While still young, the great question 
 
 of Southern rights under the Constitution was the absorbing 
 
 312 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 topic of controversy, and he rendered himself famous in the 
 memorable case of the fugitive slave Jack, both before the 
 Supreme Court of the state, and the Court of Errors, success- 
 fully carrying all his points. His advocacy in the Forrest 
 divorce case could hardly add to a reputation which was 
 already established, but it is memorable as a skillful victory 
 won by him over that brilliant advocate, John Van Buren. 
 On that occasion he was the recipient of a magnificent silver 
 vase, from thirty leading ladies, and was presented by the Bar 
 with a silver pitcher, on which was engraven the motto of 
 the O'Conor Don, " From God cometh the conquering cham- 
 pion." Among other cases in which he greatly distinguished 
 himself may be mentioned that of the Life and Trust Com- 
 pany, involving millions ; the Almaden Mining Company's 
 case, respecting a tract of land in California, argued before the 
 United States Supreme Court, and the famous Lemon case, in 
 which Mr. W. M. Evarts was his opponent. The famous Parish 
 will case, involving millions, is fresh in every one's mind, upon 
 which O'Conor worked for years, to be crowned with victory 
 at last. One of the witnesses in that suit being asked whether 
 he knew Mr. O'Conor personally, said he thought he did, as 
 Mr. O'Conor cross-examined him once, and had him in hell 
 for three days. It has been very truly said of the great advo- 
 cate by a writer that the profession generally would hear with 
 as much pleasure that a Bengal tiger with a liberal amount of 
 chain was to be opposed to them in a case, as that Mr. 
 O'Conor was engaged on the other. They dread his ability, 
 and, too, his general haughty demeanor. Unlike such a man 
 
 as Sir James Scarlett, his power lies not with juries, but with 
 
 313 
 
CHARLES a CONOR. 
 
 the bar and the bench, and in the power of adaptation of his 
 profound legal knowledge. He is severe in his habits, and 
 rigid in his intercourse with lawyers, while when he has lost a 
 case he has been known even to quarrel with the judge. 
 Privately he is a most agreeably intellectual companion ; and 
 although impetuous in his public duties, he has frequently 
 evinced how well he can keep his temper under control. 
 Some of his adversaries have almost hated him from the indus- 
 try and pertinacity with which he will push his cause. - No 
 lawyer ever more conscientiously put himself in his client's 
 shoes; and he never took a side which he did not think an 
 honest one, or wavered in his fealty to a client. Mr. O'Conor 
 knows his profession in its highest possible aspect, and woe 
 betide the stubborn or unwilling witness who tries to thwart 
 him in. his endeavor to let the jury see the picture as he in- 
 tends they should. In preparing for the defense of Jefferson 
 Davis, the President of the Confederacy, he is said to have 
 addicted himself to great study, as he was determined to 
 subordinate all the learning and statesmanship possible to that 
 great cause, and to make it the crowning professional effort of 
 his life. The later matters in which he has been conspicuous 
 have been the great Jurael will ~case, and his fiery letter upon 
 the decision of the Court of Appeals reversing the sentences of 
 Judge Noah Davis upon the ex-Tammany leader, William M. 
 Tweed, a document which was received by the profession with 
 great diversity of opinion. 
 
 In politics Mr. O'Conor was always a consistent democrat ; 
 and while he never held any office, he on one occasion 
 
 ran for Assistant Alderman of the Sixth Ward, and although 
 
 314 
 
CHARLES a CONOR. 
 
 he persistently refused to allow the use of his name, when 
 coaxed to accept a nomination for the Presidency he received 
 twenty-two thousand for that high office. His views on the 
 principles of government he has very recently expressed in 
 a very able paper; while in purifying the city government 
 of New York his best efforts have been exerted, and in all 
 the walks of life as a professional man and a citizen he has 
 ever set a high example of purity and patriotism, his adhe- 
 rence to that " beneficent institution " alone excepted. 
 
 Speaking of the democratic principle, in his Essay on 
 Democracy, Mr. O'Conor eloquently and powerfully says: "A 
 government based upon it can acknowledge no conflicting 
 interests among the people to be favored or opposed. All 
 its legitimate ends are accomplished when public safety and 
 individual liberty are maintained. Restraining the turbulent 
 and disorderly by a just administration of general laws, and, 
 perhaps (i), making due provision for the impotent, it should 
 leave all others in the quiet enjoyment of such social con- 
 ditions as they may have created for themselves or derived 
 from the ordinary incidents of life. In the main, it should 
 be unfelt and unseen, or at least unperceived ; the citizen 
 should have no more vivid consciousness of the power which 
 guards his civil rights, than of the agencies whence flow his 
 physical health or content of mind. Where the voice of the 
 people is actually sovereign this must ever be the fact, for 
 it is an irresistible deduction of reason that the supreme 
 will never can intentionally enact a law which is not required, 
 or, in other words, lay upon its own freedom any needless 
 
 restraint. Hence the axiom, that in a democracy every pos- 
 
 315 
 
CHARLES O'CONOR, 
 
 itive regulation not actually indispensable to the public and 
 general welfare, which restrains or even indirectly tends to 
 restrain individual liberty in any degree, however slight, so far 
 violates the spirit of the constitution. It is an infraction of 
 popular rights, and may justly be denounced as the offspring 
 of unlawful force or fraud." 
 
 Mr. O'Conor has always argued that human nature, under 
 whatever form or name of government you adopt, is pretty 
 much the same, and that those who administer the laws will 
 act selfishly if sufficient opportunity be accorded to them ; 
 and he goes to the very root of the question in the follow- 
 ing terse passage : " It is not through parties contending 
 for control of the government that the benefits of democracy 
 can be realized. The principle itself must be placed beyond 
 the power of such parties. Permanent barriers, like those 
 devised against monarchy, must be introduced, which shall 
 absolutely restrain governmental agents — that is to say, the 
 office-holders — from any action not indispensably necessary to 
 the common weal. Public offices and employments must be 
 thus rendered undesirable to the indolent and the avaricious. 
 If this can be effected under any form, it is possible in a 
 representative democracy." 
 
