out a sincere Christian among the set, excepting Addison and Arbuthnot.

In the amatory section of Lord Hardwicke's biography the author is not obliged to assume any very strenuous attitude of defence. He quotes from the old Life by Cooksey this little story, which certainly proves that the lofty Earl either was not, or pretended not to be, acquainted with the personal appearance of two much admired beauties of the irregular class :

'He used to relate an incident that occurred to him in a morning ride from Wimple. Observing an elegant gentleman's house, he conceived a wish to see the inside of it. It happened to be that of Mr. Montague, brother to Lord Sandwich, who, being at home, very politely, without knowing his lordship, conducted him about the apartments, which were perfectly elegant; and expatiated on the pictures, some of which were capital. Among these were two female figures, beautifully painted, in all their native naked charms. "These ladies," says the master of the house, "you must certainly know, for they are most striking likenesses." On the guest's expressing his perfect ignorance, "Why, where the devil have you led your life, or what company have you kept," says the Captain, not to know Fanny Murray and Kitty Fisher, with whose persons I thought no fashionable man like you could be unacquainted?" On the visitor's taking leave, and saying, "I shall be glad to return your civilities at Wimple," what surprise and confusion did he express on his discovering he had been talking all this badinage to Lord Hardwicke!'-vol. V. p. 165.

66

Lord Campbell dismisses this chapter with triumphant de

cision

'He was one of the handsomest men of his time, and bestowed great attention to his appearance and dress. There were reports circulated of his gallantries with a Lady B, and with the celebrated Mrs. Wells; but for these there was as little foundation as for his conjectured intimacy with Fanny Murray and Kitty Fisher. He was a perfect pattern not only of temperance and sobriety, but also of conjugal fidelity.’*

6

6

Of Northington, also, we are told that he was a remarkably handsome man in his person;' but nothing occurs as to love matters except a somewhat romantic attachment' at Bath, of which from his rattling, reckless manner, and his being a professed votary of the god "ever fair and ever young," he was supposed to be incapable, but which led to a very happy wedding' (vol. v. p. 179). He had been a right potent toper both at All Souls and in the Temple:

We have a special reason for not dwelling on Lord Campbell's Life of the very greatest of the Chancellors. He has not had the full use of the Yorke family's papers, because these had been previously intrusted to another gentleman, who now announces a separate biography of Lord Hardwicke on a large scale,

'He

'He afterwards so far reformed as not to allow his love of wine very seriously to interfere with the pressing business of life, but many a severe fit of the gout was the result of his youthful indulgences. He was once heard, in the House of Lords, to mutter, after several hobbling and painful walks, with the purse in his hand, between the woolsack and the bar-If I had only known that these legs were one day to carry a Lord Chancellor, I'd have taken better care of them when I was a lad.

'His great delight was to find himself in a circle of lawyers, or common-place politicians, and to indulge in boisterous mirth and coarse jocularity. He seems himself to have possessed a rich fund of humour. Many of his sayings and stories used to be repeated by young students, when 'Twas merry in the hall, and beards wagged all,--but would not be found suited to the more refined taste of the present age. He likewise indulged in a bad habit which seems to have been formerly very general, and which I recollect when it was expiring-of interlarding conversation with oaths and imprecations as intensitives-even without any anger or excitement. But in spite of these faults, into which he was led by the fashion of the times, he was a strictly moral, and even a religious man. He continued to live on terms of the utmost affection and harmony with his wife.'

Lord Campbell dismisses this drinking, swearing, indecent, but strictly moral and religious Chancellor, by saying that even his dying words to his daughters were too gross to be printed; but on the other hand

'He was noted as a very steady and consistent politician, so that he did not derive the same benefit from the oblivion of his harangues which might have been enjoyed by some of his successors, who, in the discussion of important questions, have spoken with equal ability on both sides.'-vol. v. p. 182.

