CHAPTER LXXXVII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY TILL HIS DIS- CHAP. LXXXVII. conduct of bury on his appointChancellor. Shaftes ment as I CANNOT find how the new appointment was at first received by the profession of the law or by the public; but it seems entirely to have turned the head of the Lord Chancellor Fantastical himself, and notwithstanding his excellent good sense, and his discernment of the impression to be made by his conduct, he now played fantastic tricks which could be expected only from a fool and a coxcomb. "After he was possessed of the Great Seal he was in appearance the gloriousest man alive; and no man's discourse in his place ever flew so high as he did, not only against the House of Commons, where perhaps he expected a party to sustain him, but against the tribe of the Court of Chancery officers and counsel, and their methods of ordering the business of the Court. As for the Commons, he did not understand by what reason men should sit and vote themselves privileges. And for the Chancery, he would teach the bar that a man of sense was above all their forms. So with all the gayety de cœur imaginable, and a world of pleasant wit in his conversation, (as he had indeed a very great share, and showed it upon all occasions,) he composed himself to perform the duties of his office."* His con tempt for the lawyers. Such confidence had he in his judicial powers derived from He is "the light of nature," that, unlike Lord Keeper Williams sworn in. and some of his sneaking predecessors, who being "minus sufficientes in lege," had great misgivings as to their ability of acquitting themselves decently, and put off as long as possible the time of taking their seat in the Court of Chancery, he was impatient to show that he was superior as a Judge to all who had ever before sat in the marble chair. day, being the xviiith day of November, his Lo * Examen, 46. "The next went to the CHAP. LXXXVII. His grand equestrian procession on the first day of Term. Chancery Co in Westm' Hall, and there standing in his place tooke the oathes as Lord Chancellor, the booke being held to him by the Master of the Rolls, the Dukes of Lauderdale and Ormond, the Earle of St. Alban's, the Earle of Arlington, and several other persons of honor accompanyinge his Lop to and in the Cort untill his LoP was sworne, all the said persons of honor, with the Judges and Chancery officers attending his Lo" from his house in the Strand, to the Chancery Cort in Westm' Hall."* I do not find any further account of this installation, which, having been got up so very suddenly, could not have been very splendid. But to compensate for the disappointment, Shaftesbury determined to amuse the metropolis with a sight that had not been seen for half a century. Coaches were introduced into England in the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, and had for many years become so common that the ancient custom of the Chancellor and the Judges riding on horseback to Westminster Hall to open the term, had been entirely laid aside, and the Chancellor had headed the procession in a grand gilt state carriage almost as large as a house,-being followed by the Judges, the King's Serjeants, the King's counsel, &c., in modern equipages. They still continued to "ride the circuit" on sober pads, but the manège for learning to sit the great horse, which used to be frequented by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, was very much neglected, and the practice of riding managed horses in the streets of London had fallen into entire disuse. Shaftesbury, who had been bred a country squire, and had been colonel of a regiment of cavalry, piqued himself much upon his horsemanship, and to gratify his morbid appetite to be talked of, and out of malice to some of the old Judges, who he heard had been sneering at his decisions, he issued an order that on the first day of Hilary Term, 1673, there should be a judicial cavalcade according to ancient form, from Exeter House in the Strand, the place of his residence, to Westminster Hall. On that day he gave a sumptuous breakfast not only to noblemen, judges, and other dignitaries, * Crown. Off. Min. 1672. LXXXVII. but to all the barristers, all the students of the Inns of Court, CHAP. and the sixty clerks, with all the other officers of the Court of Chancery. He then mounted his richly caparisoned charger, preceded by those who bore the insignia of his authority, his master of the horse, page, groom, and six footmen walking along by his stirrup. This procession marched by the Strand through the quadrangle at Whitehall to King Street, then the only entrance to Palace Yard, and so to Westminster Hall. It is described by several contemporary writers, but Roger North's account of it is the most graphic. tion of the by Roger North. "His Lordship had an early fancy, or rather freak, the first Descripday of the term, (when all the officers of the law, King's procession Counsel, and Judges, used to wait upon the Great Seal to Westminster Hall,) to make this procession on horseback, as in old time the way was, when coaches were not so rife. And accordingly the Judges, &c. were spoken to get horses, as they and all the rest did, by borrowing and hiring, and so equipped themselves with black foot-cloaths in the best manner they could: and divers of the nobility, as usual, in compliment and honour to a new Lord Chancellor, attended also in their equipments. Upon notice in town of this cavalcade, all the show company took their places at windows and balconies, with the foot guard in the streets to partake of the fine sight, and, being once well settled for the march, it moved, as the design was, statelily along. But when they came to straights and interruptions, for want of gravity in the beasts and too much in the riders, there happened some curveting, which made no little disorder. Judge Twisden, in his great affright and the consternation of his grave brethren, was laid along in the dirt t; but all