to his, could so recklessly rush into the gravest enterprises, or so carelessly make escape from them.

may

be

With Rough he was now very intimate, and a word given to their friendship. When Landor first knew him he had just left college, and in a fit of admiration for Gebir had written in the manner of it a tragedy on the Conspiracy of Gowrie, which was about as like Landor as Mr. Rowe's imitation was like Shakespeare. When I first heard his name his poem was extinct; but its author was remembered as one of three notorious radicals of the Midland circuit, Copley and Denman being the other two, of whom it was proposed by old Clarke, also of the Midland, that the whole three should be hung up as republicans to the signpost of their circuit inn, with Copley in the centre as the greatest malefactor of the three. Both literature and politics, therefore, recommended Rough to Landor.

Copley was a little his junior; but they had been at Cambridge together, were members of the same inn of court, chose the same circuit, and for some time were inseparable. But Rough's ambition, more limited in one direction than his friend's, took in a greater variety of objects, and had a more generous though a weaker side. What so many inferior people discover in the desire to attach themselves to the wealthy and noble, this young lawyer displayed in his eagerness to become acquainted with men distinguished by their literature; and though his life had many failures, his persistent love of men of learning and letters is not to be accounted one of them. He became familiar,' says Mr. Robert Landor, with the lake poets, especially with Southey, and with many of the younger people before the age of Scott, Byron, and Shelley. He was an intense admirer of Walter's • Gebir, and I think that Walter and Southey became ultimately 'acquainted through him. Before then he had published a tra'gedy called The Conspiracy of Gowrie. My brother repaid his 'admiration, for in such duties he was never ungrateful. Hence their very ardent friendship; but Rough was still more familiar 'with my brother Henry, who was then resident in London. • When called to the bar, Mr. Rough selected the Midland circuit; and about the same time Henry was established at War

6

'wick as a conveyancer, which profession he exchanged for that of a land-agent to some very large estates.'

The few of Rough's letters that Landor kept confirm this, and show that Rough took with him to the circuit introductions from Henry to the Landor family and to that of Doctor Lambe. This young physician had succeeded to the practice of Doctor Landor on his retirement; for him and his pretty wife Landor himself had a strong liking; and in his friend's letter immediately after the circuit they found very cordial mention. One other acquaintance was then also made by Rough: a farther acquisition of that first circuit, though not mentioned in this letter, which especially claims to be mentioned here. The reader owes to it a delightful sketch of the young lawyer himself, taken by a keen yet kindly observer, at this opening of his career.

to me,

L

'Rough learnt from our family,' writes Mr. Robert Landor 'on his first visit to Warwick, that there was another 'brother resident in Oxford; and on his way back to town he paid me a visit too, quite unexpectedly. In more than sixty years which have passed since then, I have never met with any one who had so little reserve. In about an hour I had become 'acquainted with all his prospects, literary and professional; and in this first circuit he had taken the measure of all his future competitors. At no time was he arrogant or contemptuous; but, giving ample credit to the pretensions of other people, he did. equal justice to his own. In addition to the honour which he 'conferred upon so young a man, I felt delighted with so much frankness, good-humour, and joyous familiarity. I again met him on his second circuit at Warwick, accompanied by Mr. Copley: both of them dined with my brother Henry. Walter was not there. Rough assumed the superiority which his greater standing and experience had given him; for he had received a ' brief that very morning. He promised his future countenance 'to Copley as his junior, and Copley undertook to prepare him'self for the favour by ascertaining the distinction between a drake and a duck. It seemed that Rough had opened the prosecution of a thief who had stolen a drake, and had persisted in describing the bird as a duck. Corrected again and again,

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6

'he repeated the word "duck" in court; and after dinner he 'maintained that there was no difference. Copley said that there

6

was the same difference as between a bull and a cow, the bull and the drake being the husbands of the cow and the duck; ' and also, that if any thief had stolen a bull, the animal must 'be so described, and not as a cow. I would have spared you 'this silliness, if it had not been characteristic both of Rough's ' habits and of his future fortune. Many years after these jests, I became acquainted at Tenby with an elderly solicitor of high professional character, who was personally also familiar with Rough. He mentioned that the two friends had recently ob'tained promotion, and regretted that one of them had hazarded a small practice by becoming Mr. Serjeant Rough. Both gained 'the same rank at nearly the same time. My informant said that Copley was quite safe; but that Rough was so careless and slovenly in his practice, that the conduct of any important case 'could not be intrusted to him. I had left Warwickshire, and ' had seen him but two or three times since my departure. My 'brother Henry always described him, however, as not less happy ' and hopeful-though with so many plans, literary and professional, that he began none of them. He was so busy that he did ' nothing.""

