But the noble and learned Earl is a Tory; he was then in opposition to the Whigs. Whoever opposes his friends, whether in or out of place, must act from factious motives and a corrupt heart.”*

Lord Bathurst did not reply, nor afterwards venture to stand forward as the champion of the Court.

We next find him, while carrying through a Government bill for imposing a stamp on almanacks, engaged in an altercation with

Thurlow, the Chancellor, who seems always to have thought [JUNE 20.] that he had a privilege to oppose the measures of every Government with which he was connected, and to assail any of his colleagues. The Chancellor complained bitterly of the manner in which the bill was worded, saying that "several clauses were contradictory and unintelligible." The Lord President tried to explain and defend them :

Lord Chancellor. "I am very sorry to say that the explanatien of my noble and learned friend affords no satisfactory answer to my objections. Indeed, I am so dull of apprehension as to be unable to understand him. I do suspect, my Lords, that the framer of the first clause accidentally omitted the word 'not,' and that he really meant to forbid the doing of the very thing which is here commanded.† It appears to me a gross mistake, and I must beg your Lordships 'not' to give your sanction to nonsense."-Lord President: "The proposed amendment of the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack would defeat the whole object of the bill, which is sufficiently plain to those who are willing to discover it."

The Lord Chancellor attacked other clauses, but met with no support, and Lord Bathurst succeeded in carrying his bill without any amendment.‡

Such conflicts shook an Administration now tottering to its fall. Lord North, personally, had been for some time eager to withdraw, but was prevailed upon to retain office from the King's insuperable dislike to the Opposition leaders, and his threat to abandon England and the English crown rather than consent to the independence of America. At last the Government was in a minority in one House, and, on a motion of which notice had been given by Lord Shelburne, was threatened with the same fate in the other. To avert the coming storm, Lord North announced that "his Majesty's Ministers were no more."

Lord Bathurst, always downright and sincere, did not, like Thurlow, intrigue to continue in office with those to whom he had been opposed on all the most important principles on which the state [MARCH 19.] was to be governed, and instantly resigned with his chief, intending now to enjoy the repose of private life. There was yet no parliamentary allowance for ex-Chancellors, and he declined the grant of a pension. But he had been able to procure a tellership of the Exchequer and other valuable sinecures for his son.

*21 Parl. Hist. 1013.

†This reminds one of the proposal-for the purpose of making precept and faith square with practice-to take "not" from the COMMANDMENTS, and to put it into the CREED.

22 Parl. Hist. 538-548.

During a few years following he occasionally attended in his place in the House of Lords, but he did not mix in the party contests which ensued, and he was never excited to offer his opinion on either side, by the animated discussions on the Peace of Paris, on the Coalition between Mr. Fox and Lord North, on Mr. Fox's India Bill, on the Regency Question, on the French Revolution, or on the commencement of the war with the French Republic, which he lived to see.

He seems only to have spoken once after his retirement from officein opposing a bill for the relief of insolvent debtors; which according to his narrow views, he considered unjust to creditors and [JULY 3, 1783.] ruinous to trade. But it should be recollected that such notions were then very generally entertained, and that Mr. Burke, by condemning imprisonment for debt, was so far in advance of his age, that he was considered a dangerous innovator, and on this ground chiefly lost his election for the city of Bristol.†

Lord Bathurst spent his last years entirely in the country, and, after a gradual decay, expired at Oakley Grove, near Cirences[A. D. 1794.] ter, on the 6th day of August, 1794, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. His remains were interred in the family vault there, and a monument to his memory was erected in the parish church, with this simple and touching inscription, which he himself had composed : "In Memory of HENRY EARL BATHURST, Son and Heir of Allen Earl Bathurst, and Dame Catherine, his Wife.

"His ambition was to render himself not unworthy of such Parents."

Although of very moderate capacity, he always acted a consistent and honourable part; and, never having deserted his principles or his party, or engaged in any unworthy intrigue to aggrandise himself, the blame cannot rest upon him that he was placed in situations for which he was incompetent.

I hope I shall not be expected to enter into any analysis of his character as a judge, as a statesman, or an orator, for in his mental qualities and accomplishments he is really not to be distinguished from the great mass of worthy men who, when alive, are only known to their families and a small circle of friends, and who are forgotten as soon as the grave has closed over them. He is praised for his temperate and regular habits and for the dignity and politeness of his manners. In public life (as he often boasted) he made no enemies, and in private life he was universally beloved.

He remained a bachelor till forty, when he married a widow lady, who in four years, died without bringing him any children. In 1759 he took for his second wife, Tryphena, daughter of Thomas Scawen, Esq., of Maidwell, in the county of Northampton, and by her (besides other issue)

*23 Parl. Hist. 1100.

