and abstained from all personal acrimony, but he had a duty to perform to his sovereign, from which he could not and did not shrink. That he truckled to the private resentment of George IV. to preserve his office was a calumny loudly urged and reiterated by faction, but unjust. He had previously requested permission to resign, and held the seals some years longer at the importunate desire of the Court, and entreaties of his colleagues. At the very time the walls of St. Stephen's rang with complaints of his determination to retain office to his dying day, and then transmit it as a legacy to some chosen successor, he had sought an interview with the monarch, and offered to retire.

The Shibboleth of his policy was attachment to the Established Church. On the death of Lord Londonderry his jealous fears for its safety had been quickened by the elevation of Mr. Canning, the most high-minded and powerful advocate for Roman Catholic emancipation, to the post of foreign secretary; and nothing but a conviction that the king, the prime minister, a majority in the cabinet, and the House of Lords, were firm against concession, could have induced him to unite with that enterprising minister. Never had the Church in her relations with the State a more staunch and zealous defender. Against the private and publicly expressed opinion of Lord Liverpool, he resisted successfully the first of a long series of concessions to dissent, the Unitarian Marriage Bill. "It was a sin at common law," he asserted, to deny the divinity of Christ; and if so, their lordships should begin with repealing the common law, and not with passing an act of parliament in the teeth of it." In consequence of these and other stringent remarks, he received a sermon preached by a minister before an Unitarian congregation, in which the first words were, "The Lord Chancellor asks what is an Unitarian?" The sermon, he declared, though it had this singular commencement, was a very good one, as far as he could understand subjects of that nature. But he still persisted in his question, Was an Unitarian a person who denied the divinity of our Saviour? He should be exceedingly glad to get a definition. What was objected to in the marriage ceremony was, the mention of the godhead under the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, when the clergyman at

the end of the ceremony prayed the blessing of God upon the man and wife. "The calling upon God to bless them under the terms of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, was what these persons deemed so great a hardship. Every Christian of common honesty and integrity, when he said 'God bless you,' meant the godhead in its general acceptation. It was on such grounds their lordships were called upon to make a law, not for the benefit of dissenters of other denominations, but for this particular class of dissenters, which, according to all the evidence of history, held doctrines of a more offensive description than any other class." Notwithstanding his earnestly urged objections, the Chancellor found himself in a minority, 54 to 61, and though the bill eventually failed that session, he saw with alarm that the period of its becoming law was not remote. When, in rapid succession, the Duke of York and Lord Liverpool passed away, and Mr. Canning kissed hands as premier, Lord Eldon perceived the time was come for resigning. He could not assist in undermining the bulwarks of the church; the new first lord of the treasury was equally incapable of treachery; but they differed altogether in their ideas of what were bulwarks, and what the one would have resisted, the other insisted on preserving for security to that church, which they both loved and valued. Lord Eldon resigned the seals in March, 1827. His retirement from office was soothed by the regrets of the King,—who presented his faithful Chancellor with a splendid silver vase, richly embossed with classical illustrations,-the respect of the people, and the acknowledgments of the generous prime minister, that, however much concert might be imputed to others, his conduct had been without reproach. When most indignant at some of his late colleagues, Mr. Canning declared in the House of Commons that it was bare justice to Lord Eldon to say, that his conduct was that of a man of the highest feelings of honor, and throughout it had been above all exception.

The danger which he had long foreboded came at length, but not from the quarter that he had looked for it. The dreaded Canning died in five months after his resignation. When that gallant spirit was at rest, and an imbecile administration—a body without the soul-had given way to the Duke of Welling

ton, it was naturally expected that, having quitted office with his late colleagues, Lord Eldon would have returned to the cabinet with them, though not in the same situation. We have reason for believing that he would have accepted the post of president of the council, or privy seal, offices that did not impose any onerous duty, but these posts of dignified repose were reserved for younger, not better, peers, and being deemed invalided, he had not even the opportunity of refusing. His presence would have checked ministers in their downward path of concession on all ecclesiastical matters, but might possibly have retarded some beneficial changes, and have interfered with several salutary legal reforms. Early in the session he found himself, for the first time in his political life, in active opposition to the leading measure of a Tory government acting upon Whig principles. Defeated in their oppo

