I had known that these legs were one day to carry a chancellor, I'd have taken better care of them when I was a lad."

We may as well take the same opportunity of showing that the love of the bottle did not desert him in his maturity of years and of honors.

"In private life lord Northington was a highly agreeable companion. He was, as we have seen, in his early years, fond of the pleasures of convivial society, and even in maturer life enjoyed the excitement of it without its excess. George the Third used frequently to relate with great humor the mode in which he asked permission to abolish the chancellor's evening sittings, on Wednesdays and Fridays during term, that he might have time to finish his bottle at his leisure, a permission which his majesty, for so excellent a reason, most graciously accorded."

We have to complain of the same dearth of information with respect to lord Northington's early practice at the bar, as concerning his preparatory studies for the profession. We may infer, however, that his success was not very great at the outset, nor his rise very sudden, since we find that, in 1743, when he married the daughter of sir John Huband, baronet, although his wife brought him some addition to his means, his income was small, and his style of living proportionately moderate. About two years after this, he came into possession of the family estate, and he then removed from his small house in James Street, Bedford Row, to his paternal mansion in Lincoln's Inn-fields. At a much later period of his life, he resided in Grosvenor Square. It appears he was particularly fortunate in his choice of a wife, and that his domestic happiness was, in consequence, tinctured with as little bitterness as can by possibility be infused into the potion of matrimony. In corroboration of this, a passage is extracted by the biographer from the memoirs of bishop Newton, who had been Hen

ley's contemporary at Westminster; but another anecdote which forms a part of the same paragraph, in this amusing autobiography, the noble writer of the work before us has not thought proper to relate entire, in the words of the original. What reasonable motive he could have had for suppressing the details, we cannot very clearly perceive; for though they doubtless place his relative in a somewhat ridiculous light, yet it is very evident that the greater the ridicule, thus cast upon him, the greater was the merit of his subsequent conduct to him who was the cause of it. We shall not take upon ourselves to imitate this superfluous discretion, but give the paragraph entire as we find it written by the bishop.

"It happened that he and his lady were married by Mr. Newton, at the chapel in South Audley Street, at which time they were a very handsome couple. Several years afterwards Mr. Newton went one day into Lincoln's Inn Hall while the court was sitting, to speak with Mr. Murray upon some business; Mr. Henley being next to him and reading a brief. When he had despatched his business and was coming away, 'What,' said Murray to Henley, 'have you forgotten your old friend Newton, or have you never forgiven the great injury that he did you?' Upon which he started as out of a dream, and was wonderfully gracious to his old schoolfellow, acknowledging that he owed all his happiness in life to him. And, indeed, he had good reason to be happy in his wife and family.

While he continued at the bar, he went the western circuit, and being of lively parts and a warm temper, he was, like some other lawyers, too apt to take indecent liberties in examining witnesses. An extraordinary incident of this kind happened at Bristol. In a cause of some consequence, Mr. Reeve, a considerable merchant, and one of the people called Quakers, was examined by him with much raillery and ridicule. Mr. Reeve complain

