ffice of
lord president, the Archbishop of Canterbury congratulating him on his
removal from an office of unceasing fatigue to one of so much quiet, the
ex-chancellor not being at all satisfied with the difference of the
emoluments, answered very sulkily, "I suppose, now, you would think I
was extremely civil and kind if I were to congratulate your grace on a
transition from Canterbury to Llandaff."

Taylor, an extravagant personage who called himself a chevalier, and who
professed extraordinary skill in the diseases of the eye, dining one day
with the bar on the Oxford circuit, related many wonders which he had
done. Bearcroft, a little out of humour at his self-conceit,
said--"Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us a great many things which
you have done, try to tell us something which you cannot do." "Nothing
so easy," said Taylor; "I cannot pay my share of the dinner-bill; and
that, sir, I must beg of you to do."

Lord Thurlow's oddity and abruptness, both sometimes amounting to
brutality, were the constant source of amusement--at least to all but
the sufferers. On a trial in which an attorney gave evidence respecting
the will of a man whose death was in question, the attorney, after some
puzzling, said--"My lord, hear me, the man is dead; I attended his
funeral; he was _my client_." "Why, sir," said Thurlow, "did you not
mention _that_ at first? a great deal of time and trouble might have
been saved. That he was _your_ client is some evidence that he was dead;
nothing was so likely to kill him."

At Buxton, Thurlow lodged with a surgeon, opposite to a butcher's shop.
He asked his landlord whether he or his neighbour killed the most.

Thurlow, on being asked, how he got through all his business as a
chancellor, answered--"Just as a pickpocket gets through a horse-pond.
He _must_ get through." Dunning, when a similar question was put to him,
answered in much the same spirit, though in a more professional style.
"I divide my business into three parts: one part I do; another does
itself; and the third I leave undone."

In 1807, Lord Eldon purchased the estate of Encombe in the Isle of
Purbeck, for which he paid between L52,000 and L53,000, comprising a
mansion with 2000 acres, a fertile valley, with a fine sea view.

In 1809, the charges brought by Colonel Wardle against the Duke of York
excited great public interest. The very sound of malversation in high
employments excites all the feelings of a nation with whom