ments, we must greatly doubt whether there has been any improvement in the system of education for the bar and for public life since his time: Had his training been a century later, he would still have been plodding for his degree without having begun the study of the law,—and he would have known nothing beyond what is to be learned in the narrow bounds of the modern University curriculum; whereas we behold him in reality, not only a sound scholar, but a fine writer, and qualified to enter into competition for fortune and fame with the most distinguished lawyers and statesmen. His rising merit was descried by a veteran politician, and exquisite judge of character, now living in retirement,-who thus addressed him: "Houghton, 24th June, 1743.* "Dear Charles, "This place affords no news, no subject of amusement and entertainment to fine men. Persons of wit and pleasure about town understand not the language, nor taste the charms, of the inanimate world. My flatterers here are all mutes. The oaks, the beeches, and chestnuts seem to contend which shall best please the lord of the manor. They cannot deceive, they cannot lie. I, in return, with sincerity admire them, and have as many beauties about me as take up my hours of dangling, and no disgrace attends me because I am sixty-seven years of age. Within doors we come a little nearer to real life, and admire on the almost speaking canvas, all the airs and graces which the proudest of the ladies can boast. With these I am satisfied, as they gratify me with all I wish, and all I want, and expect nothing in return which I cannot give. If these, dear Charles, are any temptations, I heartily wish you to come and partake of them. Shifting the scene has sometimes its recommendations, and from country fare you may possibly return with a better appetite to the more delicate entertainment of a court life. "Dear Charles, yours most affectionately, "ORFORD." Charles Yorke was called to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, in Hilary Term, 1743.† Though still in his minority, * Hardwicke MSS. "At a Council held the 1st day of February, 1745,—Ordered, That the Honble Charles Yorke, Esqre, one of the Fellows of this Society, being of full standing, having performed all his exercises, and observed the rules of this Society, be called to the Bar this Term, first paying all his arrears and duties to this Society." The following entries respecting him are likewise found in the books of the Society: "At a Council held the 8th day of May, 1754,-Ordered, that the Honble Chas. Yorke Esqre, one of his Majesties Council learned in the law, be invited to the Bench of this Society; and Mr. White and Mr. Hammet, two of the Masters of the Bench, are desired to attend with this order, and report his answer to the next Council; and if the said Mr. Yorke do accept of this invitation, he is, according to the rules of this Society, to pay all his arrears and duties to the Treasurer of this Society before he be called to the Bench." "At a Council held the 28th day of November, 1755,-Ordered, That the Honble Charles Yorke, Esqre, be Treasurer for the year ensuing." he almost immediately got into considerable practice. It was a great advantage to him, no doubt, to be the son of the Lord Chancellor; but, as has been proved by frequent instances, this would have availed him nothing without the power of self-denial, the talents, and the energy which he displayed. According to the usage then universally followed, he must have gone some circuit; but I cannot discover which he selected, or how he fared in the provinces. During term time, in London, he was so overwhelmed with briefs, that he was obliged to abandon the society and the correspondence of his friends. Hilary Term, 1744, approaching, thus he writes to Warburton: "As business is coming in apace, I know not when I shall have an opportunity of conversing with you at large upon. paper, unless I busy the present in a manner to me the most entertaining in the world." As might be expected, it was chiefly in the Court of Chancery that the solicitors were disposed to employ him-not always from the purest motives. However, he never assumed any airs from his near relationship to the Judge, nor was there ever, as far as I can trace, any wellgrounded complaint of his receiving undue favour there. His father was proud of him, and had been particularly delighted with his Athenian Letters; perhaps thinking truly how much better "Cleander" wrote than "Philip Homebred;" but allowed him fairly to fight his own way at the bar, neither taking any indirect means to push him forward, nor, when he heard him argue at the bar, treating him in any respect differently from other counsel.