The smile of beauty and the flush of wine, For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords combine, Each to his humour-Comus all allows, Champagne, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse.' who was a confidential friend of the chancellor, but who was quite ignorant of the marriage, thought the idea absurd, and asked head. " Assure yourself," replied Shaftesbury, him how so wild a fancy could get into his "it is so; a concealed respect, however suppressed, showed itself so plainly in the looks, voice, and manner, wherewith her mother carved to her or offered her of every dish, that it is impossible but it must be so. Shaftesbury was a frequent guest at these entertainments, and was bidden to them as a congenial spirit. Pepys describes him as a man of great business, and yet of pleasure and drolling too.' It does not much help Clarendon's fall was precipitated by the the matter to suppose with Mr. Christie course of events, by the national disasters that, temperate by nature and habit, he af- for which he was held answerable as ostenfected licentiousness from policy, or to ac-sible head of the administration, whether he cept as the true theory of his conduct, that was the real cause of them or not. No one (in the words of a contemporary pamphlet- enemy or rival can be fairly called the prime eer), 'he accompanies, and carouses, and mover of his fall, and Shaftesbury was merely contracts intimacy and unity with the lewd- one of several who prepared the way for it, est debauchees in all the nation that he and exulted in it, as the removal of a forthinks will anyways help to forward his pri- midable obstruction from his path. It is also vate intrigues. This would be the reverse true that, of the five members of the famous of ordinary hypocrisy: it would be virtue Cabal, two only, Clifford and Arlington, were paying homage to vice. If he acted thus, if privy to the secret treaty of Dover: that, he was le fanfaron des vices dont il n'était unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and pas capable, he certainly played his part in a Lauderdale were, the royal pledge to make way to impose on a tolerably discerning public profession of the Roman Catholic rejudge of immorality, the King, who is religion was studiously withheld from them. ported to have said to him, Shaftesbury, you are the wickedest dog in England:' to which he replied, with a bow: 'Of a subject, Sir, I believe I am.' The currency of this story in any version (and there is more than one) is enough.* The unbecoming levity of Charles in suffering the honestest and most trustworthy of his counsellors to be made a constant subject of ridicule, in such society, is aggravated by the family tie formed by the marriage of Anne Hyde to the Duke of York. A story strikingly illustrative of Shaftesbury's penetration is told by Locke in connection with this event. 'Soon after the Restoration, he and the Earl of Southampton were dining with the Earl of Clarendon; the Lady Anne Hyde, who had been recently privately married to the Duke of York, was present. As Shaftesbury and Southampton were returning home together, the former remarked, "Yonder Mrs. Anne Hyde is certainly married to one of the brothers." Southampton, * Lord Campbell's version is, the most profli. gate man in my dominions.' The story is told by Lord Chesterfield, not (as Mr. Christie states) with the words 'the greatest rogue in England, but with an expression which modern manners have proscribed. (Chesterfield's Letters,' Lord Mahon's (Stanhope's) edition, vol. ii. 334.) Lord Chesterfield introduces the story by stating that Shaftesbury, when Lord Chancellor, kept a mistress, whom he never visited, for conformity's sake. This circumstance is alluded to in the Preface to Venice Preserved; Antonio being intended for Shaftesbury. But one of their worst acts was the shutting up of the Exchequer; and, as Shaftesbury was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, was an assenting party to the measure, and defended it in his place in Parliament, it matters little, so far as his reputation for public principle or honesty is concerned, whether he originated it or not. To say that Clifford originated it, that Clifford was Lord Treasurer, and that he (Shaftesbury) protested against it as both impolitic and unjust, rather aggravates than mitigates his complicity. Besides why, directly afterwards, was the Lord Treasurer's staff pressed upon him?