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diff --git a/21214-h/21214-h.htm b/21214-h/21214-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0418b05 --- /dev/null +++ b/21214-h/21214-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2163 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick, by Frank Lockwood</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick, by Frank +Lockwood + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick + A Lecture + + +Author: Frank Lockwood + + + +Release Date: April 25, 2007 [eBook #21214] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAW AND LAWYERS OF PICKWICK*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1894 Roxburghe Press edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>The Law<br /> +and<br /> +Lawyers of Pickwick.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>A LECTURE</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">With an Original Drawing of +“Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Frank Lockwood</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">q.c. m.p.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span>:<br /> +<i>THE ROXBURGHE PRESS</i>,<br /> +<i>3</i>, <i>Victoria Street</i>, <i>Westminster</i>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">and</span><br /> +32, <span class="smcap">charing cross</span>, <span +class="smcap">s.w.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><!-- page 4--><a +name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>Uniform with +this Edition.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">CHARLES DICKENS’ HEROINES AND +WOMEN-FOLK:</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Some Thoughts Concerning Them.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +CHARLES F. RIDEAL.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>With an original Drawing of +Edith Dombey</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0.jpg"> +<img alt="Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz" src="images/p0.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>PREFATORY.</h2> +<p>At the request of my friend Lord Russell of Killowen, then +Attorney-General, I delivered this lecture at the Morley Hall, +Hackney, on December 13th, 1893. I had previously delivered +it in the city of York at the request of some of my +constituents. I feel that some apology is required for its +reproduction in a more permanent form, which apology I most +respectfully tender to all who may read this little book.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">F. L.</p> +<h2><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>THE LAW AND LAWYERS OF “PICKWICK.”</h2> +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Charles Russell</span>: I stand but +for a single instant between you and our friend, Mr. +Lockwood. He needs no introduction here; but I am sure I +may in your name bid him a hearty welcome.</p> +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Frank Lockwood</span>: Mr. +Attorney-General, Ladies and Gentlemen—It is some little +time ago that I was first asked whether I was prepared to deliver +a lecture. Now I am bound at the outset to confess to you +that lecturing has been and is very <!-- page 10--><a +name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>little in my +way. I spent some three years of my life at the University +in avoiding lectures. But it came about that in the +constituency which I have the honour to represent, it was +suggested to me that it was necessary for me to give a lecture, +and it was further explained to me that it did not really very +much matter as to what I lectured about. I am bound to say +there was a very great charm to me in the idea of lecturing my +constituents. I know it does sometimes occur that +constituents lecture their representatives, especially in +Scotland, and I was anxious, if I might, to have an opportunity +of lecturing those who had so many opportunities of reading, no +doubt very useful lectures to me. But the difficulty was to +find a subject. My own profession suggested itself to me +<!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>as a fit topic for a lecture, but unfortunately my +profession is not a popular one. I do not know how it is, +but you never find a lawyer introduced either into a play or into +a three-volume novel except for the purpose of exposing him as a +scoundrel in the one, and having him kicked in the third act in +the other. I do not know how it is, but so it is. All +the heroes of fiction either in the drama or in the novel are +found in the ranks—no, not in the ranks of the army, but in +the officers of the army, or in the clergy. It is so in +novels, it is so in dramas; Mr. Attorney-General, I believe it is +so in real life.</p> +<p>And so, looking about for a subject, being reminded, as I was, +that the subject of the law was unpopular, I turned—as I +have often done in the hour of trouble—I turned to my <!-- +page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>Dickens, and there I found that at any rate in Dickens +we have a great literary man who has been impartial in his +treatment of lawyers. He has seen both the good and the bad +in them, and it occurred to me that my lecture might take the +form of dealing with the lawyers of Dickens. I soon found +that was too great a subject to be dealt with within the short +space which could be accorded to any reasonable lecturer by any +reasonable audience. I found that the novels of Dickens +abounded with lawyers, to use a perhaps apt expression. +Having regard to my profession, they fairly bristled with them, +and so I determined to take the lawyers of one of his books; and +I chose as that book “Pickwick”; and I chose as my +title “The Law and the Lawyers of +‘Pickwick.’”</p> +<p><!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>Ladies and gentlemen, it is an extraordinary thing when +we look at this book, when we reflect that it contains within its +pages no less than three hundred and sixty characters, all drawn +vividly and sharply, all expressing different phases of human +thought, and of human life, and every one of them original; when +we reflect that that book was written by a young man of +twenty-three years of age. In that book I found that he +portrayed with life-like fidelity constables, sheriffs’ +officers, beadles, ushers, clerks, solicitors, barristers, and +last, but by no means least, a judge. Every incident of the +early life of this great author bore fruit in his writings. +No portion of his struggles and experiences seemed to have made a +deeper impress on him than did those early days, as he said <!-- +page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>himself in the character of David +Copperfield:—</p> +<blockquote><p>If it should appear from anything I may set down +in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or +that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I +undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His first introduction to the terrors of the law was an +unspeakably sad one—sad, indeed, to his affectionate and +imaginative nature. “I know,” he writes, +“that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker, that +very often we had not too much for dinner, and that at last my +father was arrested.” He never forgot—how could +he, knowing what we know the lad to have been?—often +carrying messages to the dismal Marshalsea. “I really +believed,” he wrote, “that <!-- page 15--><a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>they had +broken my heart.” His first visit to his father he +thus describes:—</p> +<blockquote><p>My father was waiting for me in the lodge, and we +went up to his room (on the top story but one), and cried very +much. And he told me, I remember, to take warning by the +Marshalsea, and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year +and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he +would be happy, but that a shilling spent the other way would +make him wretched. I see the fire we sat before now, with +two bricks inside the rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent +its burning too many coals. Some other debtor shared the +room with him, who came in by-and-by; and as the dinner was a +joint stock repast I was sent up to “Captain Porter” +in the room overhead, with Mr. Dickens’s compliments, and I +was his son, and could he, Captain P., lend me a knife and +fork?</p> +<p>Captain Porter lent the knife and fork, <!-- page 16--><a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>with his +compliments in return. There was a very dirty lady in his +room, and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of +hair. I thought I should not have liked to borrow Captain +Porter’s comb. The Captain himself was in the last +extremity of shabbiness; and if I could draw at all, I would draw +an accurate portrait of the old, old, brown great-coat he wore, +with no other coat below it. His whiskers were large. +I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates, and dishes, +and pots he had on a shelf; and I knew (God knows how!) that the +two girls with the shock heads were Captain Porter’s +natural children, and that the dirty lady was not married to +Captain P. My timid, wondering station on his threshold was +not occupied more than a couple of minutes, I daresay; but I came +down to the room below with all this as surely in my knowledge as +the knife and fork were in my hand.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>When the stern necessities of the situation required the +detention of Mr. Pickwick in the old Fleet Prison, we have +produced a lifelike representation of the debtors’ gaol; +and I believe that the reforms which have made such an +institution a thing of the past are in a great part owing to the +vivid recollection which enabled him to point to the horrors and +injustice which were practised in the sacred name of law.</p> +<p>At the age of fifteen we find Dickens a bright, clever-looking +youth in the office of Mr. Edward Blackmore, attorney-at-law in +Gray’s Inn, earning at first 13<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. a week, +afterwards advanced to 15<i>s</i>. Eighteen months’ +experience of this sort enabled him in the pages of Pickwick thus +to describe lawyers’ clerks:—</p> +<blockquote><p>There are several grades of lawyers’ <!-- +page 18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>clerks. There is the articled clerk, who has paid +a premium, and is an attorney in perspective, who runs a +tailor’s bill, receives invitations to parties, knows a +family in Gower Street, and another in Tavistock Square; who goes +out of town every Long Vacation to see his father, who keeps live +horses innumerable; and who is, in short, the very aristocrat of +clerks. There is the salaried clerk—out of door, or +in door, as the case may be—who devotes the major part of +his thirty shillings a week to his personal pleasure and +adornment, repairs half-price to the Adelphi Theatre at least +three times a week, dissipates majestically at the cider cellars +afterwards, and is a dirty caricature of the fashion which +expired six months ago. There is the middle-aged copying +clerk, with a large family, who is always shabby, and often +drunk. And there are the office lads in their first +surtouts, who feel a befitting contempt for boys at day-schools; +club as they go home <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>at night for saveloys and porter: and +think there’s nothing like “life.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I fancy Dickens never rose above the status of office boy, and +probably as such wore his first surtout. We hear of him +reporting later in the Lord Chancellor’s Court, probably +for some daily paper; but beyond the exception which I shall +mention presently, we have no record of his taking an active and +direct part in any of those mysterious rites that go to make up +our legal procedure.