erable, but it cannot be supposed that lord Hardwicke meant it for any thing more than a temporary provision, till some other preferment might become vacant, especially as he did afterwards find another opportunity of being serviceable to him.

According to Horace Walpole, "the best thing that can be remembered of the chancellor, is his fidelity to his patron; for let the duke of Newcastle betray whom he would, the chancellor always stuck to him in his perfidy, and was only not false to the falsest of mankind." Sufficient notice has already been given of this author's exaggerations and misstatements, to prevent his testimony from being received as evidence of any thing further than the simple fact, that the political alliance between the duke of Newcastle and lord Hardwicke was invariably maintained with perfect fidelity. The resignation of the premiership of the one consequently insured, as a matter of course, the resignation of the chancellorship by the other. This event took place in the autumn of 1756; and their party, which till that time had maintained such a degree of power as seldom falls to the lot of a ministry, was suddenly thrown into the ranks of opposition. The failure of the ill-contrived attempt made by the king in 1746 to emancipate himself from their control had only produced the effect of rendering that control more absolute; and thenceforward he had made scarcely any effort to contend against it. Their own imprudence, however, and the incapacity of some of their members, particularly of the chancellor's son-in-law, lord Anson, whose former celebrity was very ill sustained by his administration of the affairs of the admiralty, at length brought about what the sovereign had no power to effect. The defeat of Byng, and the surrender of fort Phillip, were events that would have tried the stability of any ministry, even had its opponents been less formidable than were those of the Newcastle party. But towards the close of the year preceding (November 20th,

1755,) Pitt, Legge, and George Grenville had received letters of dismission from their respective offices, and James Grenville had resigned the board of trade; so that a powerful and desperate opposition was to be expected, which, with such a topic as the disgrace of the English navy to declaim upon, might raise up a storm of popular indignation, such as the ministry would in all probability be unable to weather. Under these circumstances, parliament was prorogued early, to prevent an immediate demand for an inquiry, which could not with any decency have been refused. During the recess, overtures were made to effect a coalition with Mr. Pitt, which, however, proved ineffectual, as he absolutely refused all terms that did not include the removal of the duke of Newcastle. Unfortunately for his grace, the chief justice of the king's bench, sir Dudley Rider, died in the course of the spring (25th May, 1756,) and the vacant office was looked for by the attorney-general, Murray, who was the duke's ablest and most confidential ally in the house of commons. It was in vain that the most brilliant, the most extravagant offers were made to prevail upon Murray to retain his seat only for one day at the opening of parliament. He resolutely insisted on being promoted to the chief justiceship, with a peerage; and at length on his threatening, in case of a refusal, to desert the cause altogether, his demands were complied with. On the same day, when he first took his seat in the king's bench (November 11th, 1756,) the duke of Newcastle resigned. A few days afterwards (19th November) the lord chancellor gave up the great seal, and it was put in commission in the hands of Willes, chief justice of the common pleas, Wilmot, who the year before had succeeded sir Martin Wright, as one of the puisne judges of the king's bench, and baron Smyth.

Such was the close of lord Hardwicke's career as a chancellor and a minister. Great efforts were made by the new ministry to induce him to keep his place, but without effect;

and in the ensuing summer, when the coalition took place between Pitt and Fox, he was equally resolute in his refusal to resume the seal, which having been also offered to lord Mansfield, to the master of the rolls, and to Willes, at length fell to the lot of sir Robert Henley, with the title of lord keeper. Besides his disinclination to hold office with the new ministry, it is to be supposed he was not insensible that his advanced age required more repose than was compatible with the arduous duties of his former station. He was now fast approaching his seventieth year, and might well remain satisfied with the dignity and fortune he had acquired in the course of his long and prosperous career. Besides, in giving up his place, he by no means renounced at the same time his political influence. If he had no longer a voice in the cabinet, he still retained in the house of lords all the weight that could attach itself to one of the chiefs of a party still numerous and powerful.

