George Fisher Russell Barker

“ As a lawyer he had no great reputation, but as an advocate his qualities were both varied and extensive. His style of speaking was forcible and pointed, but not always fluent, though his arguments were at all times remarkable for their clearness. His quickness and unwearying activity made him a most watchful adversary, though as a leader he was not always safe. As a parliamentary speaker he was much less successful than as an advocate, and as a judge he was unfortunately far from being free of bias of temper, and sometimes even of political prejudice. ”

“ Onslow was a man of unblemished integrity and much ability. He was the third member of his family who had been speaker of the House of Commons. No speaker has ever supported the privileges of the House with more firmness, or sustained the dignity of his office with greater authority. ‘His knowledge of the constitution equalled his attachment to it. To the crown he behaved with all the decorum of respect, without sacrificing his freedom of speech. ”

“ Goulburn was a successful chancellor of the exchequer, and both as a man and as a politician was much respected by all parties. Croker, in a letter to Lord Brougham dated 4 Feb. 1846, says: ‘The person in the worst position after the duke is Goulburn, who seems reduced not merely to eat his own words, but to eat them in silence, and become a cypher in his own proper department. He is a most excellent and honourable man, with high principles, both moral and political, and can only have been, like the duke, forced into his present circumstances by the dread of worse. ”

“ Against encroachments of the House of Lords he was an inflexible champion. ... Though to conciliate popular favour he affected an impartiality that by turns led him to the borders of insincerity and contradiction; and though he was so minutely attached to forms that it often made him troublesome in affairs of higher moment, it will be difficult,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘to find a subject whom gravity will so well become, whose knowledge will be so useful and so accurate, and whose fidelity to his trust will prove so unshaken’ (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 51–2) . ”

“ Without genius or ambition he showed a remarkable love of justice, honesty, and simplicity, and singular courage in expressing unpopular opinions. Despite his cold exterior he was a delightful companion. With the exception of the Greek intervention in 1829, Aberdeen, while foreign secretary, resolutely followed a policy of nonintervention. His cautious and conciliatory foreign policy contrasted strangely with Palmerston's methods, and the friendly relations which he had established with the foreign courts often led to unjust suspicions of his sympathy with continental despotism. ”

“ In June 1684 Jeffreys condemned Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had been brought to the bar of the king's bench upon an outlawry for high treason, and refused his claim to a trial, to which he was entitled by statute. Upon the prisoner exclaiming, ‘I ought to have the benefit of the law, and I demand no more,’ Jeffreys brutally replied, ‘That you shall have by the grace of God. See that execution be done on Friday next, according to law. You shall have the full benefit of the law’ (State Trials, x. 114) . ”

“ Hervey was a clever and unprincipled man, of loose morals and skeptical opinions. He was an effective though somewhat pompous speaker, a ready writer, and a keen observer of character. His wit and charm of manner made him a special favourite of women. ”

“ Johnson had said, speaking of some celebrated scholar, that ‘he understood Greek better than any one he had ever known, except Elizabeth Carter.’ Her poems have ceased to be read and are not of very high order, the ‘Dialogue between the Body and the Mind’ being perhaps the most successful. Her letters display considerable vigour of thought, and now and then a transient flash of humour. Though by no means a woman of the world, she possessed a large amount of good sense, and, though more learned than her fellows, was a thoroughly sociable and amiable woman. ”

“ He was a coarse and illiterate man, with a keen and vigorous understanding, a hard head both for drinking and thinking, and a tyrannical will. 'Strong built and dark, with rough eyebrows, powerful eyes, threatening lips, and a low, growling voice, he was like a formidable blacksmith. ”

“ His speeches, without being actually witty, always raised a laugh, and he has been described by an acute observer as being ‘just the man for saying at the right moment what everybody wished to be said and nobody had the courage to say.’ Though rather a clever man of fashion than a man of great political mark in the house, Duncombe, as an advocate of radical views, had a considerable following in the country. ”

“ Lushington was an ardent reformer and a staunch churchman, an able advocate, and a forcible parliamentary speaker. Throughout the anti-slavery struggle he warmly supported Buxton in his conduct of the campaign, and ‘every idea and every plan was originated and arranged between them’ (Charles Buxton, Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1850, p. 133) . As the judge of the admiralty court for nearly twenty-nine years he acquired a high reputation for the legal soundness and the substantial accuracy of his decisions, which were seldom appealed against, and but rarely reversed. ”

“ As a law reformer he was not very successful, and as a politician he was a decided failure. Absorbed in his legal work, he had no tastes or interest outside his profession. He cared little for society, was cold and reserved in his manners, and extremely tenacious of his opinions. ”

