Old age was now coming on Lord Hardwicke, and with it the painful accompaniment of the loss of his old and intimate associates through public and private life; his own public career, too, was come to its close. In 1756 the Newcastle ministry was succeeded by that of the celebrated William Pitt, (Lord Chatham,) and Lord Hardwicke resigned the Great Seal. The note in his private journal states, “19th November 1756, resigned the Great Seal voluntarily into his Majesty’s hands at St James’s, after I had held it nineteen years, eight months, and ten days.” All authorities since his day appear to have agreed in giving the highest tribute to this distinguished man. His character in the _Annual Register_ says, “In judicature, his firmness and dignity were evidently derived from his consummate knowledge and talents; and the mildness and humanity which tempered it from the best heart.... His extraordinary despatch of the business of the court, increased as it was in his time beyond what had been known in any former, on account of his established reputation there, and the extension of the commerce and riches of the nation, was an advantage to the suitor, inferior only to that arising from the acknowledged equity, perspicuity, and precision of his decrees.... The manner in which he presided in the House of Lords added order and dignity to that assembly.” Lord Campbell, in his late “Lives of the Chancellors,” characterises Lord Hardwicke as “the man universally and deservedly considered the most consummate judge who _ever sat_ in the Court of Chancery.” An instance of his grace of manner even in rebuke, amply deserves to be recorded. A cause was argued in Chancery, in which a grandson of Oliver Cromwell, and bearing the same name, was a party. The opposing counsel began to cast some reflections on the memory of his eminent ancestor; on which the Chancellor quietly said, “I observe Mr Cromwell standing outside the bar, inconveniently pressed by the crowd; make way for him, that he may _sit by me on the Bench_.” This had the effect of silencing the sarcasms of the advocate. Lord Hardwicke seems to have excited a professional deference for his legal conduct and abilities, which at this distance of time it is difficult even to imagine. But the highest names of the Bar seem to have exhausted language in his panegyric. Lord Mansfield thus spoke of him on being requested by a lawyer to give him materials for his biography. The answer is worth retaining for every reason.