degrees, to the new scene around him. He usually withdrew once a year to England during the sitting of parliament; but the far greater part of his time was spent either at his house in Dublin, or at his country residence at Kelmacap, in the county of Dublin, where he built, planted, and effected several other improvements. In the mean while great changes occurred in the ministry of England. When Mr. Pitt drove the Addington party from power, the chancellor of Ireland remained firmly seated in his Court; but, on the death of Mr. Pitt, when the coalition between Mr. Fox and lord Grenville had proved triumphant, the Great Seal of Ireland was intrusted to Mr. George Ponsonby, the son of a Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and an advocate for the emancipation of the Roman Catholics of that part of the empire, in which he had been born. This was a measure to be expected from the revolution which had taken place; but the nomination of Mr. Ponsonby was accompanied by circumstances very injurious to the feelings of his noble and learned predecessor. When lord Redesdale sat for the last time on the bench of the Irish Court of Chancery, which was on the 4th of March, 1806, he addressed the bar in the following speech:

"I must now take my leave. When I came to this country, I thought that I should probably pass the remainder of my days here. With that view, I formed an establishment, and I proudly hoped to have lived amongst you, and to have died amongst you; but that has not been permitted.

"To the gentlemen of the bar I have the greatest obligations

I came amongst them a stranger; I have experienced from them every kindness; and, I must say, that I could not have left a bar with whom I could have lived in habits of more cordial inter

course.

"Perhaps I may (on some occasions I am aware that I must) have used expressions which have appeared harsh at the moment; but I trust they were only such as were suited to the occasion. My design was not to hurt the feelings of any; and, if I have done so, I am truly sorry for it. I wish to depart in peace and good will with all.

"To the officers and practitioners of the Court, I must say, that though with respect to a very few of the latter, I have had occasion to animadvert with some severity, their conduct in general has been highly satisfactory. As to the officers of the Court, they have all, in their several stations, endeavoured to assist me to the utmost of their power; they have materially done so, and I owe them sincere thanks.

"It would have been my wish to have continued to sit until the gentleman who has been named to succeed me should have arrived. I believe it was his wish also, and I have every reason to think so; and from him I have experienced every degree of politeness and attention. I am sorry that other persons should have thought me unworthy to have been intrusted with the Seal during the interval. What can occasion this (which I cannot but consider as a personal insult), I am unable to guess; but I have been informed that a peremptory order has come to the lord lieutenant, not to suffer a moment to elapse in preventing

the Great Seal from longer remaining in my hands. I know not whence this jealousy of me has arisen, or how my continuing to sit in the Court of Chancery (for I could make no other use of the Seal but under the warrant of his excellency) could interfere with any views of his majesty's ministers.

"I am proudly conscious of having discharged the duties of my station with honesty and integrity to the utmost of my abilities. For the office I care not, except so far as it afforded me the opportunity of discharging conscientiously an important public duty. It was unsought for by me; I came here much against my will; I came from a high situation in England, where I was living amongst my old friends, and in the midst of my family. But I was told that I owed it to public duty and to private friendship to accept the office, and I yielded; I yielded to the solicitations of some of those who have concurred in my removal. This, I own, is what I did not expect, and what I was not prepared to bear.

"But I feel most of all, that so little consideration has been had for the public business, and the interests of the suitors of this Court. You must all know the avocations of those who have been named as commissioners. The Master of the Rolls has already as much business as he can conveniently discharge; the lord chief justice and the lord chief baron have their several avocations, which must prevent their attendance in the Court of Chancery. I am extremely sorry that a great deal of business will, in consequence, be left undone, which ought to have been disposed of before the rising

of the Court; but so it has been thought fit.

"And now I have only to say, that in returning to the country from whence I came, I shall be most happy if it should ever be in my power to be of service to Ireland. Ireland will always have a claim upon me. Had I continued in the Commons' House of Parliament, I might have been able to do much service in the other House that power is much lessened; but such as it is, this country may ever command it.

"To this country I have the highest sense of obligation: I do not know that in a single instance I have experienced any thing but kindness. I have experienced it from all ranks of people without exception.

