Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 by Various

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After discussing the character of modern French literature, there
remains the important question to determine, how far the state of
literature represents the state of society--how far the one is a
faithful picture of the other. Upon this subject M. Girardin concludes
his volume with some excellent remarks; but here we must also conclude
our notice of this interesting work.

LORD ELDON.

In a free country, if there ever was or will be a truly free country
besides our own, the life of every public man ought to be written. All
would supply a lesson of more or less value; and it is upon lessons of
that order that the vigour of the rising generation can alone be
trained. Undoubtedly, in the mixed qualities of human nature, there
might now and then be formidable displays; the development of the heart
might often startle the eye which looked to it for healthy action; the
machinery of the mind would require to be examined with the hand of
charity as well as the hand of science: but the general result must be
knowledge--always interesting, and often of the highest value; for the
tendency of manners is, to disappoint that research. The habits, the
associations, almost the general peace of society, unite in covering the
actual nature of man with a uniform aspect. The unquestionable effect of
civilization is, not merely to smooth the inequalities of the surface,
but to conceal the actual material--the rough, the hard, the cold, or
the pernicious within. But there is no one operation of man, by which
human nature is so deeply and so distinctly penetrated and tested, as a
true narrative of the career of men acting a prominent part in the
world. History is comparatively feeble to this powerful searcher. Its
heroes and heroines are placed so palpably on a stage; its _dramatis
personae_ are so distant and so disciplined; its positions are so openly
arranged for effect, that the nearest approach is only conjecture, as
the nearest approach to reality is only illusion. Courts and campaigns
are not human life. Kings and ministers, in their court pageantry, are
scarcely more entitled to the name of human beings. They are factitious
forms, showy spectacles, glittering effigies. But strip off the state
costume; stand beside them while they are unconscious of a spectator;
enter into their minds; seize their motives; measure their impulses: it
is only then that we discover their affinity to the family of man, and
by their vigour and virtue model our own.

The life of the Earl of Eldon is an important addition to public
biography. Written by a lawyer, it has the advantage of professional
knowledge--by a man of a certain experience in public, and even in
official life, it exhibits that practical knowledge of affairs which
nothing but practice can gain--and by a man of literary accomplishment,
it adds, to its more solid merits, those graces of style which supply
the last attraction to a work of manly utility. We feel even, in some
degree, an uncritical, yet a not less authentic satisfaction in giving
our tribute to the work of one connected with a family, whose name
brings to the public mind such deep recollections of fine ability finely
employed--of talents combined with the noblest triumphs of past genius
and of forms and countenances eminently fitted to represent the grand
and beautiful of the classic drama of England.

The father of Lord Eldon was William Scott, a merchant of good means and
good repute at Newcastle, his principal business being connected with
the coal trade. He lived to be seventy-nine years old, and his wife (a
second marriage) to be ninety-one. By her he had thirteen children, of
whom John (Lord Eldon) was the eighth. William (Lord Stowell) was born
in 1745, the year of the Scottish invasion, in Heworth, where his mother
had been sent for her accouchement, to avoid the perils, Newcastle then
expecting a siege. After her return to Newcastle, she gave birth to
John, June 4, 1751. The house was situated at the end of one of those
narrow streets, which in the native dialect are called _chares_, the
extremity being a "chare-foot." A bar story is told of a judge on
circuit, who hearing a witness depose that he had seen three men come
out of a "chare-foot," desired the jury to disregard his evidence
altogether, as none but a madman could say that he saw three men come
out of the "foot of a chair." Lord Eldon appears to have been so fond of
the jest, that he once stated in the Court of Chancery, that "he had
been born in a chair-foot." At the suitable age, John and his brothers
were sent to the Foundation Grammar School of Newcastle, then under the
headship of one Moises, fellow of Peterhouse. His predecessor had been
Dawes, the well-known author of the "Miscellanea Critica"--an able
scholar, but only an additional example of the frequent insufficiency of
scholars to teach. Dawes was eccentric, and injured the reputation of
the school. His predominant propensity while in Newcastle was
bell-ringing. On his leaving that place he adopted a new taste, that of
rowing. If Moises had any peculiar taste, it seems to have been flogging.

