Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

Once upon a time, dear friend, we found ourselves coming over Moel Siabod, that wild and beautiful hill rising over the eastern side of Capel Curig; swinging away in our simplicity of heart, and purposing to reach the lonely fastness of Dolwyddelan by noon, on a piping hot July day. We had crowned the mountain ridge, and had come half-way down the eastern slope, when we found ourselves at the edge of a great peat bog, with never a path, nor a stone, nor any thing to guide us through it. Beyond and below it lay the valley for which we were making, green, smiling, and beautiful, as Welsh valleys generally are. Above and behind us rose the bare crags of the mountain, darkening into a purple crest as their summits reached the fleecy clouds. We had nothing to do but to adopt the glorious old rule of following our nose; and so, without further ado, we tried to pick our way across the bog. We have a reminiscence of sundry skippings from tuft to tuft of heather, and of wonderful displays of agility; and at last we began to congratulate ourselves on the immense display of juvenile vigour which we were making. One more leap on to a fine bright piece of green grassy sward, and we were safe. Beyond it lay a ridge of rock and terra firma to carry us onward. One more spring and we should have crossed the bog. So now here goes for it; three paces backwards, a good swing with the arms,—one, two, three, and away!—plump into the very middle of the green sward,—and _through_ it, down, down, down, until our hat and stick alone remained aloft! Why, ’twas the most treacherous place of the whole; a kind of syren’s isle that tempted men to destruction by the beauty of outward form,—though beauty of sound, indeed, there was none. How we got out has always remained a mystery; but we floundered and tumbled about, and cut more extraordinary figures with our arms than we had done at any time the last ten days with our legs, until at length we seemed to crawl out like a fly out of a treacle pot, and to attain some drier ground. Our black velvet shooting coat, and our nice white ducks had never made such an approximation of colour before: we had put on the sad and sober russet brown in which dame nature so much delights, and we came forth from our grassy bed a good specimen of the tints of the mountain dye-house. It was enough; our resolution was taken:—half an hour’s sharp walking down the descent brought us to the banks of the Lledr; we were not five minutes in selecting a proper spot; and there we immediately converted ourselves into our own washerwoman, after the most primitive fashion that any antenoachite ever adopted. In another half hour we were beginning to look whitish again; and by the end of the sixty minutes we were clad in garments on the most approved hydropathic principles; wet bandages we had plenty of,—for if any one had offered us the wealth of India, we could not at that moment have produced a single dry thread on our body. But here our pedestrian resources again came to our aid; the sun shone more bright than ever; we were in the bottom of the valley: the heat was intense. The village was still four miles off, and by the time we arrived abreast of the welcome notification of “_Cwrw dda_,” we were dried, ironed, mangled, folded, and plaited, more commodiously, (though less uniformly,) than ever our buxom little laundress could have done for us.

Once and again we got into a brown predicament in Wales, not so easily got rid of, nor leaving so few disagreeable reminiscences. You will excuse us for mentioning it, if you please; but our _tableau de mœurs_ would not be complete without it. And here we beg leave to give notice that fastidious readers may at once close their eyes and read no more, or else skip over this page and try another. If they become offended, ‘twill be their own fault; what business have they to be prying into our secrets?

Once upon a time we did a rash thing: we made up our mind—and also our knapsack—to go to Bardsey Island. Now, ’tis a hundred to one that you never heard of Bardsey Island; and that, though your careful parents may have paid many a guinea per quarter for you, while at school, to learn Geography and the use of the Globes, you never yet were questioned by your usher as to where Bardsey Island was, nor what sort of a place it might be. Know, then, that it lies, a solitary green isle, some three miles or so from the extreme south-western point of Caernarvonshire,—a sort of _avant-poste_ to Wales, like the Scilly Isles to Cornwall. On it live some five-score of inhabitants, real natives, supporting themselves on oysters and lobsters, and other marine monsters. An occasional dog-fish is there reckoned a luxury. ’Tis a vastly curious place,—the oddest kinds of sea-birds to be found there of any spot under the sun,—at least in these latitudes; the rarest shells; the most unique sea-weeds; the greatest pets of periwinkles; and such loves of limpets! We were off, then, for Bardsey:—do not go there, dear reader—take our warning by the way, and remain rather at home. We got to a place with a most out-of-the-way name—Pwllheli; a sort of _ne plus ultra_ of stupidity and dulness; and from thence we made our way in a car to one of more euphonious denomination, Aberdaron. This was really a lovely spot, embosomed in a deep valley, at the corner of a romantic bay, with an expanse of snow-white sand, sufficient to accommodate all the bathers in England,—the sea of as deep a blue as at Madeira, and rocks like those of Land’s End, with the eternal spray of the ocean playing over them. A picturesque old church, partly converted into a school, partly into a pigeon-house—and the main entry to which was by one of the windows, stands at one end of the village with a miserable pot-house at the other. There is a stream and a bridge for loungers to lean and spit over; but other amusement in the place is none. As for public accommodation, it has not yet been thought of; strangers do not come there. None but the adjoining boors come thither to sot and gossip;—and as for our dear mellifluous Anglo-Saxon tongue, ’tis a thing never heard of. On arriving there and exploring the localities, and arranging for a boat to Bardsey next morning, we began to think about a bed, and soon perceived, on reflection, the total absence of any suitable accommodation within the limits of the village. But mark you the excellence of Welsh hospitality. The grocer of the place, the man of “the shop” _par excellence_, hearing of, or rather seeing us in a quandary, sent us his compliments, with a polite request that we would take up our quarters under his roof for the night. This was genuine hospitality; we hesitated not; and a better turn out in the way of feeding we have not often met with. Broiled steaks of salmon, fresh caught in the adjoining stream, fowls, and a good slice of Cheshire cheese, soon set our gastronomic capabilities at ease. Porter—some of Guinness’s best—and a glorious jorum of whisky and water, moistened our clay, and comforted our inward man. None of your wishy-washy whisky, or poor pale limpid compound, such as you buy in London; but some of the real potheen, just arrived from Wicklow—thick, yellow, oily, and slow to come out of its narrow-necked bottle. And then such a bouquet!—none but a genuine smuggler ever tasted the like. ’Twas a thing to be tasted, not described,—the real nectar of the Druids—if not of the Gods. Being somewhat fortified by these stout appliances, and having discussed half-a-dozen of Pontet’s best Havannahs, we mounted the rickety stairs that led through the lofts of our host’s dwelling to a goodly dormitory at the further end. And here the worthy man had really set out for us his best bed: all the little china and plaster images were ranged in prime order on the mantel-piece; and pictures of the Queen of Sheba and the Prodigal Son adorned the walls with unfading brilliancy. The bed looked as clean as ever we saw a bed in our lives; there was an odour of lavender about the room, and we were soon between the sheets, lost in dreamy oblivion.

