L the administration of law and equity should be committed not to the same court, as in Scotland, but to separate courts, as in England, he liberally admits that there are partial advantages and inconveniences belonging to both systems, and that there is ground for considerable difference of opinion upon their rival pretensions. He afterwards discusses, in a most luminous manner, the important question, how far in the Prætorian jurisdiction the conscience of the Judge, or arbitrium boni viri, is to be controlled,-and beautifully shows the advantage of general rules in restraining caprice as well as corruption, and in letting the world know how civil rights are defined and will be adjudicated. Lord Hardwicke has been held up by some of his injudicious flatterers as a great classical scholar, and we are referred to a letter which he wrote in the year 1724, "SAMUELI CLERICO," in which he asks the learned Dr. Samuel Clerk to revise an epitaph composed on one of the Bradford family, to whom he was related by marriage, in consequence of a request "a Cocceio uxoris meæ germano, tibi bene noto." But there is nothing in this letter beyond what could be accomplished by a lad who had been at an ordinary grammar school; and Lord Hardwicke must be cited as an instance of success-not in consequence of a finished education, but in spite of a very defective one. By the anxiety with which he gave his own sons the benefit of academical discipline, he showed the consciousness he felt of the unequal fight he had fought from the want of it. There are extant specimens of his poetical composition, which will perhaps be considered as justifying him in for ever renouncing the Muses, and trusting his reputation with posterity to Atk. and Ves. sen. Lord Lyttleton had written a copy of verses, addressed to the Countess of Egremont, entitled "VIRTUE and FAME," supposed to be a Dialogue between these two ladies, in which VIRTUE, after drawing the character of the best of wives and mothers, concludes by setting FAME right, who thought this must be the wife of a country parson, "Who never saw the court nor town, That Britain's spacious isle can boast; * Birch's MSS. Brit. Mus. Addition extempore, by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. First on my roll stands Windham's bride; A friend of your's-'tis Lyttleton!" 301 Again, journeying to London after the death of his wife, he composed the following lines, which he thus entered in his Diary : "A Wimple iter faciens uxorem nupèr morte abreptam alloquitur. Junii 15° 1762. "Conjuge dilectâ privari dùm dolet, heu ! me I am sorry that neither from print nor the tradition of Westminster Hall can I collect any personal anecdotes or noted sayings of Lord Hardwicke to enliven my dull narrative of his Life. I suspect that, unlike his immediate successor, studying his dignity very uniformly, and always very observant of decorum, he added little to the ana of his age. We must not look for the workings of his genius in Joe Miller, but exclusively in the Parliamentary History and the Chancery Reports. 66 I have now only to state that "he was one of the handsomest men of his time, and bestowed great attention to his appearance and dress." There were reports circulated of his gallantries with a Lady B—, and with the celebrated Mrs. Wells; but for these there was as little foundation as for his conjectured intimacy with Fanny Murray and Kitty Fisher. He was a perfect pattern not only of temperance and sobriety, but also of conjugal fidelity. Before proceeding to speak of his wife and his descendants, I will further assist the reader to come to a right judgment y There is one story related of him worth mentioning, which shows that he followed the precedent of Lord Chancellor Cowper, in being civil to the House of Cromwell. There being a suit heard before him in which Oliver's grandson was a party, while the opposite counsel was very irrelevantly and improperly inveighing against the memory of the Pro tector, the Lord Chancellor said, "I observe Mr. Cromwell standing outside the bar there, inconveniently pressed by the crowd; make way for him, that he may sit by me on the bench." It is needless to add, that the representative of the family being so noticed, the orator felt rebuked. and changed his tone. upon his merits and defects, by presenting characters of him as drawn by three eminent contemporaries who knew him well; the first being his greatest vituperator, the second his most indiscriminate eulogist, and the third speaking of him, I think, in the words of impartiality and truth. Says Horace Walpole : "He was a creature of the Duke of Newcastle, and by him introduced to Sir Robert Walpole, who contributed to his grandeur and baseness, in giving him an opportunity of displaying the extent of the latter, by raising him to the height of the former. He had good parts, which he laid out so entirely upon the law in the first part of his life, that they were of little use to him afterwards, when he would have applied them to more general views. On his promotion, he flung himself into politics, but, as he had no knowledge of foreign affairs but what was whispered to him by Newcastle, he made a poor figure. In the House of Lords he was laughed at, in the cabinet despised." On the other hand, he