"I was once," said Lord Eldon, "the _seventeenth_ boy whom Moises
flogged, and richly did we merit it. There was an elderly lady who lived
in Westgate Street, whom we surrounded, and would not allow her to go
either backward or forward. She complained, and he flogged us all. When
he came to me, he exclaimed, 'What, John Scott! were you there too?' And
I was obliged to say, 'Yes, sir.' 'I will not stop,' said he, 'you shall
all have it.' But I think I came off best, for his arm was rather tired
with the sixteen who went before me."

A flogging may be all very well in its recollection fifty years after.
But the impression of the moment was, we presume, not quite so
favourable. The inevitable consequence of this habit was to spoil both
master and scholars. It made the timid boy pusillanimous, while it made
the fierce more indignant and resentful. What could be the feelings of
the master who could inflict almost agony on seventeen mere children,
let the offence be what it might? Yet the offence was trifling;
troublesome behaviour to an old woman in the street. A slight reprimand,
or trivial fine, would have properly finished the affair; but then comes
the flagellation.

But our great public schools exhibit another offence; the system of
fagging alike foolish and mischievous. It only teaches the elder boys to
be tyrants, and the younger to be liars and slaves. In practice, it
promises to correct itself, by destroying the great schools. The
proprietary schools, and other institutions for the education of the
people, have uniformly discountenanced this abominable nuisance; and we
know none whose abolition would do more credit to the heads of the
church, or, if they should remain indolent on the subject, to the heads
of the legislature.

William Scott, in 1761, was sent to Oxford as a candidate for a Durham
scholarship, which he obtained, but which was perilled by a blunder of
the head of Corpus Christi college. This worthy person delivered his
opinion in this style:--"I think, gentlemen, there can be no doubt that
young Scott is by far the best scholar of them. But he has told us that
his father is a fiddler, and I do not quite like to take the son of a
fiddler into the college." The doctor was an ass for his dictum; and it
is only to be regretted that he did not live to express this impudent
opinion in our day. England is certainly growing more rational, whatever
colleges may be. Language of that sort, used in a country which boasts
that no artificial impediment can be suffered to exist in the career of
genius and virtue, would quickly meet the reception merited by its
arrogant absurdity. The "fiddler" was a blunder of the doctor for
"fitter," the local name of the coal trade.

William, in his twentieth year, became a tutor; John was intended for a
coal-merchant, but his brother desired that he should be sent to Oxford.
"Send Jack up to me," were the words; "I can do better for him here." He
was then under fifteen.

A striking anecdote marks his first starting in life. "When I left
school to go to Oxford," said Lord Eldon, "I came up from Newcastle to
London in a coach, then denominated, on account of its _quick_
travelling, 'a Fly,' being three or four days and nights on the road. On
the panels were the words, _Sat cito, si sat bene_, (Fast enough, if
well enough,) which made a most lasting impression on my mind, and have
had their influence on my conduct in all subsequent life." He then
exhibits a specimen of that sly humour which characterized him to the
last.

"A Quaker fellow-traveller stopped the coach at the inn at Tuxford to
give the chambermaid a sixpence, telling her that he had forgotten it
when he slept there two years before. I was a very saucy boy, and I said
to him, 'Friend, have you seen the motto on the coach?' 'No.' 'Then look
at it, for I think giving her only sixpence _now_ is neither _sat cito_
nor _sat bene_."

On his arrival in London, he was overturned, with his brother, in a
sedan chair. "This," thought he, "is more than _sat cito_, and it
certainly is not _sat bene_." He concludes more gravely by saying, "It
was this impression which made me that deliberative judge, as some have
said _too_ deliberative. And reflection upon all that is past, will not
authorize me to deny, that while I have been thinking, 'Sat cito, si sat
bene,' I may not have sufficiently remembered whether 'Sat bene, si sat
cito' has had its due influence."

The chief feature of this portion of the biography is its recollections
of remarkable persons. We have heard this one of Johnson before: but the
names and place are now first given from Lord Eldon's anecdote-book.

"I had a walk in the New Inn Hall garden with Dr Johnson, Sir Robert
Chambers, and some other gentlemen, (Chambers was principal of the Hall,
and Vinerian professor of law. He was at this period on the point of
proceeding to India as judge.) Sir Robert was gathering snails, and
throwing them over the wall into his neighbour's garden. The doctor
attacked him roughly, and charged his conduct as being unneighbourly.
'Sir,' said Sir Robert, 'my neighbour is a dissenter.' 'Oh,' said the
doctor, 'if so, toss away, toss away as hard as you can!'"

