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Show 24G ATROCIOUS JUDGES. [A. D. lGS:"J. gossip of the day in his house in Great Queen S treet, Lincoln's Inn Fields, then the fashionable quarter of the town for the great nobility a~ well a for ern in 'nt lawyers. The nobility and chief gentry coming to Lonuon frequently dined with him. The dinner was at a very early hour, and did not la t lonrr. 0 "After a Rolemn er-vice of tea in a withdrawing room, ihc company u ·ually left hi1n." IIe bad a court roon1 fltt ed up on the g rounu iloor, whieh he then entered, and there he continued hearing cause and exceptions, so1nciimes to what ,ras con. ·idered a late hour. A bout eight o'doek can1c snpper, wlueh he took wiLh a few private friends, and relishecl as the most agreeable and rcfre;:;hing n1cal of the day. In tlle vacation , when he could Lc , pared from London, h~ r e tired to hi, seat a t \Vroxton. For ~o1ne year · he likeWl e rented a villa at I-Iamnler ~Inith, but this he gaYe up soon after his wife', death. lie haJ. the 1nisfortune to Jose her after they had been married only a few year:;;. She seems to have been a very an1iable per.:;on. S he found ou t when her hu banJ had any trouble upon hi. · ~p irits, and , he ·would say, "Cmne, Sir Francis, (a. ·he always , tylell him,) you shall not think ; we n1u t talk and be 1nerry, a ncl you hall not look on the fire as you do. I know somethino· troubles 0 you; anJ. I will not have it so." lie would never marry ngnin, which in hit; last illne ·s he rep en ted, for '' he fancied that in the night human heat was fi·iendJy." lie was extrernely amiable in all the relations of domestic life. Nothino- cnn be more touching than the account we lw,·e of the w·"t rm 'a n-u1 · t c,n c1y a1uYc' eti• on su b s1· ' t1·1 1o- b etween lu·m anu.1 his brother \\'llo -11 t·P · l 1 b l · 1 · 0 - , • v tvcc. o e 11s >tograp1 1 er. The lord keeper \n1: a little but ltnndsome n1an, and is said to have had "an ingenuous aspect." A. D. 1!385.J FRA~CIS ~ORTH. 2-b7 He left behind him Franci;:;, hi::> son and heir, the second Baron Guilford, father of E rnncis, the third Baron Guilford, on whom de cended the barony of North, by fail ure of the elder branch of the f~lmily, and who, in 17 S2, was created Earl of Guilford, and waR the father of Lord North, Lhc prime minister, so celcbrateu for his poli , hell oratory, his refined wit, and amiable manner;:;.* When we estirnate what the lord kc per aC'hicverl, we should bear in mind that he died at fort.7J -el.!Jht, an age considerably more aJvanced than 1hat reached by h is immedin t:. successor; yet under that at which other lon1 chan cellor~ and lord keepers began to look for pronwLion. lie \VU in truth solicitor general at tlu'rtv-four, attorney gt•ncrul at tln'rtv-se&·en, chief jn tice of the Com1non }">lea ~ nt thir(ij-eiyht, and lord keeper and a peer at jorty-jit:e. l t is pro baLly well for hi' memory that hi~ career was not prolouge(l. lie n1igl1t have made a respectable j udge when the con .. titution was ettlecl; but he was wholly unfiL for the tim •: iu which he lived. I ought not to conclude this n1emoir without acknowledging my obligations to " l{oger North s Life of the Lord J{eepcr;" which, like '' Boswell' · Li{c of Johnson," intcrc ·ts u highly, without giving u ~ a yery exalted n otion of the author. Notwithstanding its extravagant praise of the hero of the tale, its inaccuracies, and its wnnt of method, it is a mo~t YalualJlc piece of biography, and with Hog~r's liv ~ of his broth ers ''Dudley and John," ancl his " I~xanlCn," ought to l>e studied by every one who wishes to understanu the history and the manners of the reign of Charle II. • We may add- for his tory principles, n.nd for the loss of America to the British crown. -Ed. |