His Lordship is for the present satisfied. Things getting worse and worse with Lord North-and Thurlow, at any rate, being in possession of the Great Seal-Lord Loughborough has too just a sense of what becomes a high judicial station not to abstain from politics during the remainder of North's administration.

'Great surprise and disappointment were caused by the line which he took. It was supposed that he had been made a peer expressly for the purpose of strenuously supporting the falling government against the attacks of Shelburne, Rockingham, and Camden. His assistance was much wanted. Wedderburn in the House of Commons had shone in the very first rank of orators. For the last two years he had borne the whole brunt of the Opposition, and had proved that with a better cause he would have been a match for Dunning, Burke, or Fox. Become Lord Loughborough, and transferred to the House of Peers, it was thought that as a debater he would be equally active, and apparently more brilliant, like the moon among the lesser lights.'-vol. vi. p. 156.

He is vexed at the little business in the Common Pleas, and (like other Chiefs before and since) shows dexterity in spinning out cases, so as to make a show of work (vol. vi. p. 147); but on the whole his leisure is a gay and festive one. He has married a rich wife, who brought him house and land in Yorkshire: he had previously been presented with a beautiful villa in Surrey by the oriental gratitude of Clive. At these seats he entertains great folks of all parties in a princely style. When in town, he frequents the clubs in St. James's-street, and is popularly suspected of occasional play in company with Fox and others of the Aristocratic Combination.'

During the last struggles of North, the cold Serpent's tongue' (that phrase was Mansfield's)-continued to be in the senate mute.' During Rockingham's ministry he was kept in anxious hesitation. Thurlow's abidance on the woolsack had surprised and tormented him: from that time these former friends and colleagues eyed each other with jealous bitterness-and the feeling grew more and more plain to close observers, until their hostility was declared-but for a season the fear of offending the King, Thurlow's strenuous patron, was a powerful restraint on the venom of the tortuous rival. Lord Rockingham's death revealed internal dissension in the party that had overthrown North: Fox proclaimed hatred and contempt for the succeeding Premier, the 'underminer' Shelburne-and Loughborough was in his element when nursing privately the scheme for ousting Shelburne (and, of course, Thurlow too), by a coalition between the Tory exMinister North and the Rockingham section of the Whigs, now called Foxites. As soon as this unholy league was matured, there was no vigour left in the judicial scruples, and the serpentine crest

glittered

glittered topmost in the fray. The Coalition' were victoriousShelburne fell, and Thurlow fell also-but the King could not at once make up his mind to a new keeper of his conscienceso the Seal was put into commission, and our Chief Justice was forced to be contented with being first of the Commissioners, presiding in the Court of Chancery as well as in the Common Pleas, but with the full patronage of the Seal, and the confidence of a Cabinet in which he could not command a place.

As every one knows, the Coalition government was, by degrees, purified of almost all the Tory elements originally in its composition, and altogether lasted but eight months; when the young Pitt became Minister, and Thurlow resumed the woolsack. Loughborough, once more merely Chief Justice, continued his connection with the Foxites: he became their real if not their acknowledged leader in the Upper House, where he was the most effective supporter of their views both as to Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation. There was no hope now of ejecting Thurlow except by the total destruction of Pitt's power, and as he evidently grew every day in favour with the King as well as the nation at large, that consummation seemed at a melancholy distance. Fox himself despaired and retired to Italy. But suddenly the King's illness (1788) came to revive the hearts of the Aristocratic Combination.' Though some recent publications had given the world a much clearer notion of the intrigues of the ensuing crisis, Lord Campbell justly congratulates himself on having found means to afford us still additional illustration. He has produced here several most curious papers from the repositories of Loughborough's representative, the Earl of Rosslyn-and, among the rest, two or three which, whether the Earl had or had not considered their tenour, leave very ugly blots on his astute predecessor's reputation.

