ROMILLY, Samuel, one of the most enlightened and virtuous public men whom England has ever possessed, was, as his family-name indicates, the descendant of a French family. He was the son of a jeweller in London, and was born there on the 1st of March 1757.

The education of this child, destined in time to occupy so distinguished a place, was conducted for some time with even less care than might have been expected from the station held by his family. But, heartily disliking his father’s business, he was at length allowed to change it for professional employments, though as yet in an inferior department. At the age of sixteen he was articled to one of the six clerks in chancery; and in the easy mechanical duties of his master’s chambers, relieved by the zealous prosecution of his studies both in English and Latin, passed several years of his life. He then resolved on coming to the bar, a step which, he informs us, all his friends, with one exception, considered as highly imprudent. One circumstance which helped to determine Romilly was very interesting; the purchase of a seat in the office in which he had been articled would have cost a sum which he knew it would be inconvenient for his father to advance.

He had completed his twenty-first year when he entered himself at Gray’s Inn, becoming, at the same time, a pupil of an able equity-draftsman. General reading both in English and Latin, translation habitually practised from the latter language into the former, the composition of a few political essays for the newspapers, and occasional attendance on the houses of parliament, now alternated with a closeness of application to legal study, which, after a time, injured his health, and compelled him to retire, first to Bath, and afterwards to the continent. At Geneva he became acquainted with some of the men who were then beginning to attract notice in that city; and, among acquaintances thus made, the most valuable was that of Dumont. After visiting some of the nearest scenery of the Leman Lake, and of Savoy, Romilly proceeded to Paris, where he met D’Alembert, Diderot, and other eminent men.

On the last day of Easter term 1783, he was called to the bar. For some years afterwards, he obtained an increasing employment in the drawing of chancery pleadings; but during this time, as he says himself, he had hardly once occasion to open his lips in court. In the spring of 1784, he went upon the midland circuit, which he continued to frequent until, even as admitted in his own modest Memoir, he was decidedly its leader. His chancery business, however, to which at length he entirely devoted himself, had become very great before he confined himself entirely to town; and his principal reason for remaining so long on the circuit, is assigned by himself in one of his calmly characteristic expressions of honourable ambition: he desired to qualify himself for being a judge.

Long before he left the circuit, he had attained a distinguished position in the eyes of those who were qualified to appreciate him, not merely as a lawyer, but as a statesman. In 1784, he became acquainted with Mirabeau, who was then in London, and of whose character he appears to have formed an exceedingly just estimate. Mirabeau was the medium through which Romilly became known to Lord Lansdowne, and thus to the leaders of that political party of which he had throughout been an honest and warm adherent. To that nobleman he was recommended, both by the hearty praises of Mirabeau, and by a pamphlet he had written, called “A Fragment on the Constitutional Power and Duties of Juries.” Lord Lansdowne, directing Romilly’s attention to a recent sanguinary tract on Criminal Punishments, induced him to write an answer, which was published anonymously, under the title of “Observations on a late Publication, entitled ‘ Thoughts on Executive Justice.’” In the mean time he continued vigorously to prosecute in private the inquiries into the Reform of the Laws, especially the Criminal Laws, of which he had thus begun to announce publicly the parts.

In the vacation of 1788, he paid a third visit to Paris. Introductions from England, and other circumstances, brought Romilly and his fellow-traveller Dumont into intercourse, upon this occasion, with many men distinguished then, and with others still more celebrated in the bloody struggle that was about to ensue. Mirabeau at this time translated into French, and published, observations made by Romilly on the Hospital and Prison of Bicêtre. This pamphlet had the honour to be suppressed by the police of Paris, but in the original English was afterwards printed by the author himself in an obscure London periodical. In July 1789, Romilly wrote a pamphlet which was afterwards published; “Thoughts on the Probable Influence of the French Revolution on Great Britain.” But the lively interest he took in the events which emerged in Paris, while he was engaged in composing these remarks, led him back to that city in August of the same year; and he now saw, both in public and private, many of the persons who had become most distinguished in the National Assembly. Dumont’s observations upon the eventful summer of 1789 in France, were translated into English by Romilly, and, with the addition of some observations by himself on England, were published in 1792, receiving the title of “Groenvelt’s Letters.” Many of Romilly’s opinions on the progress of the French Revolution are contained in his published correspondence with Dumont, Madame Gautier, Dugald Stewart, and others, and in a diary which he kept during a journey to Paris in the autumn of 1802.

