LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR HARDWICKE.*

A CENTURY ago lawyers and judges were far less bound by precedent than they are in these days. Hence greater inducements were held out to argue and to decide cases entirely from principle; and, by a necessary consequence, also, to study this more deeply, and to cultivate the mind more assiduously for dealing with pursuits of this nature. Longer time was also allowed, owing to the less intricate nature of our laws, for general study, and for turning attention to the higher authorities connected with this science, and referring to them on all occasions. Had Bacon and Hale lived in these days of multitudinous decisions and reports, and new acts of parliaments and rules of pleading, it is impossible that they could ever have found leisure to enter so much into the world of general literature; to store their minds so fully with knowledge, and to give so many of their researches to the public.

Herein we have the main features of the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's character. At school young Philip Yorke displayed a general great proficiency, while his amiable disposition, easy temper, and pliancy, made him, as they also contributed to do throughout life, an almost universal favourite. When articled to Mr. Salkeld, the attorney, while he applied himself diligently to the study of the law, and became well-grounded in Coke and Hale (for there was no Blackstone in those days), it is certain at the same time that his mind was no less ardently devoted to philosophical studies, and to such as appertained to a more general literary and polemical character. In the same manner, in after life, Mr. Harris, his able biographer, remarks that Yorke was, from the constitution of his mind, naturally better fitted for a leader than for a junior. Many of his principal powers and qualifications were quite lost in the latter capacity, and could only be displayed in the former. Knowledge of principles, reasoning power, eloquence, discrimination, and all the great resources of the mind which enable the leader to distinguish himself, have no opportunity of being evinced in the junior, in whom an accurate acquaintance with the details of the case, and a knowledge of the legal decisions bearing upon it, are mainly expected.

Philip Yorke was born at Dover, on the 1st day of December, 1690. His father was an attorney, of limited means, but respectably connected, and who held the important and somewhat lucrative office of town-clerk. Young Yorke having pre-eminently distinguished himself at school, his father determined to give him every advantage, articled him to a solicitor of eminence and extensive practice in London. It is well known that many of the most successful lawyers have, in their earliest days, felt the pressure of poverty, and not a few, perhaps, have been largely indebted to this circumstance. The future lord chancellor was not an exception.

A curious and amusing anecdote (says his biographer) is told+ of his career while in his clerkship, which is certainly not uncharacteristic of Yorke. Mrs. Salkeld, who considered herself as his mistress, and who was a notable woman, thinking she might take such liberties with a clerk with whom the writer says

The Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke; with Selections from his Correspondence, Diaries, Speeches, and Judgments. By George Harris, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law. 3 vols. Edward Moxon.

+ Cooksey's Anecdotes.

no premium had been received, used frequently to send him from his business on family errands, and to fetch in little necessaries from Covent Garden and other markets. This, when he became a favourite with his master, and was intrusted with his business, and cash, he thought an indignity, and got rid of by a stratagem which prevented complaints or expostulation. In his accounts with his master, there frequently occurred coach-hire for roots of celery and turnips from Covent Garden, or a barrel of oysters from the fishmonger's, and other sundries for the carriage of similar dainties indicative alike of Mrs. Salkeld's love of good cheer, and the young clerk's dexterity and spirit in freeing himself from her attempted domination. Mr. Salkeld observing this, urged on his spouse the impropriety and ill housewifery of such a practice, and thus Yorke's device for its discontinuance proved completely successful.

There is, Mr. Harris justly remarks, nothing more interesting to observe than the early struggles of men who afterwards obtained a high degree of celebrity, and whose minds were first fortified by contending with the difficulties which beset their course. Nothing belongs more strictly to the tragedy of real life than this, and in no walk of life are there scenes more vividly displayed than in the commencement of that profession to which our hero belonged.

But these very struggles of an early youth, his knowledge of the poverty which he had witnessed at home, and the feeling that he was himself so far dependent on the liberality of others, only stimulated young Yorke to further exertion. With Mr. Salkeld's good-will Yorke quitted, after only two years' apprenticeship, that branch of the profession for which he had been originally destined, and embarked on a more ambitious career. "It was," says his biographer, "in the magnificent hall of the Middle Temple-a building at once famous for its beauty and its antiquity, and renowned yet more for the rich associations connected with it-that Yorke commenced his career as a student. Inspired by the illustrious example of the great men who had gone before him in the same course, he himself eventually contributed in no small degree to the glory of the society which enrolled him among its members."

On the 27th of May, 1715, Yorke was called to the bar by the benchers of the Middle Temple, being then in his twenty-fifth year, and there cannot be a doubt that he commenced practice with a mind well cultivated and invigorated by general study and knowledge, and adorned with acquirements of a very varied nature. He began at a very early period to adopt that logical system of subdividing the argument into different portions, which afterwards so particularly characterised his speeches. The two circumstances which, undoubtedly, contributed most to Mr. Yorke's success, at least so far as regards the opportunities he had of exhibiting his proficiency and powers, were his connexion with Mr. Salkeld and the high and marked favour shown to him by Lord Macclesfield, who was at that time Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench.

