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About this time he was advised to make application to lord Thurlow, who had been one of his juvenile companions, for some situation of emolument; but he declined this from motives of highly justifiable delicacy; intimating, that he had hopes from that quarter, and that it would be better not to anticipate his patron’s favours by solicitation. He afterwards sent a copy of his first volume of poems to his lordship, accompanied with a very elegant letter; and seems to murmur a little, on more occasions than one, at his lordship’s apparent neglect. A correspondence took place between them at a more distant period; but whether from want of a proper representation of his situation, or from forgetfulness, it is to be lamented that this nobleman’s interest was employed when too late for the purpose which Cowper’s friends hoped to promote. It will be difficult to impute a want of liberality to lord Thurlow, while his voluntary and generous offer to Dr. Johnson remains on record.

He preserved the dignity of a barrister very much in court, and frequently kept even the judges in check. When lord Mansfield, who had great quickness in discovering the jut of a cause, used to take up a newspaper by way of amusing himself, whilst Dunning was speaking, the latter would make a dead stop. This would rouse his lordship to say, “Pray go on, Mr. Dunning.” “No, my lord, not till your lordship has finished.” His reputation was as high with his fellow-barristers as with the public; he lived very much with the former, and had their affection and esteem. When lord Thurlow gave his first dinner as lord chancellor, he called Dunning to his right hand at table, in preference to all the great law otBcers; and when he hesitated to take the place, the other called out in his blunt way, “Why will you keep the dinner cooling in this manner?” He had that integrity in his practice, that on the opening of any cause, which he found by the evidence partook of any notorious fraud or chicanery, he would throw his brief over the bar with great contempt, and resort to his bag for a fresh paper. Whilst he was in the height of his practice, his father came to the treasurer’s office in the Middle Temple, to be one of the joint securities for a student performing his terms, <kc. Wh<-n he signed the bond, the clerk, seeing the name, asked him with some eagerness, whether he was any relation to the great Dunning? The old man felt the praise of his son with great sensibility, and modestly replied, “I am John Dunning’s father, Sir.” Few lawyers, without any considerable paternal estate at starting, and dying so young as lord Ashburton did, ever left such a fortune behind him; the whole amounting to no less than one hundred and eighty thousand pounds! Nor was this the hoard of a miser, for he always lived like a gentleman in the most liberal sense of the word, though, from his immense practice, he had no time to indulge in the arrangements of a regular establishment. During his illness, as a last resource he was advised to try his native air, and in going down to Devonshire accidentally met, at the same inn, his old colleague Wallace, lately attorneygeneral, coming to town on the same melancholy errand, to be near the best medical assistance. It was the lot of both to be either legal or political antagonists through the whole course of their lives, in which much keenness, and much dexterity of argument, were used on both sides: here, however, they met as friends, hastening to that goal, where the race of toil, contention, and ambition, was soon to have a final close. They supped together with as much conviviality as the nature of their conditions would admit, and in the morning parted wiih mutual promises of visiting each other early in the winter. These promises, however, were never performed: Dunning died in August, and Wallace in November.

The resolution of the recorder was, however, attended with considerable mortification and some danger. He was summoned to justify his conduct before the common council, and his speech on that occasion was not calculated to avert the vote of censure which followed it. He was not only treated with great acrimony, but it was in the view of the powerful party to deprive him of his office. They, however, contented themselves with holding him forth, not only in their speeches, but in publications and caricatures, as an offensive character, and a city mob at that time was a very unpleasant enemy. In the temper and disposition of administration at this period, such conduct was certain of a reward; and the recorder was, in 1772, appointed a baron of his majesty’s exchequer. In a short time subsequent to his possession of the ermine, on a question proposed to the twelve judges by the house of lords, baron Eyre was distinguished by his argument on that occasion. That he conducted himself with honour and ability in his judicial station, appears from his successive advancements. In 1787 he succeeded that able lawyer and excellent man sir John Skynner, as chief baron of his own court. On the resignation of lord Thurlow in 1792; he was appointed first commissioner of the great seal; and on the removal of lord Loughborough, in the succeeding year, to the chancery bench, he succeeded that noble judge as chief justice of the common pleas, in which situation he continued until his death, at his seat, Ruscombe, in Berkshire, July 6, 1799, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