“ Horace Walpole has smartly described Digby's character in the following words: ‘A singular person, whose life was one contradiction. He wrote against popery, and embraced it; he was a zealous opposer of the court, and a sacrifice for it; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a persecutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. ”

“ Swift, in his verse as well as in his letters and conversation, and Smollett in 'Roderick Random,' have also testified to his talents. Though possessed of a singularly versatile intellect, he was quite unfitted for the position of a parliamentary leader. Fond of power as he was, he viewed with contempt the ordinary means by which men were conciliated: and, destitute of fixed political principles, he treated politics more as a game than as a serious business. His contempt of public opinion, and his unceasing advocacy of the Hanoverian policy, prevented him from ever becoming a popular minister. ”

“ Upon Grenville's resignation of the seals of secretary of state in October 1762, Fox, with considerable reluctance, once more accepted the leadership of the House of Commons. Refusing to become secretary of state on the ground of bad health, he was admitted to Bute's cabinet, and while retaining the post of paymaster-general accepted the sinecure office of writer of the tallies and clerk of the pells in Ireland. Fox had assured the king that parliament should approve of the peace by large majorities, and by the employment of the grossest bribery and intimidation he kept his word. ”

“ Brougham declared that his appointment of Pepys to the mastership of the rolls was his ‘own best title to the gratitude of the profession’ (Life and Times of Lord Brougham, 1871, iii. 442) . ‘His skill in deciding cases,’ says Campbell, ‘arises from a very vigorous understanding, unwearied industry in professional plodding, and a complete mastery over all the existing practice, and all the existing doctrines of the court of chancery. He considers the system which he has to administer as the perfection of human wisdom. ”

“ Curran declared that ‘Flood was unmeasurably the greatest man of his time in Ireland.’ In Grattan's opinion Flood ‘had faults; but he had great powers, great public effect. He persuaded the old, he inspired the young; the Castle vanished before him. On a small subject he was miserable. Put into his hand a distaff, and like Hercules he made sad work of it; but give him the thunderbolt, and he had the arm of Jupiter’ (Grattan, Miscellaneous Works, 1822, p. 118) . Flood was identified with all the great measures of Irish reform in his time ”

“ Some of Grenville's colleagues, indeed, looked upon his conduct as nothing short of political suicide, notably Sheridan, who is reported to have said that ‘he had known many men knock their heads against a wall, but he had never before heard of any man who collected the bricks and built the very wall with an intention to knock out his own brains against it’ (Lord Colchester, Diary, ii. 109) . In September 1809 an unsuccessful attempt was made to induce Grenville and Grey to join the ministry on the resignation of the Duke of Portland. ”

“ Though at one time the rival of Pitt, Fox never rose above the rank of a political adventurer. His jovial manners and many social qualities gave him much influence in society, but his unscrupulous conduct during the five months which he spent in Bute's cabinet made him the best hated minister in the country. ”

“ Cox was a strictly honest, upright man, with considerable energy of purpose, and when his mind was not warped, as it too often was, by anti-catholic prejudices, a thoroughly just administrator. His writings have little or no reputation, his chief work being the ‘History of Ireland,’ which is a mere hurried compilation. He was also the author of the ‘Remarks upon Ireland,’ which were printed in Bishop Gibson's translation of Camden's ‘Britannia’ (1695) , and appears to have composed some pieces of poetry on General Ginkel's success in Ireland and the death of Lord-chancellor Porter. ”

“ He was thrown out of his pony carriage in the Park Ridings at Stowe, and fractured his skull. After lingering for a few days in an insensible state, he died on 12 Sept. 1779 in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was buried at Stowe on 16 Sept. 1779, but his body was afterwards removed to Wotton. Temple was a man of wealth and position, but without any great talents except that for intrigue. His ambition was unbounded, but his factiousness and arrogance made him the most impracticable of men. ‘Those who knew his habits,’ wrote Macaulay, ‘tracked him as men track a mole. ”

“ Lord Shelburne in his sketch of Dunning says: ‘He had the greatest power of reasoning which can be conceived, and such a habit of it that he could not slight a cause no more than an able artist could suffer a piece of work to go imperfect from his hands. ... All parties allow'd him to be at the head of the bar. ... The only doubt was whether he excelled most at equity or common law. There was none as to anybody's coming up to him in either’ (Life of Lord Shelburne, iii. 453–4) . Kenyon records that he was ‘a man of the greatest ability’ he had known (Kenyon, Life, p. 103) ”

