Born at London, March 1, 1757: committed suicide Nov. 2, 1818. An English lawyer and philanthropist, of Huguenot descent. At 21 years of age he entered Gray’s Inn. In 1806 he was appointed solicitor-general of the Grenville administration. He is famous from his labors for the reform of the criminal law, commencing in 1807. His plans were not realized during his lifetime. His speeches were published in 1820, and his autobiography in 1840.

Personal

  In person, Sir Samuel Romilly was tall and justly proportioned, with a countenance regular and pleasing; but tinged with deep shades of thought, and susceptible of the greatest or tenderest emotions. His manners were distinguished by singular modesty, unaffected simplicity, and the kindest attention and regard to the wishes and feelings of others. His habits were temperate, studious, and domestic. No man ever indulged less in those pursuits which the world calls pleasure. He rose regularly at six o’clock; and was occupied, during the greater part of the day, and frequently to a late hour at night, either in study or laborious attendance to his professional and parliamentary duties. What little intervals of leisure could be snatched from his toils he anxiously devoted to domestic intercourse and enjoyments. Moderate in his own expences, he was generous, without ostentation, to the want of others; and the exquisite sensibility of his nature was never more strikingly displayed than in the fervent zeal with which his professional knowledge was always ready to be exerted for the destitute and oppressed, for those who might seem, in their poverty, to have been left without a friend. Even to the last, when sinking under the weight of domestic affliction, when anticipating as its probable result a wretched life of mental malady and darkness, he was still intent on the welfare and happiness of those around him. The religion of Sir Samuel Romilly was, like his life, pure, fervent, and enlightened. Unclouded by superstition or intolerance, it shone forth in pious gratitude to God, and in charity to all mankind.

  Sir Samuel Romilly was a very effective speaker on the topics which he handled: he was a most acute reasoner,—of extraordinary penetration and subtlety,—with occasional appeals to sentiment, and addresses to the heart; but still his manner was strictly professional (which is never a popular manner in parliament), and it had also something of a Puritan tone, which, with a grave, warm, pallid, puritanic visage and attitude, took off from the impression of a perfect orator, though it never operated to diminish the great attention and respect with which he was heard. The veneration for his character, the admiration of him as a profound lawyer, the confidence in the integrity of his principles, and his enlightened, as well as conscientious study of the principles of the constitution of his country, procured for all he said the most submissive attention; and they who thought him in politics a stern and bigoted republican, whose opinions were uncongenial to the mixed government of Great Britain, and therefore dissented toto corde from his positions, deductions, and general views of legislation and of state, never dared to treat lightly whatever came from his lips. He had a cold reserved manner, which repelled intimacy and familiarity; and, therefore, whatever he did, he did by his own sole strength.

  He was, in the highest sense of the word, a philanthropist, loving mankind with wise and constant affection, not misled by any false sensibility, yet trembling alive to their best and truest interests. Without displacing for a moment the beautiful affections of domestic life, the welfare of his fellow creatures ever lay next to the heart of Sir Samuel Romilly; and the feelings which in weaker and meaner minds extend only round the small circle which blood or friendship draws, were in him diffused with undiminished warmth over the wide orbit of human existence.

  It is fit that no occasion on which Sir Samuel Romilly is named should ever be passed over without an attempt to record the virtues and endowments of so great and so good a man, for the instruction of after-ages. Few persons have ever attained celebrity of name and exalted station, in any country, or in any age, with such unsullied purity of character, as this equally eminent and excellent person.

  There are circumstances in Sir Samuel’s history that render the state of his mind on the subject of religion so important—particularly as the editors profess to publish this work for the purposes of “example and instruction”—that we feel ourselves reluctantly obliged to say that, with our best diligence, we have not been able to discover throughout these volumes—his own share written, he says, for the instruction of his children—any distinct evidence that he was a Christian though there is abundant proof that he was a man of the kindest social and domestic feelings, and of the purest morality, that he believed in a future state of retribution, and had a full and well-reasoned conviction of the existence and transcendent attributes of the Deity…. In all other respects we willingly offer our testimony—valeat quantum—to his great talents, large acquirements, and deserved success—to his social and domestic virtues—to his integrity, benevolence, and honour—and, in short, to the most essential qualities that constitute the character of a virtuous man.