-why was he made Lord Chancellor and an Earl? Mr. Christie is fain to admit that these dignities were crowning signs of a greatness which had been growing since Shaftesbury was taken into the King's councils to support a French alliance against Holland. The public did not know, as Shaftesbury did not know himself, that the king was making use of his energy, abilities, and influence for the furtherance of a design known only to some half-dozen in England, for re-establishing the Roman Catholic religion with the aid of French money and troops. Shaftesbury's proverbial sagacity must have been unaccountably at fault, if he had not all along a shrewd suspicion of the truth; and his subsequent conduct proves that he was ready to go as far as he could with safety to gain and retain power, seeing, to a nicety, where public endurance would give way. fore was enough to divert the like frolic for the future, and the very next term after, they fell to their coaches, as before.' Now for the comment or moral: His want of professional training was not | foot-clothes in the best manner they could. considered a material objection to his accept- And divers of the nobility, as usual in compliance of the Great Seal, for which Lord ment and honour to the new Lord Chancellor, Orrery had been a favoured nominee no fur- tice in town of this cavalcade, all the show attended also in their equipments. Upon nother back than on the dismissal of Clarendon company took their places at windows and balin 1667. For my calling into this high of- conies, with the foot-guard in the streets, to fice,' said Archbishop Williams, made Lord partake of the fine sight, and being once settled Keeper in 1621, 'it was as most here present for the march, it moved, as the design was, cannot but know, not the cause, but the ef- statelily along. But when they came to fect, of a resolution in the State to change straights and interruptions, for want of gravi or reduce the Governor of this Court from a ty in the beasts, and too much in the riders, there happened some curvetting, which made professor of our municipal laws to some one no little disorder. Judge Twisden, to his of the nobility, gentry, or clergy of this great affright, and the consternation of his kingdom.' The intervening period had been grave brethren, was laid along in the dirt. unfavourable to the formal administration of But all at length arrived safe, without the loss the law, and the highest court of equity was of life or limb in the serivce. This accident still, what its name and origin import, a tribunal in which sense and reason were comparatively untrammelled by technicalities, and a wide discretion might be exercised by the judge. The extent to which a man's conduct, bearing, or demeanour may be made the subject of what Bacon calls a prejudicate opinion, is shewn by the various interpretations put upon Shaftesbury's choice of an official dress. 'For he sat upon the bench in an ash-coloured gown, silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons, displayed without any black at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now I cannot say positively, though I saw him, was so.' This scrupulous witness, Roger North, thinks it a proof of his little regard to decency and morality, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit, as became a judge of his station; adding that he appeared more like the equestrian procession was to show off the Lord Campbell insists that the object of a University nobleman than a High Chancel-horsemanship of the Lord Chancellor, an exlor of England.' Lord Campbell misquotes colonel of cavalry, and spite some of the old this into a more like a rakish young nobleman at the University,' and says that, 'to judges who he had heard had been sneering at his decisions. 'Coaches had for many show his contempt for all who had gone before him, as well as his contemporaries, he years become so common that the ancient would not be habited like his predecessors.' Term had been laid aside, though they (the custom of riding on horseback to open the Lord Chancellor Cowper explained Shaftes-judges) still continued to ride the circuit on bury's coloured gown by the fact that 'I do not mention this as any way evil in itself, but only as a levity and an ill-judged action, for so it appeared to be, in respect to the perpetual flux of solemn customs and forms, that will happen in the succession of ages, not reducible back to antiquity, nor needing so to be, which makes usages that are most fitting in one time, appear ridiculous in another. As here the setting grave men, used only to coaches, upon the menage on horseback, only for the vanity of shew, to make men wonder, and children sport, with hazard to most, mischief to some, and terror to all, was very impertinent, and must end as it did, en ridicule.' sober pads. If this were so, one does not sober pads on a slow procession to Westminexactly see why they could not sit their was not a barrister; and Mr. Christie sees reason to believe that it was deliberately chosen by him on that account. Another socalled freak of his has proved an apple of dis-ster Hall. The tradition is that Mr. Justice cord to the biographers. It can hardly be described better than in the words of Roger North: 'His lordship had an early fancy, or rather freak, the first day of term (when all the officers of the law, King's Counsel, and Judges, used to wait upon the Great Seal to Westminster Hall), to make this procession on horseback, as in old time the way was, when coaches were not so rife. And accordingly, the Judges, &c. were spoken to, to get horses, as they and all the rest did, by borrowing and hiring, and so equipped themselves with black with a brewer's dray at Charing Cross, and, on Twisden came to grief from an encounter being picked up, swore in furore that no Lord Chancellor should ever make him trust himself on a four-footed animal again.