CHAPTER LXXXVII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY TILL HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE OFFICE OF LORD CHANCELLOR. I CANNOT find how the new appointment was at first received by the profession of the law or by the public; but it seems entirely to have turned the head of the Lord [A. D. 1672.] Chancellor himself, and notwithstanding his excellent good sense, and his discernment of the impression to be made by his conduct, he now played fantastic tricks which could be expected only from a fool and a coxcomb. “After he was possessed of the Great Seal he was in appearance the gloriousest man alive; and no man's discourse in his place ever flew so high as he did, not only against the House of Commons, where perhaps he expected a party to sustain him, but against the tribe of the Court of Chancery officers and counsel, and their methods of ordering the business of the Court. As for the Commons, he did not understand by what reason men should sit and vote themselves privileges. And for the Chancery, he would teach the bar that a man of sense was above all their forms. So with all the gayety de cœur imaginable, and a world of pleasant wit in his conversation, (as he had indeed a very great share, and showed it upon all occasions,) he composed himself to perform the duties of his office."* r Such confidence had he in his judicial powers derived from 'the light of nature," that, unlike Lord Keeper Williams and some of his sneaking predecessors, who being "minus sufficientes in lege," had painful misgivings as to their ability to acquit themselves decently, and therefore put off as long as possible the time of taking their seat in the Court of Chancery, he was impatient to show that he was superior as a Judge to all who had ever before sat in the marble chair. “The next day, being the xviiith day of November, his Lop went to the Chancery Cort in Westm Hall, and there standing in his place tooke the oathes as Lord Chancellor, the booke being held to him by the Master of the Rolls, the Dukes of Lauderdale and Ormond, the Earle of St. Alban's, the Earle of Arlington, and several other persons of honour accompanyinge his Lop to and in the Cort untill his Lop was sworne, all the said persons of honour, with the Judges and Chancery officers attending his Lop from his house in the Strand, to the Chancery Cort in Westmr Hall.”† I do not find any further account of this installation, which, having been got up so suddenly, could not have been very splendid. But to compensate for the disappointment, Shaftesbury de VOL. III. * Examen, 46. 22 + Crown Off. Min. 1672. termined to amuse the metropolis with a sight that had not been seen for half a century. Coaches were introduced into England in the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, and had for many years become so common that the ancient custom of the Chancellor and the Judges riding on horseback to Westminster Hall to open the term had been entirely laid aside, and the Chancellor had headed the procession in a grand gilt state carriage almost as large as a house,-being followed by the Judges, the King's Serjeants, the King's counsel, &c., in modern equipages. They still continued to "ride the circuit" on sober pads, but the ménage for learning to sit the great horse, which used to be frequented by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, was very much neglected, and the practice of riding managed horses in the streets of London had fallen into entire disuse. Shaftesbury, who had been bred a country squire, and had been colonel of a regiment of cavalry, piqued himself much upon his horsemanship, and to gratify his morbid appetite to be talked of, and out of malice to some of the old Judges, who he heard had been sneering at his decisions, he issued an order that on the first day of Hilary term, 1673, there should be a judicial cavalcade according to ancient form, from Exeter House in the Strand, the place of his residence, to Westminster Hall. On that day he gave a sumptuous breakfast not only to noblemen, judges, and other dignitaries, but to all the barristers, all the students of the Inns of Court, and the sixty clerks, with all the other officers of the Court of Chancery. He then mounted his richly caparisoned charger,-preceded by those who bore the insignia of his authority, his master of the horse, page, groom, and six footmen walking along by his stirrup. This procession marched by the Strand through the quadrangle at Whitehall to King Street, then the only entrance to Palace Yard,—and so to Westminster Hall. It is described by several contemporary writers*, but Roger North's account of it is the most graphic. "His Lordship had an early fancy, or rather freak, the first day of the 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 get horses, as they and all the rest did, by borrowing and hiring, and so equipped themselves with black foot-cloaths in the best manner they could: and divers of the nobility, as usual, in compliment and honour to a new Lord Chancellor, attended also in their equipments. Upon notice in town of this cavalcade, all the show company took their places at windows and balconies, with the foot guard in the streets to partake of the fine sight, and being once well settled for the march, it moved, as the design was, statelily along. But when they came to straights and inter * See Rawleigh Redivivus, 75. ruptions, for want of gravity in the beasts and too much in the riders, there happened some curveting, which made no little disorder. Judge Twisden, in his great affright and the consternation of his grave brethren, was laid along in the dirt*; but all at length arrived safe, without loss of life or limb in the service. This accident was enough to divert the like frolick for the future, and the very next term after, they fell to their coaches as before. Usages that are most fitting at one time appear ridiculous at another. As here the sitting of grave men used only to coaches, upon the ménage on horseback, only for the vanity of show, 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, in ridicule." We now come to consider how Shaftesbury comported himself in the Court of Chancery. The general opinion of subsequent times has been, that, with all his faults as a statesman, he proved a consummate Judge. I believe that this opinion is wholly erroneous, and that it is entirely to be ascribed to the celebrated lines in praise of his judicial character in “ ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL." "Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge, The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge; Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown, Had Dryden been sincere and honest in praising_Shaftesbury, his testimony ought not to have much weight, for the great poet probably never was in the Court of Chancery in his life, and though the first of English critics in polite literature, he could not have formed a very correct opinion as to the propriety of an order or decree in Equity. But the panegyric was purchased, and was a mere poetical picture drawn from the imagination of the beau idéal of a good Chancellor. It did not appear in the first edition of the poem which, in describing the character of Achitophel, contained unmixed invective, and represented him as unredeemed from his vices by any semblance of virtue. Shaftesbury, nevertheless, while the town was ringing with abuse of him, and he was universally pointed to as "the false Achitophel,"-being a governor of the Charter House, sent to Dryden a nomination to that establishment for his son,--which was highly valuable to him, According to tradition this disgrazia happened from meeting a line of brewer's drays at Charing Cross. When Twisden recovered himself, he declared in furore, "that no Lord Chancellor should ever make him mount on horseback again." "It is remarkable that this man, whose principles and conduct were in all other respects so exceptionable, proved an excellent Chancellor."