Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 2

[285] Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, was his elder brother. Their father was a dealer in coals in Newcastle; and their career is supposed to illustrate the open avenue to distinction under the British Constitution. Their advantages may have been petty compared with the influences which surround the early life of most of those who acquire conspicuous place in England; but the sons of a coal merchant, grounded at an early age in the classics, and, while still in boyhood, matriculated at Oxford, cannot seem to American observation to have wanted any of those early advantages which justly secure future success. After his course at the University was completed, Mr. John Scott read lectures, as the deputy of Sir Robert Chambers, the Vinerian Professor of Common Law, throughout the years 1774-76. He was called to the bar, Feb. 9, 1776, and it is said that he gave the fruits of the first year of his professional life for pocket-money to his wife. She received half a guinea. But very soon he acquired a large practice and the favor of Lord Thurlow. In June, 1788, he was made Solicitor-General and knighted. In Feb., 1793, on the promotion of Sir Archibald Macdonald to the office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir John Scott became Attorney-General, and very soon afterwards commenced the important State prosecutions against Hardy and Horne Tooke. On the death of Sir James Eyre, in July, 1799, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Eldon, and appointed to the vacant office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In the spring of 1801, on the retirement of Mr. Pitt's administration, he was advanced to the post of Lord High Chancellor. On the accession of the Whigs to power, he resigned the great seal, Feb. 7, 1806, giving place to Lord Erskine. He resumed it, April 1, 1807, from which time he maintained his seat on the woolsack till April 30, 1827, being altogether a period of nearly twenty-five years,—a longer service than was allotted to any of his predecessors. It was so long as to be called in derision by Jeremy Bentham “the reign of John the Second.” The cases in which he gave judgment occupy upwards of thirty volumes. They abound in learning and in the results of a keen and discriminating mind, directed by industry and conscientiousness. He died Jan. 13, 1838. See “London Law Magazine,” Vol. XX. pp. 48-87, 342-384; Vol. XXI. pp. 56-87, 344-371; 28 “American Jurist,” 41-92, 281-340. See also post, p. 209, Abingdon v. Butler, where Lord Thurlow paid Sir John Scott, when Solicitor-General, a striking tribute. “I remember a case from Ireland,” he said, “though I cannot give you the name of it, where the Solicitor-General persuaded me, right or wrong, to come to that determination.”

Francis Hargrave.

Among English lawyers who never arrived at the dignity of the bench, Mr. Hargrave stands conspicuous for profound learning and untiring industry, and ardent love for his profession, though his career was marked by a sensitiveness, at times a querulousness, which would vindicate for him a place with “the irritable race,” who want the sterner stuff out of which lawyers are made. He was the son of an eminent attorney in London, and was born in 1741. In 1760 he entered Lincoln's Inn, and in 1764 took chambers there, and began practice in Chancery. His name first became familiar to the