While Romilly was thus advancing to the highest rank in his profession, and had gained the confidence and admiration of some of the best statesmen in England, his domestic position underwent a most beneficial change, the immediate cause of which was a visit paid to Lord Lansdowne. In his private Memoirs he thus speaks of a person whom he accidentally met on this occasion. “I saw in her the most beautiful and accomplished creature that ever blessed the sight and understanding of man. A most intelligent mind, an uncommonly correct judgment, a lively imagination, a cheerful disposition, a noble and generous way of thinking, an elevation and heroism of character, and a warmth and tenderness of affection, such as is rarely found even in her sex, were among her extraordinary endowments. I was captivated alike by the beauties of her person and the charms of her mind. A mutual attachment was formed between us, which at the end of little more than a year was consecrated by marriage. All the happiness I have known in her beloved society, all the many and exquisite enjoyments which my dear children have afforded me, even my extraordinary success in my profession, the labours of which, if my life had not been so cheered and exhilarated, I never could have undergone,— all are to be traced to this trivial cause.” The object of this beautiful eulogium was the eldest daughter of Mr Gar-bett of Knill Court in Herefordshire. His marriage with this lady took place in January 1798, when he had nearly completed his forty-first year.

He continued to be chiefly occupied in the discharge of his duties as a leader of the Chancery bar for several years, after which he united with these the other avocations that have given to his name so distinguished a place in the list of British statesmen. In the autumn of 1805 he had received from the Prince of Wales the offer of a seat in parliament, which he declined upon grounds strongly marking his sturdy independence of character. These reasons were the same which, many years before, had made him interfere to prevent a similar offer from being addressed to him by Lord [7:19:438]Lansdowne. He said that, notwithstanding the declaration made, in both cases, of his being totally unfettered, yet he never could feel real independence while he thus held his place in the Commons by favour; and, he adds, “I formed to myself an unalterable resolution, never, unless I held a public office, to come into parliament but by a popular election, or by paying the common price for my seat. As to the first of these, I knew, of course, that I must never look for it; and as for the latter, I determined to wait till the labours of my profession should have enabled me to accomplish it without being guilty of any great extravagance.” He was soon rewarded for the scrupulous feeling of honour which had thus forced him to decline a place, that held out to him, as he confesses, very strong temptations.

In February 1806, he was appointed Solicitor General under the government of Mr Fox and Lord Grenville, with neither of whom had he previously any connexion. He was obliged, much against his will, to accept the honour of knighthood, and was elected to represent the borough of Qncenborough, accepting this seat, without scruple, from the government. “If I had come in,” says he, “as a private individual, I would not have accepted a seat from any body; but as long as I hold the office to which I have been appointed, I must support the administration. As soon as they appear to me unworthy to be supported, it will be my duty to resign.” Of the public life which commenced under these auspices, and was prematurely brought to a close in thirteen years, Sir Samuel Romilly kept a minute and faithful diary, the contents of which have lately been made known to the world. No existing record of a political career presents a purer picture than does this ;—the history of a course of public conduct directed invariably by those qualities of mind and heart which we have, even in this hasty sketch, seen to have guided the earlier years spent in his family and in his profession. It is impossible to embrace, within these limits, so much as a catalogue of the parliamentary measures in which he took a share, in the way of inciting others to action, in the way of himself acting and speaking and writing in favour of reforms in the laws and constitution, in the way of resisting encroachments on public rights or on just economical principles. And if a selection were to be attempted of a few of his principal public acts, that selection could not be made without omitting many which, in particular views, might be considered more important than those that would be specified.