During the turbulent period of 1793-4-5, &c. when the religion, government, and morals of the country were in imminent danger from the prevalence of democratic principles, the warmth and zeal of his endeavours in parliament to oppose the enemies of the constitution, procured him a considerable share of illiberal censure, which, however, was more than balanced by the general applause which followed the steady uniformity, consistency, and manly decision of his conduct. As a senator he was deservedly considered in the first class; and there were few important discussions, not only Oh ecclesiastical topics, but on those which concerned the civil interests of the country, in which he did not take an active part. He was not, however, an every-day speaker, nor desirous of adding to the dehates unless he had something original to produce, and he was on that account listened to with eagerness even, by those with whom he could not act, and who found it easier to arraign his manner than his matter. In 1802 he was translated to the bishopric of St. Asaph, and resigned the deanery of Westminster. During all this period his publications were frequent, as we shall notice in a list of them; and his vigour of body and mind was happily preserved until the year 1806, which proved his last. In July of that year he went to his diocese, a part of which he had visited and confirmed, and after two months’ residence intended to visit his patron lord Thurlow at Brighton, where he arrived Sept. 20, after hearing on the road that his noble friend was dead. On the 30th, a slight complaint in his bowels affected him, and very soon brought on a mortification, which proved fatal Oct. 4, in his 73d year. His remains were interred in the parish church of St. Mary Newington, where a monument has since been erected to his memory, with an inscription written by himself.

