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if it pressed hard, it kept temptations under, and induced habits of diligent application, patience, and temperance, which ultimately procured for the possessor an amplitude of fortune and honours.

After going through many trials and difficulties, Mr. Scott was called to the bar earlier than usual, by obtaining the degreé of master of arts at Oxford in 1773. But though admitted to practise, he had yet much to endure before he could make his way to ease and affluence. He at first chose the northern circuit, thinking, no doubt, that as all his and his lady's friends resided there, some chance of business would be afforded through that interest. In this, however, he was disappointed, for in three assizes he never received a single brief. At last he was employed as junior counsel in an action at York, having for his principal Sir Thomas Davenport. When the cause came on, the leader was absent, and the judge called upon Mr. Scott to proceed. He would have excused himself; but his lordship was peremptory, and the cause terminated in favour of Mr. Scott's client. Luckily the action was one which excited a lively interest in the county; and it was also one that afforded a good opportunity for the display of legal eloquence. Mr. Scott did justice to the subject, and drew public attention so much upon himself, that when he came to Carlisle he was retained as principal in a cause of still greater importance. Here also he was successful; and from this time he never wanted briefs.

In London, however, business was still but slow; for now, as if with a presentiment of what would happen, he resolved to devote himself wholly to equity practice. This was shortly after the appointment of lord Thurlow to the great seal, which had for some time been held in commission. Under that powerful and stern judge, the court of chancery soon assumed a very different form from what it had been; and all the barristers were soon made sensible that talent and diligence only would be respected by the presiding chief, whose very looks struck terror into the attendants upon his fiat; and of whom it might truly be said, that "Trembling they stood, while Jove assumed the throne."

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ful of all that passed, and diligent in noting every case, though very rarely employed by the solicitors, because he was as yet but little known; it being a pretty old rule, never to engage an advocate who has not the ear of the court.

It was scarcely possible, however, that so much assiduity should escape notice; and though Thurlow was slow in rewarding, it was not for want of discerning and appreciating merit. He observed Mr. Scott, and was well pleased with his unwearied industry in taking notes of all that occurred, whether retained in a cause or not.

At last the chancellor took an opportu nity one day to ask the young counsellor, as it were by surprise, to assist his memory in regard to some particulars of a cause then put down for hearing. The call was promptly, satisfactorily, and respectfully answered: for which the chancellor thanked him, and said, more kindly than was his custom, that he should be glad to hear him frequently. This was enough. Briefs now came in abundantly; and from that period the tide continued to flow in an uninterrupted course of prosperity. The honours of the profession came on with the same rapidity. The privilege of wearing a silk gown, as king's counsel, preluded his ap pointment to the office of solicitor-general, with the honour of knighthood in 1788; and in 1793 he succeeded Sir Archibald Macdonald in the arduous station of attorney-general.

This was a most critical and awful period, and peculiarly one of difficulty to the law officers of the crown. The recent convul→ sions in France had given a shock to all the political establishments in Europe; and in this country numerous societies were formed avowedly on the republican principles of liberty and equality. The necessity of putting down these institutions was obvious, and the government accordingly determined to act vigorously on the occasion. The privy council caused several persons to be arrested, and the attorney-general received orders to proceed against them for high treason. Had a minor course been adopted, no doubt can be entertained of the result; but though it was satisfactorily proved that

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persons who were brought to the bar on this charge, had been guilty of seditious practices, the juries hesitated to bring in a verdict affecting human life, upon constructive evidence.

The acquittal of these state prisoners was attended with a circumstance whimsically curious and characteristic. While the attorney-general made it a rule to go and return as privately as he could in a hackney-coach,

Mr. Erskine, the leading advocate for the defence, always went in his own carriage. At the close of the business, the mob, to shew their regard for the popular counsel, took the horses from his coach, and drew it triumphantly to Sergeant's Inn. Thus far vanity might be gratified; but it was dearly purchased, for the horses were stolen, and could never after be recovered.

To return to Sir John Scott; his first election into parliament was for the borough of Weobley, for which place he continued to sit till 1796, when he became the colleague of Sir Francis Burdett, as the representative of Boroughbridge.

At length, on the death of Sir James Eyre, lord chief justice of the court of common pleas, Sir John Scott attained that distinction which he may truly be said to have earned by his laborious services, no less than by his professional merits. On this occasion he was also elevated to the peerage, by the title of Baron Eldon of Eldon in the county of Durham, his patent being dated July 18th, 1799. In this court, however, he did not sit two years; for on the resignation of the Earl of Rosslyn, at the beginning of 1801, Lord Eldon was appointed to the chancellorship, a situation for which, of all others, perhaps he was best fitted by his previous studies and line of practice.

