sitting up at night to read, and in the mornings sometimes, when pretending to be wandering about in the fields, he "sported the oak *,"-shutting himself up to prepare for a college examination; but he eschewed the chapel and the lecture room, and loved to be seen lounging at the gates of his college, or loitering in coffee houses, then frequented by the under-graduates, or figuring in a nocturnal symposium, or acting as leader of the university men in the wars between "town" and "gown." His frequent breaches of academic discipline made him familiar with impositions, confinements within the college, privations of sizeings, and threats of rustication. He rather prided himself in such punishments, and, instead of producing reformation, they led to fresh offences. He was not more celebrated for his waywardness in getting into scrapes than for the talent he displayed in getting out of them; and he is reported to have often taken upon himself the blame of acts in which he had no hand for the pleasure of arguing the case, and showing his ingenuity in justifying what he was supposed to have done. CHAP. CLV. At last he was summoned before the Dean of his College Charge against him a worthy man, but weak and formal for non-attendance of insulting at chapel, and had an imposition set him-- to translate a 66 paper of the Spectator" into Greek. He duly per formed the task, taking considerable pains with it; but, in- Worships," said he, "no one respects Mr. Dean more than I * Locked the outer door of his rooms. the Dean. CHAP. The Dean moves for his expul. sion. He is allowed to take his name off the College books. to be well-founded, and was considered by him an enormous aggravation of the original injury. He denounced it as a flying in the face of all authority, and foretold that the discipline of the College was at an end if they did not now proceed with the utmost severity. In conclusion, he declared that “rustication would only be laughed at by the offender, and that expulsion was the only adequate punishment." There was no denying that the offence was a serious one, but considerable sympathy was felt for the young gentleman, who, although his future greatness was little dreamed of, was known to possess social good qualities, and to evince excellent abilities when he chose to exert them. In mitigation, they likewise remembered the dash of absurdity about Mr. Dean which had often made him the butt of the combination room. In particular, Smith, the tutor (afterwards head of the house), put in a good word for the culprit, and, to avoid setting a brand upon him which might ruin him for life, proposed that he should be permitted to take his name off the College books, and that no other proceedings should be taken against Lent Term, him. Notwithstanding the stout resistance of the Dean, this suggestion was adopted. Thurlow gratefully acquiesced, and thus left Cambridge without a degree. 1751. * Notwithstanding his irregularities, there can be no doubt that he derived great benefit from his residence there. He had occasional fits of severe application, and always having a contempt for frivolity, when he seemed to be idle, he was enlarging his stock of knowledge and sharpening his intellect by conversing with men of strong sense and solid acquirements. Among the strange vicissitudes of life, it did so happen, rous beha- that the refractory disciple, thus discarded from the bosom of Alma Mater, reached the highest civil dignity in the state; His gene. viour to the Tutor of Caius. * In a communication respecting Lord Chancellor Thurlow, with which I have been honoured by Dr. Chapman, the present learned Master of Caius, after stating that the traditions respecting him at Cambridge had become very faint, he says: "I have always understood that, having set at defiance all college authority, it became necessary to send him away. I have searched our records, and can find no recorded charge against him, or any sentence passed upon him; so I conclude his friends were advised to take him from College. He was admitted Oct. 5. 1748, and elected a scholar on Dr. Perse's foundation Oct. 12. 1748; this he held till Lady day, 1751, when his last stipend was paid him. I conclude, therefore, that his name was taken off our books about that time, as it does not appear in our list of scholars at Mich. 1751." and it is pleasant to relate, that when presiding on the woolsack, he recollected the friendly interference of Dr. Smith, and caused him to be appointed Chancellor of the diocese of Lincoln. CHAP. CLV. Dean. It is even said, that he afterwards handsomely made And to the atonement to " Mr. Dean." The story goes, that he had had an earlier quarrel with this functionary, who had interrupted him, rather sharply, with the question, "Pray, sir, do you know to whom you are speaking?" bidding him to recollect that he was in the presence of no less a person than the DEAN OF THE COLLEGE. This hint was not lost upon Thurlow, who then, and ever after, began and interlarded every sentence he addressed to him with the vocative, "MR. DEAN;" this banter being doubly galling to the assertor of the title, as he could not consistently appear to be offended by it. When the flippant youth, who had been so nearly expelled from his college, had a little while held the Great Seal, the individual who had proposed and pressed his expulsion, obeying a summons to wait upon him, the Chancellor's first salutation to him was, " Mr. Dean, how d'ye do? I am very happy to see you, Mr. Dean.” "My Lord," he observed, somewhat sullenly, "I am no longer Mr. Dean." "That is as you please; and it shall not be my fault if the title does not still belong to you, for I have a deanery at my disposal, which is very much at your service, Mr. Dean."