The great events which caused Burke to appeal from the new to the old whigs threw Thurlow for a time into the arms of the former party. He courted the Prince of Wales, and moved for an increase of his allowance on his marriage; he opposed the repressive measures taken by the government during the revolutionary fever of 1795–6; and when they passed he withdrew from parliament in simulated disgust. During the winter of 1797 he was occupied in fruitless attempts to mediate between the Prince and Princess of Wales. As all hope of return to power died away, he returned to his place in the House of Lords to discuss with philosophic calm the incidence of taxation, to assert with something of his old hauteur the equality of peers in their legislative character when what he deemed an invidious distinction was made in favour of the Duke of Clarence, to defend the interests of the harassed slave-trader, to emancipate a wife from an incestuous husband, and to oppose the bill for the exclusion of Horne Tooke from the House of Commons. His last speech was in the debate on the peace of Amiens on 4 May 1802, when he absurdly contended that all treaties not expressly renewed were abrogated by the war.
The rest of Thurlow's life was passed between a cottage at Dulwich—the mansion there built for him he would never enter on account of a quarrel with the architect—and various English health resorts. He was frequently to be seen at Brighton, where in the winter of 1805 he was consulted by Sir Samuel Romilly (13 Dec.) in reference to Lady Douglas's charges against the Princess of Wales. He died at Brighton on 12 Sept. 1806, but his remains rest beneath the south aisle of the Temple church, where they were interred with great pomp on 25 Sept. His bust (sculptor unknown), with Latin inscription by Dr. Routh of Magdalen College, Oxford, formerly in the church, now stands neglected in the vestry. In consequence of an early disappointment Thurlow had not married, and the barony of Thurlow of Ashfield died with him; that of Thurlow of Thurlow, Suffolk, descended to his nephew Edward (afterwards Hovell-Thurlow), eldest son of Thomas Thurlow [q. v.], bishop of Durham. By his mistress, Mrs. Hervey, who figures with him in the ‘Rolliad’ (ode xvi.), and to whom he was much attached, he had several children, for whom he provided.
Thurlow's portrait, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is at Windsor Castle; another by Phillips, painted in 1805, is in the National Portrait Gallery; an unfinished study in the latter collection, apparently from the Windsor Castle portrait, is assigned to Evans. He was also painted by Romney, Reynolds, and Samuel Collings (Loan Exhib. Cat. South Kensington Museum, 1867). Engravings of all except the portrait by Lawrence are at the British Museum and Lincoln's Inn.
Thurlow was tall, well built, and singularly majestic in appearance. His features, though stern, were regular, and a swarthy complexion matched well with his keen black sparkling eyes and bushy eyebrows. He was fond of the company of men of letters, and even Dr. Johnson respected his conversational powers. In ordinary society he affected an extreme bluntness, richly lacing his discourse with oaths and vulgar pleasantries; but he was always subservient to his sovereign and courtly to ladies. On proper occasions he knew how to weep, and was unmanned more than once during the king's illness. Fox's bon mot, ‘No man ever was so wise as Thurlow looks,’ evinces the impression which he made on occasions of state. Though his natural powers were considerable, he was too indolent to master either statecraft or law, and regularly employed Francis Hargrave [q. v.] to prime him with authorities and arguments. The judgments thus composed, which are reported by Brown and Vesey junior, were rarely if ever written, and sometimes by their oracular obscurity were calculated to confound rather than convince. He has been credited with the invention of the restraint on anticipation commonly inserted in married women's settlements; but this is a mere tradition. In politics he seems to have had no principles beyond a high view of the royal prerogative and an aversion to change. Foreign affairs he as far as possible ignored, and commonly went to sleep when they were under discussion at cabinet councils. The ‘majestic sense,’ ascribed to him in Gibbon's ‘Memoirs,’ was an editorial interpolation (Gibbon, Misc. Works, ed. Sheffield, 1814, i. 222, and Autobiogr. ed. Murray, 1896, p. 310). His reported speeches are chiefly remarkable for the truculence of their invective. His treachery during the king's illness, and subsequent factiousness, deprive him of all title to respect. In his distribution of patronage, if somewhat dilatory, he was on the whole judicious. Both Samuel Horsley [q. v.] and Robert Potter [q. v.] owed stalls to him; and Lloyd Kenyon [q. v.], whom he advanced to the chief-justiceship, amply justified his choice. The Egerton MS. 2232 contains transcripts of his scanty manuscript remains relative to affairs of state.
He never lost the tastes of the scholar, and
