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 The English Law Courts.

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pectable, and beg leave to add, I am at this This success was not at first highly appre time as much respected, as the proudest ciated by the parents of either party. But peer I now look down upon.'" the couple were ultimately forgiven, and It is painful to be obliged to remark that in Scott entered the Middle Temple as a can spite of these high self-encomia, Thurlow didate for admission to the bar. He was was not politically honest, and no one re called in February, 1776, and at first devoted gretted his downfall. As a judge he relied himself to circuit and common law work; too much on the industry of Hargrave, to but failing to make much impression on the whom many of his most elaborate decisions court of King's Bench he soon transferred were due. But he was, for all that, a strong himself to the chancery side, where he made and competent Chancellor. In the case of his mark by the preparation of an argument Fox v. Mackreth, he laid the foundation of wjfich had the good fortune to secure the the doctrine that no person in a fiduciary assent of Lord Thurlow, in the case of Ack position is entitled to deal for his own ad royd v. Smithson. The success with which vantage with the subject of his trust. In 1 he argued the Clithcroe election case was, Ackroyd v. Smithson, he developed the however, the determining point in his career. doctrine of " conversion," while we owe to He rose rapidly in professional favor and him that " restraint on anticipation," which so repute; and in 1783 became member of many settlements still impose as a fetter on Parliament for Weobly. In 1787 he was ap the freedom of married women in dealing pointed Chancellor of Durham. In the fol Mr. Pitt made him Solicitorwith their separate estate. Thurlow had a lowingO vear J stern and rugged appearance, and bushy General. In 1793 he succeeded to the at eye-brows, whose conjoint effect, in the torney-generalship and was charged with language of Charles James Fox, made him the conduct of the state prosecution, in "look wiser than any man ever was." A stituted against Hardy, Horne Tooke, and redeeming point in his character was his the other democrats whose revolutionary in affection for the gentle and retiring poet stincts, aroused by the stirring events which Cowpcr. were in progress in France, led them peril ously near the edge of high treason in Eng land. It was on the occasion of these trials LORD ELDON. that Scott laid down the doctrine of "Con structive Treason," which is familiar to all John Scott, Earl of Eldon, the son of a constitutional lawyers. His speeches will be coal "fitter" in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the found in Howell's " State Trials," and are brother of the great Lord Stowell, was born eminently worthy of being studied. 1 75 1. He was educated first at the New In 1799 his reward reached him. He was castle Grammar School under the Rev. Hugh made Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas in Moises, who did not neglect the caution of I place of Sir James Eyre, as Baron Eldon, the preacher against sparing the rod; and and in the summer of 1801 accepted the afterwards at Oxford, where he was elected Great Seal, which he held with various in to a fellowship in 1767, and graduated as terruptions till 1827. He became Earl of B.A. in 1770. In 1771 he gained Lord Eldon in 1821, and died in 1838. Lichfield's prize for the best prose essay on Eldon's political career as Lord Chancellor "The advantages and disadvantages of for fills a large part of the history of his days. eign travel." He was one of the old school of Tories, to In the following year he carried off another whom every change in administration andeach prize in the shape of Elizabeth Surtees. concession of political freedom or privilege