such a ménage being paid (which they were most punctually), the accumulations were vested in the three per cents., till they were sufficient to buy another Welsh farm. Lord Kenyon's hours would not well have suited fashionable company; for, rising at six in the morning, he and all his household were in bed by ten at night. He is said to have built a comfortable house at Gredington to which he retired in the long vacation. Under His villa at the name of villa, he had a miserable tumbledown farmhouse at the Marsh Gate, about half a mile on this side of Richmond, which is still pointed out as a proof of his economy. The walls are mouldering, and by way of an ornamental piece of water may be seen near the door a muddy duck-pond. In Lord Kenyon's time it was guarded by a half starved Welsh terrier, which was elevated into a higher order of the canine race when the following lines were applied to the establishment : Richmond. "Benighted wanderers the forest o'er Cursed the saved candle and unopened door; To this place the family came regularly on Saturday evenings, after a slight repast in town,-bringing with them a shoulder and sometimes a leg of mutton, which served them for their Sunday dinner. On Monday morning the Chief Justice was up with the lark, and back in Lincoln's Inn Fields before the lazy Londoners were stirring. We have the following amusing account of one of these journeys from a barrister who was patronized by him : "An old coach came rumbling along and overtook me on the road to London from Richmond. It was one of those vehicles that reminded me of a Duke or Marquis under the old régime of France, rivalling in indigence and want the faded finery of his wardrobe. Its coronet was scarcely discoverable, and its gildings were mouldy; yet it seemed tenacious of what little remained of its dignity, and unwilling to subside into a mere hackney coach. I believe I might have looked rather wistfully at it (I was then a poor barrister, briefless and speechless, in the back rows of the court), when I perceived a head with a red nightcap suddenly pop out from the window, and heard myself addressed by name, with the offer of a cast to London. It was Lord Kenyon. He made the journey quite delightful by charming anecdotes of the bar in his own time-of Jack Lee, Wallace, Bower, Mingay, Howorth, the last of whom was drowned, he said, on a Sunday water-excursion in the Thames. The good old man was evidently affected by the regrets which his name awakened, and they seemed the more poignant because his friend was called to his account in an act of profanation. 'But it was the sin of a good man,' he observed, and Sunday was the only day a lawyer in full business could spare for his recreation.'"* His dress. The red nightcap had been worn to save his wig. He was curiously economical about the adornment of his head. It was observed for a number of years before he died, that he had two hats and two wigs -of the hats and the wigs one was dreadfully old and shabby, the other comparatively spruce. He always carried into Court with him the very old hat and the comparatively spruce wig, or the very old wig and the comparatively spruce hat. On the days of the very old hat and the comparatively spruce wig he shoved his hat under the bench, and displayed his wig; but on the days of the very old wig and the comparatively spruce hat, he always continued covered. . I have a very lively recollection of having often seen him sitting with his hat over his wig; but I was not then aware of the Rule of Court by which he was governed on this point.† The rest of Lord Kenyon's apparel was in perfect keeping with his coiffure. * Clubs of London. Till the middle of the last century the Chancellor is always represented with his hat on. In early times it was round and conical; and such was Lord Keeper Williams's, although he was a bishop. In Anne's reign three-cornered VOL. IV. "On entering Guildhall," hats came up. The black cap of the common law judges, which has remained unchanged for many ages, is square. With this they used always to be covered; but they wear it now only when passing sentence of death. L says Espinasse," Pope's lines in the Dunciad came across me, and I quoted them involuntarily : Known by the band and suit which Settle wore, His only suit for twice three years and more.' "Erskine would declare that he remembered the great coat at least a dozen years, and Erskine did not exaggerate the claims of the coat to antiquity. When I last saw the learned Lord, he had been Chief Justice for nearly fourteen years; and his coat seemed coeval with his appointment to the office. It must have been originally black, but time had mellowed it down to the appearance of a sober green, which was what Erskine meant by his allusion to its colour. I have seen him sit at Guildhall in the month of July