circumstances will amazingly tie up a Chancellor's hands, should leave me the power of enabling your son to feel that he need not hereafter plague his diocesan about a license, I shall be glad to avail myself of it. "With Lady Eldon's and my family's kind regards to you and all your family, believe me, truly, yours, "April 1, 1807.” "ELDON. Very soon he actually gave a good living to the young clergyman alluded to, who well deserved the advancement. He likewise appointed his old preceptor, Moises, to be one of his chaplains, and was willing to advance him high in the Church. In the ANECDOTE BOOK, giving an account of his first election for Weobly, he says, "I lodged at the vicar's, Mr. Bridge's. He had a daughter, a young child, and he said to me, 'Who knows but you may come to be Chancellor? As my girl can probably marry nobody but a clergyman, promise me you will give her husband a living when you have the Seals.' I said, 'Mr. Bridge, my promise is not worth half a crown, but you may have my promise. When he had been some time Chancellor, while sitting one morning in his study, an interesting young girl broke in upon him-introduced herself as the daughter of the Vicar of Weobly-modestly informed him of an affair of the heart which she had with a poor young clergyman-and informed him that a small Herefordshire living, which would make them happy, had the day before become vacant. The secretary of presentations was immediately called in, and she carried back with her the presentation to this living in favour of her lover. The following was his answer to an application for a piece of preferment from his old friend Dr. Fisher, of the Charter House: "DEAR FISHER, "I cannot, to-day, give you the preferment for which you ask. "I remain your sincere friend, "ELDON. "Turn over." Then, on the other side, "I gave it to you yesterday." He himself furnished the following narrative of another ecclesiastical appointment, redounding much to his credit: "When I went to enjoy repose at Encombe, I gave orders to be denied to all strangers, or I should have been beset with applicants. One of these was a country clergyman from the north of England, who found his way thither on foot, and asked for the Chancellor. The servant who opened the door said his Lordship was out shooting. Which way is he gone?' replied the clergyman. What is your business, Sir?' asked the servant. 'Never mind,' rejoined the clergyman: only just tell me which way your master is gone.' The servant pointed out the quarter in which the Chancellor was to be found, and the stranger, following the direction, was not long before he came up with a man carrying a gun, and accompanied by a brace of dogs, but somewhat shabbily dressed,-of whom he inquired whereabouts the Chancellor might be found. 'Not far off,' said the sportsman: and just as he spoke, a covey of partridges got up, at which he fired, but without success. The stranger left him, crossed another field or two, and witnessed, from a little distance, the discharge of several shots as unproductive as the first. You don't seem to make much of that,' said he, coming back; 'I wish you could tell me where to meet with Lord Eldon?' Why then,' said the other, ‘I am Lord Eldon.' The clergyman fell a stammering and apologizing, till the Chancellor asked him, rather shortly, whence he came, how he had got to Encombe, and what he wanted there? The poor clergyman said he had come from Lancashire to the Bull and Mouth in London; and that, finding the Chancellor had left town, and having no money to spare, he had walked from London to Encombe; and that he was Mr. the curate of a small parish, which he mentioned, and of which the incumbent was just dead; and that he was come to solicit the vacant benefice. I never give answers to applicants coming hither,' said the Chancellor, or I should never have a moment to myself; and I can only express my regret that you should have taken the trouble of coming so far to no purpose.' The suitor said, 'If so, he had no alternative but to go back to the Bull and Mouth, where he expected to find a friend who would give him a cast back into Lancashire:' and with a heavy heart, took leave. When he arrived at the Bull and Mouth, a letter in an unknown hand was waiting for him. He opened the cover with the anxious curiosity of a man to whom epistolary communications are rare; and had the joy of finding in it a good-humoured note from the Chancellor, giving him the preferment." "But now," added Lord Eldon with a waggish smile, "see the ingratitude of mankind. It was not long before a large present of game reached me, with a letter from my new-made rector, purporting that he had sent it me, because, from what he had seen of my shooting, he supposed I must be badly off for game! Think of turning upon me in this way after the kindness I had done him, and wounding me in my very tenderest point!"