+ As yet, the fame of our aspirant was confined to the precincts of Westminster Hall and Lincoln's Inn; for then, unless there were a state trial, no notice was taken of any judicial proceedings in any journal or periodical publication; but, while in his twenty-second year, he suddenly burst upon the public as a bright legal luminary. At this early age, he published the best juridical treatise that had appeared in the English language. The spirit of Jacobitism had become very strong; there were general discontents in the public mind, and an invasion from France, to assist the Pretender, was daily expected. Lord Hardwicke, the Chancellor, thought it was necessary to render the laws against treason more stringent, by making it treason to correspond with the sons of the Pretender, and by continuing forfeiture and corruption of blood in cases of treason; so that all the honours and all the property of any one convicted of "At a Council there held the 29th day of November, 1756,-Ordered, That the Honble Charles Yorke, Esqre, Sollr Gen', be Master of Library for the year ensuing." * The same evening he wrote to his brother Joseph,-"I was this day called to the Bar-very unequal to the task, and against my own opinion. However, I determined to submit, and there is an end." Yet it appears that Lord Camden suspected that Lord Hardwicke withheld silk gowns for the advantage of his son Charles, and slighted the young gentleman's competitors.-Ante, p. 206. See also George Hardinge's MS., ante, Appendix to Life of Lord Camden. treason should for ever be lost to his children and his family. Against this last enactment there was a strong feeling, which the Chancellor's precocious son undertook to combat ;-not from an ungenerous nature, but from a desire to stand by his father, whose opinions he was bound to reverence. Accordingly, during the fervour of men's minds upon the subject, he brought out anonymously, but allowing himself to be soon discovered as the author, "Some Considerations on the Laws of Forfeiture for High Treason." Of all the departments of literature, jurisprudence is the one in which the English had least excelled. Their treatises of highest authority were a mere jumble-without regard to arrangement or diction. Now, for the first time, appeared among us a writer who rivalled the best productions of the French and German jurists. He was not only an admirer, but a correspondent, of Montesquieu; and he had caught a great share of the President's precision, and of his animation. In this treatise, he logically lays down his positions, and enforces them in a train of close reasoning, without pedantic divisions, observing lucid order,-and drawing from the history and legislation of other countries the most apposite illustrations of his arguments. The following may be considered a fair specimen of the work; although, without a perusal of the whole of it, an adequate idea cannot be entertained of the excellence of the plan on which he proceeds, or of the felicity with which that plan is executed : "It is not the purpose of this essay to attempt a justification of any instance in which the law of forfeiture may, in some countries, have been carried to an extremity, as little to be reconciled with principles of policy as of clemency or justice. Amongst the Persians and Macedonians, not only the criminals convicted of treason were put to death, but all their relations and friends. The descendants of Antiphon, the orator, were disqualified from advancing themselves, by their own merit, to estates and offices in Athens. The posterity of Marius's faction were excluded by a law of Sylla from the same privileges. When these are laid out of the case, what is the force of the answer? It clearly resolves into this, -that those rights and the power of transmitting property, which are derived from the favour of society, may not be bestowed upon such terms as shall bind the possessor to his duty, and for the breach be subjected to forfeiture. As to the corruption of blood, it may suffice to say thus much of it here: that if a man is not capable of transmitting property acquired by himself to an heir, it seems a necessary consequence in reason, which is the ground of law, that he shall not be capable of receiving from an ancestor either to enjoy or to transmit; for, however society may effectuate any man's compassionate intention who would make a gift to the traitor's posterity, yet the law, which is consistent upon every occasion, and only to be moved by considerations that affect the whole, will not make an effort of itself to supply that connecting link in the chain of descent which has been struck out of it for the traitor's infamy and the public benefit. Thus society, by making the loss of those rights it confers upon every man a penalty for the greatest crime which can be committed against his country, interests every relation and dependant in keeping him firm to the general tranquillity and welfare; at the same time, it gives him an occasion of reflecting that when he sets about it he must break through every private as well as public tie, which enhances bis crime, whilst it is an aggravation of his punishment. Nay, more, he may hope