a general retainer, could neither be less nor more than five guineas." One night this high-handed client drove to his chambers, and the hour being late her counsel was out. The l ady having waited a considerable time in his rooms, Murray at last returned, whereupon she rated him smartly, concluding with this reprimand—"young man, if you mean to rise in the world you must not sup out."
In the youth of his fame as a member of the bar, 1737, Murray fell in love with a lady whose name history has not recorded A Lincolnshire squire, with a good rent-roll and other recommendations, offered himself as a rival, and the rising young barrister was rejected. Upon this, in a fit of despondency, the unrequited lover courted the retirement of a little cottage on the banks of the Thames, near Twickenham, where he received from his friend Pope such consolation as a disappointed mind could, under those circumstances, extract from well-written verses. In the course of twelve months Murray had completely recovered. He made an offer of marriage to the Lady Elizabeth Finch, a daughter of the earl of Winchelsea, and on the 20th November, 1738, she became his wife. They had no family, but enjoyed a long life of conjugal happiness. Having now attained the coveted honour of being at the head of the bar, and through his recent marriage with the daughter of the first lord of the admiralty, important influence at court, Pelham, Hardwicke, and the duke of Newcastle became anxious to strengthen the cabinet by appointing Murray one of the law officers of the crown. In 1742 Sir John Strange resigned, partly through ill health, partly in hopes of being made master of the rolls; and Murray became solicitor-general. He was immediately returned for Boroughbridge to the house of commons. Murray had two failings. He was deficient in originality and moral courage; nevertheless it will be conceded that he was one of the greatest parliamentary debaters. Pitt was his most formidable antagonist and most successful rival. Pitt enjoyed a wider scope for invective and passionate irony, of which he was so great a master, because his warfare against the measures of government, untrammelled by the restraints and responsibilities of office, had the colour of disinterested patriotism. The solicitor general of that day was not simply an office to solve knotty questions of law, and advise upon the proceedings of the cabinet. In one of the most critical periods of our history he had to bear the brunt of parliamentary battles. The task of rolling back the tumultuous torrent of declamation with which the Great Commoner assailed the government, was assigned by common consent to the solicitor-general, and gallantly accomplished. While an undergraduate he had given much attention to the precepts and examples of the ancient orators. There was not a single oration of Cicero which he had not translated with care into English, and after an interval, retranslated into the original. From the fragments of a Latin treatise upon the oration of Demosthenes, Περὶ Στέφανου, we perceive with what exquisite nicety his critical judgment detected the most recondite charms of that classic masterpiece. Through years of laborious study the rare gifts which nature had lavished upon him were steadily ripening, and the time had now come to reap the reward of his toil. The most fastidious critic in the house was mute. Horace Walpole, upon hearing Murray's first speech on the army in Flanders, to which Pitt offered an inconclusive reply, had the sagacity to make the prediction, "In all appearance they will be great rivals." Parliamentary reporting at that time was very inefficient; but a good idea of Murray's oratory might be formed from the speeches in defence of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; in his own defence against the charge of having drunk the health of the Pretender; and in the house of lords against the reflections made by Lord Chatham upon his conduct as a judge. Upon the elevation of Sir Dudley Ryder to the bench, 1754, Murray succeeded to the office of attorney-general, and accepted the leadership of the house of commons. Murray was great as an advocate, great as a parliamentary debater, great as a statesman; but as a judge his greatness was pre-eminent. Even during his own lifetime the common designation by which he was known in Westminster hall, was that of the "Great Lord Mansfield." After having sat on the bench about two years Chief-justice Ryder died suddenly on the 24th May, 1756. Murray's claims were irresistible; but the administration could ill afford to lose his services in the house by promoting him to the bench. The duke of Newcastle assailed the unflinching attorney-general with entreaties and bribes; but upon threatening to throw up his appointment as law-officer of the crown if he were not raised to the