</p> +<p>Upon this question of the opportunities he had for knowing in +what way a lawyer is trained, I must here acknowledge the debt of +gratitude that I am under to my very good friend Mr. Henry +Fielding Dickens, one of her Majesty’s Counsel; and how +rejoiced, Mr. Attorney-General, would that father have been had +he <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>been able to see the position which his son has won for +himself. He wrote to me a long and kind letter, in which he +gave me further information as to his father’s opportunity +for observing lawyers and their mode of living, and he told me +that which I did not know before, and which I think but few +people knew before, namely, that his father had kept a term or +two at one of the Inns of Court. He had eaten the five or +six dinners which is part of the necessary legal education for a +barrister; and he had suffered in consequence the usual pangs of +indigestion. But it is not to that that I wish to allude +to-night. Dickens did that which I venture to think but few +have done; for, giving up all idea of pursuing a legal education, +and finding that the dinners did not agree with him, he <!-- page +21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>got +back from the Inns of Court some of the money which he had +deposited at that Inn. You are all familiar with the +process which is known as getting butter out of a dog’s +mouth; I venture to think that that is an easy thing compared +with getting money back from an Inn of Court.</p> +<p>But that is not all that Mr. Dickens told me. He wrote +down for me an experience his father once had with the family +solicitor, which, I think, is worth your hearing. “My +father’s solicitor, Mr. Ouvry,” he says, “was a +very well-known man, a thorough man of the world, and one in +whose breast reposed many of the secrets of the principal +families of England. On one occasion my father was in +treaty for a piece of land at the back of Gad’s Hill, and +it was proposed that there should be an interview with the owner, +<!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>a farmer, a very acute man of business, and a very hard +nut to crack. It was arranged that the interview with him +should be at Gad’s Hill, and the solicitor came down for +the purpose. My father and Ouvry were sitting over their +wine when the old man was announced. ‘We had better +go in to him,’ said my father. ‘No, no,’ +said the astute lawyer. ‘John,’ said he, +turning to the butler, ‘show him into the study, and take +him a bottle of the old port.’ Then turning to my +father, ‘A glass of port will do him good; it will soften +him.’ After waiting about twenty minutes they went +into the study; the farmer was sitting bolt upright in an +arm-chair, stern and uncompromising; the bottle of port had not +been touched. Negotiations then proceeded very much in +favour of the farmer, and a <!-- page 23--><a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>bargain was +struck. The old man then proceeded to turn his attention to +the port, and in a very few minutes he had finished the +bottle.”</p> +<p>Mr. Dickens also told me of his father’s knowledge of +the legal profession, and of the distinguished members of +it. Though not himself, he writes, of the legal profession, +my father was very fond of lawyers. He numbered among his +intimate friends Lord Denman, Lord Campbell, Mr. Justice +Talfourd, Chief Justice Crockford; in fact, it is difficult to +name any eminent lawyer who could not claim acquaintance, at any +rate, with our great author. And he tells me, too, an +anecdote relating to a distinguished lawyer of the present +day—Sir Henry Hawkins. We nearly lost that great man, +I think about the year 1851, on the occasion of some theatricals +at <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>Knebworth. The play was <i>Every Man in his +Humour</i>, and Frank Stone, the artist, father of Mr. Marcus +Stone, R.A., was allowed to play a part with a sword. +(Those of you who have had any experience of theatrical matters +know how dangerous it is to trust a sword to an amateur.) +He came up flourishing the sword, and if Mr. Hawkins had not +ducked we should have lost that eminent man; but he did it just +in time.</p> +<p>Before I introduce you to the types of the judge, the counsel, +the solicitors, let me say something to you of the district in +which lawyers live, or rather in Dickens’s time lived, and +still do congregate. From Gray’s Inn in the north to +the Temple in the south, from New Inn and Clement’s Inn in +the west to Barnard’s Inn in the east. <!-- page +25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>I +once lived myself in Clement’s Inn, and heard the chimes +go, too; and I remember one day I sat in my little room very near +the sky (I do not know why it is that poverty always gets as near +the sky as possible; but I should think it is because the general +idea is that there is more sympathy in heaven than elsewhere), +and as I sat there a knock came at the door, and the head of the +porter of Clement’s Inn presented itself to me. It +was the first of January, and he gravely gave me an orange and a +lemon. He had a basketful on his arm. I asked for +some explanation. The only information forthcoming was that +from time immemorial every tenant on New Year’s Day was +presented with an orange and a lemon, and that I was expected, +and that every tenant was expected, to <!-- page 26--><a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>give +half-a-crown to the porter. Further inquiries from the +steward gave me this explanation, that in old days when the river +was not used merely as a sewer, the fruit was brought up in +barges and boats to the steps from below the bridge and carried +by porters through the Inn to Clare Market. Toll was at +first charged, and this toll was divided among the tenants whose +convenience was interfered with; hence the old lines beginning +“Oranges and lemons said the bells of St. +Clement’s.” I have often wondered whether the +rest of the old catch had reason as well as rhyme.</p> +<p>Dickens loved the old Inns and squares. Traddles lived +in Gray’s Inn: Traddles who was in love with “the +dearest girl in the world”; Tom Pinch and his sister used +to <!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>meet near the fountain in the Middle Temple; Sir John +Chester had rooms in Paper Buildings; Pip lived in Garden Court +at the time of the collapse of Great Expectations; Mortimer +Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn had their queer domestic +partnership in the Temple. The scene of the murderous plot +in “Hunted Down” is also laid in the Temple, +“at the top of a lonely corner house overlooking the +river,” probably the end house of King’s Bench +Walk. Mr. Grewgious, Herbert Pocket, and Joe Gargery are +associated with Staple Inn and Barnard’s Inn.</p> +<p>Lincoln’s Inn has not been forgotten; for though Mr. +Tulkinghorn lived in the Fields, yet Serjeant Snubbin was to be +found in Lincoln’s Inn Old Square.</p> +<p>I never could understand why <!-- page 28--><a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>Dickens +located the Serjeant in the realms of Equity; but what should +interest us more to-night is the fact that the greater part of +“Pickwick” was written in Furnival’s Inn, +which, as Dickens describes it, was “a shady, quiet place +echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers there, and rather +monotonous and gloomy on summer evenings.”</p> +<p>But to know the Inns as Dickens knew them, let us accompany +Mr. Pickwick to the Magpie and Stump in search of Mr. Lowten, Mr. +Perker’s clerk.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Is Mr. Lowten here, ma’am?” +inquired Mr. Pickwick.</p> +<p>“Yes, he is, sir,” replied the landlady. +“Here, Charley, show the gentleman in to Mr. +Lowten.”</p> +<p>“The gen’lm’n can’t go in just +now,” said a shambling pot-boy, with a red head, <!-- page +29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>“’cos Mr. Lowten’s singin’ a +comic song, and he’ll put him out. He’ll be +done d’rectly, sir.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Well, you know, respectable solicitors (clerks) don’t +sing comic songs at public houses nowadays, but that is how Mr. +Pickwick found Mr. Lowten.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Would you like to join us?” said Mr. +Lowten, when at length he had finished his comic song and been +introduced to Mr. Pickwick. And I am very glad that Mr. +Pickwick did join them, as he heard something of the old Inns +from old Jack Bamber.</p> +<p>“I have been to-night, gentlemen,” said Mr. +Pickwick, hoping to start a subject which all the company could +take a part in discussing—“I have been to-night in a +place which you all know very well, doubtless, but which I have +not been in for some years, and know very little of; I mean <!-- +page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +30</span>Gray’s Inn, gentlemen. Curious little nooks +in a great place, like London, these old Inns are.”</p> +<p>“By Jove!” said the chairman, whispering across +the table to Mr. Pickwick, “you have hit upon something +that one of us, at least, would talk upon for ever. +You’ll draw old Jack Bamber out; he was never heard to talk +about anything else but the Inns, and he has lived alone in them +till he’s half crazy.”</p> +<p>“Aha!” said the old man, a brief description of +whose manner and appearance concluded the last chapter, +“aha! who was talking about the Inns?”</p> +<p>“I was, sir,” replied Mr. Pickwick; “I was +observing what singular old places they are.”</p> +<p>“<i>You</i>!” said the old man, +contemptuously. “What do <i>you</i> know of the time +when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and read +and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till <!-- page +31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>their +reason wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental +powers were exhausted: till morning’s light brought no +freshness or health to them; and they sank beneath the unnatural +devotion of their youthful energies to their dry old books? +Coming down to a later time, and a very different day, what do +<i>you</i> know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption, or +the quick wasting of fever—the grand results of +‘life’ and dissipation—which men have undergone +in these same rooms? How many vain pleaders for mercy, do +you think, have turned away heart-sick from the lawyer’s +office, to find a resting-place in the Thames, or a refuge in the +gaol? They are no ordinary houses, those. There is +not a panel in the old wainscoting but what, if it were endowed +with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the wall +and tell its tale of horror—the romance of life, sir, the +romance of life! Commonplace as they may seem now, I tell +you <!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>they are strange old places, and I would rather hear +many a legend with a terrific-sounding name than the true history +of one old set of chambers.”</p> +<p>There was something so odd in the old man’s sudden +energy, and the subject which had called it forth, that Mr. +Pickwick was prepared with no observation in reply; and the old +man checking his impetuosity, and resuming the leer, which had +disappeared during his previous excitement, said,—</p> +<p>“Look at them in another light; their most common-place +and least romantic. What fine places of slow torture they +are! Think of the needy man who has spent his all, beggared +himself and pinched his friends to enter the profession, which +will never yield him a morsel of bread. The +waiting—the hope—the disappointment—the +fear—the misery—the poverty—the blight on his +hopes and end to his career—the suicide, perhaps, or the +shabby, slipshod drunkard. Am I not right about <!-- page +33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>them?” And the old man rubbed his hands, and +leered as if in delight at having found another point of view in +which to place his favourite subject.