We awoke: ’twas a lovely morning, with the earliest sun shining brightly in through the lattice; and we thought in our emotion to spring out of bed. Off went the bed-clothes at a bound, and we sat erect!—but how shall we describe our horror? We had gone to bed more or less white—more or less European in the tinge of our skin: we awoke of a glaring red, or, where the crimson dye was less vivid, we bore a mottled appearance, like a speckled toad. And, as Gulliver once lay among the Lilliputians, who ran from him, on his stirring, in frightened thousands, so there were now our accursed night visitants scampering away from us in every direction, possible and impossible, by thousands—nay, by myriads. The bed was literally _brown_ with them; and ever, as we moved a limb, fresh gangs of latent devourers fled from beneath, and scoured across the sheets. They had lost the supernatural form our dreams had given them, and assumed the more homely one of ordinary fleas—of fleas of all sizes from a pea to a pin’s head! Old Nereus gave us some relief, for we rushed into his arms as soon as doors could be opened, and bolts forced out of their sockets; but, for many a long day after, we bore about us a vivid impression of our visitants at Aberdaron.

Do not, therefore, venture to sleep in a Welsh cottage; nor scarcely in a farm-house: trust yourself only to an inn,—your chances of sound rest and an untenanted bed are at least more favourable there;—but if ever you are benighted and forced to remain away from headquarters, make up your mind fairly to bivouac it amid the fern and the heather, or else sit up at your vigils by your host’s fire-side. The chirping cricket and the purring cat shall then be your sole companions.

We might detain you till doomsday with these “incidents of travel;” but we shall leave you to make your own experiments;—yet, ere you venture into the wilds of Taffyland, peruse and carry with you for your use and edification the following:—

TRIADS FOR TRAVELLERS.

Three mountains that every body goes up: Snowdon, Cadair Idris, and Penmaen Mawr.

Three mountains that nobody will repent going up: Holyhead Mountain, Carn Madryn, and the Breiddin.

Three mountains that nobody goes up: Plinlimmon, Arrenig, and Carnedd Llewelyn.

Three castles that every body sees: Caernarvon, Conwy, and Harlech.

Three castles that every body ought to see: Beaumarais, Criccaeth, and Denbigh.

Three castles that nobody sees: Flint, Dolwyddelan, and Castell Prysor.

Three wells that every body should go and drink from: Holywell, Wygfair, and Ffynnon Beuno.

The three great waterfalls of Caernarvonshire: Rhaiadr-y-Wenol, the Falls of the Conwy, and the Falls of the Ogwen.

The three great waterfalls of Merionethshire: Pistill-y-Cain, Rhaiadr-y-Mawddach, and Rhaiadr ddu.

The three grandest scenes in Wales: Llyn Idwal, Y-Glas Llyn, and Pen-y-Cil.

The three sweetest scenes in North Wales: Beddgelert, Tan-y-Bwlch, and the Banks of the Menai.

The three beautiful lakes: Llyn Gwynant, Llyn Peris, and Llyn Tegid.

Three vales that every body ought to see: the Vale of Ffestiniog, the Vale of Llanrwst, and the Vale of Dolgelly.

The three rich vales: the Vale of the Clwyd, the Vale of the Dee, and the Vale of the Severn.

Three passes that every body ought to go through: the Pass of Llanberis, the Pass of Pont Aberglaslyn, and the Pass of Nantfrancon.

Three good pools for anglers: Llyn Tegid, Lyn Ogwen, and Llyn Cwlid.

Three good rivers for fishermen: the Dee, the Conwy, and the Vyrniw.

The three finest abbeys of North Wales: Valle Crucis, Cymmer, and Basingwerk.

The three finest churches in North Wales: Wrexham, Gresford, and Mold.

The three bridges of North Wales: Conwy Bridge, Menai Bridge, and Llanrwst Bridge.