 Like every eminent man, there are innumerable stories told 
 of O'Conor, all very characteristic, and developing extraordi- 
 narily the talent of severe sarcasm ; but none enlightened by 
 the rays of any very genial sympathy for the foibles or errors 
 of mankind. His description of a bench of three judges 
 to a youthful counsel was good : " The one on the left has 
 intelligence and capacity; the one in the middle has experi- 
 
 316 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 ence, learning, and capacity ; and the one on the extreme 
 right greases his hair!" The following anecdote illustrates 
 at all events that he has not strictly adhered to the injunc- 
 tion " de mortuis nil nisi bonum," when a sharp thing could 
 be said with good alliteration combined with it : A miserable, 
 miserly wretch had died at the upper end of the island, a 
 very Scrooge and Marley rolled into one, who did not 
 hesitate to rob a client, or lie, to enrich himself If he had 
 been buying a farm to reduce its price, he would probably 
 play upon the feelings of the seller by saying it was for a 
 one-armed soldier. On the death of this scourge to the com- 
 munity some one asked Mr. O'Conor in what esteem the 
 deceased was held, when he replied, " I do not know what 
 they think of him in Hell, but I know what he was thought 
 of in Harlem." Perhaps one of the best things he ever 
 said was in reference to a somewhat pompous lawyer, 
 Daniel Lord, Jr., who continued to affix the Junior to his 
 name after the death of his father. " Why," says a lawyer, " does 
 Lord continue to put the 'Junior' to his name.?" "I do not 
 know," replied O'Conor, " unless it be to distinguish him 
 from the Lord Almighty," 
 
 Mr. O'Conor married late in life. It is generally a 
 misfortune for a man of strong will to defer marriage 
 until his habits are irrevocably fixed. It sometimes turns 
 out a misfortune, mdeed, when the contract is entered 
 into in early life. The great jurist had his rough and 
 rugged edges, and at his age, and with his Puritan rigor, 
 no ocean of pleasantry could roll him about and smoothe 
 
 his comers down. And so his married life was not more 
 
 317 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 serene than his recluse old bachelor days. His gallantry 
 was not manifest in matters connected with his household. 
 He built a cottage at Lake George, but it remained un- 
 occupied for some time. A friend of his saw the cottage, 
 and remarked to Mr. O'Conor on the beauty of the loca- 
 tion, the scenery, and view of the lake, and then asked 
 when he would occupy it, and got for answer that when 
 the Providence of God and the caprice of woman would 
 permit him, he would occupy it. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor's early cases are reported in Cowen's, 
 Hall's, and Wendell's Reports, and evince great nicety in 
 pleading, skill in practice, and exactness of legal application. 
 During his whole life there has been no slurring of what- 
 ever legal work he has undertaken, and the word " thorough " 
 is entirely applicable to his greatest forensic efforts. In 1846, 
 O'Conor became a member of the Constitutional Convention 
 where he exhibited great foresight and ability as a states- 
 man, and made himself felt on the floor of the Commit- 
 tee Room. He voted invariably against the colored franchise, 
 doing so as a lawyer outside the question of philanthropy 
 altogether. From his views then expressed he has probably 
 never deviated in the slightest degree, while his opinions 
 were onl}'^ the forecast of the judgment delivered by some 
 of the Judges in the Dred Scott case. His consistency in 
 opposition to the claims of the colored race was very re- 
 markable, particularly when contrasted with the conduct of 
 many a member of his own political party. In 1848, he 
 ran for lieutenant-governor upon the same ticket with 
 General Cass ; and in 1852, he was elector at large for 
 
 318 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 General Pierce, who would have made him attorney- 
 general, had not New York contributed General Marcy to 
 the Cabinet. He was for a brief space Federal District 
 Attorney. In 1850, he was employed by the party which 
 sought to sustain the fugitive slave law and Mr. Webster's 
 famous fifth of March speech. On that occasion O'Conor 
 made a splendid address at Castle Garden, which raised 
 him to the position of an idol in the North, whom the 
 advocates of southern slavery positively worshipped, and 
 during the whole struggle of the Civil War he never 
 deviated in his sincere belief in the right of secession, and 
 in the godlike sacredness of the " peculiar institution." To 
 the grief of his millions of ardent admirers, and his entire 
 circle of intimate friends, Charles O'Conor, at the end of 
 the year 1875 became so entirely prostrated by some obscure 
 disease of the stomach that his life was entirely despaired 
 of; and the public and the press were for. weeks awaiting 
 his imminent dissolution. The reports of his physicians 
 from his country mansion at Fort Washington were watched 
 with eagerness by every reader, and the Bar and Bench of 
 New York feared that they were about to lose one ot 
 the greatest living ornaments to their profession. Having 
 always been a sincere Catholic, he was attended by the 
 Cardinal Archbishop of New York, and received the 
 last sacraments of his church. Perhaps that calmness and 
 resignation which his faith brought him, gave a turn to his 
 disease, or in the opinion of some, it may be looked upon as 
 a remarkable triumph of mind over matter. Certain it is, 
 however, that he has steadily recovered from the very jaws 
 
 319 
 
CHARLES aCONOR. 
 
 of death ; and the public at large sincerely trust that his 
 
 distinguished career may still be prolonged for many years. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor's law offices in recent years have been in 
 
 Brown Brother's Building, in Wall Street, where their plain 
 
 and rigid surroundings betoken the character of an austere 
 
 and learned jurist. As a bright example of purity and 
 
 patriotism he as much adorns the legal profession, as by 
 
 his vast acquirements and rare powers of eloquence ; and 
 
 by his narrow escape from death he has learned, and will 
 
 be able to cherish in his remaining years, that when his 
 
 end really does arrive it will be regarded as a national 
 
 loss. 
 
 320 
 
"S'l^,-..3j;-„,aioTt-B» 
 
 
 uli'LLili-iLn/y-Jdui. 3Coi^.oi"IlAi;d fJowiorit. 
 
-J-.. 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 PON an island rising to considerable elevation 
 
 at its centre, and commanding a view of the 
 
 open sea and neighboring villages, in an old 
 
 homestead which had been in possession of 
 
 the family for four generations, and more than 
 
 a century, in the south-eastern part of the 
 
 old tower of Ipswich, Massachusetts, Rufus 
 
 Choate was born on the ist of October, 1799. 
 
 He was the second son, and the fourth of 
 
 six children, born to David Choate by his 
 
 wife Miriam, whose maiden name was Foster, 
 
 and who was a woman of strong sense and 
 
 ready wit, cheerful, quiet, and dignified in manner. David 
 
 Choate was a man held in high esteem for his unswerving 
 
 integrity, his sound and independent judgment, his wisdom 
 
 in council, and his rare intellectual qualities. The family 
 
 was first represented in this country by John Choate, who 
 
 took the oath of allegiance in 1667, and had spread itself 
 
 widely in Essex county, where several of its members had 
 
 attained considerable distinction. David Choate's pursuits 
 
 seem to have been principally agricultural, but he must 
 
 have been a well-informed man, as he is said to have written 
 
 323 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 some articles in a Boston paper at the time of the ratification 
 of the federal constitution, and on one occasion to have con- 
 ducted a case in court, and won a verdict in the absence 
 of his counsel. 
 
