-

lousness in his voice, I looked up and saw the tears in his
eyes.
When Lord Thurlow had a severe fit of the gout, he
used to be wheeled in a Merlin's chair from his sitting-room to
his bed-room at an early hour; it was in the summer season,
and when the proper minute came, his valet Buissy, without
asking any questions, told his master it was time to go to
bed, and began to wheel the chair with the Ex-chancellor in it
towards the bed-room. Let me alone,' said the Ex-chancellor.
'My Lord, it is time to go to bed.' 'I won't go yet, come
again.' 'No, my Lord, it is time for your Lordship to go
to bed, and you must go.' 'You be dd, I will not go.'
Away went the Ex-chancellor, threatening and swearing at
the man, which I could hear like deep thunder for some time.
The Ex-chancellor had succumbed, knowing that his good
only was considered by his faithful domestic."

CHAP.

CLXI.

probation

liad.

I shall conclude with a metrical effusion from the Rolliad, Thurlow's professing to be composed by the Lord Chancellor Thurlow ary Ode in himself, to show his qualification for the office of Poet Lau- the Rolreat, then vacant. I need not remind the reader that, with some just satire upon his swearing propensity, and other failings imputable to him, this jeu d'esprit shows the malice of the discomfited Whigs, who were driven to console themselves in almost hopeless opposition by personal attacks on their opponents-not sparing royalty itself:

CHAP

CLXI.

II.

"What though more sluggish than a toad,
Squat in the bottom of a well,

I, too, my gracious Sov'reign's worth to tell,
Will rouse my torpid genius to an Ode !
The toad a jewel in his head contains —
Prove we the rich production of my brains!
Nor will I court, with humble plea,

Th' Aonian Maids to inspire my wit:
One mortal girl is worth the Nine to me;

The prudes of Pindus I resign to Pitt.
His be the classic art, which I despise ;
Thurlow on Nature, and himself, relies.

""Tis mine to keep the conscience of the King;
To me, each secret of his heart is shown:
Who then, like me, shall hope to sing

Virtues, to all but me unknown?
Say who, like me, shall win belief
To tales of his paternal grief,
When civil rage with slaughter dy'd
The plains beyond th' Atlantic tide?
Who can, like me, his joy attest,
Though little joy his looks confest,

When Peace, at Conway's call restor❜d,

Bade kindred nations sheathe the sword?

How pleas'd he gave his people's wishes way,

And turn'd out North, when North refus'd to stay?

How in their sorrows sharing too, unseen,

For Rockingham he mourn'd, at Windsor, with the Queen?

IV.

"His bounty, too, be mine to praise,
Myself th' example of my lays,

A Teller in reversion I;

And unimpair'd I vindicate my place,
The chosen subject of peculiar grace,
Hallow'd from hands of Burke's economy:
For so his royal word my Sovereign gave;
And sacred here I found that word alone,
When not his Grandsire's patent, and his own,

To Cardiff, and to Sondes, their posts could save.
Nor should his chastity be here unsung,

That chastity, above his glory dear;

But Hervey, frowning, pulls my ear;

Such praise, she swears, were satire from my tongue.

"I originally wrote this line:

But Hervey, frowning, as she hears, &c.

It was altered as it now stands by my d—mn'd Bishop of a brother, for the sake of an allusion to Virgil:

V.

"Fir'd at her voice, I grow profane,

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!
To Thurlow's lyre more daring notes belong.
Now tremble every rebel soul,

While on the foes of George I roll
The deep-ton'd execrations of my song.
In vain my brother's piety, more meek,
Would preach my kindling fury to repose;

Like Balaam's ass, were he inspir'd to speak,

'Twere vain! resolv'd I go to curse my Prince's foes.

VI.

"Begin! begin!" fierce Hervey cries;
"See! the Whigs, how they rise!

What petitions present!

How tease and torment!

D-mn their bloods, d-mn their hearts, d-mn their eyes.

Behold yon sober band,

Each his notes in his hand;

The witnesses they, whom I browbeat in vain ;

Unconfus'd they remain.

O! d-mn their bloods again;

Give the curses due

To the factious crew!

Lo! Wedgwood, too, waves his Pitt-pots * on high!
Lo! he points where the bottoms, yet dry,

The visage immaculate bear;

Be Wedgwood d—mn'd, and double d—mn'd his ware.
D-mn Fox, and d-mn North;

D-mn Portland's mild worth;

D-mn Devon the good,

Double d-mn all his name;

D-mn Fitzwilliam's blood,

Heir of Rockingham's fame;
D-mn Sheridan's wit,

The terror of Pitt;

D-mn Loughb'rough, my plague would his bagpipe were split !

