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

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Scott entered as a student of the Middle Temple in January 1773. In six
years after, what was his progress? We have this letter from Lord
Stowell about 1779. "Business is very dull with poor Jack, very dull
indeed, and of consequence he is not very lively. I heartily wish that
business may brighten a little, or he will be heartily sick of his
profession. I do all I can to keep up his spirits, but he is very
gloomy. But mum, not a word of this to the wife of your bosom."

At length, however, day began to dawn, and his powerful understanding
and solid knowledge found the opportunity, which to such means is
generally all that is wanting. A conversation with an old friend lets us
into a curious trait of Lord Mansfield. "Was the Court of Chancery your
object when you first came to the bar?" asked Farrar. "Certainly not,"
answered Lord Eldon. "I first took my seat in the King's Bench; but I
soon perceived, or thought I perceived, a preference in Lord Mansfield
(the Chief Justice) for young lawyers who had been bred at Westminster
School and Christ Church; and so, as I had belonged to neither, I
thought I could not have fair chance with my fellows, and therefore I
crossed over to the other side of the hall. (The Courts of King's Bench
and Chancery were at that time on the opposite sides of Westminster
Hall.) Lord Mansfield, I believe, was not conscious of the bias; he was
a good man." Mansfield's goodness was sufficiently questioned by his
contemporaries; yet if he exhibited this bias, he could not have been a
just man. The cause which first made Scott known was Acroyd v. Smithson.
The question was--whether, in a property willed in fifteen shares to
fifteen people, one of them dying in the testator's lifetime, the lapsed
share did not belong to the heir at law. He argued the case before the
Master of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Sewell. "He has argued it very well,"
said Sewell. But he gave it against Scott. An appeal came before Lord
Thurlow. Scott argued his point. Thurlow took three days to consider,
and then gave his decision in favour of the heir-at-law--a decision
which has settled all similar questions ever since. He then had an omen
of his prosperity. As he left the hall, a solicitor of some note touched
him on the shoulder, and said, "Young man, your bread and butter is cut
for life."

He then had another golden opportunity. Fatigued with waiting for
fortune, he was on the point of leaving London, and taking up his abode
at Newcastle, of which he was offered the recordership. A house was even
taken for him, when, one morning at six o'clock, Mr, afterwards Lord,
Curzon, and four or five other gentlemen, came to his door, mentioning
that the Clitheroe election case was to come on that morning at ten
before a committee of the Commons; that one of their counsel was
detained at Oxford by illness, and their second was unprepared and would
not appear; and that they were sent to him as a young and promising
counsel. Scott told them that, on so short a notice, all he could do
would be to give a dry statement of facts. The cause thus put into his
hands went on for fifteen days. "It found me poor," said Lord Eldon,
"but I was to be rich before it was done. They left me fifty guineas at
the beginning; then there were ten guineas every day, and five guineas
every evening, for a consultation--more money than I could count. But,
better still, the length of the cause gave me time to make myself
thoroughly acquainted with the law." After all this, the side on which
Scott was, was beaten by a single vote. But Mansfield, (afterwards Sir
James,) on hearing his speech in the committee, came up to him in
Westminster Hall, and strongly advised him to remain in London. Scott
answered that an increasing family compelled him to leave London.
Wilson, a barrister, advised as Mansfield had done, and even generously
offered to make up his income to L.400 a-year. He received the same
answer. "However," said the chancellor, with natural selfgratulation, "I
did remain, and lived to make Mansfield chief justice of the common
pleas, and Wilson a judge." Moreover, his sagacity gave him additional
triumphs on the northern circuit, where he soon took the lead. He was
counsel in a cause which depended on his being able to make out who was
the founder of an ancient chapel in the neighbourhood. "I went to view
it," said Lord Eldon. "There was nothing to be observed which gave any
indication of its date or history. However, I remarked that the ten
commandments were written on some old plaster, which, from its position,
I conjectured might cover an arch. Acting on this, I bribed the clerk
with five shillings to allow me to chip away a part of the plaster; and
after two or three attempts, I found the keystone of an arch, on which
were engraved the arms of an ancestor of one of the parties. This
evidence decided the cause. Here was an instance of good-luck,
undoubtedly, but also of great diligence and great sagacity. A negligent
counsel would never have thought of examining the chapel in person; a
dull counsel would never have thought of examining the arch; but it
happens that the sagacious are generally lucky, and that, therefore, the
first quality is sagacity."

