mission was legal, and the examination of witnesses under it produced a crop of lawful evidence, the House had not the evidence before it, so acquired, for not only did not the commissioners annex evidence or the testimony of witnesses examined, but, as I understand, if there was any such testimony on examination, the production of it was refused to the House of Lords. And it is whimsical enough to see that House beginning with the examination by Charley Wetherell in defence of his clients, before there was one single word of evidence against them before the House, or, as I believe, there yet is.* That the House should allow this, that some lords, of whom I hoped for better things, should agree to this, that I should be unable to go down to the House, from infirmity, to grapple with such proceedings,-has destroyed that quiet of mind with me, which is so essential to health. Save my country, Heaven! is my morning and evening prayer; but that it can be saved it cannot be hoped. Quos vult perdere dementat prius." Encouraged by Lord Lyndhurst's successful opposition in the Lords to several clauses which Sir Robert Peel had warmly 6 999 [SEPT. 8, 1835.] supported in the Commons, the undaunted peer thus wrote to his old friend Sir Robert Vaughan : "The House of Lords seems at last to have thought that it ought to do its duty. I think the Houses will be involved in collision when they meet.t "I trust the cause of my country to that GREAT BEING, who alone can say to the madness of the people as He can to the raging waves of the ocean, Hither shall you come, and no further.' "Let us begin to do, and persevere in doing our duty; and then, discouraging as the prospect is, we may hope for better days." However, the Municipal Corporation Bill, with some mutilations which have a little obstructed its working, did pass,‡ and soon after he wrote thus despondingly to the same correspondent: 66 Many, many thanks for your kind remembrance of me. Your kindness gives a support to my constitution, almost worn out by age, and which, nevertheless, will survive, I fear, if it has not already survived, the constitution of my country." At the close of this melancholy session of Parliament, in which he had seen measures carried which he thought so unjust and mischievous, without having strength to lift up his voice against them, he retired to Encombe to brood over the public misfortunes and the degeneracy of mankind. While there, he was comforted by a kind letter sent to him by that most warm-hearted and excellent man the present Lord Kenyon, containing some strictures upon a statement by Sir John Campbell, made in the House of Commons, respecting the arrears which had been cleared off under Lord Chancellor Brougham, in the Court of Chancery and in * See 30 Hansard, 43-180. †Their differences, on Municipal Reform, did lead to an "Open Conference," or vivâ voce debate, between the managers of the two Houses, in the Painted Chamber-the only instance of such a proceeding since the Revolution. 30 Hansard, 962. the House of Lords, and thought, very groundlessly, to have been meant as a reflection on his great predecessor. The following is Lord Eldon's answer: "MY VERY DEAR LORD, Saturday, (Nov. 14th, 1835.) "I ought long ago to have thanked you for the comfort I received from my daughter Elizabeth reading a letter, which I think you sent, respecting the velocity, the comparative velocity, of Brougham and Eldon, in Chancery and in Appeals. It is quite obvious that the number of decisions, in a given time, proves nothing of the sort which Lord B. and the present Attorney suppose it to prove. In making a comparison, you must, necessarily, not merely advert to the number of decisions, but the nature of the cases in which the decisions were pronounced. There have been no such matters, since my time, as a Queen's trial, the trial of a Berkeley Peerage, or of the various questions in the great Roxburghe Peerage and estates, in the last of which I think three days were employed in delivering my judgment: cum multis aliis. On a subject of this nature, however, my mind is at rest, though a very fidgetty mind. I am mistaken, if, after I am gone, the Chancery records do not prove I decided more than any of my predecessors in the same periods of time. Sir Lloyd Kenyon beat us all. "Your faithful and affectionate "ELDON. "For the country's welfare my hopes are gone. I see leaders of all parties sacrificing principle to expediency. They create the expediency and then they sacrifice all principle to it. Surely it is difficult to support a denial, that all sides, as to leaders, have gone too far in acting on this most mischievous doctrine." He even seems to have had a foreboding of what he would have considered the last calamity that could be sent to overwhelm the country; for, writing about this time to his brother-in-law, Mr. Surtees, then turned of eighty, he observes, that good crops, of which there was then a prospect, were of no avail, "as the corn imported from abroad is already, in quantity, so great, that we cannot sell so as to enable the farmer to get a price which will enable him to pay his taxes and his rent;" and thus concludes: "As to the political changes which are going on abroad, and which are leading to political changes here, it seems by no means improbable that even you and I may live to see England without a rag left of the Constitution under which we have so long lived."