The stiff and sanctimonious King, the solemn Camden, the brilliant Charles Yorke, and the prematurely and proverbially grave Bathurst, pass before us without speck; but there is an extract from the private Diary of the first of these which (since we have got into love-stories) may not unsuitably be quoted here. If Lord King's Diary contains many more passages of the like curiosity, it surely deserves to be published :—

'Monday, 2nd September, 1729, went to town. The next day saw the Queen at Court; from thence went to Sir R. Walpole's in his chariot, and dined with him and his lady only.. On this occasion he let me into several secrets relating to the King and Queen-that the King constantly wrote to her by every opportunity long letters of two or three sheets, being generally of all his actions-what he did every day, even to minute things, and particularly of his amours, what women he admired . . . . .; and that the Queen, to continue him in a disposition to do what she desired, returned as long letters, and approved even of his amours; not scrupling to say, that she was but one woman,

and

and an old woman, and that he might love more and younger women. By which means, and a perfect subserviency to his will, she effected whatsoever she desired, without which it was impossible to keep him within any bounds.'-vol. iv. p. 634.

'I have been obliged (says Lord Campbell) to omit some of the expressions imputed to her Majesty, as too coarse to be copied; and he adds:-'It is possible that the whole was the invention of Walpole, who over his wine might wish to mystify the Chancellor.' But this mystification cannot be charged against Walpole. The style of the King's letters from Hanover to his Queen is, we understand, not only described but exemplified in the forthcoming Memoirs of Lord Hervey.

Thurlow's chapter is not by any means so easy, but Lord Campbell shows every disposition to treat him gently:

"Thurlow was early in life honourably attached to an accomplished young lady, Miss Gooch-of a respectable family in Norfolk; "but she would not have him, for she was positively afraid of him." He seems then to have foresworn matrimony. It is with great reluctance that I proceed; but I should give a very imperfect sketch of the individual and of the manners of the age, if I were to try to conceal that of which he was not ashamed, and which in his lifetime, with very slight censure, was known to all the world. Not only while he was at the bar, but after he became Lord Chancellor, he lived openly with a mistress, and had a family by her, whom he recognised, and without any disguise brought out in society as if they had been his legitimate children.--In like manner, as when I touched upon the irregularities of Cardinal Wolsey, I must remind the reader that every man is charitably to be judged by the standard of morality which prevailed in the age in which he lived. Although Mrs. Hervey is sometimes satirically named in the Rolliad and other contemporary publications, her liaison with the Lord Chancellor seems to have caused little scandal. In spite of it he was a prime favourite, not only with George III. but with Queen Charlotte, both supposed to be very strict in their notions of chastity; and his house was not only frequented by his brother the Bishop, but by ecclesiastics of all degrees, who celebrated the orthodoxy of the head of the law, his love of the Established Church,-and his hatred of Dissenters. It should likewise be stated in mitigation, that he was an affectionate parent, and took great pains with the education of his offspring.'

Note. When I first knew the profession, it would not have been endured that any one in a judicial situation should have had such a domestic establishment as Thurlow's, but a majority of the Judges had married their mistresses. The understanding then was, that a man elevated to the bench, if he had a mistress, must either marry her or put her away. For many years there has been no necessity for such an alternative. The improvement in public morals, at the conclusion of the eighteenth century, may be mainly ascribed to George III. and his Queen, who, though being unable to lay down any violent rule, or to

bring about any sudden change, they were obliged to wink at the irregularities of the Lord Chancellor--not only by their bright example, but by their well-directed efforts, greatly discouraged the profligacy which was introduced at the Restoration, and continued, with little abatement, till their time.'-vol. v. p. 657.

It appears to us that Lord Campbell could hardly have penned the foregoing note, unless he had utterly forgotten the strain of his own observations when vindicating Somers in re Blount. He there assumed that the pure examples of William and Mary, and Anne and George of Denmark, had effected the reform which is here, with more accuracy, traced to George III. and Queen Charlotte. But enough of the erotics of Thurlow:and the more doubtful question of that Chancellor's religion we are willing to leave in Lord Campbell's merciful hands :—

'It has been said that Thurlow was a sceptic; but I do not believe that there is any foundation for this assertion, beyond the laxity of his practice, and an occasional irreverence in his expressions on religious subjects-which, however censurable, were not inconsistent with a continuing belief in the divine truths he had been taught by his pious parents.'

