CHAPTER VIII.

[5]When due allowance has been made for the difference between the usages of the sixteenth century and the present time, decency was signally violated by this marriage, which followed so soon upon Mrs. Coke's death, and still sooner upon the death of Lady Hatton's famous grandfather, at whose funeral the lawyer made the first overtures for her hand. Mrs. Coke died June 27, 1598, and was buried at Huntingfield, co. Suffolk, July 24, 1598. Lord Burleigh expired on August 4, of the same year. Coke's first marriage was not unhappy; and on the death of his wife by that union, he wrote in his note-book:—"Most beloved and most excellent wife, she well and happily lived, and, as a true handmaid of the Lord, fell asleep in the Lord, and now lives and reigns in heaven." In after years he often wished most cordially that he could sayas muchfor his second wife.

[6]Strafford's Letters and Despatches, I. 5.

[7]Lady Hatton never used her second husband's name either before or after his knighthood. A good case, touching the customary right of a married lady to bear the name, and take her title from the rank of a former husband, is that of Sir Dudley North, Charles II.'s notorious sheriff of London. The son of an English peer, he married Lady Gunning, the widow of a wealthy civic knight, and daughter of Sir Robert Cann, "a morose old merchant of Bristol"—the same magistrate whom Judge Jeffreys, in terms not less just than emphatic, upbraided for his connection with, or to speak moderately, his connivance at, the Bristol kidnappers. It might be thought that the merchant's daughter, on her marriage with a peer's son, would be well content to relinquish the title of Lady Gunning; but Roger North tells us that his brother Dudley accepted knighthood, in order that he might avoid giving offence to the city, and also, in order that his wife might be called Lady North, and not Lady Gunning.—Vide Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North.After Sir Thomas Wilde (subsequently Lord Truro), married Augusta Emma d'Este, the daughter of the duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray, that lady, of whose legitimacy Sir Thomas had vainly endeavored to convince the House of Lords, retained her maiden surname. In society she was generally known as the Princess d'Este, and the bilious satirists of the Inns of Court used to speak of Sir Thomas as 'the Prince.' It was said that one of Wilde's familiar associates, soon after the lawyer's marriage, called at his house and asked if the Princess d'Este was at home. "No, sir," replied the servant, "the Princess d'Este is not at home, but the Prince is!" That this malicious story obtained a wide currency is not wonderful; that it is a truthful anecdote the writer of this book would not like to pledge his credit. The case of Sir John Campbell and Lady Strathedon, was a notable instance of a lawyer and his wife bearing different names. Raised to the peerage, with the title of Baroness Stratheden, the first Lord Abinger's eldest daughter was indebted to her husband for an honor that made him her social inferior. Many readers will remember a droll story of a misapprehension caused by her ladyship's title. During an official journey, Sir John Campbell and Baroness Stratheden slept at lodgings which he had frequently occupied as a circuiteer. On the morning after his arrival, the landlady obtained a special interview with Campbell, and in the baroness's absence thus addressed him, with mingled indignation and respectfulness:—"Sir John Campbell, I am a lone widow, and live by my good name. It is not in my humble place to be too curious about the ladies brought to my lodgings by counsellors and judges. It is not in me to make remarks if a counsellor's lady changes the color of her eyes, and her complexion every assizes. But, Sir John, a gentleman ought not to bring a lady to a lone widow's lodgings, unless so long as he 'okkipies' the apartments he makes all honorable professions that the lady is his wife, and as such gives her the use of his name."

REJECTED ADDRESSES.

No lawyer of the Second Charles's time surpassed Francis North in love of money, or was more firmly resolved not to marry, without due and substantial consideration.

His first proposal was for the daughter of a Gray's Inn money-lender. Usury was not a less contemptible vocation in the seventeenth century than it is at the present time; and most young barristers of gentle descent and fair prospects would have preferred any lot to the degradation of marriage with the child of the most fortunate usurer in Charles II.'s London. But the Hon. Francis North was placed comfortablybeneaththe prejudices of his order and time of life. He was of noble birth, but quite ready to marry into a plebeian family; he was young, but loved money more than aught else. So his hearing was quickened and his blood beat merrily when, one fine morning, "there came to him a recommendation of a lady, who was an only daughter of an old usurer in Gray's Inn, supposed to be a good fortune in present, for her father was rich; but, after his death, to become worth, nobody could tell what." One would like to know how that 'recommendation of a lady' reached the lawyer's chambers; above all, who sent it?

"His lordship," continues Roger North, "got a sight of the lady, and did not dislike her; thereupon he made the old man a visit, and a proposal of himself to marry his daughter." By all means let this ingenuous, high-spirited Templar have a fair judgment. He would not have sold himself to just any woman. He required amaximumof wealth with aminimumof personal repulsiveness. He therefore 'took a sight of the lady' (it does not appear that he talked with her) before he committed himself irrevocably by a proposal. Thesighthaving been taken, as he did not dislike her (mind, he did not positively like her) he made the old man a visit. Loving money, and believing in it, this 'old man' wished to secure as much of it as possible for his only child; and therefore looking keenly at the youthful admirer of a usurer's heiress, "asked him what estate his father intended to settle upon him for present maintenance, jointure, and provision for children." Mildly and not unjustly Roger calls this "an inauspicious question." It was so inauspicious that Mr. Francis North abruptly terminated the discussion by wishing the usurer good-morning. So ended Love Affair No. 1.

Having lost his dear companion, Mr. Edward Palmer, son of the powerful Sir Geoffry Palmer, Mr. Francis North soon regarded his friend's wife with tender longing. It was only natural that he should desire to mitigate his sorrow for the dead by possession of the woman who was "left a flourishing widow, and very rich." But the lady knew her worth, as well she might, for "never was lady more closely besieged with wooers: she had no less than five younger sons sat down before her at one time, and she kept them well in hand, as they say, giving no definite answers to any of one of them." Small respect did Mistress Edward Palmer show her late husband's most intimate friend. For weeks she tortured the wretched, knavish fellow with coquettish tricks, and having rendered him miserable in many ways, made him ludicrous by jilting him. "He was held at the long saw above a month, doing his duty as well as he might, and that was but clumsily; for he neither dressed nor danced, when his rivals were adroit at both, and the lady used to shuffle her favors amongst them affectedly, and on purpose to mortify his lordship, and at the same time be as civil to him, with like purpose to mortify them." Poor Mr. Francis! Well may his brother write indignantly, "It was very grievous to him—that had his thoughts upon his clients' concerns, which came in thick upon him—to be held in a course of bo-peep play with a crafty widow." At length, "after a clancular proceeding," this crafty widow, by marrying "a jolly knight of a good estate," set her victims free; and Mr. Francis was at liberty to look elsewhere for a lapful of money.

Roger North tells the story of the third affair so concisely and pithily that his exact words must be put before the reader:—"Another proposition came to his lordship," writes the fraternal biographer, giving Francis North credit for the title he subsequently won, although at the time under consideration he was plainMisterNorth, on the keen look-out for the place of Solicitor General, "by a city broker, from Sir John Lawrence, who had many daughters, and those reputed beauties; and the fortune was to be £6000. His lordship went and dined with the alderman, and liked the lady, who (as the way is) was dressed out for a muster. And coming to treat, the portion shrank to £5000, and upon that his lordship parted, and was not gone far before Mr. Broker (following) came to him, and said Sir John would give £500 more at the birth of the first child; but that would not do, for his lordship hated such screwing. Not long after this dispute, his lordship was made the King's Solicitor General, and then the broker came again, with news that Sir John would give £10,000. 'No,' his lordship said, 'after such usage he would not proceed if he might have £20,000.'" The intervention of the broker in this negotiation is delightfully suggestive. More should have been said about him—his name, address, and terms for doing business. Was he paid for his services on all that he could save from a certain sum beyond which his employer would not advance a single gold-piece for the disposal of his child? Were there, in olden time, men who avowed themselves 'Heart and Jointure Brokers, Agents for Lovers of both Sexes, Contractors of Mutual Attachments, Wholesale and Retail Dealers in Reciprocal Affection, and General Referees, Respondents, and Insurers in all Sentimental Affairs, Clandestine or otherwise?'

