runagates who took the opportunity of deserting the sinking cause. He remained firm in his attachment to the Leicester-house party, and to this conduct, prejudicial as it may have appeared at the time to his own interests, there can be no doubt that he eventually owed his preferment and his honors; a proof, that, even in times when a Bubb Doddington could play the game of corruption till he shuffled himself into a peerage, honesty might occasionally turn out to be the best policy. George the Second, indeed, chose to feel highly displeased with all and singular the faithful adherents of this opposition; but fortunately these royal prejudices, though they may and often do (as the subjects of George the Fourth have reason to know) usurp temporary sway and exercise temporary mischief, are seldom suffered in this country to luxuriate very long in perfect freedom from restraint. The resignation of the duke of Newcastle, in 1756, gave occasion to a very signal instance of this. The same cornet of horse whom sir Robert Walpole had been so anxious to muzzle, and who had rendered himself so obnoxious to the king by opposition to all the court measures respecting his darling Hanover, that his very name was odious to his majesty, this very man was now by the course of events forced upon him as his chief minister. After swallowing this bitter draught, it was a comparatively easy matter to comply with all the other prescriptions that followed. Accordingly Henley, who had been previously named both solicitor and attorney-general to the son of the deceased prince of Wales, was without much difficulty installed in the place of attorney-general, then just vacated by the promotion of lord Mansfield to the bench. What embarrassment arose as to the disposal of the great seal, in the ensuing spring, and how sir Robert Henley succeeded to the custody of it, may be found briefly explained in the life of lord Mansfield. Some further details on the subject are given in the work before us. These we shall now in

sert in the words of the author; and shall finish our extracts from his book by subjoining one paragraph, which conveys in a small compass a piece of information that will probably be new to many of our readers. To make the last intelligible, it is necessary to premise, that sir Robert Henley remained a commoner till the month of March, 1760, when he was created baron Henley, in order that he might preside, as lord high steward, on the approaching trial of earl Ferrers.

"Lord Mansfield having been found inexorable to all the entreaties of the negotiators, the person fixed upon was the first lord commissioner, chief justice Willes. The offer, however, was with the title of lord keeper only, without a peerage or a retiring pension. This proposal he thought fit to decline, in hopes of more honorable and advantageous

terms.

"The refusal of Willes, however, did not delay the course of the ministerial arrangements, which drew to a close without even a repetition of the offer. He was a sound lawyer; and had filled the post of attorney-general, but he seems never to have taken an active part in politics, and he was not at this juncture thought of sufficient importance to receive any higher offer for his services. The duke of Newcastle had in the course of the arrangements pressed upon Mr. Pitt, as the king's personal request, that lord Hardwicke should have a seat in the cabinet. Mr. Pitt consented on certain conditions; and he then urged it as a stipulation which had been made on the part of Leicesterhouse, that sir Robert Henley should have the seals as the reward of his long and faithful adherence to its politics. Though he was personally unacceptable both to the king and the Pelhams, it was not thought fit to resist this claim, and accordingly the vacant office was conferred upon him. "There is an amusing anecdote respecting this transaction current in the profession, and which the late lord Ellen

borough used to relate with his characteristic humor. Immediately after Willes had refused the seals, Henley called upon him at his villa, and found him walking in his garden, highly indignant at the affront which he considered that he had received in an offer so inadequate to his pretensions. After entering into some detail of his grievances, he concluded by asking whether any man of spirit could, under such circumstances, have taken the seals; adding, 'Would you, Mr. Attorney, have done so?' Henley, thus appealed to, gravely told him that it was too late to enter into such a discussion, as he was then waiting upon his lordship to inform him that he had actually accepted them.

a

"Lord Waldegrave states in his memoirs, that sir Robert Henley obtained with his elevation the grant of a retiring pension and a reversion of a tellership of the exchequer. This, however, is a mistake: he accepted the seals upon the same terms only on which Willes had refused them daring step in those days, before the legislature had provided a retiring pension as a refuge from the caprices of fortune and the uncertainty of party. Whether he considered that his private fortune would be sufficient for his wishes in case he were to quit office; or had determined in that event, like Pemberton,' to return to his practice at the bar; or whether, as is most probable, in the hurry of ambition and amidst the calls of party, he thought little of the future, but fixed only his eyes on the splendid prize before him, it is now impossible to determine. On the 30th of June, 1757, he was sworn into the office of lord keeper of the great seal.

