6

999

Who founded University College?' I stated (though by the way the point is sometimes doubted,) that King Alfred founded it.'Very well, Sir,' said the Examiner, 'you are competent for your degree.' Accordingly, on the 20th of February, 1770, it was duly conferred upon him.

He did not then, according to modern custom, leave the University, but continued in its classic bowers to prosecute the studies which should qualify him for being a Master. Under his brother's advice he wrote for the prize lately established by the Earl of Lichfield, Chancellor of the University, for the best composition in English prose-the subject being "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Foreign Travel." The essay with the motto, "Non alibi sis, sed alius," [JUNE, 1771.] was decreed to be the best, and this was found to have for its author, JOHN SCOTT. His success gave much delight to his brother, but still more to his old preceptor, who, having heard the joyous news, rushed into the school with a copy of the prize essay in his hand, saying to the senior lads-" See what John Scott has done!"* It has been published in "Talboy's Collection of Oxford English Prize Essays," and is certainly very creditable to a Northumbrian of twenty, who had never travelled except in the country between the Tyne and the Thames, but is much inferior to the "Athenian Letters" written at the sister university by younger men. He seems to have formed his style on the model of Dr. Johnson, who was then worshipped by Oxonians, although in former times they had refused him a degree. We might suppose that we were beginning an indifferent Rambler:

"There are few principles of action which have been more immediately beneficial to society, and which therefore merit more assiduous cultivation, than the love of our country. But, whilst we have been studious to regard our parent with the tenderness of filial affection, we have imbibed the weak prejudices of children, and, like the undiscerning lover, have fondly gazed without discrimination upon her beauties and her deformities. He who overrates his own merits, will probably undervalue the deserts of others. From this arrogant conceit of our worth as a people, has sprung that uncharitable opinion which confines excellence to the boundaries of a small island, and, with the true spirit of ancient Greece and Italy, has adjudged every other people to be comparatively barbarous. This illiberal idea, it is confessed, has been attended with salutary consequences: it has aroused the soul of the warrior, and by teaching the brave defenders of our country to despise, it has taught them to conquer, their enemies."

Thus he contemplates a visit to the "Eternal City:"

"Amidst a variety of objects which will challenge the attention of the traveller, few will prove more copious sources of delight, or supply him with ampler matter for useful reflection, than those awful monuments of

"Mr. Moises afterwards, when any of his boys did well, would give them this qualified praise: Well done, very well done! but I have had lads that would have done better;-the Scotts would have done better than that.'" — Twiss, i. 45.

ancient industry and power, which seem to have been hitherto preserved as memorials of a destructive luxury, the havoc of which was felt when the shocks of time were yet imperceptible. How must the British statesman feel for his country when he surveys the venerable ruins of a senate which stood secure till gold was accepted as an equivalent for freedom, and the Roman legislature, softened by pleasure, embraced the shackles of slavery! Whilst the eye is ravished, the [A. D. 1771.] mind cannot be unemployed, but recurs to the virtues which established, and the vices which overthrew, the grandeur it surveys."

The superiority of modern Italy in painting and sculpture he thus patriotically scorns:

"He who has not a single right to protect, may endeavour to render his servitude supportable by studying the arts of politeness; but let not the Briton be taught to leave his distinguishing privilege—his liberty— without defence, whilst he affects these elegant improvements!"

66

Afterwards, in pointing out the danger of exchanging prejudice for. to prejudices against, our country, he introduces some protectionist sentiments, which, together with his dislike of the Roman Catholics, and his support of the severe criminal code, make his memory precious to his indiscriminate admirers:—

"To this only can we attribute a prevailing passion for foreign productions, which, as it deprives our own artists of the rewards of their industry, claims and withholds from our manufacturer every encouragement which can animate his labours."

He gracefully concludes with a compliment to his ALMA MATER:"Where, then, shall we seek a remedy? Must it not be in that education which watches over the morals with the strictest vigilance, and, by fortifying the mind with the soundest principles of religion, enables it to pursue with safety those inferior accomplishments whose only merit is to heighten the beauty of virtue, and which become truly dangerous when they soften the deformities of vice?"

