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he forgot to give it her when he slept there two years before. I was a very saucy boy, and said to him, ' Friend, have you seen the motto on this coach ?—No.'—' Then look at it: for I think giving her only sixpence now is neither sat cito nor sat bene.' After I got to town, my brother, now Lord Stowell, met me at the White Horse in Fetter-lane, Holborn, then the great Oxford house, as I was told. He took me to see the play at Drury-lane. Love played Jobson in the farce, and Miss Pope played Nell. When we came out of the house, it rained hard. There were then few hackney-coaches, and we got both in one sedan-chair. Turning out of Fleet-street into Fetter-lane, there was a sort of contest between our chairmen and some persons who were coming up Fleet-street, whether they should first pass Fleet-street, or we in our chair first get out of Fleet-street into Fetter-lane. In the struggle, the sedan-chair was overset with us in it, This, thought I, is more than sat cito, and it certainly is not sat bene. In short, in all that I have had to do in future life, professional and judicial, I have always felt the effect of this early admonition, on the panels of the vehicle which conveyed me from school, 'Sat cito, si sat bene.' It was the impression of this which made me that deliberative judge as some have said, too deliberative ;—and reflection upon all that is past will not authorize me to deny that, whilst I have been thinking 'sat cito, si sat bene,' I may not have sufficiently recollected whether 'sat bene, si sat cito' has had its due influence."

A clergyman had two churches, Newbury and Bibury; and instead of dividing the duties equally between them, chose always to perform the morning service at the former, and the evening service at the latter. Being asked his reason, he made answer: "I go to nubere in the morning, because that is the time to marry; and I go to bibere in the evening, because that is the time to drink."

When Lord Eldon was at an inn at Rusheyford, the landlord of which was more than an octogenarian, his Lordship gave him the following sound advice: "I hear, Mr. Hoult, you are talking of retiring from business, but let me advise you not to do so. Busy people are very apt to think a life of leisure is a life of happiness; but believe me, for I speak from experience, when a man who has been much occupied through life arrives at having nothing to do, he is very apt not to know what to do with himself."

LORD ELDON'S ESCAPE.

When John Scott was an undergraduate at Oxford, he had a narrow escape of his life. He was skating on Christchurch meadow, and venturing on too weak ice, fell into a ditch deep enough to

allow him to sink to the neck. When he had scrambled out, and was dripping from the collar, and oozing from the stockings, a brandy vendor shuffled towards him, and recommended a glass of something warm; upon which, Edward Norton, of University College, a son of Lord Grantley, sweeping past, cried out to the retailer: 66 None of your brandy for that wet young man; he never drinks but when he is dry."

SIR WILLIAM SCOTT'S HUMOUR.

When some sudden and somewhat violent changes of opinion were imputed to a learned Judge, who was always jocosely termed Mrs. "Varium et mutabile semper femina," was Sir William Scott's remark. A celebrated physician having said, somewhat more flippantly than beseemed the gravity of his cloth, "Oh, you know, Sir William, after forty, a man is either a fool or a physician!" "Mayn't he be both, doctor?" was the arch rejoinder-with a most arch leer and an insinuating voice half drawled out. "A vicar was once," said his Lordship, "presiding at the dinner of the Admiralty Sessions, so wearied out with his parish-clerk confining himself to the 100th Psalm, that he remonstrated, and insisted upon a variety, which the man promised; but; old habit proving too strong for him, the old words were as usual given out next Sunday, All people that on earth do dwell.' Upon this the Vicar's temper could hold out no longer, and, jutting his head over the desk, he cried, 'D-n all people that on earth do dwell!'-a very compendious form of anathema!" added the learned chief of the Spiritual Court. As Sir William Scott could imagine nothing better than the existing state of any given thing, he could see only peril and hazard in the search for anything new; and with him it was quite enough to characterize a measure as a mere novelty," to deter him at once from entertaining it—a phrase of which Mr. Speaker Abbot, with some humour, once took advantage to say, when asked by his friend what that mass of papers might be, pointing to the huge bundle of the Acts of a single session, "Mere novelties, Sir William-mere novelties."

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When Sir William Scott, in his 68th year, married the Dowager Marchioness of Sligo, his acquaintance sometimes made merry on the match; the more because it was suspected that the lady was inclined to preserve in her wedlock, a good deal of the independence of her widowhood. On the door of their house in Grafton-street, which had been her abode before the marriage, was a brass plate, displaying her name, and beneath it, Sir William placed another, bearing his own. Why, Sir William," said Mr. Jekyll, who had left his card of congratulation upon the wedding, "I am sorry

see you knock under." Sir William made no answer at the time, but transposed the plates. "Now, Jekyll," said he, when next they met, "you see I no longer knock under." "No, Sir William," said the unrelenting wit, "I see you knock up now,"

LORD STOWELL'S LOVE OF SIGHT-SEEING.