The king always continued to respect and esteem him. Having inadvertently omitted to recognise him on the first occasion of his appearing at court without the insignia of office, his majesty no sooner discovered who he was, than he addressed him in the most flattering terms, and complimented him on the length and the value of his services. After the resignation of his office his time was divided, as it had been before, though with less leisure for the country, between his estate of Wimpole, in Cambridgeshire, (which had been the seat of the celebrated lord Oxford before it came into his possession) and his town residence, which was Powis-house, in Grosvenor-square. With his neighbors at the former place he did not enjoy much popularity. He affected to despise the manners and the acquirements of mere country gentlemen; and generally treated them with a supercilious reserve peculiarly offensive to men, some of whom probably looked upon him as nothing more than a titled upstart. Nor was their treatment in other respects

likely to please them better. Not only were their horses and servants invariably sent to search for such accommodation as is procured at the dirty and miserable public house in the village of Wimpole, but the thrifty housekeeping of lady Hardwicke by no means compensated the masters for the inconveniency to which they were put in the persons of their dependents. One monument of her ladyship's economising disposition is still preserved at Wimpole. According to ancient custom, the splendidly embroidered purse, in which the chancellor is wont to keep the great seal, is annually replaced by a new one; and in virtue of another custom of equally long standing, the discarded purse becomes the perquisite of one of the officers of the court. This latter custom, however, found no favor in the eyes of lady Hardwicke, who could by no means be convinced of the propriety of giving away, as a mere gratuity, what she could turn to some account herself. She accordingly took upon herself to abolish the practice, and the several embroiderings, on the whole twenty in number, were appropriated to ornament the hangings of a state-room in the house at Wimpole, where, as it has been already stated, they may still be seen.

Notwithstanding this peculiarity of lady Hardwicke's character, she appears upon the whole to have fulfilled in an exemplary manner the duties of a wife and a mother. With her husband she always lived on terms of the most perfect harmony; and indeed it is probable that her excessive love of economy, which others might have considered her greatest failing, was looked upon by lord Hardwicke as one of her brightest virtues. Avarice was certainly his predominant foible. That a man, who in his youth had been forced to accommodate his expenses to the limits of a narrow stipend, should never afterwards be able wholly to divest himself of habits acquired in the school of adversity, is by no means surprising; and if his love of money had

displayed itself merely in a disinclination to part with it when acquired, the fault might have been easily excused. But unhappily his cupidity led him to regard the increase of his fortune as a primary object of ambition; and though to accomplish it he never descended to employ means inconsistent with the strictest integrity, there cannot be a doubt that he sacrificed to it a species of fame which it was in his power to earn, and which it was incumbent on him to deserve. Had he not been deterred by avarice from effecting the reform of the court of chancery, he might have left behind him a smaller inheritance to his children, but he would have transmitted to them the glory of being descended from a disinterested benefactor of his country. Lord Waldegrave has said of him, that "he might have been thought a great man, had he been less avaricious, less proud, less unlike a gentleman, and not so great a politician." Sufficient has already been said to account for the first and the last of these charges. The two others may be looked upon as one. The pride of wealth and of station, even the pride of intellectual endowments, which is perhaps somewhat less offensive than either, can scarcely be made very manifest without subjecting him who exhibits them to the imputation of being unlike a gentleman.

Although lord Hardwicke devoted a part of the leisure which his numerous duties left him, to the cultivation of general literature, it is not to be supposed that he could have much time to spare for composition. Accordingly, there remain few specimens of his style in writing, though were we to judge of it only from his mode of speaking, we might safely pronounce it to have been easy and elegant. Some memoranda and familiar letters have been preserved by Dr. Birch, among which is a Latin one addressed to Dr. Clerk, (Samueli Clerico,) dated September 15, 1724; and some political papers are still in the possession of his family. It is supposed also, that he had some share in the composition