employed an expression more calculated to convey that feeling of dread. Such were the songs of the swan, when the waters were a mirror, and there was no fear of dissolution. But in foul weather, the instant that peril approached-be the black cloud on the very verge of the horizon, and but the size of a man's hand-all these waters were hushed, and a front was assumed, as if the great seal had been given to him for life, with the power to name his successor by any writing under his hand, or by parol before a single witness. In like manner, when the interests of suitors required dispatch, when causes had been heard by the hour, and by the day, and all the efforts of the judge to coax the advocate into greater prolixity had been exhausted, the dreaded moment of decision came, but brought only hesitation, doubt, delay. So, too, when common matters occurred in parliament, and no kind of importance could be attached to the adoption of one course rather than another, bless us! what inexhaustible suggestions of difficulty, what endless effusion of conflicting views, what a rich mine of mock diamonds, all glittering and worthless, in the shape of reasons on all sides of a question never worth the trouble of asking, and which none but this great magician could stop to resolve. So again in the council, when there was no danger of any kind, and it signified not a straw what was done; the day, had it been lengthened out by the sun being made to stand still, while our Joshua slew all the men of buckram that he conjured up, would yet have been all too short to state and to solve his difficulties about nothing! But let there come any real embarrassment - any substantial peril which required a bold and vigorous act to ward it offlet there but be occasion for nerves to work through a crisis, which it asked no common boldness to face at all-let there arise some new and strange combination of circumstances, which governed by no precedent, must be met by unprecedented measures, and no man that ever sat at a council board more quickly made up his mind, or more gallantly performed his part. Be the act mild or harsh, moderate or violent, sanctioned by the law and constitution, or an open outrage upon both, he was heard, indeed, to wail and groan much of painful necessity-often vowed to God—spoke

largely of conscience—complained bitterly of a hard lot— but the paramount sense of duty overcame all other feelings, and with wailing and with tears, beating his breast, and only not tearing his hair-he did in the twinkling of an eye the act, which unexpectedly discomfited his adversaries, and secured his own power for ever. He who would adjourn a private road or estate bill for weeks, unable to make up his mind on one of its clauses, or take a month to determine on what terms some amendment should be allowed in a suit, could, without one moment's hesitation, resolve to give the king's consent to the making of laws, when he was in such a state of mental disease that the keeper of his person could not be suffered to quit the royal closet for an instant while the patient was with the keeper of his conscience, performing the highest functions of sovereignty.

"With all these apparent discrepancies between Lord Eldon's outward and inward man, nothing could be more incorrect than to represent him as tainted with hypocrisy in the ordinary sense of the word. He had imbibed from his youth, and in the orthodox bowers which Isis waters, the dogmas of the Tory creed in all their purity and rigour. By these dogmas he abided through his whole life with a steadfastness, and even at a sacrifice of power, which sets at defiance all attempts to question their perfect sincerity. Such as he was when he left Oxford, such he continued sixty years afterwards, to the close of his long and prosperous life; the enemy of all reform, the champion of the throne and the altar, and confounding every abuse that surrounded the one or grew up within the precincts of the other, with the institutions themselves; alike the determined enemy of all who would either invade the institution or root up the abuse."*

In our next and concluding chapter, when considering Lord Eldon as a legislator and a statesman, we shall view the lights and shadows of his character without prejudice or passion, and illustrate an imperfect notice of this great and good man, with the particulars of those social and domestic virtues which never shone so brightly as in the reflection of his own fireside.

• Lord Brougham's Historical Sketches.

CHAPTER X.

THE LIFE OF LORD ELDON CONTINUED.