Lord Stowell loved manly sports, and was not above being pleased with the most rude and simple diversions. He gloried in Punch and Judy their fun stirred his mirth without, as in Goldsmith's case, provoking spleen He made a boast on one occasion that there was not a puppet-show in London he had not visited, and when turned fourscore, was caught watching one at a distance with children of of less growth in high glee. He has been known to make a party with Windham to visit Cribb's, and to have attended the Fives Court as a favourite resort. "There were curious characters," he observed, "to be seen at these places." He was the most indefatigable sight-seer in London. Whatever show could be visited for a shilling, or less, was visited by Lord Stowell. In the western end of London there was a room generally let for exhibitions. At the entrance, as it is said, Lord Stowell presented himself, eager to see "the green monster serpent," which had lately issued cards of invitation to the public. As he was pulling out his purse to pay for his admission, a sharp but honest north-country lad, whose business it was to take the money, recognised him as an old customer, knowing his name, thus addressed him: "We can't take your shilling, my lord, 'tis the old serpent which you have seen twice before in other colours; but ye shall go in and see her" He entered. saved his money, and enjoyed his third visit to the painted beauty. This love of seeing sights was, on another occasion, productive of the following whimsical incident. Some thirty years ago, an animal, called a "Bonassus," was exhibited in the Strand. On Lord Stowell's paying it a second vist, the keeper very courteously told his lordship that he was welcome to come, gratuitously, as often as he pleased. Within a day or two after this, however, there appeared, under the bills of the exhibition, in conspicuous characters, Under the patronage of the Right Hon. Lord Stowell," an announcement of which the noble and learned lord's friends availed themselves, by passing many a joke upon him; all of which he took with the greatest good humour.-Townsend's Lives of the Twelve Judges.

LORD ELDON'S CHANCELLORSHIP.

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The brightest period of Lord Eldon's judicial career was his ChiefJusticeship of the Common Pleas. "How I did love that court!"

is his parenthetical exclamation in the Anecdote-Book: and once, during a walk with Mr. Farrer, after comparing the harassing duties of the Chancellorship with the quiet of the Common Pleas, he suddenly turned round, and emphatically abjured his companion never to aspire to the Great Seal-a curious piece of advice to a young barrister.

Early in 1801, when Mr. Pitt's resignation was anticipated, it was understood that Lord Eldon was to succeed Lord Loughborough as Chancellor; but Lord Eldon maintained a cautious reserve on the subject, which he justified by an anecdote. "Lord Walsingham, the son of Lord Chief-Justice de Grey, told me that his father, the Chief Justice, gave a dinner to his family and friends, on account of his going to have the Great Seal as Chancellor next morning, but that in the interim, between the dinner and the next morning, Mr. Justice Bathurst, it was determined, should be Chancellor, and received the seal."

The Great Seal was delivered to Eldon on the 14th of April 1801. He used to say he was the King's Chancellor, not the Minister's. "I do not know what made George III. so fond of me, but he was fond of me. Did I ever tell you the manner in which he gave me the seals? When I went to him he had his coat buttoned thus, (one or two buttons fastened at the lower part,) and putting his right hand within, he drew them from out the left side, saying, 'I give them to you from my heart.'

In compliance with Lady Eldon's feeling, Lord Eldon often applied to King George III. to allow him to dispense with his wig, at times when he was not engaged in performing official functions. He pressed on the King the fact, that in former days, under the reigns of some of His Majesty's predecessors (as James I. and Charles I.) wigs were not worn by the Judges. "True," replied the King good humouredly, "I admit the correctness of your statement, and am willing, if you like it, that you should do as they did; for though they certainly had no wigs, yet they wore their beards." When Lord Eldon received the Great Seal from George IV., and kissed hands on his appointment, the King conversed with him, and said, when his Lordship was about to retire, Give my remembrance to Lady Eldon ;" Lord E acknowledged this condescension, and intimated that he was ignorant of Lady Eldon's claim to such a notice. "Yes, yes," answered the King, "I know how much I owe to Lady Eldon. I know that you would have made yourself a country curate, and that she has made you my Lord Chancellor."

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It is remarkable that George IV., who, as he confessed, began by hating Lord Eldon, ended by becoming as much attached to him as

George III. "On Monday," says Lord Eldon, in a letter to his grandson describing his final resignation, "your grandfather attended with the rest of the ministers to give up the seals of office, and was, of course, called in first. The King was so much affected that very little passed; but he threw his arms round your grandfather's neck and shed tears."

That resignation took place in April 30, 1827, on the formation of Mr. Canning's government. After allowing for the secession during the Whig government in 1806-7, it appears that Lord Eldon held the Great Seal twenty-four years, ten months, and twenty-three days-a longer period than any other Chancellor held it.— Edinburgh Review, No. 163.

LORD ELDON AND JOSEPH HUME.

Lord Campbell relates the following, of the Chancellor and Joseph Hume. On the presentation of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Court of Chancery, on a petition being presented to the House of Commons from a person very properly committed for a contempt of the Court of Chancery, Mr. Hume, sometimes more zealous than discreet, created a strong feeling in favour of the Chancellor, by declaring that "the greatest curse which ever fell on any nation was to have such a Chancellor and such a Court of Chancery." Lord Eldon, rather pleased with this attack, treated it thus merrily, in a letter to Lord Encombe :- "You see Mr. Hume called your grandfather a curse to the country. He dignified also the quietest, meekest man in the country, with the title of a firebrand, i.e. the Bishop of London. I met the Bishop at the Exhibition, and as it happened to be an uncommonly cold day, in this most unusually cold weather, I told him that the curse of the country was so very cold that I hoped he would allow him to keep himself warm by sitting next to the firebrand and so we laughed, and amused ourselves at this fellow's impertinence."

A GRATEFUL LADY.

At the time of passing the Catholic Relief Bill, Lady Clerk wrote to Lord Eldon congratulating him upon the energetic stand he had made to prevent the Bill becoming law. His answer was laconic and neatly thus:-"Dear Molly Dacre, I am happy to find you approve of my endeavours to oppose the Catholic Relief Bill. I have done what I thought my duty. May God forgive me if I have done wrong, and may God forgive my opponents (if he can). Yours affectionately, Eldon.