* This generosity was very honourable to Thurlow, for (as he well knew) on his being made Chancellor, his College met to deliberate whether they should not congratulate him (according to custom) on his elevation,- when Dr. Smith, the Master, objected, saying, "that it would be an insult, under the circumstances attending his Lordship's removal from College,”— and the proposal fell to the ground. * This anecdote, which has often appeared in print, is probably considerably embellished; but so much I know, from undoubted private authority, that the Dean's name was Goodrich; that he accepted a college living in Dorsetshire; that at the first visitation of the Bishop of Salisbury after Thurlow was Chancellor, Mr. Goodrich said to the Bishop, "I am sure I shall have some preferment from him, as I was the only fellow who dared to punish him ;" and that the Bishop, having mentioned this to the Chancellor, the old Caius man exclaimed, "It is true! he is right, and a living he shall have!" CHAP. law student at the Temple. His early destination for the bar remaining unaltered, he had been entered of the Inner Temple while an under-gra Thurlow a duate at Cambridge*, and as soon as he quitted the University he took chambers, and began to keep terms by eating a certain number of dinners in the hall; this, since the disuse of "moots" and "readings," being the only curriculum of legal education in England. He is placed as a pupil in a solicitor's office. The voluntary discipline of a special pleader's office was not yet established, although Tom WARREN, the great founder of the special pleading race, to whom I can trace up my pedigree, was then beginning to flourish. † The usual custom was to place the aspirant for the bar, as a pupil, in the office of a solicitor, where he was supposed to learn how actions were commenced and conducted, with the practice of the different courts of law and equity. For young Thurlow was selected the office of Mr. Chapman, a very eminent solicitor, who carried on business in Lincoln's Inn. Here he met, as a brother pupil, the celebrated William Cowper, author of the "Task." The poet contracted a great friendship for him, and introduced him to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, who lived in Southampton Row, then a fashionable quarter of the He is thus described: "Edwardus Thurlow, generosus, filius et hæres apparens Thomæ Thurlow, de Stratton St. Mary, in comitatu Norfolk, Clerici.” t TOM WARREN. SERJEANT RUNINGTON. TIDD. CAMPBELL. DUNDAS, I delight to think that my special pleading father, now turned of eighty, is still alive, and in the full enjoyment of his faculties. He lived to see four sons sitting together in the House of Lords - Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Denman, Lord Cottenham, and Lord Campbell. To the unspeakable advantage of having been three years his pupil, I chiefly ascribe my success at the bar. I have great pride in recording that when, at the end of my first year, he discovered that it would not be quite convenient for me to give him a second fee of one hundred guineas, he not only refused to take a second, but insisted on returning me the first. Of all the lawyers I have ever known, he has the finest analytical head; and if he had devoted himself to science, I am sure that he would have earned great fame as a discoverer. His disposition and his manners have made him universally beloved. town. This CLV. gay house was much more agreeable to the taste CHAP. of the brother-pupils than the smoky chambers of the attorney, smelling of musty parchment; and here they frivolously passed a great part of their time. Cowper, in a private letter written many years after, gives this account of their studies: "I did actually live three years with Mr. Account Chapman, that is to say, I slept three years in his house, but per, his I lived, that is to say, I spent my days, in Southampton fellowRow, as you very well remember. There was I and the their idlefuture Lord Chancellor constantly employed, from morning till night, in giggling, and making others giggle, instead of studying the law." from Cow pupil, of ness. habits terms. Thurlow, while denominated "a student of law," affected Thurlow's the character of an idler.* He was fond of society; without while keepbeing addicted to habitual intemperance, he occasionally in- ing his dulged in deep potations; and, although his manners were somewhat rough and bearish, as he had great powers of entertainment, his company was much courted by the loungers of the Inns of Court. Thus a good deal of his time was stolen from study, and he could not lay in such stores of learning as Selden and Hale, in the preceding century, who for years together read .sixteen hours a day. But he by no means neglected preparation for his profession to the extreme degree which he pretended. He had an admirable head for the law, with a quick perception and a retentive memory; so that he made greater progress than some plodders who were at work all day long and a great part of every night. He attended the remarkable trials and arguments which came on in Westminster Hall, and picked up a good deal of legal knowledge while he seemed only to * This affectation, which I believe has gone out of fashion like "hair powder" and "shorts," survived to my time. I knew an exceedingly clever young man, who, having taken a high degree at Cambridge, in reality studied the law very assiduously, but who pretended to be idle, or to read only books of amusement. Reversing the practice of the hero of the PLEADER'S GUIDE, who, if "Hawke" or "Buzzard," or any attorney was approaching, conveyed the object of his affections into the coal-hole, and pretended to be reading the "Doctrina Placitandi," my friend, who was in the habit of poring over “ Coke upon Littleton," had a contrivance by which, on a knock coming to the door, this black-letter tome disappeared, and there was substituted for it a novel, the name of which I may not mention. If he had lived he would have conquered all such follies; but he was destined to an early grave. |