ent the grand
and beautiful of the classic drama of England.

The father of Lord Eldon was William Scott, a merchant of good means and
good repute at Newcastle, his principal business being connected with
the coal trade. He lived to be seventy-nine years old, and his wife (a
second marriage) to be ninety-one. By her he had thirteen children, of
whom John (Lord Eldon) was the eighth. William (Lord Stowell) was born
in 1745, the year of the Scottish invasion, in Heworth, where his mother
had been sent for her accouchement, to avoid the perils, Newcastle then
expecting a siege. After her return to Newcastle, she gave birth to
John, June 4, 1751. The house was situated at the end of one of those
narrow streets, which in the native dialect are called _chares_, the
extremity being a "chare-foot." A bar story is told of a judge on
circuit, who hearing a witness depose that he had seen three men come
out of a "chare-foot," desired the jury to disregard his evidence
altogether, as none but a madman could say that he saw three men come
out of the "foot of a chair." Lord Eldon appears to have been so fond of
the jest, that he once stated in the Court of Chancery, that "he had
been born in a chair-foot." At the suitable age, John and his brothers
were sent to the Foundation Grammar School of Newcastle, then under the
headship of one Moises, fellow of Peterhouse. His predecessor had been
Dawes, the well-known author of the "Miscellanea Critica"--an able
scholar, but only an additional example of the frequent insufficiency of
scholars to teach. Dawes was eccentric, and injured the reputation of
the school. His predominant propensity while in Newcastle was
bell-ringing. On his leaving that place he adopted a new taste, that of
rowing. If Moises had any peculiar taste, it seems to have been flogging.

"I was once," said Lord Eldon, "the _seventeenth_ boy whom Moises
flogged, and richly did we merit it. There was an elderly lady who lived
in Westgate Street, whom we surrounded, and would not allow her to go
either backward or forward. She complained, and he flogged us all. When
he came to me, he exclaimed, 'What, John Scott! were you there too?' And
I was obliged to say, 'Yes, sir.' 'I will not stop,' said he, 'you shall
all have it.' But I think I came off best, for his arm was rather tired
with the sixteen who went before me."

A flogging may be all very well in its recollection fifty years after.
But the impression of the moment wa