The reasons for these refusals were probably the reluctance to change, at the advanced age of these bishops,—Sherlock, of Salisbury, being seventy, and Gibson probably about the same age. The fees for possession are also immense, and we have heard them rated at little short of £20,000.
The Lord Chancellor announced the offer to the Archbishop of York, who returned the following remarkable answer:—“I am honoured with your Lordship’s of the 13th inst., which I embrace with all my heart, as a new instance of that friendship and affection for me which for so many years have been the support, and credit, and comfort of my life.
“I have considered the thing, my best friend and my most honoured Lord, with all deliberation and compass of thought that I am master of, and am come to a very firm and most resolved determination not to quit the See of York on any account or on any consideration.... I am really poor; I am not ambitious of being rich, but have too much pride, with, I hope, a small mixture of honesty, to bear being in debt. I am now out of it, and in possession of a clear independency of that sort. I must not go back, and begin the world again at fifty-five.
“The honour of Canterbury is a thing of glare and splendour, and the hopes of it aproper incentive to schoolboysto industry. But I have considered all its inward parts, and examined all its duties, and if I should quit my present station to take it, I will not answer for it that in less than a twelvemonth I did not sink and die with regret and envy at the man who should succeed me here, and quit the place in my possession, as I ought to do, to one better and wiser than myself.”
This language might have been received with some suspicion in other instances; but Herring was a straightforward as well as a very able man, and there can be no doubt that he spoke what he thought. But he seems to have mistaken the position of the Primate as one of splendour, for we certainly have seen instances in which it displayed any thing but splendour, and in which the great body of the clergy knew no more of the halls of Lambeth, shared no more of its due hospitality, and enjoyed no more of the natural and becoming intercourse with their metropolitan, than if he had been a hermit. This grievous error, which has the necessary effect of repelling and ultimately offending and alienating the whole body of the inferior clergy, a body who constitute the active strength of the Establishment, we must hope to see henceforth totally changed. In the higher view of the case, an Archbishop of Canterbury possesses every advantage for giving an honourable and meritorious popularity to the Church. By his rank, entitled to associate with the highest personages of the empire, he may more powerfully influence them by the manliness and intelligence of his opinions: a peer of parliament, he should be a leader of council, the spokesman of the prelacy, the guide of the peers on all ecclesiastical questions, and the courageous protector of the Establishment committed to his charge. In his more private course, he ought to cultivate the association of the learned, the vigorous, and the active minds of the country. He ought especially to be kind to his clergy, not merely by opening his palace and his hospitalities to them all, but by personal intercourse, by visiting their churches, by preaching from time to time in their pulpits, by making himself known to them in the general civilities of private friendliness, and by the easy attentions which, more than all the formalities of official condescension, sink into the hearts of men. It is absurd and untrue to say that an archbishop has no time for all these things. These things are of the simplest facility to any man whose heart is in the right place; and if, instead of locking himself up with two or three dreary effigies of man, in the shape of chaplains, and freezing all the soul within him by a rigid and repulsive routine, he shall “do as he would be done unto” if he had remained a country curate, an Archbishop of Canterbury might be the most beloved, popular, and for all the best purposes, the most influential man in the kingdom.
Old age was now coming on Lord Hardwicke, and with it the painful accompaniment of the loss of his old and intimate associates through public and private life; his own public career, too, was come to its close. In 1756 the Newcastle ministry was succeeded by that of the celebrated William Pitt, (Lord Chatham,) and Lord Hardwicke resigned the Great Seal. The note in his private journal states, “19th November 1756, resigned the Great Seal voluntarily into his Majesty’s hands at St James’s, after I had held it nineteen years, eight months, and ten days.”
All authorities since his day appear to have agreed in giving the highest tribute to this distinguished man. His character in theAnnual Registersays, “In judicature, his firmness and dignity were evidently derived from his consummate knowledge and talents; and the mildness and humanity which tempered it from the best heart.... His extraordinary despatch of the business of the court, increased as it was in his time beyond what had been known in any former, on account of his established reputation there, and the extension of the commerce and riches of the nation, was an advantage to the suitor, inferior only to that arising from the acknowledged equity, perspicuity, and precision of his decrees.... The manner in which he presided in the House of Lords added order and dignity to that assembly.” Lord Campbell, in his late “Lives of the Chancellors,” characterises Lord Hardwicke as “the man universally and deservedly considered the most consummate judge whoever satin the Court of Chancery.”
An instance of his grace of manner even in rebuke, amply deserves to be recorded. A cause was argued in Chancery, in which a grandson of Oliver Cromwell, and bearing the same name, was a party. The opposing counsel began to cast some reflections on the memory of his eminent ancestor; on which the Chancellor quietly said, “I observe Mr Cromwell standing outside the bar, inconveniently pressed by the crowd; make way for him, that he maysit by me on the Bench.” This had the effect of silencing the sarcasms of the advocate. Lord Hardwicke seems to have excited a professional deference for his legal conduct and abilities, which at this distance of time it is difficult even to imagine. But the highest names of the Bar seem to have exhausted language in his panegyric. Lord Mansfield thus spoke of him on being requested by a lawyer to give him materials for his biography. The answer is worth retaining for every reason.
“My success in life is not very remarkable. My father was a man of rank and fashion. Early in life I was introduced into the best company, and my circumstances enabled me to support the character of a man of fortune. To these advantages I chiefly owemysuccess. And therefore my life cannot be very interesting. But if you wish to employ your abilities in writing the life of a trulygreatandwonderfulman in our profession, take the life of Lord Hardwicke for your object. He was indeed a wonderful character. He became Chief Justice of England and Chancellor from his own abilities and virtues; for he was the son of a peasant!”