-It would have been a great felicity in his lot if he could have witnessed the indignant rejection of the free-trade measures brought forward by the Whigs in 1841, and then had been snatched away from the evils that were to come. 25 Hansard, 3d series, 1260, 1262. Sir John Campbell had moved for a return of the number of bills filed in the Court of Chancery and appeals entered in the years 1825 to 1833, inclusive, together with the number of appeals undecided when the present Chancellor came into office, and of those undecided at his last sitting; but he said "he did not mean to cast any reflection on any other Judge of the Court CHAPTER CCXII. CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ELDON. ALTHOUGH Lord Eldon's natural existence was prolonged more [A. D. 1835.] henceforth he not only entirely abstained from attending than two years, he was now politically defunct, and in Parliament, but in despair he turned away his eyes from the political occurrences which were happening around him, and he thought only of his family and his private affairs. After having viewed his parliamentary career above half a century, I cannot part without regret from this respectable impersonation of genuine old Toryism. Neither we nor our children shall ever look upon his like again. In the middle of the nineteenth century he appeared a living specimen of a species of politicians long extinct. As a public man he was not only interesting from the rarity of the qualities he exhibited, but it is impossible to have been in his company so long without feeling kindness and even veneration for one who, in the midst of constant changes, had remained unchanged -who, if liable to the imputation of cherishing, when turned of eighty, all the prejudices of eighteen, could not be charged, like many others, with having been led to renounce his principles by false philosophy, or by fashion, or by interest. To prepare for that event which in the course of nature could not long be delayed, he about this time devoted a morning to the examination of his papers, and very properly destroyed much confidential correspondence. There is a class of letters, which, though in some sense confidential, may, after a certain lapse of time, be published without impropriety, and which are the best materials for history; but there are others, written on the implied understanding that they are to be burned as soon as read. Unless such letters may be safely written, government cannot be carried on; and to preserve them for the purpose of gratifying the curiosity of a future generation, would be as great an atrocity as to leave for publication a statement of all the deliberations of a Cabinet. Perhaps Lord Eldon went farther than was necessary, and assisted in concealing what might have afterwards been legitimately made known; for, after dinner, when giving an account of his morning's work, he added, "I have been a member of a good many Administrations, and there are many things connected with them which I do not wish to come out." At the same time it must be acknowledged that he spared much which a cautious regard for his own reputation might have induced him to suppress.* by the observations he had made, and that, on the contrary, he believed that the other Judges had discharged their duty with the greatest assiduity,-meriting, by their exertions, the highest praise he could bestow."-25 Hansard, 3d series, 1270. * I take this opportunity of declaring my opinion of the fairness and boldness with which his correspondence has been given to the world by Mr. Twiss, under the sanction of his grandson. He was much afflicted by the sad state of things under the roof of his brother at Earley Court. William Scott, Lord Stowell's only son, was dying; and Lord Stowell himself, from being one of the most intellectual of men, had fallen into mental imbecility. He thus wrote to Lord Encombe during the last illness of his nephew: [NOVEMBER.] "The intelligence I receive is, that W. S. may linger a little longer; but the worst may be looked for, and soon. Hopes are not entertained. It is impossible to say how this distresses me. If the worst does happen, and soon, I could be of no comfort in such a state as Earley Court would be in. Not to go, however, might be very distressing to myself, and painful to those to whom I ought, if possible, to avoid giving pain. Contemplation on this subject is to me torture." Lord Eldon escaped the acute pain he must have suffered from a visit to Earley Court, and, in the course of a few weeks, received from Lord Sidmouth, who had married Lord Stowell's daughter, the following melancholy notices of the decease both of the son and of the father: The vital powers are nearly exhausted, and not likely, it is thought, to hold out another day.