 The earliest passion of the young Rufus seems to have 
 been for the sea, the murmur of which lulled him to sleep 
 while the rage of the storm, the white sails in the harbor, 
 and all stories of peril and adventure connected with it, 
 fastened strongly on his imagination. His constitution was 
 vigorous, and while diligent in the necessary labor of the 
 farm, he could tire out almost all his competitors in activity 
 and skill in sports. He possessed an intense love of reading, and 
 before he was six years of age, had so thoroughly devoured the 
 "Pilgrim's Progress" that he could rehearse it to his com- 
 panions from memory. His tenacity of memory was, in fact, 
 so remarkable, that, when at college, he would take a book 
 into his bedroom, and looking over a chapter of it before 
 retiring, would be able to repeat it accurately to his brother 
 on waking in the morning. The village library of a few 
 hundred volumes he had very nearly exhausted ere he was 
 ten years old, and he read and re-read the Bible with especial 
 thoughtfulness, being both an attentive and critical hearer of 
 the minister, while he was possessed also of a quick sense of 
 the ludicrous, and was in disposition of a uniform sweetness 
 of temper. He began the study of Latin at ten, under Dr. 
 Thomas Sewall — who afterwards married his eldest sister, — but 
 by way of completing his preparation for college, he was sent 
 in January, 1815, to the Academy at Hampton, New Hamp- 
 shire, of which James Adams was then the principal, and sub- 
 
 324 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 sequently entered the Freshman class in Dartmouth College 
 in his sixteenth year. Of delicate frame, but singularly at- 
 tractive in person and manner, with dark, curling hair, and a 
 beautifully ingenuous countenance, his classmates have all 
 combined in speaking of him in terms of eulogy. One of 
 them says, " When Choate got up, after the first sentence 
 or two, I had no doubt who was the first classical scholar 
 among us, or who had the best command of English. I was 
 on one side of the room and he on the other, and I remem- 
 ber, as if but yesterday, his fresh personal beauty and all 
 the graceful charm of modest, deferential look and tone that 
 accompanied the honeyed words." 
 
 During the time that Choate was at Dartmouth College, 
 a long litigation was going on between the President and 
 the Board of Trustees, in which the students took a lively 
 interest, and it is more than probable that Rufus Choate's 
 mind was by this circumstance turned to the law as a pro- 
 fession. Choate closed his college course in 1819 with the 
 valedictory, and spent the next year in the responsible office 
 of tutor of the college, in which he had such power over 
 his class, and used his power with such consummate skill, with 
 such natural adroitness, that they were enthusiastic in their 
 esteem of his gifts and personal attachment to him. On 
 leaving Dartmouth, he entered upon the study of his pro- 
 fession in the law school at Cambridge, presided over at that 
 time by Chief Justice Parker and Asahel Stearns ; and in 1821, 
 entered the office of Mr. Wirt, then attorney-general, and just 
 in the ripeness of his power and fame. In the tollowing 
 
 year, being deeply overcome by the death of his beloved 
 
 325- 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 brother, Washington, who had been his early playmate and 
 fellow-student, he retired for awhile to the seclusion of Essex. 
 After a time he entered his name in the office of Mr. Asa 
 Andrews, of Ipswich, and subsequently continued his studies 
 with Judge Cummins, a distinguished lawyer of Salem, and 
 was finally admitted an attorney of the Court of Common 
 Pleas, in September, 1823, being two years later enrolled an 
 attorney of the Supreme Court. Mr. Choate first put up 
 his sign at Salem ; but feeling a natural modesty and self- 
 distrust at entering into direct rivalry with the eminent law- 
 yers who belonged to that distinguished bar, he removed to 
 South Danvers. There he spent four or five years of those 
 feelings of solicitude and hope which never come twice to a 
 professional man. He had no particular immediate success, 
 and at one time seriously entertained the idea of throwing 
 up the professsion, and seeking a living by some other means. 
 During his short residence, however, he twice represented the 
 town in the legislature, and for one year was a member of 
 the Senate. While there, he became attached to, and was, in 
 the year 1825, united to Helen Olcott, daughter of Mills 
 Olcott, Esq., of Hanover, New Hampshire, a gentleman of 
 remarkable sagacity and high character. This congenial al- 
 liance stimulated him to fresh labor, and he shrunk from 
 nothing that was necessary to bring to completion whatever 
 he undertook. In a famous dog case at Beverly, it was 
 said that " he treated the dog as though he were a lion or 
 an elephant ; and the crabbed old squire with the compli- 
 ment and consideration of a chief justice." So punctilious 
 
 was he as to the most exact fidelity to a client, that a story 
 
 326 
 
is told of his having gone, on a stormy night, many miles 
 on horseback to make the will of a dying man, but thinking 
 when he had returned home and had gone to bed, that he 
 had made an omission which might cause the testator's inten- 
 tions to be misunderstood, he re-dressed himself, and in the 
 thick of the storm rode back to make a codicil for his dying 
 client. His fame at length was fast spreading, his powerful 
 and impassioned eloquence, his assiduity, fidelity, and modesty 
 all tending to ensure success to him. He made his first 
 essay in Salem, in a case known as the " Mumford case," 
 and every one was filled with admiration of his power, and 
 he became so sought after, that he at length resolved to 
 take up his abode, and accordingly removed to Salem in 
 1828, where he soon became the leading counsel in criminal 
 practice. He possessed a great power of laughable ex- 
 aggeration, and of presenting things in a ludicrous aspect, 
 which was very effective in attracting attention ; but although 
 generally engaged in criminal business, he devoted himself 
 greatly to the study of the higher branches of law and to 
 the profoundest literary studies. 
 
 In 1830, Mr. Choate was nominated by the national re- 
 publicans of Essex as representative to Congress, and although 
 strong influences were brought to bear against him, he was 
 chosen, after an honorable and exciting contest, by a majority 
 of more than five hundred votes over all opposing candidates. 
 He was no sooner elected than he laid out a plan of study 
 which should best fit him honorably to represent his consti- 
 tuents. He took his seat in Congress in December, 1831, 
 and working indefatigably, yet unobtrusively, he soon acquired 
 
 327 
 
from all parties an involuntary respect. Choate had a ner- 
 vous dread of thunder, and on the occasion of his maiden 
 speech before he had half finished, a dark thunder cloud burst 
 over the capitol. Choate's face grew pale, and his whole 
 frame tremulous with excitement. His hearers caught the 
 emotion, and listened the more intently amid the rushing 
 wind and rain, the lurid light, and rattling peals of thunder ; 
 the upturned faces lighted from above gazing at the speaker, 
 making it a scene not easily to be forgotten. Members 
 of all parties rushed to offer their congratulations, and his 
 position as a parliamentary orator was established. In April, 
 1833, Mr. Choate was returned again with an increased 
 majority, and in the following year made a very memorable 
 speech, of which " old Ben Hardin," of Kentucky, says, " I 
 took my hat to leave, lingering a moment just to notice the 
 tone of his voice and the manner of his speech, but that 
 moment was fatal to my resolution. I became charmed by 
 the music of his voice, and was captivated by the power of his 
 eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to move till the 
 last word of his beautiful speech had been uttered." At 
 the close of that session, Mr. Choate resigned his place in 
 Congress, having determined to remove to Boston. Shortly 
 after his arrival there, he delivered one of the most fascina- 
 ting of his lectures, "The Romance of the Sea." 
 
