before the notice of the House of Commons. In the course of the discussion that ensued, Denman stated that Sugden "must have been perfectly well aware that the appointment of William Brougham was only provisional, and that, therefore, his putting his question as he had without notice was an offensive and irritating act."

William Brougham, the appointee, brought the discussion to a close in a few words by stating, as the fact was, that the appointment was purely provisional, made because otherwise certain deeds could not be entered, and given by the Chancellor to his brother because he was a person on whom he could most perfectly rely for throwing up the place the instant Parliament thought fit to abolish it, without a word or a whisper about "vested interests.

2

The Chancery sinecures bill became law before the end of the session, and by one of its clauses, in consideration of the patronage given up by the Chancellor in respect to the abolished offices, very properly increased the amount of his retiring pension to 5,000/., and, by an Act nearly contemporaneous, a clear salary of 10,000l. a year was assigned to him in lieu of all fees and emoluments to which he had been previously entitled.

For some years after this the Chancellors, in addition. to the salary of 10,000l. a year thus fixed by statute, used also to receive 4,000l. a year as Speakers of the House of Lords. This was altered by an Act of 1851, directing that the sum payable to the Lord Chancellor as Speaker of the House of Lords should form part of his salary as Chancellor, so that he should not receive more in the whole than the 10,000l. fixed by the statute of William IV.*

Since November, 1830, His Majesty's Attorney-General had had scarcely any respite from the severe pressure of Parliamentary and forensic labor, and as the summer of 1832 waxed and waned he naturally began to long for some share of relaxation and repose.

It was some two years before the period now arrived

1 Hansard, Parl. Deb., third series, vol. xiv. p. 843.

2 As 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 11I.

3

2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 122.

4 See Act 14 and 15 Vic. c. 83, § 17.

at, that Denman, who had previously been in the habit of passing his Long Vacations with his family at various places in the country and on the coast, first established himself at Stony Middleton, near Bakewell, in Derbyshire, a place he had inherited from his late uncle, but which, down to 1830, had remained in the occupation of one of his uncle's tenants. It was a rough place when he first determined to make it his permanent summer residence, an old-fashioned grange or small manor house, with ill-arranged rooms and whitewashed walls,' having nothing to recommend it but the charming scenery in its neighborhood. To improve the house and the grounds till he had made the one a comfortable residence and the other a beautiful combination of wood and landscape garden became henceforth the most delightful employment of Denman's leisure.

Scott did not take more pleasure in planting and thinning in his more stately domain at Abbotsford, than Denman in his humble patrimony among the romantic hills of Derbyshire. His letters henceforth are full of allusions to his alterations and improvements, his building and his planting, occupations all the more enjoyable owing to the severe labors from which he escaped to take part in them.

"It was in the summer of 1830," writes Mrs. Baillie, in her biographical sketch, "that my brother first went to reside with his family at Stony Middleton. In this retirement he enjoyed himself completely, entering with delight into the improvement of his little domain, planting and transplanting trees with his own hand, and laboring with as much eagerness and interest as though this had been the sole occupation of his life. It was delightful to see him at these periods of relaxation, surrounded by his family, all engaged in similar pursuits, and he himself entering with ardour and affection into all their little plans and suggestions of improvement.

"The advantage he derived from a few weeks thus employed may easily be imagined. Having determined

1 Which Mr. Radford, the late tenant, had edged with a deep border of black out of respect for the memory of his deceased wife. Lord Wensleydale, even in its improved state, used to say of it that Denman must be very fond of ancestral property to like such a house.

that Stony Middleton should in future be his summer residence, he found it necessary to make some additions to the house, as it was too small to accommodate his numerous family; but these additions were very moderate, and did not at all interfere with the simple and unpretending character of the place."

As regards society, Denman was very pleasantly situated at Stony Middleton. His old friend Francis Hodgson, who had then for some years been Vicar of Bakewell, was living with his first wife, a graceful and accomplished person, in his immediate neighborhood; at Stoke Hall, not far off, were the Arkwrights,' and at St. Helen's House, Derby, the Strutts, two delightful families with whom the Denmans had long been intimate; the Duke of Devonshire's palace at Chatsworth was within easy visiting range, and its princely owner was not only splendid in his hospitality, but cordial in his friendship.

The session of 1832, even after the Reform Bill struggle had been finally set at rest, threatened at one time to be almost as protracted and little less laborious than that memorable one of 1831.