</p> +<p>Mr. Pickwick eyed the old man with great curiosity, and the +remainder of the company smiled, and looked on in silence.</p> +<p>“Talk of your German universities,” said the +little old man. “Pooh! pooh! there’s romance +enough at home without going half a mile for it; only people +never think of it.’”</p> +<p>“I never thought of the romance of this particular +subject before, certainly,” said Mr. Pickwick, +laughing.</p> +<p>“To be sure you didn’t,” said the little old +man, “of course not. As a friend of mine used to say +to me, ‘What is there in chambers in +particular?’ ‘Queer old places,’ said +I. ‘Not at all,’ said he. +‘Lonely,’ said I. ‘Not a bit of +it,’ said he. He died one morning of apoplexy, as he +was going to open his outer door. Fell <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>with his head +in his own letter-box, and there he lay for eighteen +months. Everybody thought he’d gone out of town.</p> +<p>“And how was he found out at last?” inquired Mr. +Pickwick.</p> +<p>“The benchers determined to have his door broken open, +as he hadn’t paid any rent for two years. So they +did. Forced the lock; and a very dusty skeleton in a blue +coat, black knee-shorts, and silks, fell forward in the arms of +the porter who opened the door. Queer, that. Rather, +perhaps?” The little old man put his head more on one +side, and rubbed his hands with unspeakable glee.</p> +<p>“I know another case,” said the little old man, +when his chuckles had in some degree subsided. “It +occurred in Clifford’s Inn. Tenant of a top +set—bad character—shut himself up in his bedroom +closet, and took a dose of arsenic. The steward thought he +had run away; opened the door and put a bill up. Another +man <!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>came, took the chambers, furnished them, and went to +live there. Somehow or other he couldn’t +sleep—always restless and uncomfortable. +‘Odd,’ says he. ‘I’ll make the +other room my bedchamber, and this my sitting-room.’ +He made the change, and slept very well at night, but suddenly +found that, somehow, he couldn’t read in the evening; he +got nervous and uncomfortable, and used to be always snuffing his +candles and staring about him. ‘I can’t make +this out,’ said he, when he came home from the play one +night, and was drinking a glass of cold grog, with his back to +the wall, in order that he mightn’t be able to fancy there +was any one behind him—‘I can’t make it +out,’ said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little +closet that had been always locked up, and a shudder ran through +his whole frame from top to toe. ‘I have felt this +strange feeling before,’ said he. ‘I +can’t help thinking there’s something wrong about +that <!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>closet.’ He made a strong effort, plucked up +his courage, shivered the lock with a blow or two of the poker, +opened the door, and there, sure enough, standing bolt upright in +the corner, was the last tenant, with a little bottle clasped +firmly in his hand, and his face—well!” As the +little old man concluded he looked round on the attentive faces +of his wondering auditory with a smile of grim delight.</p> +<p>“What strange things these are you tell us of, +sir,” said Mr. Pickwick, minutely scanning the old +man’s countenance by the aid of his glasses.</p> +<p>“Strange!” said the little old man. +“Nonsense; you think them strange because you know nothing +about it. They are funny, but not uncommon.”</p> +<p>“Funny!” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, +involuntarily.</p> +<p>“Yes, funny, are they not?” replied the little old +man, with a diabolical leer; and <!-- page 37--><a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>then, without +pausing for an answer, he continued,—</p> +<p>“I knew another man—let me see—forty years +ago now—who took an old, damp, rotten set of chambers in +one of the most ancient Inns, that had been shut up and empty for +years and years before. There were lots of old +women’s stories about the place, and it certainly was very +far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms +were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason +for him, if they had been ten times worse than they really +were. He was obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that +were on the place, and, among the rest, was a great lumbering +wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a green +curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no +papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about +with him, and that wasn’t very hard work either. +Well, he had moved in all his furniture—<!-- page 38--><a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>it +wasn’t quite a truck-full—and had sprinkled it about +the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen +as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, +drinking the first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered +on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if +so, in how many years’ time, when his eyes encountered the +glass doors of the wooden press. ‘Ah,’ says he, +‘if I hadn’t been obliged to take that ugly article +at the old broker’s valuation I might have got something +comfortable for the money. I’ll tell you what it is, +old fellow,’ he said, speaking aloud to the press, having +nothing else to speak to, ‘if it wouldn’t cost more +to break up your old carcase than it would ever be worth +afterwards, I’d have a fire out of you in less than no +time.’ He had hardly spoken the words when a sound, +resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the interior of +the case. It startled him at first, but <!-- page 39--><a +name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>thinking, on +a moment’s reflection, that it must be some young fellow in +the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the +fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that +moment the sound was repeated, and one of the glass doors slowly +opening disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn +apparel standing erect in the press. The figure was tall +and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but +there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and +unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this +world was ever seen to wear. ‘Who are you?’ +said the new tenant, turning very pale, poising the poker in his +hand, however, and taking a very decent aim at the countenance of +the figure. ‘Who are you?’ +‘Don’t throw that poker at me,’ replied the +form. ‘If you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it +would pass through me without resistance, and expend its force +<!-- page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>on the wood behind. I am a spirit.’ +‘And, pray, what do you want here?’ faltered the +tenant. ‘In this room,’ replied the apparition, +‘my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children +beggared. In this press the papers in a long, long suit, +which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, +when I had died of grief and long-deferred hope, two wily harpies +divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched +existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for +my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and +since that day have prowled by night—the only period at +which I can re-visit the earth—about the scenes of my +long-protracted misery. This apartment is mine; leave it to +me.’ ‘If you insist on making your appearance +here,’ said the tenant, who had time to collect his +presence of mind during this prosy statement of the +ghost’s, ‘I shall give up possession with the +greatest <!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 41</span>pleasure; but I should like to ask +you one question, if you will allow me.’ ‘Say +on,’ said the apparition, sternly. +‘Well,’ said the tenant, ‘I don’t apply +the observation personally to you, because it is equally +applicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of; but it does +appear to me somewhat inconsistent that when you have an +opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth—for I +suppose space is nothing to you—you should always return +exactly to the very places where you have been most +miserable.’ ‘Egad, that’s very true; I +never thought of that before,’ said the ghost. +‘You see, sir,’ pursued the tenant, ‘this is a +very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press +I should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs; +and I really think you might find much more comfortable quarters, +to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely +disagreeable.’ ‘You are very right, sir,’ +said the ghost, politely; ‘it never <!-- page 42--><a +name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>struck me +till now; I’ll try a change of air directly.’ +In fact, he began to vanish as he spoke—his legs, indeed, +had quite disappeared. ‘And if, sir,’ said the +tenant, calling after him, ‘if you <i>would</i> have the +goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now +engaged in haunting old empty houses, that they might be much +more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a very great benefit +on society.’ ‘I will,’ replied the ghost; +‘we must be dull fellows, very dull fellows indeed; I +can’t imagine how we can have been so stupid.’ +With these words the spirit disappeared; and what is rather +remarkable,” added the old man, with a shrewd look round +the table, “he never came back again.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But I must not delay longer over where the lawyers live. +The lawyers of Dickens furnish me with three types of the +practising solicitor or attorney, <!-- page 43--><a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>each +admirable in its way. First, Mr. Perker, whose aid Mr. +Wardle seeks to release Miss Rachel Wardle from that scoundrel +Jingle. He is described as a little high-dried man, with a +dark squeezed-up face, and small restless black eyes, that kept +winking and twinkling on each side of his little inquisitive +nose, as if they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with +that feature. He was dressed all in black, with boots as +shiny as his eyes, a low white neckcloth, and a clean shirt with +a frill to it. A gold watch-chain and seals depended from +his fob. He carried his black kid gloves <i>in</i> his +hands, and not <i>on</i> them; and as he spoke, thrust his wrists +beneath his coat-tails, with the air of a man who was in the +habit of propounding some regular posers.</p> +<p>He lived at Montague Place, Russell <!-- page 44--><a +name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>Square, and +had offices in Gray’s Inn, and appears to have had a large +and very respectable business, into the details of which we have +not time to travel; but perhaps the cleverest piece of business +he ever did was when, as Agent to the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, +of Slumkey Hall, he brought about the return of that honourable +gentleman as Member of Parliament. I suppose we have all +read the account of that memorable election, which is a pretty +accurate record of what went on at Eatanswill, and I am credibly +informed at many other places.</p> +<p>Mr. Pickwick and his companions, in their quest for +experience, set out for the excitement of a contested election, +and found their way to the agent’s room.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Ah—ah, my dear sir,” said the +little <!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span>man, advancing to meet him; +“very happy to see you, my dear sir, very. Pray sit +down. So you have carried your intention into effect. +You have come down here to see an election—eh?”</p> +<p>Mr. Pickwick replied in the affirmative.