the office of modern biography is more frequently to engrave the tablets of its heroes with such a crowd of excellences, that no room remains for the exhibition of their frailties. Lord Talbot was even more fortunate; for his failings appear to have been almost as much forgotten during his life, as his virtues were extolled over his tomb.

281

LORD HARDWICKE.

Of the numerous individuals whom the profession of the law has raised from indigence and obscurity to the possession of wealth and honours, there are few, if any, who at the outset of their career have had to contend against more powerful obstacles, or who have surmounted them with greater success, than Philip Yorke, afterwards Earl of Hardwicke and Lord High Chancellor of England. His father was an attorney at Dover, without much, or at least without lucrative practice; for though before his death he had provided for his two daughters, by marrying them, the one to a dissenting minister, the other to a tradesman or small merchant, he was reduced to such poverty as to be wholly incapable of affording his only son the means of entering the profession of which he afterwards became such a distinguished ornament. The same difficulties, however, which are sufficient to confound and overwhelm an irresolute mind or a desponding temperament, often prove nothing more than wholesome stimulants to the energies of a vigorous intellect. For as, in mechanics, the additional force applied to counteract an occasional resistance against the progress of a body, imparts to that body a momentum which urges it on with increased velocity after the resistance is overcome; so the mental powers, aroused for the purpose of struggling against adversity, continue to exert their influence after the causes which first called them into action have ceased to exist. Thus the necessity of combating impediments in the early part of life materially conduces in many instances to eventual success; and it is possible that Yorke, like many others of his own and indeed of every profession, may have

been, in a great measure, indebted for his advancement to the very obstacles which might at first appear a bar to all hope of it.

He was born at Dover, on the 1st of December, 1690. Being designed for his father's profession, and his slender means rendering it expedient for him to lose no time in qualifying himself for it, he was not suffered to remain till a late age at school. The person to whose care his education was entrusted was one Mr. Samuel Morland, a man of learning, who kept a school of some reputation at Bethnal Green. But whatever advantages in point of classical instruction Yorke might have enjoyed under his direction, he was not allowed sufficient time to make much progress. After he had attained rank and celebrity as a lawyer, there were many who asserted, and affected to believe, that he had during his youth been conspicuous for the ardour and the success with which he had devoted himself to the study of ancient literature. The tale may have been invented merely to flatter the person of whom it was told, or perhaps to support the credit of classical learning, by representing it as instrumental in raising him to eminence in his profession: in either case there certainly could have been very little foundation for it. That Yorke was distinguished for proficiency in classical acquirements beyond the rest of his schoolfellows, there is not the least reason to doubt; and it is even probable that an active mind like his might afterwards take pleasure in recurring occasionally to the pursuit he had perhaps quitted with regret; but such imperfect opportunities are not sufficient to form a finished scholar, and those who have represented him as such certainly ought not to be accounted the most judicious of his panegyrists, since they suppose him to have possessed advantages with which, in fact, the vigour and acuteness of his intellect enabled him in a great degree to dispense.

It has been said, that while he was prosecuting his studies for the bar, he contributed to the Spectator the letter signed Philip Homebred, which appeared as the paper for the 28th of April, 1712. The story appears doubtful, and probably originated in some mistake of names, since we find that one of the editors of the Spectator affirms it to have been written by him while a student at Cambridge, whereas it is very well

known that he never was a student at either of the universities. However, supposing him to have been the real author of the letter, there certainly is nothing in it, either in point of style or matter, that gives particular indications of literary taste or talent; and those who pretend to discover in such a composition the character of early genius, would probably never have thought of attributing any such quality to it, had not the eminence of its presumed author suggested the idea. A circumstance which goes much farther towards establishing the fact of his early display of talent, is the high opinion of his abilities entertained by his schoolmaster. Two letters have been preserved, written in Latin to Yorke by Mr. Morland. The first of them is dated 1706, the second 1708, and even so early as the former period, the preceptor, after dwelling with affectionate complacency on the talents of his disciple, confidently predicts his future celebrity, and declares that to have been the happiest day of his life wherein the cultivation of so happy a genius was first committed to his charge:"Non mirandum est si futuram tui nominis celebritatem meus presagit animus. Quas tantoperè olim vices meas dolui, eas hodiè gratulor mihi plurimum cui tale tandem contigerit ingenium excolendum. Nullum unquam diem gratiorem mihi illuxisse in perpetuum reputabo, quàm quo te pater tuus mihi tradidit in disciplinam." This letter is addressed, "Juveni præstantissimo Philippo Yorkio."

His first initiation into the study of the law took place under the auspices of an eminent attorney named Salkeld, who had been agent for his father, and was prevailed upon to take the son into his office upon very easy terms. The coincidence of names afterwards occasioned the report that he had for his instructor Serjeant Salkeld. This is an error: but if we are to judge of a system of education by the fruits it produces, we may safely assert that it would have been impossible for him to have been more advantageously situated for acquiring a knowledge of his profession than in the office of Mr. Salkeld the attorney, since we know that in that very office, and nearly about the same time, were Jocelyn, afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland; Parker, who became Chief Baron of the Exchequer; and Strange, who died Master of the Rolls. Among such fellow-students

as these, it was likely that there would be severe and arduous competition; and it is no trifling testimony in favour of the zeal, the assiduity, and the talent of Yorke, that he recommended himself to the favour and esteem of a man who must have been in the habit of witnessing a constant and unremitting display of all these qualities. So steady, however, was his perseverance in study, and so rapid his progress in the knowledge of the law, that Mr. Salkeld did not fail to distinguish him; and with a view of procuring him a wider field for the future exercise of his abilities, he caused him to be entered of the Middle Temple, as a preparatory step towards the bar. The date of his admission, in the books of the Society, is 25th November, 1708; he being then in the eighteenth year of his age.

It does not appear that the talents of the young clerk were equally well appreciated by the wife of Mr. Salkeld, or possibly she conceived that, however distinguished they might be, they ought to be no hindrance to the exercise of the more homely qualities of personal strength and agility, which nature had 'conferred upon Yorke, and which she conceived the law had placed at her disposal. Making, therefore, a full use of her assumed right as a mistress over her husband's apprentice, she was in the constant habit of dispatching him from her house in Brook-street, Holborn, to the neighbouring markets, either for the purpose of carrying home her own bargains, or of acting in the double capacity of purchaser and porter. These journeys occasionally extended as far as Covent-garden, so that her emissary had to return through some of the crowded streets of London, bearing under his arm, perhaps, the ignoble burthen of a basket of fruit or a bundle of green vegetables. Such humiliation was not to be borne patiently, especially when the messenger had begun to hold a certain rank in the office of his master, and no doubt, also, to attach some degree of importance to his personal appearance, which, it must be allowed, was not likely to be benefited by the appendages just mentioned. But what was to be done? The lady laid claim to his services; and the terms on which he had been received an inmate of her house were such as might authorise her to demand of him some such compensation for the expense of his maintenance. In this