constitution which naturally was not a very strong one. If these shades existed in his character, there were only these; and in fact they do not deserve the name, for they were the overflowings of his talents, and the result of his virtues. His eminence, his hospitality, his power of protection, necessarily attracted adulation, in which line none went such lengths, even so as to nauseate his most intimate friends, as one gentleman of his profession, who owed him the greatest obligations, and—such malignity is there to be found in human nature—has been supposed to be the author of the single reflection which has attempted to be cast on his memory.[1] This regarded the amount of his fortune, and went so far as to insinuate that he acquired part of it by playing in the public funds, than which nothing could have been more inconsistent with his character or with the whole tenor of his life, which made it impossible. This scandalous report is however happily refutable beyond the possibility of malice, by the inspection of Mr. Child's books, which are open to anybody, where the progress of his fortune clearly appears, as well as the whole disposition of it from time to time, and only leaves a lesson behind it to great men in future, to beware of sycophants. To do his rivals justice, they have joined in doing honour to his memory, and one false voice excepted, his character is likely to transmit itself by unanimous consent to posterity, as that of the first lawyer of his age, the warmest friend, a most dutiful son (which he proved by continual respectful attentions to his father, who died only a few years before him), an affectionate brother (which appears by a long correspondence, which I suppose is preserved, as well as by his will), a tender husband, and a most illustrious citizen."[2]
It is pleasant to turn from the sketches which exhibit
- ↑ Mr. John Lee, Solicitor-General in the Administration of Lord Rockingham, who distinguished himself during the debates of 1782 and 1783 by the violence of his attacks on Lord Shelburne and his friends, is here alluded to.
- ↑ Lansdowne House MSS. Lord Ashburton was succeeded by his son, on whose decease in 1823 the title became extinct; but it was revived in 1835 in favour of Alexander Baring, the second son of Sir Francis Baring, whose sister had married John Dunning. He was the negotiator of the Treaty in regard to the Maine Boundary between Great Britain and the United States of America, of the 9th August 1842, known as the "Ashburton Treaty."
