is L5000 per annum; and after
fifteen years' service, or in case of incurable sickness, rendering him
unable to discharge the functions of his office, he can retire with a
pension of L3500.

Thurlow had no pension on retirement; but with much justice Lord
Campbell observes: "Although there was no parliamentary retired
allowance for ex-Chancellors, they were better off than at present.
Thurlow was a Teller of the Exchequer, and had given sinecures to all
his relations, for one of which his nephew now receives a commutation of
L9000 a year." Lord Loughborough was the first ex-Chancellor who
enjoyed, on retirement, a pension of L4000 per annum, under Stat. 39
Geo. III. c. 110. The next claimant for an ex-Chancellor's pension was
Eldon, on his ejection from office in 1806; and the third claimant was
Erskine, whom the possession of the pension did not preserve from the
humiliation of indigence.

Eldon's obstinate tenacity of office, was attended with one good result.
It saved the nation much money by keeping down the number of
ex-Chancellors entitled to L4000 per annum. The frequency with which
Governments have been changed during the last forty years has had a
contrary effect, producing such a strong bevy of lawyers--who are
pensioners as well as peers--that financial reformers are loudly asking
if some scheme cannot be devised for lessening the number of these
costly and comparatively useless personages. At the time when this page
is written, there are four ex-Chancellors in receipt of pensions--Lords
Brougham, St. Leonards, Cranworth, and Westbury; but death has recently
diminished the roll of Chancellors by removing Lords Truro and
Lyndhurst. Not long since the present writer read a very able, but
one-sided article in a liberal newspaper that gave the sum total spent
by the country since Lord Eldon's death in ex-Chancellors' pensions; and
in simple truth it must be admitted that the bill was a fearful subject
for contemplation.

[19] During the Commonwealth, the people, unwilling to pay their judges
liberally, decided that a thousand a year was a sufficient income for a
Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal.

PART IV.

COSTUME AND TOILET.

CHAPTER XIX.

BRIGHT AND SAD.

From the days of the Conqueror's Chancellor, Baldrick, who is reputed to
have invented and christened the sword-belt that bears his name, lawyers
have been conspicuous amongst the best dressed men of their times. For
many generatio