ed of it at the time; and when the court had adjourned, and the lawyers were all together at the White Lion, Mr. Reeve sent one of the waiters to let Mr. Henley know that a gentleman wanted to speak to him in a room adjoining. As soon as Mr. Henley had entered into the room, Mr. Reeve locked the door, and put the key into his pocket. 'Friend, Henley,' said he, 'I cannot call thee, for thou hast used me most scurrilously: thou mightest think, perhaps, that a Quaker might be insulted with impunity; but I am a man of spirit, and am come to demand, and will have, satisfaction. Here are two swords- here are two pistols; choose thy weapons, or fight me at fisty-cuffs, if thou hadst rather; but fight me thou shalt, before we leave this room,—or beg my pardon.' Mr. Henley pleaded in excuse, that it was nothing more than the usual language of the bar; that what was said in court should not be questioned out of court; lawyers sometimes advanced things to serve their clients, perhaps beyond the truth, but such speeches died in speaking; he was so far from intending any insult or inju ry, that he had really forgotten what he had said, and hoped the other would not remember it; upon his word and honor he never meant to give him the least offence, but if undesignedly he had offended him, he was sorry for it, and was ready to beg his pardon, which was a gentleman's satisfaction. 'Well,' said Mr. Reeve, as the affront was public, the reparation must be so too; if thou wilt not fight, but beg my pardon, thou must beg my pardon before the company in the next room.' Mr. Henley, with some difficulty, and after some delay, submitted to this condition, and thus this fray ended. No farther notice was taken on either side, till after some years the lord chancellor wrote a letter to Mr. Reeve, informing him that such a ship was come or coming into the port of Bristol, with a couple of pipes of Madeira on board consigned to him. He therefore begged of Mr. Reeve to pay the freight and the duty, and

to cause the vessels to be put into a wagon, and to be sent to the Grange; and he would take the first opportunity of defraying all charges, and should think himself infinitely obliged to him. All was done as desired; and the winter following, when Mr. Reeve was in town, he dined at the chancellor's with several of the nobility and gentry. After dinner the chancellor related the whole story of his first acquaintance with his friend Reeve, and of every particular that had passed between them, with great good humor and pleasantry, and to the no little diversion of the company."

As we have pressed bishop Newton's memoirs into our service, we may as well relate in this place another tolerably well known story elsewhere told of lord Northington, and one that, according to all we have ever heard, gives a much better insight into this chancellor's manner than his biographer has thought proper to furnish us with. It is contained in the work entitled "Strictures on the Lives of Eminent Lawyers of the present day," (1790,) and may also be found in the second volume of "Westminster Hall." The former work, we confess, is one of no very high character; but in the present instance, as in most others, its accuracy may be easily corroborated or disproved by living testimony; so that even admitting that it does lord Northington less than justice (which however we have no reason to believe), the corrective is near at hand, and may be easily applied. We shall, therefore, transcribe from it, not only the anecdote in question, but the prefatory observations with which it is accompanied.

"A more singular character than the late lord chancellor Northington has not, perhaps, been unfolded to modern observation. He possessed considerable abilities, was an upright judge, and gave satisfaction in the high office he enjoyed in private life he was the very reverse of every thing which would seem to produce dignity in a public station. In his youth he was a professed debauchee, and the

sentiments and language of that character were retained by him to the latest moment of his existence. On his return home from the administration of justice, he would not hesitate to swear at his servants, and be indecent with his company. Indeed, the state-coach was not always considered sacred to chaste and decent speech, and the uneasiness of that rumbling machine, when his lordship's feet have been tender from the gout, has called forth very strong exclamations in the presence of the mace and seals. Some of his friends have been so free as to declare they have actually seen an oath on his lips when he presided on the woolsack, though it was never known to escape further. One occasion, however, was marked with language too expressive to pass unnoticed.

"The speaker, Onslow, who attends with the most scrupulous regard, both in public and private, to the dignity of his character, was complaining, on his arrival later than usual at the house of commons, on some day of important business, that he had been stopped in Parliament Street, owing to the obstinacy of a carman, and was told that the lord chancellor had experienced a considerable delay from the same cause. 'Well,' said the speaker, 'did not his lordship show him the mace, and strike him dumb with terror?' 'No,' it was replied, 'he did not; but he swore, by God, that if he had been in his private coach, he would have got out and beat the damned rascal to a jelly.'

In the year 1747, Mr. Henley was returned to parliament for Bath, of which city he had been previously elected recorder. The party he chose. to join as a member of the house of commons, was that of the prince of Wales, at that time a strong and numerous body, which the nearer approach of its chief towards the throne was certainly not likely to diminish. At the death of the prince, and the consequent overthrow of the brilliant hopes in which all his adherents had indulged, Henley was not among the venal