 In 1 84 1, Mr. Webster having accepted the office of Secre- 
 tary of State under General Harrison, it became necessary for 
 the Legislature of Massachusetts to elect another Senator to 
 fill his place. After giving at first a decided refusal, Choate 
 
 was at length induced to accept the vacant seat. Before en- 
 
 328 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 tering the Senate, however, he was called upon to deliver a 
 eulogium at Faneuil Hall upon the lamented President, Gen- 
 eral Harrison, who died after holding ofifice for one month. 
 His career in the Senate is chiefly remarkable for his colli- 
 sion with Mr. Clay, and some very able speeches on the 
 fiscal Bank Bill, remedial justice in the United States courts, 
 and on the North Eastern Boundary question. The twenty- 
 eighth Congress met at Washington on the 4th of December, 
 1843, and Mr. Choate removed to the capitol for the winter. 
 In that month he came to New York to deliver his memor- 
 able address on "The Pilgrims, their age and their acts.'" 
 " We have," he said, in this lecture, " a specific duty to per- 
 form. We would speak of certain valiant, good, and pecu- 
 liar men — our fathers. We would wipe the dust from a few 
 old, plain, noble urns. We would shun husky disquisitions, 
 irrelevant novelties, and small display, would rather scan 
 merely the forms and lineaments of the heroic dead — forms 
 and features which the grave has not changed — over which 
 the grave has no power — robed with the vestments and 
 radiant with the hues of an assured immortality." Touching 
 upon Switzerland, he said on that occasion, " In the giant 
 hand of guardian mountains, on the banks of a lake, lovelier 
 than a dream of the Fairy-land, in a valley which might 
 seem hollowed out to enclose the last home of liberty, there 
 smiled an independent, peaceful law-abiding, well governed, 
 and prosperous commonwealth. There was a state without 
 king or nobles, there was a church without a bishop, there 
 was a people governed by grave magistrates, which it had 
 elected, and equal laws, which it had framed," The address 
 
 329 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 was received with the greatest delight and enthusiasm, and 
 some of its phrases were caught up and became the burden 
 of popular song. On leaving the Senate, Choate bade fare- 
 well, for a time, to politics, and then argued in the courts 
 some of his most celebrated cases, particularly that of the 
 boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and the 
 Phillip's will case. At this period he had care of a professor- 
 ship in the Cambridge Law School, and also of a seat on 
 the bench of the Supreme Court. In March, 1846, he made 
 his celebrated defense of Albert J. Tirrell for murder. In 
 his exordium, alluding to the certainty that death would 
 follow the verdict of guilty, he said, " Every juror, when he 
 puts into the urn the verdict of guilty, says ' let him die ;' " 
 and in his solemn and beautiful peroration he reiterated 
 the idea by saying, '' Under the wise law of old Rome it 
 was the custom to bestow a civic wreath on him who 
 would save the life of a citizen. Do your duty this day, 
 gentlemen, and you too may deserve the civic crown." The 
 verdict was " not guilty," but Choate had again to defend 
 Terrill on an indictment for arson, and he then concluded 
 his address to the jury in these words : " There is a day, 
 gentlemen, when all these things will be known. When 
 the great day has arrived, and the books are opened, it 
 will then be known. But, gentlemen, let not your decision 
 be then declared in the face of the world to be a judicial 
 murder." 
 
 In March, 1849, he delivered before the Mercantile Library- 
 Association the closing lecture of the winter course, entitled, 
 
 "Thoughts on the New England Puritans," drawing a beau- 
 
 330 
 
tiful comparison between the public life of that day and 
 his own. In the summer of 1850, he gratified a long- 
 cherished wish by a voyage to Europe, and visited England, 
 Belgium, France, a part of Germany, and Switzerland, being 
 absent about three months. He was cordially received by 
 the aristocracy of England, and writes to his wife some 
 severe comments on the administration of justice. He heard 
 the trial of Pate, for striking the Queen, and says, "The whole 
 trial smacked of a judiciary whose members, bar and bench, ex- 
 pect promotion from the Crown. Their doctrine of insanity 
 is scandalous. Their treatment of medical evidence and of the 
 informations of that science, scandalous." He says, "the wig 
 is deadly;" and Mr. Cockburn (now Lord Chief Justice), 
 occasionally hesitated for a word. On his return from 
 abroad he received from Governor Clifford the offer of the 
 Attorney Generalship of the State, which he accepted, being 
 the only judicial office he ever held. Some passages of 
 surpassing eloquence occur in Mr. Choate's address before 
 the I Beta Kappa, of the University of Vermont, on 
 the "intervention of the new world in the affairs of the 
 old," delivered in August , 1852. Alluding to the visit of 
 Kossuth to this country, he said, "To his eye, who observes 
 the present of our own country, and of the eye heedfully-look- 
 ing before and after, every day offers some incident which 
 first awakens a vivid emotion, and then teaches some great 
 duty. Contemplate, then, a single one of such a class of 
 incidents ; give room to the emotion it stirs ; gather up the 
 lessons of which it is full. On the 5th of December last 
 there came to this land a man of alien blood, of foreign 
 
 331 
 
RUFUS C HO ATE. 
 
