CHAPTER VIII.

THE LIFE OF LORD ELLENBOROUGH.

IN an old work, intituled "The Dignity of the Law," it was shown that at that time nearly one-sixth of the peerage might be traced to the bar. A more recent lover of heraldry, in his zeal for the grandeur of the profession,* has ascertained, by an accurate investigation of the red and blue books, that three dukes, five marquises, thirty-one earls, one viscount, and forty barons derive their honours from this fertile source. The premier duke of England, Henry Charles Howard Duke of Norfolk, deduces his origin from Sir William Howard, a common law judge in the reign of Edward the First and Edward the Second. The Duke of Devonshire from Sir John de Cavendish, chief justice of the King's Bench, in the time of Edward the Third. In like manner the Duke of Manchester derives his title from Sir Edward Montague, chief justice of the King's Bench in the time of Henry the Eighth. There are none in this splendid list who have been ennobled by a prouder or more unimpeachable title than Edward Lord Ellenborough. Among that proud array of distinguished lawyers who have presided over the Court of King's Bench from Holt, who disregarded rank, to the present Chief Justice, on whom the barony was worthily bestowed, there are none who have worn the ermine with more unsullied purity, or borne the sword of justice with a firmer hand.

Edward Law was the fourth son of Dr. Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle, and was born at Great Salkeld in Cumberland, on the 16th of November 1750. His forefathers had been settled for several centuries in the adjoining county of Westmoreland as statesmen, to use the sounding phrase of that district, or proprietors of small farms. Bishop Law, the

*Mr. Foss in his " Grandeur of the Law."

son of a pious clergyman, held, along with many valuable preferments, several strange doctrines on abstruse points of theology, and, though a very amiable man, was suspected of being a latitudinarian divine. Those who remember the judge, and attach any weight to the notion of inherited habits and dispositions, will be surprised to read Paley's description of the liberal prelate. “He was a man," says the shrewd archdeacon," of great softness of manners, and of the mildest and most tranquil disposition. His voice was never raised above its ordinary pitch. His countenance seemed never to have been ruffled: it invariably preserved the same kind and composed aspect, truly indicating the calmness and benignity of his temper. His person was low but well-formed; his complexion fair but delicate. His fault was too great a degree of inaction and facility in his public station. The bashfulness of his nature, with an extreme unwillingness to give pain, rendered him sometimes less firm and efficient in the administration of authority than was requisite."

But, however excellently tempered, his knowledge of the ways of the world was supposed to be so slight, that Warburton and Hurd, the wise men of their generation, sneered at his primitive simplicity in their letters to each other. "Law and his friend should have gone to the classical hell to consult Tiresias in the art of thriving. God help them! for they are a couple of helpless creatures in the ways of this world! and nothing to bear their charges but a little honesty, which, like Don Quixote's chivalry, will pass current in never an inn between Carlisle and London.

"Whether in metaphysics at a loss,

Or wandering in a wilderness of moss,

not half so fit for a mastership as Sancho Pança was for his government."

This helpless wanderer, as he is here caricatured, proved to be one of the most fortunate dignitaries of the church of England, became successively prebend and dean and bishop, and educated his family with such felicitous ability as to have the rare luck of rearing two bishops, and one chief justice, at

Letters between Hurd and Warburton.*

.

his own fireside. To his credit be it spoken, he made no sacrifice of principle, but was happy enough to have Dr. Cornwallis, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, for a pupil, and the Duke of Grafton for a friend. He defended to the last the doctrine of what is usually called the sleep of the soul, which he had mooted in his exercise for the divinity degree; viz., that the human soul forfeited its immortality by the fall, but regained it in consequence of the merits of our Saviour, that it cannot exist without the body, and must, therefore, in the interval between death and the resurrection remain in a state of non-existence; he wrote, in addition, several valuable works of theology, the "Serious Call" being the best and most popular; edited the writings of Locke, of which he was a passionate admirer; and died in 1787, after holding the see of Carlisle nineteen years, in the fulness of his days and honours. His wife Mary was a daughter of John Christian, of Unerigg in Cumberland, Esq., and married to him in 1740. She is represented to have been a most amiable woman; as a clerical punster phrased it, a Christian in disposition no less than in name. She died in 1762, leaving a family, which exceeded in number even the clerical average of eleven children. Young Law was twelve years old at the time, sufficiently old to have profited by her care, and to cherish her memory. He had been chiefly educated, up to this period, by his maternal uncle, the Rev. Humphrey Christian, at his residence at Docking in Norfolk; a change of residence which did not suffice to remove the Northumbrian burr-the rattling rr's, which, to the last, distinguished the northern scholar as a native of the debateable land. twelve years of age he was placed, through his father's influence, on the foundation at the Charter House, and rose to the head of the school, continuing there nearly six years, and laying a broad and massy basis of classical learning. There he formed many friendships, and he left there many regrets. Capel Lofft, a contemporary, describes him to have been at once moody and good-natured, a bluff, burly boy, ever ready to inflict a blow, or perform an exercise for his schoolfellows.*