After these mischances Francis North made an eligible match under somewhat singular circumstances. As co-heiresses of Thomas, Earl of Down, three sisters, the Ladies Pope, claimed under certain settlements large estates of inheritance, to which Lady Elizabeth Lee set up a counter claim. North, acting as Lady Elizabeth Lee's counsel, effected a compromise which secured half the property in dispute to his client, and diminished by one-half the fortunes to which each of the three suitors on the other side had maintained their right. Having thus reduced the estate of Lady Frances Pope to a fortune estimated at about £14,000, the lawyer proposed for her hand, and was accepted. After his marriage, alluding to his exertions in behalf of Lady Elizabeth Lee's very disputable claim, he used to say that "he had been counsel against himself;" but Roger North frankly admits that "if this question had not come to such a composition, which diminished the ladies' fortunes, his brother had never compassed his match."

It was not without reluctance that the Countess of Downs consented to the union of her daughter with the lawyer who had half ruined her, and who (though he was Solicitor General and in fine practice) could settle only £5000 upon the lady. "I well remember," observes Roger, "the good countess had some qualms, and complained that she knew not how she could justify what she had done (meaning the marrying her daughters with no better settlement)." To these qualms Francis North, with lawyer-like coolness, answered—"Madam, if you meet with any question about that,saythat your daughter has £1000 per annum jointure."

The marriage was celebrated in Wroxton Church; and after bountiful rejoicings with certain loyalist families of Oxfordshire, the happy couple went up to London and lived in chambers until they moved into a house in Chancery Lane.

It may surprise some readers of this book to learn that George Jeffreys, the odious judge of the Bloody Circuit, was a successful gallant. Tall, well-shaped, and endowed by nature with a pleasant countenance and agreeable features, Jeffreys was one of the most fascinating men of his time. A wit and abon-vivant, he could hit the humor of the roystering cavaliers who surrounded the 'merry monarch;' a man of gallantry and polite accomplishments, he was acceptable to women of society. The same tongue that bullied from the bench, when witnesses were perverse or counsel unruly, could flatter with such melodious affectation of sincerity, that he was known as a most delightful companion. As a musical connoisseur he spoke with authority; as a teller of good stories he had no equal in town. Even those who detested him did not venture to deny that in the discharge of his judicial offices he could at his pleasure assume a dignity and urbane composure that well became the seat of justice. In short, his talents and graces were so various and effective, that he would have risen to the bench, even if he had labored under the disadvantages of pure morality and amiable temper.

Women declared him irresistible. At court he had the ear of Nell Gwyn and the Duchess of Portsmouth—the Protestant favorite and the Catholic mistress; and before he attained the privilege of entering Whitehall—at a time when his creditors were urgent, and his best clients were the inferior attorneys of the city courts—he was loved by virtuous girls. He was still poor, unknown, and struggling with difficulties, when he induced an heiress to accept his suit,—the daughter of a rural squire whose wine the barrister had drunk upon circuit. This young lady was wooed under circumstances of peculiar difficulty; and she promised to elope with him if her father refused to receive him as a son-in-law. Ill-luck befell the scheme; and whilst young Jeffreys was waiting in the Temple for the letter which should decide his movements, an intimation reached him that elopement was impossible and union forbidden. The bearer of this bad news was a young lady—the child of a poor clergyman—who had been the confidential friend and paid companion of the squire's daughter.

The case was hard for Jeffreys, cruel for the fair messenger. He had lost an advantageous match, she had lost her daily bread. Furious with her for having acted as theconfidanteof the clandestine lovers, the squire had turned this poor girl out of his house; and she had come to London to seek for employment as well as to report the disaster.

Jeffreys saw her overpowered with trouble and shame—penniless in the great city, and disgraced by expulsion from her patron's roof. Seeing that her abject plight was the consequence of amiable readiness to serve him, Jeffreys pitied and consoled her. Most young men would have soothed their consciences and dried the running tears with a gift of money or a letter recommending the outcast to a new employer. As she was pretty, a libertine would have tried to seduce her. In Jeffreys, compassion roused a still finer sentiment: he loved the poor girl and married her. On May 23, 1667, Sarah Neesham was married to George Jeffreys of the Inner Temple; and her father, in proof of his complete forgiveness of herescapade, gave her a fortune of £300—a sum which the poor clergyman could not well afford to bestow on the newly married couple.

Having outlived Sarah Neesham, Jeffreys married again—taking for his second wife a widow whose father was Sir Thomas Bludworth, ex-Lord Mayor of London. Whether rumor treated her unjustly it is impossible to say at this distance of time; but if reliance may be put on many broad stories current about the lady, her conduct was by no means free from fault. She was reputed to entertain many lovers. Jeffreys would have created less scandal if, instead of taking her to his home, he had imitated the pious Sir Matthew Hale, who married his maid-servant, and on being twitted by the world with the lowliness of his choice, silenced his censors with a jest.

Amongst the love affairs of seventeenth-century lawyers place must be made for mention of the second wife whom Chief Justice Bramston brought home from Ireland, where she had outlived two husbands (the Bishop of Clogher and Sir John Brereton), before she gave her hand to the judge who had loved her in his boyhood. "When I see her," says the Chief Justice's son, who describes the expedition to Dublin, and the return to London, "I confess I wondered at my father's love. She was low, fatt, red-faced; her dress, too, was a hat and ruff, which tho' she never changed to death. But my father, I believe, seeing me change countenance, told me it was not beautie, but virtue, he courted. I believe she had been handsome in her youth; she had a delicate, fine hand, white and plump, and indeed proved a good wife and mother-in-law, too." On her journey to Charles I.'s London, this elderly bride, in her antiquated attire, rode from Holyhead to Beaumaris on a pillion behind her step-son. "As she rode over the sandes," records her step-son, "behind mee, and pulling off her gloves, her wedding ringe fell off, and sunk instantly. She caused her man to alight; she sate still behind me, and kept her eye on the place, and directed her man, but he not guessing well, she leaped off, saying she would not stir without her ringe, it being the most unfortunate thinge that could befall any one to lose the wedding-ringe—made the man thrust his hand into the sands (the nature of which is not to bear any weight but passing), he pulled up sand, but not the ringe. She made him strip his arme and put it deeper into the sand, and pulled up the ringe; and this done, he and shee, and all that stood still, were sunk almost to the knees, but we were all pleased that the ringe was found."