WE live too near the times over which the Chancellor exercised so decided a control, to judge with perfect impartiality of his merits and defects as a statesman. In the eyes of eager reformers he is considered as the determined opposer of every thing good—the zealous, able, and indefatigable supporter of every thing evil-called by Romilly, in his gloomy moods, the evil spirit, and accused by Bentham of nipping in the bud the spread of improvement over the habitable globe. In such a fanatical spirit is Lord Eldon judged and condemned in the coteries of self-styled Liberals. By the good old Tories, on the other hand, the "laudatores temporis acti," the defenders of church and state, he has been regarded with almost idol worship as the pattern statesman, the civil Fabius, whose caution saved our commonwealth the champion of Protestant ascendancy, to whom the voices of all loyal subjects, and one cheer more, should freely and heartily be given. But though the partiality of friends and admirers may view his career through an exaggerating medium, their homage rests on a much more solid basis than the reproaches of his adversaries. We can refer to our annals during the last twenty years of George the Third and the Regency for proof that he rendered his king and country good service in the cabinet, no less than on the judgment-seat — in the senate as well as in his court. He was among the most influential of those ministers who waged a war of extent and cost and danger before unknown, for the existence of this country as a first-rate power for the preservation of ships, colonies, and commerce, for national honour and individual safety,crowning the glorious contest which necessity had extorted with a permanent, because honourable, peace. Instead of huckstering hostility, they waved our standard in triumph

over the sea at Trafalgar, and immortalized the English name at Waterloo. The instruments they employed were doubtless the chief occasion of the final victory-to Nelson and Wellington more praise may with justice be awarded than to the decision of the government. But to have selected such commanders is no slight merit, and surely they ought not to be defrauded of a large share of honour, who, in defiance of the humiliating motions and pusillanimous prophecies of an exasperated opposition, persevered through evil report in rescuing Spain from the despot, in maintaining that independence which the Whigs declared was no longer maintainable, and in vanquishing the invincible! Arrayed by Grey and Whitbread, a formidable phalanx entreated ministers to restrain their military ardour, and conjured the country, by the adoption of other and more pacific councils, to retreat from certain destruction:

"Stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum,
Tendebantque manus ripa ulterioris amore.'

To the honour of the Chancellor be it recorded, that he always advocated most strongly, both in council and in parliament, a persevering endurance of the war. His predecessor, Lord Hardwicke, did not enforce military measures with more warmth, when he elicited the sarcastic praise of Walpole, "Bravo, General Yorke!"* But it must be confessed that Lord Eldon was too averse to change when a state of peace, and, with it, the reforms usually engrafted on a state of peace, had arisen. had arisen. A more faithful servant never stood beside the throne; a more true and zealous son never knelt within the walls of the Established Church. He viewed with a jealousy too keen, and not free from prejudice, the hasty designs of theorists, and in an excess of caution ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet, allowed the season for much safe and salutary change in the church, and law, and state polity, to escape. But he was just verging on three score years and ten when peace was established, and had attained that age at which "even the wisest object too much, consult too long,

*Lord Orford's Memoirs.

adventure too little, and repent too soon." says Crabbe,

"Like smelted iron still the form retain,

But once impressed, will never melt again."

Some minds,

His mind seems to have been moulded between 1788 and 1798, and to have subsequently undergone no material alteration, mistrusting the most specious improvement, considering any organic change as synonymous with confusion, and satisfied that audacity in reform was the principle of revolution. He paid too little heed to the advancing spirit of investigation, and persisted in following at the flood those ancient fords and path-ways, which could only be pursued in safety at an ebb tide. It was the natural error of an old lawyer, but not the less to be deprecated.

Unlike his prototype, Lord Somers, he shrunk from the task of legislation, and declined to rest his renown on the amelioration of our civil and social institutions. Timidity of temper and excess of official toil are sufficient reasons for this reserve, without imputing unworthy motives, as harsh professional critics have not scrupled to do. "Lord Eldon," we are told, "came into power at a conjuncture when the decided change which was taking place in the texture of social wealth, and in the commerce and population of the country, indicated that a greater change in our law and legal institutions would soon become desirable than had taken place at any antecedent period of our history. Had he prompted, promoted, or superintended this great work, the length of his reign, and extent of his influence, would have enabled him to bring it almost or altogether to its completion, and thus to leave a monument to his memory which it falls to the lot of few individuals to have the power of erecting. Unfortunately for the country, and his own reputation, he pursued a totally opposite course. Feeling that his strength did not lie in the depth and comprehensiveness of his general views, so much as in the extent of his acquaintance with the minutia of precedents and practice, and perceiving also that the surest way of continuing in place was to abstain from all innovation, his love of power combined with his love of superiority to induce him to with

* Bacon's Aphorisms.