Three out-of-the-way places that people should go to: Aberdaron, Amlwch, and Dinas Mowddwy.

Three islands that are worth visiting; Puffin Island, Bardsey Island, and the South Stack.

Three places that no man dares go to the end of; Twll Du in the Llidr, Cilan Point in Llyn, and Sarn Badric off Barmouth.

Three things that nobody knows the end of; a Welchman’s pedigree, a Welchwoman’s tongue, and the landlord’s bill at ——.

Three things, without which no pedestrian should adventure into Wales; a stout pair of shoes, a light wallet, and a waterproof cape. (Some learned travellers have proposed to substitute “stick” for “wallet” in this Triad, but the fact is that, when you go to Wales, you may cut your stick.)

The three companions of the Welsh tourist; a telescope, a sketch book, and a fishing rod.

The three luxuries of travelling in Wales; a stout pony, a pleasant companion, and plenty of money.

Three things which, who ever visits Wales, is sure to take away with him; worn-out shoes, a shocking bad hat, and a delightful recollection of the country.

Three things without which no man can enjoy travelling in Wales; good health, good spirits, and good humour.

The three nastiest things in Wales; buttermilk, cwrw dda, and bacon and eggs.

Three things that the tourist should. _not_ do; travel in the dark—wait in doors because it may be a rainy day—and try and keep his feet dry.

The three qualifications for properly pronouncing the Welsh language; a cold in the head, a knot in the tongue, and a husk of barley in the throat.

The three languages which a man may speak in Wales when he does not know Welsh: that of the Chinese, that of the Cherokees, and that of the Houhnyhms.

The three languages which will carry a man all over Wales without knowing a word of Welsh; that of the arms, that of the eyes, and that of the pocket—Farewell! dear reader, _nos-dda-wch_!

LIFE AND TIMES OF LORD HARDWICKE.[20]

The Law of England forms the most remarkable characteristic of the country. The Law is the spirit of the national liberty, the guardian of the national religion, and the foundation of the national government. Britain has the proud distinction of being almost the only country on earth, where no act of arbitrary power can be suffered—where no man’s person, property, or conscience, can be subjected to insult with impunity—and where every man has _rights_, and all are alike under the safeguard of Law.

We propose to give a rapid sketch of the history of this great principle in England.

It is singular that the most intellectual nation of the ancient world—Greece—has not left us any system of law. Cicero speaks with professional scorn of all jurisprudence except the Roman. He would not have spoken thus of the Mosaic law, if he had known it. But one of the most extraordinary circumstances of the Hebrew commonwealth, is the general ignorance of its incomparable institutions, which prevailed among the most active inquirers of the northern world. But law existed from the earliest periods in Greece, though its name was often and curiously changed. In the time of Homer, the name of law was _Themis_, or establishment. In the time of Hesiod, the name was _Nomos_, or distribution. In after times, it was _Dikè_, or justice. The cause of the Greek want of system was said to be the _number_ of judges in their courts, which rendered the decision rather matter of popular sentiment than of fixed rule.

The systematic nature of the Roman law arose from there being in general but _one_ judge in each court. The two prætors—the one for the city, and the other for the external jurisdiction—were annually appointed, and were accustomed, on entering on their offices, to state the rules on which they intended to act. Those rules became gradually embodied, and finally formed the groundwork of the Roman law.

In the language of Rome, Law was _Lex_, from _Lego_, as the proposal of the rule was _read_ by the magistrate to the assembly of the people. The Anglo-Saxon name was Laga, from _Legen_, to lay down—from which comes our word Law.

Law in England ascends as high as the time of the Druids, who, however, had no written code. But they seem to have left us the custom of Gavelkind—the division of the property of an intestate between the widow and the children, and the burning of a widow found guilty of her husband’s murder.

The Roman, Pictish, and Saxon invasions, with the Heptarchy, filled the country with a general confusion of laws, until the time of Alfred. This great king and man of genius undertook to remodel the whole constitution of the West-Saxon monarchy—a design, for whose execution he has been praised by all the philosophic lawyers, as exhibiting the highest sagacity.

The principle of his reform was, to make every man answerable to an immediate superior for his personal conduct, and that of his neighbourhood. For this purpose, England was divided into tithings and hundreds, and perhaps into counties, all being under a supreme magistrate—the king. He also collected into a volume all the customs of the various districts, which he issued for the guidance of the several country courts. Those in their turn were liable to account to the king’s courts, which were kept in the royal household, and which travelled with this great king, whose life seems to have been chiefly occupied in traversing the kingdom as high minister of law, and teaching its principles to his people.

The Danish invasions shook this code, but had not the power to crush it. It was renewed by King Edgar, a man of vigour and talents. The digest was completed by his grandson, Edward the Confessor—the whole forming the common law, or law _common_ to the whole realm.

The principles of the Saxon law, which were the principles of their fathers in the German forests, and were the principles of truth and nature, were briefly these:—The establishment of the Wittena-gemote, or assembly of wise men—a species of parliament, without which no new law could be made, or old one changed; the election of all magistrates by the people; the hereditary descent of the crown; the commutation of capital punishments, on the first offence, for a fine; military service in proportion to land; forfeiture of land for treason, but _not_ corruption of blood; the descent of lands to all the male’s equally, without right of primogeniture, (a rule unworthy of Saxon wisdom;) the use of county courts in ordinary cases, with courts held before the king in the higher; last, and most important of all, trial by jury (though trial was also held by ordeal.)