D-mn Derby's long scroll,

Fill'd with names to the brims:

D-mn his limbs, d-mn his soul,

D-mn his soul, d-mn his limbs !

With Stormont's curs'd din,

Hark! Carlisle chimes in ;

D-mn them; d-mn all the partners of their sin ;

D-mn them, beyond what mortal tongue can tell ;

Confound, sink, plunge them all to deepest, blackest Hell!" †

"I am told that a scoundrel of a potter, one Mr. Wedgwood, is making 10,000 vile utensils, with a figure of Mr. Pitt in the bottom; round the head is to be a motto,

We will spit
On Mr. Pitt,

and other such d-mn'd rhymes, suited to the use of the different vessels."

Rolliad, p. 321. 22d edition.

CHAP.
CLXI.

CHAP.
CLXI.

his honours.

I have only further to state that Lord Chancellor Thurlow dying without legitimate issue, his first title of Baron ThurDescent of low of Ashfield became extinct, and that his second of Baron Thurlow of Thurlow, in the county of Suffolk, under a limitation in the patent by which it was created, descended to his nephew, the eldest son of his brother the Bishop of Durham, the father of the present highly respected head of the family.*

Regret that

Thurlow

did not

write his own Life.

I cannot conclude this Memoir without expressing deep regret that Thurlow himself had not dedicated a portion of his leisure to the task of writing an account of his own career, and of the times in which he lived. Considering the events which he had witnessed, the scenes in which he had personally mixed, the eminent men with whom he had been familiar, and his powers of observation and of description, what an interesting work he might have left to us! Born in the period of universal tranquillity which followed the peace of Utrecht, he could remember the civil war which rendered it for some time doubtful whether the nation was to continue under the constitutional rule of the House of Brunswick,- or the legitimist doctrine of hereditary right was to prevail by the restoration of the Stuarts. He could have told us the hopes and fears which prevailed on the advance of Prince Charles and his Highlanders to Derby, and the varying joy and consternation produced by the news of the victory at Culloden. He might have contrasted the gloom in the public mind from the disappointments and disasters of the war terminated by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle with the popular exultation and enthusiasm arising from the capture of Quebec, and the other glories of the administration of Chatham. Himself playing an important part soon after the commencement of the reign of George III., he might have explained to us the new policy of the Court, and made us better acquainted than we shall ever be with the short-lived administrations and factious movements which distracted the realm from the fall of Lord Bute till the premiership of Lord North.-Thence he could have laid bare to us the

Grandeur of the Law, p. 142.

CLXI.

infatuated councils by which the empire was dismembered, CHAP. and he might have disclosed his matured sentiments on the errors which were committed, and the line of policy which might have saved the country from the calamities by which it was nearly overwhelmed.-What an account he might have given us of his position in the Rockingham cabinet, and the diversion he had, surrounded with Whigs, in playing off one section of them against another, and preparing the return of Tory domination!— What an agreeable variety might have been presented to us when he was not only in opposition, bnt out of office, during the Coalition government-remaining still the secret adviser of the sovereign!— Then would have come the defeat of the Coalitionists, with the mitigation of his triumph in finding himself under a boy statesman who professed a respect for public liberty, and was actually disposed to reform the law and the state. - Next would have appeared their mutual manœuvres for "tripping up the heels" of each other. But, oh! what "Confessions" might our autobiographer have made when he arrived at the Regency!-favouring us with the details of his double negotiations, and informing us of the process whereby he had tears at his command at the sight or sound of royal suffering, which is the true version of the story of his being detected by the disappearance of his hat, and whether he heard from the woolsack the prophecy uttered by Wilkes, sitting on the steps of the throne, as to the catastrophe which was to happen before he could be "forgotten."-We should have known who communicated to him the astounding intelligence that he was dismissed; and we should have seen his towering indignation when he found that the Master who he thought valued him so highly threw him, like a worthless weed, away. His opinion of his brother Peers, both while he presided over them and when he became the lowest in rank among them, would have been particularly racy. — He would not have felt himself at liberty to publish to the world. all he had observed of the Prince of Wales, and other members of the royal family; but, without indiscreet disclosures, he might have given us a view of the Court of England at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the