tion, to a certain degree exculpating the duke of York, and he then resigned.

Mrs. Clarke was repeatedly examined at the bar of the house, and, says one of the chroniclers of the day, "by the readiness and smartness of her answers to an infinitude of questions, sometimes gave a degree of relief to the long and wearisome sitting of a protracted examination."

Wilberforce says, in the year 1809: "House examining Mrs. Clarke for two hours, in the Old Bailey way. She, elegantly dressed, consummately impudent, and very clever, clearly got the better in the tussle.'

Of all this disgusting business, Sir Samuel Romilly's account is as follows:

"Entertaining a very strong opinion against Perceval's proposed resolution, (exculpatory of the duke,) and in favor of Wardle's address, I thought it my duty to express that opinion; and I did it, to-day, to the best of my ability, and in a way which seemed to make some impression on the house. I knew very well that in taking this part, I was not acting much more agreeably to the late than to the present ministry; and that I was provoking the strongest resentment of all the persons upon whom my ever being in office must depend. The king took the strongest possible interest for the duke. The prince of Wales had, in a letter written to Adam, at the moment of the matter being first brought before the house, and which Adam showed me, stated that he considered an attack upon the duke as an attack upon himself.

*

"I had fully considered all this, when I determined not to shrink from my duty, and to give my most sincere opinion to the house. I have been told by several persons that, after making such a speech, I must give up all hopes of ever being chancellor. I am not quite sure of that; but of this I think I may be sure, that if ever, after the part I have now taken, I should be raised to that situation, it will not be in expectation that I shall act in it otherwise than as an honest man. It certainly is not probable that I should receive such a promotion; nothing, perhaps, can be more improbable; but if, contrary to all expectation, it should happen, the promotion will be more honorable to myself, and more honorable to the person to whom I shall be indebted for it, than it possibly could have been if, upon this occasion, I had adopted a different line of conduct."-Vol. ii., pp. 267 and 269.

Mackintosh correctly appreciated this conduct. In a letter written by him to a friend in England, (he was then in India,) he speaks of it thus:

"I envy Romilly neither his fortune nor his fame, though I am

likely to be poor and obscure enough, but I do envy him so noble an opportunity of proving his disinterestedness. If his character had been in the slightest degree that of a demagogue, his conduct might have been ambiguous; but, with his habits, it can be considered only as a sacrifice of the highest objects of ambition to the mere dictates of conscience. I speak so, because, though I trust that he will not lose the great seal, yet I am sure he considered himself as sacrificing it; and, to view it in any other light, would be to rob him of the fame which he deserves.

"I beg you to communicate, either directly or indirectly, to Romilly, my sentiments on his conduct; and remember that my anxiety is not to do him any honor, but to do myself justice.'" Note, p. 270.

In the summer and autumn of 1811, when the life of George III. was thought to be very precarious, and a dissolution of parliament was expected, Romilly was solicited by both Middlesex and Bristol to be candidate at the expense of the electors.

In Middlesex, however, they required a pledge as to his opinion on parliamentary reform, and this he peremptorily refused to give. At Bristol he declined soliciting the votes in person, but accepted the nomination, and consented to make a visit to the place.

Shortly after Perceval's death, in 1812, parliament was dissolved, and the election came on. Romilly was defeated. He made his farewell to the electors in a speech, of which he says:

"There was certainly nothing in this speech at all calculated to excite the passions, and I know not to what cause is to be ascribed the effect which it produced; but it is certain, that before I got to the conclusion, I saw the tears streaming down the cheeks of many of my hearers. From the Guildhall, I retired, as usual, to the Bush Tavern, and there, in a few words, addressed the electors. I then returned thanks to my committee, and immediately proceeded to the mayor's house in his carriage, which was waiting for me. The people pressed round me to shake hands with me, and to take leave of me. They took the horses from the carriage and drew me home; and again, as I came out of the carriage, a hundred hands were held out to be pressed in mine, and the eyes of many were suffused with tears. I am aware, while I am writing this, of the ridicule which it may provoke; but yet it contains nothing more than a plain and unexaggerated statement of the fact.

'It has been observed, that any person who wishes to hear what harm can be said of him, has only to declare himself a candidate at some popular election. With me the reverse of this observation

has been the case; and I seem to have been a candidate only to hear the good which, on no other occasion, could any persons have ventured to say of me. Even my opponents have, during the whole of the contest, spoken well of me."-Vol. ii., pp. 61, 62.

Romilly did not long remain out of parliament. The duke of Norfolk brought him in for his borough, Arundel. The purchase of seats had been rendered illegal by a bill passed shortly before, so as to make it impossible for any person in Romilly's situation, not the owner of a borough, to come into parliament, except as the nominee of some third person, for the expenses of the county elections, and of those of the large cities, were such as to put them entirely beyond the reach of ordinary fortunes. In the Yorkshire election for 1807, Wilberforce's expenses exceeded $100,000. Those of Lord Milton and Lascelles upward of a million. It is scarcely credible.-Wilberforce's Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 335. On this subject Romilly says:

"The objection to coming into parliament upon the nomination of some nobleman, or other great landed proprietor, is, that you come in shackled with his political opinions and subservient to his will; but, after the part that I have already acted in parliament, no doubt can be entertained that the duke of Norfolk is quite sincere in telling me that I shall be quite independent of him; and no person will, I believe, suspect me of intending to speak and vote on any question merely as the duke may wish, and not according to my own judgment and conscience."-Vol. iii., P. 73.