 and unfarniliar habits, costume and accents, yet the most 
 eloquent of speech according to his mode — the most eloquent 
 in his history and circumstances— the most eloquent in his 
 mission and topics whom the world has for many ages 
 seen ; and began among us a brief sojourn — began, say 
 rather, a brief and strange eventful pilgrimage, which is 
 just now concluded. Imperfect in his mastery of our 
 tongue, bred in a school of taste and general culture, with 
 which our Anglo-Saxon training has little affinity and little 
 sympathy ; the representative and impersonation, though 
 not, I believe, the native child of a race from the East, 
 planted some centuries ago in Europe, but Oriental still as 
 ever in all but Christianity — the pleader of a cause in which 
 we might seem to be as little concerned as in the story 
 of the love of Pelops, or that of Troy divine, coming before 
 us even such — that silvery voice, that sad abstracted eye, 
 before which one image seemed alone to hover — one procession 
 to be passing — the fallen Hungary — the 'unnamed demigods,' 
 her thousands of devoted sons — that earnest and full soul 
 laboring with one emotion, has held thousands and thousands 
 of all degrees of susceptibility — the coldness and self con- 
 trol of the East — the more spontaneous sympathies of the 
 West — ^the masses in numbers without number — women — 
 scholars — our greatest names in civil places — by the seashore — 
 in banquet hall — in halls of legislation — among the memories 
 of Bunker Hill — everywhere — he has held all with a charm 
 as absolute as that with which the ancient mariner kept 
 back the bridal guests after the music of the marriage feast 
 
 had begun. The tribute of tears and applaudings, the tri- 
 
 332 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 bute of sympathy and of thoughts too deep for applaudings, 
 too deep for tears, have attested his sway. For the first 
 time since the transcendant genius of Demosthenes strove 
 with the downward age of Greece — or since the prophets of 
 Israel announced each tone of the hymn grander and sadder 
 than before — the successive footfalls of the approaching Assyrian 
 beneath whose spear the law should cease — and the vision 
 be seen no more — our ears, our hearts, have drank the 
 sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words which 
 man may ever utter or may ever hear — the eloquence of 
 an expiring nation." At the Whig convention which met 
 for the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency, at 
 Baltimore, on the i6th of June, 1852, Mr. Choate made a 
 speech in which the following beautiful passages occur. 
 " Extremists denounce all compromises ever. Alas ! do they 
 remember that such is the condition of humanity that the 
 noblest politics are but a compromise, an approximation, a 
 type, a shadow of good things, the buying of great blessings 
 at great prices.? Do they forget that the Union is a com- 
 promise ; the constitution, social life ; that the harmony of 
 the universe is but the music of compromise by which the 
 antagonisms of the infinite Nature are composed and recon- 
 ciled.? Let him who doubts, if such there be, whether it 
 were wise to press these measures, look back and recall 
 with what instantaneous and mighty charm they calmed the 
 madness and anxiety of the hour! How every countenance 
 everywhere brightened and elevated itself! How in a 
 moment, the interrupted and parted currents of fraternal 
 
 feeling reunited! Sir, the people came together again, as 
 
 333 
 
when in the old Roman history, the tribes descended from 
 the mount of secession, the great compromise of that con- 
 stitution achieved and flowed together behind the eagle into 
 one mighty host of reconciled races for the conquest of 
 the world." ..." I know indeed how vain it is to seek 
 to bind a future generation or even a future day. I see the 
 great stream of progress passing by, on which all things 
 of earth are moving. I listen awestruck to the voice of 
 its rushing. Let all who have eyes to see and ears to 
 hear, see and hear also. Still, I believe something may be 
 done at favorable junctures to shape, color, confirm even, 
 so capricious and so mighty a thing as public opinion. 
 This is the theory upon which written constitutions are 
 constructed. Why, such toil as these, unless in the belief 
 that you may and should seek to embody and fix an im- 
 portant agreement in the national mind, may for a little 
 space moor the ship against the stream, and insure that 
 when she is swept from that mooring, she may not be 
 instantly shattered, but float with some safety, and under 
 some control to the ocean." Up to the year 1849, notwithstand- 
 ing his large business, Mr. Choate had been too careless both 
 in charges and collections to realize an adequate return for his 
 services, and seemed to be the only person who placed a 
 low estimate on his own labors. He was generous to a fault, 
 and of the many who came to borrow of him, none went 
 empty away, if he were not himself pressed for money. The 
 largest fee he ever received was two thousand five hundred 
 dollars, and for eleven years his average income with his 
 
 practice was not more than eighteen thousand dollars, while 
 
 334 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 in no year did it amount to more than twenty thousand 
 dollars. Never assuming pre-eminence or standing upon his 
 dignity, he was on the kindest and most familiar terms 
 with his brethren at the Bar, and his intercourse with, and in- 
 structions to the junior members of the profession were ever 
 of the kindliest. The key to Mr. Choate's public life, 
 especially his later life, lay in his strong American feeling 
 and love for the Union. As a statesman his ideas and policy 
 had nothing narrow or sectional. They embraced the whole 
 country and every part of it, and were identified with 
 whatever in patriotism is most generous and unselfish. His 
 position at the latter end of his life was such as any one 
 might envy. He stood at the head of the New England 
 Bar, and his well earned reputation was unsurpassed by any 
 other advocate in the country, while in the profession he 
 had won the love as well as admiration of his brethren. He 
 had shown some slight symptoms of failing health on his 
 return from Europe, but it was not until 1859 that his 
 friends were seriously alarmed. On the 29th of March he 
 made his last argument before the Bench, and found himself 
 unequal to proceed, and only continued attendance at his 
 office till the i6th of April. His disease was a very obscure 
 one, inducing constant languor, and his doctors rather en- 
 couraged his taking a voyage. After three unsuccessful attempts 
 at starting in other vessels, he at length went on board the 
 Europa, on the 29th of June, and was landed at Halifax, 
 more dead than alive. Getting into apartments which over- 
 looked the sea, he was able to indulge in his old habitual 
 love of it without raising his head from his pillows. He 
 
 335 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 never left the bed to which he was taken, and passed 
 calmly to the regions of the blessed on the morning of 
 the 13th of July. The sad tidings were at once spread by 
 telegraph all over the United States and evoked the deepest 
 sorrow among his fellow countrymen, while from the 
 Governor, Lord Mulgrave, downwards, all had proffered him 
 all that their resources could afford ; and his demise cast a 
 deep gloom over the entire community. Under the presi- 
 dency of the venerable Chief Justice Sir Brenton Hali- 
 burton, the Bench and Bar of Canada held a meeting to 
 express their sympathy. and respect. Nowhere did a deeper 
 feeling prevail than among the members of the Essex Bar, 
 with whom he began and closed his labors, and in Boston 
 where his greatest legal triumphs were achieved. Everywhere 
 the death of this great, good, and gifted man was regarded 
 as a personal loss. The forensic, legislative and literary 
 annals of his country have never been adorned by a 
 lawyer of greater attainments, a more brilliant orator, a 
 purer Christian, a nobler patriot, or a more refined and 
 accomplished scholar, than Rufus Choate. 
 