Of those principles, some were evidently unfit for subsequent civilisation; and some refined themselves. But the whole system, when compared with the old Roman code, and with many of the codes of Europe which followed it, exhibits an extraordinary evidence of the manliness of feeling, and justness of conception, existing among the Saxon ancestry of England.

In the eleventh century, the Norman Conquest burst in upon the country with the force of an inundation, and swept before it throne, liberty, and _laws_. The influence of Rome now began to act powerfully on the people. Ecclesiastical courts were formed, separate from the civil, and the Romish priesthood were gradually exempted from the secular power.

Another formidable innovation was in the “royal forests.” The Norman kings were “mighty hunters,” and whole counties were stripped of their population, to give room for beasts of chase. They transplanted the forest laws of the Continent into England, and the penalties of their game laws were terrible. In the Saxon times, though no man was allowed “to kill the king’s deer,” yet every man was allowed to kill the game on his own estate. But the Norman law made the king the proprietor of _all game_, and no man could kill bird of the air, or beast of the field, without express royal license, by a grant of _free-warren_, which was more for the purpose of preserving the game than giving a right to the subject.

With one exception, the Norman invasion was an unequivocal calamity. That exception was the right of primogeniture—a right essential to the establishment of a nobility, to the permanence of families in a condition of honour, and to the prevention of a gradual pauperism and degradation of society, as the lands became divided more and more. In all others, it was a sudden and mischievous extinction of all popular rights, and of all the principles of national progress. It made law arbitrary by curtailing the power of the county courts, and giving it to the king’s Norman justiciers, who thus became masters of every thing, and, by their Norman subtleties, altogether confused the national law. It introduced the feudal law, which was tyrannical in its essence. It almost excluded the national language from all public use, Norman-French alone being used in all the courts. It introduced the trial by combat, the origin of that custom which, under the name of duelling, authorises murder, provided the murdered man has previously had formal notice that his murder was intended; and also, that he had a chance of adding the murder of his adversary to his own. And to this Norman tyranny was due the whole long series of ruinous wars, which involved both England and France in infinite wretchedness, for little less than a hundred and fifty years.

The Saxon law continued in this state of humiliation until the reign of John, with slight occasional advances towards freedom. But, in this reign, the severity of the forest laws roused the barons into insurrection, and the King was forced to sign the two famous regulations, the Forest Charter, and the Great Charter. The former diminished some of the cruelties of the forest law, and the latter laid the foundations of the Constitution, by restoring the general principles of the Saxon law. It protected the subject from the severity of royal fines and royal loans, and considerably narrowed the wasteful expenditure of the throne. In private rights, it established the testamentary power of the husband over part of his estates, and the law of dowery. In public police, it established a uniformity of weights and measures, gave protection to commercial strangers, and forbade the alienation of lands by mortmain. In matters of public justice, it forbade all denials and delays of justice, established the court of Common Pleas at Westminster, to relieve the suitor from following the courts round the country; directed assizes and annual circuits to be held, and appointed inquests. It established the liberties of London, and of all the cities, towns, and ports of England. And finally, and by its noblest act of power, it declared the protection of every man in his life, liberty, and property, unless convicted by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. This was perhaps the noblest document ever published by a people, and well deserves its name of MAGNA CHARTA.

In the Popish controversy of our day, the existence of Magna Charta has been adduced as a proof of the freedom encouraged under Popery. But it is forgotten that the whole proceeding was instantly denounced by the Pope, and laid under anathema. It was a recurrence to the laws of their Saxon ancestors, demanded by the severe necessities of the time, and originating in impulses of human nature too strong for the bondage of the national superstition.

The glorious Reformation in the sixteenth century produced a hidden and powerful change in the aspect of English law. The Papal supremacy fell, and relieved the law of a most intolerable obstruction. The crown became the true head of the government. Man no longer gave a divided allegiance to an English monarch and an Italian monk; and the appointment of the bishops was thenceforth taken from foreign hands, and invested in the sovereign of the realm. Freedom now began to make palpable progress; for although the prerogative was still unabated, and was often tyrannical in the reigns of Henry, Mary, and Elizabeth, there was a growing tendency to its abatement; and its use by Elizabeth was in general so lenient, as to be scarcely perceptible.

A general change in English society also powerfully co-operated with this progress. Peace had brought commerce, and commerce wealth to the merchant: the lower orders, of course, shared in the general prosperity, and their condition became more important in the national eyes, and in their own. The nobles, disdaining commerce, became unable to compete with the new generation of opulence, and dissipated their estates, which fell into the hands of the citizens. On the other hand, the throne, enriched by the confiscation of the monasteries, became hourly more independent of the barons; and the contest for power was evidently to be thenceforth determined between the throne and the people.