Mr. Harris will not allow, however, that this latter patronage so far influenced Mr. Yorke's career as Lord Campbell, Cooksey, and other writers would have us believe. He naïvely enough remarks, that "the grand turning-point in a barrister's professional career-the real change which occurs in his condition-is that which takes place when from being employed because his client would be useful to him, he is now employed because he is thought useful to his client." No one would venture to doubt this manifest fact. Lord Campbell may be in error, and it is to be hoped that he is so, when he intimates that Yorke succeeded on his

circuit by methods which were not legitimate, for such an opinion is opposed to the whole features of his life, although there seems to be little doubt but that our hero was indebted mainly to Lord Macclesfield for his sudden promotion in 1719 to the office of solicitor-general over the heads of many of his seniors, who, according even to Mr. Harris, were well able to fill the office.

The rising reputation of Mr. Yorke soon caused him to be sought out by the government of the day, who were anxious to secure the services of so able a speaker as their political supporter in the House of Commons, and he was on the 2nd of May, 1719, elected for the borough of Lewes, in Sussex. This was indeed altogether an eventful year with young Yorke. He was at this time one of the handsomest men of the day, and it is even said that he took all due care to set off these natural advantages. By this, says his biographer, he attracted the notice of the youthful and pretty widow of Mr. W. Lygon, of Maddersfield, niece to the then Master of the Rolls, Sir Joseph Jekyll; and although, when the young M. P. addressed himself to the father of the young lady, the old gentleman told him to leave his rental and writings with him, objections were soon overcome, and the marriage took place on the 16th of May, 1719, a few days after Yorke's election for Lewes.

On the 2nd of April, 1720, Mr. Yorke was re-elected member for Lewes, and soon afterwards he received from his majesty the honour of knighthood. He had been appointed to the solicitor-generalship in March, 1719. In 1722, Sir Philip Yorke was returned to parliament for Seaford, although it is said that his constituents in Lewes continued favourable to his re-election.

It was in this latter year that a great conspiracy to raise a rebellion in favour of the Pretender was discovered. Many persons of distinction

were concerned in this unfortunate Jacobite demonstration, and a serious demand was made upon the services of the Attorney-General, Sir Robert Raymond, and of the Solicitor-General, Sir Philip Yorke; the latter of whom contributed in no small degree, by his forensic eloquence, in procuring the conviction of Mr. Layer, who was executed at Tyburn on the 18th of May, 1723, and his head set up on Temple Bar; as also of Dr. Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester; of George Kelly, of John Plunkett, and others.

years

On the 31st of January, 1724, after Sir Philip Yorke had been nearly nine years at the bar, and had during more than three filled the office of solicitor-general with the most distinguished success, he was chosen to succeed Sir Thomas Raymond as attorney-general, and he thus arrived at the head of the profession to which he belonged.

He was in this capacity called upon at a very early period to deal with a culprit whose rank and the nature of whose offences varied very greatly from those of the state criminals against whom he had been employed the previous year, but whose exploits in a certain way have gained for their perpetrator scarcely less note than the enormities directed against the very existence of the state obtained for the latter. This was no less a person than the notorious John Sheppard, of whose extraordinary feats, and of whose numerous escapes from Newgate, Mr. Harris gives a lengthened account from the newspapers of the day. The biographer of Lord Hardwicke concludes with the following remarks:

Thus ended the career of a person who, from the extraordinary dexterity with which he pursued his nefarious schemes, has obtained a certain kind of cele

brity even in our day, and indeed been attempted to be raised to the rank of a hero. Some good and generous qualities doubtless appear to have animated him, and occasionally to have displayed themselves under the most trying circumstances. His fidelity to his allies, the generosity with which he always behaved towards his friends, and his undaunted courage and self-possession, only lead us the more to regret that these excellent endowments which nature had given him should have been rendered nugatory and even pernicious by an education and long practice in vice, and instead of serving to adorn, only exhibited strange inconsistencies in his general character. While we also admire his great ingenuity and wonderful resources, we can only deeply deplore that these should have been entirely perverted for the worst of purposes, and as a whole he can only excite applause by separating altogether the consideration of his extraordinary powers from that of the entire misuse of them. As it was, he who was capable of attaining high and honourable distinction by the proper application of these endowments, died, as he undoubtedly deserved to do, and as every requirement of law and justice demanded that he should, the death of a felon. Hence, although by his "bad eminence," he has made himself almost as great a moral pest after his death as he was a social one during his life, he was at last compelled to make some atonement for his misdeeds by serving to evince that the brightest talents, if misapplied, will only procure for their possessor a propor. tionate degree of ignominy and misfortune.