* More When Solicitor-General, he accompanied Colonel *Dunning had reason to make a similar vow. Great, who invited them to a review, and, misBarré to Berlin in the days of Frederic the led by the official title of Dunning, sent two spirited chargers for the use of the General and Colonel. In an evil hour, Dunning (like Nicol Jarvie) clomb to the saddle, and, by the aid of the pommel, stuck to it till the firing began,, over, Lord Campbell has antedated the gene- | be demonstrated by undeniable facts. ral use of carriages. John Aubrey, writing Shaftesbury received the Great Seal on the of Dr. Harvey, some years later (1680), 17th November, 1672; he took his seat in says: He rode on horseback, with a foot the Court of Chancery on the eighteenth; cloth, to visit his patients, his man following and the minutes in the Registrar's office on foot, as the fashion then was, which was show that he never sate without assessors. very decent, now quite discontinued. The He had the Master of the Rolls and Mr. judges rode also with these footcloths to Baron Windham with him the first day, and Westminster Hall, which ended at the death either the Master of the Rolls or a Common of Sir Robert Hyde, Lord Chief Justice. Law judge, and Masters in Chancery, every Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, would have other day till the end of the term. revived it, but several of the Judges, being might have sate alone had he thought fit. old and ill horsemen, would not agree to it.' Did he invite these learned personages to sit Mr. Christie adds that Chief Justice Hyde with him to witness his mode of trampling died in May, 1663; so that the custom re- upon their forms? vived by Shaftesbury had not been disused for more than ten years. Lord Campbell admits that Shaftesbury never took bribes, would not listen to private solicitations in favour of litigants, and never had more than one political case before him (the Injunction Case) in which he came eventually to a right conclusion. But, except being free from gross corruption, he was the worst judge that ever sate in the court. This was inevitable; for he might as well have tried to sustain the principal part in an opera without having learned the first rudiments of music.' That, like many of his predecessors and successors, he was deficient in technical knowledge, was no reason why he should be worse than the rest, than Hatton or Williams, for example, who knew nothing of the practice of the court when they came to it. Roger North says that after he (Shaftesbury) was possessed of the Great Seal, he was in appearance 'the gloriousest man' alive. As for the Chancery, 'he would teach the bar that a man of sense was above all their forms. ... He swaggered and vapoured what asses he would make of all the council at the bar; but the month' of March, as they say, "In like a lion, and out like a lamb." Their alleged mode of taming was this: They soon found his humour, and let him have his caprice, and after, upon notice, induced him to discharge his orders, and thereupon, having the advantage upon the opening, to be heard at large, they showed him his face, and that what he did was against common justice and sense. And this speculum of his own ignorance and presumption coming to be laid before him every motion day, did so intricate and embarrass his understanding, that, in a short time, like any haggered hawk that is not let sleep, he was entirely reclaimed.' The utter falsehood of this account may when his steed, getting frisky, pitched him head over heels amongst the staff, not a little to their and their great king's amusement, which was enhanced by the discovery of the mistake. 6 'It is remarkable (observes Hume) that this man, whose principles and conduct were in all other respects so exceptionable, proved an excellent Chancellor, and that all his decrees, whilst he possessed that eminent office, were equally remarkable for justness and integrity. Quoting only the first half of this commendation, Lord Campbell adds, and all the historians of the eighteenth century, reading Dryden or copying each other, write to the same effect.' Such is the learned lord's method of accounting for the unanimous acceptance by successive ages of the very worst chancellor as an excellent one. Dryden's praise of Shaftesbury's judicial character is imbedded in his bitterest satire. 'Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge; Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, Lord Campbell objects that, had Dryden been sincere, his testimony ought not to have much weight, for he was probably never in a court of justice in his life; and though the first of English writers in polite literature, he could not have formed a very correct opinion as to the propriety of an order or decree in Equity.' This argument would disqualify any writer, not a practising lawyer, from ever embodying the public estimate of a judicial worthy-a Hardwicke, a Mansfield, an Eldon, or a Lyndhurst-in poetry or prose. But, it is urged, the panegyric was purchased. The lines did not appear in the first edition of the poem; they were added in the second, out of gratitude for a nomination