Writing on July 18, 1832, to his third daughter, Fanny (now the Honorable Lady Baynes), who was then presiding over the improvements at Stony Middleton,' Denman complains bitterly of the anticipated duration of the Session, and of the inveteracy of the Opposi

1 Robert Arkwright, Esq., for many years the occupant of Stoke Hall, was a grandson of the well-known Sir Richard Arkwright. His wife was celebrated for the exquisite taste of her singing and her talents as a musical composer. Moore, in January, 1828, visited Stoke Hall and Bakewell Vicarage, the latter in quest of information from Hodgson as to Byron (whose Life he published in 1830). In his diary from January 22 to 28, he gives a pleasant account of the Arkwrights, Hodgsons, and Strutts.

Edward Strutt, Esq., long M.P. for Derby, afterwards for Nottingham, was raised to the Peerage in 1856, as Lord Belper.

3 This lively young lady, a great favorite of her father's, had, with her brothers Richard and George-now the Judge-then a boy of eleven, been one of the pioneers of the family migration (in 1830) to Stony Middleton, when it was something like a settlement in the backwoods. She had ever since been invested with a sort of mock sovereignty over the domain, and was sometimes, in consequence, as in the letter referred to in the text, addressed by her father as "Dear little Queen." Miss Frances Denman married, in 1846, Admiral Sir Robert Lambert Baynes, K.C.B., who died in 1869.

tion, adding: "They must, however, wear out their patience at last, and then I must have a real domestic leisure at Stony Middleton, with as many of you about me as possible.

The menace, however, proved worse than the reality: Parliament, worn out with hard work and excitement, rose at length on August 16, and the next day Denman wrote as follows from town to his friend Merivale, who had already settled himself in Devonshire for the Long Vacation at his patrimonial residence, Barton Place :

"I am delighted to hear of your improvements in Barton Place, and hope, in about a week, to be doing as much for the prospect out of your window at Middleton. My wife and three youngest daughters are now alone with me in Russell Square; and they will move about Monday. I go on Tuesday to prosecute the traitor of Ascot Heath, and then I think of making my way into Derbyshire, via Liverpool and Manchester. I have disembarrassed myself of all electioneering ideas in that part of the world, and hope to lead a backwoodsman's life for at least a month.

1

"Such a clearance from London of official people! Such schoolboy happiness at our breaking-up! and what a glorious harvest is gathering, and what a prospect of a still fine summer.

2

"Did you see Joseph pass in the 'Snake'? He was at Plymouth a week ago, and we believe him to be at Cork, where, if he should be detained, I shall feel strongly tempted to cross the Channel and join him."

A week later Denman wrote to the same old friend the first of an interesting series of letters, which so fully and fairly exhibit the real political bias of his mind immediately before the change which was to take him out of the sphere of active party politics for ever, that it has been thought better, though rather lengthy, to give them almost in their entirety:

1 Denis Collins, a mad mariner, who had shot at William IV. in June, 1832, on the Ascot Heath race-course; he was found insane, and shut up during His Majesty's pleasure," i. e. for life.

66

2 The Snake" was a vessel to which Admiral (then Lieutenant) Denman had been appointed before he got the "Curlew." An unfounded report was at this time flying about that the "Snake" had been lost.

"50 Russell Square: August 24, 1832.

'My dear Merivale,-I often quiz myself for doing what seems more ridiculous than it really is under some circumstances-citing my own opinions at a former time as affording some guidance to what the truth probably is at the present time. It is in the nature of an appeal from Philip heated, to Philip in his calmer moments, from an opinion fermented into activity while the passions were at work to that which has been formed when reason was exercising an undisturbed and undisputed sway. Very true, there is in this no authority to bind another, but strong evidence to a man's self, that the best judgment he is capable of forming is that to which he is so enabled to turn back. It is one of the cases in which second thoughts are not the best; at all events, you, who ask me my present views, cannot object to my reminding you of those which I formerly entertained.

"Possibly, then, you may remember Fladgate having said, many years ago, in speaking of Romilly, that he was a bigoted Republican. Walking by the dead wall of Lincoln's Inn Fields, I remember expressing to you my strong conviction that he must be mistaken, because the universal estimate of Romilly's fine understanding would be greatly depreciated by the fact being so. For to hazard all the secured benefits of an established order, from a distaste for those forms which fools alone contest; to reject the freedom which may be enjoyed under a constitutional monarchy for the purpose of an experiment whether it may not also find shelter in a fabric which, if it can be reared, will belong to an order of architecture which, in my eyes, may be more symmetrical—this is a course which would no doubt deserve many other names, but certainly that of folly in a pre-eminent degree.

"The greatest of all political evils I have always thought was this-injustice deliberately perpetrated or wilfully persisted in by the State. My own opinion has uniformly been that injustice and wrong, whendetected, ought to be instantly swept away. Like everything that prevails, it will by degrees strengthen itself by inveterate habits and factitious interests, and even the disinterested will grow in time accustomed and indifferent.