-Lord Stowell is [Nov. 25.] unconscious of what is passing and impending, but in bodily health is as well as when you last saw him." * * * "The ceremony of this day and all the arrangements connected with it were conducted with the utmost propriety. Lord Encombe was chief mourner. He was received yesterday by [DEC. 2.] Lord Stowell in a manner that was extremely affecting; and it was evident that Lord S. continued pleased with his guest till they parted, at half-past six; though I am confident that all consciousness of who he was did not last many minutes after their first meeting. 66 Under other circumstances, your presence and advice would have been most welcome and acceptable to us; but, under the present, such a journey would have been highly imprudent and hazardous, and such a risk would have added greatly to our distress." 66 * * * The scene is closed: at half-past two this afternoon, I was called to the bed-chamber, and witnessed the last sigh (for it was no more) of [your beloved brother, and of my highly-valued and respected friend." [JAN. 28, 1836.] When the first pang caused by the sad news was over, Lord Eldon was comforted by the thought that his beloved brother was released from a state in which he could have had no enjoyment himself, and in which he was a melancholy spectacle to his friends The great scholar who had been the boast of Oxford,—the great wit who had been the honoured companion of Dr. Johnson,-the great judge, or rather legislator, the author of a code of international law, which defines the rights and duties of belligerents and neutrals, and which is respected over the whole civilized world,-had, for some years, hardly been capable of recognising his nearest relations, and had been nearly unconscious of all that befell them. Lord Eldon continued to write to him when even the hope of being understood by him had fled. Thus he tried to announce to him the birth of a child of Lord Encombe: "MY DEAR Brother, "I learn by letter, that my grandson, Lord Encombe,-who is the only son, you know, of my deceased eldest son, poor John, whose beautiful epitaph you wrote,-has had a daughter born the other day, -whose birth renders me a great-grandfather, a title that makes me of venerable years. "Believe me, from my heart, dear brother, It is mortifying to think that, amidst the amiable feelings arising in the mind of Lord Eldon on his brother's death, there should have been one of a different character. The deceased had made a very reasonable disposition of his property, by which, upon the death of his daughter, Lady Sidmouth, without issue, his large estates in Gloucestershire were to come to Lord Encombe. Strange to say, Lord Eldon, at his advanced age and with his enormous wealth, was dissatisfied that he should not at least have had a life-interest in them, and expressed his resentment so loudly, that Lord Encombe wrote him a soothing letter, concluding with this request: "I beg that you will, during our lives (should we survive Lady Sidmouth,) take entire possession in the amplest manner of every right and power over the Stowell estates which is in the will bestowed on me, not for my own merits, but as being your grandson." 66 This prudent step quite melted the octogenarian's heart, and he wrote back: "Of your kindness and liberality I never could think of availing myself in the smallest degree. If, in events which may happen, I live to see you in possession, you may depend upon my best advice to enable you to enjoy that possession, and assistance, if I have the means of rendering that assistance and giving that advice."* However, like a Sovereign who is apt to be jealous of his successor, Lord Eldon, notwithstanding his grandson's devoted attachment to him and incessant solicitude to please him, viewed him, in his latter days, with some distrust, and in his treatment of him showed the irritability too often produced by age and infirmity in the kindliest natures. He came to London before the meeting of Parliament in 1836, but was not once in his place in the House of Lords during the whole session. I am afraid that he was now wretchedly at a loss for employment, and that he had much reason to regret his neglect of those studies which are the delight of old age. He only looked into books, ancient and modern, to find that he had "no pleasure in them." His ANECDOTE BOOK he had long closed; and he had almost entirely ceased to write letters, except to the members of his own family. Of late years he had amused himself with receiving accounts of the proceedings in the Court of Chancery,-blessing Heaven" that he himself was inclined to the cunctative." When he heard that Lord Cottenham was made Chancellor, he regretted that such a man should be connected with Whigs, and acknowledged that he was exceedingly well fitted to be an Equity Judge. * 14th April, 1836. |