Another remarkable case occurred at Durham. On this occasion, Scott,
though a junior counsel, was appointed to lead by his seniors, the case
being relative to collieries, and he being a Newcastle man. When Buller
the judge, who was a coarse man, and fond of saying abrupt things, saw
him, he said, "Sir, you have not a leg to stand upon." Scott answered,
"My lord, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I should sit down on
hearing the judge so express himself; but so persuaded am I that I have
the right on my side, that I must entreat your lordship to allow me to
reply, and I must also express my expectation of gaining a verdict." He
replied, and the jury, after consulting six or eight hours, gave the
verdict in his favour. When he went to the ball that evening, he was
received with open arms by every one.

When he went to Carlisle, Buller sent for him, and told him that "he had
been thinking over that case on his way from Newcastle, and that he had
come to the conclusion that he was entirely wrong, and that I was right.
He had, therefore, sent for me to tell me this, and to express his
regret for having attempted to stop me in court. This cause," said Lord
Eldon, "raised me aloft."

Yet this man, with all his ability, had already attended the Cumberland
assizes for seven years without receiving a brief. After the celebrity
of this cause, when he next attended, he received seventy guineas in
fees at Carlisle.

So much has been said in parliament, and in the newspapers lately, of
_Gentlemen of the Turf_, and the very dubious nature of that
appellation, that the following case comes curiously in point. A
question arose as to the winner of the stakes in a race--there having
been a condition, that the horses should be ridden by gentlemen; and it
was disputed whether the winning horse had been ridden by a gentleman or
not. The judge finally addressed the jury in these words--"Gentlemen of
the jury, when I see you in that box I call you gentlemen, for I know
you are such. Custom has authorized me, and, from your office there, you
are entitled to be called gentlemen; but out of that box, I do not know
what may be deemed the requisites that constitute a gentleman--therefore
I can give you no direction," (a laugh.) The jury returned a verdict
that he was not a gentleman. The next morning he challenged the two
counsel, Law and Scott. They answered, they could not possibly fight one
who had been pronounced by the verdict of a jury to be no _gentleman_.

Politics now began to rise in the prospects of this intelligent and
indefatigable mind. The condition of the English lawyer forms as
striking a contrast to that of the Continental _jurisconsult_, as the
English constitution to the despotisms of Europe. Abroad, the lawyer may
be a man of whatever extent of attainment, but his sphere is strictly
professional; within that range he lives, makes a scanty income, with a
still more scanty fame, disputes for forty or fifty years, and dies.
France, of late years, is partially an exception, for France now extends
the range of her professions; but in all the rest, the existence of the
lawyer closely resembles the existence of the quadruped in the mill. In
England all is of a different and a higher order. The bar itself is but
a step; distinction in the courts is only the first stage of an ascent
which may raise the individual to eminence in government, as well as
dignity in the high places of his profession--it is the preparative for
wearing those honours which form a family, and give a pledge to fortune.
As the ancients said of the eagle, that, before he takes his flight for
the day, he prepares his wings by plunging them in the mountain stream,
the great lawyer has plunged in the depths of his profession only to
ascend into a higher range of power and prospect, and there to steer his
strong flight to the possession of all that man can desire.

On the formation of the Coalition ministry under North and Fox in 1783,
the great seal being in commission, Scott was appointed king's counsel;
but in this instance, so important to a young barrister, he yet showed
manliness. Saturday was the day on which he was to receive this honour;
but on ascertaining the Erskine and Pigot, both his juniors, and who
were also to have silk gowns, were to be sworn in on the Friday, he
instantly retracted his acceptance, as, "he could not submit to any
waiver of his professional rank." The lords-commissioners called him
before them, and argued the matter pressingly. But he would not give
way. At last, as the patents for the two other counsel had already
passed the great seal, they were sworn in on the Friday; but a patent of
precedence was given to Scott, by which he took rank before them. The
day of his patent was the 4th of June 1783: he was then thirty-two years
old. Late in life, a friend asked whether he thought it was important
thus to insist on retaining his rank. Eldon, with the experience of half
a century, answered with great earnestness, "It was every thing. I owed
my future success to it." There is a moral in the words of Wiseman--"The
man who begins by humiliation, will soon find that the world will judge
of him by his own deed."

