Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/93

Rh as for me they know me throughout Europe, they know my talents and my character, but I am thinking they will all be asking, Qui est ce —— de Chancelier? How came he there?'

"Lord Mansfield was a very able advocate, but of no kind of force or elevation, and cowed by Mr. Pitt in the House of Commons, with the imputation of early Jacobitism constantly hanging round his neck, besides belonging to the Duke of Newcastle. I have heard from different members of the Cabinet, that he never opened his lips during that administration. He was the most diligent of human beings. It is a great mistake to suppose that these remarkable men are not diligent. I have known many, and never knew an instance to the contrary. I remember I had some business with him at my first setting out, and could not help expressing to him my astonishment at his extent of reading. He said he knew the pretty well. William Murray was sixteen years of age when he came out of Scotland, and spoke such broad Scotch that he stands entered in the University Books at Oxford as born at Bath, the Vice-Chancellor mistaking Bath for Perth. He certainly was by nature a very eminent man, bred like all the great families of Scotland an intriguing aristocrat, poor and indefatigable, very friendly and very timid. He contrived, like several of the Scotch, Lord Loughborough, &c., to get rid of his brogue, but always spoke in a feigned voice like Leoni the Jew singer. His eloquence was of an argumentative metaphysical cast, and his great art always appeared to me to be to watch his opportunity to introduce a proposition unperceived, when his cause was ever so bad, afterwards found a true argument upon it, of which nobody could be more capable, and then give way to his imagination in which he was by no means wanting, nor in scholarship, particularly classical learning, thanks to Westminster. I have seen a speech of his before the Cabinet Council, when Lord Ravensworth brought an accusation against him of having drunk the Pretender's health at the house of one Fawcett. The speech exists, though not printed. It was