is extravagantly praised by another Honourable, Danes Barrington,-who considers him above all human failing : "There is not a report of a single decision of Lord Bacon; some few indeed (and those unimportant ones) by Lord Nottingham: we have hardly a determination of consequence by the great Lord Somers and though he was succeeded by lawyers of ability and eminence, yet it may be said that we owe the present beneficial and rational system of equity to the peculiar national felicity of the greatest lawyer and statesman of this or, perhaps, any other country, having presided in this Court near twenty years without a single decree having been reversed, either in the whole or any part of it; an infallibility which in no other instance was ever the lot of humanity."" The Earl of Chesterfield thus mediates between them, and pronounces sentence for posterity :— a "Lord Hardwicke was perhaps the greatest magistrate this country ever had. He presided in the Court of Chancery above twenty years, and in all that time none of his decrees were ever reversed, or the justness of them questioned. Though avarice was his ruling passion, he was never in the least suspected of any kind of corruption -a rare and meritorious instance of virtue and self-denial under the influence of such a craving, insatiable, and increasing passion. He was an agreeable, eloquent speaker in parliament, but not without Z Observations on Statutes, 325. a Not quite correct. CHAP. CXXXVII. HIS CHARACTER. 303 some little tincture of the pleader. He was a cheerful, instructive companion, humane in his nature, decent in his manners, unstained by any vice (avarice excepted) a very great magistrate, but by no means a great minister." His marriage with the young widow turned out most auspiciously. They continued to old age tenderly attached to each other. She contributed not only to his happiness, but to his greatness. "She often humorously laid claim (as she had good right to do) to so much of the merit of Lord Hardwicke's being a good Chancellor, in that his thoughts and attention were never taken from the business of the Court by the private concerns of his family,-the care of which, the management of his money matters, the settling all accounts with stewards and others, and, above all, the education of his children, had been wholly her department and concern, without any interposition of his, farther than implicit acquiescence and entire approbation."b She was supposed to be very stingy, and foolish stories were circulated to annoy her; but "she would often smile at hearing of the cold chine being turned and found bare, of the potted sawdust to represent lamprey, and of the want of Dr. Mead's kitchen to be added to Powis House, and only observe that, uncertain as was the time of Lord Chancellor's dining, and the company that would attend him, yet if it should happen that he brought with him an ambassador or person of the highest rank, he never found a dinner or supper to be ashamed of." C We may judge of the malicious turn given to her domestic arrangements, however deserving of praise, by the charge against her of stealing the purse in which the Great Seal was kept to make a counterpane. The truth is, that this purse, highly decorated with the royal arms and other devices, is, by ancient custom, annually renewed, and is the perquisite of the Lord Chancellor for the time being, if he chooses to claim it. Lady Hardwicke, availing herself of this custom, caused the purse, with its decorations, to be put as embroidery on a large piece of rich crimson velvet, corresponding to the height of one of the state rooms at Wimpole. These purses, just twenty in number, complete the hangings of the room, and the curtains of a bed, singularly magnificent. She, therefore, in reality only prepared a characteristic and proud heir b Cooksey, 34, 40. c "Oft would he go when summer suns prevail, loom to be handed down to commemorate the founder of the family.d Lord and Lady Hardwicke had seven children, five sons and two daughters, who all grew up, and flourished. Philip, the eldest son, married Jemima Campbell Marchioness Grey, only daughter of John Earl of Breadalbane, and granddaughter and heiress of the Duke of Kent, who obtained for her a remainder of his marquisate. This Philip, who became the second Earl of Hardwicke, was a man of letters, and an excellent politician, continuing always a steady adherent of the Rockingham party. Of the accomplished and high-spirited Charles, the second son, it will be my duty to give a separate memoir, as he held the Great Seal of England. Joseph, the third son, being for many years ambassador to the States General, was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Dover. John, the fourth son, was not inferior in learning or abilities to any of his brothers, but preferred a private station with the enjoyment of several lucrative sinecures conferred upon him by his father. James, the youngest son, was made Bishop of Ely. The eldest daughter having become Lady Anson, and the youngest Lady Heathcote, are said to have been distinguished ornaments of the court of George II. The Chancellor is now worthily represented by his great-great-grandson, the present gallant Earl of Hardwicke." d Cooksey, 39. e Grandeur of the Law, p. 66. |