Lord Eldon, in one of those conversations, strikingly remarked a similar
conduct in the celebrated Lord Collingwood, who had been his
schoolfellow. "Medals were given," said his lordship, "on the 1st of
June, but not to him. When the medal was sent to him for Cape St
Vincent, he returned it, saying that he felt conscious he had done his
duty as well on the 1st of June as at Cape St Vincent; and that, if he
did not merit the first medal, neither could he merit the second. He was
quite right," said Lord Eldon, "he would have both or neither. Both were
sent to him."

Parliament now opened to his ambition. Lord Thurlow, at Lord Weymouth's
request, offered him Weobly, a borough in his patronage, (extinguished
by the Reform Act of 1832.) Scott accepted the offer, on the condition
that he should be left independent in his opinions. Thurlow said the "he
had stipulated that already." Scott went down to the borough
accordingly, made a "long speech," which the electors said they expected
from him, "as he was a lawyer: it being also a treat which they had not
enjoyed for thirty years." Lord Surrey, (afterwards Duke of Norfolk,) a
prodigious reformer--a profession which, however, did not prevent him
from constantly dabbling in the intrigues of electioneering--had
harangued against him at Hereford, while Scott retorted at Weobly by
smartly saying--"That though then unknown to them, he hoped he should
entitle himself to more of their confidence, than if, being the son of
the first Duke of England, he had held himself out to them as a
reformer, whilst riding, as the Earl of Surry rode, into the first town
of the county, drunk, upon a cider-cask, and talking in that state of
_reform_!" Lord Surrey had been his client, and on meeting him in France
afterwards, good-humouredly said--"I have had enough of meddling with
you; I shall trouble you no more."

An odd incident, valuable to those who value foresightedness in this
world's affairs, occurred at the time Scott was lodged at the vicar's,
Mr Bridges. He had a daughter, a young child, and he said--"Who knows
but you may come to be chancellor. As my girl can probably marry nobody
but a clergyman, promise me you will give her husband a living when you
have the seals." His answer was, "My promise is not worth half-a-crown;
but you may have my promise." In after life, the child, then in
womanhood, walked one morning into the chancellor's drawing-room, and
claimed the fulfilment of his promise. It was duly performed, and she
married.

There is perhaps no subject of human interest more entitled to an
anxious and solemn curiosity, than the sentiments of a man of powerful
and fully furnished mind in the immediate prospect of death. The coming
change is so total and so tremendous, alarm and a sense of the unknown
are so natural, that to find unpresuming confidence, and virtuous
constancy of heart, in that awful time, cheers human nature. William
Scott, always distinguished for great capacity and remarkable
acquirements, about this period being seized with an illness, which he
thought mortal, writes these memoranda on the verge of the grave:--

My great comfort is, to write on to my dearest Jack, and about my wife.
Act for me. _Wife, child_. She knows I recommend her to your care.

Object of my life, to make my sisters easy.

Save ------ from ruin if we can.

Protect my memory by your kindness. Life ebbs very fast with me. My
dying thoughts are all kindness and fraternal love about you.

While sensation remains, I think on my dearest brother, with whom I
have spent my life. I die with the same sentiments. As the hand of death
approaches, it is a consolation to think of him. Oh, cherish my wife! If
you loved me, be a brother to her. You will have trouble about my
affairs; you will not grudge it. Oh, take care of _her_! I leave you
that duty. It is the last relief of my failing mind. Cherish my memory.
Keep ----- from ruin, if you can, by any application of any part of my
child's fortune that is reasonable. Once more, farewell! God bless you.

These are affecting testimonials, and show singular tenderness of heart
and truth of attachment; for they were written, to be transmitted only
in case of death. Those who in after times saw Lord Stowell on the
bench, the solemn, and even the stern depository of justice, could
scarcely imagine, in that searching glance and compressed lip, the
softness of heart which those fragments indicate. Death may be a great
subduer of the fierce spirit of man as it approaches; but their language
is not the phrase of puling softness, or pusillanimous alarm; it is at
once calm and fond, collected and fervid. The writer's natural and
honourable feelings are all alive at the moment when the last pang might
seem to be at hand; and though nothing is said of his Christian hopes,
(probably because the care of his family demanded more urgent
consideration than his personal conceptions,) language like theirs could
scarcely have come but from a Christian. His disorder was a violent
bilious fever, which exhausted him so much that his recovery was slow.
But to those who are in the habit of consigning their friends to
"inevitable death" on every infliction of disease, it may excite some
useful doubt of their own infallibility, to know that this dying man,
then thirty-eight, survived for half a century, dying in his
ninety-first year.