</p> +<p>“Spirited contest, my dear sir,” said the little +man.</p> +<p>“I’m delighted to hear it,” said Mr. +Pickwick, rubbing his hands. “I like to see sturdy +patriotism, on whatever side it is called forth;—and so +it’s a spirited contest?”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes,” said the little man, “very much +so indeed. We have opened all the public-houses in the +place, and left our adversary nothing but the +beer-shops—masterly stroke of policy that, my dear sir, +eh?”</p> +<p>The little man smiled complacently, and took a large pinch of +snuff.</p> +<p>“And what are the probabilities as <!-- page 46--><a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>to the result +of the contest?” inquired Mr. Pickwick.</p> +<p>“Why, doubtful, my dear sir; rather doubtful as +yet,” replied the little man. “Fizkin’s +people have got three-and-thirty voters in the lock-up +coach-house at the White Hart.”</p> +<p>“In the coach-house!” said Mr. Pickwick, +considerably astonished by this second stroke of policy.</p> +<p>“They keep ’em locked up there till they want +’em,” resumed the little man. “The effect +of that is, you see, to prevent our getting at them; and even if +we could, it would be of no use, for they keep them very drunk on +purpose. Smart fellow Fizkin’s agent—very smart +fellow indeed.”</p> +<p>Mr. Pickwick stared, but said nothing.</p> +<p>“We are pretty confident, though,” said Mr. +Perker, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. “We +had a little tea-party here <!-- page 47--><a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>last +night—five-and-forty women, my dear sir—and gave +every one of ’em a green parasol when she went +away.”</p> +<p>“A parasol?” said Mr. Pickwick.</p> +<p>“Fact, my dear sir, fact. Five-and-forty green +parasols at seven and sixpence a-piece. All women like +finery—extraordinary the effect of those parasols. +Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers—beat +stockings, and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. +My idea, my dear sir, entirely. Hail, rain, or sunshine, +you can’t walk half-a-dozen yards up the street without +encountering half-a-dozen green parasols.”</p> +<p>On the day of the election the stable yard exhibited +unequivocal symptoms of the glory and strength of the Eatanswill +Blues. There was a regular army of blue flags, some with +one handle, and some with two, exhibiting appropriate devices, in +golden characters four feet high, and stout in proportion. +There was a grand band of <!-- page 48--><a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>trumpets, +bassoons, and drums, marshalled four abreast, and earning their +money, if ever men did, especially the drum beaters, who were +very muscular. There were bodies of constables with blue +staves, twenty committee men with blue scarves, and a mob of +voters with blue cockades. There were electors on horseback +and electors on foot. There was an open carriage and four, +for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey; and there were four carriages +and pair, for his friends and supporters; and the flags were +rustling, and the band was playing, and the constables were +swearing, and the twenty committee men were squabbling, and the +mob were shouting, and the horses were backing, and the post-boys +were perspiring; and everybody, and everything, then and there +assembled, was for the special use, behoof, honour, and renown, +of the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, one of the +candidates for the representation of the Borough of Eatanswill, +<!-- page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>in the Commons House of Parliament of the United +Kingdom.</p> +<p>Loud and long were the cheers, and mighty was the rustling of +one of the blue flags, with “Liberty of the Press” +inscribed thereon, when the sandy head of Mr. Pott was discerned +in one of the windows by the mob beneath; and tremendous was the +enthusiasm when the Honourable Samuel Slumkey himself, in top +boots, and a blue neckerchief, advanced and seized the hand of +the said Pott, and melodramatically testified by gestures to the +crowd his ineffaceable obligations to the <i>Eatanswill +Gazette</i>.</p> +<p>“Is everything ready?” said the Honourable Samuel +Slumkey to Mr. Perker.</p> +<p>“Everything, my dear sir,” was the little +man’s reply.</p> +<p>“Nothing has been omitted, I hope?” said the +Honourable Samuel Slumkey.</p> +<p>“Nothing has been left undone, my dear sir—nothing +whatever. There are <!-- page 50--><a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>twenty washed +men at the street door for you to shake hands with; and six +children in arms that you’re to pat on the head, and +inquire the age of; be particular about the children, my dear +sir,—it has always a great effect, that sort of +thing.”</p> +<p>“I’ll take care,” said the Honourable Samuel +Slumkey.</p> +<p>“And perhaps, my dear sir,” said the cautious +little man, “perhaps if you <i>could</i>—I +don’t mean to say it’s indispensable—but if you +<i>could</i> manage to kiss one of ’em it would produce a +very great impression on the crowd.”</p> +<p>“Wouldn’t it have as good an effect if the +proposer or seconder did that?” said the Honourable Samuel +Slumkey.</p> +<p>“Why, I am afraid it wouldn’t,” replied the +agent; “if it were done by yourself, my dear sir, I think +it would make you very popular.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” said the Honourable <!-- page 51--><a +name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>Samuel +Slumkey, with a resigned air, “then it must be done. +That’s all.”</p> +<p>“Arrange the procession,” cried the twenty +committee men.</p> +<p>Amidst the cheers of the assembled throng, the band, and the +constables, and the committee men, and the voters, and the +horsemen, and the carriages took their places—each of the +two-horse vehicles being closely packed with as many gentlemen as +could manage to stand upright in it; and that assigned to Mr. +Perker containing Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and +about half-a-dozen of the committee beside.</p> +<p>There was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited +for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey to step into his +carriage. Suddenly the crowd set up a great cheering.</p> +<p>“He has come out,” said little Mr. Perker, greatly +excited; the more so as their position did not enable them to see +what was going forward.</p> +<p><!-- page 52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>Another cheer, much louder.</p> +<p>“He has shaken hands with the men,” cried the +little agent.</p> +<p>Another cheer, far more vehement.</p> +<p>“He has patted the babies on the head,” said Mr. +Perker, trembling with anxiety.</p> +<p>A roar of applause that rent the air.</p> +<p>“He has kissed one of ’em!” exclaimed the +delighted little man.</p> +<p>A second roar.</p> +<p>“He has kissed another,” gasped the excited +manager.</p> +<p>A third roar.</p> +<p>“He’s kissing ’em all!” screamed the +enthusiastic little gentleman. And hailed by the deafening +shouts of the multitude the procession moved on.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, according to our modern ideas this +account does not do much to raise Mr. Perker in our estimation; +but the best testimonial to his memory is to be found <!-- page +53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>in +Mr. Pickwick’s observation when, being at last free from +all his legal difficulties, he proposed to settle up with his +lawyer.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Well, now,” said Mr. Pickwick, +“let me have a settlement with you.”</p> +<p>“Of the same kind as the last?” inquired Perker, +with another laugh, for Mr. Pickwick had just been dismissing +Messrs. Dodson and Fogg with some strong language indeed.</p> +<p>“Not exactly,” said Mr. Pickwick, drawing out his +pocket-book, and shaking the little man heartily by the hand; +“I only mean a pecuniary settlement. You have done me +many acts of kindness that I can never repay, and have no wish to +repay, for I prefer continuing the obligation.”</p> +<p>With this preface the two friends dived into some very +complicated accounts and vouchers, which, having been duly +displayed <!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 54</span>and gone through by Perker, were at +once discharged by Mr. Pickwick with many professions of esteem +and friendship.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Never was bill of costs so pleasantly discharged, though I +know many lawyers who have won the friendship and esteem of their +clients.</p> +<p>The next type is that of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, of +Freeman’s Court, Cornhill. The character of the +genial partner is best described by one of his clerks in a +conversation overheard by Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller while +waiting for an interview with this celebrated firm.</p> +<blockquote><p>“There was such a game with Fogg here this +morning,” said the man in the brown coat, “while Jack +was upstairs sorting the papers, and you two were gone to the +stamp-office. Fogg was down here <!-- page 55--><a +name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>opening the +letters when that chap as we issued the writ against at +Camberwell, you know, came in—what’s his name +again?”</p> +<p>“Ramsey,” said the clerk who had spoken to Mr. +Pickwick.</p> +<p>“Ah, Ramsey—a precious seedy-looking +customer. ‘Well, sir,’ says old Fogg, looking +at him very fierce—you know his way—‘well, sir, +have you come to settle?’ ‘Yes, I have, +sir,’ said Ramsey, putting his hand in his pocket and +bringing out the money; ‘the debt’s two pound ten, +and the costs three pound five, and here it is, sir,’ and +he sighed like bricks as he lugged out the money, done up in a +bit of blotting-paper. Old Fogg looked first at the money, +and then at him, and then he coughed in his rum way, so that I +knew something was coming. ‘You don’t know +there’s a declaration filed, which increases the costs +materially, I suppose?’ said Fogg. ‘You +don’t say that, sir,’ said Ramsey, starting back; +‘the time was only out last night, <!-- page 56--><a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +56</span>sir.’ ‘I do say it, though,’ +said Fogg; ‘my clerk’s just gone to file it. +Hasn’t Mr. Jackson gone to file that declaration in Bullman +and Ramsey, Mr. Wicks?’ Of course I said yes, and +then Fogg coughed again, and looked at Ramsey. ‘My +God!’ said Ramsey; ‘and here have I nearly driven +myself mad, scraping this money together, and all to no +purpose.’ ‘None at all,’ said Fogg, +coolly; ‘so you had better go back and scrape some more +together, and bring it here in time.’ ‘I +can’t get it, by God!’ said Ramsey, striking the desk +with his fist. ‘Don’t bully me, sir,’ +said Fogg, getting into a passion on purpose. ‘I am +not bullying you, sir,’ said Ramsey. ‘You +are,’ said Fogg; ‘get out, sir; get out of this +office, sir, and come back, sir, when you know how to behave +yourself.’ Well, Ramsey tried to speak, but Fogg +wouldn’t let him, so he put the money in his pocket and +sneaked out. The door was scarcely shut when <!-- page +57--><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>old +Fogg turned round to me, with a sweet smile on his face, and drew +the declaration out of his coat pocket. ‘Here, +Wicks,’ said Fogg, ‘take a cab and go down to the +Temple as quick as you can and file that. The costs are +quite safe, for he’s a steady man with a large family, at a +salary of five-and-twenty shillings a week; and if he gives us a +warrant of attorney, as he must in the end, I know his employers +will see it paid, so we may as well get all we can out of him, +Mr. Wicks; it’s a Christian act to do it, Mr. Wicks, for +with his large family and small income he’ll be all the +better for a good lesson against getting into +debt—won’t he, Mr. Wicks, won’t he?’ and +he smiled so good-naturedly as he went away that it was +delightful to see him. ‘He is a capital man of +business,’ said Wicks, in a tone of the deepest admiration; +‘capital, isn’t he?’