, lord chief justice of the King’s Bench, was born at Gredington, in Flintshire, 1733 and was the eldest surviving son of Lloyd Kenyon, esq. originally of Bryno in the same county, and one of the younger sons of the ancient family of Kenyon of Peele in Lancashire. He received the elementary part of his education at Ruthen in Denbighshire, whence he was taken, at an early age, and articled to Mr. W. J. Tomlinson, an eminent attorney at Nantwich, in Cheshire. On the expiration of his articles, Mr. Kenyon determined to enter into a line which afforded a more ample scope to his industry and talents, and, accordingly, became a member of the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, in Trinity Term 1754, and after a sedulous application to the requisite studies, was called to the bar in Hilary Term 1761. In the early part of his professional career, his advancement was but slow; he was unassisted by those means which powerful connexion and interest afford. The branch of his profession to which he chiefly applied himself, that of conveyancing, was not calculated to bring him forward into public notice; but the sterling merit of genuine abilities and persevering industry were not to be overlooked. He rose gradually into practice; few opinions at the bar, at the time, carried more weight and authority, and he was frequently recurred to as an advocate. In 1773, he formed a matrimonial connexion with his relative, Mary, the third daughter of George Kenyon, of Peele and, not long after, contracted an intimacy with Mr. afterwards lord Thurlow and chancellor. About this period too, and for some years after, his practice in the Courtof Chancery was very extensive and of the most lucrative kind, by which, as well as in the other branches of his profession, he acquired a very considerable property. In 1780, a circumstance occurred which not a little contributed to establish his reputation as an advocate and a public speaker, his being employed as leading counsel for the defence of the late lord George Gordon, on a charge of high treason; on this interesting occasion his second was Mr. now lord Erskine, who on that day distinguished himself in such a manner as in a great degree laid the foundation of his future fame. In April 1782, soon after the accession of the Rockingham party to ministerial power, Mr. Kenyon was, without serving the intermediate office of solfcitor, appointed to the important situation of attorney-general, and, at the same time, chief justice of Chester; in the former office he succeeded the late James Wallis, esq. The circumstance of his direct promotion to the office of attorney-general was regarded as a singular instance; this however is erroneous, similar promotions have before occurred, and the case of sir Edward Law (the late attorney-general, now lord Ellenborough, his successor as lord chief justice), is a recent instance. In parliament Mr. Kenyon took a decided part in politics, warmly attaching himself to the party of Mr. Pitt; and distinguishing himself not a little by his speeches on the noted affair of the coalition, Mr. Fox’s India-bill, &c. In March 1784 he was appointed master of the rolls, an office of high judicial dignity, and generally leading to still higher legal honours; yet its emoluments fell very short of those which he necessarily relinquished by discontinuing his professional pursuits as a counsel. About this time he was created a baronet. In this situation sir Lloyd Kenyon continued till the latter end of May 1788, when, on the resignation of the venerable earl of Mansfield, who, for the long interval of thirty-two years, had held the honourable and very important office of chief justice of the court of KingVbench, he was appointed to succeed him, and at the same time was elevated to the peerage, by the title of lord Kenyon, baron of Gredington in the county of Flint. He was now fixed in a situation, which, though not nominally the highest, is perhaps the most important office in the administration of the law of this country; and lord Kenyon furnished an instance nearly as striking as that of the illustrious Hardwicke, that the profession of the law is that which, of all others, affords the fairest opportunies for the exertion of genuine talents and persevering industry; whether the object be the gratification of ambition in the attainment of the highest honours in the state, or the possession of abundant wealth. His conduct in those arduous and important situations attracted and fixed the applauses and gratitude of his countrymen. He was distinguished for his laudable, firm, and persevering exertions to keep the channels of the law clear and unpolluted by low and sordid practices, which were particularly exemplified in the vigilant and salutary exercise of his authority over the attorneys of his own court, the utility of which has been experienced in a very considerable degree. Nor was he less distinguished for his zeal in the cause of morality and virtue, which most conspicuously appeared in his conduct with respect to cases of adultery and seduction. On these occasions neither rank, wealth, nor station, could shield deliquency from the well-merited censure and rebuke of offended justice and morality. Though much, unhappily, remains to be done, yet his lordship’s exertions, combined with those of some of the most virtuous and exalted characters of the upper House of Parliament, have contributed greatly, notwithstanding the acknowledged inadequacy and imperfection of the law in these respects, to restrain the fashionable and prevailing vices alluded to. What likewise redounded to the honour of his lordship’s magisterial character, was the strictness, not to say severity, with which he administered the justice of the law against the pernicious tribe of gamblers of every description, who have for some years infested the metropolis. On these occasions, as well as in those above mentioned, the conduct of this truly virtuous judge was such as incontrovertibly shewed that “the law is no respecter of persons;” and his persevering exertions to restrain the destructive vice of gaming have been attended with no inconsiderable degree of success. Nor should we omit to mention the very laudable spirit and firmness, which on all occasions he evinced in maintaining due order and decorum in his court. It was justly said of him, that though he might not equal in talents or eloquence the pre-eminent character whom he succeeded on the bench of justice; nevertheless, he possessed qualities mor*e appropriate to, and knowledge more connected with, the important office which he held. Profound in legal erudition, patient in judicial discrimination, and of the most determined integrity, he added no common lustre to his exalted station. He did not sacrifice his official to his parliamentary character; the sphere of his particular duty was the great scene of his activity, as of his honour; and though, as a lord of parliament, he never lessened his character, it was as a judge that he aggrandized it. In private life, the character of lord Kenyon was amiable and praise- worthy in the highest degree no man could excel him in the relations of husband and father in the former he may be considered as a pattern of conjugal virtue. In his mode of living he was remarkably temperate and regular; while the gratuitous assistance in his professional capacity, which it was well known he had often afforded to necessitous and injured individuals, is a proof that a fondness for money was not a prevailing trait in his character. He died at Bath, April 2, 1802, supposed to be worth 300,000l. all acquired by his own professional exertions, and a rigid spirit of economy. Lord Kenyon had issue by his lady, three sons; Lloyd, born in 1775, whom his father appointed to the office of filazer of the Court of King’s-bench; but who died in 1800. The manner in which his lordship was affected by this melancholy event, is supposed, in some degree, to have accelerated his own dissolution. Secondly, George, the present lord Kenyon, born in 1776. His lordship was appointed by his late father to the very lucrative situation of joint chief clerk of the Court of King’s-bench, on the demise of the late earl of Mansfield, better known as lord viscount Stormont, and joined in the patent with the late John Waye, esq. And, thirdly, the hon. Thomas Kenyon, born in 1780,