But the whole biography is a warning--especially against despondency.
Who could suppose that, after Lord Eldon's success up to this point; his
distinction on the principal circuit; the compliments of the judges; the
respect of his seniors in the profession, some of them very remarkable
men; his silk gown in the days of Erskine; his seat in Parliament; and,
more than all, the consciousness which men of large faculties naturally
have of their suitableness, and almost their certainty, to command
fortune at some tine or other; we should find the future peer and
chancellor desponding? Yet what but deep complaints of his cloudy
prospects could have produced this reply from his clever friend Lee,
(who, within three weeks' became Attorney-General?)

DEAR SCOTT--Your letter, which I received this minute,
was a very cheering one to me. But _keep up your
spirits_, and let it not be said that a good
understanding, and an irreproachable life, and an
uncommon success, and every virtuous expectation, are
insufficient to support tranquility and composure of
mind. _If you are cast down_ who is to hold up? In a few
days I hope to meet you in good health and good heart;
and, in the mean time, remain your faithful and
affectionate.

(Nov. 1783) "J. LEE."

On the opening of the session, great popular feeling was excited against
the coalition. The furious invectives which Fox had been for some years
heaping on Lord North's luckless head, were now flung upon his own.
Traitor, liar, swindler, were "house-hold words;" and Fox, with all his
ability, and that happiest of all ability for the crisis, great
constitutional good-humour, found himself suddenly overwhelmed. In the
House he was still powerful; but, outside its doors, he was utterly
helpless. Like the witches recorded in some of the German romances,
though within the walls chosen for their orgies they could summon
spirits, and revel in their incantations uncontrolled, yet, on passing
the threshold, they turned into hags again. But as if to make the
coalition still more odious in the popular eye, there was presented the
most resistless contrast to both its chiefs in the young and
extraordinary leader of the Opposition, Pitt; with the ardour of youth
and the wisdom of years, at once master of the most vigorous logic, and
the loftiest appeal to the public feelings; honoured as the son of
Chatham; and yet, even at that immature period of his life and his
career, still more honoured for the promise of talents and services
which were to throw even his own eminent predecessor into the shade.

But North, apart from the cabinet, was always delightful. He had more of
easy pleasantry in his manner than any favourite of English
recollection. Lord Eldon, in his anecdotal book thus tells--"Lord North
had gone, at the Prince of Wales's desire, to reconcile the King to him.
He succeeded, and called on the Prince to inform him of his success.
'Now,' said he, 'let me beseech your Royal Highness in future to conduct
yourself differently. Do so, on all accounts; do so, for your own sake;
do so, for your excellent father's sake; do so, for the sake of that
good-natured man, Lord North; and don't oblige him again to tell the
King, your good father, so many lies, as he has been obliged to tell him
this morning'"