The glories of Elizabeth, her services to religion, and her gentle exercise of the sceptre, had reconciled the nation to the prerogative. But the accession of James awoke the nation: his manners were offensive, his habits were unmanly, he wanted the dignity of Elizabeth on the throne, and he wanted the spirit of her government among the people. His death left a legacy of revolution. His son had been intended by nature for private life, but he was marked by misfortune to be a king. Brave without fortitude, and graceful without sincerity, he would have made an incomparable figure in his own court, if he had not been encumbered with the high duties of a throne. Charles was destined to be undone, from the time when he began to revive the obsolete statutes of the forest law, sustain the severities of the Star Chamber and High Commission courts, and raise arbitrary taxes in the shape of tonnage and poundage. The disuse of parliaments alienated from him every lover of liberty. Hampden, a name deserving of all honour in the history of freedom, struck the first blow at the new fabric of tyranny, by his resistance to ship-money. The King himself hurried on his ruin, by concessions as precipitate as his demands had been unjustifiable; and this most melancholy of all struggles ended in the most melancholy of all consummations—a military tyranny.

The restoration of the Stuarts gave us the Habeas Corpus Act—an illustrious memorial of national good sense, and of national security. Magna Charta had gone no further than to forbid imprisonment, contrary to law. The Habeas Corpus gave the man power to release himself, and punish his injurers.

The glorious Revolution of 1688 gave another impulse to the whole system of English liberty. It pronounced the authority of law to be supreme. It gave us the Bill of Rights, the Toleration Act, and the Act of Settlement. It justified the doctrine of necessary resistance; it regulated trials for high treason; it modelled the Civil List; it made the administration of the income accountable to parliament; and constituted the judges independent of the throne.

The constitution was now complete, or if not, all the improvements still necessary to make it such, were prepared in the nature of the noble plan which was thus laid down by the nation. The changes which have since occurred in the general law have been scarcely more than attempts to simplify its proceedings. The changes in parliamentary law have been more perilous, through the Reform Bill of 1831 following the Popish Bill of 1829. The change in international law has been marked by a feature whose peril seems too imminent, yet whose practical effect is still to be ascertained,—the establishment of direct diplomatic intercourse with the Popedom. Protestantism is justly alarmed at this sudden abandonment of one of the fundamental principles of 1688; at the direct encouragement which it must give to all the demands of Popery in England; at the triumph which, for the first time in two centuries, it gives to the factious spirit of Popery; at the aid which it may give to its superstition; and at the national hazards which may be involved in the rash attempt to subdue Irish violence by Papal instrumentality, and even at the political perils which may result from the authorised presence of a Popish Italian at the court of a Protestant sovereign. The palliatives of the measure are certainly trifling. The ambassador is not to be an ecclesiastic, and the Pope is not to be called the “sovereign pontiff.” But a Jesuit may be the same in a plain coat and in a red hat, and the Pope is the _master_ of the Papist, call him by what name we will. Such is statesmanship in the nineteenth century!

The Lord Chancellor Hardwicke was the son of a country attorney, who was probably a respectable man——for he was needy, though the town-clerk, and seems to have had some friends, though in the profession of the law. The biographer labours hard to prove that he had ancestors—a matter which may be conceded to all men—and that, if some of them were poor, some were rich; a point perfectly within the possibilities of human things. He contends further, that a _branch_ of the name of Yorke had held the mayoralty of Calais in the fifteenth century. But as he gives us no knowledge of the _distance_ of that branch from the trunk, and as all have had kings as well as beggars among their progenitors, being the common descendants of Adam, there is not much use in those discoveries, and not the slightest balm to the hurt pride of the Hardwickes; for the whole dwindles down to the distressful but common conclusion, that in the seventeenth century the family were on the decline, and all their honours were diminished into the humility of a provincial solicitor.

But we come to wiser information. The first mention of the future chancellor is in the following document in his personal journal:—

“Philip Yorke, born at Dover the 1st day of December 1690, and baptised on Thursday 9th of December.”

The learned biographer wastes some more of his paragraphs in proving “that poverty is no disgrace;” but it must be acknowledged that it is neither comfort nor credit, and that it would have done no harm whatever to the attorney, if he had been in possession of a clear thousand a-year.

His son Philip was naturally intended to follow his own profession, and about his sixteenth year was sent to learn it in the office of a solicitor of the name of Salkeld, brother of the celebrated sergeant. It was a rather curious circumstance, that of the young men then in Salkeld’s office, there were two future Lord Chancellors, a Master of the Rolls, and a future Lord Chief Baron: Jocelyn, subsequently Chancellor of Ireland; Strange, Master of the Rolls; Parker, Chief of the Exchequer; and Yorke, who was destined to act as high a part in administration as in law.

There are some slight suspicions that young Yorke had been _articled_ to Salkeld, and a _clerk_ to his brother the sergeant. But against these _imputations_ the biographer battles with a desperate fidelity. It is a pity to see so much zeal thrown away; for the Great Chancellor, as he was deservedly called, would not have been an atom the less great if he had been _articled_ to the one brother and _clerk_ to the other. He might have been only the more entitled to praise for the eminence to which he rose. We respect the aristocracy so far as it ought to be respected; but we are not at all inclined to look for the pedigree of talents in the dusty records of a worn-out genealogy, or feel that the slightest degree of additional honour attaches to learning and integrity, by the best blazonry of the Herald’s Office.

The young student must have soon given evidence of his capacity; for Salkeld, a man sagacious in his estimate of his pupils, recommended that he should try the larger branch of the profession, and put his name on the books of the Temple, which was done Nov. 29, 1708. We have then a dissertation on the propriety of keeping Terms by dining in the hall of the Temple. This, too, is so much wisdom thrown away. A good dinner is, under all circumstances, a good thing. It requires as little apology as any conceivable act of human existence. In the hall, the young barrister is at least in the company of gentlemen, which he perhaps would not be, but for that contingency; if he does not learn much law, he at least learns something of life; and if he has a spark of ambition in his frame, it may be blown into a flame by the sight of so many portly Chief Justices, and Lord Chief Barons, with an occasional glimpse of a retired Lord Chancellor, reposing on a sinecure of £5000 a-year.

