tive call to other occupations, I held the pen in his stead the function was a flattering one to my young ambition. A pun I remember letting off, gives some indication as to the time. The Cabinet-squabbles, produced by the collision of two such hard and rough characters, as Minister Pitt and Chancellor Thurlow, were matter of notoriety, and formed part and parcel of the history of the day. The account I gave of them, was expressed by three words, Le chancellier chancele, and the truth of the intelligence was not long after demonstrated by the event.

At the above-mentioned residence, economical as was necessarily the style of it, Lind was occasionally visited by foreign Ministers, and

common paper.) "As an author, indeed, Mr. Elphinston was peculiarly unfortunate, having scarcely published any thing, in which he did not afford the critics many opportunities to exemplify his total want of taste and judgment." Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary. In a note Mr. C. quotes the following passage from a Letter addressed by Dr. Beattie to Sir Wm. Forbes, and inserted in the Life of the former :-"Elphinston's Martial is just come to hand. It is truly an unique. The specimens formerly published did very well to laugh at; but a whole quarto of nonsense and gibberish is too much. It is strange that a man not wholly illiterate, should have lived so long in England, without learning the language." Mr. C. adds: "These remarks may be extended to more of Elphinston's publications than we have enumerated."

These quotations abundantly illustrate and confirm the observation of Mr. Jeremy Bentham. E. H. B.]

other persons of distinction. The only ones, that I now recollect, were the late Baron Masères, the public-spirited constitutionalist, and one of the honestest lawyers England ever saw, and Lord Chancellor Rosslyn, at that time Solicitor-General, both at the same time, on the same evening. The deep bass voice and cold gravity of the crown-lawyer still dwell on my ear and memory. Some little conversation with him fell to my share. Not to any such honour as that of being present at his table: according to what I used to hear from those, who had, my loss was not very considerable. The deportment, of the master of the house used to be, according to those reports, more suitable to a funeral than a dinner: ice waited not for the desert: it en

compassed every course. Favour me with a little salt, said somebody on one of these occasions to his neighbour, or, as Mr. Godwin would have informed us, might have said: as for the Attic, it will enter, let us hope, with the bottles.

This pre-eminent lawyer happened to furnish, within my observation, two exhibitions as strongly contrasted, perhaps, as ever were furnished by the same person in so short a space of time. The first time I saw him, he was in black, with a sword stuck by his side, holding up the train of the then Chancellor; but this is not one of the two I mean. Not long after this, attending in the Court of

King's Bench as a student, I saw him with a silkgown on his back, making a motion with far more hesitation and distress than I ever witnessed on the part of the youngest and most obscure tyro. This was the first time of my seeing him in the character of a lawyer: the last time was at the Council-board. It must, I think, have been by Lind's means that I enjoyed a privilege, in which I had so few to share with me. I speak only from present inference; for I do not recollect that he himself was there. At that board Franklin stood as the silent, and necessarily defenceless butt of his eloquent invectives. No hesitation then self and language were in equal perfection subjects of command. Fortunate was I beyond all probability in being present at so memorable a scene. Members of the board, nearer a dozen, I believe, than a score, sitting on the opposite sides of a long table. At the upper end the Duke of Portland as President. Auditors I question whether there were more than a dozen besides myself. Of the President's chair, the back rallel to, and not far distant from the fire: the chimney-piece projecting a foot or two from that side of the apartment formed a recess on each side. Alone, in the recess, on the left hand of the President, stood Benjamin Franklin, in such position as not to be visible from the situation of the President, remaining the whole time like a

pa

rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand; and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm. If necessary, at the call of a subpæna, I could give some tolerable account of the materials, colour, and buttons of that coat, which, I am ashamed to think, retarded for such a length of time, not much less I fear than a week, if not the cessation of hostilities, at any rate the conclusion of peace between so many mighty contending powers and their subject millions. Before the incident ever found its way into the public prints, I had it from a noble friend, who was present at the last exhibition of the important vestment, as I was at the first. To return to Wedderburn, I was not more astonished at the brilliancy of his lightening, than astounded by the thunder, that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion lay on the Council-table before him: his station was between the seats of two of the members on the side of the right hand of the Lord President. So narrow were the dimensions of this important Justice-chamber; they were those of a private drawing-room. I would not, for double the greatest fee the orator could on that occasion have received, been in the place of that cushion: the ear was stunned at every blow : he had been reading, perhaps in that book in which the Prince of Roman Orators and RhetoricProfessors instructs his pupils how to make

impression. To the instrument recommended, I think by Cicero, the floor being hard, and the cushion soft, he substituted the hand. Our late friend, (Dr. Parr,) considering whom I am now addressing, (Mr. Barker,) I run no small risk in venturing the observation, seemed to have studied in the same school. Lest for making the desired impression psychological power should not suffice, he rather too often helped it out with physical, and the table groaned under the assault. The striking contrast between the early and the later exhibitions of the accomplished orator, may afford an encouraging lesson to young men. I remember a similar, though not an equal contrast in Lord Kenyon. I remember a similar and equal contrast in the fortification-loving Duke of Richmond, from whom, when occupying the place now occupied by Wellington, at the house from which I write, I had once the honour of a visit, which, according to a custom scarce ever infringed in my whole life, I left unreturned.

When Lord Pigot's conduct in his capacity of Governor of Madras,* became the subject of

*[" George Lord Pigot. Narrative of the Revolution in the Government of Madras, Sept. 11. 1776. Account of the Subversion of the Legal Government at Madras, by imprisoning the Governor in Aug. 1776. Lond. 4to. Defence of Lord Pigot, Lond. 1777. 4to. Dr. Watt's Bibl. Brit. "Case of Captain Brereton, by Mr. Lind, 1779. Appendix to Ditto." Bibliotheca Parr. 547. 677. E. H. B.]