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Fogg, we are told, was an elderly, pimply-faced, vegetable +diet <!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>sort of man, in a black coat, and dark-mixtured +trousers; and Mr. Dodson was a plump, portly, stern-looking man, +with a loud voice. And it was from these worthies that Mr. +Pickwick had received a letter dated the 28th of August, +1827.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Freeman’s Court</span>, <span +class="smcap">Cornhill</span>.<br /> +<i>Bardell against Pickwick</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Having been instructed +by Mrs. Martha Bardell to commence an action against you for a +breach of promise of marriage, for which the plaintiff lays her +damages at fifteen hundred pounds, we beg to inform you that a +writ has been issued against you in this suit in the Court of +Common Pleas, and request to know, by return of post, the name of +your attorney in London, who will accept service thereof.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">We are, Sir,<br /> +Your obedient servants,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Dodson and Fogg</span>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Mr. Samuel Pickwick</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>I am bound to say that Mr. Pickwick did not conduct +himself with his usual dignity on the occasion of his interview +on the subject of this letter. The two sharp practitioners +had certainly commenced an action against him on grounds which, +though definite, were wholly inadequate. But in this alone +there was nothing to justify the very violent language of Mr. +Pickwick.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Very well, gentlemen, very well,” +said Mr. Pickwick, rising in person and wrath at the same time; +“you shall hear from my solicitor, gentlemen.”</p> +<p>“We shall be very happy to do so,” said Fogg, +rubbing his hands.</p> +<p>“Very,” said Dodson, opening the door.</p> +<p>“And before I go, gentlemen,” said the excited Mr. +Pickwick, turning round on the landing, “permit me to say, +<!-- page 60--><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>that of all the disgraceful and rascally +proceedings—”</p> +<p>“Stay, sir, stay,” interposed Dodson, with great +politeness. “Mr. Jackson! Mr. Wicks!”</p> +<p>“Sir,” said the two clerks, appearing at the +bottom of the stairs.</p> +<p>“I merely want you to hear what this gentleman +says,” replied Dodson. “Pray go on, +sir—disgraceful and rascally proceedings, I think you +said?”</p> +<p>“I did,” said Mr. Pickwick, thoroughly +roused. “I said, sir, that of all the disgraceful and +rascally proceedings that ever were attempted this is the most +so. I repeat it, sir.”</p> +<p>“You hear that, Mr. Wicks?” said Dodson.</p> +<p>“You won’t forget these expressions, Mr. +Jackson?” said Fogg.</p> +<p>“Perhaps you would like to call us swindlers, +sir,” said Dodson. “Pray do, sir, if you feel +disposed; now pray do, sir.”</p> +<p><!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>“I do,” said Mr. Pickwick. “You +<i>are</i> swindlers.”</p> +<p>“Very good,” said Dodson. “You can +hear down there, I hope, Mr. Wicks?”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes, sir,” said Wicks.</p> +<p>“You had better come up a step or two higher if you +can’t,” added Mr. Fogg. “Go on, sir; do +go on. You had better call us thieves, sir; or perhaps you +would like to assault one of us. Pray do it, sir, if you +would; we will not make the slightest resistance. Pray do +it, sir.”</p> +<p>As Fogg put himself very temptingly within the reach of Mr. +Pickwick’s clenched fist there is little doubt that +gentleman would have complied with his earnest entreaty but for +the interposition of Sam, who, hearing the dispute, emerged from +the office, mounted the stairs, and seized his master by the +arm.</p> +<p>“You just come avay,” said Mr. Weller. +“Battledore and shuttlecock’s a wery good game, when +you ain’t the <!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 62</span>shuttlecock and two lawyers the +battledores, in which case it gets too excitin’ to be +pleasant. Come avay, sir. If you want to ease your +mind by blowing up somebody come out into the court and blow up +me; but it’s rayther too expensive work to be carried on +here.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>With that good advice Mr. Weller took Mr. Pickwick away from +the lawyers’ office. But before we say anything about +the trial itself let me introduce to you another solicitor not so +well known as either Perker or Dodson and Fogg, but to my mind +the most interesting as he certainly is the most humorous.</p> +<p>Mr. Pell had the honour of being the legal adviser of Mr. +Weller, Senior. The latter gentleman always stoutly +maintained that if Mr. Pickwick had had the services of Mr. Pell, +and had established an <i>alibi</i>, <!-- page 63--><a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>the great +case of Bardell against Pickwick would have been decided +otherwise. Mr. Pell practised in the Insolvency +Court. He “was a fat, flabby, pale man, in a surtout +which looked green one moment, and brown the next, with a velvet +collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was +narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one +side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed +in him at his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had +never recovered. Being short-necked and asthmatic, however, +he respired principally through this feature; so, perhaps, what +it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness.”</p> +<p>Mr. Pell had successfully piloted Mr. Weller through the +Insolvency Court, and his services were sought <!-- page 64--><a +name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>to carry out +the process by which Sam Weller became a voluntary prisoner in +the Fleet at the suit of his obdurate parent.</p> +<blockquote><p>“The late Lord Chancellor, gentlemen, was +very fond of me,” said Mr. Pell.</p> +<p>“And wery creditable in him, too,” interposed Mr. +Weller.</p> +<p>“Hear, hear,” assented Mr. Pell’s +client. “Why shouldn’t he be?”</p> +<p>“Ah, why, indeed!” said a very red-faced man, who +had said nothing yet, and who looked extremely unlikely to say +anything more. “Why shouldn’t he?”</p> +<p>A murmur of assent ran through the company.</p> +<p>“I remember, gentlemen,” said Mr. Pell, +“dining with him on one occasion. There was only us +two, but everything as splendid as if twenty people had been +expected—the great seal on a dumb-waiter at his right, and +a man in a bag-wig and <!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>suit of armour guarding the mace with +a drawn sword and silk stockings—which is perpetually done, +gentlemen, night and day; when he said, ‘Pell,’ he +said, ‘no false delicacy, Pell. You’re a man of +talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; +and your country should be proud of you.’ Those were +his very words. ‘My lord,’ I said, ‘you +flatter me.’ ‘Pell,’ he said, ‘if I +do I’m damned.’”</p> +<p>“Did he say that?” inquired Mr. Weller.</p> +<p>“He did,” replied Pell.</p> +<p>“Vell, then,” said Mr. Weller, “I say +Parliament ought to ha’ took it up; and if he’d been +a poor man they <i>would</i> ha’ done it.”</p> +<p>“But, my dear friend,” argued Mr. Pell, “it +was in confidence.”</p> +<p>“In what?” said Mr. Weller.</p> +<p>“In confidence.”</p> +<p>“Oh! wery good,” replied Mr. Weller, <!-- page +66--><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>after +a little reflection. “If he damned hisself in +confidence, o’ course that was another thing.”</p> +<p>“Of course it was,” said Mr. Pell. +“The distinction’s obvious, you will +perceive.”</p> +<p>“Alters the case entirely,” said Mr. Weller. +“Go on, sir.”</p> +<p>“No, I will not go on, sir,” said Mr. Pell, in a +low and serious tone. “You have reminded me, sir, +that this conversation was private—private and +confidential, gentlemen. Gentlemen, I am a professional +man. It may be that I am a good deal looked up to in my +profession—it may be that I am not. Most people +know. I say nothing. Observations have already been +made in this room injurious to the reputation of my noble +friend. You will excuse me, gentlemen; I was +imprudent. I feel that I have no right to mention this +matter without his concurrence. Thank you, sir; thank +you.”</p> +<p>Thus delivering himself, Mr. Pell thrust <!-- page 67--><a +name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>his hands +into his pockets, and, frowning grimly around, rattled +three-halfpence with terrible determination.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We hear also of Mrs. Pell.</p> +<blockquote><p>Mrs. Pell was a tall figure, a splendid woman, +with a noble shape, and a nose, gentlemen, formed to command, +gentlemen, and be majestic. She was very much attached to +me—very much—highly connected, too. Her +mother’s brother, gentlemen, failed for eight hundred +pounds, as a law stationer.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So we have, ladies and gentlemen, these three types of this +honourable profession. To my mind they have never been +quite placed in their proper order. Perker has been +universally admired and looked up to; Dodson and Fogg have been +universally denounced; Mr. Pell has been suffered to remain +unnoticed. Well, <!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 68</span>let us judge fairly the merits of +these three gentlemen.</p> +<p>If Mr. Perker had lived to-day instead of in the year 1827, he +would undoubtedly have been tried for the part he took in the +Eatanswill election. What is the charge, after all, against +Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, except that question with regard to poor +Ramsey?—which, after all, is only a story told by the clerk +Wicks, upon whom I do not think we can place very much +reliance. What else did Dodson and Fogg do that should make +them the object of obloquy and universal execration? They +brought an action for breach of promise of marriage—some +people think such actions should never be brought at +all—they brought the action for breach of promise of +marriage; they made a little arrangement with regard <!-- page +69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>to +costs, unprofessional if you like, but still nothing to bring +down upon them the denouncement to which they have been made +subject. So far as Mr. Pickwick was concerned, he had +absolutely nothing to complain of in their conduct; and I venture +to say it was most reprehensible in him under the circumstances +to use the language which he did upon the occasion which I have +quoted. But against Mr. Pell there is absolutely nothing to +be said. He perhaps romanced a little with regard to his +friendship with the Lord Chancellor; but which of us would not +like to be on friendly terms with the Lord Chancellor? On +that trifling exaggeration there is nothing practically to be +urged against him; and while I claim for Mr. Pell the position of +premier in this matter, I am sorry I <!-- page 70--><a +name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>have to +accord to Mr. Perker the third place.</p> +<p>Well, now, although I would love to linger over Mr. Pell, I +must pass on to say something of the counsel mentioned in this +admirable work. But before I consider the more eminent and +the more conspicuous of these, there is one member of the Bar who +is seldom alluded to, but of whom I wish to say something +to-night. I refer to Mr. Prosee. Mr. Prosee very few +of you have ever heard of. He dined with Mr. Perker at +Montague Place, Russell Square, on one occasion. It must +have been rather a dull dinner party, for there were present two +good country agents, Mr. Snicks, the Life Office Secretary, Mr. +Prosee, the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one Commissioner +of Bankrupts, a special pleader from the Temple, a <!