In the legal circle of Charles the Second's London, Lady King was notable as a virago whose shrill tongue disturbed her husband's peace of mind by day, and broke his rest at night. Earning a larger income than any other barrister of his time, he had little leisure for domestic society; but the few hours which he could have spent with his wife and children, he usually preferred to spend in a tavern, beyond the reach of his lady's sharp querulousness. "All his misfortune," says Roger North, "lay at home, in perverse consort, who always, after his day-labor done, entertained him with all the chagrin and peevishness imaginable; so that he went home as to his prison, or worse; and when the time came, rather than go home, he chose commonly to get a friend to go and sit in a free chat at the tavern, over a single bottle, till twelve or one at night, and then to work again at five in the morning. His fatigue in business, which, as I said, was more than ordinary to him, and his no comfort, or rather, discomfort at home, and taking his refreshment by excising his sleep, soon pulled him down; so that, after a short illness, he died." On his death-bed, however, he forgave the weeping woman, who, more through physical irritability than wicked design, had caused him so much undeserved discomfort; and by his last will and testament he made liberal provision for her wants. Having made his will, "he said, I am glad it is done," runs the memoir of Sir John King, written by his father, "and after took leave of his wife, who was full of tears; seeing it is the will of God, let us part quietly in friendship, with submissiveness to his will, as we came together in friendship by His will."

"CICERO" UPON HIS TRIAL.

A complete history of the loves of lawyers would notice many scandalous intrigues and disreputable alliances, and would comprise a good deal of literature for which the student would vainly look in the works of our best authors. From the days of Wolsey, whose amours were notorious, and whose illegitimate son became Dean of Wells, down to the present time of brighter though not unimpeachable morality, the domestic lives of our eminent judges and advocates have too frequently invited satire and justified regret. In the eighteenth century judges, without any loss ofcasteor popular regard, openly maintained establishments that in these more decorous and actually better days would cover their keepers with obloquy. Attention could be directed to more than one legal family in which the descent must be traced through a succession of illegitimate births. Not only did eminent lawyers live openly with women who were not their wives, and with children whom the law declined to recognize as their offspring; but these women and children moved in good society, apparently indifferent to shame that brought upon them but few inconveniences. In Great Ormond Street, where a mistress and several illegitimate children formed his family circle, Lord Thurlow was visited by bishops and deans; and it is said that in 1806, when Sir James Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was invited to the woolsack and the peerage, he was induced to decline the offer more by consideration for his illegitimate children than by fears for the stability of the new administration.

Speaking of Lord Thurlow's undisguised intercourse with Mrs. Hervey, Lord Campbell says, "When I first knew the profession, it would not have been endured that any one in a judicial situation should have had such a domestic establishment as Thurlow's; but a majority of judges had married their mistresses. The understanding then was that a man elevated to the bench, if he had a mistress, must either marry her or put her away. For many years there has been no necessity for such an alternative." Either Lord Campbell had not the keen appetite for professional gossip, with which he is ordinarily credited, or his conscience must have pricked him when he wrote, "For many years there has been no necessity for such an alternative." To show how far his lordship erred through want of information or defect of candor is not the duty of this page; but without making any statement that can wound private feeling, the present writer may observe that 'the understanding,' to which Lord Campbell draws attention, has affected the fortune of ladies within the present generation.

That the bright and high-minded Somers was the debauchee that Mrs. Manley and Mr. Cooksey would have us believe him is incredible. It is doubtful if Mackey in his 'Sketch of Leading Characters at the English Court' had sufficient reasons for clouding his sunny picture of the statesman with the assertion that he was "something of a libertine." But there are occasions when prudence counsels us to pay attention to slander.

Having raised himself to the office of Solicitor General, Somers, like Francis Bacon, found an alderman's daughter to his liking; and having formed a sincere attachment for her, he made his wishes known to her father. Miss Anne Bawdon's father was a wealthy merchant, styled Sir John Bawdon—a man proud of his civic station and riches, and thinking lightly of lawyers and law. When Somers stated his property and projects, the rental of his small landed estate and the buoyancy of his professional income, the opulent knight by no means approved the prospect offered to his child. The lawyer might die in the course of twelve months; in which case the Worcestershire estate would be still a small estate, and the professional income would cease. In twelve mouths Mr. Solicitor might be proved a scoundrel, for at heart all lawyers were arrant rogues; in which case matters would be still worse. Having regarded the question from these two points of view, Sir John Bawdon gave Somers his dismissal and married Miss Anne to a rich Turkey merchant. Three years later, when Somers had risen to the woolsack, and it was clear that the rich Turkey merchant would never be anything grander than a rich Turkey merchant, Sir John saw that he had made a serious blunder, for which his child certainly could not thank him. A goodly list might be made of cases where papas have erred and repented in Sir John Bawdon's fashion. Sir John Lawrence would have made his daughter a Lord Keeper's lady and a peeress, if he and his broker had dealt more liberally with Francis North. Had it not been for Sir Joseph Jekyll's counsel, Mr. Cocks, the Worcestershire squire, would have rejected Philip Yorke as an ineligible suitor, in which caseplainMrs. Lygon would never have been Lady Hardwicke, and worked her husband's twenty purses of state upon curtains and hangings of crimson velvet. And, if he were so inclined, this writer could point to a learned judge, who in his days of 'stuff' and 'guinea fees' was deemed an ineligible match for a country apothecary's pretty daughter. The country doctor being able to give his daughter £20,000, turned away disdainfully from the unknown 'junior,' who five years later was leading his circuit, and quickly rose to the high office which he still fills to the satisfaction of his country.

Disappointed in his pursuit of Anne Bawdon, Somers never again made any woman an offer of marriage; but scandalous gossip accused him of immoral intercourse with his housekeeper. This woman's name was Blount; and while she resided with the Chancellor, fame whispered that her husband was still living. Not only was Somers charged with open adultery, but it was averred that for the sake of peace he had imprisoned in a madhouse his mistress's lawful husband, who was originally a Worcester tradesman. The chief authority for this startling imputation is Mrs. Manley, who was encouraged, if not actually paid, by Swift to lampoon his political adversaries. In her 'New Atalantis'—the 'Cicero' of which scandalous work was understood by its readers to signify 'Lord Somers,'—this shameless woman entertained quid-nuncs and women of fashion by putting this abominable story in written words, the coarseness of which accorded with the repulsiveness of the accusation.

At a time when honest writers on current politics were punished with fine and imprisonment, the pillory and the whip, statesmen and ecclesiastics were not ashamed to keep such libellers as Mrs. Manley in their pay. That the reader may fully appreciate the change which time has wrought in the tone of political literature, let him contrast the virulence and malignity of this unpleasant passage from the New Atalantis, with the tone which recently characterized the public discussion of the case which is generally known by the name of 'The Edmunds Scandal.'

Notwithstanding her notorious disregard of truth, it is scarcely credible that Mrs. Manley's scurrilous charge was in no way countenanced by facts. At the close of the seventeenth century to keep a mistress was scarcely regarded as an offence against good morals; and living in accordance with the fashion of the time, it is probable that Somers did that which Lord Thurlow, after an interval of a century, was able to do without rousing public disapproval. Had his private life been spotless, he would doubtless have taken legal steps to silence his traducer; and unsustained by a knowledge that he dared not court inquiry into his domestic arrangements, Mrs. Manley would have used her pen with greater caution. But all persons competent to form an opinion on the case have agreed that the more revolting charges of the indictment were the baseless fictions of a malicious and unclean mind.

BROTHERS IN TROUBLE.

In the 'Philosophical Dictionary,' Voltaire, laboring under misapprehension or carried away by perverse humor, made the following strange announcement:—"Il est public en Angleterre, et on voudroit le nier en vain, que le Chancelier Cowper épousa deux femmes, qui vécurent ensemble dans sa maison avec une concorde singulière qui fit honneur à tous trois. Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce Chancelier composa en faveur de la Polygamie." Tickled by the extravagant credulity or grotesque malice of this declaration, an English wit, improving upon the published words, represented the Frenchman as maintaining that the custodian of the Great Seal of England was called theLord Keeper, because, by English law, he was permitted to keep as many wives as he pleased.