* Quarterly Review, vol. 60.

In 1768, having just attained eighteen, he was matriculated at Peterhouse, the small and ancient college of which his father had been fourteen years the master. Kindred pursuits and studies led to an intimate acquaintance at Cambridge with Soulden Lawrence, Le Blanc, and Gibbs, who were subsequently his companions on the bench. Another friend, William Coxe, (afterwards Archdeacon,) was admitted into this clever cycle, and has sketched a portrait of the manners of the youthful lawyer, some touches of which will be recognized as a likeness by the friends of the original in the height of his distinction. It is interesting to compare the youth with the man of mature age, and mark what a visible identity remains, how little change is wrought by time or circumstances in the prevailing excellencies or defects of character. "Philotes (by this name he designates Mr. Law) bears the first rank in this our society. Of a warm and generous disposition, he breathes all the animation of youth and the spirit of freedom. His thoughts and conceptions are uncommonly great and striking; his language and expressions are strong and nervous, and partake of the colour of his sentiments. As all his views are honest, and his intentions direct, he scorns to disguise his feelings, or palliate his sentiments. This disposition has been productive of uneasiness to himself and to his friends, for his open and unsuspecting temper leads him to use a warmth of expression which sometimes assumes the appearance of fierté. This has frequently disgusted his acquaintance, but his friends know the goodness of his heart, and pardon a foible that arises from the candour and openness of his temper. Indeed, he never fails, when the heat of conversation is over and his mind becomes cool and dispassionate, to acknowledge the error of his nature, and, like a Roman catholic, claim an absolution for past as well as future transgressions. Active and enterprising, he pursues with eagerness whatever strikes him most forcibly. His studies resemble the warmth of his disposition; struck with the great and sublime, his taste, though elegant and refined, prefers the glowing and animated conceptions of a Tacitus to the softer and more delicate graces of a Tully."

"Coxe and Law," says the Quarterly Reviewer, "looked upon each other as men pressing forward to distinction, but with the feeling rather of partners than of competitors in honour. The mind of Mr. Law was already filled with that ardent and unrelaxing ambition which accompanies the consciousness of great powers, and seems implanted where they exist for the purpose of bringing them into action. He blamed the reflection of Johnson, that riches, authority, and praise, loose all their influence when they are considered as riches, which to-morrow shall be bestowed on another; authority, which shall this night expire; and praise, which, however merited, and however sincere, shall after a few minutes be heard no more. Considerations of this kind, said Law, may be carried much too far, and while they unnerve the arm of impatience, may slacken the sinews of industry, and destroy hope, emulation, and honest ambition, the strongest motives to every thing worthy, great, and noble. Of all things in the world,' he once observed, I abominate a novel that ends unhappily!' Impressed with the efficiency of temporal rewards as incentives to exertion, his mind revolted even at a work of fiction which kept these motives out of sight. The more advanced scholarship of Mr. Coxe was of material service to his friend in the acquaintance which he was now maturing with ancient and modern classics; and the taste of both was improved by an interchange of criticism. Mr. Law's comments were judicious, blunt, lively, and full of strong and often characteristic feeling. His favourite writers at that time have been already mentioned. He resented with a just warmth the weak exuberances of Lucan. In reading Sophocles' Ajax, he scorned the thick-skulled hero. Nothing in English literature delighted him more than Absalom and Achitophel, and his judgment in this instance appears to have been unbiassed by any political sympathy with the poet, for, in speaking of Hume, he declared in the broadest terms his displeasure at the lenity of that historian to James II. He defended on the most defensible points the then recent publication of Lord Chesterfield's Letters. Mr. Coxe attacked them without reserve, and wrote a saucy parody on the assiduous promptings