In 1788 he was promoted by the lord chancellor Thurlow to the dignity of a prebendary in the cathedral of Norwich. He had been a schoolfellow of lord Thurlow, and had constantly sent his publications to that nobleman, without ever soliciting a single favour from him. On receiving a copy of the “Sophocles,” however, his lordship wrote a short note to Mr. Potter, acknowledging the receipt of his books from time to time, and the pleasure they had afforded him, and requesting Mr. Potter’s acceptance of a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Norwich. In the following year, and during his residence at Norwich, the united vicarages of Lowestoft and Kessingland were presented to him, without solicitation from any quarter, by Dr. Bagot, then bishop of Norwich. His mind was sensibly impressed by such a disinterested and honourable mark of that prelate’s favour, which was the greater, as these united vicarages were the best subject of patronage that fell vacant during the seven years that Dr. Bagot held the see. Mr. Potter died suddenly, in the night-time, at Lowestoff, Aug. 9, 1804, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was a man of unassuming simple manners, and his life was exemplary. His translations are a sufficient proof of his intimate acquaintance with classical learning, and in this character he was highly respected by the literati of his time. It is said that he left a manuscript biography of the learned men of Norfolk, but into whose hands this has fallen, we have not heard.

Mr. Rose married in 1791, a. daughter of Dr. Farr, physician to the Royal-hospital, near Plymouth, a lady, who with a moderate portion, brought him the more valuable dower of an elevated understanding. By this lady he had four sons. An ardent love of literature had ever been a characteristic of Mr. Rose, and he gave a signal proof of it in the closing scene of his life. He had been requested to revise the collected works and life of Goldsmith, published in 1801. In the course of his three weeks confinement to the bed of death, he corrected some inaccuracies in that interesting publication, and sent his corrections with the expressive farewell of a dying man to the publishers. In 1792 he produced an improved edition of lord chief baron Corny n’s “Reports,” and in 1800, in a quarto edition, "The Digest of the Laws of England/' by the same eminent lawyer, corrected and continued inscribing the first to lord Thurlow, and the second to lord Lpughborough.

In the summer of 1780, sir Adam Gordon, who had the living of Hincworth in Hertfordshire, offered Mr. Stockdale the curacy of that place. He accepted it with gratitude, and there wrote fifteen sermons. At this period at the distance of twenty-three years from his first ordination, he took priest’s orders. In 1782, he wrote his “Treatise on Education;” and in the autumn of the succeeding year, lord Thurlow (the then lord Chancellor), in consequence, as we are gravely told, “of having read a volume of Mr. Stockdale’s sermons, and without any other recommendation,” presented him with the living of Lesbury, in Northumberland. To this the duke of Northumberland added that of Long-Houghton, in the same county. Here he wrote a tragedy called “Ximenes,” which was never acted or printed; but still, in a restless pursuit of some imaginary happu.ess, he fancied that the bleakness of the climate injured his health; and accepted an invitation in 1787, from his friend Mr. Matra, British Consul at Tangier, to pass some time with him, under its more genial sky.

