perpetual renewal, upon the ground, that by voluntary acts, which the parties might or might not have done, the parties themselves had put a construction upon it. Mr. Justice Willes stated that as his only ground. Lord Mansfield made it his chief ground; but that ground was disapproved by Lord Thurlow, and is, I think, totally unfounded. I never will construe a covenant so. I never was more amazed; and Mr. Justice Wilson, who argued it with me, was astonished at it. When it came back, Lord Bathurst not having retained the Great Seal long enough for it to come again before him, it came before Lord Thurlow, who said, that, sitting as Chancellor, when he asked the opinion of a court of law, whatever his own opinion might be, he was bound by that of the court of law; therefore he decreed a renewal, but said he should be very glad if Mr. Booth would carry it to a superior tribunal. We had a consultation; and I wrote to Mr. Booth upon it; but he, being only tenant for life, refused to appeal. There stands the case of Cooke v. Booth. Baynham v. Guy's Hospital, 3 Ves. 298."

It would savour of undue panegyric to rank Lord Alvanley among our great English judges; that he occupied a highly respectable second place, is the just tribute of truth. To his honour be it remembered, he invariably exceeded, in his several translations, the hopes that were entertained of him, and never seemed more worthy of the advanced post, than when on the point of quitting it. He was always, "par negotiis neque supra;" or, in the language of an excellent painter of character, "too great for a little praise, and perhaps too little for a great praise." In the course of nature it might have been expected that he would preside long over the court which he ruled so well. Few situations could be more conducive to length of days than the easy duties of the Common Pleas, which, whilst Lord Alvanley presided there, rose at regular and early hours; had just work enough to assist digestion, and demanded no fatigue or effort of body or mind. In a dialogue between such a judge and the bishop of a small diocese, Sir John Barnard might well discourse on the comforts of old age. But the constitution of the chief justice was originally weak, and a mortal illness seized him unawares. He was in the House of Lords, where he sometimes presided as Speaker, on Friday, March 16th, when an agony of pain compelled him to quit the woolsack, and to

be supported to his own house in the immediate neighbourhood, George Street, Westminster. The skill of his medical attendants was unable to subdue the violence of the attack,inflammation of the bowels; and on Monday, the 19th March 1804, he expired. His body was interred in the Rolls Chapel, near the remains of Sir Joseph Jekyll.

In private life Lord Alvanley appears to have been an object of general affection and esteem. The absence of all pretension and reserve, which made his appearance in public to be as it were in undress; his openness and simplicity; the warmth with which he espoused the interests of his friends; and the heartiness which he threw into all social pleasantries, could not but place him high in favour with the domestic circle. "J'aime ce joli musique" seemed to be his motto, even when his own peccadilloes or mishaps might form the subject of merriment. His manners were neither flippant nor inelegant in private society. He had an exuberance of spirits; and his conversation is described to have been so entertaining, that Pitt rarely dined at a party when Arden was there, without making a point of sitting next to him at dinner. We may well fancy how much the minister, who generally spoke in the state-paper style, and conversed in periods, diffident, proud, and reserved, must have enjoyed the force of contrast in his rattling, careless negligence, and that the discords, taken together, "discoursed most eloquent music." With such a companion-we are assured by one who knew Pitt intimately well-free from shyness, and throwing off restraint, he was the wittiest companion and soul of merriment; "one of a joyous party who went to spend an evening at the Boar's Head, Eastcheap, in memory of Shakspeare, the readiest and most apt in the required allusions." How little could members of the House of Commons imagine that the precociously grave premier, who strode to his seat with chin erect and haughty sternness, could, with his friends, be guilty of sowing garden beds with the fragments of a friend's dress

His country house was in Southwood Lane, Highgate. He was a regular attendant at Highgate Chapel. Boasting to Sir Edward Law of his constant church-going in the country, the Attorney-General, in his surly mode of banter, growled a reproof 'as if there was no God in the town.'-Law Review.

opera hat, or, armed with bill hooks, cutting avenues through the coppice, and making the woods ring again to the merry laugh of the woodman. It required the revelations of Lady Stanhope, the memoirs of Wilberforce, and the diaries of Lord Malmsbury to make posterity render a tardy justice to the social excellencies of Pitt.