The reader's amusement will not be diminished by a brief statement of the facts to which we are indebted for Voltaire's assertions.

William Cowper, the first earl of his line, began life with a reputation for dissipated tastes and habits, and by unpleasant experience he learned how difficult it is to get rid of a bad name. The son of a Hertfordshire baronet, he was still a law student when he formed a reprehensible connexion with an unmarried lady of that county—Miss (or, as she was called by the fashion of the day Mistress) Elizabeth Culling, of Hertingfordbury Park. But little is known of this woman. Her age is an affair of uncertainty, and all the minor circumstances of her intrigue with young William Cowper are open to doubt and conjecture; but the few known facts justify the inference that she neither merited nor found much pity in her disgrace, and that William erred through boyish indiscretion rather than from vicious propensity. She bore him two children, and he neither married her nor was required by public opinion to marry her. The respectability of their connexions gave the affair a peculiar interest, and afforded countenance to many groundless reports. By her friends it was intimated that the boy had not triumphed over the lady's virtue until he had made her a promise of marriage; and some persons even went so far as to assert that they were privately married. It is not unlikely that at one time the boy intended to make her his wife as soon as he should be independent of his father, and free to please himself. Beyond question, however, is it that they were never united in wedlock, and that Will Cowper joined the Home Circuit with the tenacious fame of a scapegrace androué.

That he was for any long period a man of dissolute morals is improbable; for he was only twenty-four years of age when he was called to the bar, and before his call he had married (after a year's wooing) a virtuous and exemplary young lady, with whom he lived happily for more than twenty years. A merchant's child, whose face was her fortune—Judith, the daughter of Sir Robert Booth, is extolled by biographers for reclaiming her young husband from a life of levity and culpable pleasure. That he loved her sincerely from the date of their imprudent marriage till the date of her death, which occurred just about six months before his elevation to the woolsack, there is abundant evidence.

Judith died April 2, 1705, and in the September of the following year the Lord Keeper married Mary Clavering, the beautiful and virtuous lady of the bedchamber to Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Princess of Wales. This lady was the Countess Cowper whose diary was published by Mr. Murray in the spring of 1864; and in every relation of life she was as good and noble a creature as her predecessor in William Cowper's affection. Of the loving terms on which she lived with her lord, conclusive testimony is found in their published letters and her diary. Frequently separated by his professional avocations and her duties of attendance upon the Princess of Wales, they maintained, during the periods of personal severance, a close and tender intercourse by written words; and at all other times, in sickness not less than in health, they were a fondly united couple. One pathetic entry in the countess's diary speaks eloquently of their nuptial tenderness and devotion:—"April 7th, 1716. After dinner we went to Sir Godfrey Kneller's to see a picture of my lord, which he is drawing, and is the best that was ever done for him; it is for my drawing-room, and in the same posture that he watched me so many weeks in my great illness."

Lord Cowper's second marriage was solemnized with a secrecy for which his biographers are unable to account. The event took place September, 1706, about two months before his father's death, but it was not announced till the end of February, 1707, at which time Luttrell entered in his diary, "The Lord Keeper, who not long since was privately married to Mrs. Clavering of the bishoprick of Durham, brought her home this day." Mr. Foss, in his 'Judges of England,' suggests that the concealment of the union "may not improbably be explained by the Lord Keeper's desire not to disturb the last days of his father, who might perhaps have been disappointed that the selection had not fallen on some other lady to whom he had wished his son to be united." But this conjecture, notwithstanding its probability, is only a conjecture. Unless they had grave reasons for their conduct, the Lord Keeper and his lady had better have joined hands in the presence of the world, for the mystery of their private wedding nettled public curiosity, and gave new life to an old slander.

Cowper's boyishescapadewas not forgotten by the malicious. No sooner had he become conspicuous in his profession and in politics, than the story of his intercourse with Miss Culling was told in coffee-rooms with all the exaggerations that prurient fancy could devise or enmity dictate. The old tale of a secret marriage—or, still worse, of a mock marriage—was caught from the lips of some Hertford scandal-monger, and conveyed to the taverns and drawing-rooms of London. In taking Sir Robert Booth's daughter to Church, he was said to have committed bigamy. Even while he was in the House of Commons he was known by the name of 'Will Bigamy;' and thatsobriquetclung to him ever afterwards. Twenty years of wholesome domestic intercourse with his first wife did not free him from the abominable imputation, and his marriage with Miss Clavering revived the calumny in a new form. Fools were found to believe that he had married her during Judith Booth's life and that their union had been concealed for several years instead of a few months. The affair with Miss Culling was for a time forgotten, and the charge preferred against the keeper of the queen's conscience was bigamy of a much more recent date.

In various forms this ridiculous accusation enlivens the squibs of the pamphleteers of Queen Anne's reign. In the 'New Atalantis' Mrs. Manley certified that the fair victim was first persuaded by his lordship's sophistries to regard polygamy as accordant with moral law. Having thus poisoned her understanding, he gratified her with a form of marriage, in which his brother Spencer, in clerical disguise, acted the part of a priest. It was even suggested that the bride in this mock marriage was the lawyer's ward. Never squeamish about the truth, when he could gain a point by falsehood, Swift endorsed the spiteful fabrication, and in theExaminer, pointing at Lord Cowper, wrote—"This gentleman, knowing that marriage fees were a considerable perquisite to the clergy, found out a way of improving them cent. per cent. for the benefit of the Church. His invention was to marry a second wife while the first was alive; convincing her of the lawfulness by such arguments as he did not doubt would make others follow the same example.These he had drawn up in writing with intention to publish for the general good, and it is hoped he may now have leisure to finish them." It is possible that the words in italics were the cause of Voltaire's astounding statement: "Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce Chancelier composa en faveur de la Polygamie." On this point Lord Campbell, confidently advancing an opinion which can scarcely command unanimous assent, says, "The fable of the 'Treatise' is evidently taken from the panegyric on 'a plurality of wives,' which Mrs. Manley puts into the mouth of Lord Cowper, in a speech supposed to be addressed by Hernando to Lousia." But whether Voltaire accepted the 'New Atalantis,' or theExaminer, as an authority for the statements of his very laughable passage, it is scarcely credible that he believed himself to be penning the truth. The most reasonable explanation of the matter appears to be, that tickled by Swift's venomous lines, the sarcastic Frenchman in malice and gaiety adopted them, and added to their piquancy by the assurance that the Chancellor's book was not only published, but was preserved by connoisseurs as a literary curiosity.

Like his elder brother, the Chancellor, Spencer Cowper married at an early age, lived to wed a second wife, and was accused of immorality that was foreign to his nature. The offence with which the younger Cowper was charged, created so wide and profound a sensation, and gave rise to such a memorable trial, that the reader will like to glance at the facts of the case.

Born in 1669, Spencer Cowper was scarcely of age when he was called to the bar, and made Comptroller of the Bridge House Estate. The office, which was in the gift of the corporation of London, provided him with a good income, together with a residence in the Bridge House, St. Olave's, Southwark, and brought him in contact with men who were able to bring him briefs or recommend him to attorneys. For several years the boy-barrister was thought a singularly lucky fellow. His hospitable house was brightened by a young and lovely wife (Pennington, the daughter of John Goodeve), and he was so much respected in his locality that he was made a justice of the peace. In his profession he was equally fortunate: his voice was often heard at Westminster and on the Home Circuit, the same circuit where his brother William practised and his family interest lay. He found many clients.

Envy is the shadow of success; and the Cowpers were watched by men who longed to ruin them. From the day when they armed and rode forth to welcome the Prince of Orange, the lads had been notably fortunate. Notwithstanding his reputation for immorality William Cowper had sprung into lucrative practice, and in 1695 was returned to Parliament as representative for Hartford, the other seat for the borough being filled by his father, Sir William Cowper.