Thurlow was the earliest of these heroes that ever fell under the biographer's personal inspection, and we feel throughout the narrative how much life and verisimilitude are gained when the subject has actually sat to the artist, though but once, and long before there could have been any thought of the portraiture.

With these eyes have I beheld the lineaments of Edward, Lord Thurlow; with these ears have I heard the deep tones of his voice.

'He had resigned the Great Seal while I was still a child residing in my native land; but when I had been entered a few days a student at Lincoln's Inn it was rumoured that, after a long absence from Parliament, he was to attend in the House of Lords, to express his opinion upon the very important question, "whether a divorce bill should be passed on the petition of the wife, in a case where her husband had been guilty of incest with her sister?"--there never hitherto having been an instance of a divorce bill in England except on the petition of the husband for the adultery of the wife.

'When I was admitted below the bar, May 20, 1801, Lord Chancellor Eldon was sitting on the woolsack; but he excited comparatively little interest, and all eyes were impatiently looking round for him who had occupied it under Lord North, under Lord Rockingham, under Lord Shelburne, and under Mr. Pitt. At last there walked in, supported by a staff, a figure bent with age, dressed in an old-fashioned grey coat,— with breeches and gaiters of the same stuff--a brown scratch wigtremendous white bushy eyebrows-eyes still sparkling with intelligence -dreadful crows' feet round them--very deep lines in his countenance and shrivelled complexion of a sallow hue-all indicating

much

much greater senility than was to be expected from the date of his birth as laid down in the Peerage [1732].

'The debate was begun by his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., who moved the rejection of the bill, on the ground that marriage had never been dissolved in this country, and never ought to be dissolved, unless for the adultery of the wife, which alone for ever frustrated the purposes for which marriage had been instituted. Lord Thurlow then rose, and the fall of a feather might have been heard in the House while he spoke. At this distance of time I retain the most lively recollection of his appearance, his manner, and his reasoning.

"I have been excited by this bill," said he, "to examine the whole subject of divorce. Why do you grant to the husband a divorce for the adultery of the wife? Because he ought not to forgive her, and separation is inevitable. Where the wife cannot forgive, and separation is inevitable by reason of the crime of the husband, the wife is entitled to the like remedy. By the clearest evidence, Mr. Addison since the marriage has been guilty of incest with the sister of Mrs. Addison. Reconciliation is impossible. She cannot forgive him, and return to his house, without herself being guilty of incest. Had this intercourse with the sister taken place before the marriage, the Ecclesiastical Court would have set aside the marriage as incestuous and void from the beginning; and is Mrs. Addison to be in a worse situation because the incest was committed after the marriage, and under her own roof? You allow that she can never live with him again as her husband, and is she, innocent, to be condemned for his crime to spend the rest of her days in the unheard of situation of being neither virgin, wife, nor widow? Another sufficient ground for passing the bill is, that there are children of this marriage, who, without the interference of the legislature, would be exclusively under the control of the father. Now, your Lordships must all agree that such a father as Mr. Addison has proved himself to be, is unfit to be intrusted with the education of a daughter. The illustrious Prince says truly that there is no exact precedent for such a bill; but, my Lords, let us look less to the exact terms of precedents than to the reason on which they are founded. The adultery of the husband, while it is condemned, may be forgiven, and therefore is no sufficient reason for dissolving the marriage; but the incestuous adultery of the husband is equally fatal to the matrimonial union as the adultery of the wife, and should entitle the injured party to the same redress."

'I cannot now undertake to say whether there were any cheers, but I well remember that Henry Cowper, the time-honoured Clerk of the House of Lords, who had sat there for half a century, came down to the bar in a fit of enthusiasm, and called out in a loud voice, CAPITAL! CAPITAL! CAPITAL! Lord Chancellor Eldon declared that he had made up his mind to oppose the measure, but that he was converted; and Ex-chancellor Lord Rosslyn confessed that the consideration which had escaped him,-of the impossibility of a reconciliation,-now induced him to vote for the bill. Having passed both Houses, it received

the