These remarks are in every respect true and judicious, but the man of law omits the literary part of the question; which is, whether viewed as a simple work of art-as one of Fuseli's paintings might be looked upon -the artist, by pen or by pencil, may not select as a subject for his graphic power, "bad eminence" as well as great excellence," so long as a bad moral is not also conveyed by such portraitures. Mr. Harris subscribes to the cant of the day and echoes the cry of a certain set of critics, when he excuses in Fielding, what he condemns in a contemporary novelist. The life and adventures of Jonathan Wild he calls one of the very happiest productions of that "accomplished and distinguished author," while Jack Sheppard is designated as a "moral pest," at the same time that the biographer and lawyer inconsistently admits that Jonathan Wild "had but few of what were, or rather what might have been, the redeeming qualities of Sheppard, intellectual or moral;" of whom he further states, that he was in some way or other related to Mr. Cornwall, at that time Speaker of the House of Commons. Fielding's "Jonathan Wild" is an odious book, and quite unworthy of the author of "Tom Jones;" a satire, if you please, but full of disgusting and obscene details, though luckily almost unreadable; with Mr. Ainsworth's " Jack Sheppard" we believe Mr. Harris to be unacquainted, except by report, and therefore unable to deliver a fair opinion.

The conviction of Sheppard and Wild was followed by the far more serious impeachment of the Earl of Macclesfield, Lord High Chancellor. of Great Britain. The attorney-general excused himself on this occasion from taking a part in the proceedings against his friend and patron. At the time of the lord chancellor's disgrace, when the popular clamour against him was of course very loud, and the more so from the judicial part which he had taken in the trial of Dr. Sacheverell, the saying was current among the mob, that Staffordshire had produced the three greatest rogues of the day-Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild, and Lord Macclesfield.

The same year (1725) Sir Philip Yorke purchased the manor and estate of Hardwicke, in Gloucestershire, for £24,000. In 1732, there was an important debate in the House of Commons on the subject of a standing army, in which it is curious in the present day, when we are likely to have the same discussion renewed, to find Sir Philip arguing

that "it was certainly the interest of this nation to render itself as considerable as possible amongst its neighbours; for the greater opinion they have of our strength and power, the less apt they will be to undertake any expeditions or invasions against us; and the more easy it will be for us to obtain from them any advantages or immunities which we may think necessary for improving the trade and increasing the riches of the kingdom." The last speech made in the House of Commons by Sir Philip, was on the occasion of the grand debate on Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme.

On the 31st of October, 1733, Sir Philip Yorke was appointed chief justice of England, the salary of which had been raised from two to four thousand a year, to induce the attorney-general to resign his pretensions to the woolsack, a circumstance which has led other biographers to stamp his character with the brand of avariciousness, a stigma which Mr. Harris makes no satisfactory effort to remove. A peerage was also promised him, and shortly afterwards conferred. This occurred on the 23rd of November of the same year, when he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Hardwicke, of Hardwicke, in the county of Gloucester. One of his first acts in the disposal of the patronage which fell to him as lord chief justice, was to bestow on Mr. Salkeld the office of clerk of errors in the Court King's Bench, an appointment both of honour and emolument. One of the first cases in which the new chief justice was engaged was that of Savage the poet, for a libel, and the information against whom was dismissed, with encomiums upon the purity and excellence of his writings. "It was urged," says Johnson, "in defence of Savage, that obscenity was criminal when it was intended to promote the practice of vice; but that Mr. Savage had only introduced obscene ideas, with the view of exposing them to detestation, and of amending the age by showing the deformity of wickedness." The notes which were made by Lord Chief Justice Hardwicke of the different cases tried before him, have all been preserved and all contained in five small volumes of note books. Many of these cases are not only of high interest to the law student, but also to the general reader, as illustrating in a very striking manner the state of the country at this period, in the lawless outrages which were everywhere perpetrated, and the general manners of the times. In the case of a Fleet marriage, Lord Hardwicke decided that it was not a legal one, and his experience of the evils arising of these ill-considered alliances, led him afterwards to introduce a measure which put an end to such pernicious and disgraceful proceedings. When presiding on the Nisi Prius side of the court at Buckingham, in 1734, a singular case was brought before the lord chief justice, arising out of a superstition still common at that period, being an action of defamation brought by an old woman against a man for calling her a witch.

"Norfolk Circuit, Summer, 1734.-Buckingham, July 23, 1734. "Mary Butcher, widow, plt.; Joseph Hadland, deft.

"Case for words :

She is a witch, and bewitched my wife, and I will prove it.

She is a witch. She came over ye pond, and over a hedge, her foot light. "She is a witch. I hung up a bladder full of water in ye chimney. Whilst yt remained there she had no power over my wife. ney in ye shape of a bird, and fetched ye bladder away.

"There goes ye old witch. "Plea-Not Guilty.

“Mr. Clarke, pro quer.

She came down

ye

chim

Damn her, I will have ye blood of her.