This was evidently one of Johnson's odd freaks, a piece of his growling
humour; for though no man disliked sectarianism more, no man had a
stronger sense of charity to all.

His manners now and then exhibited strange absence. Lord Eldon says that
he had seen him standing for a considerable time, with one foot on each
side of the kennel of the High Street of Oxford, gazing at the water.

It was proverbially dangerous to contradict him. Dr Mortimer, head of
Lincoln college, happened occasionally to interrupt him, by saying, "I
deny that," while Johnson was holding forth. At length he said, "Sir,
sir, you must have forgotten that an author has said, (he then repeated
in Latin,) one ass will deny more in one hour, than a hundred
philosophers will prove in a hundred years."

During the year 1774 and 1775, John Scott held the office of a tutor of
University college; but he appears to have left the duty to Fisher and
William Scott, his brother, those two dividing the emoluments. However,
he was more importantly employed when he gave lectures on the law as
deputy to Sir Robert Chambers, for which he had L.60 a-year. His first
essay was sufficiently ridiculous. The law professor sent him his first
lecture, which he was to read immediately to the students, and which he
began, without knowing its contents. It happened to be on the statute
4th and 5th, Philip and Mary, on young men running away with young
women. "Fancy me," said his lordship, "reading with about 140 boys and
young men giggling at the professor." While Scott was eating his terms
at the Middle Temple, he had some opportunities of seeing Mr Sergeant
Hill, the great lawyer of his day, eminent for learning, and scarcely
less so for eccentricity. Hill one day stopped Scott in the hall, and
said, "Pray, young gentleman, do you think herbage and pannage rateable
to the poor's rate?" Scott replied "that he could not presume to give an
opinion to so learned a personage." "Upon my word," said the sergeant,
"you are a pretty sensible young gentlemen--I don't often meet with
such. If I had asked Mr Burgess, a young leader upon our circuit, the
question, he would have told me that I was an old fool." Hill began an
argument in the King's Bench thus:--"My Lord Mansfield and judges, I
beg your pardon."--"Why brother Hill, do you ask our pardon?"--"My
lords," said he, "I have seventy-eight cases to cite."--"Seventy-eight
cases!" said Lord Mansfield; "you can never have our pardon if you cite
seventy-eight cases!" After the court had given its decision, which was
against the sergeant's client, Lord Mansfield said, "Now, brother Hill,
that the judgment is given, you can have no objections, on account of
your client, to tell us your real opinion, and whether you do not think
we are right; you know how we all value your opinion and judgment." Hill
wished to be excused; but as he always thought it his duty to do what
the court desired, "Upon my word," said he, "I did not think that there
were four men in the world who could have given such an ill-founded
judgment as you four, my lords, have pronounced." This style, however,
must have been now and then intolerable.

When Baron Hotham was placed in the Exchequer, he gave a dinner, as is
usual on those occasions, at Sergeant's Inn, to the judges and
sergeants. Hotham had been unsuccessful at the bar. Hill, in drinking
his health, called him Baron Botham. Somebody whispered the real name to
him. Hill said aloud, "I beg your pardon, Mr Baron Hotham; but none of
us ever heard your name in the profession before this day." In justice
to the baron, however, Lord Eldon adds the following note:--"The Baron
made an extremely good judge. He had not much legal learning; but he had
an excellent understanding, great discretion, unwearied patience, and
his manners were extremely engaging; and those qualities ensuring to him
in a very large measure the assistance of the bar, he executed his
duties as a judge with great sufficiency."

Shortly after his commencing the profession, Scott reduced himself into
a state of invalidism by excessive study. In 1774, when he and Cookson,
another invalid, were returning to Oxford from Newcastle, where they had
gone to vote at the general election, the good-natured cook of the inn
at Birmingham, where they arrived at eleven at night, insisted on
dressing something hot for them, saying that she was sure neither of
them would live to see her again. A medical friend remonstrated with him
on the severity of his studies. "It is not matter," answered Scott, "I
must either do as I am now doing, or starve." He rose at four in the
morning, observed a careful abstinence at his meals, and, to prevent
drowsiness, read at night with a wet towel round his head. At last it
became necessary, as the time of being called to the bar approached, to
provide a dwelling in London. In his latter days, he pointed out a house
in Cursitor Street. "There," said he, "was my first perch. Many a time
have I run down from that house to Fleet Market, to get sixpennyworth of
sprats for supper." At this period, in mentioning to his brother the
kindness of a great conveyancer, Mr Duane, whom he attended as a
gratuitous pupil, he says--"This conduct of his has taken a great load
of uneasiness off my mind; as, in fact, our profession is so exceedingly
expensive that I almost sink under it. I have got a house barely
sufficient to hold my small family, which will, in rent and taxes, cost
me L.60. I have been buying books, too, for the last ten years; but I
have got the mortification to find that, before I can settle, that
article of trade--for so I consider it--will cost me near L.200." Of
Duane's service to him, he said, a little more than a fortnight before
his death, "The knowledge I acquired of conveyancing in his office, was
of infinite service to me during a long life in the Court of Chancery."