In spite of their comeliness and complaisant manners, the lightness of their wit and theprestigeof their success, Hertford heard murmurs that the young Cowpers weretoolucky by half, and that the Cowper interest was dangerously powerful in the borough. It was averred that the Cowpers were making unfair capital out of liberal professions: and when the Hertford Whigs sent the father and son to the House of Commons, the vanquished party cursed in a breath the Dutch usurper and his obsequious followers.

It was resolved to damage the Cowpers:—by fair means or foul, to render them odious in their native town.

Ere long the malcontents found a good cry.

Scarcely less odious to the Hertford Tories than the Cowpers themselves was an influential Quaker of the town, named Stout, who actively supported the Cowper interest. A man of wealth and good repute, this follower of George Fox exerted himself enthusiastically in the election contest of 1695: and in acknowledgment of his services the Cowpers honored him with their personal friendship. Sir William Cowper asked him to dine at Hertford Castle—the baronet's country residence; Sir William's sons made calls on his wife and daughter. Of course these attentions from Cowpers to 'the Shaker' were offensive to the Tory magnates of the place: and they vented their indignation in whispers, that the young men never entered Stout's house without kissing his pretty daughter.

While these rumors were still young, Mr. Stout died leaving considerable property to his widow, and to his only child—the beauteous Sarah; and after his death the intercourse between the two families became yet more close and cordial. The lawyers advised the two ladies about the management of their property: and the baronet gave them invitations to his London House in Hatton Garden, as well as to Hertford Castle. The friendship had disastrous consequences. Both the brothers were very fascinating men—men, moreover, who not only excelled in the art of pleasing, but who also habitually exercised it. From custom, inclination, policy, they were very kind to the mother and daughter; probably paying the latter many compliments which they would never have uttered had they been single men. Coming from an unmarried man the speech is often significant of love, which on the lips of a husband is but the language of courtesy. But, unfortunately, Miss ('Mistress' is her style in the report of a famous trial) Sarah Stout fell madly in love with Spencer Cowper notwithstanding the impossibility of marriage.

Not only did she conceive a dangerous fondness for him, but she openly expressed it—by speech and letters. She visited him in the Temple, and persecuted him with her embarrassing devotion whenever he came to Hertford. It was a trying position for a young man not thirty years of age, with a wife to whom he was devotedly attached, and a family whose political influence in his native town might be hurt by publication of the girl's folly. Taking his elder brother into his confidence, he asked what course he ought to pursue. To withdraw totally and abruptly from the two ladies, would be cruel to the daughter, insulting to the mother; moreover, it would give rise to unpleasant suspicions and prejudicial gossip in the borough. It was decided that Spencer must repress the girl's advances—must see her loss frequently—and, by a reserved and frigid manner, must compel her to assume an appearance of womanly discretion. But the plan failed.

At the opening of the year 1699 she invited him to take up his quarters in her mother's house, when he came to Hertford at the next Spring Assizes. This invitation he declined, saying that he had arranged to take his brother's customary lodgings in the house of Mr. Barefoot, in the Market Place, but with manly consideration he promised to call upon her. "I am glad," Sarah wrote to him on March 5, 1699, "you have not quite forgot there is such a person as I in being: but I am willing to shut my eyes and not see anything that looks like unkindness in you, and rather content myself with what excuses you are pleased to make, than be inquisitive into what I must not know: I am sure the winter has been too unpleasant for me to desire the continuance of it: and I wish you were to endure the sharpness of it but for one short hour, as I have done for many long nights and days, and then I believe it would move that rocky heart of yours that can be so thoughtless of me as you are."

On Monday, March 13, following the date of the words just quoted, Spencer Cowper rode into Hertford, alighted at Mrs. Stout's house, and dined with the ladies. Having left the house after dinner, in order that he might attend to some business, he returned in the evening and supped with the two women. Supper over, Mrs. Stout retired for the night, leaving her daughter and the young barrister together. No sooner had the mother left the room, than a distressing scene ensued.

Unable to control or soothe her, Spencer gently divided the clasp of her hands, and having freed himself from her embrace, hastened from the room and abruptly left the house. He slept at his lodgings; and the next morning he was horror-struck on hearing that Sarah Stout's body had been found drowned in the mill-stream behind her old home. That catastrophe had actually occurred. Scarcely had the young barrister reached the Market Place, when the miserable girl threw herself into the stream from which her lifeless body was picked on the following morning. At the coroner's inquest which ensued, Spencer Cowper gave his evidence with extreme caution, withholding every fact that could be injurious to Sarah's reputation; and the jury returned a verdict that the deceased gentlewoman had killed herself whilst in a state of insanity.

In deep dejection Spencer Cowper continued the journey of the circuit.

But the excitement of the public was not allayed by the inquest and subsequent funeral. It was rumored that it was no case of self-murder, but a case of murder by the barrister, who had strangled his dishonored victim, and had then thrown her into the river. Anxious to save their sect from the stigma of suicide the Quakers concurred with the Tories in charging the young man with a hideous complication of crimes. The case against Spencer was laid before Chief Justice Holt, who at first dismissed the accusation as absurd, but was afterwards induced to commit the suspected man for trial; and in the July of 1699 the charge actually came before a jury at the Hertford Assizes. Four prisoners—Spencer Cowper, two attorneys, and a law-writer—were placed in the dock on the charge of murdering Sarah Stout.

On the present occasion there is no need to recapitulate the ridiculous evidence and absurd misconduct of the prosecution in this trial; though criminal lawyers who wish to know what unfairness and irregularities were permitted in such inquiries in the seventeenth century cannot do better than to peruse the full report of the proceedings, which may be found in every comprehensive legal library. In this place it is enough to say that though the accusation was not sustained by a shadow of legal testimony, the prejudice against the prisoners, both on the part of a certain section of the Hertford residents and the presiding judge, Mr. Baron Hatsel, was such that the verdict for acquittal was a disappointment to many who heard it proclaimed by the foreman of the jury. Narcissus Luttrell, indeed, says that the verdict was "to the satisfaction of the auditors;" but in this statement the diarist was unquestionably wrong, so far as the promoters of the prosecution were concerned. Instead of accepting the decision without demur, they attempted to put the prisoners again on their trial by the obsolete process of "appeal of murder;" but this endeavor proving abortive, the case was disposed of, and the prisoners' minds set at rest.

The barrister who was thus tried on a capital charge, and narrowly escaped a sentence that would have consigned him to an ignominious death, resumed his practice in the law courts, sat in the House of Commons and rose to be a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. It is said that he "presided on many trials for murder; ever cautious and mercifully inclined—remembering the great peril which he himself had undergone."

The same writer who aspersed Somers with her unchaste thoughts, and reiterated the charge of bigamy against Lord Chancellor Cowper, did not omit to give a false and malicious version to the incidents which had acutely wounded the fine sensibilities of the younger Cowper. But enough notice has been taken of the 'New Atalantis' in this chapter. To that repulsive book we refer those readers who may wish to peruse Mrs. Manley's account of Sarah Stout's death.