This nomination of his lordship to the highest legal dignity in the kingdom gave universal satisfaction to the profession, on account of the tried diligence and ability of the new chancellor, who, to the inflexible integrity of Thurlow, added the polished urbanity of his immediate predecessor; while in depth of technical knowledge he surpassed both.

In 1805, Lord Eldon sustained a severe visitation in the death of his eldest son, the honourable John Scott, who had not long before been elected into parliament, and who married the daughter of Sir Matthew White Ridley, by whom he left issue.

While lamenting this loss, his lordship experienced another, which affected him very much, and for a short space sent him into private life. This was the death of Mr. Pitt, with whom he had been closely connected above twenty years. That event, however, would not have deprived the public of Lord Eldon's services, had it not been for the pertinacious obstinacy of his old friend Erskine, who made it a point, with his party, that the great seal should be his portion in the general division of loaves and fishes. Mr. Fox remonstrated, lord Grenville demurred, and the king was resolute in opposing the advance

ment of a man who had never filled any preparatory office, and who was, besides, a total stranger to the court of chancery. The arrangement of the new ministry remained at a stand for some days; during which all the friends of Erskine endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose. But he was bent upon the object of his ambition, and his associates, by way of compromise, appointed two chancery practitioners, Pigot and Romilly to the offices of attorney and solicitor general, which, as the sagacious monarch observed, was making a bad matter worse.

The conduct of Lord Eldon, on this occasion, deserves particular notice, and it will ever redound to his honour. When the appointment of his successor was fixed, knowing that Lord Erskine was entirely unacquainted with the forms of proceeding in the court over which he was to preside, he offered to come down every morning, and to assist him in the private room. This was gladly accepted by the new chancellor, and Lord Eldon was punctual to his promise; regularly going to Lincoln's Inn for two or three weeks, by which means the business of the court went on, without giving dissatisfaction to the pleaders or solicitors.

Still many wished for a change more congenial to the peculiar constitution of the court; and this soon after took place. The conduct of the leading members of the administration, in endeavouring to carry the Catholic bill by a side wind, so offended the king, that their dismissal and that of their colleagues followed as a matter of course. Lord Eldon now resumed his seat in the court of chancery, and on the woolsack of the upper house of parliament; both which situations he continued to hold without interruption above twenty years.

In 1801, Lord Eldon was unanimously chosen high steward of the university of Oxford; and, on the death of the duke of Portland, in 1809, he offered himself as a candidate for the chancellorship of that seat of learning. Though vigorously sup ported by the whole strength of his own college, and several others, the powerful influence of Christ Church and Brasen-nose prevailed in favour of Lord Grenville, which was the more extraordinary, considering the decided difference between that nobleman and the body of the university on the Catholic question. It is no less remarkable, that the same learned society, who elected for their chancellor a peer of opposite principles to their own, should, about the same time, reject the pretensions of Mr. Canning to represent them in the

house of commons, for no other reason than his uniformly voting in favour of what is called Catholic emancipation. Oxford, however, does not stand alone in respect to inconsistency on a subject of so much vital importance; for the sister university has a chancellor exactly of the same sentiments as Lord Grenville, and also a representative in the lower house, who constantly supports a cause which in the avowed judgment of his learned constituents, is radically injurious to the Protestant interests and the constitution of the

country.

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Our limits are too contracted to permit us to give even a minute sketch of the public life and private virtues of Lord Eldon. We must leave that task to be executed by abler hands, when the veil of mortality shall have thrown into oblivion the miserable attempts to depreciate his worth, and to misinterpret those actions which will command the admiration of future ages.

The high estimation in which his lordship was held by the late king is well known; and his present majesty has given two striking instances of his respect for the ex-chancellor; one in spontaneously creating him an earl, soon after his accession to the throne, and the other in delivering to him, with his own hand, a rich vase of silver gilt, on the retirement of his lordship from office.

The resignation of Lord Eldon has been brutally stigmatized by a set of mongrel patriots, as an insult to the sovereign; but we are grossly in error, if the donation just mentioned be not a proof of royal regard on account of that very measure. Thus much we do happen to know, and fearlessly declare it, that the great constitutional principle of Protestant ascendancy, which his lordship has invariably supported, is an immutable one in the breast of the present, as it was in that of the late sovereign.

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Lord Eldon has openly and constantly resisted the demands of the Romanists; but for this he ought not to be vilified, especially by those who profess an attachment to civil and religious freedom. The noble and learned Lord has only acted as his predecessors Somers and King would have done under such circumstances; and they were as great friends to toleration as Locke, who knew how to draw a line of distinction between liberty of conscience and the right of power. The one is inalienable, but the other no man nor any body of men can legally claim; because it is a trust for the public, and ought not, therefore, to be placed where it may be

perverted to the national injury. On this ground, Lord Eldon, in common with a great number of upright statesmen, has hitherto opposed all further concessions to the Catholics; and though, for so doing, he has been stigmatized as a bigot, every Englishman, and sincere Protestant, will respect his motives, and deem him entitled to public gratitude.

