, ed. 1868, vol. viii. p. 233):
"The monarch's pale face was with blushes suffused,
To observe right and wrong by twelve villains confused,
And, kicking their ——s all round in a fury,
Cried, 'Curs'd be the day I invented a jury!'"
A Whig in politics, and in sympathy with the doctrines of the French Revolution, he defended Paine, Frost, Hardy, and other political offenders, and did memorable service to the cause of constitutional liberty. In the House of Commons, which he entered as M. P. for Portsmouth in 1783, he was a failure; his maiden speech on Fox's India Bill fell flat, and he was crushed by Pitt's contempt. As Lord Chancellor (1806-7) he proved a better judge than was expected. At the time when Byron made his acquaintance, he had practically retired from public life, and devoted himself to literature, society, and farming, writing on the services of rooks, and attending the Holkham sheep-shearings. Lord Campbell has collected many of his verses and jokes in vol. ix. chap. cxc. of his
Lives of the Chancellors
. His famous pamphlet,
On the Causes and Consequences of the War with France
(1797), was written, as he told Miss Berry (
Journal of Miss Berry
, vol. ii. p. 340),
"on slips of paper in the midst of all the business which I was engaged in at the time—not at home, but in open court, whilst the causes were trying. When it was not my turn to examine a witness, or to speak to the Jury, I wrote a little bit; and so on by snatches."