In the first place, these documents establish clearly that Eldon had been deceived by Thurlow. Eldon, in his Anecdote Book,' alludes to the report that Thurlow, during the progress of the Regency Bill, carried on secretly from the rest of the King's friends a negotiation with the Prince's party for the purpose of continuing himself on the woolsack under their expected ministry;' adding, that he, Eldon, at that time was honoured with Thurlow's intimacy-was present every day at the conversations between Thurlow and the other King's friends-and does not believe there was a word of truth in that report.' Now, among these Rosslyn papers there is a letter from Fox to Loughborough, in which he says,

'MY DEAR LORD-I am so perfectly ashamed of the letter I am writing, that I scarcely know how to begin-but my knowledge of your

way

way of thinking, and the perfect and unreserved freedom with which we have always conversed together, gives me some courage, and induces me, without any further preface, to state to you the difficulties under which I feel myself.

When I first came over [from Italy], I found a very general anxiety among all our friends, and in the Prince still more than others, to have the Chancellor make a part of our new Administration, and (excepting only the D. of Portland) they all seemed to carry their wishes so far as to think his friendship worth buying, even at the expense of the Great Seal. This idea seemed so strange to me, considering the obligations we are all under to you, and so unpleasant to those feelings of personal friendship which I am sure you do not consider as mere professions from me to you, that I took all sorts of means to discourage it, and have actually prevented the Prince, though with some difficulty, from saying anything to Thurlow which might commit him, and to prevent the possibility of it, I obtained from him the message which I delivered to you, Wednesday night, from his Royal Highness. The difficulties which have arisen within these few days, and which to many seem increasing, have had the effect of increasing the anxiety of our friends for Thurlow's support; and they seem all to be persuaded that the Great Seal would gain him, and nothing else. You know enough of the nature of our party to know how rapidly notions are sometimes propagated among them, and how very difficult it often is for us, who ought to lead, not to be led by them. Under these circumstances I must own (and I am certain you will approve my freedom in owning it, whatever you may think of my weakness) that I wish to have it in my power to offer Lord Thurlow the Great Seal, not from my own opinion of the advantages like to accrue from such an offer, but from the dread I have if things turn out in any respect ill, of having the miscarriage imputed to my obstinacy. The invidious point of view in which you would stand yourself in such an event, rather adds to my anxiety; for although they all know the handsome offers you have made, and therefore that the whole blame ought justly to lie on me alone who refused them, yet it is not pleasant to be looked upon as a person whose pretensions, however just, have stood in the way of the success of a party. I have related to you most freely the difficulties of my situation, and I should really take it ill if you answered me but with the most unreserved freedom. If you can call here it would be best; but if you cannot, pray let me have a line, though I know your answer; and the more certain I am of it the more I feel ashamed of this letter. I really feel myself unhinged to a great degree, and till I see you, which I hope will be soon, or hear from you, shall feel very unpleasantly. I feel the part I am acting to be contrary to every principle of conduct I ever laid down for myself, and that I can bring myself to act it at all I strongly suspect to be more owing to my weakness than my judgment.-I am, with the sincerest friendship, my dear Lord, yours ever,-C. J. Fox.'

'St. James's-street, Saturday morning.'

The Chief Justice, on receipt of this performance (vi. 199), addressed a long and fierce enough letter to one of his most active colleagues

colleagues in the original intrigue, Sheridan, which Lord Campbell gives in the Life of Thurlow. We content ourselves with his

formal answer to Mr. Fox :

'MY DEAR SIR-I will frankly confess to you that the measure appears to me a strong indication of weakness, and I am deceived if it will not be generally so felt as soon as it is known. This affords additional reason why, even on motives of prudence, I should acquiesce in it, which I do, I assure you, without the smallest interruption of those sentiments of friendship and confidence with respect to you or the Duke of P., which will ever remain in my heart.-I ever am, my dear Sir, yours,-LOUGHBOROUGH.'