Lord Eldon's personal narrative is a sort of comment on the whole public
history of his time. Why did not such a man write his own "Life and
Times?" Intelligent as are the Volumes before us, the personal
conceptions arising on the personal knowledge, would have been
invaluable as experience. His view of transactions in their embryo, in
their full growth, and in their impression on the general policy and
progress of the government, would have formed an important lesson for
statesmanship to come. But what an indulgence must it have furnished to
the national curiosity, which, seeing the origin of all things in
individual character, justly regards the eminent characters of that day
as the founders of every remarkable change which has shaped the
constitution in our own! Public life has never before or since abounded
in such variety, strength, and brilliancy of character. A combination of
talents of the very highest order was exhibited in both the Lords and
Commons; and it would actually seem as if this combination were
preparatory to the tremendous demands which, before the close of the
century, were to be made upon the wisdom, the courage, and the constancy
of the British legislature. And why should there not be such
preparation? We see preparation a principle in the whole course of
nature. We see, in the formation of individual character, a preparative,
and sometimes a most distinct and powerful one, for the duty which the
coming crisis is yet to demand; and why shall not legislatures, as well
individuals, be placed in that condition of effectiveness, and trained
to that exertion of power, which is subsequently to be required for the
providential deliverance of nations? It is remarkable that the
discussions in which parliament at this period was engaged, though
local, and of course altogether inferior to those comprehensive
struggles which were to follow, were yet of a nature singularly
calculated to call forth practical ability. There never was a period
since the Revolution of 1688, in which party was so vigorously brought
into conflict, in which personal interests gave so strong a stimulus to
the association of principles, in which office so rapidly shifted hands,
and power was so much the creature of reputation. Thus the whole
character of this period was an appeal to popularity; an appeal of all
others the most calculated to bring out every latent faculty of the
orator, the constitutionalist, and the statesman. A still greater
period, unknown and unexpected by every man, was to have the advantage
of this preparation. The French Revolution, which burst with such
irresistible violence over the Continent, was to find the ramparts of
public principle and legislative wisdom repaired and strengthened in
England, and those ramparts manned with defenders who had learned the
use of their weapons in the mock conflicts of peace, and, when the day
of danger came, showed themselves invincible.

The India bill broke down the Coalition ministry; it was the most
insolent experiment ever made on the constitution--a compound of
republican daring and despotic power. It would have made the king a
cipher, and parliament a slave. The exclusive patronage of India would
have enabled the minister to corrupt the legislature. The corruption of
the legislature would have made the minister irresponsible: the
constitution would thus have been inevitably suspended, and the national
liberties incapable of being restored except by a national convulsion.
But those evils were happily avoided by the manliness of the king and
the loyalty of the lords. The India bill was thrown out in the House of
Lords on the 17th of December. The king lost no time in giving effect to
this discomfiture. At the extraordinary hour of twelve o'clock on the
following night, an order was sent to the two secretaries of state,
North and Fox, that they should deliver up the seals by his majesty's
command; adding the contemptuous injunction, that they should send them
by the under-secretaries, the king not suffering a personal interview.

Pitt was placed at the head of the new administration as first lord of
the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. Thurlow was again made
lord chancellor, and Kenyon and Arden attorney and solicitor-generals.
In the debates on the India bill, one of Sheridan's pleasantries is
recorded. As Fox's majorities declined, it was hinted by his party that
John Robinson, the secretary of the treasury, was purchasing the votes.
On Sheridan's making the charge without naming the supposed culprit, a
great outcry arose in the House of "Name him, name him!" "Sir," said
Sheridan, addressing the Speaker, "I shall not name the person; it is an
invidious and unpleasant thing to do; but don't suppose that I could
find any difficulty in naming him: I could do it as soon as you could
say _Jack Robinson_."

Pitt having waited with consummate judgment, though against the advice
of all his supporters, until Fox had worn down his majorities in the
House, and totally disgusted the nation, dissolved the parliament. The
measure was triumphant; an unequaled Tory majority was returned in the
next session, and the Whigs were extinguished as a party for nearly
twenty years. Lord Eldon records a curious acknowledgment of Fox with
respect to the power of the pencil. "Sayers's caricatures," said he,
"did me more mischief than the debates in Parliament or the attacks of
the press." Lord Eldon observes that the prints of Carlo Khan; Fox
running away with the India House; Fox and Burke quitting Paradise when
turned out of office, and similar publications, had certainly a vast
effect on the public mind. Let HB triumph on this, and make his claim on
the ministry. Scott was again returned for Weobly, and gives a curious
instance of the slight incidents by which elections are sometimes
determined. In crossing the country from Lancaster to the hustings at
his borough, he stopped at the last stage to have his hair dressed. The
hairdresser asked him whether Sir Gilbert Elliott was not one of the
seven kings--a name of ridicule given to Fox's seven proposed
commissioners for India. "Because," said the man, "there is a Sir
Gilbert Elliott a candidate for the borough; and we are all agreed that,
if he is one of the seven kings, we will have nothing to say to him; and
as we wish to be sure about it, and as you must know, sir, excuse my
freedom in asking whether he really is one of the seven kings." Scott
answered that he certainly was. The hairdresser immediately made
proclamation of the fact, and Sir Gilbert was totally defeated.

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