id great
credit to the judgment which selected him, and which probably was
Eldon's. He had never led a cause, but he was a profound lawyer,
and appears to have had a mind fraught with the spirit and genius
of the law, and not narrowed and trammelled by its subtleties and
technicalities. In spite of his low birth, want of oratorical
power, and of personal dignity, he was greatly revered and
dreaded on the Bench. He was an austere, but not an ill-humoured
judge; his manners were remarkably plain and unpolished, though
not vulgar. He was an elegant scholar, and cultivated classical
literature to the last. Brougham, whose congenial tastes
delighted in his classical attainments, used to bandy Latin and
Greek with him from the Bar to the Bench; and he has more than
once told me of his sending Tenterden Greek verses of John
Williams', of which the next day Tenterden gave him a translation
in Latin verse. He is supposed to have died very rich. Denman was
taken into the King's closet before the Council, when he was
sworn in; the King took no particular notice of him, and the
appointment is not, probably, very palatable to his Majesty.

November 15th, 1832 {p.331}

Sheriff business at the Exchequer Court on Monday; saw Lyndhurst
and Denman meet and shake hands with much politeness and grimace.

November 20th, 1832 {p.331}

Dined at Holland House the day before yesterday; Lady Holland is
unwell, fancies she must dine at five o'clock, and exerts her
power over society by making everybody go out there at that hour,
though nothing can be more inconvenient than thus shortening the
day, and nothing more tiresome than such lengthening of the
evening. Rogers and Luttrell were staying there. The _tableau_ of
the house is this:--Before dinner, Lady Holland affecting illness
and almost dissolution, but with a very respectable appetite, and
after dinner in high force and vigour; Lord Holland, with his
chalkstones and unable to walk, lying on his couch in very good
spirits and talking away; Luttrell and Rogers walking about, ever
and anon looking despairingly at the clock and making short
excursions from the drawing-room; Allen surly and disputatious,
poring over the newspapers, and replying in monosyllables
(generally negative) to whatever is said to him. The grand topic
of interest, far exceeding the Belgian or Portuguese questions,
was the illness of Lady Holland's page, who has got a tumour in
his thigh. This 'little creature,'