Another weakness of the biographer is an eloquent effort to _prove_ that a barrister, whose talents raise him to the summit of his profession, is but little the worse for the want of a university education. It would have been quite sufficient to say, that Philip Yorke rose to be the first lawyer of his age, and Lord Chancellor, without having ever set foot within the walls of a college.

Yorke, at the commencement of his career, was fortunate in an introduction through Parker, one of his fellow-students at Salkeld’s, to Lord Macclesfield, Lord Chief Justice, to whose son it is said that he was engaged as law-tutor. The Chief Justice received him at his table, took an evident interest in his progress, and patronised him on every important occasion. Yorke’s manners were as gentle as his intellect was acute; and such a man would naturally be received with favour at the table of a person so high in rank as Lord Macclesfield. But it has never been said that he humiliated himself for that honour; and through life he had a quiet way of gaining his point, of which a curious instance was given in his earliest days.

The wife of Salkeld was a thrifty personage, who, evidently thinking that her husband’s pupils might be employed in other operations than scribbling parchments, occasionally sent him on her messages, and even to execute some of her commissions in Covent Garden Market. Yorke obeyed, but on giving in the account of his expenditure on those occasions, there appeared frequent entries of coach hire, for “celery and turnips from Covent Garden,” a “barrel of oysters from the fishmonger’s,” &c. &c. Salkeld, perceiving this, remarked to his wife on the expensive nature of this “saving,” and Yorke was no longer employed as her conveyancer of celery and turnips.

He had also some pleasantry as well as point, of which an anecdote was told by the late Jeremy Bentham. Powis, one of the judges of the King’s Bench, one day at a lawyers’ dinner expressed to Yorke his “surprise” at his having got into so much business in so short a period. “I conceive,” said the old fool, “that you must have published some book, or be about publishing something; for look, d’ye see? (which seems to have been a favourite phrase of his,) there is scarcely a cause before the court but you are employed in it.” Yorke answered with a smile, “that he had indeed some thoughts of publishing, but that he had yet made no progress in his book. Powis, priding himself on his sagacity, begged to know its nature. He was answered that it was a “Versification of Coke upon Littleton.” The judge begged a specimen, on which Yorke recited—

“He that holdeth his lands in fee
Need neither to quake nor to shiver,
I humbly conceive; for _look, do you see_,
They are his and his heirs for ever.”

It may fairly be presumed that a laugh went round the table; but Powis was so fully convinced that he had hit upon the true reason, that on meeting Yorke some months after, he inquired gravely about the progress of his volume.

However, Powis seems to have been a mark for the wits, as we find by some lines on the Bench, by the memorable Duke of Wharton:—

“When Powis sums up a cause without a blunder;
And honest Price shall trim and truckle under;
When Eyre his haughtiness shall lay aside,
And Tracy’s generous soul shall swell with pride,
Then will I cease my charmer to adore,
And think of love and politics no more.”

Yorke was now beginning to feel his way in his profession; and if poverty had been his original stimulus, he had a fair prospect of exchanging it for wealth. The _dictum_ of Thurlow on this subject is proverbial. When asked by some friend to advise his son as to “the way he should go” to rise at the bar, that rough functionary said, “Let him spend all his fortune—then marry, and spend his wife’s fortune; and then let him return to his books, and _he may_ have some chance of business.”

But Yorke, without spending either his or his wife’s fortune, had already taken the first step to official distinction by entering Parliament, May 2, 1719. He was chosen member for Lewes in Sussex. The simplicity of this transaction affords a curious contrast to the performances of the present day. The Duke of Newcastle sent a letter to the “free and independent electors,” evidently directing them to elect his friend Mr Yorke. The letter was duly answered by an address from one hundred and thirty-two electors, in this style:—

“We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, the constables and inhabitants of the borough of Lewes, having heard your Grace’s letter publicly read, do not only herein return your Grace our hearty thanks for the _honour_ you have done us in recommending so fit a person as Mr Yorke, to serve as one of our representatives in parliament for this town, for the present vacancy, but also beg leave to assure your Grace, that we do unanimously and entirely approve of him, and shall be ready _on all occasions_ to show the regard we have to the favour your Grace has pleased to lay upon us.

“Your Grace’s most obliged and
“Obedient humble servants.”

The orthography of those honest people differs from modern penmanship,—but the _principle_ of the affair, even in our polished day of liberalism, probably differs no more than a close borough of the year 1719 differs from an open borough of 1848. The successful barrister, and promising member of parliament, now made the most important step which any man can make, and took to himself a wife. It would be unfair to say that in this instance he was guided by the calculations which are so often charged upon his profession. But there can be no doubt, that whatever might be the pleasure of his new connexion, it had all the merit of prudence. The lady was a widow, young and pretty, and with a fortune of £6000, which at that time was probably equal to twice the sum in our day. But probably a charm of no inferior importance was her being the niece of Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls. The whole transaction was sufficiently juridical. Sir Joseph had sent a letter with Yorke, to be presented to Mr Charles Cox, the father of the lady, who had married Mary, the eldest daughter of Lord Somers. On reading the letter, the old gentleman desired Yorke to “leave his rental and writings” with him; and upon Yorke’s acknowledging that he had neither, Cox expressed his astonishment that his brother-in-law, Sir Joseph, “should have recommended such a person to him.” On writing to Sir Joseph on the subject, he received an answer, “not to hesitate a moment in accepting the offer, for that the gentleman who made it, and was now content with his daughter’s £6000, would in another year expect _three or four times the sum with a wife_!” The letter had its effect, and the marriage took place.

