[223] John Lee, or, as he was usually termed, “honest Jack Lee,” was a sound lawyer, and for many years had the lead on the Northern Circuit, where his practice was very considerable. He excelled, Lord Eldon has recorded, in cross-examination. A brief blunt way of expressing himself, much originality, and frequent sallies of a wit, which, though not of an elevated character, was very amusing, gave him a short-lived celebrity. He was appointed Solicitor-General by the Coalition. In the great debate of the 17th Feb. 1783, on Lord Shelburne’s Peace, he took a prominent and not very judicious part. He succeeded Wallace as Attorney-General in the March following; and in April 1793, he died at Staindrop, in the county of Durham--leaving, it was said, a great estate.--E.
[224] Mr. Grenville cited from Blackstone’s Commentaries B. C. the passage enumerating the nine cases of disqualification (of which cases expulsion was not one), and ending--“but subject to the standing restrictions and disqualifications, every subject is eligible of common right.” In the editions, _subsequent to Wilkes’s_ case, the sentence goes on, “though there are instances where persons, in particular circumstances, have forfeited that common right and been declared ineligible for that Parliament by a vote of the House of Commons, or for ever by an Act of the Legislature.” (Commons’ Journal, 17th Feb. 1769.)--This difference in the two editions, led to the favourite toast at political meetings of “The first edition of Doctor Blackstone’s Commentaries.” Mr. Grenville’s speech is given by Cavendish, vol. i., where, however, it is not so severe or powerful as the accounts of it in Walpole and Junius (Letter xviii.) would lead one to expect.--E.
[225] The Cardinal was drawn from the obscurity in which he had lived since his disgrace in 1758, for the purpose of this mission. He continued Ambassador at Rome until his death, in 1794, in his eighty-fifth year. A memoir of him, by the Abbé Feletz, of the French Academy, forms one of the best-written articles in the Biographie Universelle. It would be more valuable if it were less of an éloge. The Cardinal judged wisely in opposing the Austrian alliance: but like other French statesmen, he took care to make his opposition subservient to his interest. Indeed there is little either in his moral or political conduct to deserve commendation until he was securely settled at Rome. He owed his elevation entirely to Madame de Pompadour, whose favour he had earned by betraying to her the King’s intrigue with Madame de Choiseul--a secret with which that lady had imprudently intrusted him.--(See more of him in the Memoires de Duclos, vol. ii. p. 172; Lacretelle’s Histoire de France, vol. iii. p. 161.)--E.