at length arrived safe, without loss of life or limb in the service. This accident was enough to divert the like frolic for the future, and the very next term after, they fell to their coaches as before. Usages that are most fitting at one time appear ridiculous at ano * See Rawleigh Redivivus, 75. According to tradition this disgrazzia happened from meeting a line of brewer's drays at Charing Cross. When Twisden recovered himself, he declared in furore, "that no Lord Chancellor should ever make him mount on horseback again." CHAP. LXXXVII. Erroneous opinion that Shaftesbury was a good Judge. Character in Absalom and Acbitophel. Purchased by a favour ther. As here the sitting of grave men used only to coaches, upon the ménage on horseback, only for the vanity of show, to make men wonder and children sport, with hazard to most, mischief to some, and terror to all, was very impertinent, and must end, as it did, in ridicule." We now come to consider how Shaftesbury comported himself in the Court of Chancery. The general opinion of subsequent times has been, that, with all his faults as a statesman, he proved a consummate Judge.* I believe that this opinion is wholly erroneous, and that it is entirely to be ascribed to the celebrated lines in praise of his judicial character in "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL." "Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge, The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge; Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown, Had Dryden been sincere and honest in praising Shaftesto Dryden. bury, his testimony ought not to have much weight, for the great poet probably never was in the Court of Chancery in his life, and though the first of English critics in polite literature, he could not have formed a very correct opinion as to the propriety of an order or decree in Equity. But the panegyric was purchased, and was a mere poetical picture drawn from the imagination of the beau idéal of a good Chancellor. It did not appear in the first edition of the poem which, in describing the character of Achitophel, contained unmixed invective, and represented him as unredeemed from his vices by any semblance of virtue. Shaftesbury, nevertheless, while the town was ringing with abuse of him, and he was universally pointed to as "the false Achitophel,”—being a governor of the Charter House, sent to Dryden a nomination to that establishment for his son,which was highly valuable to him, and was joyfully accepted. A second edition was called for. The bard could not soften "It is remarkable that this man, whose principles and conduct were in all other respects so exceptionable, proved an excellent Chancellor."- Hume, And all the historians of the eighteenth century, reading Dryden or copying each other, write to the same effect. LXXXVII. the political character of his hero without utterly destroying CHAP the poem, and breaking with the Court who had paid him well for it, but in the fulfilment of an implied obligation, he set his wits to work to consider what a Chancellor should be in administering justice, and so produced the lines which have induced posterity to believe that such a Chancellor was Shaftesbury. King Charles is said to have been very indignant when he saw the second edition, and to have declared that the portrait of Achitophel was so disfigured that he no longer recognised the original. * and in Shaftesbury never took bribes. Luckily he had only one Shatespolitical case before him; and he would not listen to private bury's ignorance solicitation in favour of litigants. But except being free from gross corruption, he was the worst Judge that had ever sat in the Court. This was inevitable, for he might as well have tried to sustain a principal part in an opera, without having learned the first rudiments of music. competence as a Judge. the Chan cery bar. There was no refusal to practise before him on account of Course his ignorance of law, as in the case of Lord Chancellor taken by Hatton and Lord Keeper Williams. The bar took a more effectual mode of exposing and subduing him. Had he called in Judges and Masters in Chancery as assessors, he might Malone, in his "Life of Dryden," has attempted to refute this story, but in my humble opinion he has utterly failed. He has shown satisfactorily that it could only apply to the poet's third son, the two elder being educated at Westminster School, and he has given a copy of the admission of this youth in the following words: "Feb. 5th, 1682-3. Erasmus Henry Dryden admitted for his Majesty (in the room of Orlando Bagnall) aged 14 years 2d of May next." He reasons that as the admission did not take place in the end of Nov. 1681, between the two editions of the poem, there could be no connection between the poetry and the presentation. But on inquiry I find that at the Charter House the admission sometimes does not take place till years after the nomination. The expression here "for his Majesty," may be inaccurate, and if accurate may be explained by an exchange of one nomination for another (not an unusual practice) to suit the ages of the boys, and it is nothing when we consider that the anecdote rests on the authority of a most respectable lawyer, STRINGER, the intimate friend and protégé of Shaftesbury, who was Secretary of Presentations to him while he was Chancellor, and probably would be the person by whom the act would be done; that it is confirmed by Martyn, who wrote the life of the first Lord Shaftesbury under the superintendence of his grandson; and that it is repeated in the eulogistic Life of Lord Shaftesbury in the "Biographia Britannica," written by Dr. Kippis, who is said to have received 5001, from the family for the pains he bestowed upon it. It has been said that Dryden could not have composed "the MEDAL," after receiving such a favour from Shaftesbury, but this is explained by the royal solicitation and the 100 broad pieces. See post. Proofs that Dryden was bribed by Shaftesbury. |