-Hume. And all the historians of the eighteenth century, reading Dryden or copying each other, write to the same effect. and was joyfully accepted. A second edition was called for. The bard could not soften the political character of his hero without utterly destroying the poem, and breaking with the Court who had paid him well for it, but in the fulfilment of an implied obligation, he set his wits to work to consider what a Chancellor should be in administering justice, and so produced the lines which have induced posterity to believe that such a Chancellor was Shaftesbury King Charles is said to have been very indignant when he saw the second edition, and to have declared that the portrait of Achitophel was so disfigured that he no longer recognised the original.* Shaftesbury never took bribes. Luckily he had only one political case before him; and he would not listen to private solicitation in favour of litigants. But except being free from gross corruption, he was the worst Judge that had ever sat in the Court. This was inevitable, for he might as well have tried to sustain a principal part in an opera, without having learned the first rudiments of music. There was no refusal to practise before him on account of his ignorance of law, as in the case of Lord Chancellor Hatton and Lord Keeper Williams. The bar took a more effectual mode of exposing and subduing him. Had he been ruled by his assessors,† he might have avoided any palpable absurdities; but despising all learning that he did not know, he thought he was fitter to decide than any of them, and he scorned their advice. To show his contempt for all who had gone before him, as well * Malone, in his "Life of Dryden," has attempted to refute this story, but in my humble opinion he has utterly failed. He has shown satisfactorily that it could only apply to the poet's third son, the two elder being educated at Westminster School, and he has given a copy of the admission of this youth in the following words: "Feb. 5th, 1682-3. Erasmus Henry Dryden admitted for his Majesty (in the room of Orlando Bagnall) aged 14 years 2d day of May next. He reasons that as the admission did not take place in the end of Nov. 1681, between the two editions of the poem, there could be no connection between the poetry and the presentation. But on inquiry I find that at the Charter House the admission sometimes does not take place till years after the nomination. The expression here" for his Majesty," may be inaccurate, and if accurate may be explained by an exchange of one nomination for another (not an unusual practice) to suit the ages of the boys,—and it is nothing when we consider that the anecdote rests on the authority of a most respectable lawyer, STRINGER, the intimate friend and protégé of Shaftesbury, who was Secretary of Presentations to him while he was Chancellor, and probably would be the person by whom the act would be done ;that it is confirmed by Martyn, who wrote the life of the first Lord Shaftesbury under the superintendence of his grandson ;-and that it is repeated in the eulogistic Life of Lord Shaftesbury in the "Biographia Britannica," written by Dr. Kippis, who is said to have received 500l. from the family for the pains he bestowed upon it. It has been said that Dryden could not have composed "the MEDAL," after receiving such a favour from Shaftesbury,-but this is explained by the royal solicitation and the 100 broad pieces.-See post. † By a reference to the minutes in the Registrar's Office, it appears that on the 18th of Nov. 1672, the Master of the Rolls and Mr. Baron Windham sat with him and that he had the Master of the Rolls, or a common law Judge, and Masters in Chancery by him every day he sat till the end of the term. "'* as his contemporaries, he would not be habited like his predecessors, "for he sat upon the bench in an ash-coloured gown silverlaced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black at all in his garb unless it were his hat.' Roger Forth's account of the result of all his boasts may be relied upon. " He slighted the bar, declared their reign at an end. He would make all his own orders his own way, and in his discourse trampled on all the forms of the Court. And to be as good as his word, at his first motion-day, although the counsel (as always out of respect to a new judge) were easy and inclined of themselves to yield to what was fit to be ordered, and not to perplex him with contention upon forms; yet he would not accept of their civility, but cut and slashed after his own fancy; and nothing would down with him that any of them suggested, though all were agreed upon the matter. They soon found his humour, and let him have his caprice and after, upon notice, moved 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 haggared hawk that is not let sleep, he was entire reclaimed. And from a trade of perpetually making and unmaking his own orders, he fell to be the tamest Judge, and, as to all forms and modes of proceeding, the most resigned to the disposition of the bar that ever sat on that bench."t "He swaggered and vapoured what asses he would make of all the counsel at the bar, but like the month of March, as they say,' In like a lion, and out like a lamb.'"‡ * Examen, 60. He is said to have been "more like a rakish young nobleman at the University than a Lord High Chancellor." † Examen, 57. Life of Guilford, ii. 74. The only contradictory authority, if such it may be called, is "Rawley Redivivus," which being an unmixed and unqualified eulogy of the whole life of Shaftesbury, contains lines extolling not only the purity of his morals, but his judicial excellence : "His choice sagacity Straight solv'd the knot that subtle lawyers tyed, 1 Became a star of honour in our sphere."-Part i. 88. It has been supposed that he was the author of a new code for regulating the practice of the Court of Chancery; and there is extant a paper entitled "A collection of the Orders heretofore used in Chancery, with such alterations and additions thereunto as the Right Honourable ANTHONY EARLE of SHAFTESBURY, Lord High Chancellor of England, by and with the advice and assistance of the Honourable Sir Harbottle GRIMSTONE, Baronet, Master of the Rolls, hath thought fit at present to ordaine and publish: For reforming of severall of abuses in the said Court, preventing of multiplicity of unnecessary charge to the suitors, and for their more expeditious and certaine course for reliefe." This collection is exceedingly well digested, and might have been very useful; but it can confer no |