I concur in the candid and discriminating criticism on this Essay by Mr. Surtees: "Iis matter and arrangement indicate the possession of strong sense by its writer, together with a disposition to heap conflicting doubts into each scale, and then to watch with delight the trembling of the uncertain balance; but there is not to be found in it an originality of thought or imagination which can entitle it to the highest praise; namely, that it is a work of genius." For the honour of the order of lawyers, for which I am always solicitous, I am afraid that, although Lord Eldon was the greatest Chancellor that had appeared since Lord Hardwicke, and enjoyed such a splendid reputation in Westminster Hall, he could hardly have made his bread by literature, and he would have been of small account in Paternoster Row.

In his hour of victory he was not only modest but shamefaced. Sixty years later he was reminded by the Bishop of Clonfert of his embarrassment in the vestibule of the Shelden theatre: "I," said the venerable prelate, "recited my prize poem first; and when I came out,

you hesitated so much about going in, that I actually had to take you by the shoulders, and push you in." But to this triumph Lord Eldon, in his old age, would often revert with honest pride and pleasure; dilating on the increased confidence he acquired by it, and the ment it afforded him in his future exertions.

encourage

We have a more favourable specimen of his English style, in a letter (his earliest extant) written by him from Newcastle, to his class-fellow, Henry Reay, from whom he seems to have received a tedious account of a tour in Cheshire. After some introductory matter, he proceeds thus in merry vein :

"With what modest diffidence, then, shall I enter upon the laborious task of describing this place of my residence!-a task I should not undertake (so unequal are my shoulders to the weight) unless to oblige you, my friend, by giving you such a description of Newcastle as may enable you to form a clear and distinct idea of this town, though you never saw it. Say, Muse, where shall I begin? At the bridge? This is an elegant structure of thirteen arches. The battlements are beautified with towers, houses, &c.; and, what is a very extraordinary circumstance, it is built over a river. From hence you proceed to the Sand-hill. Here you have presented to your view the Exchange, and Nelly's, Katy's and Harrison's coffee-houses; from the windows of which you observe the operations of shaving, turnip and carrot selling, and the fish-market-if you turn your eyes that way. The quay is reckoned one of the best in England. The water makes the prospect very agreeable; and there is no deficiency of wood, in the shape of planks, tar-barrels, and trees of that kind. At the east end of this, passing through a magnificent arch, you come to a street called Sandgate, which, whether you consider the elegance of the buildings, the number of the inhabitants, or that strict regard they pay to decency, is equalled by none in the kingdom."

So he goes on describing the dirt and misery of his native place-well known to his correspondent.

Notwithstanding such sallies,-now in his baccalaureate state, he considered himself irrevocably destined to the Church-and, if in an ambitious mood, he would dream of being a dean or a prebendary, but in his ordinary frame of mind he looked no higher than a snug rectory or vicarage-anticipating with pleasure and contentment the jucunda oblivia vitæ. And there can be little doubt that he would have ended his days as a country parson, recorded only by some annalist, like “P. P., clerk of this parish," had it not been for an imprudent step, which at first was thought to be his utter ruin, but which, changing the whole colour of his life, in its consequences made him a millionaire, an Earl, Lord Chancellor for a quarter of a century, a prominent character in history, and the founder of one of the most distinguished families in the peerage of England.

On a foggy morning in the month of November in the following year, Mr. Moises, with a very different countenance from that

which he wore when announcing the prize essay, rushed [A. D. 1772.]

into the school, beating his breast, and exclaiming," Jack Scott has run off with Bessy Surtees! The poor lad is undone! the poor lad is undone !"

I have now a love story to relate. But I must not say

"How can I name love's very name,

Nor wake my heart to notes of flame?"

I must remember that-not a minstrel pouring forth the unpremeditated lay-I am "a sad apprentice of the law"-chronicling the Life of a Lord Chancellor.