* I have received, from one who had ample means of observing, and on whose accuracy I can place the most implicit reliance, the following less favourable view of Lord Eldon's conduct in this department,-which I feel myself bound to lay before the reader :-" In the administration of his Church patronage, he did not merit much praise. His delays in filling vacant benefices were often positively scandalous,extending to years in some instances. I believe that he occasionally received remonstrances from bishops on this head. In selecting the objects of his patronage, he was not anxious, or at least took little or no trouble, to ascertain the fitness of the persons recommended to him. Still less did he look out for meritorious clergymen, who, by their theological works or otherwise, had established a title to the favour of the great public patron. That no man of merit was preferred by him cannot be said: doubtless there were many such. But it would be difficult to select, during the twenty-five years in which he dispensed the Crown patronage, even five persons whom he chose because of their merit. His richest benefices were bestowed either on the application of members of the Royal Family, or on his own near connexions,-sometimes with a disregard of propriety which was almost, or quite scandalous. "During the period of Lord Eldon's Chancellorship, more than twenty appoint. By the following letter of Lord Nelson, written from the Downs, after his attack on Boulogne, it would rather appear that the Chancellor had been compelled, although in most courteous terms, to refuse an application from that hero. “My Lord, "Amazon, Sep. 17th, 1801. "I feel very much obliged by your open and very handsome answer to my request, which so exactly accords with what my friend Dawson told me of your character, and allow me to consider myself, in every respect, "Your most obliged, "NELSON ANd Bronte." He jocularly complained much of the longevity of his incumbents. "I have been very unlucky," he writes to a friend, "for the gentlemen who labour to consign others to mortality, seem to cling themselves most amazingly to this mortal world, and the rarity with which I have had vacancies of livings is really remarkable: certainly not in the propor tion of one to a dozen, I believe, throughout all Lord Rosslyn's time." Being strongly pressed by George III. to confer a living upon the son of a court physician, he answered, "I should be able more speedily to comply with your Majesty's wishes if your Majesty would be pleased to order your physicians to prescribe for my incumbents.” From the following anecdote, we may judge that he was much pleased to hear of a vacancy. A clergyman coming to the door of his private room as he was leaving the Court of Chancery begged to have an interview with him on important business. The secretary, purse-bearer, and gentleman said, with one voice, "His Lordship is so deeply engaged that the thing is impossible." Clergyman: "Tell his Lordship, if you please, that I am not come to ask for a living, but to resign one. All the three simultaneously answered, "The interests of the Church being concerned, we think we may be able to obtain for you a short audience.' He gives this piteous account of the annoyance occasioned to him by his Church patronage: "From persons great and small I have had, I may almost say, thousands of applications-most of them impudently framed, in effect upon some such notion as that I cannot myself have in the world a clergyman that I can have any personal wishes in favour of, or a friend who has in any clergyman a friend in whose welfare he takes an interest. Many of these applications, however, come from persons whose weight throws much difficulty in my way, and more than I can easily remove. Besides this, in confidence be it spoken, the ments to prebendal stalls fell vacant. Of these, few, if any, were given to men distinguished by talents, learning or services to the Church; not to one, it is feared, because he was so distinguished. "Lord Thurlow, shameless as he was in heaping benefices on a brother and a nephew, had yet the merit of selecting Horsley and White (celebrated in his day for his Bampton Lectures) as recipients of his more dignified preferments. They both were placed by him in stalls; for they,' said he, who defend the Church, ought to be seated in its highest places." different branches of the Royal Family communicate their wishes, which are commands, that supersede even promises to others: and, upon the whole, I assure you I have little elbow room. In the very important function of the Lord Chancellor of the appointment and removal of magistrates, Lord Eldon was exemplary, and he exercised a vigilant control in this department over the Bishop of Durham, who then was Count Palatine of the Bishopric, as well as over the Custodes Rotulorum throughout the kingdom. He was particularly strict respecting the removal of names from the Commission of the Peace, and he would suffer no man to be dismissed till heard in his defence, and proved guilty of some offence disqualifying him from assisting in the administration of justice.† Before taking final leave of Lord Eldon as an official man, I should observe that he performed in a very exemplary manner his duties as Speaker of the House of Lords. He was courteous to every onekeeping up a familiar intercourse with Opposition peers, with whom he liked to chat on the woolsack,-and to whom he would sometimes make very free strictures on his colleagues.