"Under these circumstances, I retire, with a firm conviction, that you will do me the justice to say, that I have discharged my duty with honest and conscientious zeal, to the extent of my abilities; and that, on this head, I have nothing with which to reproach myself."

This address, pronounced in a manner extremely feeling and dignified, excited strong and universal sympathy. After a pause of a few moments, the Attorney - general rose, and in the name, and by the direction of the Bar, addressed his lordship in these words:

"Thus called upon, and having had an opportunity of communicating with a great majority of the gentlemen of the Bar, who have practised in the Court of Chancery during the term that your lordship has presided, I feel myself authorised to express their sentiments on this occasion.

"We have a just sense, my lord, of those endowments which

have so eminently qualified you to preside in a court of equity.

"Whilst your impartial attention has secured to the honest suitor the full investigation of his claims, your sagacity and patience have taken away from fraud all hope of impunity, and all pretext for complaint.

"We return your lordship our thanks for the instruction which we have received in attending to the series of decisions by which, during a period of four years, you have advanced the science we profess.

"But most peculiarly, and from our hearts, we beg leave to make our grateful acknowledgments for the uniform courtesy and kindness which we have experienced from you in the discharge of our duty at your lordship's bar.

"Under these impressions we take leave of your lordship; the consciousness of having thus well discharged the duties of an elevated and important situation must render you independent of our praise; we trust, however, that this sincere tribute of esteem and gratitude, which is now offered to your lordship, will not be deemed unacceptable."

Although, with the exception of the administration which deprived him of office, lord Redesdale was a general supporter of the measures of government, he was never again called into his majesty's councils.

In 1805, on the presentation of a petition from certain Irish Roman Catholics to both Houses of Parliament, when lord Grenville delivered a long speech in favour of their claims, lord Redesdale rose, and observed, that the object of the petitioners was clearly pointed out by themselves to be,

"an equal participation, upon equal terms, with their fellow-subjects, of the full benefits of the British laws and constitution." His lordship, however, contended, "that the maintenance of the Protestant, as the established religion of the government, and the exclusion of the Roman Catholic faith from the administration of that government, had become fundamental principles, long deemed essential to the prescrvation of the liberty, both religious and political, of the country."

On every subsequent discussion of this important subject, lord Redesdale, while he declared himself to be a warm friend of conciliation, resisted, by his arguments and vote, that full participation by the Roman Catholics in the civil rights of their fellow-subjects, which "he conscientiously believed to be utterly incompatible with the peace of the country, the safety of the Protestants, and the connection of Ireland with Great Britain."

Receiving a considerable accession to his fortune by the death of W. J. Freeman, esq., his lordship, in consequence, took the name and arms of Freeman, in addition to those of Mitford, by royal sign manual, on the 28th of January, 1809. Towards the close of the session of 1809, his lordship first mentioned his intention of bringing before the legislature, among other measures relative to the law of Debtor and Creditor, the principle of the cessio bonorum, as acted upon in Scotland and Holland; and, in the following year, he so far proceeded in his object as to bring to a second reading a bill on this subject. Early in the ensuing session he resumed his purpose, and explained to the House the

provisions of the Insolvent Debtors' bill; the objects being, to establish a single officer in a new court, and to intrust to him the administration of the whole law on that subject. As a court of appeal, lord Redesdale proposed to constitute one, consisting of one judge from each of the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer.

In 1812, the Insolvent Debtors' bill was a subject of frequent discussion, and many of the difficulties were, from time to time, met by corresponding amendments and alterations. The noble lord also took a leading part in the appointment of the vice-chancellor's court, attending to the bill, for that purpose, during its progress through the House, until it finally passed into a law; and, on this subject, he published a Treatise (preserved in the Pamphleteer), entitled, "Observations occasioned by a Pamphlet, entitled, Objections to the Project of creating a ViceChancellor of England."