bench, the negotiation was suddenly terminated. On the 8th November, 1756, Murray was sworn chief-justice of the king's bench, and created a peer by the title of Baron Mansfield of Mansfield in the county of Nottingham. During the long period he presided over this court, there were not half a dozen cases in which the judgments pronounced were reversed—only two in which his opinion was not unanimously adopted by his brethren on the bench. Though Dunning and Erskine, not to mention other names of less note who were avowedly opposed to Lord Mansfield in politics, practised in his court, not a single bill of exceptions was ever tendered to his ruling. Upon his elevation he commenced forthwith to reform the abuses of the court. He established the procedure which at the present time is followed in Westminster hall, whereby counsel are permitted to make only one motion a piece in the order of rank and seniority. He almost abolished the custom of repeated hearings, and frequently gave judgment at the close of the argument. The consequence was that business was despatched with rapidity, and great saving of expense to the parties. Though much of Mansfield's parliamentary eloquence is lost to the world for ever through the inefficient system of reporting which then prevailed, the masterly judgments delivered on the bench were recorded with care and accuracy by Cowper, Burrow, Durnford, East, and Douglas. His decisions are the great repositories of learning upon commercial and colonial laws, and upon the law of evidence. Mr. Justice Buller observed, in delivering an important judgment, that Lord Mansfield might be said "to be the founder of the commercial law of this country." But even this great judge, whom all lawyers delight to honour, was not infallible. His decision in the well-known case of Perrin versus Blake was clearly wrong. It was reversed when brought by writ of error to the exchequer chamber, though two of the judges dissented in favour of the original decision. Throughout his long judicial career Mansfield showed a leaning to common sense whenever it conflicted with the technicalities of the common law. The rule in Shelley's case had been law since the reign of Elizabeth, and the gift in Perrin versus Blake ought to have been rigidly construed according to the principles established in that case. By reversing the decision of the court of session upon the Duntreath case, which determines and expounds the law of entail for Scotland, Lord Mansfield gave a graceful proof of his having reconsidered the almost solitary judgment which had turned out erroneous. The only other circumstance that might be considered to dim the lustre of his name, was his severity as a criminal judge in enforcing capital punishment for the offence of forgery. In 1756 the great seal was offered to Lord Mansfield; but being anxious to complete the reforms in the common law courts which were in contemplation, he declined the honour. The same offer was made the following year, and again refused. According to a very ancient custom not generally known, upon the decease of the chancellor of the exchequer the seals of the office are given to the chief justice of the king's bench until the due appointment of a successor. Lord Mansfield was finance minister for three months. In 1757 he had a seat in the cabinet. During the next twenty years the chief-justice continues one of the most conspicuous members of the house of lords. Here, as formerly in the lower house, he was the Coryphæus of a confiding ministry. When the American disturbances broke forth, and during a long portion of that memorable struggle, Mansfield stood out as the champion of sovereignty, and the advocate of strong measures for putting down what he deemed a treasonable rebellion. He was the mainstay of the administration. Lord Bathurst, the chancellor, seldom spoke. The other cabinet ministers, Lord Sandwich, Lord Gower, Lord Dartmouth, and Lord Hillborough, made official speeches, but never ranked high as debaters. The opposition benches were filled with a compact phalanx of statesmen and politicians, led on by Chatham, Shelbourne, Rockingham, and Camden; but Mansfield conducted the affairs of government with so much skill and vigour that, as a mark of royal favour, he was promoted in 1776 to the earldom of Mansfield. When that memorable anti-popery riot broke out under the leadership of Lord George Gordon, upon the sanction given by parliament to the Catholic Relief Bill, Lord Mansfield became the object of popular execration, which resulted in acts of fanatical violence. His mind was free from every taint of bigotry. In some recent decisions, the litigant parties being quakers, catholics, and dissenters, the law was laid down in a spirit of dignified tolerance and liberality, which the inflamed mob regarded as overt signs of a latent popish