 336 
 
(SC-{]AM(S[I[LL®E G^ER3To 
 
 JdTaes CoGkcroft & Co.¥ew"ToTfc, 
 
'X-- 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 HE name of the great Chancellor Kent is 
 especially dear to American lawyers, and the 
 world-wide fame which his "Commentaries" 
 have obtained renders the life of this remark- 
 ably distinguished legist and diligent student 
 of precedents, peculiarly interesting to the 
 profession. Reared upon the banks of the 
 Croton river, it may truthfully be said that 
 his legal acumen and patient research have 
 done at least an equal service to enlighten 
 and aid those who have followed him in 
 succeeding generations at the bar, as the 
 waters of the beautiful river, where the paternal mansion was 
 situated, have in the supply of the Empire City of the United 
 States with that pure and necessary element which has con- 
 tributed to her salubrity and cleanliness. James Kent was 
 born in Fredericks, Putnam county. New York, on the 31st 
 of July, 1763. From the earliest period he exhibited singular 
 power of mental application, and his father being a lawyer, 
 his mind naturally turned to legal questions long before he 
 made choice of a profession ; while at the same time he 
 
 possessed an intense love of nature, and throughout life 
 
 339 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 exhibited a spirit of true simplicity, which in his later years 
 might be viewed as almost infantine. His father had a large 
 farm on the banks of the Croton river, the house in which 
 he was reared having an especially elevated, commanding, and 
 beautiful location ; and he was wont to allude to the intense 
 delight with which he would stand at the library window and 
 watch the play of the waters of the Union Park fountains. 
 He entered the freshman class at Yale in the year 1777, but 
 his studies there were interrupted in his Sophomore year in 
 consequence of the occupation of the British, when the college 
 was for a time closed. It was just at that time, while his 
 college pursuits were so unfortunately interrupted by the great 
 national struggle for liberty, and his mind was athirst for 
 that varied knowledge which he pursued with unceasing 
 industry, that he fell across a copy of Blackstone's Commen- 
 taries. His close study of this great legal work determined 
 him in the choice of a profession. He took his degree in 
 1 781, and entered the office of Mr. Egbert Benson, of Pough- 
 keepsie, where he pursued his studies, and made himself thor- 
 oughly acquainted with the routine of legal business. In 
 January, 1785, he was admitted as an attorney, and commenced 
 practice in his native village of Fredericks, a location which he 
 soon found to be too limited, and uncongenial to his great 
 legal aspirations. He then returned to Poughkeepsie and 
 entered into partnership with Mr. Gilbert Livingston. Here 
 he fell in love with, and married Miss Elizabeth Binley ; but 
 the married state appears only to have increased his ambition 
 and desire thoroughly to master those subjects, a complete 
 
 knowledge of which could raise him in the educational scale, 
 
 340 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 and enable him to "climb the steep where fame's proud 
 temple shines afar." He was dissatisfied with an education 
 which had been so interrupted, and, to his own mind, partial. 
 It was true that at Yale College he had gone as far in Greek 
 as the New Testament, and in Latin had become partially 
 acquainted with Virgil, Horace, and Cicero, but such steps 
 by no means satisfied him. He therefore put himself upon 
 a system of the closest study, to which he rigidly adhered at 
 all sacrifices. Rising very early, he devoted himself for two 
 hours to Greek and two hours to Latin before breakfast, and 
 after following his profession at the ordinary hours of legal 
 labor, he devoted two hours after dinner daily to the French 
 language, and his evenings to the close study of the English 
 classics. In this way he rapidly advanced himself to a com- 
 prehensive and soUd knowledge of subjects in which he had 
 previously felt a deficiency, and he continued this process of 
 storing his mind until he was elevated to the bench as Judge 
 of the Supreme Court. In 1790 and 1792 he was elected to 
 the State Assembly, and in 1793 conducted with great talent 
 the examination of witnesses in the charge of the destruction 
 of the votes cast in Oswego county for the election of Gov- 
 ernor of the State. This service was afterwards remembered 
 and rewarded by John Jay when he became Governor. In 
 April, 1793, Kent was nominated for Congress in Dutchess 
 county, but was defeated. He then removed to New York. 
 Here he seemed to make but little progress in the important 
 point of making money by his learning and professional 
 experience. Having but a small private patrimony, he found 
 
 his means became soon straitened, and were quite inadequate 
 
 341 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 to his support. However, in December of the same year, he 
 was appointed Professor in Columbia College, and his intro- 
 ductory lecture was so highly appreciated that it was published 
 by and at the expense of the trustees. In the year 1795 he 
 himself published three others subsequently delivered by him 
 in 1795, which were preliminary to a course on common law. 
 He also delivered a review on the government of the United 
 States, and delivered in the same year an address on arts and 
 manufactures, which was published by the State Society. In 
 1798 his lectures being but thinly attended on account of the 
 paucity of the students, he resigned his professorship at Colum- 
 bia College ; but this was fully compensated by his being 
 appointed in the same year a Judge of the Supreme Court, 
 by Governor Jay. Previously to this, however, he had in 
 1797 been made Recorder of New York and Master in Chan- 
 cery. When raised to the Bench of the Supreme Court he 
 was the first to introduce the practice of writing written deci- 
 sions, a course which has since been universally followed, and 
 which has tended greatly to increase the dignity of the Bench, 
 and which his associates at the time approved and followed. 
 In the year 1804 he was appointed Chief Justice, and so con- 
 tinued for ten years, until in 1814 he received the appointment 
 of Chancellor. He will ever be associated with this title, and 
 the manner in which he discharged the duties of the office 
 rendered him more than ever distinguished. Of his conduct 
 in that capacity Judge Duer said, " he accomplished during 
 his tenure of office changes in the administration of equity law 
 so extensive and entire that, with the exception of Lord Not- 
 tingham, they have no parallel in the history of the law." Kent 
 
 342 
 
retained the chancellorship until 1823, when, being sixty years 
 of age, he became incapacitated by law from its further reten- 
 tion. In the same year, however, a vacancy occurred in the 
 Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Kent 
 was pointed to on the ground of his profound legal attainments 
 as the man best calculated to fill it. The distinguished Wirt, 
 whose fervid and soul-stirring eloquence had raised him to 
 the foremost place amongst American orators, and who was 
 at that time Attorney-General, warmly supported his nomina- 
 tion, and wrote in the following terms of the Chancellor to 
 President Monroe : " Kent," he said, " holds so lofty a stand 
 everywhere for matchless intellect and learning, spotless purity 
 and high-minded honor and patriotism, that I firmly believe 
 the nation at large would approve and applaud the appoint- 
 ment." And to Kent's personal character, the refined and 
 elegantly-expressive Wirt bore the following testimony : " His 
 conversation and manners are indicative of a simplicity almost 
 infantine, of the most perfect kindness and suavity of disposi- 
 tion, and such I understand has always been his character. 
 Judging from all I have seen of him, and all I have ever 
 heard, he is as benignant and patriotic as he is admitted on 
 all hands to be great and enlightened." Seeing the necessity 
 of a good law school for the enlargement of the arena of legal 
 knowledge and the more perfect training of students in that 
 profession, Kent eventually removed to Albany, where he had 
 resided previously to his appointment as Chancellor of New 
 York, He then again a second time accepted the office 
 of Professor at Columbia College. It was then that the world 
 