sition to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts by a majority of the Commons, government adopted the scheme, and took it up in the lords with the fondness for a sudden favourite. Greatly to the surprise of Lord Eldon, he heard the repeal advocated by several of the prelates of the church. "Much as he had heard," he said, "of the march of mind, he never expected to see it march into their lordships' house with the Duke of Wellington and the Bishops consenting parties. For my part," concluded the stout-hearted old peer, "I will not give up the church; let that be the work of others

whether within or without the church I care not." He laboured manfully in committee to add some additional restricting clauses, and, when he had failed in all, recorded his deliberate protest. "He solemnly said to the Test Act Repeal Bill not content from his heart and soul. He could not consent to give up the constitution, as well as church establishment, to the extent the present bill proposed. He could not do this. It must be the work of others. Be they within or without the church, it mattered not to him. If every man in that house supported the bill, he alone would go below the bar and vote against it. He did not praise the church for their abstinence from petitions. If restless activity on the one side was only to be met by dormant apathy on the other, let the consequences rest upon them, and not upon him."

The years which followed this first inroad were marked by

constantly recurring aggressions on the Church of England; one session it was sought to dissociate the church established by law from the state, and in the next to dissever Protestantism at large. As one blow rapidly succeeded another, like the strokes of an active woodsman, Lord Eldon might be compared to the ancient Druid defending his consecrated grove; or, to apply a classical description of Virgil, he resembled some very old laurel tree protecting the once mighty Altar in its hour of exposure,

"Edibus in mediis nudoque sub ætheris axe

Ingens ara fuit, juxtaque veterrima laurus

Incumbens aræ, atque umbrâ complexa Penates."

In 1829, seconded by a large proportion of the people of England, he struggled with the strength of despair against the unconditional grant of Roman Catholic emancipation. His early, matured, and late opinions, which he always maintained in private as in public, were, that the admission of Roman Catholics into parliament would be unobjectionable, provided sufficient protection could be given against their attacks on the establishment, and though he confessed he could not himself imagine or divine any plan for effecting this, he conceived it not impossible that others might be more successful. A circumstance which occurred when he was attorney-general had made an indelible impression on his mind, and strengthened the surmise to conviction, that the declarations of men "who paltered with us in a double sense" were not to be trusted. By the act of 1793, any Roman Catholic admitted to office was made to swear, "I will not exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant government in this kingdom." The signification of this oath turned on the word "and." By a jesuitical interpretation it was conveyed to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, that, except they disturbed as well as weakened, they did not break their oath; and that, though they might not weaken by means of disturbing, they might conscientiously and safely weaken by any other means. We cannot wonder after this that he should deem the safeguards of 1829 wholly fallacious, as indeed they were, and altogether insecure. He presented between 900 and 1000 petitions against that destructive scheme, one in par

ticular signed by 100,000 resident householders of London and Middlesex, and another from Liverpool so large that a porter could with difficulty bear the immense roll of parchment on his shoulders to the table of the house. In enforcing the prayer of these petitions, the old peer displayed all his former spirit and address. Having declared that he had received one signed by a number of ladies, and expressed his intention to search the journals to ascertain whether such a petition were regular, Lord King inquired with a malicious quip, whether they were very old ladies. Lord Eldon retorted that he knew many old women who had more good sense and more upright feeling than the descendants of some chancellors.

In the debate on the second reading, which lasted three nights, two of the most eloquent advocates for emancipation, Earl Grey and Lord Plunkett, reserved themselves avowedly with the intention of answering the ex-Chancellor. He spoke with less than his usual animation on such an inspiriting theme, and evidently shrunk from the encounter. A few days afterwards in committee he confessed with much frankness that he did not like to oppose himself, under the influence of a teasing gout, to the formidable alliance which was formed by those who took different views on the subject, and illustrated his prudence by the following anecdote :-" I was once at Buxton with my venerable friend Lord Thurlow, who went there for the benefit of the waters. I called on him one evening at the inn where he was sitting, when he told me that he had heard there were six or eight persons in the house who meant to have a dash at the ex-Chancellor in the bath next morning. I asked him what course he intended to take, and he replied prudently that he meant to keep out of the way. The misfortune is, I have not been able to keep out of the way of those who have been anxious to have a dash at me." But though averse to the combat in solemn debate with younger rhetoricians, the venerable peer spoke some home truths in committee more effective than the best rounded periods of eloquence. He declared that, if religion had nothing to do with politics, the present reigning family had no right to occupy the throne, and asserted that the people of England could never find a solid security for their liberties in