THE GREAT SEAL.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 479, 6 March 1850, Page 4

THE GREAT SEAL.

A late number of the Quarterly Review contains the following summary pedigree, and account of the education of the holders of the Great Seal since that office was exclusively occupied by laymen, namely, after the retirement in 1625 of the last clerical Lord Keeper, Bishop Williams : — Coventry — was tbe eldest son of a Judge of the Common Pleas, and heir to a handsome fortune. Oxford. Finch. — son of an eminent barrister : one of an ancient and distinguished famille de la robe. No university mentioned either here or in Collins. Littleton — a lineal descendant of the great Chief Justice, s >n of a Welsh Judge, and heir to a good estate. Oxford. Lane — of obscure origin ; neither pedigree nor place of education ascertained. Whitelocke — son of an eminent and wealthy Judge of the King's Bench. Oxford. Herbert — son and heir of a country gentleman of noble descent. English University. Clarendon — son and heir of a considerable squire, and nephew of a Chief Justice. Oxford. Shaftesbury — born to a baronetcy and £8000 a year — an immense fortune two centuries ago; an Earl and Cabinet Minister before he became Chancellor. Oxford. Bridgeman — sop to a bishop, and heir to a fortune. Cambridge. Nottingham — son and heir of an eminent and wealthy barrister, who was Recorder of London and brother to Lord Keeper Finch. Oxford. Guilford — second son of the heir of a barony — but began the world in great poverty, and in hisrise to the seal owed little or nothing to his birth. Cambridge. Jeffreys — the younger son of a poor Welch gentleman, who wished to bind him apprentice to a shopkeeper. No public school nor university. Maynard — eldest son of a considerable squire. Oxford. Trevor — second son of a very poor Welch gentleman, but nearly related to Jeffreys. No public school nor university. Somers — son of a country solicitor. No public school nor uni\ ersity. Wright — son of an obscure clergyman. Cambridge. Cowper — heir to a baronet of good estate. No public school nor university. Harcourt — heir to' a very honourable family, but miserably impoverished through the civil wars. Oxford. Macclesfield — "could not distinctly tell whether he had a grandfather;" his father a country solicitor. No public school nor university. King — son of a provincial shopkeeper. Leyden. Talbot — eldest son of a bishop of noble descent. Oxford. Hardwicke — " son of a small attorney at Dover, of respectable character, but in very narrow circumstances." Never at a public school or university. Northington — heir to a genteel family, but the estate grievously encumbered. Oxford. Camden — his father was a Chief Justice, bu died poor when he was only ten years of age Cambridge. * " Charles Yorke, the second son of the grea Lord Hardwicke, was born on the 10th January, 1723, in a splendid mansion in Great Ormond-street. His father, then AttorneyGeneral, and making a larger income than had ever fallen to the lot of an English barrister, continued nearly forty years afterwards to fill the highest offices of the law, accumulating immense wealth, and able to make a splendid provision for all the members of his family. Yet Charles, even under the enervating influence of a sinecure place which was conferred upon him, from a noble love of honourable distinction, exerted, himself as strenuously and perseveringly as if, being the son of a poor Scotch clergyman,, who could give him nothing beyond a good education, he had depended entirely on his own exertions for his bread and for his position in the world." — Vol. 5, p. 367. Cambridge. Bathurst — second son of an eminent politician created an Earl, whose coronet eventually descended to him long after he had won for himself the Barony of Apsley. Oxford. Thurlow — son and grandson of country clergymen ; could carry his descent no higher — used to say among fine people that he believed the founder of the family was a carter. Cambridge. Loughborough — son of a Scotch Judge, and heir to a spall estate. Edinburgh. Erskine — third son of a very poor Scotch Earl: entered at Cambridge in his 26th year ; may be said to have been whqlly self educated. Eldon — younger son of a provincial tradesman. Oxford. Thus out of 30 Chancellors or Lord Keepers, scarcely 20 had had " a regular gentleman's education." By way of completing the' list, the writer afterwards mentions the three illustrious successors- of Eldon; thus — Lyndhurst — son of a celebrated royal academician. Cambridge. Brougham — representative of a very ancient and honorable family, but inheriting a diminished estate. Edinburgh. Cottenham — second son of an eminent physician, who rose to a baronetcy, of which the Lord Chancellor is now heir presumptive. Cambridge.