to the Charter House given to the poet for his son in the intervening period by the Lord Chancellor. This story when King Charles II. read these (the added) was first told by Dr. Kippis, who adds that lines, he told Dryden that he had spoiled by them all which he had before said of Shaftes bury. Examples of such alterations may be found in literary history. The first manuscript copy of English 'Bards and Scotch Reviewers' contained these two lines amongst others on rhyming lords:— On one alone, the muse still deigns to smile And hails a new Roscommon in Carlisle.' Before the poem was published, the noble poet took offence at Lord Carlisle's real or supposed neglect and substituted the couplet : 'No muse will cheer with renovating smile, The paralytic puling of Carlisle.' Poets are a susceptible as well as irritable race, and Dryden might have done from gratitude what Byron did from spite. He is known to have omitted in the reprints of the 'Spanish Friar' some passages which had given offence to the Duke of York. But he left the rest of his immortal diatribe against Achitophel without one softening epithet, and followed it up by a (if possible) still bitterer attack in "The Medal. The date of young Dryden's admission to the Charter House on the King's (not Shaftesbury's) nomination happens to be subsequent to the appearance of the corrected edition of the poem; and, all things considered, we incline to Sir Walter Scott's theory of the correction: namely, that there must be an appearance of candour on the part of the poet, and just so much merit allowed, even to the object of his censure, as to make the picture natural: that Dryden considered the portrait of Shaftesbury deficient in this respect, and added the laudatory lines with a view to effect. Besides, the recognition of Shaftesbury's judicial merit was not altogether an afterthought. The first edition of the poem contained these lines: 'Oh! had he been content to serve the crown With regard to Charles II.'s criticism, it must be remembered that, shortly before Shaftesbury broke with the Court, his Majesty asseverated, with his favourite oath, that his Lord Chancellor knew more law than all his judges, and more divinity than all his bishops. The royal praise may serve to counterbalance the royal censure; but both were valueless. Shaftesbury had full credit for law and divinity only so long as he was ready to aid in superseding law by prerogative and divinity by papal infallibility. At the opening of the first Session after he received the Great Seal, his devotion to the King's wishes was exuberant and unrestrained. He attacked Holland, exclaiming Delenda est Carthago:' he justified the shutting up of the Exchequer, and he sneered at the Triple Alliance. His speech was preceded by a scene which might well have ruffled his nerves, if it did not check the effusion of his royalty. It had been settled at the Restoration that the King's brothers should occupy seats on the left of the throne, the seat on the right being reserved for the Prince of Wales. Some years afterwards (as the incident is related by Martyn), 'upon the queen's apparent barrenness, the Duke of York being looked on as the certain successor to the crown, and his power. increasing at court, he took the chair on the right-hand of the throne. Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, the first day he sat as speaker, resolved to replace the Duke in his proper seat. He informed him that he was in the wrong chair, and that his place was on the other side of the throne, as only heir presumptive. The Duke being unwilling to quit his seat, Lord Shaftesbury told him that he could not proceed upon business till the house was in form. At length the Duke was obliged to submit, but said, in a passion, 'My lord, you are a rascal and a villain." He, with great composure, immediately replied, "I am much obliged to your royal highness for not calling me likewise a coward and a papist.' Shaftesbury speedily repented of his speech on the opening of the session, and apologised for it on the untenable ground that he spoke it as the mouthpiece of the Cabinet or Cabal. That he was not their mouthpiece was proved, within a few days, by his speech in answer to Clifford, the Lord Treasurer, in a debate on the Declaration of Indulgence, or (according to Echard) 'a project for establishing a perpetual fund to free the King from his dependence on Parliament.' Before Shaftesbury had done speaking, the Duke of York whispered the King, who was standing at the fire, 'What a rogue you have for a Lord Chancellor.' The King replied, 'Cods-fish, what a fool have you for a Lord Treasurer.' Clifford, a bigoted Catholic, went heart and hand with the Duke: and one of Shaftesbury's objects in supporting the Test act, including the declaration against Transubstantiation, was to displace, on the chance of replacing, the Lord Treasurer. On Clifford's resignation the coveted staff was given to Osborne, afterwards Earl of Danbury; and Shaftesbury saw that his power, instead of being on the increase, was on the wane. Although he did not at once break up the Court, he seems to have scented the After sermon Shaftesbury