wishing to appear too eager to avail himself of such generosity, he had abstained from making the application till the sad news arrived of the death of George I. in Germany. Lord Parker, his son, then hurrying to Sir Robert Walpole to clutch the money, received for answer, "that his late Majesty and his Minister had a running account which had not been settled, and, as there was no saying on which side the balance was, it would be too great a risk to pay the 2000l. at present.' Some shrewdly conjectured, that Sir Robert expected to ingratiate himself with the new King by thus treating the man who had rendered himself so obnoxious to his Majesty when Prince of Wales. However that may be, not another farthing from the funds of the late King could be extorted towards the payment of the fine.

The very day after Lord Macclesfield's commitment to the Tower, he wrote the following letter to Lord Chief Justice King, who had presided as Speaker of the House of Lords during his trial, and was now designated as his successor :—

"My Lord,

"Will y' Ldp have ye goodnesse to forgive me if, to ye trouble I have already given, I adde this more in favour of Mr. Thomas Parker of New Inne, who served me as Deputy Purse-bearer severall yrs. He is a very sober, honest, and sensible man, and who I am sure will serve y' Ldp very diligently and faithfully if you have occasion to employ him in any of ye offices belonging to ye Great Seal. If these are all provided for, give me leave to recommend him to be one of y Comm's of Bankrupts. He was in one of ye lists, and behaved himself very well, but when I made him Deputy Purse-bearer I put an' in ye list of Comm", by wch means his name stands not now amongst those Comm. There is another Thomas Parker of ye Temple, whom ye Lords CommTM. have been pleased to continue in, and I beg y' Ldp still to allow a place amongst them. I ask pardon for this presumption, and I heartily wish y' Ldp all happinesse and satisfaction in an office wch my want of discretion has made so fatall to me, but wch I am sure, by y' Ldps great prudence and caution, will, in y' hands, be an honour to yourself and a blessing to ye King and his people, and I wish it may long continue so happily placed.

"I am with the greatest respect,

"Y Ldps most humble and most obed Serv*,
"MACCLESFIELD.

u From the MSS. of the Earl of Lovelace. The letter is without date, to avoid any reference to the writer's " doleful prison in

the Tower;" but it is endorsed by Sir Peter King, " 28th May, 1725."

A.D. 1725.

HIS LIBERATION AND RETIREMENT.

51

A letter written under such circumstances, to intercede for two dependants, and probably poor relations, places him in a very amiable point of view; and as he had not committed any black crime for which he could be expected to feel deep remorse, he may be forgiven if he imputes his fall to “want of discretion," and intimates that, along with the qualities for the office which he himself possessed, "prudence and caution" only were required to insure a glorious career to his

successor.

I have no further means of judging of the manner in which the fallen Chancellor bore his reverse of fortune, or how he spent his time in the Tower. He could have had none of the sympathy felt for political martyrs which had often made a commitment to its cells a triumph rather than a disgrace, and few visitors, besides his near relatives and dependants, could have come to relieve his thoughts from sad retrospects and anticipations.

When restored to liberty, he had not the courage to try to recover his position as a public man or in private society. Although he had still a vigorous constitution of body, and his faculties were unimpaired, he could not face political opponents or friends under whose unanimous verdict he had dropped on his knees to receive sentence as a fraudulent criminal at the bar of that House in which he had long presided with dignity and splendour. He considered the last division on his case, although the motion was lost by an equality of votes, as tantamount to sentence of civil death. He never resumed his seat in parliament, or appeared in public, or took any interest in party struggles.

As soon as his private affairs were settled in London, he hurried to bury himself in obscurity in the country. He selected as his retreat a small house near Derby, which had belonged to him when he carried on business as an attorney in that town. Here he entirely shut himself up from society, neither mixing with his former intimates in the lower or middling ranks of life, nor with the aristocracy-to which, in point of rank, he now belonged.

* Although the above account of the exChancellor's retreat seems to rest on authentic evidence, I have recently received a statement from the present Earl of Macclesfield, "June 20th 1725.

Some years afterwards he

that he resided sometimes at Shirburn Castle, and there exercised great hospitality; in proof of which I am furnished with the following extracts from his CELLAR BOOK :

Sent to the Tower French Claret from Lord Ch. B. Hale's Hhd. No 1

Red Port

made occasional visits to his son, who had a house in London, in Soho Square; but on these occasions he still shunned all intercourse with the world. His old age, I fear, was very cheerless. 66 Obedience," and "troops of friends," which he had enjoyed, he could look to have no longer.

Unfortunately he was unable to imitate the conduct of his predecessor, Bacon, who, under similar circumstances, devoted himself to science, and the extension of his literary fame. Macclesfield, when educating himself, had acquired an adequate knowledge of the Latin classics, and had read the most popular English authors; but he had no high value for literature, and he had no taste whatever for philosophy. He now probably regretted that he ever left the profession of an attorney, in which, if he had been contented to continue, he might have lived and died respected, though obscure. But the mind wonderfully adapts itself to circumstances, and in the saddest condition solace is found. As he had hastened to be rich, a large fortune remained to him after the payment of his fine, and his latter days may have been rendered tolerable by the pleasures of avarice.

