I have abstained from seeing company since this horrid business, chiefly from feeling unfit for society; and, besides that, I would not that any person should say that I exulted in an acquisition so obtained, and I think, if I did not feel strongly myself, it would be judicious to do nothing that might be reported to my children as offensive. The anxiety about their guardianship is great; it does not yet appear to whom the charge devolves. I wait quietly till the will is found, or the one of ’86 acted upon. If none is found, the verbal injunctions laid upon his family to exclude me from the happiness of seeing my children will operate but slightly. I shall openly seize every occasion of making them know how near an object it is to my heart to be loved by them, and opinion will side with me, however the Chaplins may act to annoy me. If the will of ’86 is to be in force, then nothing will be done but by the advice of the executors.
‘LEGAL RECLUSES’
There is a curious but violent quarrel carried on between Lord Carlisle and Lord Kenyon; they abuse each other bitterly in their different courts, publicly and separately. On the night of the debate upon the Divorce Bill, in favour of which the lawyers are very eager, Lord Carlisle, in adverting to the various arguments, said that lawyers were from their sedentary occupations and retired habits incapable of judging the offences and punishments of the upper classes, and he applied to the corps of lawyers the term of ‘legal recluses.’ Ld. Eldon, who officiated for the Chancellor, took up the expression and was indignant at its being applied to the enlightened body who from their employment in human affairs were generally supposed to understand mankind. The Bishop of Rochester was furious, and said many cutting things to Ld. Carlisle, such as, he supposed that he would have the offence decided upon by those only who had committed, and in a marked manner showed he thought Ld. C. in that case entitled to judge. The next day, Ld. Kenyon, in the Court of King’s Bench, in summing up a charge to the jury, contrived to introduce the expression of ‘cloistered recluses’ as having been used in the H. of Lds., and again declared his knowledge of human life to be equal to his wishes, and thanked his God he had not the knowledge of it which was acquired by ‘titled adulterers at Newmarket, in Bond Street, and in the Stews.’ Ld. C. has taken notice of this reference to his speech in Parliament as unparliamentary, and means to move some resolution against the printer. He has been with Ld. Holland this morning, who has advised him to adopt another mode, and furnished him with the words; accordingly he will follow his advice.
9th June.—Erskine came unexpectedly to dinner yesterday. He is, as I could not help telling him, by far the most extraordinary man I ever met with. An incomprehensible compound of wit, ability, absurdity, folly, vanity, and sagacity. He repeated to me some lines he had written in court upon Serjeant Lens,[117] who was examining a witness with some pertinacity:—
The Lenses that common opticians have
Are plano convex, or plano concave;
But the Lens of the law being formed to perplex,
At no time is plain, but concave and convex;
Convex his own case to enlarge and expound,
Concave his opponents t’obscure and confound.