A distorted tradition of Sarah Stout's tragic end, and of Lord Cowper's imputed bigamy, was contributed to an early number of the 'European' by a clerical authority—the Rev. J. Hinton, Rector of Alderton, in Northamptonshire. "Mrs. Sarah Stout," says the writer, "whose death was charged upon Spencer Cowper, was strangled accidentally by drawing the steenkirk too tight upon her neck, as she, with four or five young persons, were at a game of romp upon the staircase; but it was not done by Mr. Cowper, though one of the company. Mrs. Clavering, Lord Chancellor Cowper's second wife, whom he married during the life of his first, was there too; they were so confounded with the accident, that they foolishly resolved to throw her into the water, thinking it would pass that she had drowned herself." This charming paragraph illustrates the vitality of scandal, and at the same time shows how ludicrously rumor and tradition mistell stories in the face of evidence.

Spencer Cowper's second son, the Rev. John Cowper, D.D., was the father of William Cowper, the poet.

EARLY MARRIAGES.

Notwithstanding his illustrious descent, Simon Harcourt raised himself to the woolsack by his own exertions, and was in no degree indebted to powerful relatives for his elevation. The son of a knight, whose loyalty to the House of Stuart had impoverished his estate, he spent his student-days at Pembroke, Oxford, and the Inner Temple, in resolute labor, and with few indulgences. His father could make him but a slender allowance; and when he assumed the gown of a barrister, the future Chancellor, like Erskine in after years, was spurred to industry by the voices of his wife and children. Whilst he was still an undergraduate of the university, he fell in love with Rebecca Clark, daughter of a pious man, of whose vocation the modern peerages are ashamed. Sir Philip Harcourt (the Chancellor's father) in spite of his loyalty quarrelled with the Established Church, and joined the Presbyterians: and Thomas Clark was his Presbyterian chaplain, secretary, and confidential servant. Great was Sir Philip's wrath on learning that his boy had not only fallen in love with Rebecca Clark, but had married her privately. It is probable that the event lowered the worthy knight's esteem for the Presbyterian system; but as anger could not cut the nuptial bond, the father relented—gave the young people all the assistance he could, and hoped that they would live long without repenting their folly. The match turned out far better than the old knight feared. Taking his humble bride to modest chambers, young Harcourt applied sedulously to the study of the law; and his industry was rewarded by success, and by the gratitude of a dutiful wife. In unbroken happiness they lived together for a succession of years, and their union was fruitful of children.

Harcourt fared better with his love-match than Sergeant Hill with his heiress, Miss Medlycott of Cottingham, Northamptonshire. On the morning of his wedding the eccentric sergeant, having altogether forgotten his most important engagement for the day, received his clients in chambers after his usual practice, and remained busy with professional cares until a band of devoted friends forcibly carried him to the church, where his bride had been waiting for him more than an hour. The ceremony having been duly performed, he hastened back to his chambers, to be present at a consultation. Notwithstanding her sincere affection for him, the lady proved but an indifferent wife to the black-letter lawyer. Empowered by Act of Parliament to retain her maiden-name after marriage, she showed her disesteem for her husband's patronymic by her mode of exercising the privilege secured to her by special law; and many a time the sergeant indignantly insisted that she should use his name in her signatures. "My name is Hill, madam; my father's name was Hill, madam; all the Hills have been named Hill, madam; Hill is a good name—and by ——, madam, youshalluse it." On other matters he was more compliant—humoring her old-maidish fancies in a most docile and conciliating manner. Curiously neat and orderly, Mrs. Medlycott took great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as cleanliness and precise order were concerned. To maintain the whiteness of the pipe-clayed steps before the front door of her Bedford Square mansion was a chief object of her existence; and to gratify her in this particular, Sergeant Hill use daily to leave his premises by the kitchen steps. Having outlived the lady, Hill observed to a friend who was condoling with him on his recent bereavement, "Ay, my poor wife is gone! She was a good sort of woman—inherway averygood sort of woman. I do honestly declare my belief that inherway she had no equal. But—but—I'll tell you something in confidence. If ever I marry again,I won't marry merely for money." The learned sergeant died in his ninety-third year without having made a second marriage.

Like Harcourt, John Scott married under circumstances that called forth many warm expressions of censure; and like Harcourt, he, in after life, reflected on his imprudent marriage as one of the most fortunate steps of his earlier career. The romance of the law contains few more pleasant episodes than the story of handsome Jack Scott's elopement with Bessie Surtees. There is no need to tell in detail how the comely Oxford scholar danced with the banker's daughter at the Newcastle assemblies; how his suit was at first recognised by the girl's parents, although the Scotts were but rich 'fitters,' whereas Aubone Surtees, Esquire, was a banker and gentleman of honorable descent; how, on the appearance of an aged and patrician suitor for Bessie's hand, papa and mamma told Jack Scott not to presume on their condescension, and counseled Bessie to throw her lover over and become the lady of Sir William Blackett; how Bessie was faithful, and Jack was urgent; how they had secret interviews on Tyne-side and in London, meeting clandestinely on horseback and on foot, corresponding privately by letters and confidential messengers; how, eventually, the lovers, to the consternation of 'good society' in Newcastle, were made husband and wife at Blackshiels, North Britain. Who is ignorant of the story? Does not every visitor to Newcastle pause before an old house in Sandhill, and look up at the blue pane which marks the window from which Bessie descended into her lover's arms?

Jack and Bessie were not punished with even that brief period of suffering and uncertainty which conscientious novelists are accustomed, for the sake of social morals, to assign to run-away lovers before the merciful guardian or tender parent promises forgiveness and a liberal allowance, paid in quarterly installments. In his old age Eldon used to maintain that their plight was very pitiable on the third morning after their rash union. "Our funds were exhausted: we had not a home to go to, and we knew not whether our friends would ever speak to us again." In this strain ran the veteran's story, which, like all other anecdotes from the same source, must be received with caution. But even the old peer, ever ready to exaggerate his early difficulties, had not enough effrontery to represent that their dejection lasted more than three days. The fathers of the bride and bridegroom soon met and came to terms, and with the beginning of the new year Bessie Scott was living in New Inn Hall, Oxford, whilst her husband read Vinerian Lectures, and presided over that scholastic house. The position of Scott at this time was very singular. He was acting as substitute for Sir Robert Chambers, the principal of New Inn Hall and Vinerian Professor of Law, who contrived to hold his university preferments, whilst he discharged the duties of a judge in India. To give an honest color to this indefensible arrangement, it was provided that the lectures read from the Vinerian Chair should actually be written by the Professor, although they were delivered by deputy. Scott, therefore, as the Professor's mouth-piece, on a salary of £60 a year, with free quarters in the Principal's house, was merely required to read a series of treatises sent to him by the absent teacher. "The law-professor," the ex-Chancellor used to relate with true Eldonian humor andfancy—"sent me the first lecture, which I had to read immediately to the students, and which I began without knowing a single word that was in it. It was upon the statute (4 and 5 P. and M. c. 8), 'of young men running away with maidens.' Fancy me reading, with about 140 boys and young men all giggling at the Professor! Such a tittering audience no one ever had." If this incident really occurred on the occasion of his 'first reading,' the laughter must have been inextinguishable; for, of course, Jack Scott's run-away marriage had made much gossip in Oxford Common Rooms, and the singular loveliness of his girlish wife (described by an eye-witness as being "so very young as to give the impression of childhood,") stirred the heart of every undergraduate who met her in High Street.