‡ At first he was rather too rigid in enforcing what he considered the orders of the House. He would allow no petition to be received which did not profess to be "humble,”—admitting no equivalent word, how * All who have any thing to do with the disposal of Crown livings must feel infinitely indebted to Lord Eldon for the excellent precedent he has left of an answer to an application for a next presentation, "Sir [or Madam, or My Lord,] "I have had the honour to receive your letter respecting the living of I trust that you will not impute it to disrespect that I do not express at present any intention as to the disposal of it, except in saying that no person can more strongly feel the necessity of placing, in these times, most exemplary clergymen in the Crown's benefices. I have never allowed myself to express an intention by whom I should fill up any living not actually vacant-the tenure, by which I hold office, and the inconvenience of acting upon any other rule than that of forbearing to intimate any purpose with respect to benefices not vacant, appearing to me to be such as to justify my refraining from so doing. This course, I trust, will not appear inconsistent with the respect with which I am, Sir, [or Madam, or my Lord.] "Your obedient Servant, 991 + See Letter to Earl Grey, March 30, 1810. Surtees, 108. This intercourse even led to his meeting a Whig party at dinner at a time when political feeling interfered much more with private life than at present. Lord Eldon to Lady F. J. Bankes. ("July or August, 1822.) "Wonders, they say, never cease. You will be surprised to hear that I dined at Lord Holland's yesterday, at the old house at Kensington, with Lords Grey, Lauderdale, and several of the Opposition. We had a very good and pleasant party, and I was quite delighted with the very curious old house. I never saw any that I thought better worth seeing. You must recollect the outside of it: it is old and curious, and the inside is in the same state as when it was first fitted up, about the time of James I." 1 Twiss, ch. lxiii. ever submissive. He fired up exceedingly at a petition which prayed their Lordships to give some bill "a cool and deliberate discussion," which, he said, contained an impertinent insinuation that they were sometimes "hot and hasty." He once declared that, in the course of thirty years' experience, he had never seen any thing so irregular and disorderly as the production of a newspaper in the House.-At last, being reminded that, although he sat on the woolsack, he had no more authority than any other peer, he somewhat pettishly refused to interfere when his advice would have been useful and well received; and he allowed irregular practices to prevail among their Lordships, which have never yet been corrected. But he always continued to support the privileges of the House with a high hand. Shortly before his resignation arose the famous " Umbrella case," so frequently quoted in the recent discussions on that subject.* A stranger being admitted below the bar, was required by one of the doorkeepers to deposit his umbrella in an ante-room, and his property [MARCH, 1827.] not being returned to him when the debate was over, he brought an action against the messenger for the value of it before the Westminster Court of Conscience, and recovered a verdict for 17s. 6d. damages, with 2s. 10d. costs. But on complaint of this proceeding, Lord Eldon had the plaintiff and his attorney summoned to the bar, and he refrained from committing them to Newgate only when they had made an humble apology, and renounced the fruits of the verdict;-intimating a clear opinion that the House would not allow to be prosecuted any suit brought before any other tribunal with the intent of questioning their privileges. The following letter shows that he himself had ceased to stand much in awe of their Lordships, although he trembled before a few shopkeepers sitting round a table in the office of the Auditor of the Exchequer : "Westminster, April 27th, 1822; half-past eight. "I am down here to give a charge to my old friends the Pix Jury, as to-day is the trial of the coin, and the Goldsmiths' dinner. I am always a little nervous before I make this sort of address, and such a strange being is man, that, though I could talk before a Parliament with as much indifference as though they were all cabbage-plants, a new audience has ever borne an appalling appearance."† * Lord Campbell's Speeches, p. 270. † I have lying before me a MS. copy of his first address to a Pix Jury, on the 2d of December, 1802. It is very long and elaborate, giving an account of the history of our coin, with all the statutes upon the subject from the earliest times. Having pointed out the duties of the jury in making an assay, he thus concluded: "Public wisdom has long ago determined, that an inquiry in its consequences so important as that which is now to be instituted can only be committed with safety to the interests which it affects, to a jury of gentlemen, by profession skilled in the subject to which the inquiry relates. You have been named as that jury without influence, and have been fairly and impartially returned by the respectable Company, to whom the precept for forming a jury has according to usage been addressed. You will, therefore, now, gentlemen, proceed to the discharge of this 34 VOL. VII. |