But the design which lay closest to Romilly’s heart, and occupied most of the energies of his capacious intellect, was the amelioration of the law of England, especially in its criminal sections. For such plans his official duties, added to those of his profession and of his place in parliament, allowed him at first no leisure; but from some of these trammels he was speedily released, by the fall of the Whig ministry in March 1807. In the new parliament he was returned for Horsham, on the Duke of Norfolk’s interest, engaging to pay L.2000 for his seat if he should be able to keep it in spite of a petition, which was expected to be presented in consequence of doubts entertained as to the qualification of many of the voters. The petition proved successful, and his next election was made on terms equally characteristic. A seat was offered him for Warcham, for which, although L.3000 were demanded, he was asked to pay but L.2000, the remaining L.1000 being promised from a fund subscribed for extraordinary purposes by the leaders of the opposition. Romilly peremptorily refused to be indebted even to the public men with whom he systematically acted. He accepted the seat, but paid the whole price himself.

He now occupied a very prominent position in parliament. The eyes of the most liberally organized constituencies in the country were directed towards him; and in 1811, when a dissolution was impending, it was proposed in several such places to put him up as a candidate. For Liverpool, which was one of these, he at once refused to stand, on account of the disturbances which the contest was sure to occasion. In regard to the county of Middlesex, a negotiation was attempted by Major Cartwright, which was frustrated by Sir Samuel’s flatly refusing to give, before his nomination, a pledge in favour of annual parliaments, and of such reform as should make the suffrage co-extensive with the taxation. He however accepted a requisition from Bristol, but was defeated by a coalition between the Tories and a section of the Whigs. He then obtained a seat for Arundel, on the interest of the Duke of Norfolk, an assurance of perfect independence being given him by the patron, but no price being paid on this occasion. Romilly’s justification of his change of views is very briefly stated in his diary. His known course in parliament protected him, as he thought, from being either required by his patron to be subservient, or suspected by the public of really being so; and therefore he could safely do that which, by a change of the law, it had now become necessary for him to do if he wished for a seat at all. “Since Curwen’s bill,” says he, “has declared illegal the purchase of seats in the manner which was formerly practised, there is no choice for a person like myself, but to come into parliament upon such an offer as is now made me, or to decline parliament altogether. And I cannot think that it is my duty to decline it.” This seat Romilly held till the dissolution in 1818, when he accepted a requisition from electors in Westminster, upon which a severe contest ensued. One of the two vacant seats was considered as sure for Sir Francis Burdett; the return of Romilly for the other was opposed not only by a ministerial candidate, but by Hunt, Cartwright, and Douglas Kinnaird. Romilly and Burdett were returned, the former standing at the head of the poll from its opening till its close.

The results to which this great victory was expected to have led, were unfortunately never realized. Romilly had a constitutional tendency to hypochondria, or at least to lowness of spirits, which his continual labour both of body and mind prevented for years from reaching a dangerous height, although perhaps this very labour it was, that at length caused the overwrought organism to fall suddenly to pieces. The health of his wife, whom he idolized rather than loved, had for some time caused him serious uneasiness: she became alarmingly unwell. Soon after his election for Westminster, on the 10th of October, he closed abruptly those brief notices of her illness which had lately been the only entries in his diary; and on the 29th of that month she died at Cowes. Her husband travelled to town, labouring, during his journey, or at any rate after it, under an inflammatory fever; and in one of its paroxysms he put an end to his existence, three days after the death of his wife. He died on the 2d of November 1818, when he had nearly completed the sixty-second year of his age.

The public character of Sir Samuel Romilly would be best drawn by a few warm and vigorous strokes, all of which, with no exception worth noticing, would convey images of distinguished excellence. These traits would exhibit his manly and ratiocinative oratory, lighted up into eloquence by the fervour of his moral sense,—the consummate capacity, integrity, and knowledge of the law, and the comprehensive and philanthropic views of legislation, which made it a national misfortune for England that he never became one of her chancellors,—that antique spirit of mental independence, which bowed to the demands of no man, and of no party, not even his own, unless his conscience told him that those demands were just. And these virtues of the statesman and the jurisconsult, which, by their stern majesty, commanded from those that viewed them at a distance an awe not altogether unmingled with fear, were tempered in private life by the warmest and kindest feeling, by the most felicitous union of public labours with personal accomplishments.
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His private Memoirs and Diaries, with a selection from his correspondence and other papers, were published by his sons in 1840, in two volumes octavo. An Eloge, by M. Constant, was published at Paris in 1819. (b. l.)