Opinions respecting the Insolvents' Act were still so much at variance, that, in 1813, lord Ellenborough introduced another bill, as a substitute for that of lord Redesdale, while his lordship, concurrently, brought in a bill for amending the act of last session ; hoping thereby to do away with the necessity for the measure proposed by lord Ellenborough. In the course of the discussion, lord Redesdale showed the ease with which the real objections to his act might be got rid of, by empowering the commissioner to re

move from place to place; by obliging gaolers to bring up their prisoners; by appointing an officer to take a provisional assignment of the debtor's effects; by repealing the court of appeal; by substituting a recognizance to be given by the debtor, as to the liability of his future property, instead of an engagement; and, finally, by giving a discretionary power to the commissioner to authorise justices in quarter session to discharge debtors.

On the conclusion of the war, when the further continuance of the Income Tax became a subject of general dissatisfaction, his lordship maintained the propriety and policy of such an impost, and expressed his regret that it should be rejected.

He took an active part in most of the parliamentary discussions on questions of internal policy to the time of his death.

His lordship's death took place, after a short illness, at his seat, Batsford Park, near Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire, on the 16th of January, 1830.

Lord Redesdale married, June the 6th, 1803, lady Frances Perceval, seventh daughter of John, second earl of Egmont, and sister to the right honourable Spencer Perceval, and to the present lord Arden. Lady Redesdale, who died August the 22nd, 1817, gave birth to one son and two daughters: Frances Elizabeth Mitford; John Thomas, now lord Redesdale; and Catharine, who died in 1811.

Sir Thomas Lawrence was born at Bristol, on the 13th of April,

:

1769. His father, Thomas, who had been a supervisor of excise,

took possession of the White Lion inn, in Broad-street, on the 3rd of June following. His mother was the daughter of the rev. W. Read, the incumbent of Tetbury, in Gloucestershire. He had two brothers and two sisters. His elder brother, the rev. Andrew Lawrence, was chaplain of Haslar hospital, and his brother William, a major in the army both have been dead some years. His elder sister, Lucy, was married in March, 1800, to Mr. Meredith, solicitor, of Birmingham: she died in February, 1813, leaving one daughter. His younger sister, Anne, married the rev. Dr. Bloxam, of Rugby.

The speculation at Bristol having proved unsuccessful, Mr. Lawrence, the father, in 1772, became the landlord of the Black Bear at Devizes.

At six years of age, young Lawrence was sent to a respectable school, kept by a Mr. Jones, at a place called the Fort, near Bristol; but he was removed from it before the age of eight. This was all the formal education he ever received, except instructions in reading and recitation from his father, and a few lessons in Latin and French from a dissenting clergyman, named Jervis, whose son was chaplain or librarian to the earl of Shelburne, afterwards marquis of Lansdown, at Bow-wood, in Wiltshire. He very early showed a great talent for taking likenesses. It is said, that the first painting he ever saw, except the daubs in the country inns, or the portraits over the farmers' chimneypieces, was in 1777, when he was eight years old, and was taken through Corsham-house, the seat of the Methuen family. Going over the rooms, the visitants totally forgot the child, and, retracing their steps,

they found him in one of the apartments, rivetted to the spot by a painting of Rubens.-"Ah! Ishall never be able to paint like that!" was his exclamation upon their removing him from the picture.

At the age of ten, he attempted original compositions of the highest class. He painted Christ reproving Peter for denying him before Pilate; and Reuben's application to his father, that Benjamin might accompany his brethren into Egypt. Encouraged in these attempts, he next chose for a subject "Haman and Mordecai," which he finished with great rapidity.

The fame of the juvenile artist now spread among the higher fa milies of Wiltshire and the neighbouring counties, and we find Mr. Weld, of Lulworth-castle, taking him to the earl of Pembroke's, at Wilton, and to the mansions of other noblemen and gentlemen, who possessed galleries of the emi

nent masters.

Not long after this, the honourable Daines Barrington notices young Lawrence in his Miscellanies: after speaking of the early musical talent exhibited by the earl of Mornington, he proceeds,"As I have mentioned so many other proofs of early genius in children, I here cannot pass unnoticed a Master Lawrence, son of an innkeeper at Devizes, in Wiltshire. This boy is now (Feb. 1780) nearly ten years and a half old; but at the age of nine, without the most distant instruction from any one, he was capable of copying historical pictures in at masterly style, and also succeeded amazingly in compositions of his own, particularly that of Peter denying Christ. In about seven minutes he scarcely ever failed in drawing a strong likeness of any