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it calls in the quack; but the moment that sees quiet succeed to disturbance, and the nation has recovered its composure, always sees the Whigs driven out of office. The death of Fox, in 1806, unquestionably deprived the party of a great popular name, but the whole strength of Whiggism survived. It was in full possession of power, and the late dissolution had filled Parliament with its adherents; still its old fate prevailed. Like ships floating over the land only by the help of an inundation, when the waters return to their channel the ships remain, only to be broken in pieces, the Whig government was broken up never to be restored, until a new convulsion in France, producing a corresponding convulsion in England, brought them into office, after a lapse of another quarter of a century.

In March 1807, a bill having been prepared as a preliminary to the Popish concession, the king pronounced it contrary to his coronation oath, and insisted on its withdrawal; the Whigs consented; but the king further insisting on a pledge that they would attempt no similar measure, they demurred, and his majesty instantly dismissed them, amidst the general rejoicing of the empire. The Duke of Portland was placed at the head of a new ministry, and Lord Eldon received the Seals.

We have now seen his lordship secure in that station which he was to retain until the close of his useful and vigorous life; we shall, therefore, abandon politics, and turn to his more numerous recollections of incident and character.

Lord Eldon as a warrior. "During the war," says his lordship, "I became one of the Lincoln's Inn volunteers-Lord Ellenborough, at the same time, being one of the corps. It happened, unfortunately for the military character of both of us, that we were turned out of the awkward squad for awkwardness!

I think Ellen

borough was more awkward than I was; but others thought that it was difficult to determine which was the worse." His brother William, however, was a smart officer, and commanded a corps.

Of Chief-Justice Eyre, whom he succeeded in the Common Pleas, he

told

"Eyre once demanded of Wilkes, why he abused him so unmercifully in his speeches to the Livery while he was Recorder, though in private he expressed a regard for him?"" So I have," said Wilkes, "and it is for that reason I abuse you in public. I wish to have you promoted to a judgeship.”

"When Sir Robert Henley was keeper of the Great Seal, and presided in the House, he was often indignant at seeing his decrees reversed, while, not being a peer, he was not entitled to support his decisions. In the famous case of Drury and Drury, his decision having been reversed, though the bar then and still pronounced it valid, the lord keeper was very angry; and, in driving home, his coachman checked the horses. He asked--' Why he did not drive on?' The man saying-' My lord, I can't. If I do, I shall kill an old woman.'Drive on,' cried Henley; if you do kill her, she has nothing to do but to appeal to the House of Lords.' He was afterwards made lord chancellor, and this habit of reversals came to an end."

on

On his quitting the chancellorship, and accepting the inferior office of lord president, the Archbishop of Canterbury congratulating him his removal from an office of unceasing fatigue to one of so much quiet, the ex-chancellor not being at all satisfied with the difference of the emoluments, answered very sulkily, "I suppose, now, you would think I was extremely civil and kind if I were to congratulate your grace on a transition from Canterbury to Llandaff.”

Taylor, an extravagant personage who called himself a chevalier, and who professed extraordinary skill in the diseases of the eye, dining one day with the bar on the Oxford circuit, related many wonders which he had done. Bearcroft, a little out of humour at his self-conceit, said—"Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us a great many things which you have done, try to tell us something which you cannot do." "Nothing so easy,' said Taylor; "I cannot pay my share of the dinner-bill; and that, sir, I must beg of you to do."

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Lord Thurlow's oddity and abruptness, both sometimes amounting to brutality, were the constant source of

amusement at least to all but the sufferers. On a trial in which an attorney gave evidence respecting the will of a man whose death was in question, the attorney, after some puzzling, said " My lord, hear me, the man is dead; I attended his funeral; he was my client." Why, sir," said Thurlow, "did you not mention that at first? a great deal of time and trouble might have been saved. That he was your client is some evidence that he was dead; nothing was so likely to kill him."

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At Buxton, Thurlow lodged with a surgeon, opposite to a butcher's shop. He asked his landlord whether he or his neighbour killed the most.

Thurlow, on being asked, how he got through all his business as a chancellor, answered-" Just as a pickpocket gets through a horse-pond. He must get through." Dunning, when a similar question was put to him, answered in much the same spirit, though in a more professional style. "I divide my business into three parts: one part I do; another does itself; and the third I leave undone."

In 1807, Lord Eldon purchased the estate of Encombe in the Isle of Purbeck, for which he paid between £52,000 and £53,000, comprising a mansion with 2000 acres, a fertile valley, with a fine sea view.

