en and what he was. He was the
Keeper of George III.'s conscience, until he caballed against Mr. Pitt,
and was unceremoniously turned out by him. As Lord High-Chancellor, he
was guardian-in-chief of all the wards in Chancery; and I suppose, for
instance, without looking up the quotation in Boswell, that he was the
particular Lord Chancellor to whom Dr. Johnson said he should like to
intrust the making of all the matches in England. Louis Napoleon has
just now undertaken to make all the friction-matches in France,--but Dr.
Johnson's proposal referred to the matrimonial matches, the _denouemens_
of the comedies and tragedies of domestic life. To us Americans, Thurlow
is notable for the strong and uncompromising language which he used
against us all through our Revolution, which excessively delighted the
King. As to his faculty for keeping a conscience, it may be said, that,
though he never married, he resided in this Great-Ormond Street house
with his own mistress and his illegitimate children. Lord Campbell, who
mentions this fact, informs us, that, as early as his own youth, the
British Bench had reached such purity that judges were expected to marry
their mistresses when they were appointed to the Bench. He adds, that
it is long since any such condition as that was necessary. In Thurlow's
time this stage of decency had not been attained even by Lord
Chancellors. His humanity may be indicated by his stiff opposition to
every reform ever proposed in the English criminal law, or in the social
order of the time. He battled the bills for suppressing the slave-trade
with all his might. "I desire of you, my Lords, in your humane
frenzy, to show some humanity to the whites as well as to the
negroes",--illustrating this remark by a picture of the sufferings of an
English trader who had risked thirty thousand pounds on the slave-trade
that year. When an entering wedge was attempted for the improvement of
the bloody code of criminal law, Thurlow opposed it with passion. The
particular clause selected by the reformers was one which demanded that
women who had been connected with any treasonable movements should be
burnt alive. It was proposed to reduce their punishment to the same
scale as men's. Thurlow made it his duty to defend the ancient practice.
He was, in short, mixed up with every effort of his time, which we now
consider disgraceful, for arresting the gradual progress of reform.

Now that Thurlow's wine-cellar is a colleg