The great failing of his friend was a quick and hasty temper, which went far to justify the Frenchman's translation of his name"Mons". Poivre Ardent." He sometimes suffered this irritability to prevail, not only when sitting as a judge, but in the recesses of his family. A friend of his was startled one evening when the domestics, according to custom, had been summoned to attend prayers read by Lord Alvanley, by his suddenly pausing, and calling out, "Will no one stop that fellow's damned fiddling? "* One of the servants, it appeared, had remained behind, and was amusing himself in a more agreeable manner than at the family devotions. But his master carried anger as the flint bears fire, the spark went out the moment it had kindled, and the kind-hearted judge bore no resentments. Had it not been for the adventitious hostility of Lord Thurlow, he might have passed from youth to age without an enemy. Though some might sneer at his success, and call him the child of fortune, none could describe him as l'enfant gâté, for he retained through all the phases of life his original natural character. Wilberforce was moved to tears on hearing the sudden tidings of his death; and politics could not fill up, in the late premier, though preparing eagerly to resume office, the aching void for his loss, for his heart had gone out to meet him. He was succeeded in his title and estates, would they had been larger, -- by his son William, the present Lord Alvanley, who well represents the kindliness, urbanity, and wit of him by whom the nobility of the family was revived.

CHAPTER V.

THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR LOUGHBOROUGH.

THE fame of an eloquent advocate is scarcely less evanescent than that of a favourite actor. They both fret the busy hour on the stage of public favour, are rewarded for their exertions with ready plaudits, and realize the poet's wish, “virum volitare per ora." But no sooner has the popular tragedian made his farewell bow, than his fame dwindles into narrow limits; and even the Bettertons or Booths of the day derive a precarious immortality from the traditions of partial contemporaries. Nor, except in the immediate precincts of Westminster Hall, is the public mind more retentive of the merits of the advocate, who was once most eagerly sought after by anxious suitors, whose triumphs found their daily tribute in the newspapers, and who moved juries by his nod. The names of Wedderburn, Loughborough, and Rosslyn, once familiar to the ear, are now becoming forgotten sounds, and it is with a cold interest only that the general reader can be expected to peruse his life. Yet was he distinguished at an era, when distinction could not be won unless by rare desert over such rivals as De Grey, and Thurlow, and Dunning; and he has left a reputation for acuteness, versatility, and eloquence, which may vie with that of any of the fortunate holders of the great seal, from a Shaftesbury to a Brougham.

Alexander Wedderburn was the eldest son of Peter Wedderburn, of Chesterhall, Esq., well known as a shrewd lord of session under the title of Lord Chesterhall, by his wife Janet, daughter of Colonel Ogilvie, and descended from a race as ancient and noble as the proudest Scot could desire,Walter de Wedderburn, his ancestor, being one of the belted barons who, in 1296, swore fealty to King Edward I. for the lands which he held in the county of Berwick, and which

barony had been in possession of the family from the reign of William the Conqueror.

Among their leading men, deputed by the Scots, in 1640, to confer upon the subject of their demands with the English commissioners, were the Earl of Dumfermlin, Sir Patrick Hepburn, and Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, Lord Chesterhall's father, the third son of Sir Peter Wedderburn, lord of Gosford in Mid Lothian, was one of the commissioners of the royal revenues in Scotland. Lord Chesterhall himself was the proud father of two sons, who distinguished themselves almost equally in their respective professions; the younger, making a choice of the army, was sent out as a cadet to India, acquired rapid promotion, was honoured with the friendship of Lord Clive, rose to the rank of general, was appointed governor of Madras, and fell at the siege of Broach. The elder son, Alexander, attained still greater distinction as a civilian, and was born in Edinburgh on the 13th of February 1733, and educated at the university there, where he distinguished himself among the boy-students more for acumen than assiduity. To the humanities, as they are called Scoticè, and the study of the civil law-proofs of his proficiency in which may be traced in his decisions - he directed his chief attention; and was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates at the early age of twenty-one. Edinburgh was at this time renowned for its literary clubs. Wedderburn readily gained entrance to the most distinguished of these, the Select Society, which had for its founder Allan Ramsay, son of the author of the Gentle Shepherd, and appears to have been instituted as well for philosophical inquiry as for the improvement of members in the art of public speaking. Sir Alexander Dick, Wedderburn, Pringle, afterwards a lord of session, Lord Kaimes, and Lord Elibank, were the chief orators; Hume and Adam Smith among the silent members. It became the fashion for men of rank to intercommune with metaphysicians, and the club soon numbered among its patrons and frequenters the Dukes of Buccleuch and Montrose, Earls Haddington and Bute. Their refinement smoothed and softened even the ruggedness of the great scholar, Dr. Wilkie, who, according to Charles