There is no harm done by laughter at the old Chancellor's romantic fictions about the poverty which he and his Bessie encountered, hand in hand, at the outset of life; for the laughter blinds no one to the genuine affection and wholesome honesty of the young husband and wife. One has reason to wish that marriages such as theirs were more frequent amongst lawyers in these ostentatious days. At present the young barrister, who marries before he has a clear fifteen hundred a year, is charged with reckless imprudence; and unless his wife is a woman of fortune, or he is able to settle a heavy sum of money upon her, his anxious friends terrify him with pictures of want and sorrow stored up for him in the future. Society will not let him live after the fashion of 'juniors' eighty or a hundred years since. He must maintain two establishments—his chambers for business, his house in the west-end of town for his wife. Moreover, the lady must have a brougham and liberal pin money, or four or five domestic servants and a drawing-room well furnished with works of art and costly decorations. They must give state dinners and three or four routs every season; and in all other matters their mode of life must be, or seem to be, that of the upper ten thousand. Either they must live in this style, or be pushed aside and forgotten. The choice for them lies between very expensive society or none at all—that is to say, none at all amongst the rising members of the legal profession, and the sort of people with whom young barristers, from prudential motives, wish to form acquaintance. Doubtless many a fair reader of this page is already smiling at the writer's simplicity, and is saying to herself, "Here is one of the advocates of marriage on three hundred a year."

But this writer is not going to advocate marriage on that or any other particular sum. From personal experience he knows what comfort a married man may have for an outlay of three or four hundred per annum; and from personal observation he knows what privations and ignominious poverty are endured by unmarried men who spend twice the larger of those sums on chamber-and-club life. He knows that there are men who shiver at the bare thought of losing caste by marriage with a portionless girl, whilst they are complacently leading the life which, in nine cases out of ten, terminates in the worst form of social degradation—matrimony where the husband blushes for his wife's early history, and dares not tell his own children the date of his marriage certificate. If it were his pleasure he could speak sad truths about the bachelor of modest income, who is rich enough to keep his name on the books of two fashionable clubs, to live in a good quarter of London, and to visit annually continental capitals, but far too poor to think of incurring the responsibilities of marriage. It could be demonstrated that in a great majority of instances this wary, prudent, selfish gentleman, instead of being the social success which many simple people believe him, is a signal and most miserable failure; that instead of pursuing a career of various enjoyments and keen excitements, he is a martyr toennui, bored by the monotony of an objectless existence, utterly weary of the splendid clubs, in which he is presumed by unsophisticated admirers to find an ample compensation for want of household comfort and domestic affection: that as soon as he has numbered forty years, he finds the roll of his friends and cordial acquaintances diminish, and is compelled to retire before younger men, who snatch from his grasp the prizes of social rivalry; and that, as each succeeding lustre passes, he finds the chain of his secret disappointments and embarrassments more galling and heavy.

It is not a question of marriage on three hundred a year without prospects, but a marriage on five or six hundred a year with good expectations. In the Inns of Court there are, at the present time, scores of clever, industrious fine-hearted gentlemen who have sure incomes of three or four hundred pounds per annum. In Tyburnia and Kensington there is an equal number of young gentlewomen with incomes varying between £150 and £300 a year. These men and women see each other at balls and dinners, in the parks and at theatres; the ladies would not dislike to be wives, the men are longing to be husbands. But that hideous tyrant, social opinion, bids them avoid marriage.

In Lord Eldon's time the case was otherwise. Society saw nothing singular or reprehensible in his conduct when he brought Bessie to live in the little house in Cursitor Street. No one sneered at the young law-student, whose home was a little den in a dingy thoroughfare. At a later date, the rising junior, whose wife lived over his business chambers in Carey Street, was the object of no unkind criticism because his domestic arrangements were inexpensive, and almost frugal. Had his success been tardy instead of quick and decisive, and had circumstances compelled him to live under the shadow of Lincoln's Inn wall for thirty years on a narrow income, he would not on that account have suffered from a single disparaging criticism. Amongst his neighbors in adjacent streets, and within the boundaries of his Inn, he would have found society for himself and wife, and playmates for his children. Good fortune coming in full strong flood, he was not compelled to greatly change his plan of existence. Even in those days, when costly ostentation characterized aristocratic society—he was permitted to live modestly—and lay the foundation of that great property which he transmitted to his ennobled descendants.

When satire has done its worst with the miserly propensities of the great lawyer and his wife, their long familiar intercourse exhibits a wealth of fine human affection and genuine poetry which sarcasm cannot touch. Often as he had occasion to regret Lady Eldon's peculiarities—the stinginess which made her grudge the money paid for a fish or a basket of fruit; the nervous repugnance to society, which greatly diminished his popularity; and the taste for solitude and silence which marked her painfully towards the close of her life—the Chancellor never even hinted to her his dissatisfaction. When their eldest daughter, following her mother's example, married without the permission of her parents, it was suggested to Lord Eldon that her ladyship ought to take better care of her younger daughter, Lady Frances, and entering society should play the part of a vigilantchaperon. The counsel was judicious; but the Chancellor declined to act upon it, saying,—"When she was young and beautiful, she gave up everything for me. What she is, I have made her; and I cannot now bring myself to compel her inclinations. Our marriage prevented her mixing in society when it afforded her pleasure; it appears to give pain now, and why should I interpose?" In his old age, when she was dead, he visited his estate in Durham, but could not find heart to cross the Tyne bridge and look at the old house from which he took her in the bloom and tenderness of her girlhood. An urgent invitation to visit Newcastle drew from him the reply—"I know my fellow-townsmen complain of my not coming to see them; buthow can I pass that bridge?" After a pause, he added, "Poor Bessie! if ever there was an angel on earth she was one. The only reparation which one man can make to another for running away with his daughter, is to be exemplary in his conduct towards her."

In pecuniary affairs not less prudent than his brother, Lord Stowell in matters of sentiment was capable of indiscretion. In the long list of legal loves there are not many episodes more truly ridiculous than the story of the older Scott's second marriage. On April 10, 1813, the decorous Sir William Scott, and Louisa Catharine, widow of John, Marquis of Sligo, and daughter of Admiral Lord Howe, were united in the bonds of holy wedlock, to the infinite amusement of the world of fashion, and to the speedy humiliation of the bridegroom. So incensed was Lord Eldon at his brother's folly, that he refused to appear at the wedding; and certainly the Chancellor's displeasure was not without reason, for the notorious absurdity of the affair brought ridicule on the whole of the Scott family connexion. The happy couple met for the first time in the Old Bailey, when Sir William Scott and Lord Ellenborough presided at the trial of the marchioness's son, the young Marquis of Sligo, who had incurred the anger of the law by luring into his yacht, in Mediterranean waters, two of the king's seamen. Throughout the hearing of thatcause célèbre, the marchioness sat in the fetid court of the Old Bailey, in the hope that her presence might rouse amongst the jury or in the bench feelings favorable to her son. This hope was disappointed. The verdict having been given against the young peer, he was ordered to pay a fine of £5000, and undergo four months' incarceration in Newgate, and—worse than fine and imprisonment—was compelled to listen to a parental address from Sir William Scott on the duties and responsibilities of men of high station. Either under the influence of sincere admiration for the judge, or impelled by desire for vengeance on the man who had presumed to lecture her son in a court of justice, the marchioness wrote a few hasty words of thanks to Sir William Scott for his salutary exhortation to her boy. She even went so far as to say that she wished the erring marquis could always have so wise a counsellor at his side. This communication was made upon a slip of paper, which the writer sent to the judge by an usher of the court. Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and smile that were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness, the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He took reasonable pride in the perfection of his tone and manner; and the marchioness—whose malice did not lack cleverness—was never more happy than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in the presence of numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style, tact, and gentlemanlike bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under similar circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his chambers to the society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his Inn he sought compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he endured at home. Fifty years since the crusted port of the Middle Temple could soothe the heart at night, without paining the head in the morning.

MONEY.

FEES TO COUNSEL.