Yorke then took a house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and began to go circuit; there his biographer stoutly and justly defends him against the imputation of “intriguing for business,” alleged in Lord Campbell’s “Lives of the Chancellors;” an imputation which has not been sustained by any part of his subsequent conduct. For, though charged with singular anxiety to realise a fortune, there is no evidence of any meanness in its pursuit. And his professional distinction, his natural talent, and his rank as a member of parliament, (a matter of high consideration in those days) rendered his possession of business natural and easy.

But he was soon to have official distinction. When going the Western Circuit, he received a letter from the Lord Chancellor, announcing to him “his Majesty’s pleasure to select him for Solicitor General;” an office into which he was sworn in March 1720, at the age of thirty!

Much professional dissatisfaction was exhibited on this promotion of so young a member of the bar; and for some period the attorneys exhibited an equal reluctance to employ him in important causes. But, as a leader, he soon showed qualities which had been partially concealed in his inferior rank, and reconciled at once the public and the profession to his precedency. It has been remarked, that some of the most distinguished judges have _not_ been successful in the lower rank of their profession, while it has not rarely happened that the most distinguished advocates have failed as judges. The qualifications for the bench, and those for the bar, or even for the leadership of the bar, have considerable differences, and the management of the great principles of law is evidently a separate task from the dexterity of detail.

The father of the Solicitor General, who had the happiness to see his son’s promotion, died in the following year. It appears that Yorke, who was now Sir Philip, kept up a constant and kind correspondence with his family, which was, of course, strengthened by his having obtained the recordership of Dover, an appointment which he valued very highly, and retained through life.

The volume contains some striking remarks on the often discussed question—“why lawyers seldom succeed as parliamentary speakers.” And the reason assigned, and truly assigned, is, that lawyers have something else to do. The man who is occupied all day in the courts, has no time for parliamentary subjects. He comes into the House fatigued, and unsupplied with the detail which is _necessary_ to give effect to any address in so business-like an assembly. He merely gives an opinion and sits down. If he attempts more, he generally fails; or his best success is an escape. Thus the two greatest advocates whom England and Ireland have ever seen, Erskine and Curran, were ineffective in parliament—the only distinction being, that Erskine was laughed at, while Curran was laughed with. With these extraordinary men, who had every quality of the orator, and whose vigour of argument took the bench by storm, while the flashes of their imagination threw brilliancy over the dreariest topics, there could be no conceivable source of failure, except in their want of preparation for the peculiar objects of debate.

But there is also another, and an obvious consideration. There are but few orators in the world, and these few are not always either lawyers or members of parliament. But, when the true orator appears, he is _felt_, and he would be felt in an assembly of Esquimaux. He requires no complacency in his audience; he communicates with their spirit, at once. He touches strings which, however unawakened before, are in every living bosom; he finds echoes in the heart, which a thousand other voices might have called on in vain.

At the same time it must be admitted, that the knowledge which law demands, is of high importance to any success which hopes to be _permanent_ in the House; that its nature in the questions constantly coming before an assembly of lawmakers, is indisputable; and that the perfection of a debater would consist in his possessing the knowledge of a lawyer, combined with the taste, talent, and expansive views of a statesman. The lawyers in parliament have always possessed great weight; and though the instances of their arriving at the Premiership are _remarkably_ few, (we recollect but one, the late Mr Perceval,) they have always possessed a large share of parliamentary power.

A case of some peculiarity occurred at this time—it was the proposal to commute the sentence of death on some criminals, on condition of their submitting to inoculation for the small-pox. The case was laid before Raymond and Yorke, the Attorney and Solicitor General; whose answer was in this form;

“The lives of those persons being in the power of his majesty, he may grant a pardon to them on such lawful condition as he may think fit. And, as to this particular condition, we have no objection in point of law; the rather, because the carrying on this practice to perfection, may lead to the general benefit of mankind.”

The small-pox was then almost a plague: it assailed all classes; and some of the royal children, and many of those of the nobility died of it. Its extraordinary power of disfiguring the features of the survivors made it scarcely less dreaded than its mortality. In tropical climates it swept off the population by thousands. Mankind, in our age, cannot be too grateful to the good fortune, or rather to that interposition of providence, which, by giving us the discovery of Vaccination, has at length comparatively freed the world from this most afflicting and most fatal disease.

But Yorke was soon called on to perform other and more difficult duties than those of humanity. The influence of the exiled Stuarts was still powerful. Superstition and self-interest had sustained a close connexion in Great Britain. The manners of the Brunswick line had their share in sustaining this influence. They were singularly unpopular. The first George was coarse in manners, and vulgar in mind. All about him, even to his follies, was imported from Hanover; and he was never able to discover the distinction between an empire and an electorate. The second George was a man of ability; but while he was superior to the habits of his predecessor, he had equally repulsive habits of his own. The king was at once subtle and uncouth, artificial in his designs, yet rude in their execution; clear-headed in his views, yet confused in his government. Germanism clung to him, to the last. He, too, could not discover the distinction between the throne of the first country of Europe, and the sovereignty of a German province. The private history of his court, also, was the reverse of flattering to the morals of his country; and the public feeling often rebuked them with singular vigour of tone.