It has already been seen that my present hero had a very inflammable fancy. Romeo had been attached to Rosaline before he beheld Juliet, and "Miss Allgood, daughter of Sir Launcelot Allgood,” said Lord Eldon," was my first love; but she was scornful." While smarting from her disdain, it happened that as he was travelling he accidentally entered during divine service the fine old Gothic church at Sedgefield, a pretty village in the county of Durham,—and there for the first time he beheld his future wife, then a blooming girl of sixteen, in company with an old maiden aunt. He instantly fell in love with her, and learned to his great surprise that she was the daughter of his townsman, Aubone Surtees, the banker. The Surteeses holding their heads rather high in Newcastle, she had not been allowed to go [1771, 1772.] to the dancing school,—or Jack Scott must often have helped her to put on her shoes, and have presented her with a nosegay. But they, quoting Camden, who says "Rivers have imposed names to some men as they have to towns situated on them, as the old Baron Sur Tays, that is on the river Tays,"-claimed to be a younger branch of the family of Surtees of Dinsdale, in Durham, on the banks of the Tees, who held the barony of Gosforth in the reign of Henry I.; and they did not stoop to a visiting acquaintance with the Scotts,BANKERS and COAL-FITTERS being considered the opposite extremes of the trading world. John Scott contrived to be introduced to the aunt, who lived close by, and so made acquaintance with the niece. Being then a tall handsome young man, with black eyes, regular features, and most pleasing manners, he made an auspicious impression upon her; and the fame of his prize essay, with which Newcastle had rung, no doubt helped the prepossession in favour of an admirer of whom she had heard so much, and who was supposed to be such a credit to the place of his nativity. He stayed a few days at a small inn at Sedgefield, and before he left the village they had plighted to each other their mutual troth.

When she returned to Newcastle, he was not permitted to see her at her father's house, but they had flirtations on the Shields road, where she used to ride, attended only by a man-servant, who was bribed to silence by an occasional half-crown. "The riding scheme," says Mr. John Surtees, her brother, "began in this way: Sir Walter Blackett, popularly called the King of Newcastle, then I suppose seventy years of age, used to lend Lady Eldon a handsome pony, and to accompany

her on horseback. He was called to London to attend Parliament, and died soon after. She, riding one of my father's horses, continued her rides as before, and Lord Eldon used, I believe, to meet her." He then goes on to state, that although Sir William Blackett might have intended to court her," she never considered him in any other light than that of a benign old man who was kind to her."

Miss Surtees came out at a Newcastle ball, given on the 1st of September, 1778, on the occasion of a visit paid to that town by Henry, Duke of Cumberland, brother to George III. John Scott was there, but did not venture to ask her to dance,—and, to conceal his new passion, he wrote to his friends as if he had still been under the sway of Miss Allgood. In a letter sent by him next morning to Mr. Bray he says, "The ladies are, as we supposed, half mad about the Duke of Cumberland. Miss Surtees and my dear Bell, it seems, were frightened out of their wits when he danced with them." However, at the next weekly assembly he contrived to dance with his new dulcinea, and the ice being broken, he openly paid her marked attention. Recollecting these scenes, he said in his old age to his grand-niece, Miss Forster, "At the Assembly Rooms at Newcastle there were two rooms and a stair-head between them, so we always danced down the large room, across the stair-head, and into the other room. Then you know, Ellen, that was very convenient, for the small room was a snug one to flirt in."

These flirtations gave rise to much gossip in the town of Newcastle, and the families of both parties became well acquainted with the devoted attachment of the enamoured pair. The Scotts very much regretted Jack's entanglement; but as the young lady herself was so charming, and her family was so respectable, they would not forbid the match, although they strongly counselled delay. Thus wrote Mr. William Scott to his father:-" In a letter from Jack I find that you are now fully acquainted with the affair between Miss Surtees and himself, and that you are kind enough to forgive any indiscretion which a rigid prudence might perhaps condemn. I must own I am clearly of opinion, that, in consenting to his wishes, you act with a true paternal regard to his happiness, which as far as I can judge from my own experience, would not be much promoted by a long continuance in college. The business in which I am engaged is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and is so destructive to health (if carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in point of profit,) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me in it. The kindness of his friends, therefore, would be very judiciously employed in providing for him in some manner more agreeable to his own inclinations, and more consistent with his health. The purchase of a next presentation to a living is the most obvious way of giving him an early settlement. If you determine upon this method, the sooner we make the necessary inquiries the better. If you will give me leave, I will endeavour to procure what information I can."

The Surtees family, on the other hand, were most hostile to the proposed union. Their pride was hurt by stories about the public-house