Alexander Wood Renton

“ Thurlow's personal appearance was striking. His dark complexion, harsh but regular features, severe and dignified demeanour, piercing black eyes and bushy eyebrows, doubtless contributed to his professional and political eminence and provoked the sarcasm of Fox that he looked wiser than any man ever was. ”

“ The ex-chancellor, who had a few days before (June 12) been created Baron Thurlow of Thurlow, with remainder to his brothers and their male descendants, now retired into private life, and, with the exception of a futile intrigue, under the auspices of the prince of Wales, for the formation of a ministry from which Pitt and Fox should be excluded, and in which the earl of Moira should be premier and Thurlow chancellor (1797) , finally abandoned the hopes of office and the dictatorship which he had so long exercised in the House of Lords. ”

“ Clear-headed, self-confident, and fluent, able at once to reason temperately and to assert strongly, capable of grasping, rapidly assimilating, and forcibly reproducing minute and complicated details, he possessed all the qualities which command success. ”