pp. 282.86, he lays the principal stress upon the desirableness of bringing out all the evidence. His words are, " The mass of evidence, in my judgment, was such as ought to go to the jury for their opinion, whether they were guilty or not guilty of treason. Unless the whole evidence was laid before the jury, it would have been impossible that the country could ever have been made fully acquainted with the danger to which it was exposed; and it appeared to me to be more essential to securing the public safoty that the whole of their transactions should be published, thau that any of these individuals should be convicted." In July 1799, on the death of Sir James Eyre, chief justice of the Common Pleas, Sir John Scott claimed and obtained that office, agreeing at the same time to go into the House of Lords. His title of Baron Eldon was taken from a manor of that name, consisting of above 1300 acres, in the county of Durham, which he had purchased for 22,000/. in 1792. It appears from Lord Eldou's fee books, as far as they have been preserved, that his annual receipts when at the bar had been in 1785, 6054l.; in 1786, 6833/. ; in 1787, 7600l.; in 1788, 84191.; in 1789, 9559l.; in 1790, 9684/.; in 1791, 10,213/.; in 1792, 9080l.; in 1793, 10,330G; in 1794, 11,5921.; in 1795, 11,149/.; in 1796, 12,140l.; in 1797, 10,8611.; and in 1798, 10,557/. His removal to the bench was a great sacrifice of income, but he considered that his health and comfort required his retirement from the laborious office of attorney-general. His claim however was at first opposed by both Pitt and Loughborough the chancellor, who were desirous of giving the office to Sir R. Pepper Arden, thou master of the rolls.
When it became known that Sir John Scott was to be the uew chief justice of the Common Pleas, Lord Kenyon, then chief justice of the King's Bench, publicly congratulated the profession upon the appoint.
meet of one, who, he said, would probably be found "the most consummate judge that ever sate in judgment : " and Lord Eldon proved an admirable common law judge. "On the benoh of a common law court," it is remarked by his biographer, "no scope was allowed to his only judicial imperfection, the tendency to hesitate.
Compelled to decide without postponement, Lord Eldon atonce established the highest judicial reputation ; a reputation indeed which afterwards wrought somewhat disadvantageously against him self when lord chaucellor, by how little ground there was for his diffidence, and consequently how little necessity for his doubts and delays." He was also much attached to his office, and to the end of his life used to express the strong regret with which he had left the Court of Common Pleas.
But on Lord Loughborough'a resignation of the great seal in April 1801, about a month after Mr. Pitt had been suoceeded as prime minister by Mr. Addiugton, Lord Eldon became lord chancellor (April 14th). His own account was, that when he was made chief justice of the Common Pleas, the king had insisted upon his giving a promise, that whenever he should be called upon to take the office of chancellor he would do so. Ile continued to hold thin office till the 7th of February 1806, when, on the accession of the Whig ministry of Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville, he was succeeded by Lord Erskine ; be resumed it on the let of April 1807, on the return of his party to power • and he finally resigned it on the 30th of April 1827, when Mr. Canning became prime minister, and the great seal was given to Lord Lyndhurst. Ile was raised to the dignities of Viscount Encombe and Earl of Eldon in 1821.
Lord Eldon's judicial character has been elaborately drawn by several competent pens. The reader may be especially referred to the volumes of his biographer, Mr. Twiss; to a series of articles in the ' Law Magazine; Noe. 41 to 44 inclusive • to the second series of Lord Brougham's ` Historical Sketches of who flourished in the time of George III.;' and to Lord Campbell's 'Lives of the Chancellors.' It is admitted on all hands that in legal learning he never had a superior, if he had an equal, in Westminster Hall; and, although his intellect was not capacious, nor his general powers of mind of a commanding order, in the acuteness and subtlety with which he applied his professional knowledge he was perhaps unrivalled by any judge that ever sat upon the bench. The great fault that is imputed to him is the hesitation which he showed in coming to a decision, or at any rate, as has been said to have been rather the case, in pronouncing one. But this habit, however distressing to individual suitors, was not so permanently mischievous as .might be feared. Indeed the anxious consideration with which his judgments were formed enhances their value and authority.
During nearly all the time that Lord Eldon sat on the woolsack he took a leading part in the general debates of the House of Lords ; he was also understood to be one of the most influential members of the cabinet; and he was certainly one of the staunchest and most uncom promising supporters of all the great principles of the old Tory or Conservative party. The two great measures of Parliamentary Reform and Roman Catholic Emancipation in particular were steadily opposed by him on all occasions, and to the last. Indeed it was his inflexi bility on the latter question that occasioned his final retirement from office.
Opinions will of course be divided on Lord Eldon's character as a publio man. The facts of his long career are now generally known ; and sufficient time has elapsed to enable the present generation to form a tolerably correct estimate of the men who directed affairs in the eventful period of the latter part of the reign of George Ill. and the regency. So mach we may affirm without incurring the impu tation of judging in a mere party spirit ; that the reputation of Lord Eldon as a profound lawyer will be permanent, while his career as a statesman was not marked by any measure that places him among the great men of his age or country.
Lord Eldon survived in retirement till the 13th of January 1838, and was succeeded In his peerage by his grandson, the late earl, the can of his eldest ion John, who was born at Oxford on the 8th of March 1774, and died on the 24th of December 1805. Lord Eldon's other children were Elizabeth, born in 1783, who married George Stanley Repton, Fasq.; Edward William, born in 1791, and Henry John, born In 1793, who both died in infancy; William Henry John, born In 1795, who died in 1892; Frances Jane, born in 1798, who married the Rev. Edward Banker!, rector of Corte Castle and pre bendary of Gloucester and Norwich, and died in 1838. Lady Eldon died iu 1831. John, second earl of Eldon, was declared of unsound mind in 1853, and died In September 1854. His son John, the present earl, was born in 1845, and succeeded to the title on the death of hi, fatlur.
(The Peddle end Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon, with Med ion. from Ai. Correspondence, by Horace Twills, Esq, one of her Majesty's Counsel, 3 vols. 8vo, Lend., 1844.)