From time immemorial popular satire has been equally ready to fix the shame of avarice upon Divinity Physic, and Law; and it cannot be denied that in this matter the sarcasms of the multitude are often sustained by the indisputable evidence of history. The greed of the clergy for tithes and dues is not more widely proverbial than the doctor's thirst for fees, or the advocate's readiness to support injustice for the sake of gain. Of Guyllyam of Horseley, physician to Charles VI. of France, Froissart says, "All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that ever was;" and the chronicler adds, "With this rodde lightly all physicians are beaten." In his address to the sergeants who were called soon after his elevation to the Marble Chair, the Lord Keeper Puckering, directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently disgraced the leaders of the bar, observed: "I am to exhort you also not to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing causes than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby you either disappoint your clients when their causes be heard, or come unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing. For it is all one not to come, as either to come unprovided, or depart before it be ended." Notwithstanding Lingard's able defence of the Cardinal, scholars are still generally of opinion that Beaufort—the Chancellor who lent money on the king's crown, the bishop who sold the Pope's soldiers for a thousand marks—is a notable instance of the union of legal covetousness and ecclesiastical greed.

The many causes which affect the value of money in different ages create infinite perplexity for the antiquarian who wishes to estimate the prosperity of the bar in past times; but the few disjointed data, that can be gathered from old records, create an impression that in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the ordinary fees of eminent counsel were by no means exorbitant, although fortunate practitioners could make large incomes.

Dugdale's 'Baronage' describes with delightful quaintness William de Beauchamp's interview with his lawyers when that noble (on the death of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke,temp.Richard II., without issue), claimed the earl's estates under an entail, in opposition to Edward Hastings, the earl's heir-male of the half-blood. "Beauchamp," says Dugdale, "invited his learned counsel to his house in Paternoster Row, in the City of London; amongst whom were Robert Charlton (then a judge), William Pinchbek, William Branchesley, and John Catesby (all learned lawyers); and after dinner, coming out of his chapel, in an angry mood, threw to each of them a piece of gold, and said, 'Sirs, I desire you forthwith to tell me whether I have any right or title to Hastings' lordship and lands.' Whereupon Pinchbek stood up (the rest being silent, fearing that he suspected them), and said, 'No man here nor in England dare say that you have any right in them, except Hastings do quit his claim therein; and should he do it, being now under age, it would be of no validitie.'" Had Charlton, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, taken gold for his opinion on a case put before him in his judicial character, he would have violated his judicial oath. But in the earl's house in Paternoster Row he was merely a counsellor learned in the law, not a judge. Manifest perils attend a system which permits a judge in his private character to give legal opinions concerning causes on which he may be required to give judgment from the bench; but notwithstanding those perils, there is no reason for thinking that Charlton on this occasion either broke law or etiquette. The fair inference from the matter is, that in the closing years of the fourteenth century judges were permitted to give opinions for money to their private clients, although they were forbidden to take gold or silver from any person having "plea or process hanging before them."

In the year of our Lord 1500 the corporation of Canterbury paid for advice regarding their civic interests 3s.4d.to each of three sergeants, and gave the Recorder of London 6s.8d.as a retaining-fee. Five years later, Mr. Serjeant Wood received a fee of 10s.from the Goldsmiths' Company; and it maybe fairly assumed, that so important and wealthy a body paid the sergeant on a liberal scale. In the sixteenth century it was, and for several generations had been, customary for clients to provide food and drink for their counsel. Mr. Foss gives his readers the following list of items, taken from a bill of costs, made in the reign of Edward IV.:—

In like manner the accountant of St. Margaret's, Westminster, entered in the parish books, "Also, paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel given, 3s.8d., with 4d.for his dinner."

A yet more remarkable custom was that which enabled clients to hire counsel to plead for them at certain places, for a given time, in whatever causes their eloquence might be required. There still exists the record of an agreement by which, in the reign of Henry VII., Sergeant Yaxley bound himself to attend the assizes at York, Nottingham and Derby, and speak in court at each of those places, whenever his client, Sir Robert Plumpton—"that perpetual and always unfortunate litigant," as he is called by Sergeant Manning—required him to do so. This interesting document runs thus—"This bill, indented at London the 18th day of July, the 16th yeare of the reigne of King Henry the 7th, witnesseth that John Yaxley, Sergeant-at-Law, shall be at the next assizes to be holden at York, Nottin., and Derb., if they be holden and kept, and there to be of council with Sir Robert Plumpton, knight, such assizes and actions as the said Sir Robert shall require the said John Yaxley, for the which premises, as well as for his costs and his labours, John Pulan, gentleman, bindeth him by thease presents to content and pay to the said John Yaxley 40 marks sterling at the feast of the Nativetie of our Lady next coming, or within eight days next following, with 5 li paid aforehand, parcell of paiment of the said 40 marks. Provided alway that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and warning only to cum to Nottin. and Derby, then the said John Yaxley is agread by these presents to take only xv li besides the 5 li aforesaid. Provided alwaies that if the said John Yaxley have knowledg and warning to take no labour in this matter, then he to reteine and hold the said 5 li resaived for his good will and labour. In witness hereof, the said John Yaxley, serjeant, to the part of this indenture remaining with the said John Pulan have put his seale the day and yeare above-written. Provided also that the said Robert Plumpton shall beare the charges of the said John Yaxley, as well at York as at Nottingham and Derby, and also to content and pay the said money to the said John Yaxley comed to the said assizes att Nott., Derb., and York.John Yaxley."

This remarkable agreement—made after Richard III. had vainly endeavored to compose by arbitration the differences between Sir Robert and Sir Robert's heir-general—certifies that Sir Robert Plumpton engaged to provide the sergeant with suitable entertainment at the assize towns, and also throws light upon the origin of retaining-fees. It appears from the agreement that in olden time a retaining fee was merely part (surrendered in advance) of a certain sum stipulated to be paid for certain services. In principle it was identical with the payment of the shilling, still given in rural districts, to domestic servants on an agreement for service, and with the transfer of the queen's shilling given to every soldier on enlistment. There is no need to mention the classic origin of this ancient mode of giving force to a contract.

From the 'Household and Privy Purse Expenses of the Le Stranges of Hunstanton,' published in the Archæologia, may be gleamed some interesting particulars relating to the payment of counsel in the reign of Henry VIII. In 1520, Mr. Cristofer Jenney received from the Le Stranges a half-yearly fee of ten shillings; and this general retainer was continued on the same terms till 1527, when the fee was raised from £1 per annum to a yearly payment of £2 13s.4d.To Mr. Knightley was paid the sum of 8s.11d."for his fee, and that money yt he layde oute for suying of Simon Holden;" and the same lawyer also received at another time 14s.3d."for his fee and cost of sute for iii termes." A fee of 6s.8d.was paid to "Mr. Spelman, s'jeant, for his counsell in makyng my answer in ye Duchy Cham.;" and the same serjeant received a fee of 3s.4d."for his counsell in putting in of the answer." Fees of 3s.4d.were in like manner given "for counsell" to Mr. Knightley and Mr. Whyte; and in 1534, Mr. Yelverton was remunerated "for his counsell" with the unusually liberal honorarium of twenty shillings. From the household book of the Earl of Northumberland, it appears that order was made, in this same reign, for "every oone of my lordes counsaill to have c's. fees, if he have it in household and not by patent." After the earl's establishment was reduced to forty-two persons, it still retained "one of my lordes counsaill for annswering and riddying of causes, whenne sutors cometh to my lord." At a time when every lord was required to administer justice to his tenants and the inferior people of his territory, a counsellor learned in the law, was an important and most necessary officer in a grand seigneur's retinue.

Back to Index Next