Even when I was Attorney General, and brought in a bill to abolish imprisonment for debt, I was only able to carry it as to mesne process, leaving cases after judgment for subsequent legislation.

had a son, Henry, the third Earl, a distinguished statesman, who ably filled high offices under George III., and under George IV. both as Regent and King. The Lord Chancellor Bathurst is now represented by his grandson, Henry George, the present and fourth Earl.*

CHAPTER CLV.

LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR THURLOW FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HE WAS APPOINTED SOLICITOR GENERAL.

I NOW arrive at a remarkable æra in my history of the Chancellors.— I had to begin with some who "come like shadows, so depart," and who can only be dimly discovered by a few glimmering rays of antique light "Ibant obscuri solâ sub nocte per umbram,

Pervue domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna."

The long procession which followed I have been obliged to examine through the spectacles of books. With these eyes have I closely beheld the lineaments of Edward Lord Thurlow; with these ears have I distinctly heard the deep tones of his voice.

"Largior hic campos æther et lumine vestit

Purqureo; solemque suum, sua sidera norunt."

Thurlow 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, Lord Chancellor Eldon was sitting on the woolsack; but he excited comparatively little

interest, and all eyes were impatiently looking round [MAY 20, 1801.] for him who had occupied it under Lord North, under Lord Rockingham, under Lord Shelburn 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 wig-tremendous white bushy eye-brows-eyes still sparkling with intel

* Grandeur of the Law, 70. I may be accused of having omitted to mention what is perhaps the most memorable act in the life of Lord Chancellor Bathurst, -that he built Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner, now the town residence of the illustrious Duke of Wellington,-where stood the "Hercules Pillars," the inn frequented by Squire Western.

ligence-dreadful "crows' feet" round them--very deep lines in his countenance--and shrivelled complexion of a sallow hue,--all indicating much greater senility than was to be expected from the date of his birth as laid down in the "Peerage."

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, as it has stood in all periods of time, and under all circumstances. Not only among civilized heathen nations, but by the Levitical law, and by the Gospel, a woman may be put away for adultery, and the remedy is not confined to the husband. The ecclesiastical courts in this country having only power to grant a divorce d mensâ et thoro, the tie of marriage can only be dissolved by the legislature; and when an application is made to us for that purpose, we ought to be governed by the circumstances of each particular case, and ask ourselves, whether the parties can properly continue to cohabit together as husband and wife? Common law and statute law are silent upon the subject, and this is the rule laid down by reason, by morality, and by religion. 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. Your only objection is-mistrust of yourselves, and a doubt lest, on a future application by a wife, you should not conduct yourselves with sound discretion. Is such mistrust-is such doubt-a sufficient reason to justify a House of Parliament in refusing to put an end to a contract, all the objects of which, by the crime of one party, are for ever defeated? 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. Do such of your Lordships as oppose the bill for the sake of morality propose or wish that she should? Had this criminal 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 and a model of virtue, 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 an innocent and virtuous 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 royal assent, and has since been followed as a precedent in two or three other cases of similar atrocity.*

Virgilium vidi tantùm. I never again had an opportunity of making any personal observation of Thurlow; but this glimpse of him renders his appearance familiar to me, and I can always imagine that I see before me, and that I listen to the voice of, this great imitator of GARAGANTUA. I was struck with awe and admiration at witnessing the scene I have feebly attempted to describe; and I found that any of Thurlow's surviving contemporaries, with whom I afterwards chanced to converse, entertained the highest opinion of what they denominated his "gigantic powers of mind." I must confess, however, that my recent study of his career and his character has considerably lowered him in my estimation; and I have come to the conclusion that, although he certainly had a very vigorous understanding, and no inconsiderable acquirements-the fruit of irregular application, he imposed by his assuming manner upon the age in which he lived, and that he affords a striking illustration of the French maxim, "on vaut ce qu'on veut valoir."

This personage-celebrated as a prodigy by historians and poets in the reign of George III., but whom posterity may regard [A. D. 1732.] as a very ordinary mortal-was born in the year 1732, at Bracon-Ash, in the county of Norfolk. His father, Thomas Thurlow, was a clergyman, and held successively the livings of Little Ashfield in

* 35 Parl. Hist. 1429. Macqueen's Practice of the House of Lords, 594. At the first public masquerade which I attended in London, which was soon after this, there was a character which professed to be LORD CHANCELLOR THURLOWdressed in the Chancellor's robes, band, and full-bottom wig. I am sorry to say that, to the amusement of the audience, he not only made loud speeches, but swore many profane oaths.

VOL. V.

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