In Hilary Term 1776, Scott was called to the bar by the Society of the
Middle Temple. When we recollect what a leviathan of wealth the Lord
Chancellor was in his latter days, it is amusing to read the statement
of his early struggles, however painful they must have been at the time.
"When I was called to the bar," said he, "Bessy (his wife) and I thought
all our troubles were over. Business was to pour in, and we were to be
almost rich immediately. So I made a bargain with her, that, during the
following year, all the money that I should receive during the first
eleven months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth
month should be hers. What a stingy dog I must have been to make such a
bargain! I would not have done so afterwards. But, however, so it was--
that was our agreement; and how do you think that it turned out? In the
twelfth month I received _half-a-guinea_. Eighteen-pence went for fees,
and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I got not one
shilling." This was but sorry encouragement; but such is the profession.
Men must wait. Property, or perhaps life, will not trust themselves to
inexperience; and thus, from the very nature of the Bar, a long period
of probation must be borne by all.

There had been an old and invidious conception which represented the
Lord Chancellor as the son of a coal-heaver. It appears from the memoir
that his father was, on the contrary, possessed of property very
considerable in those days. He was what we should now call a broker in
the coal-trade--technically, a coal-fitter or factor--who transacted
business between the coal-owner and the ship-owner. He was intelligent
and industrious, and prospered accordingly; leaving, at his death,
property worth L.25,000 to his eldest son William; another L.1000 to
John; making, in the whole, L.3000, and respectable sums to his other
children. He appears to have realized above L.30,000--a sum equal to
nearly double at the present day.

Lord Eldon, though all gravity on the bench, and seldom indulging in any
sportiveness in parliament, was a humorist at table, and fond of
humorous recollections. His story of Dunning on his travels has got into
print; but, in the hands of a genuine humorist, it must have been an
incomparable ground for burlesque. Dunning, when solicitor-general, had
gone to see the Prussian reviews. Some of these were profoundly secret,
and were presumed to be experiments in those tactical novelties with
which Frederick dazzled Europe. But others were showy displays, to which
the king invited the princes and generals of the Continent. Dunning had
announced himself as Solicitor-General of England. Frederick, either
knowing nothing of solicitors, though much of generals, or what is more
probable--for he was the most deliberate wag in existence--determining
to play the lawyer a trick, ordered him to be received as a general
officer, and provided him with a charger for his presence at the grand
display. Dunning, long unused to ride, soon found that he had his master
_under_ him. The charger, as well disciplined as one of his majesty's
grenadiers, and delighting, like the horse of Joab, in the "trumpets and
the shouting" of the captains, rushed every where with his unwilling
rider; and it was not till after a day of terror, in which his cavalry
exploits must have exposed him to frequent laughter, that the lawyer
escaped from the din of battles, and rejoiced to find himself with
unfractured bones, resolved never to play the general officer again.

There may be "some things new under the sun," in contradiction to the
proverb; but they are not many, at least in wit. The story of the
celebrated cardinal, who proved that the sun went round the moon, and
_vice versa_, is sufficiently wall known. Dunning's pleading _pro_ and
_con_. is vouched for from Scott's personal experience. Dunning led in a
cause in which Scott was junior counsel. The leader so evidently
reasoned against his own client, that Scott, after long amazement, at
last touched his arm, and whispered that he was speaking on the wrong
side. Dunning instantly perceived his mistake, and gave him a rough
reprimand (we may presume _sotto voce_) for having suffered him to go on
so long. He then recovered himself with his habitual dexterity; said
that he had stated all that could be urged against his client, and that
he would then proceed to show how utterly futile was the argument.