-- page +71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>small-eyed, peremptory young gentleman, his pupil, who +had written a lively book about the law of demises, with a vast +quantity of marginal notes and references; and several other +eminent and distinguished personages, including the Mr. Prosee +just mentioned.</p> +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know how it is, but I have +always associated Mr. Prosee with the Equity Bar. It may be +that his name suggests it.</p> +<blockquote><p>Well, I come now to the counsel which is better +known to you, namely Serjeant Snubbin.</p> +<p>“We’ve done everything that’s +necessary,” said Mr. Perker. “I have retained +Serjeant Snubbin.”</p> +<p>“Is he a good man?” inquired Mr. Pickwick.</p> +<p>“Good man!” replied Perker. “Bless +<!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>your heart and soul, my dear sir, Serjeant Snubbin is at +the very top of his profession. Gets treble the business of +any man in court—engaged in every case. You +needn’t mention it abroad, but we say—we of the +profession—that Serjeant Snubbin leads the court by the +nose.”</p> +<p>“I should like to see him,” said Mr. Pickwick.</p> +<p>“See Serjeant Snubbin, my dear sir!” rejoined +Perker, in utter amazement. “Pooh, pooh! my dear sir, +impossible! See Serjeant Snubbin! Bless you, my dear +sir, such a thing was never heard of without a consultation fee +being previously paid, and a consultation fixed. It +couldn’t be done, my dear sir—it couldn’t be +done!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus was Mr. Pickwick brought face to face with the difficulty +of seeing his own counsel. He could not understand why, +having retained <!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 73</span>the services of a professional man +and paid for them, there should exist any impediment to prevent +access to him. I won’t discuss to-night the +advisability or non-advisability of dividing the profession of +the law into two parts, but I do say that any system which +prevents litigants having the fullest personal communication with +those they have paid to represent them is an anomaly and an +absurdity.</p> +<p>But Mr. Pickwick was a person of determination, and he did see +Serjeant Snubbin, and he delivered to that learned gentleman a +short address that was well worthy of his attention, as it is of +every member of the Bar, including your very humble servant.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Gentlemen of your profession, sir,” +continued Mr. Pickwick, “see the worst <!-- page 74--><a +name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>side of human +nature. All its disputes, all its ill-will and bad blood, +rise up before you. You know from your experience of juries +(I mean no disparagement to you, or them) how much depends upon +<i>effect</i>; and you are apt to attribute to others a desire to +use, for purposes of deception and self-interest, the very +instruments which you, in pure honesty and honour of purpose, and +with a laudable desire to do your utmost for your client, know +the temper and worth of so well, from constantly employing them +yourselves. I really believe that to this circumstance may +be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of your being, +as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and overcautious. +Conscious as I am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a +declaration to you, under such circumstances, I have come here, +because I wish you distinctly to understand, as my friend Mr. +Perker has said, that I am innocent of the falsehood laid to my +charge; and although I <!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 75</span>am very well aware of the inestimable +value of your assistance, sir, I must beg to add that, unless you +sincerely believe this, I would rather be deprived of the aid of +your talents than have the advantage of them.”</p> +<p>The only effect this had upon Serjeant Snubbin was to cause +him to ask rather snappishly,—</p> +<p>“Who is with me in this case?”</p> +<p>“Mr. Phunky, Serjeant Snubbin,” replied the +attorney.</p> +<p>“Phunky, Phunky,” said the Serjeant, “I +never heard the name before. He must be a very young +man.”</p> +<p>“Yes, he is a very young man,” replied the +attorney. “He was only called the other day. +Let me see—he has not been at the Bar eight years +yet.”</p> +<p>“Ah, I thought not,” said the Serjeant, in that +sort of pitying tone in which ordinary folks would speak of a +very helpless little child. “Mr. Mallard, send round +to Mr.—Mr.—”</p> +<p><!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>“Phunky’s—Holborn Court, Gray’s +Inn,” interposed Perker. (Holborn Court, by-the-bye, +is South Square now.)</p> +<p>“Mr. Phunky, and say I should be glad if he’d step +here a moment.”</p> +<p>Mr. Mallard departed to execute his commission, and Serjeant +Snubbin relapsed into abstraction until Mr. Phunky himself was +introduced.</p> +<p>Although an infant barrister he was a full-grown man. He +had a very nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his +speech; it did not appear to be a natural defect, but seemed +rather the result of timidity, arising from the consciousness of +being “kept down” by want of means, or interest, or +connection, or impudence, as the case might be. He was +overawed by the Serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the +attorney.</p> +<p>“I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, Mr. +Phunky,” said Serjeant Snubbin, with haughty +condescension.</p> +<p><!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>Mr. Phunky bowed. He <i>had</i> had the pleasure +of seeing the Serjeant, and of envying him too, with all a poor +man’s envy, for eight years and a quarter.</p> +<p>“You are with me in this case, I understand?” said +the Serjeant.</p> +<p>If Mr. Phunky had been a rich man he would have instantly sent +for his clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one he would +have applied his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to +recollect whether, in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had +undertaken this one or not; but as he was neither rich nor wise +(in this sense, at all events) he turned red and bowed.</p> +<p>“Have you read the papers, Mr. Phunky?” inquired +the Serjeant.</p> +<p>Here again Mr. Phunky should have professed to have forgotten +all about the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers +as had been laid before him in the course of the action, and had +thought <!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 78</span>of nothing else, waking or sleeping, +throughout the two months during which he had been retained as +Mr. Serjeant Snubbin’s junior, he turned a deeper red and +bowed again.</p> +<p>“This is Mr. Pickwick,” said the Serjeant, waving +his pen in the direction in which that gentleman was +standing.</p> +<p>Mr. Phunky bowed to Mr. Pickwick with a reverence which a +first client must ever awaken, and again inclined his head +towards his leader.</p> +<p>“Perhaps you will take Mr. Pickwick away,” said +the Serjeant, “and—and—and—hear anything +Mr. Pickwick may wish to communicate. We shall have a +consultation, of course.” With this hint that he had +been interrupted quite long enough, Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who had +been gradually growing more and more abstracted, applied his +glass to his eye for an instant, bowed slightly round, and was +once more deeply immersed in the case <!-- page 79--><a +name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>before him, +which arose out of an interminable law-suit originating in the +act of an individual, deceased a century or so ago, who had +stopped up a pathway leading from some place which nobody ever +came from to some other place which nobody ever went to.</p> +<p>Mr. Phunky would not hear of passing through any door until +Mr. Pickwick and his solicitor had passed through before him, so +it was some time before they got into the Square; and when they +did reach it they walked up and down, and held a long conference, +the result of which was that it was a very difficult matter to +say how the verdict would go; that nobody could presume to +calculate on the issue of an action; that it was very lucky they +had prevented the other party from getting Serjeant Snubbin; and +other topics of doubt and consolation common in such a position +of affairs.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Pickwick’s lawsuit was to be <!-- page 80--><a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>tried in the +Court of Common Pleas, a division in which Serjeants-at-Law had +the exclusive right to practise. At this time, 1827, and +indeed up till 1873, every common law judge was turned into a +Serjeant, if he were not one ere he was promoted to the +Bench. It was a solemn kind of ceremony. The subject +of the operation was led out of the precincts of the Inns of +Court; the church bell tolled as for one dead.</p> +<p>He was then admitted member of Serjeants’ Inn; and the +judge would address the Serjeants who practised before him as +Brother So-and-So. Justice Lindley was the last judge who +took the degree, a degree the only outward visible sign of which +is the black patch or coif which is attached to the top of the +wig. I do not know what kind of counsel <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>Serjeant +Snubbin, retained by Mr. Perker for the defendant, was; but +Dodson and Fogg had retained Serjeant Buzfuz for the plaintiff, +and we all know that Serjeant Snubbin was no match for Serjeant +Buzfuz. It has been objected by a writer in +<i>Fraser’s Magazine</i>, to the account of this trial, +that it is full of inconsistencies. Serjeant Buzfuz’ +case, he says, was absurd, and that he would not have been able +to browbeat any witness, and that no jury could have given a +verdict on such evidence. This criticism resembles many +other criticisms of Pickwick. Had the description in +Pickwick been intended as a serious picture of the proceedings in +a court of justice, it would have been open to much serious +dissection and examination.</p> +<p>But the writer just quoted did not, <!-- page 82--><a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>it seems, +possess a sufficient sense of humour to enable him to see that +this chapter of “Pickwick” was intended for broad fun +amounting to burlesque, and nothing more; and to examine Mr. +Buzfuz’ proceedings by the light of the law is to strip +them of their meaning.</p> +<p>I mentioned just now that this trial took place in 1827. +At that time, as I daresay some of you are aware, the parties to +the action could not be called upon to give evidence; and Lord +Denman did not, I think, till 1843 remove the Arcadian fetters +which bound the litigants in this fashion. But, ladies and +gentlemen, what a fortunate thing it was for Mr. Pickwick that he +could not be called upon that occasion. If Mr. Pickwick had +been called he would have been cross-examined. Let us +imagine for <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 83</span>a moment what that cross-examination +would have been. Suppose merely for the sake of example +that that operation had been performed by my honourable and +learned friend the Attorney-General. Cannot you imagine how +in the first place he would forcibly but firmly have interrogated +Mr. Pickwick with regard to his conduct after the cricket match +at Muggleton; how he would have asked him whether he was prepared +to admit, or whether he was prepared to deny, that he was drunk +upon that occasion? Could you not imagine how my honourable +and learned friend, passing on from that topic, would have +alluded to what I think he would have termed the disgraceful +incident when, on the 1st of September, Mr. Pickwick was found in +a wheelbarrow on the ground of Captain Boldwig, <!-- page 84--><a +name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>and was +removed to the public pound, from which he was only extricated by +the violence of his friends and servant? Passing on from +that topic, would not my honourable and learned friend have +reminded him of how he had been bound over at Ipswich before Mr. +Nupkins, together with his friend Mr. Tupman, and called upon to +find bail for good behaviour for six months? Then in +conclusion how my friend would have turned to that incident in +the double-bedded room at Ipswich, at the Great White Horse, and +how my learned friend, with that skill which he possesses, would, +bit by bit, by slow degrees, have extricated from that miserable +man the confession that he had been found in that double-bedded +room, a spinster lady being there at the same time. Ladies +and gentlemen, what would have been <!-- page 85--><a +name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>left of Mr. +Pickwick after that process had been gone through? His only +relief would have been to write to the <i>Times</i> newspaper, +and to complain of cross-examination.</p> +<p>Indeed, no notice of this case, as indeed no reference to the +lawyers of “Pickwick,” would be regarded as in any +sense complete that did not include the remarkable forensic +efforts of Serjeant Buzfuz. Oft read, oft recited, oft +quoted, it stands to-day, perhaps, the best-known speech ever +delivered at the Bar.</p> +<p>We are told that the speech of Serjeant Snubbin was long and +emphatic, but at any rate it was ineffective, and that learned +gentleman committed a grave error in entrusting the +cross-examination of Mr. Winkle to Mr. Phunky. Now it does +sometimes happen, in the course of a case, that <!-- page 86--><a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>owing to the +absence of the leading counsel, which sometimes occurs, the +cross-examination of a witness, perchance an important one, is +left to some junior; but this excuse did not exist in this +case. Serjeant Snubbin was there in Court, because we hear +that he winked at Mr. Phunky to intimate to him that he had +better sit down; and this, as we know, from what I have told you +just now, was the first brief that Mr. Phunky had ever had. +No, Serjeant Snubbin was over-matched throughout by Serjeant +Buzfuz, and Mr. Phunky was no match even for the scheming junior +on the other side, and Perker was no match for Dodson and +Fogg. The law, as we are told in one of George +Eliot’s books, is a kind of cock-fight, in which it is the +business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the <!-- page +87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>best +pluck and the strongest spurs; and I venture to think that the +combined pluck of Buzfuz and Skimpin by far outweighed any of +that commodity possessed by Snubbin and Phunky. No wonder +Mr. Pickwick lost his case; but his case never recovered the +effect of the speech which I now propose to read to you.</p> +<blockquote><p>Serjeant Buzfuz began by saying that never, in the +whole course of his professional experience—never, from the +very first moment of his applying himself to the study and +practice of the law—had he approached a case with feelings +of such deep emotion, or with such a heavy sense of the +responsibility imposed upon him—a responsibility, he would +say, which he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up +and sustained by a conviction so strong, that it amounted to +positive certainty that <!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 88</span>the cause of truth and justice, or, +in other words, the cause of his much injured and most oppressed +client, must prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen +of men whom he now saw in that box before him.</p> +<p>Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on +the very best terms with themselves, and makes them think what +sharp fellows they must be. A visible effect was produced +immediately; several jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes +with the utmost eagerness.</p> +<p>“You have heard from my learned friend, +gentlemen,” continued Serjeant Buzfuz—well knowing +that, from the learned friend alluded to, the gentlemen of the +jury had heard just nothing at all—“you have heard +from my learned friend, gentlemen, that this is an action for +breach of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at +£1,500. But you have not heard from my learned +friend, inasmuch as it did not <!-- page 89--><a +name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>come within +my learned friend’s province to tell you, what are the +facts and circumstances of the case. Those facts and +circumstances, gentlemen, you shall hear detailed by me, and +proved by the unimpeachable female whom I will place in that box +before you.”</p> +<p>Here Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the +word “box,” smote his table with a mighty sound, and +glanced at Dodson and Fogg, who nodded admiration to the +Serjeant, and indignant defiance of the defendant.</p> +<p>“The plaintiff, gentlemen,” continued Serjeant +Buzfuz, in a soft and melancholy voice, “the plaintiff is a +widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The late Mr. Bardell, after +enjoying, for many years, the esteem and confidence of his +sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal revenues, glided +almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for that +repose and peace which a custom house can never +afford.”</p> +<p><!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. +Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart pot in a +public-house cellar, the learned Serjeant’s voice faltered, +and he proceeded with emotion,—</p> +<p>“Some time before his death he had stamped his likeness +upon a little boy. With this little boy, the only pledge of +her departed exciseman, Mrs. Bardell shrunk from the world, and +courted the retirement and tranquillity of Goswell Street; and +here she placed in her front parlour-window a written placard, +bearing this inscription—‘Apartments furnished for a +single gentleman. Inquire within.’” Here +Serjeant Buzfuz paused, while several gentlemen of the jury took +a note of the document.</p> +<p>“There is no date to that, is there?” inquired a +juror.</p> +<p>“There is no date, gentlemen,” replied Serjeant +Buzfuz; “but I am instructed to say that it was put in the +plaintiff’s parlour-window just this time three +years. I <!-- page 91--><a name="page91"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 91</span>entreat the attention of the jury to +the wording of this document. ‘Apartments furnished +for a single gentleman!’ Mrs. Bardell’s +opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived from a long +contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost +husband. She had no fear, she had no distrust, she had no +suspicion, all was confidence and reliance. ‘Mr. +Bardell,’ said the widow, ‘Mr. Bardell was a man of +honour, Mr. Bardell was a man of his word, Mr. Bardell was no +deceiver, Mr. Bardell was once a single gentleman himself; +<i>to</i> single gentlemen I look for protection, for assistance, +for comfort, and for consolation; <i>in</i> single gentlemen I +shall perpetually see something to remind me of what Mr. Bardell +was when he first won my young and untried affections: to a +single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.’ +Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best +impulses of our imperfect nature, gentlemen) <!-- page 92--><a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>the lonely +and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished her first floor, +caught the innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the bill +up in her parlour-window. Did it remain there long? +No. The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the +mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. +Before the bill had been in the parlour-window three +days—three days, gentlemen—a Being, erect upon two +legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a man, and not of +a monster, knocked at the door of Mrs. Bardell’s +house. He inquired within—he took the lodgings; and +on the very next day he entered into possession of them. +The man was Pickwick—Pickwick, the defendant.”</p> +<p>Serjeant Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that +his face was perfectly crimson, here paused for breath. The +silence awoke Mr. Justice Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down +something with <!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 93</span>a pen without any ink in it, and +looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief +that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut. +Serjeant Buzfuz proceeded.</p> +<p>“Of this man Pickwick I will say little; the subject +presents but few attractions; and I, gentlemen, am not the man, +nor are you, gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation +of revolting heartlessness and of systematic villainy.”</p> +<p>Here Mr. Pickwick, who had been writhing in silence for some +time, gave a violent start, as if some vague idea of assaulting +Serjeant Buzfuz, in the august presence of justice and law, +suggested itself to his mind. An admonitory gesture from +Perker restrained him, and he listened to the learned +gentleman’s continuation with a look of indignation, which +contrasted forcibly with the admiring faces of Mrs. Cluppins and +Mrs. Sanders.</p> +<p>“I say systematic villainy, gentlemen,” <!-- page +94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>said +Serjeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick, and talking +<i>at</i> him; “and when I say systematic villainy, let me +tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in Court—as I am +informed he is—that it would have been more decent in him, +more becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had +stopped away. Let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures +of dissent or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this +Court will not go down with you; that you will know how to value +and how to appreciate them; and let me tell him further, as my +lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge +of his duty to his client, is neither to be intimidated, nor +bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either the one +or the other, or the first, or the last, will recoil on the head +of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name +Pickwick, or Noakes, or Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or +Thompson.”</p> +<p><!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>This little divergence from the subject in hand had, of +course, the intended effect of turning all eyes to Mr. +Pickwick. Serjeant Buzfuz, having partially recovered from +the state of moral elevation into which he had lashed himself, +resumed,—</p> +<p>“I shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years +Pickwick continued to reside constantly, and without interruption +or intermission, at Mrs. Bardell’s house. I shall +show you that Mrs. Bardell, during the whole of that time, waited +on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out +his linen for the washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, aired, +and prepared it for wear, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest +trust and confidence. I shall show you that, on many +occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even +sixpences, to her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a +witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my <!