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Of the late Chancellor's conscientiousness, the following instance, as related by himself, before he went out of office, is a striking proof.-Speaking of the legality of counsel's opinion, he said that it mainly depended upon the nature of the case, and the honesty of the solicitor. Unless the custom had been materially changed from what it used to be when he was at the bar, nothing could be more improper. It was in his time no uncommon practice for the attorneys to lay just as much of a case before counsel as would ensure the precise opinion they wanted, to induce their clients to prosecute the suit. Many years ago, when his lordship had chamber practice, he determined, if possible, to put an end to this system, by informing the attorneys, when he returned the briefs to them with his opinion thereon,that if the whole case was fairly stated, he had decided according to the best of this abilities, but if, on the contrary, it was a mere ex-parte statement, made up to serve a purpose, and material parts were kept back, his opinion was not to be depended upon. His lordship soon found the effect of this plain dealing, in the abridgment of his business.

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This sketch, which might easily have been extended to a considerable volume, we must here close, hoping that the subject of it may long live to enjoy the otium cum dignitate, he has so well merited by a life usefully spent, and for the greater part of it in the service of his country.

Lord Eldon has, by his lady, who is still living, a son, the honourable William Henry John Scott, and two daughters, one married to Mr. Banks, and the other to Mr. Repton.

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consideration arising from the circumstances of the case, I allow its full weight.

P. Well, sir, you may admire truth, but I think you are too accommodating to defend it with vigour.-C. Pray what is your method? P. My abhorrence of error in all its forms, is so extreme, as to lead me to adopt the strongest measures in opposing it. Hence I reject all conciliating measures, as the paltry expe dients of cringing hypocrisy. I give no quarter to an opponent; I never attempt an excuse for him; that, I should conceive would be apologizing for error. In short, my own opinions on religious subjects, as well as on all other subjects, I firmly believe to be correct. I am, therefore, not only justified in tenaciously adhering to them, but in declaring the utmost hostility against all who oppose them.-C. Indeed, sir, though I give you credit for your honesty, I cannot envy your spirit.-P. I have always thought that a vehement zeal in defending truth and opposing error, is highly commendable; and that the man who seems unconcerned whether himself or his antagonist obtain the victory be trays a criminal indifference, and a most despicable insincerity.

P. That epithet has been applied to me by | into the account. To every mitigating an ill-natured world, on account of my plain-dealing, and tenacious adherence to my own opinions; but my proper name is Integrity. But as you have elicited my name and character, allow me to take a similar liberty with you.--C. My name is Candour, though sometimes I am called Plain-dealing, and sometimes Charity.P. If your name is Candour, I must believe that you are very improperly termed Plain-dealing, for I am told that you will argue with equal warmth on both sides of a question; whence it has been inferred, that you are vacillating in your sentiments, and some have doubted whether you have any fixed principles.-C. These surmisings have been indulged in perfect ignorance of my character. It is true, I have sometimes met with persons who have manifested a confident and disdainful bigotry in maintaining their own tenets, and though I have believed them upon the whole to be correct, yet I have thought it not an unlikely way to teach such people modesty and caution, to shew them what specious objections an opponent might urge against their views, and by what plausible arguments he might defend his own. But in doing this, I have given no just ground for suspicion that my own opinions were unsettled, or that I wished to unsettle those of others: No, sir, my disposition is not only to be unwavering in my attachment to what I believe to be truth, but on every proper occasion to state my views without any mean duplicity or misleading disguise, and to defend them with firmness unmixed with acrimony. It is true, in forming my judgment on controverted points, I deem it the only honest way, impartially to examine evidence on both sides, and while I yield my assent to what I conceive the strongest proofs, I may perhaps discover so much plausibility on the opposite side, as to prevent me from despising the understanding of those who embrace it. In a word, prudence has taught me to avoid in general, that strong and unguarded style, in which some people are in the habit of delivering their sentiments on doubtful matters, and charity has cautioned me to be especially so when the personal character and conduct of mankind are in question. In passing my judgment on any character or performance, I am particularly careful to advert as distinctly to every thing that is excellent, as to whatever is blameable. Whatever can be to " alleged in justification of an action, or in extenuation of any crime, that I take