 began to reap the benefit of his deep legal research, and of the 
 
 343 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 accident which had directed him to study Blackstone's Com- 
 mentaries when Yale College was closed by the occupation of 
 the British, and the study of that profound English legist had 
 determined him in the choice of the bar as a profession. As 
 the fruits of his learned leisure there came forth, at the solicita- 
 tion of endless personal friends who had reason to esteem his 
 as a perfect encyclopaedia of cases, decisions, and references, the 
 first volume of that universally-admitted standard work, " Kent's 
 Commentaries," which has immortalized his name. The first 
 volume was published in the year 1826, and at the commence- 
 ment of the work he only contemplated a second ; but he 
 soon found that to do it justice the great undertaking must 
 necessarily spread itself out, and the fourth and last volume 
 issued from the press in the year 1830. It at once took a high 
 place in legal literature, and was universally received as a legal 
 text-book, as by first exhausting each topic of common law, 
 and then introducing the various changes made in it, it 
 has been made adaptable to each State. Chancellor Kent had, 
 however, a mode of working his great publication, which 
 would scarcely be acceptable to modern publishers. So strange 
 indeed was it, that the " Commentaries " might almost be classed 
 as a work printed for private circulation. He held the copy- 
 right himself, and as the copies were printed he stored them 
 in his own house, when they were disposed of as separately 
 ordered by the booksellers. This peculiar method of disposing 
 of his " Commentaries " at length, however, had necessarily to 
 be abandoned. All the reports of Kent's decisions, whether 
 in the capacity of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or in 
 
 that of Chancellor, evidence his great and collected power of 
 
 344 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 thought, his unbounded knowledge of legal precedents, and 
 bear indubitable testimony to his superior style and ability as 
 a writer. From the period of his retirement from the Chan- 
 cellorship, while still continuing his practice as an unrivalled 
 chamber lawyer, he was enabled to turn his attention more 
 completely to those elegant and professionally useful addresses 
 which he now periodically delivered. His discourses delivered 
 in 1828 before the New York Society, in 1831 before the 
 "Phi Beta Kappa," and in 1836 before the Law Association of 
 New York, are all memorable specimens of his learning and 
 research. In 1840, he complied with the request of the Mer- 
 cantile Library Association, and delivered before its members 
 a course of readings which afforded great instruction, putting 
 before them an ample field of study and a novel and in- 
 exhaustible scope for the exercise of their imagination. That a 
 lawyer and judge, who had rendered such grave and solemn 
 decisions, should be so fully capable of refined and lighter 
 thought, and positive humor, is not often found to be the 
 case, yet, in the instance of Kent, even in his most serious 
 addresses this is found strikingly apparent. On what may be 
 called the rule in Shelley's case superseded, he has the fol- 
 lowing elegant passage: "The juridical scholar in dwelling 
 upon what his great master Coke has bestowed some por- 
 tion of the gladsome light of jurisprudence, will scarcely be 
 able to withhold an involuntary sigh, as he casts a retrospective 
 glance over the piles of learning devoted to destruction by 
 an edict as sweeping and unrelenting as the torch of Omar. 
 He must bid adieu forever to the renowned discussions in 
 
 Shelley's case, which were so vehement and so protracted as 
 
 ,345 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 to arouse the sceptre of the haughty Elizabeth. He may 
 equally take leave of the multiplied specimens of professional 
 logic, skilful criticism, and refined distinctions, which pervade 
 the cases in law and equity from those of Shelley downwards, 
 to the direct collisions between the courts of law and equity, 
 in the time of Lord Hardwicke. He will have no more 
 concern with the powerful and animated discussions in Perrin 
 V. Blake, which awakened all that was noble and illustrious 
 in talent and endowment in every precinct of Westmin- 
 ster Hall. He will have occasion no longer in pursuit of 
 the learning in that case to tread the clear and bright 
 paths illuminated by Sir WiUiam Blackstone, or to study and 
 admire the spirited and ingenious dissertations of Hargrave, 
 the comprehensive and learned disquisitions of Fearne, the 
 acute and analytical essay of Preston, the neat and orderly 
 abridgment of Cruise, and the severe and piercing criticism 
 of Reeve. What I have therefore written on this subject 
 may be considered, so far as my native state is concerned, 
 as a humble monument to the memory of departed learning." 
 It may be doubted whether real eloquence was ever so much 
 combined with profound erudition, on a dry legal subject, as 
 in the above passage from the great Chancellor. In one of 
 his addresses, alluding to the New York convention, held at 
 Poughkeepsie in 1738 for the adoption of the federal con- 
 stitution, he gives the following interesting account of his 
 presence on that memorable occasion. He says "the intense 
 interest with which the meeting of the convention was antici- 
 pated and regarded, can hardly be conceived, much less de- 
 scribed. I then resided in that village, and was enabled and 
 
 346 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 induced to attend the convention as a spectator, daily and 
 steadily during the entire six weeks of its session, and I was 
 of course an ear and eye witness of everything of a public 
 nature which was done." The principal speakers on this great 
 occasion must all have possessed great interest to the mind of the 
 future Chancellor, who was then twenty-five years of age, and 
 had been three years called to the Bar. Those who were 
 on behalf of the adoption of the Constitution were Jay (then 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs), Chancellor Livingston, Mr. Duane 
 (Mayor of New York), Mr. Harrison, and Col. Hamilton. On 
 the other side, among those who were opposed to its adop- 
 tion without important amendments, were Mr. George Clinton 
 (Governor of the State), Mr. Lansing (afterwards Chancellor), 
 Mr. Jones (afterwards Recorder), John WilHams of Washington 
 county, Gilbert Livingston and Melancton Smith, delegates 
 from Dutchess. Kent had no difficulty in deciding on which 
 side lay the superiority of debate, and speaks in high com- 
 mendation of the dignity, candor, and strength of Jay, the 
 polished address and elegant erudition of Chancellor Living- 
 ston, the sagacity, and exhaustive researches of Hamilton, all 
 which were met with equal pretensions, simplicity, and 
 earnestness on the other side by the grand sense of Clinton, 
 .the sound sense of Jones, the profound deductions of Lansing, 
 and the rqetaphysical mind and embarrassing subtleties of 
 Smith. Among them all, Kent gave the undoubted palm to 
 Hamilton, who maintained an unquestioned ascendancy. 
 The topics of discussion were, first, the importance of the 
 union, the defects of the confederation, and the just principles 
 pf representation. Secondly, representatiye tenure and sta- 
 
