[Footnote 104: [Sir Herbert Jenner, then Dean of the Arches, had given judgement against Mr. Gorham, who was the promoter of the 'Duplex Querela' for institution to the living of Brampford Speke, which was the commencement of these celebrated proceedings.]] [Footnote 105: [Dr. Sumner was then Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Musgrave, Archbishop of York; Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London.]] [Sidenote: OPINIONS ON THE GORHAM CASE.] [Sidenote: DEATH OF LORD ALVANLEY.] _January 23rd._--If I had not been too lazy to write about anybody or anything, I should not have suffered the death of Lord Alvanley to pass without some notice. The world, however, has no time to think of people who are out of its sight, and a long illness which had confined him entirely, and limited his society to a few old friends, caused him to be forgotten, and his departure out of life to be almost unobserved. There was a time when it would have been very different, during those many years when his constant spirits and good humour, together with his marvellous wit and drollery, made him the delight and ornament of society. I know no description of him so appropriate as the character of Biron in 'Love's Labour's Lost':-- ...A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal: His eye begets occasion for his wit, For every object that the one doth catch The other turns to a mirth-moving jest, Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor) Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse.