In a few weeks he may be dismissed from office, and may find that he has lost a lucrative profession, that he has got nothing but a costly dignity, that he has been transformed from a prosperous barrister into a mendicant lord.

Such a risk no wise man will run.

If, therefore, the state is to be well served in the highest civil post, it is absolutely necessary that a provision should be made for retired Chancellors.

The Sovereign is now empowered by Act of Parliament to make such a provision out of the public revenue.

In old times such a provision was ordinarily made out of the hereditary domain of the Crown.