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WILLIAM, EARL OF SHELBURNE
CH. VIII

was the character of the new Solicitor-General. The Bedford party, anxious to promote the unscrupulous Wedderburn, regarded the appointment with ill-concealed annoyance, but probably knew that before long the friend of Shelburne would have to follow his leader into retirement. Meanwhile the legal world saw with astonishment a Law Officer of the Crown still wearing a stuff gown, for no Chancellor was to be found sufficiently careless of royal resentment to allow the counsel of Wilkes to take silk.[1]


    have been the reply of the Serjeant, "and I should have outlived the law itself if your Highness had not come over to our assistance."

  1. For a further account of Dunning, see Law Magazine, vii.; Roscoe, Lives of Eminent Lawyers; and Brougham, Statesmen of the Reign of George III.