In 1809, the charges brought by Colonel Wardle against the Duke of York excited great public interest. The very sound of malversation in high employments excites all the feelings of a nation with whom character is the first requisite; and the rumour that the Duke had been a party to the sale of commissions in the army by Mrs Clarke, with whom he had formed an unfortunate connexion, produced a public uproar. After discussions and examination of witnesses, which lasted six weeks, and brought infinite obloquy on the Duke and his defenders, the House of Commons resolved, by 278 to 196, that the charge of corruption, or even of connivance, against the Duke, was wholly without foundation. Upon this clearance of his character, the Duke resigned the command of the army; a subsequent motion for a cen

sure on his conduct, was negatived without a division. The Duke of York was, beyond all question, clear of any knowledge of the practices of the very ingenious person with whom he associated, but few men have ever paid more dearly for their offence. The storm of public abuse which poured on him for months, must have been torture; and his resignation of office must have stung every feeling; and even his pecuniary sacrifice during the three years of his retirement, must have been severely felt by a prince with a narrow income for his rank. That loss could not have been less than £50,000. In 1811 he resumed the command. We must hasten to the conclusion. Lord Eldon, after witnessing the two great changes of the constitution, the Popish bill of 1829-which he calls the fatal bill," and which he had resisted with all his vigour and learning for a long succession of years-and the Reform bill of 1832, at length found that period coming to him which comes to all. Retiring from public life, he devoted himself to his study, the society of a few old friends, and those considerations of a higher kind which he had cultivated from early life, and which returned to him, as they return to all who reverence them, with additional force when their presence was more consolatory and essential. But old age naturally strips us of those who gave an especial value to life; and after seeing his brother Lord Stowell, and Lady Eldon-his Elizabeth, for whom he seems to have always retained the tenderness of their early years taken from him, he quietly sank into the grave, dying in 1838, January 13th, aged 87. He deserved to rest in peace-for he had lived in patriotism, integrity, and honour.

The three volumes exhibit a research which does much credit to the intelligence and industry of Mr Twiss, their author. They abound in capital anecdotes, but a few of which we have been able to give-possess passages of very effective writing-and form a work which ought to be in the library of every lawyer, statesman, and English gentleman.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work,

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MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART XIII.,

343

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To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed.

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M. LOUIS BLANC, a democratic journalist, with all, and perhaps more than the usual talents of the Parisian journalist with all, and more than the usual faults of one-has undertaken to write the history of his country, during and since the revolution of 1830. What can we expect to be the result of such an undertaking? What can we expect from a man who sits down to a task of this description, animated with all the party virulence which gives zest to a democratic newspaper? It is not a history, but a scandal, that he will write. M. Louis Blanc has distilled the bile of journalism; he has paused over the hasty sarcasm which political animosity deals forth, not to correct, or moderate, or abate, but merely to point and envenom it. His appreciation of men, their character, their talents, their designs-all bear the hue of the atrabilious journalist. There is this difference only between his history and the daily portion of envy and malignity which a democratic newspaper pours forth, that the dye is more deeply engrained. In the mind of the author, the stain of his party has become ineffaceable. Those who are pleased-and the number is not fewwith having high names and established reputations laid at their feet, soiled, trod upon, will meet here with

ample gratification. To be sure they will be occasionally required, in lieu of such as they have thrown down, to set up the bust of some democratic celebrity, whose greatness, or whose genius, they were not previously aware of.

But, not to say that the justice of party requires this substitution, it is a penalty which writers of this description will invariably impose upon them. It is the common trick of the envious, and the mock magnanimity with which they seek to conceal their true nature-to exalt the lowly, while they debase the exalted. Since some idol there must be, let it be one of their raising. Even while helping to raise it, they enjoy, too, the secret consciousness that it is of brittle metal.

But in the composition of a history, the spirit of party, however eager it may be, cannot always guide the pen. The mere interest of the narrative, the strangeness and peculiarity of circumstances, will claim their share of the author's mind. The politician must sometimes be absorbed in the chronicler; and so it happens with M. Louis Blanc. His narrative often interests by its details; and if it has the partiality, it has also the vivacious colouring, of a contemporary. It possesses, also, a richness of anecdotethe fruit, probably, of his position as

Histoire de Dix Ans, 1830-1840. Par M. LOUIS BLANC. VOL. LVI. NO. CCCXLVII.

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