Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/196

 the penalty of death in cases of private stealing from the person (1808, stat. 48 Geo. III, c. 129), but failed to carry a similar reform in regard to shoplifting, stealing in dwelling houses, and on navigable rivers. In 1811 he substituted transportation for death in cases of stealing from bleaching grounds (stat. 54 Geo. III, c. 39), and in the following year repealed the statute (39 Eliz. c. 1) which made it capital for soldiers or seamen to be found vagrant without their passes. To his motion was also due the parliamentary committee which in this year reported against the utility of transportation and confinement in the hulks. In 1814 he mitigated the harshness of the law of treason and attainder (stat. 54 Geo. III, cc. 145, 146). Romilly lent a certain support to Sir Francis Burdett [q. v.] in his struggle with the House of Commons, and on 16 April moved for the release of John Gale Jones [q. v.] During the regency he acted with the extreme section of the opposition. In 1815 he voted against the Corn Bill, 3 March, and for Whitbread's motion for an address deprecating the resumption of hostilities against Napoleon, 28 April. In the following year, 20 Feb., he censured as a breach of faith with the French people the part taken by the British government in the restoration of Louis XVIII. In 1817 he was the life and soul of the opposition to the policy of governing by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the suppression of public meetings, and on 20 May supported Sir Francis Burdett's motion for an inquiry into the state of the representation. On the reassembling of parliament in the following year he opposed the ministerial Bill of Indemnity and the renewal of the Alien Act, by which ministers were empowered to banish foreigners suspected of hostile intrigue. He favoured the emancipation of catholics and negro slaves, and took an active part in other philanthropic movements. A vast scheme of reform, planned in anticipation of his elevation to the woolsack on the return of his party to power, was frustrated by his own act. On the death (29 Oct. 1818) of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, he shut himself up in his house in Russell Square, and on 2 Nov. cut his throat with a razor. He survived little more than an hour. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict of suicide during temporary derangement. His remains were interred by the side of his wife in the vault belonging to her family at Knill, Herefordshire. Romilly's death was recognised as a public calamity by men of all shades of political opinion, and affected Lord Eldon to tears. At the Athénée Royal at Paris on 26 Dec. Benjamin Constant pronounced his éloge as ‘d'un étranger illustre qui appartient à tous les pays, parce qu'il a bien mérité de tous les pays en défendant la cause de l'humanité, de la liberté et de la justice,’ a tribute justly due to a lofty ideal of public duty illustrated by a singularly consistent course.

As a speaker, Romilly habitually addressed himself rather to the reason than the passions, though he by no means lacked eloquence. He marshalled his premises, and deduced his conclusions with mathematical precision, and his diction was as chaste as his logic was cogent. The unerring instinct with which he detected and the unfailing felicity with which he exposed a fallacy, united to no small powers of sarcasm and invective, made him formidable in reply, while the effect of his easy and impressive elocution was enhanced by a tall and graceful figure, a melodious voice, and features of classical regularity. As an adept not only in the art of the advocate, but in the whole mystery of law and equity, he was without a superior, perhaps without a rival, in his day. He was also throughout life a voracious and omnivorous reader, and seized and retained the substance of what he read with unusual rapidity and tenacity. He was an indefatigable worker, rising very early and going to bed late. His favourite relaxation was a long walk. From intensity of conviction, aided perhaps by the melancholy of his temperament, he carried political antagonism to extreme lengths, even to the abandonment of a friendship with Perceval, which had been formed on circuit, and cemented by constant and confidential intercourse. His principles were austere to the verge of puritanism, and in general society he was somewhat cold and reserved; but he did not lack sympathy, and among his intimate friends, especially on literary topics, he conversed freely and with spirit. His leisure he spent in retirement during middle life in a cottage in the Vale of Health, Hampstead; later on at his villa, Tanhurst, Leith Hill, Surrey, where he had for neighbour his old friend Scarlett. Other friends were Dr. Samuel Parr [q. v.], Francis Horner [q. v.], Basil Montagu [q. v.], Sir James Mackintosh [q. v.], Dugald Stewart [q. v.], and William Wilberforce [q. v.] With Lord Lansdowne and Bentham he maintained close and cordial relations to the end, his last visits being to Bowood Park and Ford Abbey.

By his wife Anne, eldest daughter of Francis Garbett of Knill Court, Herefordshire, whom he first met at Bowood Park in 1796, and married on 3 Jan. 1798, Romilly