n shallow water? The
framers of the law well knew that the produce of the deep sea, without
the produce of the shallow water, would be of comparatively small value,
and intended that turbot, when placed upon our tables, should be flanked
by good lobster-sauce." Eldon's singular passion for fried 'liver and
bacon' was amongst his most notorious and least pleasant peculiarities.
Even the Prince Regent condescended to humor this remarkable taste by
ordering a dish of liver and bacon to be placed on the table when the
Chancellor dined with him at Brighton. Sir John Leach, Master of the
Rolls, was however less ready to pander to a depraved appetite. Lord
Eldon said, "It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and since
you are good enough to ask me to order a dish that shall test your new
_chef's_ powers--I wish you'd tell your Frenchman to fry some liver and
bacon for me." "Are you laughing at me or my cook?" asked Sir John
Leach, stiffly, thinking that the Chancellor was bent on ridiculing his
luxurious mode of living. "At neither," answered Eldon, with equal
simplicity and truth; "I was only ordering the dish which I enjoy beyond
all other dishes."

Although Eldon's penuriousness was grossly exaggerated by his
detractors, it cannot be questioned that either through indolence, or
love of money, or some other kind of selfishness, he was very neglectful
of his hospitable duties to the bench and the bar. "Verily he is
working off the arrears of the Lord Chancellor," said Romilly, when Sir
Thomas Plummer, the Master of the Rolls, gave a succession of dinners to
the bar; and such a remark would not have escaped the lips of the
decorous and amiable Romilly had not circumstances fully justified it.
Still it is unquestionable that Eldon's Cabinet dinners were suitably
expensive; and that he never grudged his choicest port to the old
attorneys and subordinate placemen who were his obsequious companions
towards the close of his career. For the charges of sordid parsimony so
frequently preferred against Kenyon it is to be feared there were better
grounds. Under the steadily strengthening spell of avarice he ceased to
invite even old friends to his table; and it was rumored that in course
of time his domestic servants complained with reason that they were
required to consume the same fare as their master deemed sufficient for
himself. "In Lord Kenyon's house," a wit exclaimed, "all the year
through it is Lent in the kitchen, and