A good deal of his early life on the circuit was passed with Lee, then
the leader of the northern circuit, and a man of great vigour of mind. A
curious question once rose between them on professional morality. At
supper one night, Scott made the remark, that Lee always exerted himself
to gain a verdict by a display of his great legal knowledge; but not
always with a regard to the accuracy of either his law or his facts. Lee
contended that it was the duty of counsel to state what the party
himself would have stated, and get a verdict if he could. He, however,
pondered on it; and, as they were retiring for the night, said, "Scott,
I have been thinking of the question you asked me; and I am not _quite_
sure that the conduct you represented will bring a man peace at the
last."

Lord Eldon quotes Johnson's opinion, which had been referred to--and
which stated that it was the duty of counsel, after having stated the
law and the facts exactly, to exert his abilities to the utmost to gain
his cause--the judge being supposed the abler lawyer, and the reasoning
of the bench amending what was erroneous in that of the bar. Lord Eldon
adds, in his rather too dubious way--"It may be questioned whether even
this can be supported." Of course it may. The object of law is to do
justice; and justice is not done if the ingenuity of an able advocate is
entitled to gain a false verdict. For how is this to be gained? Either
by a suppression of the truth in part, or by a colouring of the
falsehood, or by an invention of facts, aided by a misinterpretation of
law; all palpably against conscience. The true rule appears to be--the
lawyer stands in the place of the client, to do what the client would
and could have done, if he had equal skill in exhibiting the
circumstances, and equal knowledge of the law which bore upon them. But
as the client has no right to tell an untruth of any kind for himself,
so neither has the lawyer the right to tell it for him. The lawyer's
taking a brief in a cause of which he has a bad opinion, is wholly a
different matter. The custom of the bar justly decides that he must not
refuse the brief, because he cannot be sure that he knows the whole
cause; for facts unexpected, and even unknown, may start up; he may be
mistaken in his personal conception of the facts, the motives, and the
law: new facts may come out on the trial. There is a judge to decide on
hearing both sides, and the counsel has no right to assume the office of
the judge. Of course, if he is made aware of any fraud in the conduct of
the case, or even suspects it, he must abandon his brief at once.

Lee's manner was of that rough and ready kind which always tells with a
jury. Once, after a very keen cross-examination, the witness charged him
with severity to one who was his relation. "Why, how do you make that
out," said Lee. The man stated the genealogy. "Well," said Lee, "I
believe you are right. I only wish, my good fourth or fifth cousin, you
would speak a little truth for the honour of the family; for not one
word of truth have you spoken yet."

Even this able man had gone many years to York without a single brief;
and even then began only on a burlesque case, fabricated by his brother
barristers.

Accuracy of recollection is obviously of peculiar importance at the bar;
but the profession has sometimes exhibited surprising instances of this
faculty. Lord Eldon spoke of Chief Justice De Grey's powers of memory as
extraordinary. De Grey suffered so much from the gout, the he used to
come into court with both hands wrapped in flannel. He thus could not
take a not. "Yet I have known him," said Lord Eldon, "try a cause that
lasted nine or ten hours, and then, from memory, sum up all the evidence
with the greatest correctness. When counsel offered any intimation of
his inaccuracy, his answer was--'I am sure I am right; refer to your
short-hand writer's notes;' and he was invariably found to be right." A
similar faculty is possessed by that very distinguished person, Lord
Lyndhurst.

It is remarkable that none of the lucky accidents which have raised so
many inferior men into prosperity ever occurred to Scott, who was yet
destined to rise to such opulence and eminence. His first steps in life
might be regarded as all but ruin. He abandoned his college, where he
had secured at least existence; and he abandoned it for a profession
proverbially hazardous, and in which, for whole years, he made nothing.
At this period, too, when scarcely able to support himself, he ran away
with a portionless wife; and thus began the world not merely helpless,
but with a new weight which has broken down many a strong mind. The
opinion of every one who took an interest in him was, that this marriage
was fatal to all his prospects. It necessarily compelled him to give up
all collegiate objects; and we recollect to have seen in print a
fragment of a letter from his elder brother (afterwards Lord Stowell) to
a friend, in these words--"Have you seen what my foolish brother has
done? He has made a runaway match; he is utterly ruined." The opinion of
Moises, his schoolmaster, was equally decided. "Jack Scott has run off
with Bessy Surtees, and the poor lad is undone."

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