It is altogether impossible for us closely to follow Sir Samuel Romilly through the remainder of his parliamentary career. It will be found of a beauty and consistency in perfect keeping with what we have already sketched.

In June, 1818, parliament was dissolved, and the whigs of Westminster called upon him to stand as their candidate. This, if not the largest, was the most important constituency in England before the reform bill. Romilly replied:

"If it should be the pleasure of a majority of the electors, without any solicitation or interference on my part, to choose me for one of their representatives, I shall think that the highest honor has been conferred on me, that it was possible for me to attain. I shall be proud to accept such an honor, and I shall endeavor to discharge, to the best of my abilities, the important duties which it will impose upon me."-Vol. iii., p. 358.

The contest was a very warm one. He was opposed by the radicals, and by his old friend Bentham, among others.

The election closed on the fourth of July, 1818. The state of the poll was-Romilly, 5339-Burdett, 5238-Maxwell, 4808-Hunt, 84. He led, as it appears, Burdett, then the idol of the English reformers. But, alas! this seat he never filled. We have thus, very hastily, gone over the principal events of Sir Samuel Romilly's parliamentary life. We have spoken of this first, because his legal career, if not more honorable or admirable, is, in many respects, more brilliant and important; and to this we now turn.

In the spring of 1783, as we have said, Romilly was called to the bar, and, in 1784, first went upon the circuit. He was then twenty-eight years of age. "All circuits," he says, were indifferent to me, for I have no friends or connexions on any one of them."

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For several years, as we have already noticed, he says, he had no occasion to open his lips in court, although he was soon employed to draw chancery pleadings. His success was undoubtedly very gradual. There are, unfortunately, in these volumes, no materials to trace his professional success, and we have had the curiosity to look at the reports. The fourth volume of Term Reports contains the cases argued in Banco Regis for 1790, 91, and '92. In these three years, Romilly's name only occurs twice; one in Rex vs. Eatington, p. 177, a pauper settlement case; and again, Munt vs. Stokes, p. 561, when we find him opposed to Law, afterward as Lord Ellenborough, chief justice of the king's bench.

The first of Vesey junior's Reports contains the cases in the court of chancery for 1790, '91, and '92, but Romilly's name we can find but once, in Brodie vs. St. Paul, p. 326.

Subsequently to this, his rise at the chancery bar must have been more rapid. In 1800, he was appointed king's counsel, and his success must then have been certain.

In one of his beautiful letters addressed to C., but really to himself, and dated 1801, he says, "Though I never entertained any doubt that the rank of king's counsel would be of great advantage to you, I did not foresee that your progress would be so rapid. It was not indeed to be foreseen, nor could it possibly have happened, but for the late unexpected changes in the administration, which, by removing the attorney-general (Sir John Mitford, afterward Lord Redesdale) and solicitor-general (Sir William Grant) from

your court, forced a great deal of business into a new channel." Mitford was made speaker of the house of commons, and Grant, master of the rolls, in April, 1801, and Romilly was thus freed from the formidable rivalry of these great lawyers.

In the sixth volume of Vesey, covering the years 1801 and 1802, he appears engaged in about half the causes reported, on one side or the other.

From this time, indeed, the woolsack was within his reach, and it depended on himself to obtain it. That he did not underrate the importance of the prize within his reach, is very obvious. In this same admirable letter, he says, "In the present state of society, I know of no situation in which an individual can have a greater influence on the happiness of mankind than that of a chancellor of England." Knowing, then, how highly Romilly valued the honors of his profession, we can better appreciate the independence which marked his whole career.

The prince of Wales made repeated efforts to attach him to his person, but we have seen how steadfastly he rejected them, and how he threw all his weight into the scale against the prince's favorite brother, the duke of York, in the matter of Mrs. Clarke. With like firmness, in 1813, he refused to see the prince on the subject of the princess of Wales; “it appeared to him to be very unconstitutional for the sovereign to advise with any person but his ministers on any public matter."

He, beyond a doubt, sacrificed the highest prize in his profession to his integrity; but this had no effect on his practice. It became very great and very lucrative. He speaks of it as worth eight or nine thousand pounds per annum, and he, unquestionably, made a fortune by his unremitted exertions. In 1805, when the Fox and Grenville ministry came into power, he was made, as we have already stated, solicitorgeneral, in the place of Sir Vicary Gibbs, which place he held two years-this is the only official rank he at any time. held.

Shortly after he came into parliament, and while he held this appointment, he was appointed one of the managers in the case of Lord Melville's impeachment.

This peer (Henry Dundas) had been impeached for corruption in the office of treasurer of the navy. He was, unquestionably, guilty of culpable negligence and of criminal indulgence to his subordinates, if nothing worse. He was obliged to