 ■347 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 bility of senate ; and, thirdly, the power of taxation and 
 the residuary rights of the states. Of the principal author 
 of the Federalist, Kent says he generally spoke with great 
 earnestness and energy, and with considerable, and sometimes 
 vehement, gesture. His language was clear, nervous, and 
 classical. He went to the foundation and reason of every 
 doctrine which he examined, and brought to the debate a 
 mind richly adorned with all the learning that was applicable. 
 His candor was magnanimous, and rose to a level with his 
 talents. His temper was spirited, but courteous, amiable, and 
 generous, and he frequently made urgent and particular 
 appeals to the good sense and patriotism of the assembly, 
 and painted vividly the difficulties and dangers of the crisis, 
 in order to prepare their minds for a favorable reception of the 
 constitution. In his^ opening speech Hamilton preliminarily 
 observed, that it was of the utmost importance that the 
 convention should be strongly impressed with the necessity 
 of the union of the states. If they could be entirely satisfied 
 of that great truth, their minds would then be better prepared 
 to admit the necessity of a government of simple organization 
 and powers with the scheme of the one before them, to uphold 
 and preserve that union. It was like the case of the doctrine 
 of the immortality of the soul; and doubts on that subject 
 were, he said, one great cause of modern infidelity, for if men 
 could be thoroughly convinced that they' had within them 
 immaterial and immortal spirits, their minds would be pre- 
 pared for the reception of Christian truth. After pointing 
 out the radical defects of the articles of confederation and 
 
 vindicating the popular basis of the proposed system, he 
 
 348 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 declared his most serious conviction that the latter was a 
 wise and genuine specimen of a representative republic, and 
 he hoped and trusted that we should find in it an effectual 
 cure for our actual distresses, and that it would prove an 
 eminent blessing to us and to our posterity. He concluded 
 his first great speech with the patriot's prayer, "Oh, save my 
 country, Heaven," in allusion to the brave Cobham, who, his 
 ruling spirit strong in death, uttered the same words. His 
 two speeches on the organization, powers, and stability of the 
 senate, were regarded at the time by the best judges as the 
 noblest specimens which the debates in that or in any other 
 assembly ever afforded of the talent and wisdom of a states- 
 man. They were delivered with a strong desire to put down 
 a most mischievous and pernicious proposition to amend the 
 Constitution, and which was that no person should be eligible 
 to the senate for more than six years in any term of twelve, 
 and then they should at all times be subject to recall by the 
 State Legislature, and to the substitution of others. Mr. 
 Hamilton on that occasion took broad views of the nature 
 of man, his passions, pursuits, interests, prejudice, duties, and 
 he drew his deductions from the design and necessity of gov- 
 ernment, the settled principle of policy, and the history and 
 melancholy infirmities of all free, and especially of all federal, 
 governments, ancient and modem. Instability, a fluctuating 
 policy, and corrupt and vindictive factions were found in the 
 history of most republican systems, and their natural tendency 
 was to weaken the sanct'ty of contracts, lessen the security 
 of property, destroy a proud and just sense of national honor, 
 
 and finally to forfeit the respect and confidence of the rest 
 
 349 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 of mankind. He contended, therefore, that in all just policy 
 we ought not to hesitate to infuse a principle of stability into 
 our national government by the creation of a senate to be 
 pomparatively small in the number of its members, and to 
 have them chosen for considerable periods of time, so as to 
 inspire them with a feeling of independence and a lively 
 sen;Se of character in the due discharge of their trusts. By 
 twelve members going over from the anti-federal party, a 
 sufficient majority was constituted to enable the constitution, 
 as proposed, to be unconditionally ratified. The great chan- 
 cellor always looked back with the greatest pleasure upon 
 his presence upon that most important occasion, and thus 
 expressed himself of the twelve yielding members of the 
 conference: "I have always considered the meinbers who 
 made this memorable and unbought sacrifice of error, prejudice, 
 and party discipline, on the altar of patriotism and their coun- 
 try's welfare, as entitled to the highest commendation." 
 
 The profound respect entertained by Chancellor Kent for 
 his old master. President Ezra Styles, of Hartford, was very 
 remarkable. In a review of Dr. Styles's great work on the his- 
 tory of the judges who tried King Charles the First, Kent says : 
 "This work contains proof that the author's devotion to civil 
 and religious liberty carried him forward to some hasty conclu- 
 sions, in like manner as his fondness for antiquarian research 
 tended to lead his mind to credulous excesses. The volume 
 contains a vindication of the resistance of the long parliament 
 to Charles the First, and of the judicature, trial, and condemna- 
 tion of that monarch. Here he rises into a thjeme of the 
 
 loftiest import, and describes it with his usual boldness, fervor, 
 
 350 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 acuteness, and copiousness of erudition. He takes occasion to 
 condemn all hereditary orders in government as being incom- 
 patible with public virtue and security, and he was of opinion 
 that monarchy and aristocracy, with their exclusive political 
 appendages, were going fast into discredit and disuse under 
 the influence of more just and enlightened notions of the 
 natural equalities and liberties of mankind. President Styles' 
 zeal for civil and religious liberty was kindled at the altar of 
 the England and New England Puritans, and was animated 
 and vivid. A more constant and devoted friend to the revo- 
 lution and independence of this country never existed. He 
 anticipated it as early as the year 1 760, and his whole soul was 
 enlisted in favor of every measure which led on gradually to 
 the formation and establishment of the American Union. The 
 frequent appeals he was accustomed to make to the heads and 
 hearts of his pupils concerning the slippery paths of youth, the 
 grave duties of life, and the perils and hopes and honors and 
 destiny of our country, will never be forgotten by those who 
 heard them, and especially when he came to touch, as he 
 often did, with a master's hand and a prophet's fire, on the 
 bright vision of the future prosperity and splendor of the 
 United States. Take him for all in all, this extraordinary man 
 was undoubtedly one of the purest and most gifted of his 
 age." 
 
 Among the many writings of Chancellor Kent, there are 
 some very interesting papers upon the treatment of the North 
 American Indian tribes, in which the great jurist takes very 
 statesmanlike ground, and insists upon the national duty of 
 
 subjugating and civilizing those savage races. The Chancel- 
 
 351 
 
JAMES KENT. 
 
 lor held that it was the design of the Creator himself that 
 barbarism should be made to give way to the progress of 
 a higher civilization. The constant and temperate use of 
 his faculties throughout life preserved their energy to a re- 
 markable extent in his old age. He died on the 4th of 
 December, 1847, in his eighty-fifth year, leaving a character as 
 remarkable for its simplicity, pui-ity, and amiability, as for 
 
 the highest judicial acquirements. 
 
 352 
 
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