Speeches

  As Saturday drew near, my anxiety for Romilly’s first public appearance had swallowed up every other concern…. Romilly’s success was as great as his friends predicted. He spoke for three hours and a half, and his speech might be named as the model of the simple style…. The fact is, he kept every one chained in attention, and made the whole case (impeachment of Lord Melville) distinct to the dullest.

  From the tenderness of his feelings, and from an anger never roused but by cruelty and baseness, as much as from his genius and his pure taste, sprung that original and characteristic eloquence which was the hope of the afflicted as well as the terror of the oppressor. If his oratory had not flowed so largely from this moral source, which years do not dry up, he would not perhaps have been the only example of an orator who, after the age of sixty, daily increased in polish, in vigour, and in splendour.

  As a speaker, Romilly habitually addressed himself rather to the reason than the passions, though he by no means lacked eloquence. He marshalled his premises, and deduced his conclusions with mathematical precision, and his diction was as chaste as his logic was cogent. The unerring instinct with which he detected and the unfailing felicity with which he exposed a fallacy, united to no small powers of sarcasm and invective, made him formidable in reply, while the effect of his easy and impressive elocution was enhanced by a tall and graceful figure, a melodious voice, and features of classical regularity. As an adept not only in the art of the advocate, but in the whole mystery of law and equity, he was without a superior, perhaps without a rival, in his day. He was also throughout life a voracious and omnivorous reader, and seized and retained the substance of what he read with unusual rapidity and tenacity. He was an indefatigable worker, rising very early and going to bed late. His favourite relaxation was a long walk. From intensity of conviction, aided perhaps by the melancholy of his temperament, he carried political antagonism to extreme lengths, even to the abandonment of a friendship with Perceval, which had been formed on circuit, and cemented by constant and confidential intercourse.

General

  A charm, too, is spread over the whole work, and it leaves in the mind a feeling of affection for the author; and this because he displays himself without pretention, and because the picture he draws relates only to those moral feelings, those private virtues, which every one can imitate, and to that domestic life, the happiness of which, as it is derived from the purest and most amiable feelings, creates jealousy in the breast of no one. Mere men of the world will probably disbelieve it: in their eyes it will appear a romance, but one that will not offend them; and, by the middling ranks, the most numerous class of society, these memoirs will be read with the same feeling as that which dictated their composition…. To me, these Memoirs appear a precious monument: and when I reflect that this laborious undertaking was the work of a man always occupied to the utmost extent, who gave up to it, as well as to all his legislative labours, that time from whence he might have derived very considerable professional advantages, it seems to me that it cannot fail to produce a lasting effect upon those who know how to profit by a great example, and to reflect upon what may be done with life by him who chooses to employ it.

  Romilly is one of the few lawyers who have left any thing like an autobiography. His sketch of his life is slight, designed only for his children, but suffices to disclose his modesty, his candor, his sincerity, his self-scrutiny and the purity of his motives…. It has always been conceded that Romilly was the leader of the equity bar in his day…. Romilly’s fame mainly depends on his efforts to reform the criminal code.

  At this period of his life, Romilly’s ambition was to follow his profession just as far as was necessary for his subsistence, and to aspire to fame by his literary pursuits. Accordingly, he began to exercise himself in prose composition, and, judging translation to be the most useful exercise for forming a style, he rendered into English the finest models of writing that the Latin language afforded. With the same view of improving his style, he read and studied the best English writers—Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Robertson, and Hume—noting down every peculiar propriety and happiness of expression which he met with, and which he was conscious he would not have used himself. Romilly’s method of improving himself in English composition bears a very close resemblance to that adopted by Buckle, the historian.