and a new barony of Capel (second creation); in the fourth one more, the dukedom of Manchester (the Premier in 1701); in the fifth one more, the earldom of Guilford. The second Earl of Guilford, the Premier of George III. (best known as Lord North), was in the sixth generation.

It is wholly impossible for me to describe the characteristics of all the individuals who are jotted down in my genealogical tree. I could not do it without giving a vast deal more room than I can spare. But this much I can do, and ought to do; namely, to take those who are most closely linked with the Judges, and to show that they possessed sterling ability, and did not hold their high positions by mere jobbery, nor obtain their reputations through the accident of birth or circumstances. I will gladly undertake to show this, although it happens in the present instance to put my cause in a peculiarly disadvantageous light, because Francis North, the Lord Keeper, the first Baron Guilford, is the man of all others, in that high position (identical, or nearly so, with that of a Lord Chancellor), whom modern authorities vie in disparaging and condemning. Those who oppose my theories might say, the case of North being Lord Keeper shows it is impossible to trust official rank as a criterion of ability; he was promoted by jobbery, and jobbed when he was promoted; he inherited family influence, not natural intellectual gifts: and the same may be said of all the members of this or of any other pedigree. As I implied before, there is enough truth in this objection to make it impossible to meet it by a flat contradiction, based on a plain and simple statement. It is necessary to analyse characters, and to go a little into detail. will do this, and when it is concluded I believe many of my readers will better appreciate than they did before, how largely natural intellectual gifts are the birthright of some families.

Francis North, the Lord Keeper, was one of a family of five brothers and one sister. The lives of three of the brothers are familiarly known to us through the charming biographies written by another brother, Roger North. Their position in the Montagu family is easily discovered by means of the genealogical tree. They fall in the third of those generations I have just described-the one in which the family gained one dukedom, two earldoms, and two baronies. Their father was of a literary stock, continued backwards in one line during no less than five generations. The first Lord North was an eminent lawyer in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and his son-an able man and an ambassador-married the daughter of Lord Chancellor Rich. His son again-who did not live to enjoy the peerage-married the daughter of a Master of the Court of Requests, and his great-great-grandsons—the intermediate links being more or less distinguished, but of whose marriages I know little-were the brothers North, of whom I am about to speak.

The father of these brothers was the fourth Baron North. He was a literary man, and, among other matters, wrote the life of the founder of his family. He was an 66 economical" man, and "exquisitely virtuous and sober in his person." The style of his writings was not so bright as that of his father, the second baron, who was described as full of spirit and flame, and who was an author both in prose and verse; his poems were praised by Walpole. The mother of the brothers, namely, Anne Montagu, is described by her son as a compendium of charity and wisdom. I suspect it was from the fourth Baron North that the disagreeable qualities in three of the brothers North were derived-such as the priggishness of the Lord Keeper, and that curious saving, mercantile spirit that appeared under different forms in the Lord Keeper, the Financier, and the Master of Trinity College. I cannot avoid

alluding to these qualities, for they are prominent features in their characters, and find a large place in their biographies.

In speaking of the Lord Keeper, I think I had better begin with the evil part of his character. When that has been admitted and done with, the rest of my task will be pleasant and interesting. In short, the Lord Keeper is mercilessly handled in respect to his public character. Lord Campbell calls him the most odious man that ever held the Great Seal, and says that throughout his whole life he sought and obtained advancement by the meanest arts. Bishop Burnet calls him crafty and designing. Lord Macaulay accuses him of selfishness, cowardice, and meanness. I have heard of no writer who commends his public character except his brother, who was tenderly attached to him. I should say, that even Lord Campbell acknowledges the Lord Keeper to have been extremely amiable in all his domestic relations, and that nothing can be more touching than the account we have of the warm and steady affection between him and his brother, who survived to be his biographer. I am, however, no further concerned with the Lord Keeper's public character than to show that, notwithstanding his most unworthy acts to obtain advancement, and notwithstanding he had relatives in high offices to help him, his own ability and that of his brothers were truly remarkable.

Bishop Burnet says of him that he had not the virtues of his predecessor (Lord Nottingham), but he had parts far beyond him. However, Lord Campbell dissents from this, and remarks that "a Nottingham does not arise above once in a century." (I will here beg the reader not to be unmindful of the marvellous hereditary gifts of the Nottingham or Finch family.) Macaulay says his intellect was clear, his industry great, his proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal learning more

than respectable. His brother Roger writes thus of the Lord Keeper's youth :

"It was singular and remarkable in him that, together with the study of the law, which is thought ordinarily to devour the whole studious time of a young gentleman, he continued to pursue his inquiries into all ingenious arts, history, humanity, and languages; whereby he became not only a good lawyer, but a good historian, politician, mathematician, natural philosopher, and, I must add, musician in perfection."

The Hon. Sir Dudley North, his younger brother, was a man of exceedingly high abilities and vigour. He went as a youth to Smyrna, where his good works are not yet forgotten, and where he made a large fortune; then, returning to England, he became at once a man of the highest note in Parliament as a financier. There was

an unpleasant side to his character when young, but he overmastered and outgrew it. Namely, he first showed a strange bent to traffic when at school; afterwards he cheated sadly, and got into debts; then he cheated his parents to pay the debts. At last he made a vigorous effort, and wholly reformed himself, so that his brother concludes his biography in this way :

"If I may be so free as to give my thoughts of his morals, I must allow that, as to all the mercantile arts and stratagems of trade which could be used to get money from those he dealt with, I believe he was no niggard; but as for falsities . . . he was as clear as any man living."

It seems, from the same authority, that he was a very forward, lively, and beautiful child. At school he did not get on so well with his books, as he had an excessive desire for action; still, his ability was such that a little application went a long way with him, and in the end he came out a moderate scholar. He was a great swimmer, and could live in the water for a whole afternoon. (I mention this,

because I shall hereafter have occasion to speak of physical gifts not unfrequently accompanying intellectual ones.) He sometimes left his clothes in charge of a porter below London Bridge, then ran naked upon the mud-shore of the Thames up almost as high as Chelsea, for the pleasure of swimming down to his clothes with the tide, and he loved to end by shooting the cascade beneath old London Bridge. I often marvel at his feat, when I happen to be on the river in a steamer.

I will now quote Macaulay's description of his first appearance, in his after life, on the stage of English politics. Speaking, in his "History of England," of the period immediately following the accession of James II., Macaulay says—

"The person on whom devolved the task of devising ways and means was Sir Dudley North, younger brother of the Lord Keeper. Dudley North was one of the ablest men of his time. He had early in life been sent to the Levant, where he had long been engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most men would, in such a situation, have allowed their faculties to rust; for at Smyrna and Constantinople there were few books and few intelligent companions. But the young factor had one of those vigorous understandings which are independent of external aids. In his solitude he meditated deeply on the philosophy of trade, and thought out, by degrees, a complete and admirable theory-substantially the same with that which a hundred years later was expounded by Adam Smith." North was brought into Parliament for Banbury; and, though a new member, was the person on whom the Lord Treasurer chiefly relied for the conduct of financial business in the Lower House. "North's ready wit and perfect knowledge of trade prevailed, both in the Treasury and the Parliament, against all opposition. The old members were amazed at seeing a man who had not been a fortnight