"Notwithstanding his elevation to the peerage, he still, however, continued to hold the great seal, with the title of lord keeper. It is a common error, and one which even learned members of the profession frequently fall into,

1 Pemberton, after having been chief justice, first of the King's Bench and then of the Common Pleas, upon being displaced, practised for many years at the bar.

that the designation of the person holding the great seal depends upon his rank; and that if a commoner in that situation, he is lord keeper; if a peer, lord chancellor. This, however, is entirely erroneous, as the style of the officer depends upon the title with which the king is pleased to deliver to him the great seal. The two officers are by act of parliament of precisely the same power, dignity, and station.' Thus, since Henry VIII.'s time, sir Thomas More, sir Richard Rich, sir Thomas Bromley, sir Christopher Hatton, though all commoners, were lords chancellors: while on the other hand, lord Coventry and lord Guilford; Goodrick, bishop of Ely; Gardiner of Winchester; archbishop Williams, and as we see in the present instance, lord Henley, were lords keepers, being peers of parliament. However, notwithstanding the statute, there has, in fact, always been a tendency to consider the office of lord keeper as the inferior office, there being many promotions, like sir Thomas Audley, lord Ellesmere, lord Bacon, lord Nottingham, lord Somers, lord Harcourt, and this of lord Northington, from the office of lord keeper to that of chancellor, (generally also made at the time when the party was elevated to the peerage,) but not one of a lord chancellor becoming lord keeper."

It is said, the dislike of the king had prevented the lord keeper from obtaining the honors of the peerage sooner, and would have withheld them from him altogether, but for the accident of earl Ferrers's trial. The title, however, once obtained, very shortly merged in a higher dignity. George the Third succeeded to the throne the same year, and the seal, on being given up to the new king, according to cus

1 "The 5 Eliz. c. 18, for declaring the authority of the lord keeper of the great seal and the lord chancellor to be one, enacts and declares that the keeper of the great seal hath always had, and of right ought to have, like place, authority, preeminence, jurisdiction, execution of laws, &c., as the lord chancellor of England.

tom, (16th January, 1761) was returned with the title of chancellor. Some months afterwards, lord Henley was created earl of Northington, in the county of Southampton, and viscount Henley. In the same year also he was appointed lord lieutenant of the county of Southampton. He resigned the great seal to lord Camden in 1766, retaining the place of the president of the council, which, however, ill health did not permit him to retain quite a twelvemonth, a space of time not long enough for a very arduous course of service, but sufficiently so to make an excuse for his lordship's drawing out of the public purse an additional 40007. a year by way of pension, for which sum he had specially contracted before he quitted the woolsack. He had also secured for himself the reversion of one of those sinecures which abound in the dark nooks and recesses of legal office, but which we confidently expect to see annihilated so soon as the genius of reform, having completed his mighty work in and about St. Stephen's chapel, shall have time to look round him in the neighborhood of Chancery Lane and the Temple.

Lord Northington died on the 14th of January, 1772, leaving behind him six, out of a family of eight children. His only surviving son dying at an early age without issue, the title became extinct. Of his five daughters, though all were married, the youngest only became a mother. She was the wife of sir Morton Eden, afterwards created lord Henley; and her son, who is the present possessor of the title, is heir at law to lord chancellor Northington. He is probably better known to our readers by his former appellation, the Hon. Robert Henley Eden, as having many years filled the station of a master in chancery, and as the editor of two volumes of his ancestor's decisions in the court of chancery, compiled, as he informs us, from copious manuscript notes found among his papers after his decease, as well as from the collections of sir Thomas Sewell, baron