Mr. Landor adds a remark upon the sudden and early close of Rough's intimacy with his brother, so ardent while it lasted, which I do not feel entitled to omit. To a great degree, in all men, the earlier and the later years explain each other; and what is here said of a point of character which time and experience corrected, but failed to the very last to remove, will suggest needful allowance for what is to be said hereafter.

'Rough's intercourse with Walter lasted only three or four ' years. It was ended by some unintentional offence similar to that by Doctor Winthrop at Parr's. Either Rough had smiled 'at a false argument, or interrupted my brother in some other

way, before several guests, whereupon Walter left his house and

* One thinks of Chaucer's pleasant couplet in his picture of a lawyer of his time:

'No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as,

And yit he semede besier than he was.'

'

renounced his acquaintance. Your intercourse did not begin 'till many years, and a larger knowledge of society, had taught more self-control; and he must have felt more afraid, as well as unwilling, to offend you. But not twenty years ago he refused ever to see again a schoolfellow whom he valued almost as highly 'as Birch. It seems ungrateful on my part to remember these frailties; for long after our early affection had ceased, he en ́ dured muth more patiently my remonstrances and reproaches 'than those of any other person, being resolved that we should never quarrel again as we had done almost forty years before. 'Yet such knowledge is necessary if you would describe him truly. It was for the sake of his peace and reputation that I 'so often gave or hazarded offence.'

.

Nor had Rough scrupled to hazard it as well during the time of their intercourse. His high admiration for Landor's powers, cherished all the more because shared by so very few, made him keen to the perception of faults that obstructed their healthful exercise; and genial, careless, good-natured as he was, hè remonstrated more than once against complaints which he justly thought not the most manly. The Werterism of that day was the Byronism of a quarter of a century later; and Landor had to pass through this and other distempers of youth, though happily they left no mark upon his writings. There is a tone in Rough's remonstrances (May 1801) that commands respect.

"... Come, come, rouse yourself and write. If you must die, it is at least your duty to leave something behind you; and though Gebir will do much, yet I am persuaded it is in your power to do still more. Literature, like other things, as often obtains the reward of praise by quantity as quality; and we are all of us so little important to others, that unless we put them in mind of us daily, we shall scarcely avoid being forgotten.'

Anticipating my narrative a little, I may add that before the middle of the following year Rough's bachelor-life had ended, and, in thanking Landor for good wishes sent to him, he had rallied his friend again upon his tone of despondency, adjured him for Heaven's sake to keep up his spirits, and, with much grateful allusion to Doctor Landor and the house at Warwick, expressed his hope to be in a few weeks settled in a house of his own, where he should at all times be eager to receive, and, when necessary, to nurse, the friend to whom he owed so much.

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< My Henrietta I have at present left in the country. Be assured, ' however, that she is fully disposed to welcome you as the most 'valued of her husband's friends.' His Henrietta was Jack Wilkes's daughter; and Mr. Robert Landor's brief allusion to her, and to the leading points of the later life of her husband, must satisfy whatever farther interest my readers may feel in Landor's once celebrated, now forgotten friend, Chief-justice Rough.

Mr. Rough had married an illegitimate daughter of the patriot John Wilkes; attracted rather by the father's celebrity 'than the daughter's beauty. When he and I first met at Warwick, he proposed to travel a hundred miles by the stage-coach ← that he might attend a Christmas ball, and dance with Doctor 'Parr's daughter, whom he had never seen. As had been foretold, while Mr. Copley's profession advanced Mr. Rough's receded, and now he is a family man. Very reluctantly he relin'quished his hopes of a seat in the House of Commons-as solicitor-general, attorney-general, on his way to better things. • Then he would find leisure to begin, at last, a very great poem! Perhaps it was through the interest of the first Lord Lansdowne ‹ that he became chief-justice in one of the West-Indian islands; 'but his heart was left with the House of Commons, and he soon ' returned to England. Some quarrel about precedency at the governor's ball, between Mrs. Rough and the wife of a general or 'colonel who commanded the garrison there, was decided unsatisfactorily; and the chief-justice, if such was his title, came home. 'I think that by this time Copley had succeeded Lord Eldon as lord chancellor; and if so, there were few men who could con‘gratulate him more sincerely than Rough; for Rough seemed quite incapable of jealousy, and his own turn must come soon. 'Meanwhile he could not resume his former practice, and he had, I believe, two or three children. It was thought, unjustly, that 'his old friend might have forwarded his wishes more effectually by obtaining for him some such appointment as would keep him ' at home. But it is not improbable that the lord chancellor may have doubted his qualification for much responsibility so near to the House of Commons; and Rough never changed his political opinions, as Copley had done. At last Mr. Rough was