chief business on the home circuit. It must be confessed that his powers as a pleader are chiefly confined to the humorous, the ridiculous, and the light: no man better understands or better expresses these qualifications; but of the pathos he has, perhaps, less than any other gentleman at the bar. His voice, though not powerful, is clear and melodious, and, while he wisely omits all action, his countenance and expression are nicely adapted to every passion he wishes to excite. No man is heard with more attention by the court, no man gains more upon a jury, or better pleases a common auditor. Yet with all these excellencies, Mr. Garrow is likely to remain stationary; he never appears solicitous for a higher station than that which he at present fills; he certainly does not look to the bench, and makes no pretensions to the great law offices of state. Mr. Garrow probably is content with the honours of Westminsterhall; he has never, we believe, had any ambition to possess a seat in parliament; indeed, he well knows that such a seat would be but a losing bargain, as it would deprive him of some very lucrative practice before election committees. We have already mentioned that he inherited a large fortune from his uncle, Dr. Garrow; and the profits of his profession have long since realized for him a considerable property of his own. But every good has its alloy, and Mr. Garrow, now possessed of affluence and a silk gown, often wants health to enjoy the means of affluence in his power. He has been at one time a martyr to the gout; at another time he has been afflicted in a

1804-1805.

Kk

manner

manner which threatened more serious consequences. A few years ago a very delicate surgical operation was performed upon him, and his health has been improving since that period. There is no one lives more orderly and temperately; he has been a family man for some years, and is very much loved and esteemed in private life. Though not celebrated as a classical scholar, his table is liberal, elegant, and convivial, and his conversation replete with pleasantry and good humour. His chief weight is not in opinions, so much as in pleading; nevertheless his practice as a chamber counsel is very extensive, and, in the highest degree, respectable.

If these strictures should fall into the hands of any student in the law, he will, perhaps, derive one benefit from them, which will compensate the want of many other professional qualities; he will learn, in the life of Mr. Garrow, the great importance of cultivating a general and extensive acquaintance with the world, and pursuing life through all its varieties and circumstances, which has chiefly, if not singly, advanced the subject of this memoir to his present eminence; he will, moreover, learn the necessity of cultivating the art of public speaking, and the talent of cross-examination; and it would be a bequest almost invaluable to the young lawyer, if Mr. Garrow, before he is summoned off the stage, would draw up a general praxis for the treatment of evidence, and canons of cross examination.

ADMIRAL

ADMIRAL LORD GARDNER,

AND

THE GARDNERS.

WHEN a man once attains the summit of his hopes, after distinguishing himself on various occasions in the course of his professional career, he is usually acknowledged to possess genius. But no accurate definition has been hitherto given of a quality so invaluable in itself, and so universal in its application. It has generally been considered as a property adapted to and fitted to produce excellence in any or every art, science, and employment; so that he who shines in one situation, might with equal case have excelled in another, and a Blake, a Burke, a Marlborough, or a Newton, be moulded at will out of the same materials.

But there is surely a specific difference in the qualifications required for different pursuits, and perhaps a certain structure of the human frame may be necessary for some, as it is certain, for instance, that a peculiar delicacy in the formation of the auricular organs can alone constitute a musician; while a painter, on the other hand, must possess a fine eye and an exquisite touch. In respect to the mind too, the enthusiasm of the poet, bordering on "madness"* itself, requires a very different temperament from that of the cool and intense mathematician, enwrapt in science, now calculating the orbit of a comet, and

"Great wit to madness, sure is near allied."

now carrying his conjectures to the limits of infinite space!

Perhaps our pursuits in life ought to be more adapted than they generally are to the peculiar organization of the human frame. Scientific disquisitions require more soul than body; while bone and muscle are absolutely necessary for the acquisition of gain and the fatigues of war. The boy entirely dedicated to the fine arts may have a slender, and perhaps ought to possess a delicate frame; but he, on the contrary, who, aspiring to be a British admiral, is destined at all times to encounter such a boisterous element as the ocean, and on some occasions, like the fabled salamander, actually to live in fire, ought to possess a robust frame and a hardy constitution.

Alan Lord Gardner, of whom we are now to treat, is a native of Uttoxeter, in the county of Stafford, where he was born April 12, 1742. His father, William, was an Irishman; he came originally from Colcraine. Being bred to the profession of arms, he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the eleventh regiment of dragoons, and settled in England, where he married two wives, by the second of whom he had no less than a dozen of children. Alan, the eighth, after receiving all the benefits that could be derived from a provincial education, was destined for the sea, as, although Mr. Gardner possessed some fortune, yet the number of his progeny required that they should be enabled as soon as possible to provide for themselves. The one to whom we allude was of a robust frame, and is said to have discovered an early predilection

lection to a naval life, which is not at all surprising in the inhabitant of a country which not only affects, but possesses a superiority on the ocean, or in the breast of a young man who hopes one day to exchange his blue coat and "weekly accounts," for the dress of a commander in chief, bedizened with gold, and decorated with immense epaulets.

Shakespeare very properly puts the following sentiment into the mouth of an Englishman:

66

-Our mind is tossing on the ocean-
There, where our argosies with portly sail,
Like signors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do over-peer the petty traffickers

That curtsey to them, and do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings."

When only thirteen years of age, young Gardner was stationed on the quarter-deck of the Medway, of sixty guns, and had the good fortune to be placed under the immediate inspection of an excellent officer, Sir Peter Denis, who had been third lieutenant of the Centurion, and was patronised by Commodore, afterwards Lord Anson, and first commissioner of the admiralty board.

He remained in this vessel during a couple of years, and was present at an engagement, at the conclusion of which a French ship of the line (the Duc d'Aquitaine) struck her colours to two English men of war.

Our young midshipman afterwards accompanied his commander, first into the Namur, of ninety gens, in which he served under the gallant Admiral Hawke, Kk3 during