to escape from the justice of his country with his own life if that alone were to be forfeited; but the distress of his family will pursue him in his securest thoughts, and abate the ardour of revolution. Many instances there are of men not ashamed to commit base and selfish enormities, who have retained a tenderness for their posterity by the strong and generous instinct of nature. The story of Lacinius Macer, who was father to the great orator, is very remarkable, as related by a Roman annalist. Having gone through the office of Prætor, and governed a province, he was accused upon returning home of extortion and abuses of his power. The very morning of his trial he strangled himself, after having sent word to Cicero, who was preparing to plead against him, that being determined to put an end to his life before sentence, the prosecution could not go on, and his property would be saved to the benefit of his son. Upon the whole, then, where is the wrong? It is agreeable to justice to bestow rights upon condition. It is the wisdom of governments to lay hold on human partialities."-He tries to soften the law's harshness, with which, notwithstanding his assumed boldness, he is evidently a little shocked, by observing how rarely it would be brought into practice; that it would be "like Goliath's sword in the Temple, not to be taken down but on occasions of high necessity-at other times, in tabulis tanquam in vagina reconditum." At the present day, while all must be charmed with his learning, his ingenuity, and his eloquence, I do not think that his reasoning will carry general conviction. He greatly exaggerates the moral guilt of the treason against which the law was to be directed—that of trying, from mistaken principle, to restore the exiled royal family, which he confounds with the treason inveighed against by the Roman writers-that of conspiring to subvert public liberty for individual aggrandisement :— :-he utterly fails in his attempt to prove that the children are not punished for their father's crime, by being made infamous and cast destitute on the world; and though a regard for the public tranquillity may require that man shall try to bring about a revolution, whatever may be the established government, at the risk of his own life, no reasoning can persuade us that it is just or politic to involve his posterity in his ruin.* However, Charles Yorke's performance was rapturously applauded; his father, in defending the bill in the House of Lords, made an excellent speech, all the topics of which were known to be taken from it,†— * See 17 Geo. 2, c. 39. At first it was attributed to Warburton, Sherlock, and other eminent writers. The author thus cautioned Warburton: "I continue absolutely convinced of the importance of secrecy, and, if any inquiry should be made, that even a false scent should be encouraged." But when it was so much applauded the Chancellor wrote to a friend, "The secret of Charley's book is out, and every body talks of it as his much to his commendation-as indeed it deserves." - Aug. 1745. and the solicitors had no longer any scruple in giving briefs to the Chancellor's son, who had shown such acquaintance with his profession, as well as such general ability. He was now in full practice at the bar, and considered likely to outstrip his father in rapid promotion; but in such matters there is much of chance and accident, and, Sir Dudley Ryder remaining Attorney General, and Murray, Solicitor, years rolled on without a vacancy. Meanwhile he was nearly snatched away by a violent illness, from which his recovery was almost miraculous. Giving an account of his health to his brother, the Colonel, who was then serving abroad, he says,—“ It pleased the providence of God to turn the crisis of my disorder in such a manner as to preserve my life; yet, if I am not mistaken, should it ever be my lot to die of a fever, I have nothing more to feel than what I did, except it be the stroke and instant of death itself." CHAPTER CL. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR CHARLES YORKE TILL HE WAS APPOINTED SOLICITOR GENERAL. CHARLES YORKE commenced his senatorial career in the autumn of 1747, and continued a member of the House of Commons [A. D. 1747.] till within a few hours of his death. He first represented the snug borough of Reigate, which had passed under the grant by King William to his grand-uncle Lord Chancellor Somers, and now belonged to his cousins, the Cockses. He succeeded his elder brother, who was elected for the county of Cambridge. On this occasion there was addressed to him, by Mr. Edwards, the following SONNET. "Charles, whom thy country's voice applauding calls To Philip's honorable vacant seat, With modest pride the glorious summons wait, And rise to fame within St. Stephen's walls. In those bright parts which erst too long confin'd How sharp the spur of worthy ancestry When kindred virtues fan the generous mind * July, 1747. † Cooksey, 163. |