carried the Great Scal home with him; and in the course of the afternoon his brother-in-law, Mr. Secretary Coventry, came for it, and is reported to have said: 'My Lord, you are happy; you are out of danger, and all safe; but we shall all be ruined and undone; I desired to be excused from this office, but, being your relation and friend, they put it as an affront on me.' Shaftesbury replied with alacrity, 'It is only laying down my gown and putting on my sword.' Martyn adds, that he immediately sent for his sword Popish Plot and the great Exclusion battles | told the Duke of York that all their meafrom afar; for affecting to think his life sures were broken.' in danger from the Papists, he turned his house into a garrison all the summer; and, when Parliament met for the autumn Session of 1673, he stirred up a formidable opposition in the Commons to the projected marriage of the Duke with Mary of Modena. The cup of his transgressions was now full to overflowing, and the King shared the distrust of the Popish junto headed by the Duke. It was after supper at the Duchess of Portsmouth's, when the King had drunk freely, that they pressed him to dissolve Parliament. They so far succeeded that he sent the next morning for Shaftesbury, and, tak-—thus most prosaically converting a metaing him into the closet, after some immaterial conversation, asked him if he had brought his robes, as the instant prorogation of Parliament had been resolved upon. Shaftesbury interpreted this resolution as involving his own dismissal, and ended a manly remonstrance with these words: But, sir, you may fancy what you please of the Romish religion, I shall leave this as a maxim with you: if you eat sage and butter in the morning, and govern well, it will make you more healthy and happy here, and bring you to heaven much sooner, than Popery or the exorcisms of its priests.' phorical form of expression into a fact.* It is clear from one of Colbert's letters, that an attempt was made to induce Shaftesbury to resume office, backed by a covert bribe of ten thousand guineas from France. 'But now,' to adopt the keen and quaint expressions of Roger North, 'our noble Earl and mighty statesman having, as it seems, missed his aim at Court, takes over to the country party (as it was called) openly. And from thenceforward we find the party itself at work upon a new foot. There was no more depending on the King, as formerly, to make him destroy himself the shortest way, since he showed a dexterity to save himself at any time, by a short turn, as if he had learnt the art of his great High Chancellor.' The prorogation took place, and Shaftesbury was required to give up the Great Seal to the Attorney-General, Finch; the next morning but one, Sunday, November 9th, The City was the principal scene of being fixed for the purpose. According to Shaftesbury's machinations, and he Martyn and Stringer, who are followed by nounced an intention of taking a house Lord Campbell and doubted by Mr. Christie, there for fear of having his throat cut by the as soon as he (Shaftesbury) arrived at White- Papists if he ventured to sleep west of Temhall, he presently attended the King in the ple Bar. The King, forgetting that he had closet, while the prevailing party waited in not yet assimilated the English monarchy to triumph to see him return without the purse. the French, sent a message forbidding him, Being alone with the King, he said, "Sir, I at his peril, to carry out the intention, and know you intend to give the Seals to the At-intimating that he would do well to go down torney-General, but I am sure your Majesty never designed to dismiss me with contempt." The King, always good-humoured, replied, "Cods-fish, my Lord, I will not do it with any circumstance as may look like an affront." Then, sir," said the Earl, "I desire your Majesty will permit me to carry the Seals before you to Chapel, and send for them afterwards to my own house." To this his Majesty readily assenting, Shaftesbury entertained him with conversation, purposely to tease the courtiers and his successor, who, he knew, were upon the rack of fear he should prevail upon the King to change his mind. The King and the Chancellor came out of the closet talking together and smiling as they went to the chapel, which was so contrary to the expectations of those who were present, that some went immediately and 66 to the country as soon as the weather would permit. Amongst other aggressive measures against the Court, he carried addresses for a public fast to implore the protection of the Almighty for the preservation of Church and State against Popish recusants, for the removal from office of all counsellors Popishly affected, and specifically for the dismissal of the Dukes of Lauderdale and Buckingham, his former colleagues in the Cabinet. This was in the spring session of 1674. In the spring session of 1675 he was joined by the Duke of Buckingham, who *Shaftesbury was ordered to deliver up the Great Seal, and instantly carried over his front of brass and tongue of poison to the ranks of the Opposition.' (Macaulay.) Why tongue of poison? The expression is singularly inappropri ate and unjust. |