At the commencement of his seclusion he took interest in superintending the education of his son, afterwards so famed for scientific acquirements; and, for his sake, he maintained in his house a mathematician of great eminence, but little

N.B.-These extracts are taken, first, when at Shirburn, and, secondly, on leaving Shirburn for London."-Note to 2nd Edition.

A.D. 1732.

HIS DEATH.

53

wealth, the father of Sir William Jones, the celebrated lawyer, orator, poet, classical scholar, and orientalist.

A.D. 1732.

In this state of listless existence, Lord Macclesfield languished nearly seven years. At last, on the 28th day of April, 1732, he was relieved from his sad reflections on the sale of masterships, and from the wretchedness of non-official life. While at his son's house in Soho Square he had a severe access of strangury-a complaint from which he had before often suffered, but which was now so violent and painful, that he was immediately impressed with the conviction that it would prove mortal. His mind being weakened to superstition, he foretold that " as his mother had died of that disease on the eighth day, he should do the same." On the morning of the eighth day he declared that he felt himself" drowning inwardly, and dying from the feet upwards." He is said to have received in a very exemplary manner the consolations of religion, and to have taken leave of his family and household with the same calm cheerfulness as if he had been setting out upon a journey with the prospect of a speedy re-union with those he loved. A little before midnight, being informed that the physician was gone, he said faintly," and I am going also, but I will close my eyelids myself." He did so, and breathed no more. Thus, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, he piously closed a career long eminently prosperous-at last deeply disastrous. Who can

tell whether he would have made so good an end if cut off without having experienced any reverse?

"to add greater honours to his age

Than man could give him, he died fearing God." y

y In the Diary of his son-in-law, Sir William Heathcote, who bears testimony to the resignation and piety he displayed on his death-bed, it is said, "He bore his great change of fortune and station with an uncommon firmness of mind; and, upon his retreat from public business, was so well satisfied with private life, that he both said and showed that he had never enjoyed true happiness till then."

There now lies before me, in the handwriting of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, a collection of Prayers prepared by him for his private devotions,-giving striking proof of a Christian frame of mind. I copy an extract from the last of these, which seems to have been written shortly before his fatal ill

ness:

"Also I thank thee for any sanctified chastisement and affliction. O my God, as long as I live will I magnify thee. [Frobably alluding to his trial and sentence.]

"Thou hast granted thy loving kindness in the day time, and in the night season will I make my prayer unto the God of my life, And now, O Lord my God, as the day is vanished and gone, so doth my life vanish and wear away. The end of the day is arrived, the end of my life is at hand; how near, thou alone knowest. Remembering this, O Lord! I beseech thee that the end of my life may be Christian and acceptable to thee, without sin, without shame, and, if it please thee, without grievous pain; gathering me together with thine elect, when thou wilt and as thou wilt."

He had constructed a family vault in the church of Shirburn in Oxfordshire, and there he lies interred without monument or epitaph.

The subject of this memoir is a striking instance of the scope afforded by our constitution to talent and energy. He was not suddenly elevated by the caprice of a despot from a servile condition to rule the state. The possibility of such a promotion shows an arbitrary form of government, and a barbarous state of society. The power of rising to distinction in a free country ought to be by the possession of useful qualities, and the performance of public services. The government that employs and rewards the meritorious aspirant, ought merely to ratify the opinion of his fellow-citizens, and to carry into effect the wishes of an enlightened community. Parker got on in the world first by diligence in his father's little office at Leeke, and rendering services to the wealthy manufacturer who translated him to Derby ;-then by showing himself superior in intelligence and activity to the other attorneys of that place; then by being the greatest winner of verdicts of all the barristers on the Midland Circuit ;—then by proving the most formidable opponent which Westminster Hall could supply to oppressive prosecutions of the press by the Attorney-General;-then by becoming in the House of Commons a most efficient member of the political party to which he attached himself;-then by gaining the chief glory in a great parliamentary prosecution, having for his competitors the most eminent lawyers and statesmen of the day;then by being acknowledged equal as a Judge to those who had filled with the loudest applause the most important magistracies; then by taking a leading part in the Upper House of Parliament when he was elevated to the peerage;-and finally by making it appear for the interest of the Sovereign on the throne to place him in the highest civil office which a subject could hold—at a time when he had established such a reputation with all ranks, that his promotion caused general joy.

He achieved greatness; but for solid glory he wanted a contempt of riches, a love of literature, and a desire of improving the institutions of his country. He could occasionally part with money for charitable purposes, but, beyond the laudable desire of providing decently for his family, he certainly displayed an inordinate desire to accumulate wealth, and this was the remote cause of his downfall.