It was unfair; he would not answer interrogatories. The reply was a signal for relentless torment. Not a peer interposed on his behalf. Distressed by his misery, Lord Mansfield sat down, remained still, and in sheer pity for their prey the dogs were called off. In 1778 Lord Chatham died, and from the departure of the great commoner until his own decease Lord Mansfield occupied a more conspicuous place as a judge than as a politician in the public eye. He continued to display upon the bench, as heretofore, the keenest perception, a resolute obedience to the dictates of justice, high incorruptibility, great learning, and thorough self-devotion to his beloved and chosen occupation. He has been largely accused of favoring, in his early manhood, the designs of the Pretender, yet, from the beginning to the close of his public life, his fidelity to the reigning family could not be called in question. He has been charged with gratifying prerogative at the expense of law, yet the liberty of the law was never more perfect, the rights of the subject were never more secure, than during his long tenure of the judicial office. He has been stigmatized by Junius as an oppressor of men's consciences, yet no man of his time regulated his conduct with a stricter regard to the humanizing principle of religious toleration. Had Lord Mansfield been faithless to the people his death would never have been regarded as an irreparable loss by the whole country; had he been a bigot, the world would never have lost the treasures which it is said were consumed in the house burnt to the ground by zealous Protestants eager to take the life as well as to destroy the goods of Lord Mansfield, for no other reason than that he chose to hold the scales of justice fairly and steadily between Protestant and Catholic. In his 82d year, having been absent scarcely a day from court, Lord Mansfield retired to Tunbridge Wells for the benefit of his health. The year following he resigned his office. For six years longer he lived in dignified retirement, occupying himself in his garden, or refreshing his mind with the works that had charmed and instructed his youth. To the last he retained his memory, and, dying without a pain at the close of the century, the man who had spent his happiest evenings with Pope was destined to listen to all the horrors of the French Revolution, in common with thousands living at the present hour. Lord Mansfield's death was mourned as a national calamity; his remains were deposited in Westminster Abbey, and they lie close to those of the Earl of Chatham. After the stormy conflict of a glorious life, the two schoolboy rivals lie side by side in silent and everlasting repose.