, Lord Thurlow, a distinguished statesman and lawyer, was the second son of the rev. Thomas Thurlow, rector of Ashfield in Suffolk, and was born about 1732. He was entered of, and continued for some time at Caiut college, Cambridge, whery vulgar report has made him idle and dissipated. Of this we have no proof, nor of his having been equally careless of his studies after he entered the society of the Middle Temple. Lord Thurlow may have been indebted to what are called lucky coincidences for some of his promotions, but as he was always found amply qualified for the high stations he held, he could not have much neglected the cultivation of his natural abilities, or been remiss in accumulating that knowledge by which alone he could rival his contemporaries. He appears to have been called to the bar in 1758, and must have rapidly attained distinction in his profession, for, in three years after, chiefly owing to the talent he displayed in the Douglas cause, he was advanced to the rank of king’s counsel. His voice, person, and manner, were not ill calculated to give his efforts an air of consequence at the bar, and his practice became extensive. In March 1770 he was appointed solicitor-general, and in. June 1771 attorney-general. He now sat in parliament for the borough of Tamworth, where he had many opportunities of justifying the choice of his patrons, and of creating that species of character and interest which generally leads to the highest legal appointments. As a politician, he uniformly, and with commanding vigour, suppotted the measures adopted with respect to America, Sec. during lord North’s administration. In June 1778, he was appointed to succeed lord Apsley, as lord high chancellor of Great Britain, and the same day was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Thurlow of Ashfield in Suffolk. This office he resigned in April 1783, when the seals were put into commission, but was re-appointed when Mr. Pitt was nominated prime minister in December following. He again resigned them in June 1792, and on the 12th of that month was created Lord Thurlow of Thurlow in Suffolk, with a collateral remainder of this honour to the issue male of his late two brothers, the bishop of Durham, and John Thurlow of Norwich. After this retirement, till a short period before his death, he took an active part, and had great weight, in the House of Lords.; and having retained complete possession of his faculties, with accumulated wisdom and experience, his latter speeches were often more the subject of admiration, than any that had been remembered in his earlier days. He died in the seventy-fourth year of his age, Sept. 12, 1806, without male issue.

Lord Thurlow, says the candid author of the Biographical Peerage, “was a man of whose talents opinions have been various. His faculties were strong and direct; and, the results of his mind decisive. His nervous manner, and imperious temper, gave an artificial strength to what he delivered. Whatever he conceived right, he had rrcr timidity or hesitation in enforcing. A manly tone of sentiment, and a boldness which was admired while it was dreaded, gave him almost irresistible weight when clothed with authority. These qualities, added to a powerful natural sagacity, fitted him to preside over a court of equity with many advantages. He never felt himself fettered by forms and technicalities; but laid the case bare at once, and got at its essence. His head was not formed to be diverted by little difficulties or sophistries. On the other hand he was frequently too impatient, too dogmatical, and too little open to persuasion, and to all the complicated bearings of an entangled cause. His temper was severe, his feelings morose, and his disregard of the world, and even its innocent passions and foibles, too general and untparing. He made little allowance for a difference of habits or pursuits. On the whole, however, he was a man f a superior mind; and in many respects rilled his high station with great and deserved reputation.” To this we may add, that as a patron he was munificent; and often, what he could not perform in his official capacity, he expended from his own fortune. His behaviour, in this respect, to Dr. Johnson, must ever be remembered to his honour. In bestowing church preferment he was singularly honest and disinterested, and of all the anecdotes in current report (and they were at one time very many) relating to this subject, we never heard one that did not place his good sense and humanity in a very favourable light. But while, like many other men of high station encumbered with business, he needed to be reminded of those who had claims upon him, it was peculiar to himself that in his character of patron, he was seldom accessible to the common forms of application. If a tale of depressed merit and consequent distress was gently insinuated, he seldom heard it without extending relief, but all manner of solicitation from those who thought they had influence over him, he repelled with contempt; and such were the vicissitudes of his temper, that even when he came to confer his highest favours, it was frequently in a manner that seemed to lessen the obligation.

As a scholar lord Thurlow possessed more knowledge than the world gave him credit for, and his profound acquaintance with the Greek language is testified in a dedication to him by his friend Dr. Horsley. In early life, he lived much with men of gaiety and wit, and always preserved a high respect for literary merit. In his latter years, he would not probably have defended the laxity in which much of his time had been spent. He never was married, but left three daughters by a lady with whom he had long lived. He was, agreeably to the terms of his second peerage, succeeded by his nephew Edward, eldest son of Thomas Thurlow, late bishop of Durham, who died in 179 1.