Not exactly so, as we have seen; for his father was a respectable man, who gave him a legal education. But the great Chancellor certainly owed but little to birth or fortune.
We have heard much of the elegance and polish of Mansfield’s style, but, from the imperfect reports of public speeches a hundred years ago, have had but few evidences of its charm. One precious relic, however, these volumes have preserved. On his taking leave of the society of Lincolns Inn, (on his being raised to the Bench,) the usual complimentary address was made by Mr Charles Yorke. The reply, of which we give but a sentence, was as follows:—
“If I have had in any measure success in my profession, it is owing to the great man who has presided in our highest courts of judicature the whole time I attended the bar. It was impossible to attend him, to sit under him every day, without catching some beams from his light. The disciples of Socrates, whom I will take the liberty to call the great lawyer of antiquity, since the first principles of all law are derived from his philosophy, owe their reputation to their having been the repeaters of the sayings of their great master. Ifwecan arrogate nothing to ourselves, we can boast of the school we were brought up in. The scholar may glory in his master, and we may challenge past ages to show us his equal.”
After brief allusions to the three great names of Bacon, Clarendon, and Somers, all of whom he regarded as inferior either in moral or natural distinctions, he said,—“It is the peculiar felicity of the great man of whom I am speaking, to have presided for nearly twenty years, and to have shone with a splendour that has risen superior to faction, and that has subdued envy.”
The melancholy case of Admiral Byng occurred in this year, (1757) and is well reasoned in this work. The writer thinks that the execution was just. A death by law is naturally distressing to the feelings of humanity, and the degradation or banishment of the unfortunate admiral might possibly have had all the effects of the final punishment, without giving so much pain to the public feelings. Still, the cabinet might justly complain of the clamour raised against their act, by the party who arraigned them for the death of Byng. In command of a great fleet on a most important occasion, he had totally failed, and failed in despite of the opinions of his own officers. He had been sent for the express purpose of relieving the British garrison of Minorca, and he was scared away by the chance of encountering the French fleet: the consequence was, the surrender of the island, and the capture of the garrison. On his return to England, he was tried and found guilty by a court-martial: he was found guilty by the general opinion of the legislature and the nation; and though the court-martial recommended him to mercy, on the ground that his offence was not poltroonery, but an “error in judgment;” yet his reluctance to fight the French had produced such ruinous consequences, and had involved the navy in such European disgrace, that the King determined on his death, and he died accordingly. An error in judgment which consists innotfighting, naturally seems, to a brave people, a wholly different offence from the error which consists in grappling with the enemy. And, though Voltaire’s sarcasm, that Byng was shotpour encourager les autres, had all the pungency of the Frenchman’s wit, and though British admirals could require no stimulant to their courage from the fear of a similar fate, there can be but little doubt that this execution helped to make up the decisions of many a perplexed mind in after times. The man who fights needs have no fear of court-martials in England. This was a most important point gained. The greatest of living soldiers has said, that the only fault which he had to find with any of his generals, was their dread of responsibility. The court-martial of Byng taught the British captains, in the phrase of the immortal Nelson, that “the officer who grapples with his enemy, can never be wrong.”
On the 25th of October King George II. died. He had been in good health previously, had risen from bed, taken his chocolate, and talked of walking in the gardens of Kensington. The page had left the room, and hearing a noise of something falling, hurried back. He found the King on the floor, who only said, “Call Amelia,” and expired. He was seventy-seven years old, and had reigned thirty-four years.
The King left but few recollections, and those negative. He had not connected himself with the feelings of the country; he had not patronised the fine arts, nor protected literature. He was wholly devoted to continental politics, and had adhered to some continental habits, which increased his unpopularity with the graver portion of the people of England.
In 1763 Lord Hardwicke’s health began visibly to give way. He had lost his wife, and had lost his old friend the Duke of Newcastle. Death was every where among the circle of those distinguished persons who had been the companions of his active days. He had great comfort, however, in that highest of comforts to old age, the distinctions and talents of his sons, who had all risen into public rank. But the common fate of all mankind had now come upon him; and on the 6th of March he breathed his last. “Serene and composed, I saw him in his last moments, and he looked like an innocent child in its nurse’s arms,” is the note of his son. He was seventy-four. His remains were interred in the parish church of Wimpole.
The peerage and estates still continue in the family, and are now represented by the estimable and intelligent son of the late Admiral Sir Joseph Yorke. On the death of the Chancellor’s eldest son, who had succeeded to the title, the eldest son of Mr Charles Yorke became Lord Hardwicke. This nobleman, who was remarkable for scholarship and refinement of taste, had held the anxious office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the year of the Rebellion 1798. His son, Lord Royston, a very accomplished person, being lost by shipwreck in the seas, the son of the well-known admiral, who had been so unhappily killed by a flash of lightning in a boat off Portsmouth, became the heir.
It is in the history of men like Lord Hardwicke that England justly prides herself. Here is an instance of the prizes which lie before the vigour, talents, and principles of her great men. The son of a country solicitor rises to the highest rank of a subject, forces his way through all the obstacles of narrow means, professional prejudice, learned difficulty, and humble birth; takes his place among the first ranks of the aristocracy, guides the law, shares in the first influence of the state, is the pillar of government, and chief councillor of his king; accumulates a vast fortune, becomes master of magnificent estates, and founds a family holding in succession distinguished offices in church and state, and still forming a portion of the nobility of England. And all this was done by the talents of a single individual. Long may the constitution live which offers such triumphs to integrity and learning, and glory be to the country which has such men, and fixes her especial renown on their fame!
The biography is vigorous, intelligent, and remarkably interesting. No historian can in future write the “Reign of George II.” without it. It passes through times of singular importance: and while the volumes are essential to the student of legal history, they offer a high gratification to the general reader.