LAW, EDWARD, LORD ELLENBOROUGH, was born Novem ber 16, 1750, at Great Salkeld, in the county of Cumberland. He was the fourth son of Dr. Edmund Law, bishop of Carlisle. He received his rudimentary education at the residence of his maternal uncle, the Rev. Humphrey Christian, who then resided at Docking in Norfolk. He was removed thence in 1762 to the Charter-house School, London, and placed on the foundation. In 1763 he was entered of St. Peter's College, Cambridge. After taking his degree of B.A. he removed to London, and became a student of law at the Inner Temple. Having been called to the bar, and acquired by a short preparatory practice the needful technical knowledge, he soon took his place among the chief members of the profession. He was engaged as the leading counsel in the defence of Warren Hastings, 1788 to 1795, and in this famous trial acquired great distinction both as a lawyer and a speaker. In Westminster Hall he had Erskine and other able rivals to contend with, and never rose to the first lead as a pleader, but he became the admitted leader of the Northern Circuit. His rise in tho profession was remarkably rapid. In 1801 he was appointed attorney general and knighted, and in the same year he was elected a member of the House of Commons. In April 1802 Sir Edward Law succeeded Lord Kenyon as lord chief justice of the court of King's Bernell, and was creatod a peer by the title of Baron Ellenborough, of Elleuborough in Cumberland, by patent dated April 10th, 1802. He was afterwards made a privy councillor. In the House of Lords in 1805 he strenuously opposed any concession to the Roman Catholics. On the
trial of Lord Melville in 1306 Lord Elleuborough voted against him. In 1813 he was nominated one of the commissioners to inquire into the conduct of the Princess of Wales. In 1314 he was one of the judges who presided at the trial of Lord Cochrane [DUNDONALD, EARL OF], and in 1818 on the trial of Hone [HONE, Wurisar]. Iu November of the same year he retired from the bench. He died December 13, 1318, at his residence in Loudon. He married in 1782, and was sue seeded in the title by his eldest SOD who is now Earl of Ellenborough. EARL OF.] Lord Brougham, in his 'Historical Sketches of Statesmen,' makes the following remarks on his character as a judge :—" The Term Reports bear ample testimony to the vigour of this eminent individual's capacity during the eighteen years that he filled the first place among the English common-law judges He was somewhat irascible, and sometimes even violent. But no one could accuse him of the least partiality. His honest and manly nature ever disdained as much to trample overbearingly on the nimble as to crouch meanly beforo the powerful He despatched ausiness with great celerity, and for the most part with success. But muses were not sifted before him with that closeness of scrutiny, and 3artica were not suffered to bring forward all they had to state with hat fulness and freedom, which alone can prevent misdeciaion, and insure the due administration of justice." •