Unlike his father, who never sinned against moderation in his cups, Charles Yorke was a deep drinker as well as a gourmand. Hardwicke's successor, Lord Northington, was the first of a line of port-wine-drinking judges that may at the present time be fairly said to have come to an end--although a few reverend fathers of the law yet remain, who drink with relish the Methuen drink when age has deprived it of body and strength. Until Robert Henley held the seals, Chancellors continued to hold after-dinner sittings in the Court of Chancery on certain days of the week throughout term. Hardwicke, throughout his long official career, sat on the evenings of Wednesdays and Fridays hearing causes, while men of pleasure were fuddling themselves with fruity vintages. Lord Northington, however, prevailed on George III. to let him discontinue these evening attendances in court. "But why," asked the monarch, "do you wish for a change?" "Sir," the Chancellor answered, with delightful frankness, "I want the change in order that I may finish my bottle of port at my ease; and your majesty, in your parental care for the happiness of your subjects, will, I trust, think this a sufficient reason." Of course the king's laughter ended in a favorable answer to the petition for reform, and from that time the Chancellor's evening sittings were discontinued. But ere he died, the jovial Chancellor paid the penalty which port exacts from all her fervent worshippers, and he suffered the acutest pangs of gout. It is recorded that as he limped from the woolsack to the bar of the House of Lords, he once muttered to a young peer, who watched his distress with evident sympathy--"Ah, my young friend, if I had known that these legs would one day carry a Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I was at your age." Unto this had come the handsome legs of young Counsellor Henley, who, in his dancing days, stepped minuets to the enthusiastic admiration of the _belles_ of Bath.