The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England

from theirs, and because I have been furnished with very important materials to which they had not access.

The whole of Lord Loughborough's papers, including his correspondence from the time when he left Scotland till the close of his career, have been submitted to me by the present Earl of Rosslyn, his representative, and it will be found that they throw great light upon the history of the reign of George III., particularly the interesting eras of the Regency in 1788,-the accession of the Alarmist Whigs to Mr. Pitt's government in 1792,—and the dissolution of that government in 1801.-I have received from the Earl of Auckland a large collection of letters to his father, the first Lord Auckland, from Lord Loughborough, beginning when he was making his way at the English bar, and continued long after he was Chancellor. The present Lord Viscount Melville has likewise favoured me with some letters written by his father and Lord Melville in 1801 respecting Catholic emancipation which will embitter the public regret that those great ministers, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas, were so recklessly thwarted in their scheme for consolidating the Union with Ireland.--Respecting Lord Loughborough's early career, and his private history, I have obtained much interesting information from the kindness of the Right Honourable the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, the Very Reverend Dr. Lee, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, and my friend Mr. Gordon, Sheriff Depute of Aberdeenshire.

Several original letters of Lord Erskine have been communicated to me by different individuals with whom he was in the habit of corresponding,—and his son, the Right Honourable Thomas Erskine, has not only put me in possession of an exquisitely beautiful letter written by him when he was a boy at St. Andrew's, about to become a soldier or a sailor, and of all the note books compiled by him when he was a student of law, when he was at the bar, and when he was Chancellor,-together with other valuable papers which belonged

to him, but has corrected for me various mistakes to be found in the common biographies of this illustrious advocate.

Even for the Life of Lord Eldon I have new materials of considerable value, in addition to the very copious “Selections from his Correspondence," given to the world by Mr. Twiss. Sir Robert Peel, placing a confidence in me, by which I feel most highly honoured and gratified, has allowed me to read and to use at my discretion all the letters which passed between him and Lord Eldon from the time when he himself became Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the beginning of the year 1822.*—In the Rosslyn MSS. I have found several very characteristic letters which passed between Lord Loughborough and Lord Eldon about the time when the Great Seal was transferred from the one to the other. I have likewise been favoured with some original letters of Lord Eldon, by Mr. W. E. Surtees, his kinsman.-From the Records of the Northern Circuit, which have been thrown open to me, I have gathered many entertaining particulars of Jack Scott's bonhomie at the bar, and an account of the grand dinner given to him in London when he had become an Ex-Chancellor.-I ought likewise to return thanks to the Reverend Charles Stewart of Sunning Dale, for enabling me, from his boyish recollections, to present such an amiable and interesting picture of Lord Eldon in private life.

I can now only humbly express a hope that as there has been no relaxation of industry on my part, this last Series of the "Lives of the Chancellors" may be as indulgently received by the public as its predecessors.

I am only aware of one objection that has been seriously urged against me as a writer, and this I confess I have not at all attempted to correct that, forgetting the dignity

* It may be right that I should state, upon a matter of such delicacy, that all the letters and extracts which I selected from this correspondence as proper for publication, were shown to, and approved by, not only Sir Robert Peel, but the present Earl of Eldon.

of history, my style is sometimes too familiar and colloquial. If I err here it is on principle and by design. The felicity of my subject consists in the great variety of topics which it embraces. My endeavour has been to treat them all appropriately. If in analysing the philosophy of Bacon, or expounding the judgments of Hardwicke, or drawing the character of Clarendon, I have forgotten the gravity and severity of diction suitable to the ideas to be expressed, I acknowledge myself liable to the severest censure: but in my opinion the skilful biographer, when he has to narrate a ludicrous incident, will rather try to imitate the phrases of Mercutio than of Ancient Pistol

"projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba."

I cannot yet understand why, in recording a jest in print, an author should be debarred from using the very language which he might with propriety adopt if he were telling it in good society by word of mouth.

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