These most characteristic productions settle the Eldonian point; but the part of the intrigue prior to Fox's return from Italy receives even more unexpected illumination. A report, it must be remembered, had got abroad that when first the Whigs despaired of the King's recovery, Loughborough not only was strenuous in his doctrine that the Prince was entitled to take up the full powers of the Crown, but suggested to his Royal Highness that the true plan would be to do so at once by his own act -by Proclamation-without waiting for any parliamentary consultation or invitation upon the subject. In the House of Peers on December 3, 1788, Lord Camden alluded to this portentous rumour, and, as Lord Campbell expresses it, Loughborough thought himself justified in disclaiming the arbitrary advice.' The Chief Justice spoke thus:

'I maintain that by the constitution of England the regency is not elective, but depends on hereditary right; and the heir apparent is entitled, during the interruption of the personal exercise of the royal authority by his Majesty's illuess, to assume the reins of government. When I make this observation, I am very far from meaning to intimate that the Prince of Wales can violently do so without the privity of the two Houses of Parliament; but I do solemnly maintain, that upon the authentic notification to him by the two Houses of Parliament of the King's unfortunate incapacity, he is of right to be invested with the exercise of the royal authority.'-vol. vi. pp. 203, 204.

Now the Rosslyn papers yield a long letter from Loughborough to the Prince's private secretary, Mr. Payne, who was ab initio their go-between, and in it occur these sentences

'No precedent can be found except one little known, and in times. where both the frame of the government and the manners of the age were so little similar to what they now are, that it would be of no authority. In a case, therefore, supposed to be new, men would be for a moment uncertain by what rule they were to be guided, and upon a supposition of an ambiguous state of the disorder, great industry would be used to prolong the state of suspense. Every appearance of favourable intervals would be magnified, and the apprehension of a change

would

would be studiously excited to prevent the public opinion from attaching itself to the apparent acting power. To oppose this, great spirit and steadiness would be necessary; but I have no doubt that the only measure would be, to assert that authority which no other person has a right to assume, and which, with a united royal family, no opposition would be able to thwart.'-vol. vi. pp. 193, 194.

This is pretty distinct-but it is followed by a memorandum written in pencil by the hand of Loughborough, and which (Lord Campbell has been informed) was read by himself to the Prince of Wales at a secret interview in Windsor-and here the language seems even less susceptible of misinterpretation :—

'Upon the supposition of a state of disorder without prospect of recovery or of a speedy extinction, the principle of the P.'s conduct is perfectly clear. The administration of government devolves to him of right. He is bound by every duty to assume it, and his character would be lessened in the public estimation if he took it on any other ground but right, or on any sort of compromise. The authority of Parliament, as the great council of the nation, would be interposed, not to confer, but to declare the right. The mode of proceeding which occurs to my mind is, that in a very short time H. R. H. should signify his intention to act by directing a meeting of the Privy Council, where he should declare his intention to take upon himself the care of the State, and should at the same time signify his desire to have the advice of Parliament, and order it by a Proclamation to meet early for despatch of business. That done, he should direct the several Ministers to attend him with the public business of their offices.

It is of vast importance in the outset, that he should appear to act entirely of himself, and in the conferences he must necessarily have, not to consult, but to listen and direct.

Though the measure of assembling the Council should not be consulted upon, but decided in his own breast, it ought to be communicated to a few persons who may be trusted, a short time before it takes place; and it will deserve consideration whether it might or not be expedient very speedily after this measure, in order to mark distinctly the assumption of government, to direct such persons-at least in one or two instances -to be added to what is called the Cabinet, as he thinks proper. By marking a determination to act of himself, and by cautiously avoiding to raise strong fear or strong hope, but keeping men's minds in expectation of what may arise out of his reserve, and in a persuasion of his general candour, he will find all men equally observant of him.'—vol. vi. p. 195.

Lord Campbell produces, also, the first letter that Fox wrote to Loughborough on his arrival from Italy, which can leave no doubt that, on hearing what Loughborough had suggested, Fox instantly declared that advice inadmissible. This is important-for even Lord Brougham seems not to have believed that Loughborough's scheme (whatever it might have been) was ever made known at all to any of the Whig leaders. There remains the pinching question whether