“ John had no issue by either marriage, and the barony of Digby and the earldom of Bristol became extinct upon his death in 1698. Francis, the younger son, was killed in a sea-fight with the Dutch on 28 May 1672. Diana, the elder daughter, who like her father became a convert to the Roman catholic faith, married Baron Moll, a Flemish nobleman. Anne, the younger daughter, on whom the family estates devolved on her brother John's death, became the wife of Robert, earl of Sunderland. Digby was a man of extraordinary ability, and one of the greatest orators of his day. ”

“ He was a great favourite with George III, who declared in a letter to Pitt, dated 7 July 1766, that ‘there is no man in my service on whom I so thoroughly rely’ (Chatham Correspondence, ii. 436) . Northington asked the king permission to discontinue the evening sittings in the court of chancery on Wednesdays and Fridays, in order that he might finish his bottle of port comfortably after dinner, a reason which his majesty's solicitude for the happiness of his subjects would, he hoped, make sufficient. Many anecdotes are told of his habit of hard swearing. ”

“ Lepge became secretly leagued with the Leicester House party, and in August 1755, smarting under the Duke of Newcastle's petulant humour, absolutely refused to sign the treasury warrants for carrying the Hessian treaty into execution (Bedford Corresp. ii. 166) . With Pitt he opposed the treaties in the House of Commons on 18 Nov., when he declared that 'we ought to have done buying up every man's quarrel on the continent' (Walpole, Reign of George II, ii. 64) , and on the 20th he was informed by Lord Holdernesse that the king had no further need of his services. ”

“ In 1642 Loudoun was sent by the conservators of the peace to offer mediation between the king and the English parliament. He had several conferences with Charles at York, but, failing in the object of his mission, returned to Scotland. After the outbreak of the civil war, Loudoun was sent to Oxford as one of the commission to mediate for peace. Charles, however, would not admit that the act of pacification gave the Scotch council any authority to mediate, and refused to allow the commissioners to proceed to London for that purpose. ”

“ In the first session of the new parliament, for which he issued the writs a few days after entering upon office, the ‘Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery’ was passed without, it is strange to say, a dissentient voice in either house in spite of the protests of counsel who were heard at the bar on behalf of the Roman catholics. On 4 Dec. 1703 he was presented with the freedom of the city of Dublin, and in the following year, owing to his recommendation, an English act was passed, authorising the exportation of Irish linen to the plantations. ”

“ Lyttelton, who is known as ‘the good Lord Lyttelton,’ was an amiable, absent-minded man, of unimpeachable integrity and benevolent character, with strong religious convictions and respectable talents. In spite of his ‘great abilities for set debates and solemn questions’ (Chatham Correspondence, i. 106) , his ignorance of the world and his unreadiness in debate made him a poor practical politician. ”

“ The almost incredible abuses which were exposed in the 'State of the Prisons' gave the first impulse to a general desire for an improvement in the construction and discipline of our prisons. Though his evangelical opinions were intense, Howard was singularly free from religious bigotry, and though an independent himself, both his wives were churchwomen. His behaviour was at times eccentric, and his stern views of duty frequently prevented him from being a very sociable companion. ”

“ Legislative independence having been obtained, Grattan became anxious that the country should have rest after the fierce political excitement it had undergone, and insisted that it was the duty of all Irishmen to extinguish any remaining animosity, and to set about the task of internal administrative reform. In June, however, Flood took up the question of ‘simple repeal,’ and maintained that nothing but a final renunciation of the principle of Irish dependence would give Ireland adequate security. ”

“ In February 1778 his support of Powys's amendment for the repeal of the Massachusetts charter made the king so indignant that, in a letter to Lord North, he declared ‘the more I think on the conduct of the advocate of Scotland, the more I am incensed against him; more favours have been heaped on the shoulders of that man than ever were bestowed on any Scotch lawyer, and he seems studiously to embrace every opportunity to create difficulties ”

“ In one important qualification Grenville himself acknowledged his deficiency. ‘I am not competent,’ he says in a letter to his brother, ‘to the management of men. I never was so naturally, and toil and anxiety more and more unfit me for it’ (The Court and Cabinets of George III, iv. 133) . Though not a great orator, Grenville was a successful speaker in the House of Lords, where his weighty and sonorous speeches, though sometimes long and tedious, were listened to with attention. ”

“ Holman was a man of remarkable energy and perseverance, of cool intrepidity and restless curiosity. Though in London he was always attended by a servant, he was accustomed to go without one abroad, travelling generally alone and trusting to his own sagacity and the sympathy of others. ”