If the ex-chancellor was complimentary to Scott, it notoriously was not his habitual style; the fierceness of his tone was well known. His language of Loughborough, who succeeded him, was savagely contemptuous. On one occasion, when the latter was speaking with considerable effect on a subject on which Lord Thurlow had an adverse opinion, though he did not regard himself as sufficiently master of it for direct refutation, he was heard to mutter, "If I was not as lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well, I could kick that fellow Loughborough heels over head, any day in the week." Thurlow told the Prince that though Loughborough "had the gift of the gab in a marvellous degree, he was no lawyer;" and added, "in the house of Lords I get Kenyon or somebody to start some law doctrine, in such a manner that the, fellow _must_ get up to answer it, and then I leave the woolsack, and give him such a thump in his bread-basket that he cannot recover himself." The solicitor-general was now growing rich, and he purchased for L.22,000 the manor of Eldon, a property of about 1300 acres in the county of Durham. He was an "improving landlord," and for several years he expended the income of the estate on planting--which at once much increased its value, and added to the beauty of that part of the county of Durham. In 1793, he ascended another step in his profession, by his appointment to the great office of attorney-general, in succession to Sir Archibald Macdonald, who was made chief baron of the exchequer. The new attorney-general was soon summoned to the highest exercise of his abilities, his learning, and his courage; he commenced office in the midst of national convulsion.