in a pair of black leather breeches; and the exhibition of shoes frequently soled afforded equal proof of the attention which he paid to economy in every article of his dress." In winter he seems to have indulged in warmer garments; for James Smith, author of the "Rejected Addresses," describing him in Michaelmas Term, says"But we should not have his dress complete were we to omit the black velvet smalls worn for many years, and threadbare by constant friction, which he used to rub with most painful assiduity when catechising the witness. The pocket handkerchief found in the second-hand silk waistcoat which he bought from Lord Stormont's valet being worn out, he would not go to the expense of another, and, using his fingers instead, he wiped them upon his middle garment, whether of leather or of velvet." According to other accounts this change in his habits did not begin till the imposition of the Income Tax by Mr. Pitt. Said Rogers the poet, "Lord Ellenborough had infinite wit. When the Income Tax was imposed, he stated that Lord Kenyon (who was not very nice in his habits) intended in consequence of it, to lay down his pocket handkerchief."* If we can believe his immediate successor, who had a fair character for veracity, Lord Kenyon studied economy * Table Talk of Samuel Rogers, p. 196. His will directing his avoid the expense of a executors to even in the hatchment put up over his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields after his death. The motto was certainly found to be "MORS JANUA VITA"-this being at first supposed to be the mistake of the painter. But when it was mentioned to Lord Ellenborough, "Mistake!" exclaimed his Lordship, "it is no mistake. The considerate testator left particular directions in his will that the estate should not be burdened with the expense of a diphthong!" diphthong. Accordingly he had the glory of dying very rich. After the loss of his eldest son, he said with great emotion to Mr. Justice Allan Park, who repeated the words soon after to me- "How delighted George would be to take his poor brother from the earth, and restore him to life, although he receives 250,000l. by his decease!" He was succeeded by this son George, a most warmhearted, excellent man-to whom it may be easily forgiven that he considers the founder of his His dehouse a model of perfection, not only in law, scendants. religion, and morals, but in manners, habits and accomplishments. To spare the feelings of one so pious, I resolve that this Memoir shall not be published in his lifetime, although I believe that it is chargeable with a desire to extenuate rather than to set down aught in malice.* I cannot say with a good conscience that the first Lord Kenyon was highly educated and every way well qualified to fill the office of Chief Justice; but he was earnestly desirous to do what was right in it; and he possessed virtues which not only must endear him to his own descendants, but must make his memory be respected by his country. *This Memoir was written in thé lifetime of George, the second Lord Kenyon, with whom I was in habits of familiar intercourse. He died 1 Feb. 1855, and was succeeded by his eldest son Lloyd, the third Lord, who I have heard does credit to the name he bears, but with whom I have not the honour of any acquaintance. CHAPTER XLVI. LIFE OF LORD ELLENBOROUGH FROM HIS BIRTH TILL Feelings of the biographer in commencing the Life of Lord Ellen borough. HIS MARRIAGE. I NOW Come to a Chief Justice with whom I have had many a personal conflict, and from whom for several years I experienced very rough treatment, but for whose memory I entertain the highest respect. He was a man of gigantic intellect; he had the advantage of the very best education which England could bestow; he was not only a consummate master of his own profession, but well initiated in mathematical science, and one of the best classical scholars of his day; he had great faults, but they were consistent with the qualities essentially required to enable him to fill his high office with applause. ELLENBOROUGH was a real CHIEF-such as the rising generation of lawyers may read of and figure to themselves in imagination, but may never behold to dread or to admire. When I first entered Westminster Hall in my wig and gown, I there found him "the monarch of all he surveyed," and, at this distance of time, I can hardly recollect without awe his appearance and his manner as he ruled over his submissive subjects. But I must now trace his progress till he reached this elevation. His lot by birth was highly favourable to his gaining distinction in the world-affording him the best facilities and the strongest incentives for His family. * When I wrote this Memoir I was still Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan caster, and a member of Lord John Russell's Cabinet. |