-- page +96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one +occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring +whether he had won any <i>alley tors</i> or <i>commoneys</i> +lately (both of which I understand to be a particular species of +marbles much prized by the youth of this town), made use of this +remarkable expression: ‘How should you like to have another +father?’ I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that about +a year ago Pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home +during long intervals, as with the intention of gradually +breaking off from my client; but I shall show you also that his +resolution was not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his +better feelings conquered, if better feelings he has, or that the +charms and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his +unmanly intentions; by proving to you that on one occasion, when +he returned from the country, he distinctly and in terms offered +her marriage; previously, <!-- page 97--><a +name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>however, +taking special care that there should be no witnesses to their +solemn contract; and I am in a situation to prove to you, on the +testimony of three of his own friends—most unwilling +witnesses, gentlemen—most unwilling witnesses—that on +that morning he was discovered by them holding the plaintiff in +his arms, and soothing her agitation by his caresses and +endearment.”</p> +<p>A visible impression was produced upon the auditors by this +part of the learned Serjeant’s address. Drawing forth +two very small scraps of paper, he proceeded,—</p> +<p>“And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two +letters have passed between these parties, letters which are +admitted to be in the handwriting of the defendant, and which +speak volumes indeed. These letters, too, bespeak the +character of the man. They are not open, fervent, eloquent +epistles, breathing nothing but the language <!-- page 98--><a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>of +affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, underhanded +communications; but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if +couched in the most glowing language and the most poetic +imagery—letters that must be viewed with a cautious and +suspicious eye—letters that were evidently intended at the +time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into +whose hands they might fall. Let me read the +first:—‘Garraway’s, twelve o’clock. +Dear Mrs. B.—Chops and Tomato sauce; Yours, <span +class="smcap">Pickwick</span>.’ Gentlemen, what does +this mean? Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, <span +class="smcap">Pickwick</span>! Chops! Gracious +heavens! and Tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a +sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow +artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which is +in itself suspicious. ‘Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be +at home till to-morrow. Slow coach.’ And then +follows this very remarkable <!-- page 99--><a +name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>expression: +‘Don’t trouble yourself about the +warming-pan.’ The warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, +who <i>does</i> trouble himself about a warming-pan? When +was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a +warming-pan, which is in itself a harmless, a useful, and I will +add, gentlemen, a comfortable article of domestic +furniture? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not +to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt +the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire—a mere +substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a +preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by +Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I +am not in a condition to explain! And what does this +allusion to the slow coach mean? For aught I know, it may +be a reference to Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably +been a criminally slow coach during the whole of this <!-- page +100--><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +100</span>transaction, but whose speed will now be very +unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will +find to his cost, will very soon be greased by you!”</p> +<p>Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz paused in this place to see whether the +jury smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the +greengrocer, whose sensitiveness on the subject was very probably +occasioned by his having subjected a chaise cart to the process +in question on that identical morning, the learned Serjeant +considered it advisable to undergo a slight relapse into the +dismals before he concluded.</p> +<p>“But enough of this, gentlemen,” said Mr. Serjeant +Buzfuz, “it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it +is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. My +client’s hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no +figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. +The bill is <!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 101</span>down—but there is no +tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and repass—but +there is no invitation for them to inquire within or +without. All is gloom and silence in the house; even the +voice of the child is hushed—his infant sports are +disregarded when his mother weeps; his ‘alley tors’ +and his ‘commoneys’ are alike neglected; he forgets +the long familiar cry of ‘knuckle down,’ and at +tip-cheese, or odd or even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, +gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic +oasis in the desert of Goswell Street—Pickwick, who has +choked up the well and thrown ashes on the sward—Pickwick, +who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and +warming-pans—Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing +effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has +made. Damages, gentlemen—heavy damages—is the +only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense +<!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>you can award to my client. And for those damages +she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a +right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, +a contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>With this beautiful peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, +and Mr. Justice Stareleigh woke up.</p> +<p>Of the judge of this famous case we hear but little. He +went to sleep, and he woke up again, and he tried to look as +though he hadn’t been asleep; in fact, he behaved very much +as judges do.</p> +<blockquote><p>Mr. Justice Stareleigh summed up in the +old-established and most approved form. He read as much of +his notes to the jury as he could decipher on so short a notice, +and made running comments on the evidence as he went along. +If Mrs. Bardell <!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 103</span>were right, it was perfectly clear +that Mr. Pickwick was wrong; and if they thought the evidence of +Mrs. Cluppins worthy of credence they would believe it, and, if +they didn’t, why they wouldn’t. If they were +satisfied that a breach of promise of marriage had been +committed, they would find for the plaintiff, with such damages +as they thought proper; and if, on the other hand, it appeared to +them that no promise of marriage had ever been given, they would +find for the defendant, with no damages at all.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So, ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, let me point out to +you how all these types and instances of lawyers and lawyer life +have received fair and impartial consideration from Charles +Dickens, for which I, at any rate, am grateful. The public, +however, to my mind, owe a deeper debt of gratitude to the <!-- +page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>man who, by his wit, his courage, and his industry, has +brought about reforms in our legal administration for which all +litigants and honourable practitioners should alike be +grateful.</p> +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Charles Russell</span>: Ladies and +gentlemen,—We have spent, I am sure you will all think, a +most enjoyable, as well as a most instructive evening, thanks to +the vivid picture of the great novelist of our generation put +before us by my friend Mr. Lockwood, who has pointed out with +force and effect the serious obligation we are under for many +reforms which exist in our day through the influence, sometimes +serious, sometimes comic, which the great Charles Dickens gave to +the world. It is an interesting occasion, and not the less +interesting when you are informed that in <!-- page 105--><a +name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>this room +to-night is the son of Mr. Charles Dickens—Mr. Henry +Fielding Dickens—referred to by my friend Mr. +Lockwood. Mr. Henry Dickens has not followed in his +father’s footsteps; he has chosen for himself the +profession of the bar; and in that profession he has gained for +himself a high and honourable name. At this hour I cannot +permit myself to say more than to ask you to join in the vote of +thanks which I now move to my friend Mr. Lockwood for the very +admirable lecture which he has just given.</p> +<p>Vote of thanks seconded by <span class="smcap">Mr. +Hilliard</span>.</p> +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Henry Fielding Dickens</span>: Sir +Charles Russell, ladies and gentlemen,—I assure you that +when I came into this room to-night I had no more idea that I was +to make any observations <!-- page 106--><a +name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>than—the man in the moon. I came here with +the idea of listening to my old friend Mr. Frank Lockwood, with +the sure and certain knowledge that I should derive a great deal +of amusement and interest from his lecture. In that I need +hardly say I have not been disappointed; but I assure you, ladies +and gentlemen, that I have not only been interested, I have been +touched. I am not alluding to the very graceful allusions +and far too flattering observation upon myself given by the +Attorney-General, but I am alluding to the spirit pervading this +hall this evening—a spirit which proves to me that the +memory of my father is still green among you all. To us who +have the honour of bearing his name, that memory, I need hardly +tell you, is still sacred; and to <!-- page 107--><a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>find that +among his fellow-countrymen, though twenty-three years have +passed since his death, there is still that feeling of affection +felt for him that was felt for him in his lifetime, is most +gratifying to us all. I assure you with all the warmth in +my heart, and in the name of my sister and other members of the +family, that I thank you most sincerely, not only for your +generous reception of myself, but for the feeling you have +demonstrated that you bear for my dear father.</p> +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Frank Lockwood</span>: Sir Charles +Russell, ladies and gentlemen,—I shall only detain you to +say that I thank you for your great kindness to me to-night; it +has been a pleasure to me to come. I was to have come, if I +remember rightly, in June or July, 1892; I could not come <!-- +page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>because there was a General Election. I am very +glad that I was not prevented from coming to-night by +a—General Election.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the +end</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., +London and Aylesbury.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAW AND LAWYERS OF PICKWICK***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 21214-h.htm or 21214-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/2/1/21214 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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