C. You must keep in mind that all truths are not of equal importance. Some are perfectly insignificant, while an acquaintance with others is essential to our welfare. Again, some truths are dubious and uncertain, while others are self-evident; or at least, accompanied with irresistible proof. Now, I confess it is difficult to manifest too much zeal and firmness in defending important truths, and in combating dangerous errors; but to manifest much anxiety in maintaining trifling opinions, is highly ridiculous. There are many points, concerning which a difference of sentiment prevails amongst wise and good men: you are at liberty to take one side, and believe it to be right if you can; but you ought not to forget your fallibility, nor attribute perverseness to your opponent because he does not think as you do; since the cause of his dissent may be mere frailty, or it may not improbably arise from his possessing a discernment superior to your own. Many causes may conspire to render one person more susceptible of conviction from circumstantial arguments and dubious proofs, than another. While, therefore, it is the duty of every one, even on minor points, prove all things and hold fast that which is good," it is no less his duty to exercise forbearance towards those whose

views are at variance with his own.P. But my patience fails me when I see people obstinate in their attachment to glaring errors, and refusing to feel the force of the most powerful arguments.-C. Perhaps you will be kind enough to name some of the errors you allude to.

P. The peculiarities of Arminianism I have ever regarded as unworthy of the least indulgence. I cannot believe that any man can sincerely espouse tenets so absurd, unscriptural, and mischievous, as the doctrine of free-will, and the possibility of the final apostasy and everlasting damnation of a saint of God. Surely no honest inquirer after truth can reject the comfortable doctrines of particular redemption, unconditional election, and final perseverance.-C. I am afraid the reason why you cannot believe that a man can be an honest Arminian is, that you do not honestly consider the reasons he has to offer in support of his creed. Now, sir, if I had the greatest abhorrence of the doctrine of free-will, yet, throughout the whole bible, I should find that man is represented and addressed as possessing not merely freedom of choicefor that is a point which can never be mooted by any sensible person-but the power of choosing the good and refusing the evil. It is true the scriptures continually view the moral condition of man in connexion with that system of redeeming grace, of which he has been visited by incipient communications, whereby he is raised into what divines have called a salvable state; which not only implies the possibility of obtaining pardon, but holiness also. Abstracted, indeed, from this grace, the scriptures teach me, that the human will is free only to evil ; or, more properly, it is so completely under the dominion of vicious passion, that "we cannot do the things that we would."

Again, when I examine the numerous passages in which the doctrine of general redemption is explicitly stated, and consider how few is the number of those in which the opposite doctrine is thought to be intimated, and how rationally they may be explained on the Universalist's hypothesis; when, also, I consider how repugnant to the character of the benevolent and impartial Jehovah, is the scheme of partial redemption, I think I could allow its opponents to possess common sense and common honesty, although I were its advocate. With respect to the doctrine of unconditional election and final perseverance, however dearly I might love them, I could not be insensible that they are utterly inconsistent with a multitude of scriptural declarations, some of

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which wear an aspect so formidable and menacing, that neither violent nor conciliat ing criticism can reduce them to a compliance with these assumptions. You observe that these are comfortable doctrines,→→ so they would be, if you could be sure that you are among the favoured number; but, | alas! this certainty, I apprehend, is unattainable in this life: for no man can prove to another, nor of course to himself, that he is elected, except by his perseverance in righteousness; of course the evidence arising from this must be incomplete and unsatisfy ing, until this militant life has terminated. Abstractedly, the loveliness of this doctrine is sadly diminished by its inseparable counterpart, reprobation; this you all seem to acknowledge is a very disgusting and hor rible feature in Calvinism; which, as you cannot get rid of, you strive to keep out of sight. These remarks, sir, are not made for the purpose of proving to you that I am not a Calvinist, but to shew you the possi bility of being a candid one.

P. From what you have said, it appears perfectly plain to me that you are not a Calvinist. But I do not love to wrangle on these points, especially as I am determined not to be convinced that my opinions are wrong. If you please, then, we will change the topic. How did you like the discourse last night?-C. I thought it most edifying.-P. The sermon was toler able, but the delivery was very disagreeable.-C. The preacher was too loud, I suppose.-P. I certainly thought him more adapted to conduct the mummeries of the playhouse, than the solemnities of divine worship. But loud speaking I cannot endure.-C. Whatever is natural, is be coming. Now, when a speaker becomes warmed with his subject, he is instinctively led to elevate his voice, perhaps to a degree of loudness that is unnecessary for the mere purpose of being heard; but it is natural, and therefore approved by every hearer of taste. But then, the transition from this becoming vehemence to absolute vociferation, is extremely easy, and by no means uncommon. And when a preacher gets above his natural tone, particularly if his subject be of the calm and argumentative kind, he becomes strained, and very disagreable to every sensible hearer.-P. You must allow that we had a striking exempli→ fication of this in the sermon last night.→→ C. I am sensible that the delivery of the preacher we heard last night, sometimes approaches to vociferation ; yet I never feel much disgust in hearing him, for the following reasons: 1. It is only occasionally that he is excessively loud. 2. His abilities,

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