Eldon had worked his way laboriously from the very foot to the topmost rung of the legal ladder. It was his own early experiences that inspired him to say that nothing did a young lawyer so much good as to be half-starved. And in action as well as in word he always maintained that the only road to success at the Bar was "to live like a hermit, and work like a horse." He was in many ways an original character. He always wore his Chancellor's wig in society, and was otherwise unconventional. One day, after reading much of "Paradise Lost," he was asked what he thought of Milton's "Satan." "A d----d fine fellow," he replied; "I hope he may win." In spite of this view, however, he was an extremely religious man, though he did not attend divine service regularly. Indeed, when some one referred to him as a "pillar of the church," he demurred, saying that he might justly be called a _buttress_ but not a pillar of the church, since he was never to be found inside it. He is probably the most typical Tory of the old school that can be found in political history. His conservatism was of an almost incredibly standstill and reactionary character. As Walter Bagehot said of him in a famous passage, he believed in everything which it is impossible to believe in--"in the danger of Parliamentary Reform, the danger of Catholic Emancipation, the danger of altering the Court of Chancery, the danger of altering the Courts of Law, the danger of abolishing capital punishment for trivial thefts, the danger of making landowners pay their debts, the danger of making anything more, the danger of making anything less."[172] [172] Bagehot's "Literary Studies," vol. i. p. 150. Though on political questions Eldon could make up his mind quickly enough, on the bench the extreme deliberation with which he gave judicial decisions was the subject of endless complaints. He agreed with Lord Bacon that "whosoever is not wiser upon advice than upon the sudden, the same man is not wiser at fifty than he was at thirty."[173] His perpetual hesitation in Court, the outcome of an intense desire to be scrupulously just, gave rise to attacks both in Parliament and the press.[174] [173] Like Lord Bacon, too, he compiled an indifferent "Anecdote Book." Bacon's "Collection of Apothegms," was supposed to have been taken down from his dictation all on "one rainy day," but neither the brevity of the time nor the inclemency of the weather is a sufficient excuse for so poor a production. [174] These occasionally took the form of lampoons in verse, such as the following:-- THE DERIVATION OF CHANCELLOR "The Chancellor, so says Lord Coke, His _title_ from Cancello took; And ev'ry cause before him tried It was his duty to _decide_. Lord Eldon, hesitating ever, Takes it from Chanceler, to _waver_, And thinks, as this may bear him out, His bounden duty is to _doubt_." Pryme's "Recollections," p. 111. [Illustration: LORD ELDON