On the other hand, the misfortunes of the Stuarts, though most amply deserved, had thrown a tinge of romance over their fate; and even their insults to its freedom in religion and constitution were partially forgotten. The chivalric character of the Prince threw an additional interest on his story; and the contrast between a gallant young man, determined to struggle for the throne of his forefathers, and the crafty and egoistical character of the king, offered strong probabilities for the success of an enterprise worthy of a competitor for the crown of England.

On the 12th of May 1722, an announcement appeared in the newspapers, stating that the “Lord Mayor of London had received a letter from Lord Townshend, one of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State, informing him, that the king had received intelligence of a conspiracy, in concert with traitors abroad, to raise a rebellion in favour of the Pretender.”

A few days before, a proclamation had appeared, offering a reward of £500 for the apprehension of one Weston, formerly clerk to Gray’s Inn Chapel. Warrants were immediately issued for the apprehension of many other persons, of whom the principal was Atterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, who was arrested at his deanery in Westminster, carried before the Council, and committed to the Tower.

Shortly after, Lords North and Grey were arrested in the Isle of Wight; and about the same time the principal agent, one Layer, a barrister, was also seized. North was committed to the Tower, where, on his lady’s desiring admission to him, and being refused, he exhibited a specimen of that pleasantry which seems to have belonged to the name. Opening his window, “Madam,” said he, “this is a _convent_ for men, and not for your sex.”

Layer’s trial soon followed. The evidence proved that he had been engaged in a plan for a general insurrection, for the overthrow of the established government, and for bringing in the Chevalier. The king, the prince, and the ministers, were to be seized, the Tower was to be taken, and the army was to be bought over. The correspondence on this subject had been seized at Layer’s chambers, in Southampton Buildings, and was in his handwriting.

An instance of what may be regarded as the etiquette of English law, was given on his trial. The prisoner had been carried to the court at Westminster in fetters, of which he complained to the Chief Justice as an insult. To this it was replied, that he had made an attempt to escape; on which the judge said, that the use of the fetters was justifiable. But, on his being brought into court, his counsel applied to have the fetters taken off; to which the judge replied, “The irons _must_ be taken off: we shall not stir until the irons are taken off.”

The Solicitor General spoke with great effect in reply to the prisoner’s counsel, and Layer was found guilty. He was several times reprieved, in the hope of obtaining evidence sufficient to implicate persons of higher rank, who were strongly suspected, Layer being evidently but an agent. However, he was at length executed.

A bill of pains and penalties was then brought in against the Bishop of Rochester. Among the witnesses in his favour was the celebrated Alexander Pope, who came forward to depose to the Bishop’s domestic habits and studies. But it was remarked, that his performance on this occasion only showed that his abilities were not formed for exhibition in a court of justice. He made but an indifferent figure as a witness: he had but little to say, and that little he blundered.

Atterbury himself, however, made a better display. It having been insinuated that Sir Robert Walpole had tampered with the Bishop’s witnesses, for the purpose of involving other persons of condition, Walpole appeared in person to disavow the charge. Atterbury fastened on him, and exerted all his dexterity to make him contradict himself. “A greater trial of skill,” observed Speaker Onslow, “than this scarcely ever happened between two such combatants,—the one fighting for his reputation, the other for his acquittal.” The bill of pains and penalties was brought in by eighty-seven peers to forty-three. Atterbury was banished; and the following paragraph in one of the journals gives the account of his departure:—

“June 19, 1723.—Yesterday, between twelve and one, the deprived Bishop of Rochester set out from the Tower in the navy barge, and was delivered up to Captain Laurence, commander of the Aldborough man-of-war, lying in Long Reach. Two footmen in purple liveries attended him, himself being in a lay habit of gray cloth. Great numbers of people went to see him take water, many of whom accompanied him down the river in barges and boats. We hear that two messengers went on board the man-of-war, to see him set on shore at Ostend, whence, it is said, he will proceed to Aix-la-Chapelle, after staying some time at Brussels.”

The Bishop, however, was set on shore at Calais, from the violence of the weather, which made the passage to Ostend dangerous; and on being told at landing, that Bolingbroke had received the king’s pardon, and had arrived at the same place on his return to England, he pleasantly said, “Then I am _exchanged_.” Pope observed that “the nation was afraid of being overrun with too much politeness, and could not gain one great genius, but at the expense of another.”

That Bolingbroke was a man of remarkable talent, must be believed from the evidence of his public career. But the fame of Atterbury seems to have had no firmer foundations than his being the intimate of Pope, and a Jacobite. He had the scholarship of an academic, but he gave no exhibition of ability in public life. His sermons are extant, and are trifling. As a Jacobite, he must have been incapable of comprehending the value of liberty, regardless of Protestantism, and faithless to his king. His mitre alone probably saved him from a severer punishment than exile. But the simple fact that a Protestant bishop conspired to bring back a dynasty pledged to Popery, and notorious for persecution, is enough to consign his memory to historic shame.